The Boy is, and always has been, an excellent pooper. It began in his NICU days when he went through 3, count them, 3 incubators because of poopsplosions. Now, to most parents, a poopsplosion means a diaper that catastrophically failed, releasing poop all ver clothes, stroller, car seat, parents, siblings, etc. Which, pardon the pun, is a pretty shitty thing to have happen and can ruin your day.
That is not what I mean by a poopsplosion. What I mean is, a diaper is off because you are changing him, and you go to wipe, and suddenly, poop is flying across the room. Or, when he was in an incubator, it was splattering all over the inside of the incubator. Generally the pooping was proceeded by a popping sound, and then BLAMMO, you’re covered in poop.
When he switched from the NICU to the less-intensive-care ward at our hospital, the nurse from the NICU handling the hand-over told his new nurse, “Watch out for this one, he’s a serious pooper.” The new nurse kind of rolled her eyes as if to say, “I deal with babies, I can handle poop.” Hahahahaha! No. Seriously, he is a pooper. The very next day, the new nurse looked at me and said, “I should have listened to that nurse. He shot poop through the tails of his crib and 4 feet across the floor. I measured it, I couldn’t believe how far it flew.”
Did you think I was exaggerating when I said poop was flying across the room? I was not.
It should surprise no one that he continued his powerful pooping when he came home. Luckily for me, the absolute most awesome poopsplosion of his career happened just after I had gone back to work full time and The Hubs was working from home (his last work day before going on FMLA leave) and watching him. He’d taken The Boy to the changing table–a beautiful one built by my parents’ neighbor, who was a high-end cabinet maker, so it’s now been pooped on by two generations of my family–and had taken off his diaper, and was wiping The Boy’s little bum, when that wonderful pop sound happened.
Now, the changing table was located by the door of The Boy’s bedroom. So, the poop shot off the end of the changing table and splattered all over the door. Mess enough. But what makes this story so awesome is that at that exact moment, our cat, Charlie, happened to be sitting between the door and the changing table.
I can only imagine what it must be like to be a cat, seeing as how I am not of the feline persuasion. But I think if I were a cat, and I was sitting in a nice sunny carpeted spot on the floor, minding my own business, and suddenly SHIT WAS RAINING DOWN ON ME FROM ABOVE, I would probably freak the fuck out and run for my life.
And that is exactly what Charlie did. He ran. And he tried to wipe the poop off himself by rubbing up against door frames and walls as he ran. And then he took cover, which also seems the prudent thing to do when it’s raining poop. And where he took cover was a place where he knew no more poop could fall on him: under our bed.
When The Hubs called to tell me about this poopsplosion of all poopsplosions, I could not stop laughing. The poor guy. His last work day pretty much ended right there, because it took the rest of the afternoon to clean THAT hot mess. And I was really, really glad to be back in the office.
So, the next time your kid has what you call a poopsplosion, just think to yourself, “At least my kid didn’t just shit on my cat.” And think of poor Charlie, who learned a valuable lesson that day: don’t go anywhere near the changing table.