Poop Happens

My 3-yr-old nephew became a Poo Handler 1st Class recently, much to my sister's chagrin.

She was in another room when things became quiet---too quiet. She found her son in the living room absolutely covered in his own exrement---dookies on his hands, on his clothes, on the couch, on the rug, and in some bizarre anointment ritual, on his forehead.

My nephew being, well, my nephew, had an answer for this situation. He got right to the heart of the matter, no messing around:

"Mommy, how are we going to get the poops off?"

My sister sized up the situation and thought for a moment. "We're going to take a shower," she said.

"But mommy, we don't take showers---we take baths!" he protested.

"Not this time."

As she gingerly prepared the heir apparent for his first-ever shower, he laid the basis for his defense. "Nobody's perfect, Mommy---everybody makes mistakes," he argued, quite reasonably for a toddler.

My sister just grumbled.

Time to accentuate the positive. "Mommy, the shower works good!"

She was having none of it. "Look at me. Mommy's not happy."

He acknowledged the tragedy of the turd. "I know, Mommy," he sighed, "I'm not happy either."

There is a lesson in my young nephew's plight: poop happens, and when it does, the best thing you can do is cheerfully clean up the mess.