In which parenting requires swift decisions.
We were just in the rocking chair reading a bedtime story. Owen was checking off his nightly inventory:
"....Pass...." (for pacifier. Check!) "....Blank...." (for his soft yellow blanket. Check!) "....Hug...." (for his blue stuffed elephant. Check!)
It would almost have been my idyllic parental scene. Unfortunately I couldn't keep my mind off of the three nasty green poops I still needed to fish out of the bathtub.
And, apparently, three is a magic number for the O-Boy. It stands for Momma, Daddy and Owen. It stands for Mugga Gloria, Pa, and Mugga Pat. (Mugga, to the best of our interpretation, is short for "My Grandma.") It stands for Holly, Tad and Lisa. It stands for three of the trains we went to see last weekend: Thomas, James and Gordon.
It also stands for the number of times, in a row, Owen has pooped in the bathtub while Daddy's been washing him.
Our neighbors, Brian and Anna, are expecting their first baby. We were talking about it during a break from last weekend's garage sale.
(Last weekend was very busy.)
"Everyone tells me you're no more tired as a parent than you normally are," Brian said. "You're just more sober. That's the only difference."
"No," I told him. "That's not the difference. The difference is the split-second decision making."
You might, for example, decide to drive to Baldwin, Kansas, and pay $30 to ride 10 minutes backward and then 10 minutes forward on a train decked out as Thomas the Tank Engine.
More to the point, you might be splashing your son, happily playing in the bath water, and hear the dreaded warning: "Poop."
Today said warning was preceded by him happily brushing his teeth with his new Thomas the Tank Engine toothbrush (yes, they sell those at A Day Out with Thomas). He then brushed his rear end. And then he brushed his teeth again.
And then he repeated the warning.
"Parenting," I explained to Brian, "is when it never crosses your mind that you can possibly avoid the poo. Parenting is making the split second decision: Do I want it on land or at sea?"
Generally speaking, I choose to deal with Admiral Owen's armada at sea.
But that's just my decision.
