The Poo Ball

(There are no pictures on this post. You’re welcome.)

Usually, our morning routine takes us right up to walk-out-the-door time, but yesterday, events conspired to put us a little ahead of schedule. So I walked through the house packing bags and picking up and getting myself ready to go, with The Meatball right at my heels – probably waving something around as he toddled, because that’s his new favorite.

The pat pat pat of his fat feet suddenly stopped, though, half-way through the kitchen.

When I turned to look, he was bearing down ever so slightly, red in the face, right eye slightly closed.

“Workin’ on a poo, there, buddy?”

He grunted. Twice. And then he straightened up and kept on like nothing had happened.

I suspended him from his armpits, grabbed a bib as I walked by, reminded him how cool Velcro is, and laid him on the changing table.

He was occupied with the bib Velcro until I started unwrapping his diaper and I swear I saw the revelation flit across his face:

It was time to play in poo. 

He writhed and giggled and reached, and I, with one hand, managed to lock both ankles and then use them to pin his wrists to his own chest. It was as if, for just a split second, he was waiting to be hogtied. I took it.

That front half of the diaper came down and there was a ball of yellow-green seaweed poo, the size of a golfball – slightly oblong. Rather like the runt Cutie in the bottom of the box – the one that you peel and then just eat whole ’cause there’s no sense in tearing apart those tiny wedges.

But it wasn’t a delicious little citrus treat. It was poo.

It was a little poo gift, in a way, ’cause we use cloth diapers and that crap (see what I did there?) would be easy to plop in the toilet. Thank you, Meatball, for your weird sphere of poo. That’s actually very helpful.

My free hand tore wipes from their package like a ninja, and wiped a tiny butt clean, and I was feeling pretty stinking SuperMom when he faked right and yanked left and I started to lose my grip on the ankles.

One hand had already freed itself, but I turned a blind eye since there weren’t any feces left on a butt cheek for him to smear around and get under his impossibly tiny fingernails and transfer to his hair.

Those feet, though, they were still a threat.

He must have smelled my fear through the blanketing stench of his bowel ball, because he started thrashing like a demoniac on the changing mat.

“Don’t you stick your foot in that poo,” I threatened desperately. “The power of Christ compels you! Come outta that boy, poo demon!”

I tried to drop dirty wet-wipes in a safe, contained area so I could move the diaper, and the poo ball, to safety. “Don’t you stick your foot in that poo!” And in a victorious mommy moment, I grabbed the bottom of the diaper just as his left foot broke free and came crashing down. I yanked the stinky treasure away from him, shouting – one more time, all together now – “Don’t you stick your foot in that poo!”

But the cutie-poo held its shape better than I anticipated, so as I yanked, physics and friction (or the lack of it) took over, and my celebratory, “Ah ha!” was cut short by the gentle splat of a poo ball hitting the carpet.

“Noooooo!”

Diapered and pantsed, I set the baby back on his feet, got the poo ball – slightly flatter, but still remarkably shapely – contained, and the carpet dabbed and scrubbed clean. He followed me to the bathroom, ignoring even the toilet paper to make sure he didn’t miss anything.

Lids raised and poo orb deposited, we watched it swirl, and then – just as the grossness was over, the pink-eye prevented, and the fecal matter contained – he leaned in and grabbed the edge of the toilet bowl with both hands.