Shit Storm's A Comin'- Not for squeamish non-parents

There is nothing PG about the following story unless you take the definition literally. Parental Guidance was the one thing severely lacking.

Our tale begins this afternoon with Espen ready for a cozy winter nap. He is in his sleeping pants, his pull-ups and full of stories and good cheer.

As per usual, he proceeds through his monologues about string cheese and converses with his stuffed puppy about the events du jour. Then he begins to pull apart a beautiful dream catcher my sister made by hand to ensure his unconscious meanderings.

This is removed from his room.
He is informed that his puppy will need to come along as he is also very tired but cannot sleep when Espen is talking to him.

Silence reigns for a short interlude.
Then the giggling and laughing starts. This is not uncommon, but what IS- "Mommy, I need to go peew-peew. I need to go pee. Mommy, I nudie!"

We have been encouraging him to let us know when the urge to purge strikes so I haul my sleepy self to his door and say, "Alright, Espen, let's go potty."

As I am opening the door, Espen announces, in the nude, "I pooped in my bed!"

Come again?

He trots around his room, bare buns flashing, giggling. "I pooped!"

And then races out of the room, his thighs and bottom streaked with Brown.

My brain fractured into two separate units at that moment. One followed Espen to try and mitigate the migration of his Poopiness to the far reaches of the house.

The other part slowly begin to assimilate the carnage that lay before me in Espen's room.

For the life of me, I could not perceive where the crap ended and where it began.

My eyes began a slow sweep.
Floor. Poop. Wall. Poop. Rug. Poop. Door. Poop. Tractor bucket. Poop. Crack in the floor. Pee. Closet. Poop. Hinges. Poop.

At this point, my eyes began to cross. I went to our bedroom where Tobias lay blissfully napping, unware of our progeny's Heinous Fecal Misdeeds.

I said loudly and clearly, "Get up. You need to see this."

He looked about blearily, but obligingly climbed out of bed and staggered to Espen's room.

"Careful." I warned as he went to lean against the door. "There's poop everywhere."

Tobias is a pretty low maintenence man when it comes to personal hygiene and domestic cleanliness, but poop kicks him into action everytime.

"Where's Espen?" he said. "Does he still have poop on him?"

"Oh probably," I said wearily. "There's just so much POOP EVERYWHERE."

And at that, our roles became clear. Tobias took off after Espen's Nudie Poopness and I laid into the Shitscape formerly known as Espen's room.

The kid went straight into the bathtub and I went straight into silent shock.

His pillow cases were smeared with poop. His blanket was full of secret stashes of excrement. His stuffed kangaroo lay nose down in a pile of feces decorating the entrance to his closet. The air was redolent with the scent of mostly digested oatmeal and fishsticks.

Meanwhile, I could hear Tobias telling Espen that he must NEVER EVER do that again. To which Espen Camino responded joyously, "I WILL do it again! Oh yes!"

After scrubbing everything down with bleach twice and sanitizing Lord Poopington, I headed out to teach a yoga class on staying grounded and finding your center. Which I had planned out 15 minutes before the Poopocalypse descended. What are the chances.

I returned home to the dishwasher making horrible noises and Espen hollering away in his room. This all transpiring about 30 minutes after he should normally be in bed. I looked at Tobias.

"What happened to the dishwasher."

He gazed at me placidly and opened the door, revealing a cavern of bubbles.
"Espen put dish soap in the dishwasher. When we got back from Chinese food, the entire kitchen was full of suds."

Le sigh.

He goes on to say that they DID have a lovely time at the Chinese restaurant drinking tea and checking out the police officers in the booth next to them.

Meanwhile, Espen howls on in the background. Which is weird because normally he goes straight to sleep on no nap days.

But oh wait. Did Tobias say they had tea at a Chinese Restaurant?

"You know they serve black teas at said establishments right?" I ask Tobias.

He stares at me.

"I...let me confirm this." and furiously searches the internet. Says nothing.

"Did your research confirm my information?" I ask.

"Welll....it wasn't black tea."

"What was it?"

"Oolong or green tea...?"

"So, caffeinated."

Finally, around 8.30 Espen the Cafeinated Poopertrator of Dishwasher Doom succumbed to the demands of sleep.

Meanwhile, the dishwasher groaned until 9.25 when Tobias vanquished the last of the dish soap suds and reinstalled the panel he had wrested from behind the machine.

I gotz no wisdom here. There is absolutely no way to comprehend the logic or simple abandon in smearing your shit on every available surface before moving onto your body as canvas. I can only say that I didn't scream or beat my child. I just went dead silent. And for now, that's what it's gonna have to be until I can come up with a more elegant response to poop as paint.

But I bet you, Espen will be raring to go in the morning like he's pooping for the very first time.