Jay has early meetings on Sundays. Church starts at 9:30, so that means I am on my own to get myself and the kids ready. Most Sundays it goes off without a hitch. I have really fabulous, cooperative kids. However, a few weeks ago, everything went wrong.
The babies decided to smear their breakfast from head to toe. I had 30 minutes before we needed to be out the door, which meant I had plenty of time to give them a bath, and get everyone dressed. I asked Jack and Luke to get themselves dressed while I bathed the babies. I had lain their clothes out the night before, all clean and folded and ready to go. Yay me! I put the babies in the bath to play while I went into their room to get their clothes. That's when the bomb dropped. And by bomb, I mean poop. I walked into the bathroom and the babies were splashing around in a totally brown bathtub. In my almost 6 years as a mother, no one has ever pooped in the tub. I freaked. I grabbed Charlie and ran him from the kids' bathroom, to my bathroom. I started to fill the clean tub. I ran back and grabbed Tripp, hoping that too much poo water wasn't dripping on my carpet as I held him out as far as I could reach. I got them rinsed off and a new tub filled. While they played, I went to clean out the bathtub. I scooped, I scrubbed, I disinfected. I walked back into my bathroom to clean the babies, and again, the water was totally brown. I couldn't believe it! How could they fill a tub twice with that much poop!?!
Jack walked in and asked for help to tie his tie, saw the poop and started gagging. I told him to go wait in his room and I would help him in a minute.
Again, I took one baby at a time and ran them dripping and stinky to the clean bathtub. (Thank goodness for two bathtubs, right?!) I got them rinsed off and playing in clean water again. I went to drain the other tub and get it cleaned up, when I realized the cleaner was still in the kids' bathroom. I walked back in to grab the cleaner, and once again, the water was completely brown. They were sitting in so much crap, splashing and playing.
What the heck?! Was it Groundhog's Day? How did this keep happening? I thought I was dreaming. No way could this happen three times. And how on earth did they have that much poop in them?! Had they not pooped since Christmas? Then I realized they had little buckets in with them, and they were drinking the poop water!!! Oh. My. Crap.
I couldn't take them to the other bathtub, because it wasn't clean yet! I couldn't leave them there because they are absolutely, horrifyingly, disgusting children who drink their own poo! What could I do?!
I took the buckets away, ran to the other bathroom to scoop poop out of the bathtub, ran them to the semi-clean tub, and started to rinse them off.
At that point, we only had about 3 minutes before we needed to leave. I yelled to Jack and Luke to check their status of readiness when Luke ran into the bathroom yelling, "Look at me! I'm ready for church and I'm awesome!!" I looked up and he was wearing a basketball jersey, basketball shorts, and reptile puppets on his hands and feet. Poor kid. He didn't know he was walking into the lions den. I tried to be calm. I really did. But after that much poop, and running, I was a little heated.
I didn't even bother to fill the tub. I rinsed the babies and scrubbed them clean. I got them diapered and dressed as fast as I could. (Although, at that point, it didn't matter. They had pooped enough to last until April. I'm sure there wasn't anything left.)
I got Luke dressed in proper church attire. I raced into my own room to change out of my poop-splashed clothing and we were finally ready to go. Jay walked in from his meeting just in time to help us out to the car. He asked what happened and I couldn't even talk. All I wanted to do was hand him the older kids, put the babies down for a nap, and crawl into bed and pull the covers over my head for a week. But, I didn't. I had Sharing Time in Primary and had to be there.
I calmed down on our drive and by the time we were sitting in Sacrament meeting, I was feeling like I did it! That's when I realized that I left everything for my lesson at home, next to the front door. I raced home, ran across our icy sidewalk in a dress with shoes in hand, grabbed my bag and headed back to church.
I'm pretty sure my neighbors wonder if I'm all there. Crazy woman running barefoot through the snow.
Whatever. Sometimes you have it, sometimes you don't. That day was a don't.
