Well That's Shitty

Disclaimer: The following is all about poo.  You've been warned.

I deal with a lot of shit in my line of work.  Not in the traditional sense, as in, my boss is a jerk and impossible deadlines and stuff like that, but in the literal sense.  Cleaning up poo is a multiple-time-a-day undertaking for me. 

Thing 2 poops about four times a day still. Probably due to the amount of fruit and veg she eats.  Thankfully Thing 1 is toilet-trained now, although he hasn't really mastered the whole wiping thing yet, so that's still on my docket.  We have two good-sized retrievers and one small yard. This means daily stoop and scooping as nothing is worse than scraping dog doo out of a tiny kids shoe tread. Not to mention Thing 2 would probably pick it up if I let her.  More on that later. And lastly, the damn cat requires her majesty's sand throne be cleaned on the daily or she threatens to find other elimination quarters. 

In case you lost count, that's crap from five other beings, not including my own.  Good thing my wife is self-sufficient in these matters.

So Thing 2 has developed a bizarre fascination with poo.  If she finds one out in the yard, she crouches down really close to inspect it.  She'll pull a stool up in front of you when you're on the can. And most disturbing of all, she demands to see the contents of her poopy diaper after each change. How weird is that?  I sure hope that's a passing phase.

So let me tell you about the shittiest afternoon I've ever had.  Back in January, three weeks into Thing 1's potty-training, the kids and I venture out  to the library. Within 10 minutes of getting here, I notice Thing 2 smells a bit ripe.  As I take her into the bathroom (which mercifully had a change table), I discover that the diaper has not fulfilled its duty of holding in the contents* . I then quickly discover that I have a total of 4 baby wipes remaining in the diaper bag. This is at least a 6 wiper.  Efficiency is of the utmost importance.

Thing 1 then drops a bombshell on me.  The bomb being in his pants,  in a mostly liquefied form, and it's running down his leg.  Thank the good people at the library for having the facility well stocked with brown paper towel.

Outing over.

 

As we head in the front door to head up to the bath, we're greeted by Dog #1 who apparently rolled in some other animal's shit undetected before we left for the library.  Not only does he need a bath now as well, but I have to wash whatever he was laying on.

You'd have to clean Porta Potties for a living to top this afternoon.

So the next time you think you're having a figuratively shitty day, just remember, I'm probably having a literal one.

*Check out my  Cottage post for a similar diaper-related mishap: http://mysahdexistence.blogspot.ca/2016/08/the-cottage.html

#52 traits: Positivity in a Negative World

The following is another of my articles in the #52traits series on GetConnectDAD.com.

https://getconnectdad.com/positivity-in-a-negative-world/

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Here's the article in its entirety:

My kids are too young to realize it yet, but we live in a pretty negative world. We, as adults, are pessimistic about everything these days.  From the weather to politics, to the state of the economy, everything is going for a big steamy poop.  Just about everything we consume, from our food and drink to our choice of TV show, is bad for us. Even the majority of music coming out these days is garbage. In short, everything sucks.

So how the heck are we supposed to raise our kids to be positive?

I know what we’ll do: we can give everyone a medal for participation. That will keep everyone positive, right? Not so much. All that does is grow a generation of spoiled, entitled wussbags who don’t know how to deal with defeat.

So what’s a parent to do?

In my opinion, the best way to teach positivity is to teach failure. Now I’m not talking about breaking a kid’s spirit with a constant barrage of losing endeavours. I’m talking about teaching a kid that, even if you lose or don’t succeed at something, it doesn’t need change who you are and it doesn’t change your potential to succeed in the future.

Just think of old Charlie Brown. His team lost every baseball game they played. But the start of every game, he went in thinking “today was the day we finally win”. Positivity despite adversity. It’s the same idea as the old adage “Life goes on”.   I don’t want my kids to put too much stock into losing a little league game. It’s just a game. As adults, we seem to put too much stock in kids sports these days. Every wants their kid to have that extra edge. I just want my kids to have fun and enjoy playing whatever it is they want to play.

Then there’s positive reinforcement. Now my four-year-old needs a push to try some things. Sometimes a big push. Getting him on a bike this year, even with training wheels, was a challenge. If it was up to him, he still never would have sat on that seat. We had to force him on to the seat. Once he was on it, we used an obnoxious amount of encouragement and positive reinforcement. He hated us for doing it, but once he saw that he could do it himself, it was hard to get him off the bike. It was the same thing with the pool. Swimming lessons were a nightmare. Who knew a three-year-old could scream bloody murder for 25 minutes straight, six weeks in a row? But I think he saw that we stayed positive about it, and about swimming in general. Now, it’s hard to get him out of the pool.So maybe that’s the other trick to raising a positive child. To lead by example. Kids are more observant than we like to think. If my kids see my wife coming home and talking about how she thinks she’s doing a terrible job at work, how is that going to affect their confidence when they go to school? They’re probably going to start thinking the same way about themselves. As I write about this, I’m thinking of more and more ways that I’m being negative about things around the house. It’s going to be a difficult mindset to change, but if I want my kids to be positive, I’m going to have to do the same.

So here goes. Dinner will not suck tonight (even if it actually tastes like dog food).