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Friday, September 19, 2008

The Tale of a Turd

I am still looking for bloggers to do blogger reviews. Did I mention that there are going to be prizes? In fact there will be prizes for both bloggers and blog readers! Click here for more info.


Sometimes as a parent I get so got up in all of life's excitment (like trying to explain to my sons why they can't wear their swim suits and use the sprinklers when it is 40 degrees out) that I blank on telling my friends stories about the truly embarrassing hilarious parts of parenting. Or perhaps I just blank on them because I'm hoping in time I'll think they happened to another parent.

When I was on the phone with Sally HP this evening, I referenced the following story without realizing that I had somehow failed to share it with her in any of our almost daily conversations.

A couple months ago I was at a farm and splash pad with my boys. They were having such a good time that we stayed a little longer than our friends. I had forgotten to put a swim diaper on my younger son (YS) despite the fact that I could probably build a home from the pile of swim diapers we have in our hall closet. Of course, I've never been truly impressed with swim diapers, because as I mentioned in my second post as a blogger, in my opinion they're just poop catchers; they don't absorb anything. Of course if they were absorbent, they would swell to gigantic proportions like regular diapers when they get wet. Plus my kids never do number 2 in them; they like liked to wander off to a quiet corner for that and not a crowded public area.

In fact, YS wandered off just like that and ended up standing behind a roped off grass area. Annoyed that he was where he shouldn't have been, I told him to either return to the splash pad or come over to me if he was finished to be changed back into clothing. It is very common for parents to change their kids in and out of their swim suits at the picnic table areas on the perimeter of the splash pad. YS and OS were both apparently almost done splashing. After jumping through every bit of spray between where they were and where I was, they came over to me. OS stripped off his suit, and I handed him his clothes. Then I turned my attention to YS. I quickly stripped off his suit too. Apparently I did it a little too quickly becase I saw something large roll under a picnic table. OS loudly annouced that there was "a big poop under the table". In case anyone missed his first announcement, he clarified the situation by announcing, "YS made a big poop! It's under the table!!!" In fact OS was so impressed by it, he couldn't stop talking about it and how big it was. I was simutaneously trying to quiet OS and find wipes. Except that I had already used the wipes I had brought with me. How was I going to get rid of this turd? Seriously, it looked like something one of the animals had done. Maybe I could say that a cow had wandered over the fence?

Fortnately, that day was one of the rare times where the farm actually had a container of wipes at a nearby table. I tried to inconspiciouly grab it so as not to alert those eating lunch near the world's largest, although most perfectly formed, poop. Not knowing what else to do with it, I grabbed it with some wipes and threw it in the trash. Before you judge, people throw diapers in those trash bins all the time, probably because the bathrooms are pretty far off. Plus it's a farm so it always smells like manure. Yes, I know there is some rationalization here, but even though I prefer to throw dirty diapers in the bathroom trash, with two naked little boys and a wet, torn swim diaper that I couldn't fasten up neatly with the tabs to secure the deposit, there weren't a lot of options.

I say two naked boys because after dealing with the "incident", I noticed that OS didn't have a stitch on him. Feeling even more frazzled, I yelled at him to put his underwear on immediately. That of course caught the attention of the nearby picnickers. One of them started telling me that her son who was the same age as OS would go to school naked if she didn't nag him to put clothes on about 30 times every morning. I was worried that they would get a little too close in this bonding moment over exhibitionist children and start to smell the trash. I really wanted to make a quick escape before that happened or before OS went back to telling everyone about his brother's...accomplishment in the trash. Like a mad woman, I gave a little laugh which came out more like a yelp and shoved OS into his underwear and clothes. He let out a lot of yelps. Then I shoved the beach towel package in the stroller basket, grabbed both boys, and made a beeline for the car. Fortunately, I have not seen my picture on any wanted posters at the farm. Also fortunately, YS's suit washed well (it was his good swim suit!) and there were no "stains".

A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: Swim diapers do not absorb pee.

Labels: , ,

posted by Alex Elliot @ 8:58 PM   8 comments
8 Comments:

  • At 9/19/2008 10:23 PM, Blogger Heather said…

    They don't tell us these things will happen before we become parents. It's a conspiracy.

    ha ha my word verification ends in pu.

     

  • At 9/19/2008 10:56 PM, Blogger Tracey said…

    It's not the first time a poop has rolled across the floor and it won't be the last.

    At least you put it in the trash, right?

     

  • At 9/20/2008 12:47 AM, Anonymous Chantelle said…

    These gems definitely belong in a book somewhere for new parents :)

    Thanks for stopping by my site. I am glad I got a free minute to come back to yours.

     

  • At 9/20/2008 12:49 AM, Blogger Zip n Tizzy said…

    Love those bonding moments don't you?
    At least we all know that no parent has been unscathed... whatever your kid's doing, they've probably seen before!

     

  • At 9/20/2008 6:44 PM, Blogger Kate said…

    I might be interested in Jooners/ It might be something useful for my PTA work. I need to organize the craft fair and so it could come in handy. Let me know details at katebunge@yahoo.com.

     

  • At 9/20/2008 11:44 PM, Blogger Kami said…

    Good story! Kids, they always find a way to embarrass their parents. The teen years? Payback time, baby!

    *insert evil laugh here*

     

  • At 9/23/2008 7:30 AM, Blogger Suzanne said…

    OMG!!!! LOL!!!

     

  • At 10/01/2008 10:45 PM, Blogger Sally HP said…

    AHhhh! I just read this, and was laughing all over again! I can't believe that you didn't call me on the way home or something. It's totally like the times that you fall and you're by yourself but others saw and you have to tell someone...had I been there I would never have recovered from the laughter, so I guess it's a good thing. I would have been more embarassing to you than the turd!

     
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Name:Alex Elliot
Home:MA, United States
About Me:Professional Mom of two cats, a dog, an ant farm, and oh yeah...two boys: a 6 year old and a 3 year old. Also found in my house is my husband who is known on this blog as The Big Giraffe.
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For those of us who didn't get an instruction manual with our babies and for whom parenting hasn't always gone as planned. On a more serious note this blog is about supporting a woman's ability to make her own choices about parenting including the choice, for whatever reason, to bottle feed her babies formula.

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