Toilet Talk

There are some words guaranteed to make a ten year old giggle.This morning Pearl was beside herself because I said knickers; poo and fart have much the same effect.

We are big on toilet talk in our family as an important precursor to actual toilet training  success. This post, is not, I’m afraid, a wonderful campaigning post about the necessity of Changing Places important as these undoubtedly are (you can find one of these here). It is instead a further insight into my complete inability to housewife effectively.

After a Bank Holiday weekend of waiting for a very constipated girl to poo, a delightful combination of movicol and mini enemas started things moving  (I’ll spare Pearl’s blushes, and it really isn’t her who needs to be embarrassed by this post). If you imagine a  coke bottle stuffed full with hard pebbles you can see that neither she nor I had a great deal of fun.

At the end of the weekend, we returned from our caravan of dreams with a huge bag of washing, and a digestive system slowly restoring itself to normal function. Desperate to get ahead of the washing, which was covered in chocolate coloured stains from both ends of Pearl, I merrily loaded my trusty washing machine.

Completing my first wash load, congratulating myself on my ability to restore order from chaos I hung some of Pearl’s lovely new t-shirts up to dry.

This morning the smell of ordure hung heavily in the air. I smelt the beautifully ‘clean’ shirts and gagged slightly. Then I opened the tumble drier to be met by the same smell. Pulling everything out I found what was apparently a piece of dried chocolate biscuit at the bottom of the dryer. Except it was actually a dessicated poo. Oh yes indeed.

Many irritating things have snuck into my wash and caused chaos in the past, tissues, red skirts, asthma inhalers  I’ve washed them all in my time-but this was a new experience. After a full and unexpected bleach of the  tumble dryer (accompanied by vocalisations of horror and disgust, and the occasional “oh shit, literal shit!) I went for a run to breathe in fresh air and rinse the idea of tumble dried poo from my mind.

Back, full of the smug endorphins that follow a run, I began to hang the washing on the line in the spring sunshine. I was congratulating myself on saving an unpleasant situation with optimism, quick thinking and bonhomie. What a model of resilient good humour I am. If it was possible to receive a Nobel prize for Special Needs Parenting I was surely on the short list. But wait,what was this? A t shirt, fresh smelling,with a huge brown stain on it, surely not more chocolate? Dear reader I was right, it surely was not.

I’ll admit, I have form with faeces. When The Glory was being potty trained, she snuck into our understairs cupboard for some privacy, it was two days before I found a human poo on the floor of said cupboard.

More recently, this  winter, with the electric heater on, a nappy disaster featuring a fast moving Pearl and a subsequent poorly anchored nappy tab, lent me the ablity to use the phrase “the shit hits the fan” non figuratively.

Anyway back to today’s disaster. Running (fast) back to the machine I found a poo squidged into the seal, and, dear Lord why had I not noticed this before?-a damp, glistening offering (Bristol Stool Scale 1 ) which had been through an entire 40 degree wash. Reader you may not be able to polish a turd, but I somehow had managed to wash a whole nappies worth, minus the actual nappy.

At times I reflect on the Special Needs journey and wonder how my life would be were I not living the dream. I can tell you that unequivocally there would be less literal shit, and piss taking, although with a family of five of a sarcastic bent, plenty of the metaphorical stuff.

The time I’d saved “getting ahead with the washing” added an hour to my cleaning of the laundry room, an hours 90 degree and bleach cycle, on an empty machine, and rewashing two loads of suspect smelling clothes.

As you can see I’m very efficient (spell check attempted to change this to effluent how apt!) A marvel of time management. Also practical, and pragmatic, having ignored my initial temptation to throw away all the clothes and set fire to the house to clear the smell.

Now the whole sorry episode is over with no one any the wiser.  Apart  from you, dear reader, and I trust you to take it no further.