Mother of the Year

It's not often I congratulate myself on my mom skills. Most of the time I'm thinking about how to improve on them. However, some occasions bring out the best in me.

Qualifying for the Mom of the Year award is a stringent, yet simple process--the mother must demonstrate calmness, compassion and creativity in the even of a crisis. I hesitate to tell this crazy story, but I promise you, the following events are true. In the words of Mr. Adrian Monk, "Here's what happened."

We had just finished up a wonderful day with some play time and picnic at Pioneer's Park. It started to sprinkle a bit, so we packed up the food and headed to the van, at which time I noticed that Lil' J had sat in a big plop of bird poop. This was to be the first omen of events to come.

Oblivious to the cosmic sign, I whipped out the extra outfit I had brought for him. I am required to do this because although he has technically been potty trained since age two and is now almost four, Lil' J still gets overly busy and will forget to tell me when he has to go potty. On an all day outing, I typically change his underwear, if not his pants, at least once. This day, however, had been different. This day he hadn't had as much as a drip in his undies. Such a great day for both of us.

So I changed him out of the bird poop clothes and we headed to our last destination before leaving. Parking at the duck pond, we started on the hike over to the columns, a good five minute walk from the parking lot.

Upon arriving at the columns, Lil' J told me, "MOMMY, I HAVE TO POOP REAL BAD!"
"Can you hold it?" I asked.
"MOMMY, I CAN'T HOLD IT MUCH LONGER," he replied.
The only thing in sight was a trash can. I had nothing with me to help with the poop crisis.
"MOMMY, I POOPED IN MY PANTS."
Now what should I do?
"It's okay sweetie, come here by the trash can and we'll just throw them away."

Thank goodness we were the only ones over there.

I proceeded to pull down his shorts, thinking I could just throw the undies away and clean him up at the van, except that this wasn't regular poop. This was the runniest stuff I had ever seen. As I tried to extricate the underwear, a big plop landed on my shoe. Another big plop landed on the ground. The rest ran down Lil' J's legs.

As this was happening, a couple came by walking their very investigative wiener dog along the path right by the trash can. By now Mr. J and J the Great had come over to see what was going on. So we all four stood there, hiding Lil' J by the trash can, as I desperately hoped the dog didn't try to sniff the poop plops. No one tried to pet the curious dog. The dog owners looked at us funny, like, "what kind of people don't want to pet our cute wiener dog?" They passed by. I breathed a sigh of relief.

I finished taking off the underwear and threw them in the barrel. I took the shorts and cleaned Lil' J the best I could, which was not too much because the shorts were already a mess and they were the shiny sports kind which don't exactly wipe well.

There was a small pond nearby and I was tempted to wash out the shorts in the pond water and wipe Lil' J down. What was worse? Putting poop in the pond water? Putting the nasty looking pond water on Lil' J's skin? I thought better of both options and decided to olden-days it by using some long grass to scrub off the rest of the nastiness on his legs. It actually worked rather well.

We needed to get back to the van, where paper towels and water waited, but Justus was without shorts and his shirt wasn't long enough to cover his privates on the way back. I wasn't going to hold him either.

Thinking quickly, I told J the Great to take off his shirt so Lil' J could wear it. This worked. Before we headed back, Lil' J said, "Mommy, did you throw my shorts away?"
"Yes, I had to, sweetie," I said.
"Mommy, those were my favorite shorts," he said.

Being the Mom of the Year that I am, I fished the poopy shorts out of the trash barrel (thank goodness it was mostly empty), gingerly wadded them up the best I could and thought to myself, "I must be crazy!"

I'm sure we were a sight: one kid with a long shirt and no shorts, one kid with shorts and no shirt. Me, bringing up the rear with a wadded up pair of shorts held by my fingertips. They were all running as fast as they could, giggling and laughing. At least they all had shoes on. I prayed that Lil' J didn't fall and expose himself to the people around the duck pond.

We made it to the van and I finished cleaning Lil' J with the water and paper towels I strategically keep on hand. I put the poopy shorts in a plastic sack, something else I always carry. I put his other shorts back on him with no shirt--both had poop on them. I let them play a little more by the duck pond, until it started to rain harder.

Motherhood is some kind of wonder. It stretches you to the limit, pushing you to the brink of breakdown, yet at the same time molding you into this person of incredible strength, love, compassion, and genius.

I feel like there should be some sort of universal victory cry for moms. Then whenever we hear a mom doing this, we can smile and know she has just conquered another potential catastrophe with the grace and wisdom only a mom can possess!