Every day Archer and I take a shower together. It's one of my favorite times of the day. We read bath books and I sing terribly loud while building us hair mohawks out of shampoo suds. And sometimes, when it's late, Archer falls asleep on my chest as the hot water rains down upon us and we sit there until we become shriveled prunes.
Obviously, as a mother of an almost-two-at-the-end-of-May-year-old, I have been pooped and peed on my share of times. And obviously as a mother-of-two-five-year-old-dogs-that-I've-had-since-they-were-puppies, I've picked up my share of poop. In fact, I can guarantee that I've picked up literally thousands of poops. THOUSANDS. (Holy shit!)
...But l'm pretty sure that last week was the first time I have ever been handed a piece of poop as a present.
First came the bath book. Archer picked it up and handed it to me.
"Thank you!" I said, trying to wash my hair with one hand, squirting shampoo on the inside of my forearm and then rubbing it on the side of my head.
Archer then handed me one of three rubber duckies, which I held under my arm as I tried to lather the suds.
"Thank you. Thank you. And thank you, again!"
Then, Archer handed me a piece of poop.
I guess I hadn't noticed him squatting. I was too busy trying to hold four rubber duckies/wash my hair/shave my pits. (Silly, silly me.)
I held the poop for several seconds trying to figure out what the hell I was supposed to do with it. Archer was gazing up at me smiling.
"Um... thank you?"
Finally, after way too much deliberation (the thing was starting to melt) I hopped the bathtub barrier and slid toward the toilet where I dropped and flushed the most disgusting turd in the history of turds Archer's thoughtful present.
This made Archer sad. After all, when he hands me leaves at the park, I am expected to hold them. And I guess I was expected to hold his poop along with the rubber duckies and the bath book and my shampoo bottle. Because it was a gift.
Archer started to cry.
"There, there. It's okay," I said, hosing us both off with Clorox, "It's just that poop is a present you give the potty. And mommy does not accept such
gifts. So how about you stick to leaves and flowers and rubber duckies and bath books, ok?"
Archer stopped crying and handed me one of his rubber duckies, which was more like it. In fact, it was almost thrilling collecting rubber duckies in my lap for twenty-minutes after the poop thing.
I do believe it is a mother's duty to be "keeper of the crap" but it's not always awesome. Especially when the duty IS the crap. That just plain sucks, man.
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