As a parent, there are many things you swear you'll never say to your kids. My mom and dad whipped out a lot of good ones in my childhood, and I promised myself that I wasn't going to use the traditional "parent lingo" no matter what my kids did (um, yeah right). However, we have all found ourselves in situations where the words escape us and we can still see them hanging in the air above our heads in a conversation bubble as we silently scold ourselves for falling into this verbal parental trap. Many of these classics that slip out of our mouths from time to time include "Don't MAKE me come back there," or "If you keep screwing your face up it'll stay that way" or the ever-famous "Just wait until your father comes home!" But you wanna know what you never expect to come from your lips?
"Who in the heck POOPED ON THE RUG???" Yeah, when I was younger (and apparently naive), this was not a sentence I envisioned yelling at the top of my lungs. You wanna know what else I never envisioned when I was childless (and happy, I mean, sane)? That I would find this poopy rug by STEPPING in it with my bare feet. When I felt the squish under my toes, followed by the brown smear that appeared on my foot, I found myself whispering "Please be chocolate, please be chocolate...." But since I was in the bathroom, and the rug was directly next to the toilet, AND the toilet had poo poo floaties still in it (remnants of a poor flush), I was pretty certain that it wasn't chocolate. Yet, in true motherhood fashion, I had to be sure. I slowly removed my piggies from the slop and bent my face closer to the rug. Somewhere around the halfway point, my fears were aromatically confirmed. Indeed, someone had pooped on my rug. (I puked into the toilet, poo poo floaties splashing up the sides of the bowl.) And someone was going to die.
I called both children into the house and set them down in the living room. It was trial time.
Me: "Children, who went poop in the downstairs bathroom?"
In unison: "Not me, nah uh, no way, I didn't do it!"
(Oh, the lies we tell.....)
Me: "One more time, who pooped in the downstairs bathroom?"
Cameron (my 8-year-old): "Well, I pooped in the toilet...."
(Bingo.)
Me: "Cameron, it's interesting that you would have to qualify that you pooped in the toilet, since that's where most normal people poop when they "go to the bathroom". So tell me, Cameron, why the heck did you poop on my rug???"
Cameron: "I didn't poop on the rug, I swear!"
Me: "Lie number 2. Cameron, would you like to lick my foot? Because I stepped on the rug that you "didn't poop on" with this foot (pointing dramatically at my right foot for effect) and I would be happy to let you take a taste, since my foot is obviously clean and NOT contaminated by your crap!"
(I was desperately hoping he would make the smart choice and NOT lick my foot.... that would've freaked me out even more than stepping in someone else's feces.)
Cameron: "But I didn't know that I pooped on the rug....."
(Tears. Nice trick, kid, but you gotta do better than that.)
Me: "Oh, you didn't know that you pooped on HALF OF MY RUG? Then please, tell me, son, WHY is the poop smeared into the fabric and chunks of rolled toilet paper are all over the huge stain? 'Cause it kinda looks to me like someone pooped on my rug, tried to clean it up, did a pretty "crappy" job of it, and then just left if for someone else to step in and clean up for them!"
Cameron: "Well, um, well, uh...."
Me: "WHY IS THERE POOP ON MY RUG?!?!?!"
Cameron: "BECAUSE I pulled my pants down and got a drop on the rug! (Sob) I didn't know!! (Sob)"
(A drop? Seriously? It looked like a mud-made snowman had melted all over the floor.)
Me: "Cameron, for crying out loud, this was MORE than a drop. You know it, and I know it. You, for whatever reason, got a large amount of poop on the rug and then tried to clean it up with toilet paper. Then, because you wanted to ride your bike so badly, you left the mess for someone else to clean later, which is pure laziness. And what's worse? You lied about it the entire way instead of just telling someone you had an accident and asking for help. And you wanna know who had to pay for your laziness? MY FOOT. Clean the rug.... NOW."
(More sobs....)
Cameron: "I'm...(sob)...sorry...(sob)...for lying...(sob)...and for pooping...(hiccup)...on your foot...(sob)"
(This same child decided to eat snack without washing his hands after he scrubbed the soiled rug clean. I'm really very concerned about the likelihood that he is going to die an untimely death from some sort of bacterial disease.)
And now, having found myself yelling out a phrase requesting my children's help solving the poopy rug mystery, I will grant myself just a little bit of leniency when I slip up and tell my kids that they will have children just like them someday, or that the dentist knows exactly how many times they "accidentally" forget to brush their teeth since the last visit. Because, honestly, once you've yelled about poop on a rug, it gets a lot easier to forgive the everyday "parent lingo". (But seriously, they see the dentist tomorrow, so no one spill the beans about the dentist thing, ok?)
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