For the last week or so I've been looking at my "On This Day" posts on Facebook and seeing a lot of old stories about the strange and terrible things my kids would get into and do. Just everyday, weird things, like exploding diapers or naked escapees from my house or a layer of baby powder on everything. I don't do a lot of posts like that any more. I wonder to myself if it is because my kids don't have so many of those kinds of adventures any more, or because I don't have exactly the same kind of sense of humor about these things as I evidently used to.
Turns out it's both, really. The kids just don't have as many horrifying incidents as they did five years ago. Thank goodness for potty training! And when there is something unfortunate that happens in my house, my first instinct is no longer, "I have to write this one down!" It's more like, "I have dealt with this, and I am tired. I will document this tomorrow." Then when tomorrow arrives, "It wasn't that funny. It was terrible." But I'm going to do this one, even though I don't think I thought it was amusing at any point. It was terrible.
Yesterday as I was preparing dinner, the kids were running in and out of the house. A couple of their neighborhood friends were over. I was cooking with headphones on to more easily tune out the constant grievances of the little people. I was smack in the middle of cooking when I heard an adult voice from the front door. I walked over and saw that one of the neighbor kids' moms was in the doorway waiting for her daughter, Addie, to come in and grab her shoes because it was time to go. We started chatting while we waited for Addie to find her shoe, and then Addie started trying to get her mother's attention in that "I need to whisper in your ear" kind of way. "I need you to come in the bathroom" is what I heard. Immediately I felt not-great about the situation, because the front hall bathroom belongs to the kids and is usually a pretty dismal state of affairs. We trooped into the bathroom, with Addie's mom (Heather) still trying to discern what the secret emergency was. "You had a ring? You lost your ring? Your dropped your ring in the toilet?" This, with Addie nodding the whole time. Up until this point I was mildly embarrassed at the state of the bathroom, but at this point my stomach just sank.
Wyatt never remembers to flush the toilet.
It's an ongoing problem in our house, and I don't think he even tries. So of course, the situation is me, my neighbor (who I don't know all that well) and a five-year-old standing in a messy bathroom looking at a toilet full of poo and paper. We stood there for a second, and then Heather asked if I had a plastic bag. Of course I did, but I wasn't about to let her sift through my kid's poo. I produced a bag and started searching for the ring. I used to be fairly sturdy about poop-related matters, but there was a fair amount of gagging on my part when I realized that the bag my hand was in was leaking. Just as I was asking Addie if she was positive she had really dropped it in the toilet and kicking myself for not having started by looking on the floor, I found it! Oh, joy.
After some awkward small talk as I cleaned up my hands and the ring, Addie and her mom left me to my shame. Dinner had been abandoned mid-prep, and the cast-iron griddle that had been heating was now smoking madly and as they drove away the smoke detectors went off. Windows open, fans on, beeping silenced, I was free to wash my hands for a third time... and then one more time with bleachy bathroom cleaner because I couldn't bring myself to touch food until I did. At dinner, the kids nonchalantly told me that oh, by the way, Schatzi went down into the basement (where she is not allowed) and pooped on the rug (which is why). Oh yeah, and Addie stepped in it. No, we didn't clean it up.
Hello, neighborhood. Of course your children are welcome in our home, send them over any time! May I just ask, have they had all their Hepatitis vaccinations?
Now, even if I don't have the rip-roaring sense of humor that I might have a few years ago, life still does. That's why this adventure happened the same day I had an eye appointment and was seeing this unfold through googly, post-dilated eyes. Life's sense of humor is why you get this yicky story today. Because I haven't mentioned what it was that I was making for dinner when I had to stop and fish around in a terlit full of dump.
Black bean flautas.
Mi caca casa es su casa.
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