Toilet terrors

I fear I may be getting a reputation in the blogging world.

I was chatting to the lovely Kirsty over at Imperfect Pages; and she confessed she had recently had a poo incident and offered for me to publish it over here on my blog.  Kirsty has a lovely blog, way more philisophical and ethical than I could ever dream mine to be; and I agree her latest post would probably feel more at home on my blog.  So please grab a tissue to wipe away snorts of laughter and leave words of comfort for Kirsty at the bottom. 

When you have finished pop pver to read more of Kirsty’s non poo related work here

Lately these days I’m blogging a lot about the little things in life. I write a mini-blog of three beautiful things each day, and summarise the best bits in a weekly post on my main blog. It might seem to readers that my life is a constant stream of joy and happiness; that my children are angels who spend all their time cuddling each other or engaging in wholesome craft and educational activities; that every meal I cook is delicious and that there are gorgeous photo opportunities round every corner. But of course, that’s just one side of it; the side I choose to write about every day because otherwise, I’d probably get a bit depressed. Like everyone, there is a LOT of my life with children that is stressful, chaotic and frankly, downright disgusting. Like what happened to me today…

 The day started for me like most others: wishing I could spend longer in bed. Like most co-sleepers, my nights are filled with half-wakings, switching baby from one boob to the other in a sleepy daze. I don’t ‘get up in the night’, but I don’t get a good night’s sleep either. Husband went off to work as per usual, and I left the toddler downstairs in the company of Big Cook and Little Cook while I nipped upstairs for a shower. Baby comes with me, and potters around the bathroom and upstairs while I try to pretend that I’m totally alone for five minutes.

 As I climbed out of the shower, I spotted that the baby had been chucking things down the toilet. So far, so normal. Rooting through the little recycling bin by the loo and selecting empty deodorant cans and shampoo bottles to chuck into the bowl is one of his favourite pastimes. Today he’d managed to take a bottle of perfume out of my washbag on the floor and fling that down there too (ok, so I’ve been back from holiday for a week now; perhaps I could have put it somewhere out of reach a bit sooner).

Before I could start fishing this assorted junk out from its new, watery abode, the air was pierced by a wail. The baby is cutting a couple of teeth at the moment, his eczema has flared up and he’s leaking thick, gloopy snot, which is sprayed everywhere by sneezes at regular intervals. All of this has rendered him more than a little grumpy, and he was insistent that he needed a cuddle. So I picked him up, and straight away he launched himself for the toothbrushes by the basin. A few happy minutes gnawing on his toothbrush (“No, that’s Daddy’s toothbrush, ah-ah, leave that razor alone”). With Baby cheered somewhat, I turned and in one swift movement, plonked him back on the floor and sat down on the loo, without looking behind me.

Of course, you can guess what happened next. I’m not going to lie – I’m human. I have normal bodily functions, just like the rest of you. I sit on the toilet in the morning, I poo. Yup, that’s right, I curled out a huge, steaming turd.

Only when I stood up and turned round to flush did I realise what I’d done. My first instinct was “can I flush it away?” No, you fool, of course you can’t flush a pile of bulky rubbish down the loo, even though there’s a pile of shit on top of it. So, baby whinging in the background, I grabbed an empty carrier bag and gingerly picked each soiled object from the bowl: two empty tins of Right Guard, a used-up tube of face wash, and a free sample of moisturiser, now never to be opened. Carrier bag sealed and in the sink, and straight into the outdoor bin once I’d managed to distract the baby long enough to get my clothes on. The only upside was that the two-year-old had remained downstairs and glued to Cbeebies throughout. I’m sure that these things never used to happen to me before I had kids.

 But what about the perfume? Well, I couldn’t just throw away a hardly-used bottle of Elizabeth Arden, could I?