Biohazard

So it's Sunday night, and I'm all set to blog about how my workouts start in the morning, and how excited I am to be doing something about all my excess poundage. I'm thinking about this as I get Ellie in the bathtub -- writing the post in my head, organizing my thoughts. Ellie is splashing away in the tub while I throw a load of towels in the washer (my laundry room is across the hall from the bathroom), and I let her play for a few minutes while I separate whites from darks.

I go into the bathroom to prepare Ellie for her nightly scrubbing. I swish around in the bathwater, looking for the washcloth, which is somewhere under all the bubble-bath-induced foam. I find the washcloth, squirt a little soap on it, and soap up Ellie's face, ears and upper body. She has already transferred many of the bubbles to her head, so I finish washing her hair and prepare to move on to her legs, feet and backside.

That's when she looks at me and says "Butt. Poop."

I freeze, washcloth in hand, and try to decipher what she's telling me. "Poop? Where?" I ask. She points to the bathwater.

I swish aside some of the bubbles and am greeted by the sight of murky yellowish water with particles of some unknown substance floating in it. For the water to be that color, we're not talking about a little poop. We're talking a LOT.

I grab Ellie by the armpits and whisk her out of the water, standing her on the rug, where she drips poopy bathwater in little rivulets down her legs. I let the water out of the tub and start tossing toys to one end so that I can clean up the mess. I'm throwing poop-nuggets into the toilet when I realize that the grossness in the tub is the least of my worries.

My kid is standing there, blinking up at me, covered in soap suds and poop-water.

I hoist her back into the tub, where she promptly tries to sit down. "NO!" I yell. "Just stand there and let Mama clean you off."

While the poop-water continues to drain around Ellie's feet, I turn the water back on and set about washing her all over again. I'm waiting for the water to get hot, and Ellie is standing there, soaking wet and shivering, probably wondering what the hell the fuss is all about.

I wait and wait, but no hot water.

That's when I remember that the load of laundry I just did? Was towels. Which I wash in hot water.

So my kid takes a cold shower, including having cold water poured over her poop-infested hair. She is most unhappy about it. But not nearly as unhappy as I am about not having hot water with which to wash off the poop.

For a brief moment I think about driving her over to a neighbor's house and dipping her in their chlorinated pool.

I drag Ellie out of the tub for the second time, get her dried off and in her PJs, and send her to her playroom while I fill the tub with bleach water. I put all the toys in the bleach water, too, and somewhere during this process I splash water on my jeans, leaving a spatter of small white spots on the denim. Lovely.

I finally finish this disgusting little activity, and give Ellie a lecture about how we do NOT poop in the bath tub. "If you have to poop, you tell Mama and we'll get OUT of the tub, okay?" She nods and says "ah-ight" like a tiny Asian Jeff Foxworthy, but I have no idea if she knows what I'm talking about. I doubt it.

We climb into Mama's bed, which is where Ellie falls asleep each night before being carried to her own room. We get all snuggled under the blankets, and everything is quiet and peaceful. And then I hear this little voice: "Mama?"

"What, sweetpea?"

"No poop in wa-wa."

That's my girl.