I Hate Poop!

     When Amy and I got married we made a deal.  I agreed to do any household chore that she needed me to, as long as I didn't have to clean the toilets.  We have now been married for a little under 11 years, and I have yet to scrub the inside of a toilet.  I even hate touching the instruments that would achieve such a feat.  As far as I am concerned, there is nothing more gross than a toilet brush. "So here is what we're gonna do, we're gonna use this to scrub human excrement off of all of the nooks and crannies of the inside of the bowl and then we're gonna put it over here in the corner dripping wet with bacteria- ridden bristles and leave it until we need to do this again next week."  Great idea!  But, even though I have had success at avoiding cleaning the toilets, I am still the person that has to de-clog the toilet when the kids fill it with enough toilet paper to wipe an elephant herd.  Last time Amy said that she "didn't know how to use the plunger."  It's just like churning butter!
     Unfortunately, almost everything in my life revolves around poop right now.  For months now, my two oldest boys find the word poop to be the funniest thing they have ever heard.  I will admit that the way that Josiah says poop with an emphatic spit filled "p" at the end even gives Amy the giggles.  But, at the dinner table, we will be having a perfectly normal conversation about our day when Asher will suddenly move the conversation in an entirely different direction.  It usually looks sounds something like this . . . 

Me: "Serena, did you finish your homework."
Serena: "Ugh, I hate homework"
Asher: "Domework?"
Me: "Yeah, sorry about that."
Serena: "Why do I have to do homework.?"
Asher: "Pomework?"
Me: "Because that is what your teacher has asked you to do."
Asher: "Poopwork?"
Mom: "Asher not at the table!"
Josiah: "oooPPPPP!"
Let the giggles begin! 

     Hardly a day goes by when I am not nearly knocked down upon entering the bathroom by the smell of fecal matter hanging in the air.  My eldest two have the propensity to forget to flush after their BMs.  Nothing is more exciting than the sight of a very full toilet bowl.  How do they possibly fit all that inside their bodies anyway?  I am reminded of a late night infomercial, for a colon cleanser I once saw.  It turns out if you Google colon cleanser infomercial, as I just did, you will find Dual Action Cleanse. Here is the most memorable quote:

"I'll never forget the first time I saw my four-year-old daughter's bowel movement in the toilet. It literally scared me. She wasn't more than 45 pounds, but her bowel movement was about as thick as my wrist and about as long as her arm. And I thought, 'Oh my God.' I got scared. I was going to call my wife. I thought, 'How could something that big come of something—a little child—that small. And I thought, I'm six feet tall and I weigh 190 pounds and by proportion to my size compared to hers my bowel movements were very inadequate to say the least."

    While I will admit that I am surprised at the size of my children's poop, I have never quite considered it as much as this man!  And by the way - I do not endorse the product, though the infomercial is fairly convincing.
     For the younger two, poop is of course a hands on experience, and even more so now that we have made the move to cloth diapers.  We bought a sprayer attachment that connects to our toilet water line when we got our diapers.  This was supposed to prevent us from having to actually get our hands dirty.  Unfortunately, if the sprayer is turned up too high, you get water, and poop, right in the face.  You can just trust me on this one.  And while this may be easier than the swirl method my mother used, it does not prevent me from having to squeeze the water out of the diaper before putting it in its receptacle. 
     Most recently, we have been in the midst of a three day poop party.  Usually we deal with two dirty diapers a day, one for each boy, that number has increased to 6-8.  This morning, I had the privilege of being the stay at home parent.  By noon today I had cleaned 5 diapers.  But the best part was that we were running out of wipes and our boys were smelling like poop even when their diapers were clean, so I stuck them in the tub.  They love to play, and I was folding laundry so I left the room. From my bedroom, I hear Josiah's voice raised saying "Ah, Ah, Ah."  As I enter the room I hear him say, "ooPPPP!" I look down to see brown particles floating all around his younger brother.  I rip the boys out of the tub, standing them on the bathmat and then drain the tub, pull the toys, and wash the poop down the drain with the shower.  I put them back in the tub, clean the toys and leave them for a few more minutes while I finished up with the clothes.  But not five minutes later, I heard "oooPPPPPPPP!" I come back in to see twice the mess I just cleaned up and this time there are poop particles stuck to Micah's chest.  Cleaning process take two.  And lest you go away thinking that Micah was the culprit, I ask, "Josiah, did you poop?" "DJeah." 
     Later this evening, I was forced to plunk a poopy bottom in the tub once again because we are now officially out of wipes.  Did I mention, I hate poop?