Boogies on Shirts and Pee Everywhere

I know, I know. Motherhood isn’t a pristine job. But sometimes, when I think back over the last eleven years of my life, I wonder how I’ve survived all of the absolutely disgusting things that my dear children have brought into my life.

It starts the moment they’re born, with that black, sticky meconium stuff that can only be removed from their little bottoms with turpentine (or at least an entire box-full of wipies). Of course, I, like most new mommies, had read about newborn poop, so I was prepared for it. Likewise the stinky diapers, projectile pee, and endless blurps on my shoulder.

“’Tis a season,” I would think. “They are not babies forever.”

No, indeed. They grow into bigger children who bring forth bigger and more disgusting messes than any infant could dream up.

When Jonathan was four-ish, he cooked up the delightful habit of picking his nose and wiping the boogies on his shirt. Now imagine, if you will, what the child’s shirts looked like at the end of the day. And I actually had to TOUCH these things – had to wash these booger-filled shirts week after week.

It was especially fun when I’d dress him up for an outing and by the time we got there his nice shirt would invariably sport a fresh boogie. He didn’t outgrow this charming habit very quickly, either. The boogies-on-the-shirt syndrome went on for several years. I was starting to worry that he would enter puberty and still do the boogie thing.

(Are you gagging yet? I’m gagging as I write.)

Jonathan’s messes have never been confined to mere bodily functions, though. His love of nature and penchant for collecting “creatures” has been an endless source of skipped heartbeats for me. Most recently he came home with three little crayfish (“crawfish” if you’re a Southerner) in a jar. I tried as hard as I could to sound like an enthusiastic, science-minded homeschooling mom. Really, I did. But in truth I was averting my eyes while the little buggers scurried and swam and clanked along the bottom of the jar.

Imagine my horror when, a short while later, a grinning Jonathan came up to me holding a small plate, on which was perched a single, bright-red crayfish.

My son had boiled the crayfish alive.

“Well, Mommy,” he explained. “That’s the same way you cook a lobster!” (Yes, he knows I adore lobster tail. But I wasn’t exactly jumping for joy over a boiled crayfish.)

How many children do you know who bring home pets and then cook them? Okay – to be fair, Jonathan does have a new interest in seafood, thanks to our recent week at the shore. He loves to fish, and more than anything he wants to catch a fish that’s big enough to actually bring home and cook. But a two-inch crayfish?

There goes that gag reflex again. I can still see those little, staring eyes… (In the end, even Jonathan couldn’t bring himself to eat the thing.)

Less than an hour had passed before the other two crayfish had also expired, the most obvious reason for their demise being the fact that Jonathan had removed them from their natural river water and replaced them in a jar of tap water. I’m sure the chlorine hit them so fast that they didn’t know what was happening.

At least they weren’t boiled to death.

Along the same lines as the crayfish are the crickets and worms that Jonathan regularly collects for fish bait. And where does he keep these treasures? Why, in my refrigerator, of course! Just this afternoon Jonathan came in the back door with black, mud-encrusted hands, holding a plastic container.“Guess what’s in here?” he said gleefully. Then, without waiting for my answer (I was too busy bracing myself) he exclaimed, “SIXTY-FIVE WORMS!”

I was smart enough not to look inside the container. I’m just so very glad to know that I’ve got sixty-five worms residing in my refrigerator. And to think that I was worried about what to make for dinner tonight!

Girls can make messes, too – no doubt about it! I’ve had to deal with wet pull-ups that have sat on a closet floor for weeks until they turned a sickly color and infused the carpet with their pungent aroma, Barbies that have taken day trips to the local mud spa (a.k.a. Jonathan’s handmade “dam” in the woods out back), and little socks that have been worn for hours outside without the benefit of a shoe to cover them (they’ll never be white again). But I have to admit that, in the long run, my girls are much more likely to make clutter than they are to create or produce something disgusting.

The disgusting things seem to belong mostly to my boys.

I could go on and on about the “interesting things” I’ve found in Jonathan’s bedroom over the years: cicada shells, homemade paper mache, dried mud balls, snake skins, used band-aids, and moldy acorns – to name a few. Sometimes I find things – usually thick, liquidy-type things – inside jars or containers, and I am absolutely unable to determine what they are. (No doubt they are the remnants of some long-forgotten “experiment.”) I have learned to hold my breath whenever I come in contact with an “unknown” from Jonathan’s room. I’ve also learned to stop asking, “What is this?” Believe me – most of the time it’s better if I don’t know.

As if I haven’t been through enough “gross stuff” with my firstborn, I’ve got a four-year-old boy who is fast following in his brother’s footsteps. Spencer hasn’t discovered the fine art of wiping boogies on his shirt – but he’s a menace in the bathroom. You’d think that, after having used a toilet for more than two years, the kid would have better aim. Holy cow! I find pee everywhere. And if I don’t find it right away (which is usually the case), it dries and produces the most concentrated pee-smell you’ve ever smelled.

I always know when Spencer has been in my bathroom. Eric’s pee is nothing compared that little boy’s. (And sometimes I swear that my husband has an aim deficiency, too. But that’s another story.)

Spencer also seems to have a knack for licking things – all kinds of things. I’ve caught him licking the window in the ballet studio – the table in a restaurant – the shopping cart in the grocery store. Nothing makes me shriek in a germ-hating frenzy like the sight of my son’s tongue swiping bacteria-and-virus-infested surfaces. I swear he does it just to see the look on my face.

Then – as a final hurrah – Spencer likes to suddenly lick my mouth when I’m giving him a kiss. Oh, yes – all those wonderful germies from an entire day of licking things have just been transferred to my lips. Yet another heartwarming reward of motherhood!

My littlest guy is just now starting to develop an interest in digging and exploring outside, right alongside his crayfish-boiling brother. So it’s an indisputable fact that I’m in for many more years of revolting – and even shocking – events and behaviors. By the time my children are grown, I will have become completely desensitized to every gross, slimy, and disgusting thing that any child could produce. I will be the calmest, coolest, most thick-skinned grandmother anyone has ever laid eyes on.

“Look, Jonathan,” I will say with a relaxed smile. “Your son just cut off your cat’s tail and cooked it in the microwave, and now he’s feeding it to the baby.” Then I will walk away without batting an eyelash.

And now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go downstairs and reach into my refrigerator past the live bait and find something for dinner. Then I’ll have to call my sons inside from the woods (who knows what will come in with them) and remind Jonathan to remove the dirt from underneath his fingernails (not that they’re ever actually clean to begin with). If I’m lucky, there won’t be any boiled pets on the supper table, and Spencer won’t lick anything non-edible. I might even get through the evening without a single gag.

And it might snow in southern Florida, too.