Tale of Poo, Part 62: Splash Down

Beckett is rocking a huge salad. I wonder why everyone thinks he's a girl?

1/27/11

After a productive meeting with our Trips for Kids board chair, I dashed west and mounted my road bike for a one and a half hour spin up Deer Creek Canyon.  I dressed for the 50 degree, sunny weather at the bottom and froze my ass off as the waning afternoon sun vanished just 15 minutes up the canyon.  As I forced a big gear, puffing, and grinding upward, the air chilled and the frozen road surface crackled under my wheels.   I climbed for 45 minutes, ignoring my numb fingers and block ice feet.   The speedy decent was truly painful – brain freeze via bike, the same sensation as drinking a Slurpie too fast - and all I could think was, “I’m the luckiest man alive.  I’m the luckiest man alive because when I walk through the door my three tiny sons will beam, squeal ‘daddy’ and waddle, rush, and stampede to hurl themselves into my arms.”  Or something awesome like that, I imagined.

Well, it turns out, in my exercise-induced haze and freezer-burned mind, I slightly overestimated the gallantry of my homecoming greeting from the boys.  I threw open the door at around 5:30 p.m. to embrace my crew and didn’t hear a peep.   Hmmmm?  Silence is a rare state in our house during the pre-dinner, post-nanny, chaos time.  The hush was interrupted by Catherine in the kitchen asking, “Who wants another piece?”

I peaked around the corner and before me my trio of boys were mowing down a frozen pizza, working in silence, devoted to the task at hand.  Mommy spotted me and said, “Hey! Look who’s here.”  Kelly, Rhys and Beckett all turn toward me and, with mouths muffled by half-chewed bites of ‘zza, chorused, “Daddy!”  Their enormous smiles, especially our messiest of the messy eaters Rhys, were stained, like sloppy circus clowns, with bright red pizza sauce.

We were scheduled to go out with friends in an hour to continue Catherine’s birthmonth celebration, (a single day has never been enough for my bride), so Catherine gave me an equally welcoming, tomatoless smile, a peck and asked me to sit with the monkeys while she showered and did her face.  I happily accepted this duty and started chatting up the boys, “How was your day Kelly?’ I asked.

After thinking about the question while taking a long slug of milk from his neon green sippy cup, Kelly informed me,  “Rhysie didn’t take a nap.”  

Hearing his name, Rhys stared at his brother, locking in on Kelly’s words.

“He just cried and cried and didn’t sleep,” Kelly continued. 

Rhys’ stare lingered on Kelly, considering his words with, seemingly, great care.  After a few beats he slowly turned toward me with sadness etched on his cherubic, pizza face, his full lower lip pouting. With his glasses removed - discarded who knows when, who knows where - and his long blond bangs covering the upper orbit of his eyes, he reminded me a of a sheep dog puppy who just learned his flock had been sold for mutton. In a voice a just  a notch above a whisper, Rhys frankly explained his naptime crisis, “I wanted my mommy.”

Trying to comfort him with a joke, I said, “Oh, I’m sorry Rhysie Roo.  Mommy was working at the coal mine today.”

My logical Kelly flashed a quizzical look at me and asked flatly, “Where is the coal mine?”

“Oh, I’m just kidding buddy.  Mommy was working at an office today.  In an office building downtown.”

“Oooh”, said Kelly.  “Mommy is going to take me to her office sometime,” he said grinning so widely he was almost laughing. 

Rhys, 2, as is his custom, immediately did an emotional 180, transforming from sad puppy into his familiar role as the pissed off parrot, “No! Mommy is taking me to her office, too!!!”

To cut acrid, simmering sibling rivalry, I changed the subject and launched into my jester act by spewing out a few nonsensical rhyming words, my standard parenting playbook material.  “Hey, Kelly, listen! Elephant, smell-a-pant.” 

Giggling, Kelly took the bait and chimed back with a rhyming pair of his own, “Elephant, jellypants.” 

Rhys, trying to play along, gave it a shot, “Elephant-aaaaaaah. Pudding!” Kelly, so amused by Rhys’ poetic whiff, cackled for twenty seconds and then peed his pants.  I told him it was ok and sent him up to change while Rhys, Beckett and I continued with our dinner hour comedy shtick.

WARNING: If you choose to continue reading, the story is poop related, again.


Kelly had been up in his room for several minutes, changing I presumed (Kelly is now able to dress himself, save the finishing touches like pant-buttoning and zipping and minor details like successfully identifying the front of any given garment - think zipper butt) when I heard him start shrieking.  I dashed up the stairs to investigate.  I found Kelly in a panic, sobbing and repeating, “I have poop, in my pants.  I have poop, in my pants.“ 

“It’s ok buddy.  Let’s just get you cleaned up.  The wipes are right here and we have a drawer full of underwear and hats right here,” I said smiling as I stretched a pair of his tiny Thomas the Train (clean) undies over my head.   Kelly stopped crying, smiled and informed me, “That’s not a hat, silly turkey! That’s underpants!”

I gestured with the package of wipes for him to come over to me for a cleaning.  I gingerly pulled down the back of his pants and underwear, inspecting the damage and trying to gage the size of the ordinance I was dealing with before fully revealing the entire shebang. Thankfully, it was a single, ping-pong ball-size nugget, not one of his “man-poopies” that he famously unleashes on the world, every so often.  Hmmm, but how did toilet paper find it’s way in here? “Kelly why is there toilet paper in your underwear, buddy?”

“There’s pop in the toilet, too,” claimed Kelly with a triumphantly grin. 

“Really? You pooped in the potty?” I replied skeptically.  Kelly has never pooped in the potty, always waiting for a nap or nighttime pull up diaper to do his dirty work, and is a documented master “poop liar. (see the post "Vomit Reigns Supreme!, Good Morning Extreme Diarrhea”)

He smiled and took my hand and pulled me toward his bathroom. “See! Poop!” And, sure enough, to my utter surprise and infinite relief, a gorgeous three-inch long log of excrement lay at the bottom of the bowl.  A fresh shmear of crap, vertical in orientation, decorated the back inside rim of his potty seat, confirming that, in fact, Kelly, now four months north of four years-old, had just deposited a turd in the toilet for the first time in his life.

Rejoice, rejoice to the Porcelain Gods for terminating our torment and blessing our family with the righteous gift of properly placed fecal matter!  I pray, may Kelly’s holy shits and blessed piss, from this momentous day forward, be received solely by the sea!  Yo, hear our prayer!

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