This week was one in which a lot of crap happened, literally. On Sunday, Carol was in the shower and I was ready to give the boys a bath. Before the bath, I was playing with JJ on the bed. I play this game with him in which he lays on the bed while I run at him and pretend to do wrestling moves such as elbow drops and big splashes. Don’t worry, I miss him by about five feet (sort of like a Rock right hand). So I riled him up and he was excited and ready for his bath. Now I don’t know exactly when it happened. It surprised me just as much as it probably surprised him. What am I talking about? Well when I picked up JJ to take his clothes off and get him ready for his bath, I felt mud on my arms. You see, I wasn’t holding JJ like a regular dad would. I was holding him like I was setting him up for a body slam. I wasn’t going to slam him. It was just that since I needed to get him horizontal, I might as well carry him horizontally. So when I felt mud on my arms and hands, I didn’t immediately think of what I should have thought of. I figured it was mud. Now why would my 9 month old son have mud coming from him? Hell, I don’t know, but at least the thought of mud was more pleasant than what it really was. JJ had pooped sometime between the elbow drops and the horizontal pick up. While I was carrying him, my arm must’ve pushed the mushy stuff out of the diaper and onto me. Now JJ was covered in the stuff, but he didn’t really care. He probably thought it was mud too. I had the dump on my arms and hands. I don’t mind changing a poop diaper, but I’m the type of person who washes his hands 10 times while making dinner. I hate getting stuff on my hands.

While I was in agony with crap all over me, Carol was in the shower laughing at me. I asked her to grab the kid by his ears at least so I could wash my hands, but she continued to laugh. She didn’t know the horror I was experiencing. She was mocking me as the look on my face musn’t have been enough for her to think I was seriously in terror. Finally, she grabbed JJ by his underarms while I washed my hands 10 times in 30 seconds. Finally I felt clean enough to grab JJ again and clean him up before his bath. Now if you thought that was bad, it got worse, but it wasn’t only with JJ.

In the middle of this week, Carol was giving Brian a bath. They were having a grand time. I had already put JJ down for the night with a bottle and I was getting ready to watch some TV. All of a sudden, I hear a loud cry come from downstairs. Then Carol screamed my name as if she was in pain. Like a cheetah, I flew down the stairs to see what the trouble was. All of a sudden, I see Carol starting the shower. I wondered what the painful scream could be. She was getting the shower ready because Brian did something to the bath water to soil it. Yes he did. He pooped in the bath. Carol grabbed Brian and took him into the shower with her so she could clean him off just in case he touched the poop in any way. As the story goes, Brian told his mom that he was going dump in the bath and then he saw it and pointed to it. Luckily, he didn’t grab it and throw it.

So Carol tells me that my job is to get the pail and try and get the dumplings out of the water and put them in the toilet. That was absolutely the worst idea ever. As I would put the pail into the water, trying to trap the poo, it would dissolve and become a bunch of crumbs. Carol told me not to let the water out of the bath as it wasn’t clean to do. And pushing around poo in bath water was? I let all the water out of the bath and yes, there were crumbs left for me to clean. Luckily for me, I didn’t have to do any touching with my hands. But what I did have to do was get the Mr. Clean from under the sink and grab the scrub brush and scrub the white tub clean. That wasn’t all that bad. But man, I would’ve been rather watching some TV.

This is a lesson to you people without children. Be ready to sacrifice your fears if children are in your future. This week, I sure did.