Ask Not For Whom The Poop Rolls.
Mood:  smelly
Topic: Poop
You would think a girl with two kids in diapers wouldn't be the first person in line to take responsibility for a manic-aggressive schnauzer and a basenji puppy. Then again, you would also think most people wouldn't do anything to increase the amount of poop in their lives. But I have done both of those things.

The poop, she is an issue. By contrast with Matt, who refused everything but the breast until 10 months of age, Julia was grabbing things off my plate by 6 months. Hell, at eight months she was handing us the car keys and a shopping list -- that is how determined Miss Julia is to sample everything that's edible and a few things that probably aren't. The news in her diaper, therefore, has not been so happy. I have been known to gasp, flinch, howl and pray to Jesus upon coming face to face with the contents of her Pampers.

Matt is following Sam's lead and toilet training late, and I will bet, Matt being Matt, that if anything he will train even later. So there is some more poop. To my everlasting gratitude, Ben takes responsibility for most Matt diapers.

And then the dogs. Nicky has always had occasional accidents in the house, and miniature schnauzers in general, to my experience, use elimination as communication in much the same way as a New York cabbie employs the car horn. Speaking only in piles and puddles, Nicky can say Should have walked me BEFORE that load of laundry or Fuck you for getting a goddammned BASENJI quite as clearly as if he had spoken the words.

Rudy is a puppy, but he's also a lot like a smart middle-schooler. He knows what's what, and he's testing the parameters. So we occasionally get a Rudy pile in the house. We always KNOW when there is a Rudy pile or puddle about, because those basenjis, being rather on the fringe of wild African dogs, have specially stinky pee and poo. If you go to the Wild Animal Park and get among a bunch of rhinos and elephants and suchlike, their poo smells a lot like Rudy's. So now I also have EXOTIC poop to clean up.

Worse, Rudy appears to be a bit of a showman. Our backyard -- and I use the term extremely loosely -- is a paved area with garden beds surrounding it. There is a sliding glass door into our living room, and it is directly outside this sliding glass door that Rudy inevitably delivers his jungle poop. That must be so we can admire them while we're playing with the kids and watching TV. He also has lain waste to two throw pillows and two doormats. If Rudy can't poop in a display window, he at least wants to poop onto a surface that will present nicely. Believe me, there is nothing that says elegant like a fresh doggie bowel movement on an Indian embroidered cushion.

You would think they'd mention it in the job descriptions -- ANY of them! Because there is so much poop involved in parenting, and in dog ownership, and in the legal profession. DEAR SWEET JESUS, SO MUCH POOP.

Hat Trick.
Mood:  smelly
Topic: Poop
There is an expression in hockey, a feat a forward can accomplish during a game called a hat trick. That is what you call it when a guy scores three goals in one game. Hockey is not a high-scoring sport -- the average number of goals per team per game is between two and three -- so for a guy to complete a hat trick is a marvel indeed. They call it hat trick because people used to toss their hats onto the ice upon the third goal. Little traditions and superstitions like that are some of my favorite aspects of hockey.

At our house, though, hat trick has a different meaning. We've come to apply it to Nicky when he takes a particularly productive walk. I always bring a plastic bag with me when I walk him, as it's the law to pick up after your dog, and we Californians are pretty serious about keeping the Golden State golden. So when Nicky takes his little dump, I pick it up.

However, schnauzers being the way they are, poop is used to mark territory, in the same way that a boy dog would pee on something to mark it. So usually there is a SECOND dump, and with a little sleight of hand I can manage to fold the bag over a second time to catch the second dog pie.

But lately Nicky's been really fucking with me -- he's been COMPLETING A HAT TRICK on our walks. Which is to say that he takes not just two but THREE dumps. How such a little dog can pump out so much poop is beyond my understanding, but it might explain why his eyes are brown.

Then the other night Ben walked into the bedroom, where I was reading, and announced that HE had completed a hat trick. This was, of course, way too much information, but I laughed my ass off. A hat trick! They're even more remarkable in the men's room than they are in the hockey arena.

We've decided that to complete a PERFECT hat trick in our house, you have to catch all three bathrooms -- one poop in each. Would you care to come over and try? We promise not to laugh at you if audible grunting can be heard from behind the door. At least, not so you can hear it.

And then we will throw our hats at you.

It's Alimentary, My Dear Squatson.
Mood:  bright
Topic: Poop
Our Julia is a winsome creature, but we have all observed that her existence pretty much revolves around her alimentary tract at this point in her life. She nurses -- my God, she nurses, all day and all night long. She poops, a LOT. And she sleeps.

Apart from that, she periodically spends bits of time awake, frowning up at us with Hobbity skepticism and making little gurgles and grunts to signal that, you know, she's pooping again.

And newborn poop is strange stuff; it's not much like poop at all, really. The color is like mustard; the texture is best described as seedy; and the smell is like nothing else on earth. Not really unpleasant. Like movie popcorn, maybe, or like curried yogurt. It's one of those good bad smells, like puppy breath. I love the smell of puppy breath. And yes, I love the smell of my daughter's diapers. Crazy, you know. But in an okay way.

Poop Talk Du Jour.
Topic: Poop
It's time to talk about poop, since I haven't done it in a while. I know I've talked about farts within the past 48 hours, but farts aren't poop, and the rigors of bloggery demand frequent entries on the subject of defecation. So I will talk about Sam's diaper, and what's in it, and the fact that he shouldn't be wearing it anymore.

It's true -- Alert Readers may have noticed that when talking about smelling the kids' butts for poop, I used the plural. Sam, less than three months shy of his fourth birthday, is still in diapers. This is not just because I'm a terrible mother; Ben and I, as well as the day care lady, have tried and tried to get this kid out of diapers. We've attempted every tactic known, so please don't e-mail me with your helpful hints, because if you do, I will find out where you live and mail you one of Sam's dirty diapers.

Ben's mother, my sainted mother-in-law, is going absolutely insane with annoying helpfulness on the potty issue. She clips out articles and mails them to us, asks Ben about Sam's potty progress every time they talk on the phone (which is about five times a week, for God's sake), and is always suggesting some video or Dr. Phil quackery or what have you. Poor Ben is the one who has to undergo these torrents of wisdom, and he's also the one who has to undergo my responsive ravings: Tell her I am NOT taking potty training advice from someone who has never toilet trained a child [Ben's grandmother trained him], and even if she claims she DID train you, THAT WAS FORTY-SEVEN YEARS AGO. My poor husband. I wonder which is worse, a bossy mother or a wife who doesn't take kindly to her bullshit advice?

The latest wrinkle in Sam's failure to toilet train came today when I called his prospective new preschool and was informed that while they take kids from infancy on up, they are not prepared to take on an almost-four-year-old who is not toilet trained.

It's just the latest logistical difficulty in a series of many. Sam is showing signs of growing out of the largest size diaper (he is very tall for his age and looks at least 5 years old, which makes it all the more incongruous that he still poops in his pants), and I've told him that he will end up wearing Depends like a nursing home inmate, but he is not impressed.

Nor is he fazed by the announcement by Katrina, his "girlfriend" at day care, that she is having second thoughts about marrying a guy who still poops in his pants. (Hey, it would be a dealbreaker for me, too.) I've even tried explaining to him that changing his poopy diapers is just too disgusting and I really can't handle it anymore. No dice. I really think the kid is just being stubborn, and the day care lady is in agreement with the preschool people that he'll train when he's ready, that pushing him too hard will just backfire. So that, for now, is that.

People say Well, he won't go to college in diapers, but I have my doubts. Someday I will help him pack his bag for college, and its contents will include both Trojans and Depends. Mark my words.

Every Baby Has His Buellton.
Mood:  smelly
Topic: Poop
Just as every Napoleon must have his Waterloo, every baby must have his Buellton. Today, Matt had his.

You are right now scratching your head and thinking WTF?? so let me lay a foundation. Buellton, for Ben and me, is marital shorthand for A science fiction poop event which we must breathe in and clean up. The term originated, of course, with Sam.

When Sam was a nursing infant, I had pneumonia and took a course of antibiotics. The result, in Sam, was a nasty and very fragrant bout of diarrhea, which happened to coincide with a wine tasting trip through the Santa Ynez Valley, north of Santa Barbara, where Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch is located, the region featured in the movie Sideways. Our hotel was in Buellton.

It was there, at breakfast in the hotel restaurant, that Sam produced the most horrifying bowel movement ever witnessed. The stench radiated a full 25 feet from our table in all directions. The mess, when I carried him to our room and unzipped his jammies, spanned from his knees to his chest. Our room required two hours of airing out in the January chill before we could stand to breathe in there. This was Buellton: the Armageddon of poop. Since then, when confronted with a particularly odious diaper, it's gone like this: "Was it bad?" "Well, yeah, but you know, not Buellton bad."

That was three years ago. Today, Matt had his Buellton.

We were home alone, and I was at the computer and Matt was watching his Blue's Clues DVD and happily shouting along, when I came over to him for something or other and immediately got the poop waft. "Okay kid," I told him. "Poop in the pants. Let's go."

I unhooked the baby gate and let Matt scamper up the stairs ahead of me. He had taken his shirt off, as usual, and it was then that I saw the poop smears crawling up his back from inside his diaper. This was going to be a really bad one. But there was no one around to complain to, so at the top of the stairs I grabbed him carefully around the waist, scooped up a towel, and spread it out across the foot of my bed so I could confront the mess.

I honestly wasn't prepared for what happened when I laid him on the towel. A turd approximately the size of a tennis ball rolled out of his pant leg onto the towel. It wasn't the shape of a tennis ball, but somewhat elongated, which is probably a good thing because otherwise it probably would have injured the kid, coming out. It was solid. It was fragrant. And it weighed a couple of pounds. I'm not kidding.

My guess is that he hadn't pooped all week. That can happen when a kid is in day care: You figure he's been doing it there, they figure he's been doing it at home. The mess inside Matt's trousers was another chest-to-knees extravaganza, and the cannonball that rolled out of his pants was, I'm figuring, the clogging point. Which he finally blasted through, to spectacular effect.

I had to laugh as I cleaned it up, in between bouts of gagging. Matt periodically offered an I'm sorry, but I told him not to worry about it. As poops go, he'd just produced the December 26 tsunami; imagine trying to apologize for that. You just wouldn't know where to begin, and who can stop a force of nature anyway?

There's a whole lot of stuff they don't tell you about parenthood, that you have to find out for yourself. And God help you the day you find yourself in Buellton.

Matt Leaves A Floater.
Mood:  smelly
Topic: Poop
Last night while getting the boys ready for their bath, I noticed that Matt smelled like he had a poop. Ben went off to change him while I ran the bath and put Sam in. When he came back, Ben said, "Well, it could have been worse, right? He could have done it in the tub."

Surely you see where this is going.

The boys had a great time playing in the tub, and I was thinking about starting to wash their hair when it happened -- the brown explosion in the water. Sam leapt to his feet. "Mom! Poop!" And I don't mean just any poop, either. It was a bad one, the opposite of small, the opposite of firm and compact, the opposite of odorless. And let's just say it was clear they'd fed him mixed vegetables at day care. I started to gag.

I hustled the boys out of the tub -- fortunately Matt had blasted in the direction opposite Sam, so they were both surprisingly unmuddied -- and into the bedroom. Poor Ben was left with the task of cleaning up the tub.

After the boys were dressed, Sam said "I've got to tell Erika." (The boys take their bath in Erika's bathroom.) "No, Sam," I told him. "She doesn't need to know." Apparently Sam disagreed, because he stuck his head down the stairwell and yelled "Erika! Matt took a dump in your bathtub with corn and carrots!"

It took poor Ben about 20 minutes to clean up. Did I mention there is a "shag" bath mat in that tub? He said cleaning that was the worst part. And he could still smell poop an hour after finishing it up. And then he came downstairs and had a diet Coke, and he put some vodka in it, and who could blame him? I wasn't saying a word. I was grateful to have been spared the cleanup.

And probably he will never let the boys take a bath again, and if they do? And there's an accident? Guess whose turn it is for poop detail.

And thus the poop saga continues . . .

Further Poop Talk.
Mood:  incredulous
Topic: Poop
I just posted a comment on Dooce which reveals how often my husband poops. I'm going to tell him I did, because he's a good sport, but can you imagine? How often my husband eliminates is now a matter of public record and therefore subject to judicial notice in a legal proceeding.

Isn't the Internet a stunning phenomenon? Such a strange melding of intimacy and anonymity.

I just realized this is my second poop-related post in a row, and just the latest in a series of many. I should rename this The Poop Blog.

Of Poop, Parenthood And The Legal Profession.
Mood:  cheeky
Topic: Poop
So Ben was just talking on the phone to one of his friends (well, okay, his stupid buddies I generally call them), and apparently he's still traumatized from a poopy diaper of Matt's he changed a few days ago. It was a really bad one. I wasn't there, but I knew it was bad, because I could hear Ben saying "Oh man! Oh mannnn!" from upstairs.

He said, "For the next hour, I could still smell that poop! There must have been shit molecules in my nose hairs." Yes, honey, that's right. Furthermore, Sam at three years, three months is still nowhere near toilet trained and has never pooped in the potty. Changing him, I explained one day that it was just too disgusting and he needs to get trained, but does that impress a three-year-old? Answer: It does not. Not one tiny bit.

It made us think, though: Our entire lives are spent dealing with poop in one form or another. We are both in the legal profession (he is an attorney, I'm a paralegal), and that profession consists mostly of people pooping upon each other, if you want to cut to the chase; I mean, it's that adversarial.

Ben puts it this way: "I open my mail every day, and every envelope has a pile of turds in it. And then I take an envelope, and take a big grunt in it, and mail it right back. And the phone rings, and I pick it up, and a big turd squirts out the phone and right into my ear. So I put the phone to my ass, and take a big grunt right back into the phone at them. And then we appear in court, and everyone flings feces at each other until the judge makes a ruling." Nice, huh? How did otherwise nice people end up in a profession like this? Because someone told us it was an honorable profession, that's why.

Legal careers and parenthood: No one ever tells you about the poop. My God, so much poop.

Do Your Duty.
Mood:  happy
Topic: Poop
(It transpires that this is the second in a series of entries on bodily functions. Bear with me, y'all. This is some important stuff.)

Speaking of bodily functions, it's axiomatic that no one likes to do a Number Two away from home, and women would like you to think that they don't do Number Two at all. In the women's restrooms in my office building, there is an entire set of taboos and protocols surrounding the pooping process, a very specific set of rules.

Men have no such compunctions. My husband assures me that when faced with taking a dump in a public restroom, a man will simply lumber into the stall, settle in, and start blasting away without any regard for his surroundings. And if there happens to be a guy in the next stall who makes a rude noise, the first guy will make an even ruder noise, as if to say Oh yeah? Quite a cozy scene, wouldn't you say? Two guys in adjacent stalls, reading the paper and grunting away. Cozy. Also, disgusting.

Women, in truly public bathrooms such as those at the swap meet or Target, can sometimes adopt the same approach. There can be a woman in the next stall, and you feel kind of bad, but then again, you think Who is she anyway? Some old bat from Fountain Valley I'll never see again. Who cares what she thinks? Take that, grandma. Well, that's fine for the public, but the women's restroom in an office building is a more selective atmosphere. You will, and do, see these women every day. Which makes you a bit more shy.

Take, for instance, the women's bathrooms in my office building. It's a small building, and each floor has a women's restroom with exactly three stalls. This is sort of an intimate atmosphere. You're not going to get away with anything in there, if you catch my drift. So the trick is to do Number Two without being caught at it.

The ideal scenario is to walk in there, find the place deserted, do your dirty deed, and make your escape as quickly as possible before anyone else can come in and attribute any rude smells in the air to you. (The only thing worse than this is when there are rude smells in the air which you didn't produce, and then someone else walks in and you know she totally thinks it's you who stunk up the joint. And you want to turn to her and deny it, but that would only make her think it was you for sure.)

However, sometimes you don't manage to get in and out of there without interruption, so it becomes necessary to pretend that you are not, in fact, going Number Two at all. This gets insanely complicated. Consider this scenario, which I have seen time and time again:

Woman One walks into the restroom, goes into the far stall, and starts making a duty. Suddenly, the restroom door opens. She freezes! stops what she's doing, and hunkers down. Woman Two walks in and goes into the near stall, also intending to make a duty. Woman Two realizes that there's someone already in there, so she sits quietly and waits, hoping that Woman One will finish her business and get the heck out so that Woman Two can poop in peace. Woman One also sits quietly; she is absolutely not going to finish her business until Woman Two has finished hers and left. The silence and stillness grow deafening. It's a stalemate -- neither of them is going to finish or leave until the other one does. (And poor Woman One has been suspended in mid-dump.)

Suddenly, the door opens again -- and in walks Woman Three! who goes into the remaining, center stall. Aaaaaaaah! think Women One and Two. Woman Two pulls her pants up and flees, resolving to poop later, or poop on a different floor, or perhaps never poop again. Woman One continues to sit, aware that it could be a good half-hour before she can finish up and get back to the office. And Woman Three, because she knows what's going on and is also a total bitch, makes sure to spend an inordinate amount of time peeing, pulling up her stockings, and fussing with her hair and makeup before she leaves the restroom and lets poor Woman One finish up.

Editor's knote: Of course, I personally have never been any of these women. I speak strictly as a field observer. Shut up.

You see what I mean? It's absolutely nuts. All because we are trying to pretend we don't do Number Two. Maybe the men have the better approach.

In The Butt, Bob.
Mood:  happy
Topic: Poop
Two random butt-related topics that arose within seconds of each other:

(1) Ben and I were just quoting the famous old Biblical reference Get thee behind me, Satan! [Editor's knote: Matthew 16:23: But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.]

Not to be disingenuous, but doesn't it seem like that's the last place you'd want him?

(2) The current issue of Orange County Weekly, a notorious local free entertainment magazine/leftist rag, contains a headline on page 24 that reads NO ASS IS SHOWN.

Well, that's a relief.