Category Archives: Surprise

I find nude art and crass humor distasteful and lazy.  The same is true for mom blogs that deal primarily with bodily excrement.  Yesterday afternoon I was humbled. I am reduced to sharing, yes, a poop story. 

The twins have stopped napping, but as other homeschooling families can atest to, rest time is an essential for all ages.  Yesterday for rest time, they were in their room with their little people farm, playing very well and quietly for an exceptionally long time.  Our friend/babysitter offered to go check on them.  She promptly returned downstairs to say, “I don’t want to go in there.”  Now this is a seasoned babysitter.  I can’t imagine there is much left to shock her, so this reaction struck a little fear into my heart. 

I headed upstairs, opened the door, my jaw dropped, and I stepped back out to collect myself.  There were two naked bottoms and poop everywhere.  Carpet, floor, blankets…  But the best part, the part where the Lord saw fit to offer me some comic relief, was the farm.  Apparently the farm had been the inspiration for the art.  Squished into the bulk of the “manure” were the little farm animals.  The cow was in so deep he had to be put down.  We trashed the rug as well, cleaned up the rest, and have not stopped laughing about it since.

The snake in the basement has been captured and released outside where it belongs.  I’m not usually one to give away the ending, but when snakes are involved there is no reason to add to the drama.

Yesterday, I was in the basement sorting out 9 loads of laundry.  I hate laundry.  I wish we lived in the day when people were just supposed to stay clean so that they didn’t have to wash everything so often or have nearly as many clothes.  Anyway, since I was down there a while, I was considering vacuuming the rugs in the playroom.  I noticed a small squiggly snake and thought to myself for a good 10 seconds, “Where did that come from?  My girls don’t play with toy snakes.”  Suddenly an idea struck my mind that perhaps it wasn’t a toy, that it could be real.  Then my heart started to palpitate and the backs of my legs  quivered as I thought “Well of course it’s real, it’s real, oh my goodness, it’s real!”  I ran up the stairs, flew through the door, stopped and smiled at the girls to ask how their project was coming along, then shut myself in the office to call Chris who would surely know what to do.

After calming me down (not without a lot of giggling),  we decided that I was going to have to go back down there and put a bowl over it until he could come home.  The only thing worse than finding a snake in your basement is not finding one.  So armed with sweatpants, a sweatshirt, socks, shoes, and gloves, I tiptoed down the stairs ready to descend on the snake with all the bravery of William Wallace.  But when I turned the corner it was gone.  This time I flew up the stairs, stuffed a towel under the door, and decided that the laundry had waited this long why not 1 more day.(I didn’t even have to wait that long, thanks to my very brave friend S who switched the load, and in her bare feet no less!  I’m so loved.)

Of course Chris couldn’t find the little beast that night, but he volunteered to switch the laundry until we found it.  And boy am I glad because the last load of laundry was the  hiding spot.  He came slithering out right in Chris’ arms!    Truth be told the thing was about the size of a pencil.  Maggie said “Oh! Look at how cute that little baby snake is!”   I don’t care.  A snake is a snake is a snake.