phenomenal<\/em> cappuccinos.<\/p>\nAfter a half-hour of intense talking and coffee drinking, I thought, \u201cI smell something \u2014 what is that?\u201d Just as I raised my head up to look for the source, Liam said, \u201cMom, Lincoln is poopy and he stuck his hand in it and now it\u2019s all over my foot.\u201d<\/p>\n
And it was all exactly as my son had described, except that his description was much too narrow in scope to capture the totality of the situation.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s what actually happened: Lincoln had apparently pooped in his diaper, stuck\u00a0 his hand down the back of his diaper, pulled out some poop, and wiped it all over his shirt, shorts, legs, feet, the floor, and his brother\u2019s legs.<\/p>\n
Did you notice how I described that factually, with zero histrionics and absolutely no embellishment? That\u2019s because it was so bad that I would hate to obscure the sheer awfulness of the situation with exaggeration.<\/p>\n
Remember when\u00a0 said we were at her house? I love going to her house, because she\u2019s a spectacular housekeeper and I am not. I\u2019m very good at keeping the sitting room clean, because that\u2019s the room where I write. But sometimes I forget the rest of the house exists, and then when I go visit it, I actively try to forget again.<\/p>\n
My neighbor\u2019s house is beautiful. It\u2019s tastefully decorated. It\u2019s always tidy and gleaming, with no stray toys or random shoes underfoot. Each room radiates peace. It\u2019s an oasis of order for my artistic, haphazard soul.<\/p>\n
And my toddler shat on her floor. Her sparkling, sparkling floor.<\/p>\n
I freaked out and stood there, holding Lincoln\u2019s wrist in a vise-like grip to avoid him further contaminating anything with his poop-covered hand, and sputtered, \u201cI\u2019m so sorry! Why? Why? Why do they do this? What\u2026Lincoln\u2026why? Oh, blech. Blech blech blech. This is so disgusting. I\u2019m so sorry!\u201d She said, \u201cwhy are you sorry?\u201d then calmly rose, told me to take him to the bathtub, brought me plastic bags and a box of wipes, and proceeded to clean the poop off Liam and the floor while I used an ENTIRE box of baby wipes to get all the poop off Lincoln. Then I turned the water on and bathed him with a vengeance, while she told me the story of how her son, when he was a toddler, once took a poop on the floor and then ran his Tonka truck through it and around the rest of the house \u2014 back when they rented<\/em>.<\/p>\nAfterward, she got Lincoln dressed while I bleached her bathtub. She didn\u2019t protest, she just let me bleach her bathtub. I was so grateful for that.<\/p>\n
When people come to my house, I have this weird compulsion to insist that they do nothing. Literally nothing. If the situation had been reversed, I might very well have insisted on bleaching it myself whle waving off all protests. This is not some kind of virtue, though. I will often refuse to let people help even when they say, frankly, that they feel uncomfortable watching me work so hard. I always just blow it off and say, \u201chere, have some more wine!\u201d<\/p>\n
As I was wiping down her bathtub, I realized that I would have been not only embarrassed but humiliated if she had refused to let me bleach the bathtub. No mother wants to let someone else clean up her child\u2019s poop if she is physically able to do it herself\u2026it would be a dereliction of duty, plus it would be gross. Mothers are always a little desensitized to their own children\u2019s bodily excretions, but that desensitization does not extend to other people\u2019s children. Letting me bleach the tub was generously acknowledging that fact.<\/p>\n
Plus, my compulsive desire to ensure that no guest of mine need ever lift a finger is actually a manifestation of vice, not virtue. It\u2019s pride, not humility, that motivates me to gaily wave offers to help with the dishes as if it ain\u2019t no thang, and then wearily stay up until 2 am doing them myself. It\u2019s pride that compels me to insist to my dinner guests that \u201cI have this covered\u201d even when there\u2019s smoke billowing alarmingly out of the oven and my finger is half sliced off and spurting blood.<\/p>\n
Okay, maybe I\u2019m overstating my case just a little. It may not be totally pride, or at least not pride in the sense that I want to be seen as utterly competent. More prideful in the way that I don\u2019t want to burden others. And maybe that\u2019s not actually pride, maybe that\u2019s just a failure of charity.<\/p>\n
Because it is, actually, charitable to let people help. It\u2019s charitable to give them the opportunity to contribute. It\u2019s charitable to accept and acknowledge their help.. And it\u2019s charitable to let people clean up their own messes. Even God does that\u2026He forgives us readily, but He doesn\u2019t make the consequences go away. We still have to get on our hands and knees and mop that shit up.<\/p>\n
And sometimes we have to make sure we bring our neighbor a bottle of wine, later.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
For these and all other lessons I\u2019ve learned through cleaning up poop, Deo gratias<\/em>.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I learned something really important today: a good friend lets you clean up your own messes. Not all the time, maybe. And not in totality. But it\u2019s actually charitable to let someone take care of their own shite. Literally, in this case. Today I went next door to have coffee with my friend and let […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1110,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[90,81,89,31],"class_list":["post-3660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-friends","tag-funny-stuff","tag-lessons-in-virtue","tag-lincoln"],"yoast_head":"\n
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