The other night Eli went downstairs to play in the toy room. About ninety seconds later he came back upstairs and walked over to Dave holding his hands out in a distorted, uncomfortable-looking position,
“Daddy, I have something on my hands.”
As Dave grabbed Eli’s arms, knowing full-well that he had better check Eli’s hands first before touching them, he said,
“Let me see.”
“Look, Daddy.” Eli continued as he opened his clenched hands, “It is poop.”
“What?” Dave asked?
“I have poop on my hands!” Eli proudly responded.
“How did you get poop on your hands, Eli?”
As Eli reached his hand back into the backside of his Pull-up, he said,
“I am big poopy.”
Overhearing their exchange and realizing that Dave might need some back-up, I walked over to Eli.
“Mommy, I am big poopy.”
“Eli, your hands?”
“They are big poopy.”
“Dave, we need to clean him up and then give him a bath.”
“Beth, I’ll help you get started and then why don’t you put him in the tub while I go to the basement on poop patrol.”
We took Eli into the bathroom, grabbed a box of wet wipes and some kind of antibacterial something-something and began decontamination procedures. Once done, Dave took the biohazards out of the bathroom. At that, I Eli washed his hands one more time. And once Eli was sufficiently decontaminated, I put him in the tub. Dave came back for a quick second to report that everything in the basement was good and that he did not find a trace of poop aside from what we found on Eli. Dave left. While Eli was sitting there, pouring water in and dumping it out of his bath toy Gladware container), he paused, looked up at me and said,
“Mommy, I wiped poop on the wall in the toy room.”
“You did?” (I said and then imagined the worse possible scenario: poop smeared all over the walls of our basement.
“Yes, I wiped poop on the wall in the toy room.”
“That probably wasn’t such a good idea Eli.” Because, my imagination was winning, I counted to ten three times, took a deep breath, got Eli out of the tub and into his pajamas.
Then I went to check out the toy room. While I was making my way to the toy room, Kyle wanted something to do, “RIGHT NOW,” so I suggested he put together his new Fish puzzle.
“But I don’t know where it is. Mom. I can’t do it because I don’t know where it is.” Kyle pleaded.
Because you and I both know that I had a more pressing issue to deal with, I screamed for Dave to find the fish puzzle and sent Kyle to make sure that Dave would really stop what he was doing and help him find the fish puzzle.
As I opened the door to the toy room and turned on the light, plain as day, just to the left of the train set, the wall was covered with Eli’s poopy-finger-paint masterpiece. As you can see below, (Viewer Discretion is advised, by the way. **Need to locate picture from archives), there was not just a little drop of poop, but the wall was covered with Eli’s Art Poop Masterpiece.
Between gasping for air and counting to ten one more time, I yelled,
“Dave. YOU HAVE TO COME DOWN HERE NOW! AND BRING THE CAMERA!”“Do you want me to help Kyle find the fish puzzle or do you want me to come down there?”
“Oh, this definitely trumps the fish puzzle.” I said.
As Dave walked into the toy room, camera in hand, I casually asked him,
“Oh, so, you didn’t find any poop down here?”
“No. I walked the entire basement and I couldn’t find a thing,” he said.
While turning toward the POOP WALL, I looked back at him again, and said, “Really?”
“Hey, this wasn’t here before. How did Eli do that?”
“I guess he jumped out of the tub while I was not looking, pooped again, ran downstairs, painted the wall, ran back upstairs, and got back in the tub before I noticed he was gone.”
“Wow!” Dave exclaimed as he started taking pictures.
In unison, I think we both yelled,
“HEY ELI. COME HERE NOW PLEASE.”
As fast as he could, Eli ran happily into the toy room.
“What is it Mom?”
“You really did this?”
“Yes I did,” he proudly exclaimed.
“Eli, never ever ever ever do this again. We don’t wipe poop on the wall, ok?”
Eli, quickly and very earnestly responded,
“I wouldn’t. Mom. I wouldn’t.”
