The house seemed darker than normal yesterday morning, and as I peered out the window I saw a thick layer of fog hanging over the neighborhood that gave me a sudden shutter. I swiftly closed the curtains and softly moved down the dark hallway, perplexed at why the kid’s bathroom door was closed and the light was off. Typically, I go around in the evenings shutting off bedroom lights, hallway lights, but always leave their bathroom light on and the door at least half way open.
I peeked in both of the boys rooms and saw they were still soundly sleeping, and I lingered for a moment at Jake’s door wondering why the bathroom door would be shut. Maybe my husband did it on his way to bed? No, not likely. Just as unlikely was the thought that one of the boys turned off the light, shut the door and walked back to their room in the dark.
I reached out my hand and touched the door knob, just holding it there for a moment. What was I afraid of? Surely a burglar wouldn’t be hiding waiting to jump out at me. Last I checked, although it some times felt like it, this also wasn’t an Alfred Hitchcock movie. Some crazed knife wielding killer wasn’t lurking behind the shower curtain. “Turn the knob, Susan.” I told myself, but my hand stayed motionless. Why am I not opening this door. That’s it, no more paranormal shows at bedtime if this is how I was going to act. I’m cutting myself off. How ridiculous was it for a 32 year old woman to be afraid to go in a bathroom?!
A sudden noise behind me made me jump and grab my chest. Joey, like the ninja that he was born to be, had climbed out of bed, opened his door, and made it all the way down the hallway before I heard him. “What are you doing, Mom?” Before I could answer he was already on to his next question, “Can I have Frosted Flakes for breakfast, pleeeeease?” I quickly shushed him and hurried him back into his room. After picking out his outfit for the day, I instructed him to get dressed, and returned to the bathroom door.
Before opening the door, I turned and peered down the slightly lighter hallway and could see the dense fog just outside the window through a crack in the curtains. I immediately resolved that the spooky weather conditions coupled with the late night paranormal shows must be fueling my imagination. Even with that rationalization fresh in my mind, I found myself turning the door knob ever so slowly.
As I began to push the door open with one hand and lean into the bathroom, I half smiled thinking how the creaking of the door was playing right into the terrifying tale my mind was weaving. The door was now completely open, and although the small bathroom was still totally dark, it was apparent that no one was hiding in the shower and that aside from the darkness, it was just a bathroom. Feeling slightly relieved, my arm outstretched and I flicked the switch on the wall.
In a flash, a scene far more terrifying that any horror movie I had ever watched was now illuminated right before me. I started to yell out, but my voice caught in my throat. Joey immediately ran up behind me and I felt as though I might faint. Was it a bloody scene there in the bathroom? Words of terror scribbled on the wall from the great beyond? No, no. It was far worse.
“What is that?!” Joey questioned which immediately cleared him as a suspect. My chest tightened as I tried to give him an explanation. “That, Joey… Oh, my God…” I rambled hardly able to complete a thought, “that is poop….poop everywhere.”
Poop smeared on the toilet seat. Poop smeared under the seat, down the front of the toilet bowl. Poop on the tub. Poop on the rug. Poop on the sink. Poop in the sink. Poop on the light switch. Poop. Poop. Poop.
My thoughts turned immediately to Jake, the obvious culprit. I opened his door and he still laid there in bed, under the covers, sleeping like an angel. I flicked on his light and he didn’t stir. Looking around his room I saw two dark spots on his rug in front of his closet and directly next to a couple of Pull-Ups. Just like when detectives and crime scene investigators on the popular TV cop dramas put the pieces of a mystery together and replay the scene, showing us the viewers what happened, I too painted myself a mental picture.
Jake, who has now been potty trained even at night, for at least a couple months must have gone to the bathroom sometime in the night to do his business. Either he called out and didn’t wake us or he decided to wipe himself and smeared poop all over the seat as he climbed down. He bent over in front of the toilet to wipe, but was standing too close and smeared poo on the front of the bowl. Going to reposition himself, he turns, bends again and hits the side of the tub with his apparent shit covered ass, stamping several “Mr. Hanky” style poo splotches as he moves. In the attempt to wipe his own rear he gets more poo on his hands. He sits on the rug to get redressed leaving another smudge of poo on the rug. He then attempts to wash the evidence off his hands, but before that happens he leaves behind several shitty finger and hand prints in and on the sink. Upon seeing the mess he is about to leave behind, the toddler thinks quickly and shuts off the light and closes the door behind him as he leaves. He then returns to his room where he discards the poop stained Pull-Up and trades it for a new one, but not before rubbing even more poop into the fabric of his rug.
My first instinct is to wake him and bathe him in an alcohol based solution like Purell. I resist this urge and first Clorox the bathroom. I use nearly an entire container of wipes and go over every inch of the room, including places I’m sure he didn’t reach. My obsessive/compulsive disorder kicks into overdrive as I fight to kill every shitty germ in that bathroom. I go over surfaces multiple times, and still feel like the bathroom is coated in e-coli.
Jake got a bath in antibacterial hand soap, and again I resisted the urge to clean his nails with an antibacterial wipe and just used the baby nail brush to remove the remnants of the bathroom disaster from the night before. After taking the boys to school, I then scrubbed the rug in Jake’s room with Spot Shot, sanitized his sheets and blankets, and cleaned the bathroom one more time just for good measure.
The next time I get that scared, creepy feeling in the pit of my stomach, I won’t be so quick to dismiss it. No it wasn’t a ghost, or a murderer or an alien. For someone like me… someone phobic about germs it was far worse. It was a real life shit-astrophe.
Either Jake or "Mr. Hanky the Christmas Poo" (shown above) made the biggest mess with poop to date
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Ahahahahhahahahhahahaaa! Sorry to laugh at your misfortune but shit stories always make me laugh! I would have died. Poor you!
Given that I generally appreciate all kinds of potty humor, I’d be laughing too except it happened to me. I wanted to cry. Just writing about it made me want to clorox the bathroom again. Just in case.
I hate poop and puke germs. They make me crazy…literally!
OMG your posts always make me burst out laughing! Luckily I didn’t wake the napping toddler, she’s so crabby today, she needs the nap!
How on earth do you keep getting handed these life-lesson gems?!?!
Mrs. Smitty,
I’m glad you enjoy the posts…and I think I’m cursed. I’ll blame my mother for saying “I hope you have kids just like you” to me especially through my teen years. I think I got it three fold. I’ll also blame my husband’s genetics. I think my mother-in-law lived through some of these same events with my husband as a child.
Cursed I tell you! I’m cursed!
OMG!!!! i absolutely LOVE your stories!
really though you’re not alone.
my grlz are 13 months apart. my youngest, mattie, was about 6 or 7 months old, cherish, my oldest, would have been around 20 months. i put them down for a much needed nap …..mommy needed the nap. i woke up and realized it was too quiet in their room. as i opened the door the diaper full of shit smell hit me. cherish “trying to be a big girl and help mommy” had tried to change mattie’s diaper..well it turned into a game and needless to say the whole room had to be sanitized…there were some things i couldn’t bring myself to clean and just threw away.
over this summer i took on a five year old little girl. very sweet and happy and generally potty trained well. her parents came and picked her up one day and then toby, my bf, came home. usually toby’s first stop is the bathroom but that day he decided to change first. i slipped into the bathroom and to my utter shock and horror there were poop paintings all over the wall where the tp goes, the toilet, floor, front of sink! omg it was awful! toby is a bit of a germ freak sorta like you are susan. i got it cleaned/sanitized and to this day he does not know what happened in that room.
Daisha,
LOL…don’t you just love when kids, especially the little ones, try and “help.” I think that’s what happened with Jake and the shit-astrophe. I think he just wanted to do it himself and got poo everywhere. I think he also knew it was “bad” to make that kind of mess hence the closing of the door and the turning the light off. Out of sight, out of mind too.
And OMG about the little girl playing with her poop in your bathroom! It’s one thing to clean up your own kid’s crap off the walls, but that is double-gross if you ask me. And you’re a good woman for not telling Toby. What he doesn’t know, especially if you sanitized it, certainly won’t hurt him!!
Thanks for reading and the comment!!!
Susan
I just know something like this will happen to me so I am not laughing *too* hard at this. My daughter, now 3, used to like to play with her poop. There were multiple times I went to get her after nap time or even once in the morning when I found poop smeared everywhere she could reach (thankfully she was still in her crib). I didn’t even bother to clean the sheets one of the times, I just threw them out. And we won’t even discuss the possibility of it getting near her face. Nope, did not happen. I will stick with my denial.
Jeneva,
First, I’m glad I’m not the only one throwing totally poop covered stuff in the trash. I know I should be cleaning onesies and stuff that get poop on them, but often times, I just say forget it. I’ve been pretty lucky lately with my kids playing in poop. Both the boys did it once or twice and my daughter, who is nearly 15 months old, has never done it (I’m sure I just jinxed myself).
And denial isn’t always a bad thing…it has helped me sleep at night. Denial and wine.
Susan
I am in tears, my stomach is hurting from the belly laughs! I needed that since I currently have the Sunday Blues! Thanks ; ) I only laugh because I have had some extraordinary potty predicaments with my own boys. Gotta love motherhood!
Kristen,
I’m sure you feel my pain if you have two boys also…and I can only hope it gets better with age (say it gets better-pleeeease!)…I feel like now that I’m a Mom, and my kids are the way they are, I can look at another Mother and know she feels my pain. And it’s okay to laugh…I’ll be laughing one day too. I hope!
Thanks for the comment! Sorry you can relate!!
Susan
I relate! OMGOSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSH! I am so OCD/germ-a-phobic…We live in a wooded area (that is what I’m blaming it on) and ONCE we had a mouse run through a bedroom; I freaked out! It was caught. I cleaned the entire house x2…floors, walls, behind everything. I pulled out the frig, stove, washer, dryer and cleaned all the cabinets. I went crazy. I think my hubby secretly planted it just to see me freak clean. HaHa.
I really enjoy reading your post and the humor spin you give your articles…I was given the Lovely Blog Award and want to pass it along to you. Please go to http://mommetime.com/2010/09/25/one-lovely-blog-award.aspx to get your award and guidelines (you know ya gotta follow a few (17) rules.
First, thanks for the award (I hope the rules are there cause I don’t know what to do)!
Also, I hate mice. They walk and poop and are foul disgusting creatures. We also live in a “rural” area and have had a mouse in the garage. It never made it into the house but that didn’t stop me from sanitizing anything the little shit-machine may have walk and pooped on. I went crazy in the spring when it was time to take the kid’s outdoor toys outside.
And by the way, I love the term “freak cleaning” cause that sums it up! LOL….
thanks for the comment and the award!
Susan
Oh, Susan! All I can say is that you are a far better wife than I! I would have tightly shut that door, turned toward our bedroom, hands on hips, and then my husband would have been yanked out of bed faster than Lightening McQueen can corner, handed a bottle of bleach and some rags, and been told it was definitely somebody’s karma, and most certainly not mine, that was coming back to haunt us. Of course, after he got rid of all the visible evidence, I would have had to go in again for the kill (the germs).
I was really hoping you would have a quiet week after everything that you’ve suffered through the last few!
I think it’s time for a mommies only spa vacation for you! Preferably one with no links to the outside world, so you can’t be updated on all the hi-jinx at home!
Elizabeth,
The problem with my “disorder,” and you touched on it a bit, is that I’d have to re-clean after him anyway. My husband does do a lot of cleaning around the house too, but for the germy messes, I gotta just do it myself. There have been times where I’ve come home after a kid has pooped or puked somewhere, and although it;s been cleaned, I’ve gotta do it again to make sure it’s really clean. It’s sick and I know it. There’s probably a pill for it too, but oh well!
And a spa vacation sounds nice…maybe in the next 18 years I’ll be able to do it!
Hope you have a nice quiet week too!!
Susan
Wow. That one has left me speechless…lol. I seriously have no words. No one should have to endure cleaning that amout of poopiness. Feeling your pain…
Sadly, that wasn’t the worst poop mess ever, Amie. Hopefully, it will be the last…a Mom can dream, right?
Seriously?! I need more information! LOL
lol…without creating another post (I tend to never be brief in speech or writings)….the year was 2009, the epidemic was Swine Flu…both boys and my husband were sick. My daughter was 3 months old and I was nursing her at the time…both boys had two-three days of fevers 104-105, vomiting and the cha-cha’s too. So as I’d finish up scrubbing an explosive diaper from Jake, getting poop off of rugs, sheets, and his beloved blanket, Joe would be throwing up on his floor (or in and around a trash can if I was lucky)…it got so bad I just laid sheets and blankets on their bedroom floors so I could hopefully keep from scrubbing the carpet. I would then go scrub my hands and arms up to my sleeves and then change my shirt before picking up the baby. This went on for NINE days. The baby and I never did get sick which seems like a miracle considering how many times I was coughed/puked/pooped on in that period. Hopefully, that will remain the worst of the worst for me!
NINE days?! You truly ARE superwoman. That sounds like a terrible scene from a black and white movie! I can hear the music now…
It.was.awful. My parents, who were scheduled to go on a vacation to Florida (we live in Delaware), were kind enough to drive down daily and pick up more Motrin, Tylenol, food, drinks, etc. My kids were still sick Halloween so we arranged for family and friends to pass out candy to them a couple weeks later. They were all confused when Thanksgiving was a week later…lol
I hope to never ever go through that again…it was bad enough having a sick 2 and 4 year old with the fevers that high and horrible coughs, but I was so scared the baby would get it too….I felt like I needed a vacation after that…I think it took me a month to “recover” and I wasn’t even sick!
Oh.my.word. That was chilling. Utterly chilling.
I fear that my neck of the woods may be next for such horrors. A girl would never do such a thing…I have two boys.
Scary cause it’s true. And I hope you’re not next…with my luck, it’ll be me again.
Ok so I read this post and later that day my two year old son had a blow out that resulted in poop on my KITCHEN TABLE!!! Then the next day he did it again sitting inside his toybox which got poop all over the toys. I am also a germaphobe and think after this weekend I just might buy stock in Purell and Clorox!
Kimberly,
Poop on the kitchen table would make me cry. Literally. I think I’d have to use my antibacterial kitchen spray, clorox and some bleach water too. Or maybe go and get a new table. And the toy box is a real bummer too. I’ve thrown toys out for less! Although my new washer has a “sanitary” cycle which is like a dream come true….I hope, for your sake, bad things (like shit-astophes) do not come in threes! Get that baby a bunch of bananas! Seriously, hope he feels better (and you’re done cleaning this stuff up)!
Susan
That was crazy. I was laughing and at the same time disgusted in the part were poop is everywhere. My younger son had this instance that he played with his poop while I was doing my laundry! It’s absolutely a nightmare for any mom.
I love reading about your blog and it is the very first time that I commented in here. Great story!
Thanks for the comment, Mavis! Playing in poop is an awful, awful, awful experience I think we all suffer through at least once. The bad thing about that is they are squishing and squashing it everywhere…it also usually involves walls or bedding too. Ugh!
Hopefully, that was the first and last time you’ll have to deal with that….my daughter, now nearly 15 months old, has never done it, but I’m afraid it’s coming. She started saying “poop” and grabbing her diaper when she needs changed.
Thanks again for the comment and for reading!
Yeah, I really hope it would be the last time I’d be doing that kind of nightmare. It really is a distress to clean poop. It is harder because my husband doesn’t care to help me with cleaning. He just sits there and play with my boys. Oh my!
i’m a little afraid to begin toilet training after this story.. glad my bub is still in nappies!!!
Toilet training is like a marathon anyway…the only thing getting me through it was the thought of no more diapers/wipes/etc. I’m hoping my daughter will be easier than my two boys…I hear girls are easier, but who knows. I hope yours is a smooth transition from nappies to potty with no shitty nightmarish stories! And don’t be too afraid (my kids are kinda bad
Thanks for the comment!
Susan
If there is truly Karmic just in this world, my oldest son is in for a shit-storm! I went through a 3 month period…yes THREE WHOLE MONTHS…where he would get up every morning, quietly undo his diaper and FINGERPAINT! Didn’t matter how early I got up, he always beat me to it. I would have to first bathe him (and try not to think about any “stains” near his mouth *gag!*) then scrub down his crib, wall, floor, wash sheets & (thank God!) double mattress protectors. His crib had little fancy designs that had to be cleaned out with Q-tips and tooth picks. I threw away a lot of onsies and pajamas….some things aren’t worth saving! OMGeez! I’m giving myself flashbacks and that was 20 years ago!
Thanks for your comment, Mary. It’s good for other mothers to see that even through the most trying times (like 3 months-OMG!) that you can make it out with your sanity…and I agree, your son will be in for some real trouble (a literal shit-storm) if karma is real…and according to my own mother, karma is real and I’m in it too. Apparently I once did the same thing…and blamed the mess on the dog….the stuffed one in my crib.
Never claimed the sanity was intact! lol My mother put “the mother’s curse” on me too, but I’m pretty sure I got the children who were meant for my brother.
)
LOL …I knew a few people who had that happen as well!