I’ve had friends wonder out loud if I possibly have the most poopy children on the planet.  Do my children poop and pee more than other children?  Maybe.  Do they make it to the ACTUAL TOILET less than other children?  Probably.  Avery doesn’t increase our overall mess quotient as she may very well be the cleanest child I’ve ever encountered.  I swear, I could dip her entire body, fully clothed, into a vat of paint, and she’d come out spotless.  Sara would then demonstrate to us how we could take the vat of paint, find a secret valve no one knew existed on the underbelly of the vat, and proceed to dump the paint all over the planet earth.  Kelly would do a belly flop into it, somehow mixing that paint with other paint, and maybe a bit of glitter glue.  The two of them would giggle until they peed while Avery stood crying on the sidelines, “You’re stained!  You peed!  OOOOOHHH NOOOOO!!!!”  And then Kelly would very matter of fact, say the thing she says at least 3x per day, “I need towel.  I need fresh clothes.”  Sara?  She’d make a mad dash for her pj’s, because after all, any time after 11 am is PAJAMA TIME.

But I digress.  It is also possible that because I am a nurse, talking about poo, for me, is no different than discussing the weather.  I’m unusually comfortable with bodily functions, nudity, and all other things that make my sister want to change her name and move to another country, just to avoid admitting to anyone that she’s ever taken a dump or been naked.  Ever.  In her life.  Never naked.  She baths in a wetsuit.  And a turtleneck sweater.

It is also possible that I’m giving these kids too much fresh fruit.  Aunt Jenny and Uncle Jason are starting to complain about Avery’s unusual….poo.  That’s organic material everyone.  Eat greens and green you shall see.  Stuff them with water and blueberries…double the fun!

So today, the girls decided to turn the entire playset into a house.  Giddy with excitement at how involved all 3 of them were in making a library out of sand, I settled into a chair with a book.  I had to read the first paragraph 8x, but I HAD THAT BOOK DAMNIT.  I heard Kelly holler something about going upstairs in the house, and before I knew it, she was calling out that she was going to use the potty in the house, and MOMMY…I NEED HELP WIPING!!!  I looked up to see Kelly naked, diaper gone, squatting in the fort on top of the playhouse, pretending to pee.  You gotta give her credit for finally joining Sara and Avery in their reindeer games.  I dashed up the ladder to discover she was truly just playing pretend, and laughed to myself that this shenanigan was the grossest I’d encounter today.

THE FATES WERE WATCHING.  THEY ARE ALWAYS WATCHING.

I took the girls to Avery’s neighborhood pool this afternoon.  I cheered up a Stay at Home Dad, struggling with smaller children than mine, telling him it GETS SO MUCH EASIER.  I PROMISE.  Hey!  Look at me!  THREE kids!  And I’m having a ball!  Jason came to get Avery.  Oh heck no…go home Jason.  Take a break!  We’re doing fine.  I might even take all 3 out for burgers and ice cream.  You and Jenny take a break!  We’re having a great day!

My bravado must have pissed off the devil himself, because 20 minutes later, never sick Sara jumped from the pool, gave me an unmistakable look of dread, and screamed, “I gotta go poop!”  I grabbed the bathroom key, and started yelling for Kelly and Avery to get out of the pool.  There wasn’t a single parent for me to give the old “watch the other 2” handoff.  I was alone.  Which, ended up being a good thing, because Sara made a mad dash away from me, across the entire length of the pool deck.  I ran for her, grabbed a towel, and threw it underneath her when I realized the bathroom was now too little, too late.  Kneeling, holding onto her, I looked up and there…like a trail of horror, was 15 feet of diarrhea.  Not a little.  Not a few drops here and there.  No.  I’d never be that lucky.  A chain of poo so unmistakenly disgusting that a blind man could have sensed the nightmare Sara’s gut just unleashed on the world.  I looked around in desperation.  No hose.  I had no wipes.  The only other people at the pool were 2 teenagers making out like horn dogs in lounge chairs far away.

I grabbed for the cell, dialed Jason, hopelessly whispering, “MAYDAY!  MAYDAY!”  Luckily, he was only a few houses away and arrived with garbage bags and other “my child just destroyed an entire neighborhood pool” accouterments.  The hose was broken.  The Neighborhood Pool Hazmat team was contacted.  I’m sure should my minivan ever grace the edges of Fishers again, the Stay at Homes will whip out their walkie-talkies and alert the watch groups that those rednecks from the Southside have arrived with their poop-inducing fresh produce, whispering, “there are a lot of farms down there you know”.  Don’t get me wrong, I have a lot of friends up North and I find the entire area quite lovely, but more than one family member has informed me that my decorating choices, paired with the blowup pool in my front yard, would never fly in that quadrant of the city.  Better stick to the Southside where the pick up trucks are big and the Fourth of July starts on July 1st and ends around Labor Day.  STOP WITH THE FIREWORKS ALREADY!  YOU’RE PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN!  I GET IT!!!

My friends who are on the fence about having children like to joke that my blog has made up their minds.  No kids.  Too much poop.  Too much mess.  (For the person who thinks I’m referring to her…I should tell you…there is an entire club).  And that’s not at all untrue.  But as someone who has replaced her rugs too many times to count, I’d like to present another perspective: when you buy an old house, you don’t just love the beautiful woodwork you refinished with sweat equity.  You also love the cracks and the creaks in the old wood floors you’d prefer to leave as is.  The work and the history of it bind you to it.  Same goes true for family.  It’s messy.  It’s a never-ending project that breaks down when you least expect it.  It’s not the the perfection that makes it perfect.  It’s the struggle.  Just a thought…

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some sanitizing to finish up…