Yucky Stuff

Kids are gross.  No really, they are.  C’mon folks  – we all love the bones of ‘em, wouldn’t trade ‘em for anything, but sometimes they are just truly gross little creatures, not always by their own choice.  (If you’re easily grossed out like I am, you may want to skip this blog post.  Also skip along if you are bothered by the s-bomb, which I seem to be using far too frequently in my blogging lately.)

I remember last year a friend of mine who was in the process of adopting, telling me as she watched my daughter eat with her mouth open, that she wasn’t looking forward to having a young toddler who would open his mouth while chewing or would push chewed-up food out of his mouth.   She had no children at that point, and I had been a mom for 3 years, a stepmom for 7.  I remember thinking to myself “Oh honey.  You are going to WISH that chewed up food was the only ICK factor that you had to deal with in a few months time”.

I keep waiting for the “EWWW” gut response to wear off after all this time, and sometimes wonder if there is simply some deficiency I have that makes me so grossed out by certain things.  While it hasn’t completely disappeared, I must admit, it has gotten better.  Especially now that Baby Girl is toilet trained and other than the occasional sloppy job wipe assistance, I don’t get too involved in the potty factors any longer.  But I do still cringe when an assisted wipe goes awry and grossness makes contact with my hands.  Should I be embarrassed to admit that?  Do other moms feel the same way?  I once posted a Facebook status literally asking if I was the only mom who wanted to wear rubber gloves to carry pee-pee sheets to the washing machine, but nobody responded.  (Well, ok, one guy I knew in high school wrote “Yes”.)  I mean NOBODY.  Kinda telling, isn’t it?

I hear stories of other moms using their shirts and sleeves to wipe snotty noses.  I was once out on a walk with Baby Girl and she helped herself to a tantrum over something that of course is totally forgotten now.  Along with the tantrum comes a huge amount of snot.  Was I following the “Be Prepared” motto I learned in Girl Guides?  Of course not.  Narry a tissue, napkin or anything else in sight to deal with the booger bomb overload.  So, I had a choice – let her walk all the way home with snot all over her face and risk all my neighbors talking about me behind my back (even more than they already do), or wipe her nose with something I had available with me.  I’m sure all you cool moms would have just pulled your sleeve down over your hand and done the deed, but I didn’t.   I pulled up the edge of Baby Girl’s shirt and wiped her nose with her OWN shirt.  HER snot, HER shirt, although in a crunch I probably would have wiped MY snot with HER shirt as well. Don’t judge me, I have gross-out issues, I admit it.

Life has a way of shoving your face in your own issues sometimes, though.  When we met Baby Girl, we spent our first month with her in the country of her birth, waiting to receive her citizenship from our country.  We toured around and saw some beautiful places.  All the while with an 18 month old child who every few hours had what we came to affectionately call a “shit-plosion”.  I’m talking the kind that required a bath and full change of clothes.  The kind that literally, on a number of occasions if she was sitting on a hard surface (i.e – high chair in restaurants) would blast its way up her back and reach her neck.  I’m not exaggerating here.   (Turns out she had a stomach parasite that wasn’t diagnosed until we got home and I got sick with it.  Two doctors and a bunch of tests there, yet all they told us there was that it was anxiety and a reaction to new foods.  U-huh.)

So, everywhere we went, I learned to pack at least 2 clean outfits of clothes (including socks – yep, it travelled down as well) and at least a full pack of wipes, if not 2.   Not always possible to give a bath in the ladies’ rooms.

At one point during our trip, we had taken a quick flight from one city to another.  As we were waiting for the flight to begin take-off, I was holding Baby Girl in the facing-me position when I felt, heard and smelled the shit-plosion happen.  Her pants instantly became soggy, and while I had spares galore for her, I had no spare pants for myself.  Wanting to minimize how soggy MY pants became while holding her, huzbo and I quickly decided to plop her down on the empty seat between us to do a super-fast change (we really were getting good at these).   At this point, we could hear the plane engines revving up and the plane backing away from the terminal.  Huzbo, in his haste, pulled her soiled pants off her in one yank, with a bit too much haste and vigor.  We stopped in horror as we saw drops of poop fly all around us.  At this point the plane was taxiing down the runway, gaining speed and inciting panic in us.  Thankfully nobody was poop torpedoed and we managed to get a clean diaper and pants on Baby Girl just as the plane lifted into the air.

As I safely held Baby Girl to my panting chest, I looked around and made eye contact with huzbo, who has SUPER curly hair that was on the longish side back then.  One of his curly locks hanging on his forehead looked odd for some reason.  Something was in it, on it…

“What’s that shit in your hair?”  I asked.   (Yeah, we talked like that back.  Again, don’t judge me.)

He put his hand up and felt his hair…only to realize that the shit in his hair actually was…shit.

It’s fortunate that they did not have any kind of airline police or security on that flight, as we honestly laughed like two insane maniacs for about the next hour.  Seriously.  It was either that, or weep with horror.  We even had a flight attendant ask us if we were ok.

All I can say is, it’s a good thing neither of our kids are pukers…