Poop. And now I'm done talking about it.

Perhaps you have noticed from my last few posts that my life has been dictated by poop lately.
I have typed the word 'poop' more in the last few weeks than in the rest of my life.
Poop makes me happy when its in the potty. Poop makes me sad when its not.
I contemplate human poop while cleaning up dog poop.
I just cleaned out an aquarium full of fish poop, stopping half way through to help S poop on the potty (yay!)

Poop, poop, poop.
Poop happens.

The cat poops too- but due to a grandfather clause that I am not going to mention out loud, J takes care of her poop. She's my 'get out of jail free card' of poop.

My mother used to joke that she was an engineer of poop, as she could tell which poop belonged to which of our 5 dogs (and this wasn't even the time when one of our dogs ate fluorescent green playdough and then pooped fluorescent green poops all over the yard) Once one of our dogs- the same one that ate/expelled the green playdough, ate and passed my mothers boyfriends sock. Which was laundered and returned to him, he none the wiser.

I am contemplating more poop in my life- of the chicken variety. I had chickens growing up, and always knew I'd have them again- something has snapped in my head recently (ok, a few somethings) and I am tired of waiting. Its chicken time. I am making myself wait a bit to be sure the time is now- I am already overwhelmed on a daily basis and am always scrambling around like a chicken with its head... never mind. Chicken post to follow.

The potty and what goes on in there

S is working on getting out of diapers. She is doing very well at peeing in the potty. After a string of accidents, her solution to pooping is apparently not to. We are on day three of no moving bowels.

This is making me very anxious. In an 'expect it when you least expect it' kind of way. I'm afraid to leave the house. I am also concerned for S's well being. It doesn't seem to be bothering her at all, but really, how long can one be backed up? Last night I touched her belly (which is looking larger than usual) and I said "That poop needs to come out!" Well, what, was I born yesterday? This alarmed S a great deal. "There's POOP in my belly?!" No.. no, just food in your belly, I assured her. "What else?" She asked, about 10 times. Not the time to bring up what happens to the food we eat.

H is no help with announcements like "All that we eat turns to poop." I've asked her to keep these observations to herself until S has mastered the potty. With my luck, and how S is wired, she'd stop eating, too.

I didn't think to ask H to not talk about germs, however, and this is becoming an issue. At a restroom in a restaurant with their father a few days ago, H apparently went on (and on) about not touching anything that there were germs everywhere. Now,this is true, and there are plenty a public restroom that gives me the heebie jeebies- but when you got to go, you got to go, especially when you are just learning how to go. J put the exclamation on the germ observation by using one of those paper toilet covers. After that day, at a restroom at a playground (which was quite clean) S looked at the toilet as if it had ants crawling all over it, and refused to sit on it. "Where the paper thing?" she asked.

I am quite possibly the only mother in the universe who tells her kid in a public restroom, with a shrug of the shoulders, "Eh? Germs? There are no germs here." Then, because I can't stand to lie so blatantly, contradict myself with "That's why we wash hands."

The lying continues at home, S says while sitting on the potty,
"no germs at home."
"Nope", I say. "No germs at home."
"Where did they go?"
"Home."
"Where?
I resist saying "GERMany". No need to alienate an entire country in her mind for the purpose of my amusement. Instead I say "Germ-land"

S isn't convinced. But she deals. She is on the potty wearing her kitty costume.
"Hold my tail" she says. "don't want any germs on it"

Writing in the bathroom while the girls are in the tub.
Because...

A beautiful spring day, outside in the garden. I'm doing some weeding, the girls are re-hiding the easter eggs- which come to think of it are still outside. I turn the hose on- briefly, I'm hoping- to spritz the pea seedlings and some violas that I won't plant today. H wants the hose. To water her garden, she says. I know better, but give her the hose, set on mist and say just don't get me wet.

S and H are misting each other until S decides to turn the nozzle to jet, and then they're soaked. They are laughing, its warm, so I don't care. I turn the nozzle back to mist and continue weeding.

They are soaking the flowers, the brick, each other. I hear S calling H a poop hat, and am pondering that comment in my weeding zen. I hear S singing a song, "watering the poop, watering the poop" H says "Don't water the dog poop!" I, still in weed zen, think, how odd, I must have missed some dog poop. "Is that poop? Don't water it" I call out. Making a mental note of that sentence being one of the many I never thought would come out of my mouth.

The hose fun is winding down, H has fallen, turns aren't being taken or given- whining is escalating- I turn the hose off. Major crying. We go inside, I begin pealing their wet clothes off.

I remember S isn't wearing a diaper. She had been doing great since she refused to put one back on after lunch. We were at a restaurant with my mom, I didn't have a pair of underwear for her in my bag- so she was going comando.

After I get S's pants off, notice the poop trail down her leg-
"was that your poop you were watering in the yard?"
"Yes" she says.
"You're not a dog!" Says H
"No! I'm a hoppin bunny! S says, majorly irriated.
"Oh. Well hopin bunnies poop in the yard too" H, the ever logical says.

I took S back out side and hosed her off.

Dressed up

S in her Easter dress with her kitty tail. The tail was part of S's Halloween costume, and has become an appendage.

H in her Easter dress in my grandmothers apple tree.

I spent a lot of time in this tree when I was little. I used to think I was so high up.

Dying and finding

The colors make me happy.

S taking it all in

As soon as the eggs are decorated, H and S want to eat them all. Its become a tradition that they each eat an egg before the dye is even dry. I remember the easter eggs of my youth, my mother complaining that no one would eat any of the eggs.

Then again, my mother bought at least 3 dozen eggs to dye each year, and that is too many hard boiled eggs to be eaten by anyone. Then there were the number of years where the egg quality was questionable. (This surely to be denied by by mother.) For example the Easter morning when I dropped an egg and it broke on the floor in front of me revealing its uncooked status, my mom exclaiming something to the effect of maybe she should have let them cook a little longer.

Action shot

The Easter bunny brought the girls cute fluffy bunnies in their baskets. The Easter bunny was thrilled to find two bunnies just different enough to be told apart, but similar enough to be equal. This turned out to be not a problem at all as one of the bunnies has morphed into a cat.

S pins the ears on hers down with her hand and introduces her bunny as a kitty. When she asks "where my kitty!?" we help her find her bunny. This seems to be the way it goes with her- before we know it she'll have everything renamed and we'll be left confused and wondering how this happened.

Pruning

S loves to cut. She'll sit for a long time with her scissors and some paper and happily make confetti. I've learned that she can cut tiny pieces of paper without cutting her fingers and so far she has kept her cutting to the paper she's allowed to cut. Better still is that with her neat freak gene I can give her a bowl when she's done cutting and she'll pick up all the pieces of confetti and put them in the bowl for easy recycling.

I have been using this love of cutting to my advantage- but until recently only for the time it provided me to do something else while S was busy cutting.

I was outside trying to clean up the garden, S was resisting and no amount of digging, bubbles or the usual outside antics were working. But THEN, I went in and got her scissors and we both spent some time getting the garden ready for spring planting.

The possibilities are endless.