Poop Hand

It never fails. Every time the little boys actually take naps after lunch and I just sit down to feed the baby, Pirate announces, "I just have to go poop real quick." and runs for the bathroom. He's 4 1/2 but I still wipe his butt. I guess he needs to learn how to do it before kindergarten. I can't imagine teachers wiping butts in elementary school. I sure as hell wouldn't have back in my other life when I was a teacher. It's not that I don't want him to wipe his own butt, it's just that he doesn't get it clean. Then he walks around digging at his butt all day because he has "itchy butthole". (His name for it, not mine.) He also sharts more when he wipes his own butt. So, to make things easier, I just wipe him for now. But he seems to have to poop every time I'm feeding the baby in the afternoon. I'm also usually watching my soap at the same time, so I double don't want to get up to wipe him. Luckily when he says he has to poop real quick, he's right. He's in and out of the bathroom. I just have to pause my show (most importantly!), put the baby down, go wipe his butt, wash both our hands, then pick up where I left off. So, this happened today with Pirate (1).

Shortly after, Trouble came downstairs to tell me that he couldn't take a nap today. I'm thinking he's about to give up naps which will make me cry when the day comes. That 1-2 hours a day when Trouble sleeps is the most peaceful time of my day. Today, I just sent him downstairs to rest on the couch with Pirate. To my surprise, he did rest, just didn't sleep. A little later, when he would normally wake up, I took him to the bathroom to pee and changed him from his Pull Up back into his underwear. He went back to playing and was actually behaving himself. When 5 started crying in his swing, I realized that he had pooped, and because he was in the swing, the poop had squished up his back onto his onesie (2). (Another onesie bites the dust because I don't scrub poop off of clothes) Changing a poopy onesie is a delicate task. You must very carefully stretch the hell out of it to not get poop all over the baby's back and head. This particular poop also required 5 being turned over onto his stomach so that I could wipe the excess poop off of his back. He had already had a bath this morning, and unless it's an extreme emergency, I don't bathe one kid more than once in a day.

When Donkey woke up from his nap, I could smell poop from the hallway (3). I knew it was going to be a good one. But his poops are tricky. Some of the worse smelling ones are the most compact and easy to clean. I was hoping for one of those. I didn't get my wish. This diaper was full front to back with gross, mashed poop. He had poop up the front, all over his balls and dong (as my boys refer to their boy parts... again, not the name I would use for it). I always give Donkey a toy to hold while I change him. It keeps him from squirming around and trying to get off the changing table. So, while I'm holding his legs back with my left hand, I'm wiping his butt with my right hand, all the while holding my breath because the smell could make me barf all over the place. Suddenly, the toy he's holding isn't good enough, and in a split second he throws it on the floor and reaches down and sticks his hand right on his poop covered dong. He now has Poop Hand. I had to maneuver around everything and wipe his hand off, then go back to wiping his butt, and he sticks his hand down there again. More Poop Hand. I don't have enough hands to hold down his hands and hold his legs back, and before I can even react to wipe his hand again, he grabs my hand that's holding his legs. Now we both have Poop Hand. To make it worse, I had to make his hand a priority over my own because I didn't want him touching anything else, or God forbid, putting his hand in his mouth. He didn't, and I was able to clean his hand off, wipe my own hand, and use my arm to hold his legs back and not allow his hand around to his diaper. My husband came in then and we decided Donkey just needed a bath at that point. As soon as my husband took over, I ran to the bathroom to wash and wash and wash my hands. I do not enjoy having Poop Hand.

After we recovered from this incident and Donkey was clean, Princess yelled up the steps, "Trouble pooped in his underwear!" (4). I asked him if he did, and of course he said no. I told him to come up so I could check, and to my delight, he came upstairs and went right over to Daddy so he could check him. My husband said it wasn't a huge mushy one, just a few turds, so he took him upstairs. I told him to hurry up because those turds have a way of falling out of Trouble's underwear and on more than one occasion I have found turds on the floor. While he was changing him, I heard my husband say, "Stop it, Trouble, stay still. Oh, come on... now  I have poop on my hand!". He ended up with Poop Hand too!

Later on, Princess went running up the steps with a book yelling that she had to poop (5). Thankfully she takes care of her own business. We had enough Poop Hand for one day!