Locked Doors Mean Nothing

            There are days when I marvel at what my kid can do. We all know what she can’t do, but I have a feeling my readers are suffering from shit fatigue. So, let me tell you a story of intrigue and problem solving that my kid did a while ago.

            Most of you will remember that we nicknamed her the Ninja when she was still a fetus and it would seem that she heard us and took it to heart. She has a tendency to sneak around when she is up to no good and is alarmingly stealthy. In my house, as with any other child infested home, silence usually means some sort of mischief and possibly a mess to clean up.

            This story begins a few months ago. It was a Friday and I was off school and having a lie-in. She was up relatively early and after some early morning cuddles, she was off to play in her room. I was enjoying the beginning of my day with dozing and checking my phone. In between the two states of consciousness, I heard a crinkling coming from her bathroom. Suspicious of her getting into anything under the sink, I hauled myself out of bed to check on her. Between my becoming aware of her doing something I wouldn’t approve of and checking on her, she had booked it into her room, closed the door and locked it.

            We have had some issues in the past with her getting into things [READ: smelly, soapy, toothpasty things] in her bathroom when she was supposed to be sleeping. As such, we have a habit of locking doors on the upper level when she was put to bed. Since the whole potty-training thing is ongoing, we have stopped locking the bathroom door in case she has to go. Hence why she knows how to lock a door.

            Being prepared for a lock out, we have a screwdriver for lock picking purposes on the doorframe above our bedroom door. I grabbed it and opened the door she thought was secure and would keep me out. She was in her bed with her dental flossers. They had been dumped out and she was playing with them. I am not sure what compels the small ones to play with non-toy things. But I let her know my opinion, while putting them back in the bag from whence they came. I deposited them back in the bathroom and locked the door. Satisfied that I had won that round, I went back to bed to continue my lie-in.

            A few minutes later, after she cooled down from the indignity of losing her new “toys” she came to my room and closed the door. Thinking nothing of it, I continued to look at my phone. I could hear her go down the stairs, move the baby gate, push a chair around in the kitchen and then come back upstairs. A few minutes later I heard the door on her room shut and the lock click. That was followed by the only thing that a parent dreads; silence.

            Curious, I got up and went to investigate. The first thing I noticed was that my door was locked. Strange, but sometimes she plays with the locks for whatever reason. Even stranger was that she had locked it with no noise. I unlocked and opened my door, finding nothing amiss. The bathroom door was still secured. I went to her door, screwdriver in hand and heard the same crinkling. Even more curious, I once again picked the lock and opened her door. There she was, merrily playing with her flossers again. Now, instead of getting angry for her not listening to me, I went into detective mode.

            “So, tell me, how did you come to have these flossers?” I asked her, eyeing up the mess on her bed.

            “Du-na-no,”she replied.

            A likely story.

            “Did you pick the lock on the bathroom door,” I went on, knowing full well I had her trapped like a rat.

            “No,” her voice inflected skyward at the end of that no. So, she was going to play sly.

            I took the flossers away, again, much to her chagrin. I then went to the bathroom and opened the door. She was hot on my heels protesting in a high-pitched whiny voice which was outside of my hearing range (but had my dog alarmed). I then relocked the door and turned to her.

            “Show me how you got into the bathroom,” I instructed her, passing over the screwdriver. She looked at me with narrowed eyes, sizing up her chances of time out.

            “Du-na-no,” she said again, taking the screwdriver from my hand.

            “Look, we both know you picked the lock. The flossers didn’t just march out of that bathroom on their own. Show me what you did.” She took a deep breath, stepped forward and carefully put the screwdriver in the slot on the lock and turned. It made no sound because she was so careful. I was watching a future criminal mastermind at work. She opened the door and looked over at me with a big grin on her face. But that left me with another question. What had she picked the lock with? I went back into her room looking for the tool of her crime, she followed, too casually. I found a button on the floor. I tried it in the slot on the doorknob. She didn’t quite have the dexterity.

            “What did you use to open the door?” I asked. She was sitting on the bed with the sweetest, most innocent look on her face. In response she leaned back and reached down behind her bed. My eyebrow moved in an upward trajectory. She pulled out the screwdriver from the high counter on the main floor. “Oh. Interesting”

            What could I say, I was proud. But, at the same time I was disappointed that we would have to find another way to outsmart her.

            “Can I have that please?” She turned it over and I got down to her level. “Stay curious kiddo, I want you to always keep me on my toes.”

            That evening, the doorknob from her bedroom was moved to the bathroom because the lock mechanism is harder to pick, if you’re a four-year-old.

             Now, we just have to figure out where she learned how to her record shows on the PVR…

Perfect Storm

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            Our PEG adventure continues. This week felt like a bit of two steps forward and a lot of steps back. There are some glorious days when shit actually made it into the toilet. We rejoiced. M&M’s were dispersed. "We're turning a corner," I exclaimed. And then the clouds gathered, the sky darkened and the shit storm was renewed, for the pellet shits in the toilet that we were celebrating were merely the plug holding back the torrent of sewage. Days without a faecal related incident remain at zero.

            The silver lining on this week has been my ability to dodge the Battle Shit Royal. Wade dealt with two after two of three of our celebrations. The third celebration was not followed up with anything untoward. I didn’t even know the first one was in progress due to the fall semester schedule being released. I was so engrossed on planning the next semester of my life that I didn’t smell, see or hear the drama unfolding.  Apparently, the shit indicator-line up her back is getting higher with each incident.

            Then there was the event which occurred today. It transpired at the day home with her caregiver, Angela. A short Italian lady whose name says it all…Angel-a. We owe her so much for not only embracing our kid while I am at school but also for enduring shitty moments like today. I’m not sure how she does her job, caring for more kids than I would ever have the patience for (hence why only one child will come out of me).

            My knowledge of what had unfolded at Angela’s house was initiated with a text message. I was just sitting down for the lunch I hadn’t had time to eat at school. Apparently, there were no pants in Adriana’s bag. I was initially perplexed and my mind’s eye flashed to the interior of the bag. Mentally digging through I remembered that there was a rather absurd abundance of shirts and a deficiency of pants. Then I began to wonder why my kid was now pant-less in a semi-private residence, given that there would be no less than four other children there. So, like the masochist that I am, I asked, and immediately regretted her response. Angela was not a “happy camper.” Apparently, the contaminant was everywhere. An unscheduled bath had just been completed.

            I slowly chewed, reading my phone. I pondered my luck of not having to deal with any of the shitty parts of the week. The Crispy Crunch tagline “the only thing better than your Crispy Crunch is someone else’s,” danced through my head. The only difference was my brain switched the line to, “the only thing better than dealing with my kid’s blow out is my kid’s blow out being dealt with by someone else.” I chuckled. Yes, I would imagine when I die I am pretty positive I will be boldly discovering if there is a hell. And it will be filled with my child’s shit.

            I decided that my planned power nap would have to be postponed and that Angela needed to be liberated of the Poop Princess. I gathered a pair of pants and headed over. I wasn’t sure what would be waiting for me, but I was pretty sure that my evening would probably not involve more shit. I hope.

            On arrival, my kid was running around in her Thomas underpants. Yes, they are boy underwear, because feminism, equality and International Women’s Day. Angela looked like I would imagine I typically do after dealing with a five alarm blow out; exhausted and in need of a ludicrous quantity of alcohol.

            She calmly recalled what she found after Adriana’s nap. Or rather what she smelled. She asked Adriana the quintessential question: “where you go to poop?” Of course, Adriana said “in the potty.” We’ve harped on her ad nauseam about where biological hazardous waste goes. She gets it. Bowel and brain, apparently, are still friends off.

            Then she went on: It was on the pillow, the pillow case, in her hair, where she was sleeping, on the floor where she laid down in the bathroom, on the tub. She continued, that she pulled up my progeny’s shirt and was aghast that the poop line had migrated to her hair line. Hence why it was on the pillow case.

            She was sparse on the details of the actual clean-up process, but she has requested another package of wipes as her washer whirred merrily in the background. As I listened to her recount the horror of her afternoon, I thought about reparation. How would I make this up to her? So, I asked, “what kind of doughnut do you like?” (I’m not cheap, I am a student and can’t afford proper reparation like an all-expense paid spa cruise for two weeks). She broke into the biggest smile and explained that she was looking for a Texas Doughnut. She had one 29 years ago and has been craving one ever since.

            Reparation, I told her, will come in the form of either the object of her desire, or failing me finding one on the weekend, a batch of chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese icing made by yours truly. Perhaps the addition of a bonus a jug of bleach, or gasoline, matches and a burning barrel may also be in order.

            At this time my little perfect storm system is perched on the toilet, having just deposited another pellet. I will hold my applause and celebratory toilet training currency until I see something more tangible. Something more along the lines of a toilet clogging deposit. Until that happens I will stand at the ready, plunger in one hand, all-purpose cleaner in the other.

Studies Interrupted

The saga continues.

Yes, THAT saga.

Today, I was minding my own business, attempting to wrap my head around Organic Chemistry (I have a midterm on Monday) when my little Cherub informed me that, “I have to go pee.” My eyes narrowed as a smell caught me right in the left nostril. We started toward the main floor bathroom. I stopped short and decided to double check the pants situation, since she looked like she had a bit of a tail.

And put my inquisition finger directly in shit.

Yes, she had a baby-esc-up-the-back-five-alarm-explosion. How? HOW? Ugh.

I immediately thought about nothing but amputating my now shitty right index finger. Get it off. GET IT OFF, my mind raced. I went to the bathroom and proceeded to scrub my hand, Level 3 NICU style.

Once scrubbed in, we proceeded to go upstairs to the bathroom with the shower. There would be no horror story occurring in my main floor bathroom today. No. Today it would occur upstairs. On the way up the stairs she was protesting about having to take a shower. I was reminding her if she just went in the potty, there would be no showers.

I began my ritual of minimizing collateral damage, removing her socks and Shimmer and Shine slippers. I started to pull up her shirt and noticed that it was part of the collateral damage. I carefully rolled it up so as not to get shit in her ponytail and removed it. It went into the sink without drama. I marvelled at my rolling/tossing skills. It’s the little victories, I thought to myself. Next, I put her directly in the tub with her pants still on.

As a side note, it is one of those snow days when going to work is not the first thing that a sane person would do if they can work from home. So, that’s where Wade was, in the basement happily oblivious to the trauma unfolding two floors above. If I recall correctly, there was an “in good times and bad” clause on our wedding day. I shared my pain.

“Come upstairs, I have something to show you,” I said, having just picked the lock to get into the office.

“What? Uh no, not that,” he replied, knowing full well what I was about to show him.

“You’ll see,” I replied with what I would imagine was the last fragment of my dignity fading from my eyes.

He reluctantly pulled himself away from his work. I would imagine the thought of lunch was beginning to cross his mind.

Once upstairs, I had her turn around. Shit was half way up her back. I slowly peeled Her pants off to reveal yet another shit balloon. “Oh my,” he said. I asked him to retrieve the famed all-purpose cleaner. If we had a vat of Spray 9, I would have been happier. Once he delivered the aforementioned item he did his best impersonation of Dracula circa 1992 by turning immediately into vapour, not to be seen again until 7:30. In all fairness, he has dealt with more of these than I have. Alone, I soldiered on.

Just me versus the Putin of poop. You know, nuclear and corrupt.

The shower was doing a fine job, cleaning the mess off of her and the tub. When her underwear made their way to her final ankle, she decided rather than just taking the foot out, she would try to kick free while shrieking about how gross it was. Shit flew into places that I am not happy to report. More cleaning was required to fix the mess. If I had juice on hand that wasn’t in a box and tasted like ass, I would’ve made myself a Cosmo or ten.

So, to the makers of PEG, yeah. Still fuck you. I have reduced the dosage and now we have a one-day reprieve and then another apoocalypse. More to come.

72 Hours

          Potty-training is not going as smoothly as I had hoped. We are in year 2.5 of attempting to get our kid to just go poo on the fucking toilet already. Concerned that maybe there was an issue, we visited her paediatrician on Tuesday. Her diagnosis: holding it with a side of enlarged adenoids. The adenoids were a bonus.

So, holding it is a behavioural issue which involves hoarding her shit to the point that the colon/rectum and brain are friends off. Her prescription, which wasn’t really a prescription, was not for more cowbell. It was for polyethylene glycol. PEG. I knew of PEG. I had seen it administered in a little girl who had a similar issue and who started to magically connect the dots on the whole toilet thing. Hopeful, we left her office with the prescription (just a piece of paper with the dosage, really) and entered the final stage of the potty-training process; acceptance.

            “It can take up to 72 hours to start to work, and you will need to use it continuously for three months,” the paediatrician had said in her thick Balkan accent.

            Fast forward to today.  

            Seventy-two hours later.

It started to work.

            FUCK.

            We have tried to use “poop on the potty and make us proud” as a way to cajole her into going where nature and John Crapper intended. However, the messages between tiny tot bottom and tiny tot brain are lost in translation. Colon says “toilet now,” brain says “quick, hide!”

            And so was the case as I was watching the men’s big air competition at the Olympics. I was nestled in, cheering on the athletes, high fiving my kid when someone [a Canadian] really “stomped the landing.” I went for a high five, but someone wasn’t coming over to dole it out. Rather she was standing on the dog’s bed with wide eyes. Then the smell crept over like a wraith and hit me right in the nostrils.

This was not the first time I had to clean up mess today. So, I chased her to the bathroom on my main floor. The one without a shower. The one without a suitable place to dispose of toxic waste.

            Now many of you may remember my adventure in Boston Pizza. The Shit Incident of 2017. The scale of this left that one behind. I actually longed for a narrow dank cavernous public stall, because that would have meant that the shit was manageable.

            I lifted up the skirt she was wearing over her third pair of pants for the day. I noticed a bulge. Since she was wearing black pants, I did not notice the state of matter of the bulge. Being a veteran of all things poop, I started off by removing all clothing, including socks. The bulge would probably just stay put and I would be able to dunk the under-roos in the toilet Wade-styleä.

            No.

            As I pulled her pants down, a streak of liquid not unlike the pumpkin seed butter I add to my overnight oats, smeared down the back of her leg. I abandoned the training seat. I knew that this was no time to be trying to aim that blasphemous mess into a small hole. I got the pants off and tossed them, nonchalantly into the sink. There was shit inside them and it was starting to trickle out. Next was the balloon of shit, beginning to seep through her underwear. I gingerly pulled back the waistband and found the rectal hoardings. I fully expected to find the remains of a mummified cat in there.

            Still not breathing I gently started to pull the underwear down while getting her to begin to sit on the toilet. Hindsight being what it is, I should’ve been pessimistic about keeping those underwear and cut them off. Instead, I blazed a trail of effluence down her legs. Once she was comfortably seated, I finished the nasty removal. I tried, in vain, to keep them level as I moved them from legs to sink. Again, too optimistic. Before I knew it, there was a globule trail of shit on the counter leading to the ruin of a sink.

            I surveyed my mess.

            I could just leave and find a new family, I thought to myself, if I’m lucky there will already be teenagers who know how to do this. The moment passed. Instead of peeling out of the garage, tunes cranked, wheels smoking, into a blissful life, I ran upstairs and obtained the diaper genie. We still have it for emergencies like this one. Now I had to set up for a battle of epic proportions. Mono é Poopo.

            When I came back, the smell had thickened like a horrible shit sauce. I turned on the fan. She hates the noise, but whatever. I ran to the kitchen and grabbed the remains of a roll of paper towel and two all-purpose cleaners. Matches and gasoline seemed like a good alternative. But I do like my house and am pretty sure Wade and the insurance company frown on arson-related cleaning.

            Tools of shit battle acquired, I began to clean up the counter and sink. I carefully picked up the panties in a wad of paper towel. The contents therein had squished out and left quite the pile of effluence on the sink and on the pants, which were chilling out in the sink like a frat boy at a hot tub party. I grabbed more paper towel, unwinding from the roll it like a crazy person with a germ phobia. I removed the underwear with the paper towel and put them in the holder of shit, there was no hope of them ever having a normal life again. Then I turned my attention to the pants. I quickly rinsed them and spirited them away to the washer. Once that was done, I started on the sink. It was like trying to clean up paint with more paint only the paper towel didn’t have anything on it initially and the paint was shit. Into the genie the paper towel went. I wiped the debris off the counter, my little helper pointed out more on the side of the counter, hanging on precariously like Tom Cruise in a Mission Impossible rock climbing stunt. Thankfully none had fallen on the floor. Win for me.

            “Thanks sweetie,” I said, trying to maintain my last shard of dignity.

            I sprayed the counter and sink liberally with cleaning supplies. The apple and lavender scents barely made a dent in the stench that my child had caused.

            “Are you proud of me Mommy?”

            So many comebacks boiled to the forefront of my mind.

            I’d be a touch prouder if you understood abstract concepts like “before” and “on the potty without revolting", I thought to myself. “Yes, I am proud of you,” I said, unenthusiastically.

            “Yayyyyy!”

Then came the next shitty part of this adventure. Cleaning her off sans showerhead. I began by pulling the rest of the paper towel off the roll. Then I soaked it. My first swipe was nothing but horror. The second, not much better. I repeated the process until I had enough off of her to ensure an expeditious run up the stairs to a shower without leaving a trail requiring the carpet cleaner. Hosing her off never felt so satisfying.   

Freshly cleaned, I left her to get dressed and I went back downstairs to finish cleaning up the bathroom. The ruin of the toilet seat staring up at me, like I had wronged it somehow. Thankfully I had one toilet bowl cleaner left. I have a feeling I’m going to need to buy more.

In conclusion. Fuck you PEG. Fuck. You.