The Backward Pajama Brigade: A Poo-tastrophe

If you ask a parent what their favorite sounds are, I am fairly confident that their child’s laughter along with the sweet serenity of silence are on the top of that list.

If you ask a parent what sounds fill them with terror of impending doom, these same items would also top the list.

If we lived on a farm, my children would be waking up the roosters. It always seems to be on the mornings where inexplicably the clock creeps past seven and perhaps even later, that the worst episodes with my children occur. First there is laughter at the crack of dawn and I am relieved that I am not waking up to screaming. Then it gets quiet. Too quiet. Quiet like it was before the arrival of the little house monkeys and so the drifting back into sleep is inevitable. Then before you know it, it’s past eight in the morning and it’s still quiet. This is when the catapult out of bed occurs and the mindless, insane dash into the children’s room happens, only to be met by a site that takes the ticks of ten to twenty seconds before the magnitude of the situation truly sinks in.

What could have occurred, you ask, that makes me fear the laughter and silence of my children? A poo-tastrophe.

If you have never experienced one, then count yourself among the blessed, fortunate, and to be envied for they are ridiculously hideously tedious and stressful and can take hours of cleaning and bleaching to return a room back to normal with only the faint smell of human excrement left behind. Forgive me if this is a tad gross, but it happens and it happens a lot, especially to us, so I am going to tell my story…

When my daughter turned two, she was still in her crib and still napped on a somewhat consistent basis, but something very disturbing began to occur. Perhaps I broached the potty training too soon. Maybe I reacted in such a way in the first instance to cause this to become a “thing” with her, but there it is and it began; she began to remove her pajamas in the mornings and at nap times and along with it, her diaper. Needless to say, the poo-tastrophe was born. When it became too consistent for my sanity, I started looking around for solutions. I read sites online and was relieved to find out that my child was not the only one indelibly and completely obsessed by their bowel movements. Yes, it is normal. But the kicker is this: One cannot reason with a two year old, one cannot fully explain the utter disgustingness of the situation, nor can one demonstrate what it takes to un-contaminate from such an episode. Thus we are left with the one lesson I have learned and have had learned the hard way: There are some things in parenting we cannot do anything about. In other words, you have just got to deal! Which is what I began to do.

I talked to other moms who dealt with similar issues and received a slew of advice and encouragement. I could not in good conscience duct tape a diaper to my child. Sleeping with her in her room or sitting with her until she slept simply did not work at all. Even when it kept occurring, I tried many different responses: the shock and clean up along with lots of “No, no!!!” and “We don’t throw poo! It’s yucky” with stern looks, the shut out with clean up and ignoring the proud looks and “See, it’s poop!” and even the time outs and removing of toys to discourage it. None to any avail. Then I started putting on pajamas backward. Stretch and twist the footsies to the front and zip it and button it up the back! She would still poop during bedtimes and naptimes but at least it remained contained and much easier to dispose! The poo-tastrophes were over.

My daughter has since been more or less potty trained and the fiascos have been more or less becoming minimal and we have almost forgotten the strain and tension that came along with sleep times in our home…until recently…

My son is just over one year old and he shares a room with my daughter. There have been a few incidents, as she enjoys climbing into his crib and keeping him entertained. This entertainment has taken a turn for the worst.

In all attempts to be the best that I can be and to prevent as much as I can, I get the bright idea, yet again, to put my second child’s pajamas backwards. If he gets out of them, then I know of a little girl who might have possibly (most definitely) “helped” in the situation.

This was last night.

8 a.m. this cloudy morning. Silence, then slight giggles. Catapult out of bed. Rush through kids’ bedroom door and the horror has begun yet again.

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change...”