Tubdumping

Photo credit: mjecker, flickr.com

Not long ago, the kid pooped in the bathtub.

She had done this only once before. And she was younger then, so her output was just a small yellowish cloud that was easy to dispense with.

This time was different.

Had we heeded the signs—namely, a couple of healthy toots that presaged the arrival of the kid she was about to drop off at the pool—we could have avoided the whole incident. But we didn't. Nor did we notice the blank "I'm a-poopin'" cast of her face as she stood grabbing the rim of the tub, until it was too late. "And then," as Eddie Murphy famously joked in Delirious, "a big brown shark came."

It started harmlessly enough, a single turd that slipped quietly into the water before bobbing to the surface amidst the assorted bath toys. But thanks to babygirl's fondness for blueberries, it didn't stay that way for long.

We managed to get her out of the tub before the smell hit, whereupon my wife started coughing and gagging as she fled the scene, bearing the giggling kid in a blue towel. I could still hear the coughs and gags coming from the next room as my wife dealt with what was on the towel. But my immediate concern was what was now rapidly disintegrating in the tub like a long brown comet, trailing half-digested blueberry bits and wispy fragments of itself in its wake.

Thanking my lucky stars once again for my iron stomach, I gingerly lifted out the larger chunks with pieces of toilet paper and dropped them into the toilet. Then I yanked the drain plug and hit the shower head, washing down the remnants. The bath toys went into the sink for the soap, rinse and repeat treatment, then it was time for a bathroom-cleanser scrubdown to disinfect the whole area.

Since then, all has been quiet on the fecal front during bathtime. But we're still a little gun-shy. This evening, she let out a little fart that put an end to the bath-night festivities in four seconds flat.