My burning question is, Why me? Why am I inundated with everyone else’s dirty truth? Is it because between three dogs, three cats, and three kids that I clean-up so much of it I’m an expert? Is it because I give so much attention to it each day that I’m bringing more of it into my life via the Law of Attraction? Why has my life all of a sudden become about that dirty four-lettered word? Please tell me that I’m not the only one that scoops the litter, cleans the backyard, changes a pull-up, a diaper, and wipes a pint-sized butt (not mine, at least not since I’ve had 3 kids in 4 years) all before 10 am.

I can’t seem to get away from it. My boys don’t make it any easier with their obsession with the stuff. Oftentimes when I clean the backyard, they are there pointing out the different piles. It’s a competition on who can find the most. They act as if they scored the winning point with each find. One day, my oldest did show a little sportsmanship when he said, “I hope Hayden finds some.” Ahhh, brotherly love. Unfortunately it doesn’t stop there, my almost 3-year-old has to draw dog p**p on all of his pictures that include a house. He wants you to draw the house and he likes to draw circular objects falling from the sky that represent, well you know. Yeah, it’s going to be fun explaining that in preschool.

Oh well, if you need someone to lay your p**p experiences on, I’m here. There’s nothing I haven’t heard or seen. (Read It Was A Poop-tastrope.) After all, when you have three babies, your modesty has been thrown out the window. More people have seen me naked than when I was a single girl in my twenties. Go ahead and write on my tombstone…

Beloved wife, mother, daughter, and friend…
She really gave a crap.

Here’s my story…

My 3-year-old comes into my bedroom and tells me that his little brother took his diaper off and put poop on the floor. Ok, not so bad I thought. I can handle a little poop on the floor. After all, it’s not as bad as my friend’s son who smeared his poop all over her wall. Oh, but how wrong I was. I walk into the room and see my curious little 2-year-old poking at the dark round pile on the floor with hands covered in what I would’ve given my last girl scout cookie to be chocolate. But, it wasn’t chocolate all over his hands, shirt, chubby butt, or stocky thighs. Yes, once again, it was a poop-tastrophe.

I immediately picked him up and put him in the tub. Off went the shirt, in went the bubbles, and within 10 minutes all was well again in the household. That is until 1 hour later when the stinker came running in my office once again without a diaper. It turns out that he doesn’t like anything rubbing against his pint sized penis or plump rear, so he takes off his diaper. He then proceeds to tell me what he did in his pants. Now if only he could only get the concept of sitting on the potty before he does his business. Then life would be good, with two down and one to go in the messy world of potty training.

**Warning** The pictures that you are about to see do not contain chocolate.

9. My once strong and healthy teeth are in a battle with cavities. Unfortunately, they are losing.

8. I�?Tm in a constant state of cleaning. Forget about taking a sick day or an afternoon off. It will take a week for the house to recover.

7. Germaphobe is now a word I use to describe myself. Once fall hits, I sanitize shopping carts, my kids, and I�?Tm very suspicious of nearby coughing children. However, I�?Tm not an extremist. My kids and I don�?Tt live in a plastic bubble like John Travolta in The Boy in the Plastic Bubble. Nevertheless, if they get sick, I get sick, and the whole house goes to hell.

6. I forget where I�?Tm going while I�?Tm driving. It doesn�?Tt matter if I�?Tve driven the path a million times. For an instant, I become�?�lost.

5. Everything I read or watch on the news freaks me out and I no longer know what or who to believe. Should I or shouldn�?Tt I get flu shots, give my children cold medicine, buy toys made in China, get them vaccinated, etc�?�?

4. Using the bathroom in private is no longer a right, but a highly sought out privilege.

3. I�?Tve lost time. I�?Tm not sure where it�?Ts gone or what it�?Ts doing. All I know is that time is one hot commodity that I can�?Tt seem to get enough of.

2. Brain cells are dying with each pregnancy. My ability to form intelligent complete sentences on demand has completely vanished. I like to refer to this as a case of �?omomitis�?�.

1. I would tell you what the number #1 thing is that has happened to me but, I really need to find the pepper, my teeth hurt, I have dishes to do, all the kids in my son�?Ts preschool have runny noses, the news is on, my kids are asleep so I can pee in peace, I really don�?Tt have any more time to spend on this, and I�?Tve just lost my train of thought.

It was a Sunday afternoon and I had nothing better to do than dig away at my ever-growing heap of laundry. Things are going great with my new front loading washing machine; I had already washed about three loads. Then I took out my light load from the dryer, it wasn’t pretty. I noticed my stepdaughter’s jacket in the mix and asked her to meet me by the dryer to view the mess. I politely asked her if she had anything in her pockets that could have caused greenish spots on the clothes. Not being a good liar, she said no and I could tell that she had no idea about the marks. I then started to examine the clothing more carefully and noticed a huge spot of green coming from one of my pant pockets. Realizing that is where the crayon debacle originated, I told her she could go back to her snack and I would clean up the mess. Damnit! I can’t blame the kid, this was all my doing. It all started coming back to me. I remember picking up a piece of crayon while cleaning, so my two-year-old wouldn’t leave his mark, yet again, on my walls. Ugghhh!!!!

Ok, the culprit has been identified and soon to be punished with a hellish clean up job. As I said earlier, this is the second time I have dealt with crayon in the dryer. I couldn’t remember exactly what I did last time, so I started doing an online search and came up with some real life options on ThriftyFun.com. Just in case this happens to you, here is what worked for me. I scrubbed the dryer with Colgate toothpaste and a damp cloth. I also put a damp towel dabbed with dishwashing soap in the dryer at high heat for 10-15 minutes. This enabled me to wipe off more of the melted crayon. There is still a green crayon stain around the heating element, but I ran a load of old towels and it didn’t transfer on to the towels. For the clothes, I tossed a couple of pieces that I didn’t care about and doused the rest with Shout. I used my regular detergent and washed the clothes on cold with a hot temperature boost.

The casualties? Well, there were a few. The pants I didn’t feel like dealing with, small spot on my stepdaughter’s jacket, a few stubborn spots on the bottom of my favorite capris, and my husband’s ugly burnt-orange dress shirt. I had to throw away the shirt; I was very upset as I did a happy dance to the trashcan. At least one good thing came out of crayon in the dryer.

I guess the title of this blog could be changed to Crayon + Dryer = Goodbye Ugly Shirt.