Monday Musings: Poop Happens

This fall has been intense. Running around like a  crazy woman, missing appointments, and barely getting back to people on email kind of intense. Some seasons are like that. I am a parent of 3 (plus a puppy) so I am really used to the constant chaos by now. I am not kidding when I say I have referred to myself as a “hot mess” almost daily in recent weeks as I have apologized to people for being late, having a kid with a dirty diaper and no clean one to change him into, and allowing my HUGE 4 month old puppy to jump up on them and their clean stain-free clothes. You can imagine then how good I was feeling about myself when last Thursday I was finally having a day with my “ducks in a row”. (Many of you are now shaking your heads saying, “You fool. That’s when the chaos really ensues. Just when you think you’ve got it all under control…”) Kids were dropped at school on time. I exercised. And ate almost two whole normal looking meals. I even had proper clothes on instead of my usual sweatpants and tee. Things were going swimmingly. Until…

It was almost 5pm and I had just returned home with JT and Emma, after we’d spent an hour on the playground at school, and then dropped my six year old Sophie at soccer. Me, Emma, and JT (my almost two year old) then headed home. Once there, JT and I high-fived each other after getting him into and out of his car seat without any tears or back-arching. Yay us! We went inside and came out with sweet Milly, our now 4 month old puppy. She ran to her bathroom area and squatted immediately. Yay Milly! Things were really on the up and up. I scooped up Milly (who had been alone and crated for 2 hours – puppy-mom guilt) and plopped her in the front seat so she could join me as I hustled back to the soccer field to catch the second half of Sophie’s practice. I then ran inside, handed JT off to our sitter to get prepped for dinner, and headed back to the car. As I opened the door I was greeted by what can only be explained as a curtain of poopy air. You know how sometimes things smell so bad that they almost feel like they are hitting you in the face? Physically? Well this was that time, and the scent was dog poop. Yay poop! I yelled, “MILLY no!” having immediately assumed that she pooped in the car. The things is, she didn’t seem the least bit contrite. I should have then assumed the worst, but still inspected the car to see where she had done her business. It was only then that I realized there was no large turd but rather poopy footprints on my front seat. Yay poopy footprints! Good Lord in the heavens above. Milly had stepped in her own poop when squatting to pee in the pachysandra, and the poop was literally crushed under her foot and between each toe. (Cue gag reflex now!)

The good news is that Milly gets nervous when I leave her alone, so as she hopped from seat to seat looking for me after I closed her in, she really did optimal damage. The footprints were on every seat, opposed to if she had just sat in the passenger side front seat and had only soiled one spot. Now remember, I am dangerously close to not only missing Sophie’s entire soccer practice, but also being late enough that she gets left alone on the side of a field with no one there to explain why I wasn’t. SO, I scooped up the poopy puppy and carried all 35 pounds of her to the kitchen and locked her and her putrid paw in the crate. I then grabbed a bottle of all-purpose cleaner and a few paper towels (Man, how I all of a sudden wished I had bought that 6-pack of Clorox wipes at Cost-co the day before. I thought I could never use all 6 in one year. Bah! Such a fool I am.) and headed back to the car. I gave my seat a quick wipe down, and opened every window. I then drove at break-neck speeds to the soccer field to arrive in time to see Sophie high-fiving her coach as practice ended. Yay for missing the whole practice! Thankfully Sophie is my easy-going child so after I explained the pooptastrophy that had happened she gave me a shrug and said she understood.

Then we were on our way back to the house to relieve the nanny and deal with the poopy dog. The dog was cleaned with relatively little drama. The seats were another story. You know how car seats are now heated, and that heating system needs small holes on the seat and back of the chair so that the heat can be passed through the material to your back? Well those holes are also a great dwelling place for small bits of poop to reside after having been pushed in by a puppy’s paw. Yeah. That happened. After the kids were fed, and bathed – I then tackled the car seats while they watched Elmo. (Side note: The girls have completely fallen back in love with Sesame Street since JT arrived. They pretend not to like it but I’m not fooled.) I’ll just leave you with this. I have OCD. A large needle, multiple paper towels, baby wipes, and clorox spray cleaner were used to bring my car back from the brink of being traded in. It was epic. And the moral to the story is “Shit happens.” It really does. Even on your best days. I’m just glad I can laugh at it in retrospect. Just remember on your next shitty day, poop is not life or death. A lot worse could have happened. I live to tell another day…

This is a new series I am going to be dealing up on the blog on Mondays. Let me know if it resonates. As always I love to hear from readers about the content that does and doesn’t speak to you. Big fan of feedback over here!