Poop. Poop poop poop. This post is about poop.

This post is about poop, but not just regular poop. Giant FLOATING poop. It's also about ice cream, cigarettes, coffee, and prune juice. Oh and Scalding. This post is also about scalding.

Maggie and I met my family for ice cream yesterday. We shared a small scoop of blueberry yogurt and Maggie sampled the wares of everyone else at the table who couldn't resist her hopeful gaze and gaping little-bird mouth.

We followed up the ice cream with a visit to a small toy store that carries all sorts of fun things for kids. This should have been a happy experience, filled with wonder and giggles, but alas, it was not to be. Something was wrong. Maggie stood red faced, with tears straming down her cheeks. Her nose started to run. She screamed and screamed. She crouched and winced. She was trying to work out a poop that was just not working out. It was not working out and it was wreaking havoc on her little insides. It's very distressing to see your child in pain and not be able to help. This disruptive terd had taken on five adults and a child, and it was winning. We were helpless.

We were also desperate. We tossed some ideas around.

Fruit? No. That would take too long. Coffee and a cigarette? No. Not until she is at LEAST 8 years old. Liquids! Prune juice! That's it!

We walked to to the co op to find some magical prune elixer for my little backed up baby.

I gave her the prune juice. Nothing happened. On the way home she seemed to calm down. I fed her a dinner of fruit, fruit and more fruit. More prune juice, more fruit. Then it started up again. The screaming in pain. In desperation, I started a warm bath.

She sat in the tub and instead of her usual larky splashing about, she stared at me as though to say "THIS is what you came up with? A BATH? Do they let just ANYONE have a kid? Will you just help me already? This giant terd is about to kill me and you start a BATH???? WHAT THE HELL? THIS HURTS! DON'T YOU GET IT?"

Perhaps that was more my own inner dialogue.

Maggie started wiggling and wailing in the tub. Helpless, I could see her pain was escalating. She stood up, screeching in agony. She gripped the side of the tub with both chubby hands, pressed her head to it, crouched over, and out it came. Emerging from sheer toddler willpower and the mouting pressure from within her tiny little colon.

This poop had no business coming out of the bum of a one year old. It was the meanest, hardest, biggest, ugliest poop ever created by a butt that small. So compacted, I thought the pressure must have formed a diamond inside. I was SHOCKED by the sheer size of this monster. Tommy two-tone. A marbled combination of three days worth of toddler meals. I nearly cried with relief for her. Having seen the sheer size of this fucking thing, I wanted to buy her a toy or a sticker just for getting the damn thing OUT. My daughter, the bravest strongest, most determined pooper in the world. The diminutive queen of extreme danger-pooping.

I was feeling rather proud of myself for figuring out that a warm bath would help relax those muscles and move the poopy beast along. Jim donned rubber gloves and victoriously searched through the bubbles to fish out the massive logs of excrement from the tub. We were quite pleased with ourselves. Giddy, in fact.

My pride turned to horror as I pulled Maggie from the tub and saw her red little legs. Overzealous in my efforts to work the fecal frankenstein out, the warm bath I had drawn was TOO WARM. I may have coaxed the culprit out, but seemed to have scalded my daughter's lower half in the process. "Is there no end to this madness Dear God?" I wailed, "WHY? WHY??"

Why? Do you know why? I think I do. It happened because, as a parent, you can't get too cocky. You think for one moment, you have it figured out. You and your co-parent are high-fiving eachother, oblivious in your pride and self-congratulations for emerging, victorious, from battle. And out of nowhere, you get knocked with a left uppercut you NEVER saw coming. This is to keep us on our toes. Ever vigilant of the next totally fucking stupid moronic thing we, as parents, are about to do.

I carefully pulled Maggies Pajama bottoms over her chubby red legs. Mercifully, Her red legs slowly turned to pink and eventually back to their lovely normal white color. We let her play while we ate dinner. I picked her up for her bedtime bottle and story and she laid her head on me as if to say "Please. Just put me to bed already. This day. Let it be over. The poop. The burning hot water. enough already." She struggled to keep her eyes open through "Goodnight Moon" and I put her to bed, exhausted. She was out cold within seconds.

Another day of well-intentioned but grossly mediocre parental blundering behind us.