Base level mothering
I’ve had a flood of memories of fecal matter strewn about the room since reading recent entries from Her Bad Mother. I love how shit stories connect mothers via the funny-bone where parenting styles might otherwise separate them.
When Kate was about a year old, we were at our cottage where she was napping in her pack-and play — or so we thought — while we met with a real estate agent. As we discussed an offer of purchase and sale, Kate peeled off and rummaged through her diaper. She used her hands to literally paint herself with shit — from her hair, to her face and mouth, ears, torso and in between her toes. When she cried out, presumably from the foul taste in her mouth, I rushed to her room to find our little Picasso. I picked her up and held her close to reassure her that she’d be fine and I would clean her up — thus getting a sample of the artists work on myself. The smell was like a new release of eau de mommy, which I had previously known as that new-mother-sour-breastmilk scent. I parked her in the empty bath promising to return quickly and poked my head out the door to the deck to excuse my husband. I need you for a quick moment, so sorry! I chirped with wide eyes.
While Daddy kept our wailing daughter company, I washed-up quickly, changed to clean clothes and dashed out to sign the offer, sharing profuse apologies for the interruption with the agent. Then I returned to my most base-level mothering as I cleaned up the brown body paint and returned my daughter to her baby-clean scent.
Since that day, I’ve come upon man-sized poo on the beach deposited by my undiapered son, applauded monster-poo proudly shown-off in the toilet, and smelled the waft of forgotten-shitty-diaper-soaking-in-toilet more often than I’d like to admit. I don’t share the shitty-stories as readily as I share the other trials of mothering, probably because of their ick-factor. But they are part of my treasure-chest and make-up a good portion of my hard-acquired resilience. Let’s face it — were it not for the nights of recurring projectile puke, sheet soiling diaper malfunctions on formerly soundly sleeping tots, and yes, shit-under-the-fingernails experiences — mothering would be, well…so clean. And who signed up for that?