Monday, August 24, 2009

The Deuce Lip Kiss

It was an unsolicited response to a question that was never asked. I was simply sitting in my chair, drinking coffee and praying that an asteroid would obliterate the satellite that was currently beaming the kid show Hi-5 into our TV, when Lucy announced a very odd statement… “Actually dad, I just have poop on my thumb.”

My eyebrow goes up and my coffee goes down, I grab the remote and mute the TV. I’m almost positive Lucy just yelled out that she had poop on her thumb. It was still pretty early in the morning and the two things I hate to hear before I finish breakfast are… “Daddy, Ruby is drinking out of the toilet again,” and the ever so pleasant, “Daddy! I have poop on (insert body part, appliance or Ruby here).” I don’t immediately move, I never do. What I once considered an emergency, has now become so frequent, it’ll take no less than a gunshot, to get me moving. I stare down the hall and wait for some sort of confirmation. After a few seconds, Lucy emerged from the bathroom butt naked with her thumb in the air, a gesture that unfortunately validates her ridiculous statement. Seriously? This is how we’re gonna start the day?

“Actually dad, I just have some poop on my thumb.” She repeated the absurd sounding words again, but then she followed it up with, “But don’t worry, I wiped it off.” I believe this was her attempt at defusing the situation. I think, she thinks, that she was taking responsibility for her actions, but let’s be honest here, she’s three! Unless she secretly had Mr. Belvedere in there wiping the “poop” off of her thumb, I was now a little bit more than worried.

“What do you mean ‘you wiped’ it off?”
“Well, that means that I took it off my thumb.” I wonder as she explains the word “wiped” to me, what it was that I must have done to make her think I’m an idiot? Of course she might just be patronizing me, in any case she’s stalling…. I still haven’t moved.
“I understand you took it off of your thumb. I want to know how?” This question was gonna be the meat and potatoes of the conversation. I was either gonna commend her on being such a responsible and intelligent little girl, or I was gonna have to get out of my chair. “I wiped it on the bath towel.” And I was up.

As I walked down the hallway I shook my head knowing full well that we have two different colored towels in our house. We have white, and we have off-white. I enter the bathroom. Lucy is standing on the yellow bath mat, her hands are clasped together in front of her…she seems pleased. After a quick survey of the situation, I came to the conclusion that either I must have just missed a C.S.I Team, or The Seven Dwarfs stopped here after mining excursion. There hanging behind the door was an off-white towel with 15-20 little brown fingerprints smudged all over it.

“I thought you said you had poop on your thumb?” I’m still not sure exactly how the poop came to rest upon little Lucy’s thumb. But based solely on the amount of fecal matter imbedded into the towel, I could only assume that she was unfortunately standing behind a buffalo when it sharted and sneezed at the same time.
“Lu, how in the world did you get poop on your thumb?”
“I was trying to be a big girl and wipe all by myself.” Trying was the key word here, as it appeared she gave it several attempts.
“Okay fine, but why did you wipe it on the towel?”
“Because I didn’t want the poopie on my thumb.” There wasn’t much I could fault her for there. I cleaned her up, got her dressed and then did a load of off-whites.

9 ½ hours later….

(ring….)
“Lu, finish your porkchop.”
(ring….)
“Lu! Don’t give that to Ruby, she doesn’t have teeth!”
(ring…)
I pick up the phone…“Yeah?”
“Errrr, how many times do I have to tell you, I hate when you answer the phone like that!”
“What? You’re calling to ask me something aren’t you? I’m just skipping over all of the unnecessary pleasantries and allowing you to get right to the heart of the call. If you think about it, I’m actually doing you a favor.” Although my argument makes perfect sense, she is not amused.
“It’s just rude, maybe I just want to talk, or hear about your day a little. Is that too much to ask?”
“Fine, I’ll try to say ‘hello’ and be more pleasant. Anyway… why did you call? What do you need?”
“Do you guys want to meet me at the train?” I take into consideration everything that has to be done before we leave the house in order for an event like this to happen. Both girls are fed and Ruby has been bathed, this shouldn’t be a problem.
“Okay, call us when you get to Addison, then we’ll start walking.”

20 minutes later…

(ring…)
“Daddy I gotta go poopie.”
(ring…)
“I’m changing Ruby, I’ll be there when I’m done.”
(ring…)
I pick up the phone, “Yeah?”
“You did it again!” I seriously can’t help it. “I just left Addison.”
“Okay” I hang up the phone, grab Ru and head to the bathroom. I walk in and Lucy is standing in front of the toilet.
“Did you go potty?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you wipe?”
“No.” Considering the days previous event, I could totally understand why she wouldn’t want to wipe. What I couldn’t understand was why she wouldn’t wait for help. She had her pants pulled up! I check to make sure… yup, there was definitely some deuce in her pants. We hurry up and do a quick change of clothes, before scurrying out the door.

We were one block into our walk when Lucy stopped me and said, “Daddy, I promise I will never have poopie on my lip again.” Clearly there is some confusion of body parts, there is no way she has poop on her lip. I bend down, and upon further examination, I spot a smear of poop right between her nose and her upper lip. I don’t ask how it got there, quite frankly, I don’t want to know. I grab a napkin that was on the bottom of the stroller and wipe the residue off of her lip. We weren’t about to turn around now, I have too much invested into this walk.

A block later we meet up with Cathy. Lucy runs at her full speed, jumps into her arms and kisses her all over the face. “Hello.” I say to Cathy, how was your day.” She seemed pleased by my greeting and began to tell us about her day. Cathy smiles as Lucy continued to snuggle and grace her with a bunch of excited wet kisses. We were the perfect family. Finally, Cathy asked Lucy how her day was. Lucy responded with the typical fare…park, playing, lunch, dinner, naps and cartoons. Then she said, “Mommy I promise I will never have poop on my lip again.” Cathy looks startled by this odd promise.
“When did she have poopie on her lip?” She asked.
“Ohhh, a few minutes ago. Don’t ask me how or why, I don’t know. We’ve had quite a day but she told me she will never have it on her lip again. I sorta wiped it off and that was that.”
“I kissed her on the lips!” She seemed pretty upset by this. “Why didn’t you tell me, she had poop on her lip before I let her kiss me?”
“Well I was gonna, but I didn’t want to be rude. I wanted to find out about all the pleasantries of your day.”
I spent that night on the couch. Cathy is currently seeking revenge.

3 comments:

  1. Great story loved it! Could not stop laughing! But from a medical stand point you seriously need to find out why Lucy had poopie on her lip! That can be medically dangerous to a child, whether she was smelling it or tasting it, it doesn't matter. Seriously!

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  2. You're story is amazing. It takes me back to when Noah was little and I was going through the same situations! You're a great dad and I'm glad that you see the humor in the events our kids do...even if it requires a little extra effort. Well done Jim!

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  3. Keep the stories coming. I forwarded your blog to a Mr. Kenneth Hunter, and if I have any control over the matter, I am going to forward your blog link to Conan O'Brien and the peeps at Saturday Night Live and all their offshoot show execs!!! :)

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