From: MattSent: Wednesday, February 29, 2012 11:07 AMTo: Lynne
Greetings from Poo Land.
In case your mom asks why I was a bit disoriented, disorganized this morning....
Even before I got to the door, I knew there was going to be a situation. That certain nose-burning odor was already obvious from the hallway. I steeled myself a bit and tried to remember if we had enough wipes in there. I was discouraged, but not overwhelmed; I'd handled the Door Penetrating Poos before.
When I opened the door, the smell was worse than I had imagined. A thousand rotting potatoes? Ten dead skunks? I don't know the proper metaphor here. It was bad. Twenty years from now when he's graduating college, I will still be able to recall this distinct odor.
There was Mark sitting his bed, smiling.
"I make a poo, daddy!"
Indeed.
There was what can only be described as a "significant amount" of poo on his pillow and blanket. (Significant: distinctly more than a spot, less than substantial.)
"I make a poo daddy and Grover jump out of the bed!"
Grover was, in fact, on the ground. He probably threw himself overboard. Every monster for himself in these situations.
I grabbed the pillow out of the bed right away. Of course, Mark started crying, apparently unaware of the gravity of the situation.
"Don't throw away my pillow, daddy! Don't throw away my pillow!"
I reassured him that the pillow would be safe. Add it to the yes-those-are-orange-french-fries and dad's-going-to-take-nap-too lies that I said I'd never tell.
Next, I snatched Mark out of bed. He seemed oblivious to the smell which was now clinging to me like a spider web. I think my nose will need therapy.
It was clear this was an immediate bath situation. I peeled his shirt off without causing further damage. Oddly, his pants were completely clean. Not a spot on them. The poo must have rocketed out at such a speed and force that it bypassed the pants. I can't explain that part of the story. Maybe the pants were spared so they could go on to some greater destiny. I burned them anyways.
Anyhow, Mark was excited by the prospect of a morning bath and I think he believes we're going to do this every Wednesday. I hope that is not the case.
While I filled the bathtub, I tried to use the hand wipes to get the poop off his back, etc. None of this seemed to phase him. When I finally got the diaper off, I think it weighed three pounds. No joke. No wonder he was happy. He probably felt relieved.
Anyhow, we got in the bath. Of course, he didn't want to get out very soon which I approved of. As he played a little, I kept trying to find bags to wrap the diaper in layer after layer of plastic. I sent it to the hallway, but it was not far enough away.
When we were done with the bath, it was time to get dressed. As he got ready, I surveyed the damage. Mark reminded me again not to throw away his pillow. I told him that I wasn't going to throw it away, but it needed to be cleaned because it had poopy on it. I told him that a lot of things needed to be cleaned because there was a lot of poopy on a lot of things. I told him that he was a good boy and he did a good job telling me about the poopy when I came in, but we needed to clean a lot of things.
"You don't need to clean the closet, daddy. There's no poopy on the closet doors, Daddy."
I conceded that that he had not gotten poopy on the closet doors on the other side of the room. Somehow that perspective actually made me feel a little better.
Anyhow, I sent him off with your mom and he was as happy as ever, pretending to make Elmo yell "I'm rojo! I'm rojo!" as he got in the car. I took some solace knowing Elmo had come out of this experience unscathed, both emotionally and poo-wise.
I think I used half our wipes scraping poop off blankets, pillow, sheets. I kept telling myself that someone did this for me once, someone did this for me once, someone did this for me once. It actually helped during the roughest patches. (Windows were open, obviously.)
So I was late for work and the blanket is washed. (Yes, I washed it on cold and I put the spray on first.) I'm not confident it can be saved, but that may be the nose trauma talking. It looked ok. I threw in the sheets, pillow cases and clothes (his and mine). I put in the pear soaked clothes from yesterday, too.
I really should have filmed the whole thing as a teen sex ed video. Hey, teens: having kids is a life affirming and amazing experience. You will learn things about life and yourself that you never imagined.
But unless you are ready to spend a morning scraping poo off a pillow and blanket by hand, then you should probably hold off.
