Cake and Poo; A Day in the Life of a Parent

Apparently there is a seedy underbelly to this whole parenting thing that no one speaks of. I don't know that I am accomplished enough as a writer to do the events of this day justice, but I'm sure as hell going to try. J is anxiously anticipating the editorial following the events she witnessed today. She has more faith in my writing ability than I.

A while back I had this bright idea to have a bunch of kids over and make tie-dye shirts. I think it's important for the kids to make friends here, and I want to facilitate this. So, I got ambitious, invited a bunch of kids, begged J to stay and help, and let 7 urchins under the age of 9 loose in my apartment with permanent dye.

Amazingly, the tie-dying was the easiest part of the day.

Eating cake however, became very complicated.

Table manners are big in our house. Near as I can tell the kid's mother doesn't enforce the same rules as we do when it comes to table etiquette, but that's neither here nor there. The kids sometimes forget themselves. They will periodically turn into raving lunatics at the table and act as if their food is going to be taken away if they can't cram every last morsel in their pie holes within 2.4 seconds of the plate making contact with the table.

The Boy learned a lesson today (or so I hope). He learned that shoving an entire piece of cake into your mouth at one time leads to gagging, hinders breathing, and may cause death. That's right people, I almost Heimliched The Boy. The only thing that kept me from breaking a rib in a failed attempt to extract the cake from his wind pipe was J saying "No, he can breath, not yet!" I thought it was time to cash in on the knowledge gained from high school health class, but luckily for me, The Boy dislodged the cake on his own as I stood with my arms wrapped around him, ready to give him the bear-hug of all bear-hugs.

Then, he finished the cake in his mouth, ate the rest of his ice cream, and went outside to play. This of course left nobody to perform CPR on me (J got a phone call), as I began to experience heart attack symptoms from the aftermath of fear that I had killed the child of the man I love. My weapon of choice? Chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. It seriously took me a good twenty minutes to stop shaking.

Then came the bowel situation. It was not The Boy's day. Nor mine for that matter.

After a few moments outside The Boy came running in claiming that he was going to change his clothes (which he had just done 10 minutes prior). I told him no friggin' way, the laundry stack is WAY to high for this crap to be taking place. Two outfits a day is the LIMIT.

The following is the conversation that took place between The Boy and me.

The Boy: "But I went to the bathroom in my pants"

Me: "Um, what? I mean, pee, right?"

The Boy: "No"

Me: "How did that happen?" (he's SEVEN!!!)

The Boy: "I thought I had to fart"

Me: Thinking, 'Oh, well the fart oops has happened to the best of us, no need to embarrass the boy', "Oh, okay, here's some clean underwear and a washcloth. The washcloth is for your butt, not your pants." (Because with kids you have to spell these things out)

The Boy: "Ok" He disappeared into the bathroom.

Meanwhile J was in hysterics as she watched this scene unfold. The look on my face must have been priceless. She loves that she can now share the horrors that come with parenting. She used to be in this boat alone. Now she has my company. Poop is not my thing. I'm the hold your hair and rub your back while you puke parent. The other end is The Good Guy's territory. The bastard (I mean that in the most loving way possible) was at work!

The Boy finally emerged from the bathroom with the offending undergarment and handed it to me.

The boxers were totally clean.

Now, pardon my frankness, but we're all familiar with the fart poop. They're runny, right? It's kind of like diarrhea that just sneaks up on you. It's messy, not a pretty thing. But The Boy's drawers were CLEAN. In my head I'm trying very hard to figure out what to say next.

Me: "Um, these are clean"

The Boy: "Yeah"

Me: "What happened to the poop?"

The Boy: "It fell out"

OH.MY.GOD. We're talking a full-on turd and it's M.I.A?!

Me: "Where?" (trying not to panic about the missing turd in my apartment)

The Boy: "It must have fallen out of the bottom of my boxers and then my shorts, like this" (He motions the trajectory of the stray poo from start to finish)

J (barely containing herself): "No bud, where is the poo now?"

The Boy: "Outside"

Me: "THANK YOU for losing it outside, now go play"

Later, all the extra children went home, I went to work, drank a crap-load (pardon the pun) of coffee to get through, and now I'm here, sharing my experience with my blogging friends. I hope you got as much of a laugh as J and I did. In hind-sight it's funny. At the time, not-so-much.