What's Grosser than Gross?

When I woke up this morning, the birds chirped. My heart sang.

Sunshine, warmth, gardening awaited. I lay in bed an extra moment or two and thoroughly enjoyed hugs and kisses and smiles from my sweet little baby.

But then, I got up and went down the hall.

(End magical dream sequence).

Which leads us to our topic of the day -- WHAT'S GROSSER THAN GROSS?

To help you determine the answer, I will give you a few examples of yucky, but endearing:

1) A child's first birthday cake.

2) When Colt ate ladybugs by the fistful at Rockbridge as a baby.

3) A child who goes elbow deep into a jar of peanut butter and smears it all over his hands and face and hair.

4) Not one, not two, but THREE exploded diapers in my washing machine.

These are the things that you fondly remember with a laugh and a smile, and maybe a photo or two. No, no. I am not talking about yucky. I am not even talking about the truly GROSS, which includes:

1) A son who routinely takes rotting pears off your pear tree and stores them in the couch for "later" and then eats them for snacks. This same son has no qualms about eating the rotting pears left on the ground that the maggots have already decided are too disgusting to eat.

2) Come to think of it, anything involving maggots.

3) Baby poop explosions, in any form. Including ones that go up to the neck or even in the hair.

4) When Chris Craddock gags and pukes because someone else has puked.

5) Children who puke in the middle of Starbucks. Or right on the middle of their plates in IHOP. Or (more recently), yak up their pancakes in the Rockbridge Dining Hall.

I could go on, and on, and on, and on. These, my friends, are examples of the truly gross. But are they grosser than gross? No, no, my dears. These are bush league. Which brings us back to the original question: WHAT'S GROSSER THAN GROSS?

Yesterday, I thought I'd found the answer. In fact, it is so gross that I must admit I still haven't faced it yet. You know that little plastic doohickey that holds the toilet paper roll? Well SOMEONE (who's identity will remain anonymous to protect the guilty) dropped it into a murky bowl of poop soup. And now that doohickey is stuck -- not visible to the human eye -- in the toilet bowl hole. And today, SOMEBODY (me) is going to have to fish it out. Most likely with my hands.

"KATIE!" I screamed to my only fellow female, and last sane, neat person in the house. "WE NEED MORE GIRLS!!!!"

GAH!!!!

I was actually going to post that yesterday, under this same title. But then, as is normal for any parent of multiple boys, things got even grosser. You see, at 4:30 a.m. this morning, as I was changing Blaize's 5th poop explosion of the day (gross), I noticed something odd. The hall bathroom light was on. I checked in on the children, but they were all asleep in the darkness of their rooms. "Hmm," I thought. "Colt must have been sleepwalking again." I turned off the light, changedandwipedandfedthepoopybaby, and thought of the incident no more.

That is, until I merrily skipped back down the hallway this morning. (Note: There are no accompanying photos for this fiasco, as the reality is truly GROSSER THAN GROSS).

Poop on the carpets. Poop on underwear. Poop on pants. Poop on multiple articles of clothing used as "wipes." A poop trail down the wood floors. Poop on the bathroom tiles. Poop smeared on the toilet seat. Poop encrusted on the feet and legs of the midnight offender (who also shall remain nameless to protect the guilty). Ah, yes. The mother of all grossness. The bane of every mother and father's existence. POOP ART.

All this from the same child (a boy, of course), to whom I once frantically shouted, "Don't eat the poop! Don't eat the poop!" when he just had to have a taste of the brown goodies he had discovered in his diaper. (And, if you are wondering, he DID eat the poop).

So today, I blog. Barricaded in my room. Writing in the hopes that in a few minutes I will rise to face my deepest, most-gag-worthy grossness fears and clean up yet another disgusting mess created by little boys.

And, I know, this is only the beginning. There will be more yuckiness, more grossness, and even more grosser than grossness to come in my life. And I shall stand strong, and I shall clean it up. Because I am a MOM, and we can roll like that.

Besides -- what I know -- and what I have not shared here even under the category of "Grosser than Gross", is that I have already faced the unimaginable and triumphed.

By far THE GROSSEST thing I have ever had to witness or clean up in my LIFETIME shall forever be named the TERRIBLE AWFUL. The terrible awful is so disgusting and repulsive that just thinking about it makes me gag. It is so nasty, that only 3 other people in this world know what it was. And it is something that I can never, never post. Intrigued? Too bad. It will just have to irritate you, "like a splinter in your brain." Because we'll never tell.

What is the grossest thing you have had to face as a mom, dad, or pet owner?