Tag Archives: poop

Damn farm animals

Posted in gross, humor, parenting, toddlers by

Note: this is NOT a picture of MY kid

Not long ago, I was a stoic and self-possessed person. Not unlike the Terminator, I was all cold and steely to the touch, not able to comprehend basic human emotions. Like, EMPATHY.

Damn hippies with their empathy.

YUCK.

And you know what? I LIKED being a Terminator. It was an easy way to live. I was easy, breezy, beautiful, TERMINATOR. All I had to worry about was myself, and making sure I gave Sallie Mae her pound of flesh tribute once a month (don’t play with Sallie Mae about her student loan money, she will send her goons to your house to take a kneecap as payment for every month she doesn’t get her money. TRUST ME).

But the simplicity of those days are OVER. Because now I’m married with children. I’ve got these people in my life now that I care about (*shudder*). I’ve got this husband guy running around, and he’s all attractive, and funny, and caring and dependable. And he sticks around despite the fact that I drive him mad with my neuroses. So I can’t help but to be IN LOVE with him. Jeez. And now there’s this other person running around my apartment, this toddler guy I gave birth to. And HE’S all adorable and shares my DNA, so I am programmed by mother-nature to care about his safety and well being. Yikes. And now, ever so slowly, the thick coating of ice that used to encase my heart has melted away and left a quivering, open wound of a heart in its place. And I. DON’T. LIKE IT.

So, when I was offered the chance to take some pics of Brandon being swarmed by diseased farm animals at a petting zoo, I was like YO, SIGN ME UP. Because I’m a SUCKER for that cutesy stuff now. Yeah, I said “diseased” farm animals, so before you whip out your trusty pitchfork, let me explain.

Hindsight is 20-20, as they say. I am a novice parent, and sometimes (maybe, most of the time) the obvious does not occur to me. Like the fact that farm animals are filthy, transient, scavengers whom have dookie perpetually pouring out of their exposed buttholes. And those shit encrusted buttholes are at exact eye-level with with a one-year-old. So, this begs the question: At any point, was Brandon overcome by the urge to plug a curious finger into a goat’s shitty butthole and then immediately touch his own face?

Probably.

Sadly, I can’t say for sure because I had to take my hawk-eye off of him for a few seconds now and then. Like when I was rudely side-swiped by an unaware llama who didn’t appreciate the notion of PERSONAL SPACE. The only thing I DO know for sure was the horrible aftermath of the petting zoo debacle, when my kid was sweltering with a 102+ fever ten hours later.

Damn farm animals.

I shook my fist at the sky and cursed our fate at 2am that night, because trying to nurse a sick toddler back to health TOTALLY SUCKS and is fraught with fear, bumbling incompetence, hallucinations (both audible and visual), and pickled with an extreme lack of sleep for both child and parent. It also lasts for DAYS. I rushed him to the doctor once his temperature peaked into the “he could have a seizure” danger-zone above 104 while chanting don’t die don’t die don’t die the whole way there.

Beautiful sleep after a dose of nearly vomit-inducing Tylenol. Note: my trapped arm.

Beautiful sleep after a dose of nearly vomit-inducing Tylenol. Note: my trapped arm.

After she gave him the once-over, the doctor assured me his fever had NOT been triggered by the now infamous petting zoo butthole cage match. You can stop blaming yourself, she said sympathetically. I was like YESSSS! Because up until then I had mentally logged this incident on my growing list of times he narrowly escaped death because of me. Turns out, it was just your run-of-the-mill virus that vanished as mysteriously as it had appeared. He was fine less than 48-hours later.

Damn farm animals.

I still haven’t realized that he’s not the faberge egg I anticipated a baby to be. These kids bounce right back!

the time I called poison control

Posted in Uncategorized by

I have a habit of multitasking throughout the day. Re-tarring the roof while folding the laundry. Vacuuming while breastfeeding with no hands, and the like. Some days it’s putting on my make-up in the bathroom mirror while giving Brandon a bath. It’s something I do fairly often: hurriedly slather on my warpaint for the day while he frolics in the tub 6-inches away from me. Usually, it happens unremarkably and without incident. But not yesterday.

The scene of the crime.

The adorable scene of the crime.

Yesterday, while putting the finishing touches on my eye-liner, Brandon became curiously quiet for a moment. A few seconds (SECONDS) of silence had passed after I noticed a lingering lack of noise. “He’s quiet…… too quiet,” I realized. My reptilian brain screamed “something’s not right” when I looked over my shoulder and beheld…….. abject horror. There Brandon stood, waist deep in water that was once crystal clear, now murky green and floating with turds. Turds in the water. Turds on his skin. Turds on his hands. Hands in his mouth.

I wasn’t sure what to do first. I noted the immediate need to get the turds OUT OF HIS MOUTH, and that seemed simple enough, but it required me to navigate a complex series of obstacles faster than he could swallow. If he hadn’t already.
The look on his face said he was having a great time. His literal shit-eating-grin spoke it in volumes, as forest green strands of poop snaked between his teeth. His smile suggested this was the best bath-time ever, and this would surely be his first memory.

Meanwhile, I’m all like COULD YOU STOP TRYING TO MURDER YOURSELF AT EVERY TURN? At least wait until your father’s shift.

Up until yesterday I wasn’t sure if eating shit was a viable means to kill yourself, so you know, I started panicking. Brandon was pretty amused by my panic. At least ONE of us won’t recall this incident at our therapists office (I don’t actually have a therapist, but it couldn’t hurt at this point).

I figured, at the very least this was a surefire trip to the ER, followed up with questioning from Child Protective Services.

I didn’t know what other tool to use, so I jammed a finger in his maw and tried to fish-hook as much poop out of there as I could. But was that enough to stop the impending e.coli infection? I had no expert to turn to. My mom and my husband were both at work, so no help there. And my fingers were too clammy with sweat and poop to type out “does eating poop kill you?” on my phone’s touch screen. So I told Siri to call Illinois Poison Control. At least THEY could talk me off of that ledge, right?? Well, kinda.

The poison control lady had to cut me off because I felt compelled to share the whole story leading up to the poop eating. I just wanted her to know that I’m not a neglectful parent, so there’s no need to put me on some watch list because my kid ate poop.

“Eating feces is considered non-toxic,” she said.

WORD TO YOUR MOTHER? That can’t be right. Don’t you always hear about swaths of people getting sick because poop got in their bag of triple-washed spinach? “Are you SURE?” I asked, daring to question the experts.

“Are YOU sure it was HIS poop?” she asked.

Of course it was HIS poop. What kind of operation do you think I’m running? “Yes,” I assured her. At the very LEAST I know whose poop my kid is eating. WHAT THE HELL DO I LOOK LIKE?

“Well, that’s a relief,” she said.

Oh. I didn’t think relief was the appropriate emotion to go with here. But go on, poison control lady, I’m listening. “Eating your OWN feces is non-toxic,” she explained. “Just watch him closely for the next four hours and give him some water.”

Just give him some water and THAT’S IT?

………some WATER??

Okay, I can do that.