“Poo Poo is not a responsibility”

Furious wind and relentless rain rattled the roof and forest all night. I love the downpours.

At 5 am, our double deck doors burst open, filling our cozy bedroom with damp wildness from a hearty gust of late fall storminess.

Up crept the sun and Blase and I climbed into Ossian’s bed to hang out with her as she awoke. Such sweet moments.. that first eye opening, when they’re all hugs and sunshine. It was so calm – the three of us together, just breathing and holding hands. Nola slept soundly in our room, finally tuckered out after a fitfull night of teething, fever breaking, and bed hogging.

Our quiet reverie was abruptly shifted when we whispered “yes” in unison, responding to her question, “do you want to see my cow jumps?” And so the real day began. Footed pajamas now engaged in a vertical leap with kicks and giggles. How do they do that? From sleep coma to race-pace “cow jumps” in the space of one millisecond. And then, when the cow jump was complete, it was time for “skunk tricks.” “Now, I’ll do some skunk tricks. But there’s no spray, no tail actually.” Her fuzz ball peppered yellow footie pajamas now took to scissor kicks and unexpected arm extensions.

Fast forward an hour and we are all downstairs.. having already changed diapers, discarded pull-ups, detangled hair, half-dressed, yogurt gulped, block chewed, coffee heated, oatmeal simmered, laundry folded, faced the dirty dish pile, stoked the fire, paid bills, and watched a toddler show – by now it is 8:04 am. Time to poop. Osh did the old poop and run, routine. Daddy’s coaxing that it was time to transfer the goods from her little throne to the big one for flush time were apparently not persuasive – she was fully absorbed in the work of “putting her monkey to sleep.” I decided to reason with her with reminding about responsibility. Just like cleaning up our play and toys when we’re done playing, I blabbed, putting our poopoo away is a responsibility. This seemed to mildly enrage her and suddenly we had to bear the sound of our 2.75 year old yelling, “POO POO is NOT a RESPONSIBILITY!!!! “. We had to do this without laughing. These are the nearly impossible tasks of parenthood. Not laughing is a big RESPONSIBILITY, too.