No One Tells You How Gross Parenting is Going to Be…

When you are pregnant, you read all sorts of parenting help books. Books that talk about sleep training or how to get your newborn baby to latch on better during breastfeeding. However, no one has written a book that says all the gross things that will happen when you are a parent. Perhaps I’ll tackle that in my next book but for now, I’ll simply share the story of how this point was demonstrated recently in my life.

My daughter’s elementary school has two playgrounds. One for the younger grades and one for the older. The younger ones play on the upper playground and older on the lower. My three-year-old son and I arrived a few minutes early for dismissal and I let him play on the lower empty playground. After a few minutes, I noticed that he is starting to bend his knees in a peculiar manner.

I ran over to him and asked if he was okay.

“I need to poop,” he said, trying to clench his miniature butt cheeks together.

I quickly realized that the closest bathroom was up a huge hill which would then require me to be buzzed into the school,  get a visitors pass and then run to the bathroom.

I looked around and noticed a tree tucked behind a bush.

I had no other choice. Don’t judge.

We ran over to the tree, pulled his pants down and I held on to his hands as he squatted and began pooping.

As we held hands, I leaned slightly to my left and saw my daughter’s class go to the upper playground for an extra recess.

Sweet balls of might, please do not let her teacher look down here. 

I have no idea how hidden we actually were so I was unsure what her true range of vision was.

But then the worst part of it all hit me. I never put the wipes in my purse that morning.

Do I leave the poop under the tree? What is proper etiquette for unplanned toddler outdoor pooping?

I suddenly remembered that I had an extra pair of his underwear in my purse. I dropped his hands, ran over to the bench where my bag was and tossed out every item until I found the underwear.

I wiped the buttocks of my now crying son and began to pick up the poop with his extra pair of underwear.

“Why are you crying, sweetie?” I asked, as I desperately tried to avoid any poop touching my skin.

“I don’t want them watching me.”

“Oh sweetie, your sister’s class didn’t see you, it’s okay.”

“No, mommy, not her class. Them!”  He stood up, penis still hanging out because I got distracted by the poop and forgot to pull his pants back up and pointed in the opposite direction.

I slowly turned my head and realized that in the time we had been there, four school buses had pulled up on the street and the bus drivers were all huddled on the sidewalk, smiling and waving at us.

There is no parenting book or family expert who can prepare you for a moment like that.

So I did what I thought was the best thing to do. I pulled my son’s pants up, threw out the poop-covered underwear and doused an entire bottle of hand sanitizer over both of our hands, arms, feet, elbows and toes. Then I grabbed his hand and walked up the hill to dismissal pretending absolutely nothing had happened. When the other mothers standing next to me mentioned that they smelled poop, I pretended that I had no idea what they were talking about.

Because the real truth is those parenting help books should be one simple phrase.

Fake it.

That’s what we do as parents. We fake every single day that we have a clue what we are doing.

And we also make sure to have underwear and hand sanitizer in our purses at all times.