Party pooper

I wish I had one of those blogs where I gush about my sweet, perfect children. But that would just be a bunch of lies. So instead, I offer another awkward story from my life.

We attended a four-year-old's birthday party this weekend at the Y. The kids played basketball in the gym and enjoyed cupcakes in the party room. The festivities ended with a trip to the pool. I sat on the side holding Lena, while T took the boys in.

This particular Y has a cool baby pool with water fountains shooting up, buckets dumping, and water cannons than you can aim at unsuspecting swimmers. There is also a mini-water slide that the boys love. After a half hour or so, T took Q into the big pool to float around on a noodle. I stood up to be able to quickly grab R if he fell under the two-foot water.

He was repeatedly going down the slide, when he decided to up the ante. He jumped off the top, banging his head on the way down. "I'm OK," he assured me though I could tell his head hurt. That's what he always says when he does something bad.

I walked over to tell him firmly that you do not jump off the slide, but he had already slid down again....leaving a puddle of brown behind him.

Oh no. I hoped for a moment it was from some other kid, but no luck. It was R.

"What's that?!" the horrified girl next in line exclaimed.

I grabbed R by the arm and pulled him out of the water to confirm that his swim diaper was in fact full of poop.

Truth be told, if no one was looking, I would have just wiped away the poo shmear and let the chlorine dilute it. It wasn't much really. Most of the now water-logged poop was still trapped in his swim diaper. But that darn little girl made a scene, and then the party organizer notified the lifeguard. I dragged R toward the locker room, though he was not happy about ending play time early. I handed Lena to another party-goer and went in to wash R's bum.

Thankfully, this was at the very end of the party, so R actually helped usher everyone out of the water. Unfortunately, when this sort of thing happens, they empty both pools, not just the baby pool. So the big pool was cleared, including big kids playing basketball and lap swimmers. One guy who was clearly a serious swimmer and another who had lifted himself out of a wheelchair into the water were not very happy. I was fairly mortified.

So, that was the end of the party. When I asked R if he pooped in the pool, he said, "No, I pooped on the slide."

Details.

--MM