The Edwards Family: January 2009

It all started one dark night, about two months ago, when my husband was out of town on business. I let Bree toddle around naked after her bath. She looked so adorable just learning how to walk, and those cute little baby bottoms are so funny to watch. I must have left the room for a minute, all I remember now is discovering about four little lumps of poop in a line across the floor from the family room to the kitchen. I just laughed and thought, "This must be payback."
There is a funny story that I used to LOVE to have my mom tell me about when I was a baby and someone was changing my diaper (my dad?). Whoever it was left me alone for a minute between taking the old diaper off and putting the new diaper on, and came back to find a trail of poops from the diaper changing spot, right on out the front door, where I was still walking, then squatting, walking, squatting. I thought it was such a funny story, mostly because my mom said she laughed so hard, but my dad was so mad (I think he had to clean it up). I asked to hear the story again and again.
Anyway, I also laughed and cleaned it up without a second thought.
Yet, the story continues. Apparently retribution was not enough. The next day Rhett was helping me wrap some presents and as I was taping, he took a pen and started drawing all over the couch. I sent him to his room for a time-out and started cleaning it up. After a couple minutes I went into his room to get him. I opened the door to find that he had pooped his pants, taken them off and distributed the poop all over his whole room. I have never smelled anything so disgusting in my life. He had it on the walls, on his garbage can, all over his legs and fingers, and had even ran multiple cars into it so it was stuck up in their wheel wells. I was FURIOUS. I put him in the tub, wiped him down with wet wipes and then washcloths, I threw his underwear away as well as half off his cars (any that had poop on them). The other half didn't appear to be contaminated, but were at the scene of the crime so I threw them into the tub with him, took Rhett out and poured clorox in. I dressed him and told him to go into Bree's room, because I could hear her waking up from her nap, probably due to my barely controlled, not too gentle, very continous scoldings. Luckily, we have a Kirby vacuum shampooer thing, but I had never used it so I was reading it and trying to figure it out, however Rhett and Bree kept bugging me and trying to go in the room, so I told them they had to stay in Bree's room. After awhile I figured it out and after manually carrying the poop out, I shampooed the carpets. (I was supposed to go to a baptism of one of our new young woman at 5 in Sugar City, this happened a little after 4, I also need to take some mashed potatoes that I had made to the ward Christmas party at 6, and Heath was driving home from Utah and was supposed to be home around 7 - when the party started). By the time I was done shampooing, it was 5, I wasn't dressed for a baptism and neither were my kids, so I missed that. I felt awful AND the room still stunk. I went into Bree's room and discovered....the kids had taken a new roll of toilet paper out of the bathroom and tore the whole thing up into teeny pieces. I went ballistic. I went and got, yet another plastic bag to throw the toilet paper away and was yelling about whatever, and throwing the toilet paper away, and then I decided it wasn't worth it and I sat down and cried. Now before any judment happens here, remember that not only had this been a very trying day, Heath had been gone for 5 days and being alone with two kids 24 hours a day is hard, even on a good day. I was at the end of my rope. Poor, sweet, naughty Rhett came and sat down by me and put his arms around me and comforted me. That just made me cry harder. Then he started picking up all the toilet paper without me even asking. He threw it all away as I calmed down. That is the only thing that saved us all.
You would think that the price had been paid, huh? My dad's revenge exacted? Not to be....
The next day Rhett woke up with a poopy diaper. I was so exhausted and sick of poop, I laid in bed a told him I would change him in a minute. We heard Bree talking in her room, and as usual Rhett ran in there to be the first to greet her. They sounded like they were having fun so I laid in bed awhile longer. Heath was already at work. I don't remember if I decided to take a quick shower, I think I did, or if I just went into the bathroom for a little while before going to get Bree and change Rhett, but when I went into Bree's room, Rhett's poopy diaper was sitting there with poop spread out around it and then poop wiped all over Bree's crib. Rhett was also in Bree's crib, hands cover in poop. I could not believe it. I walked out of the room, called Heath, and told him he needed to come home before I murdered his child. (I REALLY never would of!! But I REALLY didn't want to clean up more poop) Poor, wonderful Heath did come right home, maybe a part of him believed me... and he helped me clean up the poop, wash bedsheets and kids and everything else. He left while I got to shampooing Bree's carpet. The kids wisely stayed out of my way and I was impressed, until I actually turned around and saw what Rhett was doing. We left the salt and pepper shakers on the table from the night before and Rhett had climbed up and dumped them out all over the table, under the table, on various things in the family room, such as the computer, camera, couch, speakers and toys. I could not and still to this day do not understand why he was torturing me so. Maybe it was a test, if so, I probably did not do well on it. But I probably at least passed, for I did not beat my child. I did discover that I had been shampooing the carpets not exactly right and figured it out at last and vacuumed and shampooed all the carpets in the house. Rhett's room finally smelled better. The end?
Think again. The next day, I noticed that Rhett had been in the living room a little too long. I ran in there and discovered his pants off and a poopy diaper laying on the floor. I heard him in the bathroom and went in there to find poopy toilet paper stuck to the toilet. Later Heath said, "At least he was trying to clean it up." Doesn't help. But at least it wasn't that much to clean. I shampooed the front carpet again anyway.
I know, your thinking, okay its got to be over now. This is the poopest post ever. I thought it was over too. There were little things, like I would find a little bit of poop on Rhett's wall that I had missed and I would wipe it off, but for the most part I thought that I had paid back my penance to my dad for my own poopy mishaps.
Then last week I again took the kids out of the bath. I put a onesie on Bree so she didn't get cold and then she took off. She loves running away from me as I try to dress her, so I throw her onesies on first because I don't like seeing her shiver. Then I turned to Rhett and dressed him completely. He gets colder faster because he has no body fat. Then I told him to grab Bree for me. He loves carrying her over to me. He picked her up laughing, but then he threw her down half on the floor and half on our bean bag. I scolded him for throwing her down and he said, "But Bree's poopy." In the middle of telling him "no, she's not" I noticed a big pile of poop next to the walker she was trying to climb into. Great, I checked her onesie and it had just a little trace of poop on it (I hadn't done it up), I wiped it off and put her diaper on. I wiped Rhett's hand off, because someone he had gotten poop all over it and then I told him to go wash it in the bathroom. I once again got out the plastic bag and deposited poop in it (wasn't this the reason I never wanted a dog). Rhett came back, but I had never heard him wash, so I sent him back to wash his hand. I quickly cleaned up the pile of poop and was congratulating myself on staying so calm, when Rhett came out of the bathroom again. A little exasperated I told him to go wash his hands, this time he said, "MOM, Bree's poop is on my foot!" I looked down and saw, that sure enough his foot was covered in poop. I took him into the bathroom and made another grand discovery. Rhett had tried to wipe the poop off with a comb, a bath toy, and a little head scubber I had for Bree. Poop was deeply embedded in all of these, not to mention on the rug, the toilet and the stool. Also quite ironically I had just cleaned that bathroom that morning. I have to admit I lost my calm in that moment, wondering quite loud to myself WHY he didn't just TELL me he had poop on his foot. I cleaned it up and then noticed the trail of poopy prints all over the kitchen floor. After I cleaned that up and scoured the family room floor to see if there was anything I missed. There was. Finally done and tired I leaned back and put my arm down behind me to support me, and stuck my hand into poop.
The End
I hope.