Just Call Me Poop Mama

So our littlest Kano, is 2yo and going through various stages of, shall we say, "trying things".

The latest is taking off his diaper when we put him to bed. When he first started doing this, we'd go up and check on him right before we retired and find him sitting in the bed, all smiles, with his thumb in his mouth, looking at us like, "I knew you'd come eventually!" We would change his sheets and put him back in the bed.

After a few nights of this, we wised up. We would either put on pajama pants making it not-so-easy for him to accomplish his devilish feat, or, because we cloth diaper a lot of the time, we'd just make sure that we put a cloth diaper cover on with snaps which Kano couldn't undo.

That pretty much had solved the problem.

Well, last night, Daddy put the boys down for bed. He's been in and out of town a bit and said he had admittedly fallen out of the routine. He put the boys down for last night forgetting to do any of the precautionary measures.

We sat down at the kitchen table talking for about two hours (isn't my hubby the greatest for talking to me that long...I can go on and on). During that time, we heard the boys upstairs playing. This is not an abnormal thing. Normally we let them play for a bit and then eventually we go upstairs and give them a final good night.

Just as we ended our discussion, we heard Sumo, who speaks in a quiet controlled tone always because he knows we can hear him on the monitor, say, "Mommy, Kano boo-booed.".

We heard him but continued leisurely wrapping up our conversation. Kano has done this before and we just go upstairs and change his diaper. But something was different this time. Sumo persisted, "Mommy...Mommy....come here.....mommy...MOMMY, KANO BOO-BOOED!"

When Jessie went upstairs, all I heard on the moniter was, "Oh my goodness, oh....MAAAANNN!"

I went and got in the bed and pulled the cover over my head. I change dirty diapers all day. I figured Daddy could handle this one.

After about five minutes, which is plenty of time for a simple diaper change, I started to feel guilty and went upstairs. The smell that greeted me at the foot of the stairs was enough to tell me exactly what had happened.

We are talking, on the sheets, on the blanket, on feet, and in the carpet.....SMUDGED into the carpet.

So while many of you slept peacefully in your beds last night, guess what I was doing. Cleaning up poop. We didn't have any carpet cleaner so I had to get out my natural cleaning book and look for how in the world to clean carpet with the stuff I had around the house. I've been on this whole no chemicals thing, but let me tell you, I wished I had some chemicals last night...some strong ones.

For about 20- 30 minutes around midnight, I was on my hands and knees cleaning and scrubbing. I'll spare you the gory details. All of my efforts occurred at the same time that my boys were having the time of their lives because, to them, they were getting a bath, followed by free, uninhibited, unexpected time to play in the gameroom with their toys.

Believe it or not, the carpet today looks like nothing ever happened. I'll be following up today with a borrowed steam cleaner just to make sure there is nothing less-than-clean left behind. Don't let anybody tell you a little detergent, Borax, and LOTS OF VINEGAR (like a half gallon) can't clean up a stubborn mess.

When I first went up to the room, I had no idea how I was gonna handle that mess. There is no class that I took at college (Go Aggies!) that trained me how to handle this kind of mess. IRS audit, yes...legal business desputes, yes...throwing together a presentation at the last minute, yes... cleaning up poop...totally unprepared. Can I tell you that I wanted to rip up that carpet and promptly go today to get some new flooring? I'm sure my husband wouldn't have fought me too hard on that one. That is one home improvement he would have gladly agreed upon.

But I persevered, I overcame, I did what seemed to be inconceivable, impossible and insurmountable.

Today, I am standing tall and proud...declaring to the world that I conquered poop!

I AM POOP MAMA AND I AM PROUD!

A photo of the perpetrator...