Tush in a Tub

Sometimes Lola does the sweetest little things. Like the other day, when she drug out her baby bathtub and filled it with her stuffed animals.







At first, I thought she was pretending to bathe them. But then, she climbed in with them, captain of their ship. She played for a long time in the tub, talking to Raggedy, repositioning Sock Monkey to the front, occasionally tossing them over board.


After a while, my maternal nose picked up a poop scent. As I pulled Lola out of the tub (who, in response, was flailing because in her world poop is no excuse to stop playing), I realized that this was no ordinary poop. This was a poop that knew no boundaries. Stuck to the side of Lola's leg, it covered her onesie, and spread across the bottom of the plastic tub. This was a full-blown SITUATION.

In the process of removing my screaming, flailing, poop-covered child, I ended up, you guessed it, covered in some poop. Once I de-poopified Lola, I de-poopified myself and then, de-poopified the tub. As I cleaned it, I thought to myself, "I really lucked out. She got poop on a plastic tub, something easy to clean. This isn't that bad."

Fast forward 24 hours.

"OMG! VALENTINA!" Scroll back up and look at the photo. See that red and white stuffed animal underneath Lola's legs? That's Valentina, the plush dog my parents gave Lola for Valentine's Day.

Yes, after what I believed was a thorough clean-up, Valentina was found, a full 24 hours later, to have a leg speckled with poop. Do you know what happens to toddler poop when it rests on a soft furry surface for 24 hours? LET ME TELL YOU.

It works its way onto each individual fiber. It sticks. It sticks so much that the only way to remove it is to physically, BY HAND, pull the poop off the material. There is no throwing it in the washer and removing it 25 minutes later. Even leaving it in a bucket of water to soak is fruitless. (Trust me, I tried.)

So ultimately, I was faced with two choices: use my bare fingers to pluck the poop or throw Valentina in the trash.

After taking a moment to think about it (and yes, Mom, I did actually consider throwing away Valentina), I chose to clean the stuffed dog.

Standing at the kitchen sink, de-poopifying the pooch, I realized that while giving birth may make you a mother, there are certain things, like removing encrusted poop off your daughter's beloved stuffed animal, that make you a mom.