Episode 10 - Oodles of poodles

I have a theory about parenting:  it’s 50% entertainment and 50% excrement.

Under the excremental banner flies the big four: poo, wee, vomit, blood.  Snot and spit occasionally sneak in there, but if you can deal with the former, the latter will be a breeze.

But even as a parent of two exceptionally gifted excreters, I can still get taken by surprise occasionally.  Tuesday morning for example.

There we all are, the perfect little family, mum and dad making breakfast, the 3 year old eating Weet-bix, the baby playing happily on the floor.  Suddenly, an intense odour swamped the kitchen. 

“Poo!” yells Smudge, looking up from his Weet-bix.

“Yours!” cries my loving husband.  I sigh and head over to pick up the baby.  But instead of the poo being inside the nappy, waiting darkly to be changed, the poo has somehow defied gravity and is ALL OVER the floor.  The baby is sitting in the middle of a gigantic, sloppy puddle of brown, running his fingers merrily through it, drawing on the tiles and the window.  And as I watched in shock, he lifted his chubby, poo covered hand, looked at it curiously, then stuffed it in his mouth.

I don’t need to go into further details.  You don’t need to hear about the screaming, yelling, showering, mopping, outfit changing, Glen-20ing and gagging that ensued. 

But as gross as poo eating is, this is what I found really offensive out of the whole incident: not twenty minutes prior to this, the baby was sitting in his high chair, flat out refusing to eat breaky.  And it was a good breaky too!  Cereal with fruity bits, a banana, toast spread with children’s low-sodium Vegemite and lovingly cut into little fingers.  He wouldn’t have a bar of it.

But a handful of his own faeces… yum.  What the?!  The fact that he will snub my nutritional and balanced meal and decide to eat poo is what amazes and annoys me. 

That’s why I love parenting: it’s weird in ways you can’t even imagine before you begin.  You’ll laugh harder that you ever did before and cry more too.  Sometimes you’ll do both at the same time.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a nappy bin that needs changing…