I have a long line of poop stories I could share with y’all. Being a RN by trade I have thousands of poop stories that would have you rolling. Stories that would make you want to vomit, make you laugh so hard you’re crying and stories that would leave you as perplexed as I when I first walked into some of the poo scenarios.
Like the time I had a guy that needed to complete a bowel prep inpatient for a colonoscopy the next morning. The ward I worked on had two patients per room with the good old HIPAA curtain between them. You know the piece of cloth hanging between two beds and we discuss allllllllllll your health information with your roommate on the other side. That piece of “sound proof” cloth. I digress.
Anyway my patient hit the call light because he needed help getting to the bedside commode. Well I’m the process of getting him there, mid bend to sit, things exploded. I’m talking on the wall, the IV pole, the curtain that separates the two beds (it actually swayed a bit when the splatters hit it) and my boots had a nice dark brown splatter pattern on them. When I say I have poop stories for days, I’m not joking.
Then I had kids. And now? Now I have hundreds of thousands of poop stories. Stories that will make you want to vomit, make you laugh so hard you’re crying and leave you as perplexed as when I first walked into some of the poo scenarios.
What I’m saying is, I’ve essentially swapped adult poo for kids poo and somehow it’s no longer this funny story that once happened to me, it seems to be transforming into my daily life. Check in with me weekly and I’m sure I’ll have another new exciting poo story for you.
When you have your first kid, you are inevitably going to have a poop shooting experience. Those are always fun. If you’re a parent you know exactly what I’m talking about. Somehow I managed to go through number 1s first year of life NOT knowing that onsies are designed with the shoulder folds for the purpose of fitting it over their big heads and also pulling it down off their shoulders during poop catastrophes. I can’t tell you how many times I carefully tried to pull 1’s onsie over her head without getting poop on her face.
When she was about a year old she had a nasty ear infection and needed antibiotics. She was on day 2 of her 10 day course and I had to go back to work. I was working night shift and my husband was on a day shift rotation at the time. So I handed her to him as he walked in the door so I could walk out. I briefly told him about the medication what dose she needed and when. I said “she’s got a rash, it’s from the antibiotics, her poops are bothering her butt so make sure to coat it really good tonight” he said okay. I left. An hour later he sent a picture. I laughed so hard I cried.
He tried, bless his heart, he tried to be a proactive parent. He gave her a bath and then thought it would be good for her skin to let her butt get some air. So he let her wander around the house bottomless. I assumed he knew the antibiotics would cause diarrhea. Sometimes I forget that things that seem like common knowledge to me aren‘t common knowledge for someone that doesn’t have any medical training. Anyway so there he was doing what he thought was a great idea. I imagine him patting his own back like “yeah self, you’re crushing this dad thing. Mom didn’t even think to do this! Dad of the year. Year? Nah it’s more like Dad of the — (explosive liquid noises) what was that” then he looks down to see cute little 1, bottomless, starting to cry because she’s standing in a PUDDLE of her own poop. And he took a picture to send to me, concerned that’s our little one year old was pooping a green liquid with an occasional chunk but mostly just nasty liquid.
My response? “Oh yeah she’s on antibiotics. Hey don’t forget to feed her that yogurt in the fridge”.
My husband does not handle poop well. But I’ve grown accustomed to it.
One summer we were driving back from my in laws pool. Number 2 had a bug of some sort. She’d been pooping liquid, threw up twice and started fevering. She only wanted her paci and her mommy. We were so so close to being paci free too! 😑 Anyway on our way back from the pool, I was just thinking “wow I’m so glad she didn’t poop juice in the pool” when I smelled something. Y’all I swear I could taste it. So here is the photo of my smirk right before I got out of the van to change her.
I thought “self, you’re genius! Pulling the van over before she has a chance to wiggle it loose out of her diaper”
Well self, you weren’t genius at all. I was welcomed by the onslaught of a poo puddle in her car seat that had formed a stream of sorts to the van seat. It was 97 degrees outside, felt like 105, steaming poo sauna up in that van as I attempted to clean it on the side of a cute little side street. I’m sure the old man on his porch got a laugh out of the wipes, towels, gags, and exasperated sighs.
Lesson? Never think you’ve outsmarted a GI bug, the poop always wins. I don’t know how long I stood there elbow deep in child feces, but I do know that old man watched the whole thing go down. I also now keep a bag of plastic bags, diapers, wipes, cleaning spray and paper towels in the back of the van. You always come away from a poop story with a lesson learned.
The next fall we were heading to my in laws. I had three kids now. When 1 got car sick in the back and threw up, she tried to catch it which only made it splatter farther across the back of the van. This was after 2 had an accident and peed in her car seat and when I was trying to get them all out I realized that 3, as a sweet little baby had a blow out in her car seat. There I was unloading three kids and car seats to lug up three flights of stairs. When my MIL answered the door she said nothing but in the all too knowing and understanding way mothers are, she took the oldest two to take a bath while I disassembled car seats to toss in the washer. The take away with that one? Always bring a change of clothes for everyone and keep towels in the back of the car for car seats that get wet or soiled.
When we brought 4 home, my MIL was changing her diaper on our changing table by the back door. In the middle of the diaper change 4 forcefully expelled her tiny little newborn poop across the changing table to splatter on the wall and sliding door. My MIL was shocked such a cute little nugget could poop with such distance. My response?
”oh yeah, 3 did that too when she was a baby!”.
Just this past week, 3 said she had to go potty and 2 joyfully said “I’ll take her!” So they march to the bathroom together. I know you’re thinking “you let your 4 year old take your 2 year old to the bathroom?”. I do, and it has been known to be very efficient. Sure it usually results in some sort of water play at the sink but it helps 3 go potty and keeps them both entertained for a while. Anyway they go in there and I realize after a while that it’a been a minute. My instincts tell me to check on them. As I rounded the corner to the bathroom I heard 2 reading a book to 3. So I assume that 3 must be pooping and 2 is so kind as to read to her.
I. Was. Wrong.
As I walk into the bathroom, I see 2 hop off the potty really quick and start pulling her pants up. 3 is standing next to the potty in a puddle of water. I ask “did Mads even go potty yet?” 2 responds with “no, I was going potty first”. So I reply with “you’ve been sitting here, reading her a story while she waits for you to finish so she can go? Ughh just go, I’ve got it”. I sit down, in the puddle of water. I have 4 in the baby carrier and her feet are casually splashing about in the water as I maneuver around to get 3’s pants off when I realize, she has pooped her pants. I move the now wet Frozen II, look and find book that 2 threw down into the puddle, and start the process of removing the poop pants without letting the turds fall onto the floor. They fell onto the floor anyway.
I get the turds into the toilet, 3 cleaned up and on the potty and it dawns on me. Her pants were wet too.
I wasn’t sitting in a puddle of water from them playing in the sink. Number 4s feet were not wet from being drug about in water as I maneuvered around the bathroom cleaning up poop. Oh noooooo, it was all a big old puddle of pee. Y’all, I was so annoyed.
Fast forward three hours and the kids have changed into suits, played outside in the sprinkler and are now coming in to change. I have a system with my kids. I dry them at the door and change them right there. So when they go outside they know to put their towel and clothes right by the door in a basket on our changing table. I get 3 dressed, I hand 1 her stuff and she goes to get dressed in the (now cleaned and sanitized bathroom) and I’m helping 2 get dressed. Picture this, I’m sitting on my knees, 4 still in the carrier, I have a pile of wet stuff next to me, I’m in the zone moving and grooving. I’ve got this mother of 4 thing down, I’ve got four other girls at the house because I’m babysitting. I reach to grab 2s undies and my finger slides through a smushiness I was not expecting. I pull her undies out and look. . . My finger slide through not just a poop stain, or little smear, it was a thick corn filled smudge of poop.
Remember when she hopped off the potty fast? She thought or rather knew she was about to be in trouble so she jumped down and out of dodge without ever wiping. Not even just once.
So there I sat, gagging, throwing a pair of undies in the trash, washing hands profusely and losing my mind.
The Very. Next. Day. I was packing to head to W.V. For our weekend wedding trip when 3 runs into the bathroom saying she’s going potty. Again she’s been known to do this successfully. After a while I go in and she’s standing in the corner between the toilet and the wall, poop smeared on the toilet seat, under the seat, turds on the floor and tiny bits down her legs. Literally just about everywhere BUT the blessed toilet bowl itself. She had already pooped her pants and tried to go to the bathroom to clean up before I detected her smell and found the fiasco. Fiasco it was Y’all.
Its truly becoming my life. Because this weekend, while in the hotel room, 1045 at night we get back from the wedding, I’m giving the girls a quick shower because they played and danced hard. 2 is done, I’ve got 4 and 1 in the shower with me and 3 decides to go potty. Except she missed. I hear my husband come into the bathroom and go “oh come on”. Poop. Poop on the seat, around the seat, outside the seat and yet not a single smidgen in the seat. Fantastic.
One day in the future I’ll wake up and realize we’ve gone a long while without any poop stories and it will be like when you’re grieving. I won’t even have realized we were climbing out of the weeds that are the poopy child phase until I’m on the mountain top looking down laughing at all the stories I collected. And who knows maybe by then I’ll have jumped back into the poop pond that is Medical-surgical nursing. For now though, I’ll just continue to wake up, drink coffee and drive on one catastrophe at a time, learning to laugh at the insanity of it all and breathe through my mouth in the thick of it!
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