When people say they miss the early years of parenting, this is what I think of

By Juli

My kids are now 5 and almost 3, but as we enter into a new year I like to focus on thanks vs. resolutions. To that end, I am so thankful for being past THIS point during my maternity leave with my youngest.

I had just hung up the phone with my husband (at work) after a typical round of schedule and logistics tag (all in hushed voices on his end, which I can barely hear, since he’s in “cube land”). I tell my daughter (who is, ballpark, 2.5 a the time) that I’m going to let the dogs out to go poo in the backyard.

She runs to the back door "Me come, Me come!" She has her shoes on the wrong feet and is falling all over the place. "Honey, your shoes need to be switched around. They're on the wrong feet." (Repeat four times.) The baby starts to cry. My daughter drops down, right in front of the back door, to change her shoes. I pick up the baby.

After jumping over my little helper to get out the back door (dogs push by/half trample her), we head out for a family poopfest. "Lola, Rico, go potty." (Repeat 14 times.) Rico, dutifully, goes potty. The biggest of four turds rolls downhill in our sloping backyard, neatly under the next place he's going to step.

Squish.

Lola is standing in the middle of the potty area, staring at me like she's been frozen in time. She likes her privacy. Yeah, her and me too. Tough shit. "Dammit, Lola, GO POTTY." (My daughter repeats the "dammit" part. Lovely.) Rico, in response to the stern tone, RUNS past me, nearly knocking my feet out from under me, and leaving a neat little crap print on every other step and on up to the back deck. The more I beg him to "Come Rico, sit," the more he runs in circles, panicked he's in trouble. Poo, all over the deck. My daughter, on a clean little island, is trapped in the middle.

He’s panicked, I’m panicked, the kids are panicked, and yes, I admit, Rico’s in all sorts of BIG trouble.

Lola remains unflappable, in her deer-caught-in-headlight pose. Insufferable!!

"Lola, GO POTTY." Lola casually loses my gaze and starts to wander around sniffing, giving me hope. "Honey, go stand over there, there's dog poop on the deck. Don't step in it."

She starts chanting "Rico, no poop in yellow house. Rico, no poop in yellow house."

(Keep in mind, I'm still holding a screaming infant.) I run over to the hose and turn it on while using one-legged blocking moves to keep Rico, the big black absent-minded lab (inbreeding?), near me and away from the old pile of dog poop right at the bottom of the stairs, lest he try to eat it or step in it. It’s my husband’s job to clean it up. I start to smolder.

It’s been a long time since my anthropology studies, but I’m still good at dating things; that shit has been there for DAYS.

So, while I'm preparing to hose off Rico’s foot, I check for Lola, who has, by now, made it to her favorite “secret-shitting spot” at the bottom of the yard – where the kids play – nowhere near the designated “dog run.” She’s starting to do that hunching thing dogs do.

"LOLA!!" I bellow in the most ungodly fashion I can muster.

Rico drops down on his side into the mud I've been making with the hose. His “submissive” pose. Lola runs, elegantly, in a fine canter, across the length of the yard, back to me, like she was just out for a stroll. "You called?" her big brown eyes blink out in Morse Code.

"Lola, go potty over here now. I don't want you crapping on the deck later too."

My daughter, from above on the deck: "Lola, no crap on deck." Lovely.

Holding the baby (stupid?), I hose Rico off, while keeping on eye on Lola (frozen again, stage fright or insolence?). I send Rico back up to the deck, put the baby in his bouncy seat, and shepherd the two-year-old away from the Rico poo-prints polka-dotting the back deck.

"Lola, go potty, for the love of God!" Our neighbors must think I'm nuts.

Lola waits until I'm done hosing off the deck (afraid I'm going to spray her? Hmmmm, tempting. . .) Then. . .gloriously. . .she poops.