The Mommy Badge of Honor

Sometimes I sit back and I think about the life I used to have. You know, before I had kids. I lived in Europe, I traveled around a lot to exotic places, ate exotic things - duck heart, anyone? - had a killer shoe collection, and my toenails were always painted. I would spend the day doing pretty much whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. You know what I do now? I clean up poop. I live in Alabama and I clean up poop. What the hell happened? Huh?? Oh right, I had kids.

Let me tell you about my day. This morning, Jack had a minor explosion and his diaper leaked all over me, since I happened to be holding him. Now, as gross as this may sound to all of you who don't have children, it's really not an uncommon occurrence when you have a baby, especially a breastfed one. So it didn't really phase me that much, other than trying to clean up both him and me at the same time, since I'm the only adult here most of the time. Most people after being pooped on would say something like this - OMG! Gross!! Somebody take this thing (meaning the baby) so I can get this crap (meaning...well...crap) off me!! This is totally disgusting!! Blah..blah..blah.... I don't have that luxury. All I get to do is roll my eyes, and clean it up.

So that was this morning. Then this evening, Aiden is sitting on my lap when he decided to come down with a case of the runs and overload his diaper as well (I swear I had just changed him!!). Now, it's hot in Alabama in the Summer. So I'm wearing shorts. He's sitting on my legs, his diaper leaks, you do the math....

Cleaning up a two-year old is harder than a 3 month old. For one thing, they are bigger. And they can move. And when they are boys, they have no concept of "that's gross", so they just want to run around and try their best to spread it around. So once again, I got to clean up poop. Yay me. While scrubbing off my legs, I caught sight of my pathetically neglected toenails, and it all hit me. What happened to my life? I went from a never-a-hair-out-of-place ex-pat in Europe to scrubbing poop out of a couch! And the best part? I went willingly!! Although I must say that no one ever told me about all of the crappy parts of motherhood, which would include the poop scrubbing. There should be a Mommy Badge of Honor....I guess that's the stretch marks...

Anyway, I'm sorry if I totally grossed all of you out with this story, but just remember that when the crap hits the fan, it could be worse. It could be RUNNING DOWN YOUR LEGS!!!