Poop Plague

The two suspects watching the horses in our 'hood

I must have done some really naughty things during my childhood or the Big Guy upstairs has really got it in for me because I am getting the worst payback ever...the Tannerstein house is infested with a plague of S#IT!

It's the only explanation that I can think of because I was simply vacuuming the house when my son starts yelling that there was a piece of poop on the floor. I immediately turned off the vacuum and followed him to the crime scene.

I didn't have my glasses on for a close inspection but I thought to myself "there is no way someone has pooped in the middle of my floor!" I had just vacuumed that area 10 minutes earlier.

So what did I do? I turned on the vacuum and sucked up the brown odd-shaped object. Problem solved, it was probably a rotted wet leaf someone dragged in from outside. And that’s when I saw it...the tell-tell smudge that I had dragged with the vacuum across the room. I flipped the vacuum nozzle up and sure enough, the entire brush and inside tunnel was covered in what looked like melted chocolate and I almost vomited from the smell.

It was poop! But where did it come from? My daughter was away with her father so I grabbed my son by his britches and peeked down his pants...Nope, not even the usual skid mark. Where did this mystery poop come from? I began to search the house...there were no other pieces or piles to be found anywhere. I looked up at the celling, nope it was stark white, didn''t come from there. So where in the H-E-Double Hockey sticks did this piece of crap come from?

I interrogated my son and of course he said his sister did it before she left. Impossible she is still in diapers. I started to get paranoid, I had just gone to the bathroom before vacuuming (ok I’m sleep deprived anything can happen). I re-traced my trip to the toilet...nope not me either. Whose poop was this and most importantly why was it in the middle of my floor?

I had to put the investigation on hold; my house began to smell like a toilet. First thing was first, I had to clean out the feces filled vacuum. One packet of wipes later and the nozzle was back to normal, and only a lingering trace could be smelled when I stuck my nose up the tube. I turned on the vacuum and sucked up a few wipes hoping they would "wipe"on their way up. Not sure if they "wiped" but they definitely took the smell away. Good enough for me!

But later that evening another piece appeared. This time my son had stepped in it somewhere in the living room. He came running to Baby Daddy and I with the piece in his hand and his foot covered. As I dug out the poop from his toenails, we re-opened the investigation. Still no leads and now both Baby Daddy and I were puzzled from the poop mystery.

And just when I thought the poop plague had ended, the next morning I found a random piece in the bathroom, lying just in the crack of the door. Like the others, it was an odd shaped piece with a fresh texture. Ok, this was getting out of hand. My kids denied it profusely and I began to really think I was cursed.

Since the infestation, I am on constant poop patrol, monitoring every nook and cranny of my house. I know I’m slowly losing it but this is too much. The mystery remains unsolved, but there hasn't been any unexplained poop sightings in two days now. Maybe the Big Guy or Poo Gods have taken mercy on me. Who knows, but I do know that now I will never complain again about poopy pants, diapers or skid marks. At least they are contained! And I know the source!

Hopefully, the Poop Plague is over but the mystery remains unsolved and with the only witness being an unreliable pooper himself, I guess I will never know...

The Mama race

Well Bruce is doing OK in his child rearing race, wonder how MLR is?

I remember all the moments when I was preggers, rubbing my belly and dreaming about being a mother to my precious babies. I remember imagining moments with them like strolling through the park, cuddling and snuggling...ahhh, a life full of nothing but little giggles and pure bliss.

But no one ever discusses that besides these magical moments, raising a child would be like driving a car without wind shield wipers or brakes, through a hurricane on a highway...and everyone is passing you by, you are trying so hard to just get to the next place to stop safely...but you can't stop. I never in a million years ever thought about all the challenges I would face once my sweet babies developed communication skills and became real people.

Fast-forward and here I am...struggling in a world where my almost 5 year old poops in his pants all day and my 3 year old thinks she is a boy and refuses to wear clothes unless they are "boyish" and pink. I spend my days on "skid-mark underwear" patrol and trying to convince my daughter to get dressed. Just another phase of challenges and of course "they too shall pass".

By now, I have learned this is a mother's saving grace. Life goes on and eventually solutions are found. It's just getting to these solutions that wear on my patience and sometimes I feel like I am running the Mama race to find them but my legs (unshaven of course) are duct-taped together and I have to pee terribly. AND you are watching all the other perfect (hair brushed, shaved legs and painted nails) mothers in the race pass you by with smiles on their faces, while you are getting no where. Your kid doesn't listen no matter what tactic you try and you feel like the biggest failure in the world.

Of course special moments with my babies are battery re-chargers and overall I enjoy every moment, I know time will fly-by and I soon will be attending their high school graduation. My only goal is to get to that point without screwing them up too badly and hopefully, they will end up happy people...but right now, my greatest achievement would be for them to finally learn how to sh#t in a toilet!