Doing Dishes in Tears.. and Poop-Smearing..

My life is no harder than anyone else's. However, Avery has recently taken up the art of poop-smearing. Probably one of my biggest fears. I remember when I was working for the local school district I would subconsciously put the kids in the special needs program on a scale. Now before I sound like the most evil person in the world, let me explain. This would have been a few years ago, before sweet Avery even came into our lives. I would see students, recognize their disabilities, and evaluate how their lives were effected. Only because I am choosing to be transparent, the scale that I created in my brain looked something like: lower-end of the scale being those kiddos who's disabilities maybe didn't impact as many of those daily routines as the higher-end scaled kiddos. Again, there is absolutely NO scientifical explanation for my made-up scale, it goes according to my brain, which is mostly a jumbled disaster.

The poop-smearing kids where high on my magical scale. I mean high. It gets to the point where even though I didn't mean to, I would begin to feel bad for the parents, wondering how hard it was at home. - Judge if you want, but again, there's my transparent subconscious thoughts.

I can now officially tell you how hard it is at home.

And of course poop smearing does not control our lives, we do typical family stuff, just with more melt downs and patience. Luckily, the only "ex-smeariences" (hahahahaha, sorry) have happened at home. The most recent, which also happens to be the most traumatizing (only for me, Avery has a grand-ole-time,) happened not long ago while Avery was supposed to be napping. Emphasis on SUPPOSED to be.

Avery has a camera set up in her room that I can access from my phone. Like any kid, she can either be as loud as possible, or an evil silent ninja. On this particular day, she chose silent ninja mode.

It was around the time her nap should have been ending so I casually checked my phone to see if she had started stirring. What I saw next was like something out of a horror movie.

At first I couldn't tell what was all over her walls, bed, sheets, and body. From the camera it just looked like little smudges of something. Dirt? Did she spill her cup and rub it all over? Am I seeing things? Oh Lord please say Im just seeing things. As I headed upstairs I was SMACKED in the face with the smell. Parents know the one. And I knew, nap time would never be the same.

I took a deep breath (under my shirt,) covered my face, and walked in to see sweet sweet Avery, covered head to toe in poop with a HUGE smile on her face, having not the slightest idea that what she had clearly been working on for about an hour was not a masterpiece, but my nightmare. If you've read any of my other blogs, you know that discipline is a slippery slope in this household. There are somethings that Avery knows she shouldn't do and therefore discipline is accepted. Such as taking things from brother, dumping her cup on the floor to play in a juice puddle (augh,) or hitting mom or dad. I was out of my element in this case, poop smearing discipline was NOT covered in college, foster care classes, or parenting books!

I won't bore you with the million step process of cleaning every surface and fabric item in her room. All while trying not to suffocate, because by the way, sorry for the TMI, but Avery is three now. We aren't dealing with your everyday baby poop, this is full on little HUMAN poop.

Between the poop fiasco and our ever-growing mid day meltdowns I had had enough. Knowing Jason would be home soon to save the day (my hero,) I decided to turn on a movie and do the dishes, everyone needed a second to just breathe.

Poor Jason walked in the door just a few minutes later and I was in tears, doing the dishes, with leftover poop smell lingering in the house.

By the next day I had to quickly think of a way to be able to trust Avery to nap without getting to her diaper. And because im a genius, I went upstairs in search of an old jumper (or romper) because THAT was going to be my new secret weapon. So for all of those mommies dealing with the same issues, I have found that putting Avery in long pants with a romper over her outfit keeps her out of her diaper! Shark Tank, here I come!

So when Avery starts school in just a few weeks I have to add "cannot be trusted with poop" to her list of information. I wonder where she will end up on the subconscious scales of the staff?