I originally wrote this as a post in my very favorite “Moms’ group” nearly three years ago now where it was shared and eventually migrated to my Facebook page. It came up in my memories and I figured I would polish it up a bit for your enjoyment and edification. Important note to today’s reader: This was originally written well before COVID when kid-germ and plague jokes were still funny.
Smoothies and my boys generally result in catastrophe. Catastrophes complete with sticky, fruity mess; and poopsplosions.
If we are friends on Facebook, you may have shed tears of sympathy for me on the day when I posed this riddle: What happens when your 4YO drops a very large, very full, very red smoothie down the basement steps? And then your 2YO has an epic poosplosion while you are treating the basement carpet? One that simply cannot be contained by the measly pull up he is wearing? So he tries to clean it up by wiping it on your living room furniture? And then your four-year-old mooches YOUR smoothie that you REALLY wanted because his has repainted several walls in your home? AND THEN HE DROPS YOUR GODDAMN SMOOTHIE AND IT EXPLODES ALL OVER THE KITCHEN YOU JUST CLEANED THIS MORNING WHILE HIS LITTLE BUTT WAS SLEEPING? AnD ThEN hE ThRoWs a FiT BEcaUse YoU WonT MaKE hiM anOtheR SmooTHie?!?!
I’ll tell you the answer later. And if there are any survivors.
Later, Facebook Friend, you may have even laughed with me when the poopy two-year-old spilled both his and my smoothie, this time on the ground at strawberry square. Thank bob I had heeded the valuable lesson I had learned from our previous adventure: No smoothies in my home! Alas, in a moment of de ja vu both tragic and humorous that same day, the baby pooped in Ollie’s, all the way up to his very cute armpits. Another lesson learned: Smoothies = poop.
Well, my friends, sit back and while I will regale you with part three of the smoothie poop saga.
While we take a bath, because we all need one, pop some popcorn and pull up a comfy chair.
I’m using voice to text, and have little regard for punctuation at the moment, so you may have to do some creative translating. Our tale starts this morning when little Baby Ridley wakes up from a particularly fussy night. Oh God, where is my precious baby and what is this changeling goblin that has been left in his crib? It has goo for eyes!
Poor darling Riddler has contracted double pink eye.
Do I squirt his eyes with booby juice? Remove the goo? Leave it? I’m a third timer, I should know this! But I call the pediatrician anyway. The doc calls us in the appropriate eye drops and tells me not to have to baby around other kids the rest of the day (by tomorrow he won’t be contagious but today he’s highly plague shedding).
Our plans were to hit up a hike-it-baby gathering, or if I wasn’t quite up to it, Little Learners at the local science museum (I’m still getting over my own case of the plague). But, those plans were now impossible, and I needed to come up with something quick to avoid unparalleled disappointment from Roland, whom I have not yet determined if is a 4 year old or 13 year old.
“What are we doing today, mommy? Is it Wednesday?”
“Yes my love, but honey sugarplum dear, we can’t go to Little learners today. But I have a surprise for you my darling! We need to pick up some medicine for sweet little Ridley, and afterwards we can go and get smoothies!”
“Yay! Mommy, can it be a pajama party?”
“Of course! What a wonderful idea!”
So I wait for the call that the rx is ready. And I wait. And finally, at 1:30, the rx is ready and the children are hangry. I’m loving Roland’s pj idea! Do I put on a bra? NO! I let the girls swing free. After all, both tropical smoothie and the pharmacy have drive-throughs. I do however put on a pad since I can no longer cough without peeing myself. So with my boobs resting peacefully in my depends cladded lap I set off on the adventure like an octogenarian departing the old folks home!
First stop, pharmacy. Uneventful. Although they did try to make me come in to update insurance cards, I wheedled my way out of that one like a pro.
Next stop, tropical smoothie.
So many questions. “Mommy, how do daddy seeds get into mommy eggs anyway? Do bees do it?” Yes. Yes they do. “Mommy, can we listen to pit bull?”
Finally, about halfway there, all three kids fall asleep. It’s beautiful. It’s so quiet, and as a bonus I can turn on my swearful audiobook.
I get to the smoothie place and somehow have to take out a second mortgage because for some stupid reason 2 kids-meals and an adult smoothie is $25 bucks. Then it takes like 20 minutes. Oh well. At least the kids are asleep. Tropical smoothie must be waiting on a shipment because the lids for the kid’s cups don’t fit quite right and the straws are way way WAY too long. No way they are getting these in the car. Thank goodness they are asleep and thank goodness gracious I am now an experienced smoothie catastrophe avoiding expert.
Both “big” kids wake up as we pull in the driveway and I pass out the goodies. “Mommy, why is my smoothie orange?” What? He takes a sip and gags. “This isn’t strawberry!” It sure isn’t. Sigh. Ok.
Not the end of the world. We don’t have anything else to do today. Will just go back. To Camp Hill. From Carlisle. I count backwards from ten and load them back up. I can’t take Rhysie’s (the 2 year old) smoothie away now – he’s starving- so I just let him have it in the car, knowing it’s a bad idea. But I’m living on the edge now.
Right as we get on 81 the dreaded words rise up from the very back of the van. “Mommy? I have to go potty.”
What? Now? Can you hold it? “Um… ok.” So I’m coaching him like a taxi driver with a mom in labor in the back. You can do it buddy. Hold it in. You’ve got this. Just a little further!
We make it to 581 and finally to the Carlisle pike exit. He’s not gonna make it. We are going to have to use a bathroom somewhere. But where? I look at my saggy saggy boobs and think about my unwashed hair. I picture my diseased infant in the backseat and my ragamuffin shoeless toddler and preschooler in ill-fitting PJs covered with the usual scrapes and bruises.
Surely if we try to use the bathroom at some establishment on the pike someone will call child services. I look deranged! We look homeless and ill. The children look neglected. This could be it. The end of my family!
Then I have an idea! My gym! We’re so close! The staff have known my boys their whole lives! They know I’m not an unfit mother! It’s all going to be OK!
We race there and I pull up to the curb like I’m out of that movie I can’t think of the name of with the fast cars driving erratically.
But, why… why is it so dark? Did you know that my gym is closed on Wednesday afternoons? Neither did I. But now I do. It’s ok though! There, at the other end of the parking lot is a grassy area with a tree. Perfect! We swing around and I pull the 4-year-old out of the van as he shouts “I can’t hold it! I can’t hold it” I hold him up and out of the van like he is Simba being presented to his kingdom(bare feet, remember) a he gets back to nature and waters the tree in full view of the Carlisle pike.
That was a close one. Disaster averted. Back on the road and on our way to the strawberry smoothie at the end of the rainbow.
And my gaslight comes on.
SHITFUCKMOTHERFUCKERPISSCOCKDOUCHECANOE
We can make it. We can make it.
Soooooooo we get the smoothie, Roland is happy, and we coast home on fumes. No, my friends, thankfully we did not run out of gas on our way home.
Oh, don’t worry, the above swearingfest wasn’t voice-to-text. I’m switching back and forth.
I unload the kids from the car and Roland is a sticky mess as expected. Rhys, though, appears to have done a pretty good job. There isn’t a drop of smoothie on the front of his pjs.
And then I lift him out of his car seat.
Don’t worry. It’s not poop yet. Just chocolate banana smoothie. I still don’t know how he ONLY got it under his butt. It was a lot though. Soaked his pull-up too. (Three years later this is still a mystery.)
So I strip him and run upstairs to draw a bath. I know that once again I’m living on the edge, tempting fate. Rhys has been known to pee on the pack the pack and play on occasion when left in his birthday suit. But I’m on a good lucky streak and I’m feeling confident. Roland didn’t pee in the car and we didn’t run out of gas. And I’ll only be a minute.
A lot can happen in a minute. A lot of poop can happen in a minute. A lot of poop on my nice rug which I can now scrub while I day-drink. Because they jumped in it. Why? Why did they jump in it?
I had to pre-bathe them before their real bath they JUMPED IN IT.
Someone remind me of this next time the kids want a smoothie. I think it’s some uber specific smoothie poop curse. Probably voodoo.
The Mommy Mines 