Tommy's tale

As Emily pointed out, I promised last week that “in my next post” I would tell you about an interesting thing Tommy did over the weekend. Well, I had every intention of doing just that. But then I had to get that TV thing off my chest, and of course I wanted to help Torie and the TCU students.

So now it's time to deliver Tommy's tale. I’ve been kicking around ways to tell the story. The more I think about it, the more I’m not sure I can capture the true essence of it. It’s almost one of those ‘you had to be there' things.

Still, a promise is a promise, so here goes.

Some of you who have kids have, probably, been there. Those who have children in their future, well, you may very well get to experience this as well.

Without further ado…

It was last Saturday afternoon. Fall is in the air and it’s time to get the yard prepped for winter. We have some nice landscaping, but it requires a fair amount of maintenance. I’m out there trimming shrubs, pruning trees, working up a sweat. I’ve got my gloves and sunglasses on. The results of my labor are scattered all over the yard. There is a lot of cleanup to do – I'm guessing a dozen plastic yard bags will be filled before we're done.

Fortunately for me, I have help. Chris and Tommy are on the job. They, too, have their work gloves on – about five sizes too big, but they have them. Sunglasses as well. It’s kind of cute to have them working with me, even if it takes half again as long to get the work done. They are so earnest and try so hard, and take huge pride in scooping up some tree trimmings and dumping them in the bag. They love to ‘help Daddy’ and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

By and by Chris and Tommy tire of this chore and drift away. Chris goes off to ride his bike. Tommy hangs in a bit longer, then disappears into the house. I don’t think much of it – MBW is in there somewhere – and continue to clean up the yard.

After a few minutes I notice Tommy looking out at me from one of the upstairs window. It’s the bathroom window. He must have had to go potty.

I continue to clean up. Every so often I glance up at the window, and Tommy is still there. Watching. Smiling. I smile, wave a gloved hand. He smiles and waves back.

And continues to stand there.

Well, I can see him, and he can’t do much to get in trouble there, so I continue to work, glancing up every so often. All appears well.

After a few more minutes I hear MBW shriek. I look up at the window. Tommy’s not there. So I go in the house, up the stairs and head to the bathroom, where I find

Everything

Covered

In

Poop.

Seems Tommy went in to use the potty and “had a little problem,” as he put it. Whatever the problem was, it led him to experiment with poop as a sort of paint. Delicate strokes of poop trailed expressively across the sink and vanity, over the tub and shower surround, across the recently tiled floor, and of course rubbed vigorously into the rug.

For good measure, he covered a fair amount of himself in it.

The sight was disgusting. The odor was very complimentary to the sight.

I’ve seen my share of nasty diaper blowouts over the past five years. This looked like a diaper bomb went off in the bathroom. I’m surprised the walls were still standing.

MBW was frantically scrubbing Tommy and was, justifiably, pretty upset. I tried to help, taking Tommy into the downstairs bathroom shower, getting him cleaned up and back to normal. I went back to try to help MBW clean the upstairs bathroom, but by then she was just about finished. She was pretty well steamed.

But the bathroom really sparkled!

If you’ve read this blog for awhile you know a bit about Tommy. He is a very spirited three-year-old. He absolutely has a mind of his own and is not easily deterred. While this behavior is extreme, even for him, if I had been traveling and MBW were to ask me over the phone, “Guess who covered himself and half the bathroom in poop?” I’d never say Chris.

Of course Tommy spent a fair amount of time in his room in ‘Time Out’ after that little episode.

When it was all over I had to suppress a chuckle. Leave it to Tommy.

Who knows what he’ll do next?

A special welcome to everyone who has visited this blog from the Southern Living message boards. Special thanks to luvmyhunny for posting the link there. I don’t know you, but thank you for the plug. Welcome to The Family Man blog. If you’d like to learn a bit more about this blog while you’re here, I’ve put links to some of what I consider to be the better posts on the sidebar under the heading Family Album. Please leave a note and let me know if you enjoyed your visit here.

To the other readers who’ve been stopping by for awhile, I’m interested to know what previous posts you’ve enjoyed. Let me know so I can add them to the family album.

Coming in the next few posts I’ll tell you about an interesting phone call I recently received, an idea I have, and a sports-related story.

Plus whatever hijinks Chris and Tommy manage to create!

It’s great to be The Family Man.