This past Labor Day, my family and I had decided that we’d make it a lazy day and hang around the house. We didn’t throw a bbq or plan for any guests (except for my sister and hubby-in-law)….just a lazy, summer holiday.
We (the parents) got up at a decent time and cleaned up around the house. I made some breakfast and my dear husband started the cleaning.The kids got up, had breakfast and we went out to run a few errands and come back home. Lazy day, remember?! As the morning progresses, we receive texts and calls from family and friends asking what we’re doing that day and much to our delightful surprise, we ended up having a full-on bbq! It was totally unexpected but fully welcomed.
In the afternoon, when the house was full, I was in the kitchen cooking, guests were talking, the kids were playing video games and it’s what you’d normally envision for a day off and good weather. Now let’s back-track 2 weeks….
2 weeks ago, we decided to potty-train our youngest to get him ready for school. Seeing that he started school on Aug 22 and we hadn’t done much training, we decided to go cold turkey with training underwear. We stopped using pull-ups and went straight to underwear. I was prepared to take on any accidents that might’ve occurred if I went too long without taking him to use the bathroom. And with the help of his teachers, he’d been very successful at school too. The caveat is, we need to take him to the bathroom because he will not say that he has to go.
Fast-forward to a few days ago. I come out of the kitchen (where I’ve been cooking all day, mind you) to ask my dear husband to check on our toddler to see if he had to go to the bathroom. He went over to the living area, where we have an ivory, shag rug, and stood in shock, looking at our son. Poop happened….right there on the rug…..and he had stepped in it.
In life, poop happens. Things don’t go as planned, we are disappointed by people we trust, we lash out irrationally, we make mistakes….poop happens. It’s part of life. And you can do one of two things, you can act like nothing ever happened, bury your feelings and ignore reality or you can work through it and move on. I was prepared to throw the rug out that day because there was NO WAY I’d get the rug cleaned to be able to use it again. My dear husband thought otherwise. He didn’t want the money that we’d spent on it to go to waste. So there we were, sitting on the rug, with a plastic fork, combing the poop out of the rug. (Guests were very quiet as we “worked” through this. Some giggled…not naming any names but you know who you are!)
EVENTUALLY, we got the rug cleaned, dried and ready to be put back in the living room. And yes, you’ve read it here, but no one can ever tell what happened. The point: Before you give up on something or someone and consider throwing it all away, try working through the poop. Many times you’ll find that it really wasn’t that big of a deal. And then you can move on.
Love,
Myrna <3
