Just Like a Rolling Stone

I’ll just go ahead and warn you now, this post involves bodily functions. Mine. They’re only involved because they are the entire context of the story and without them there would BE no story, but I felt I should forewarn you so that those among you who would clutch your pearls at the mention of poop can go ahead and clench and unclench and we can all get moving.

Everybody poops. This mother doesn’t poop alone.

Monday morning there was no coffee in our house. I drudged through the day in a fog. I had a headache. Coffee had to be procured. As did sustenance.

Before heading to the grocery store, I hit up the local Starbucks for a venti Pike’s Peak with a pump of caramel. It was divine. My jaunt through the grocery store with two kids was great. Cheery. There was coffee. Hooray!

But the thing about coffee is that sometimes it makes whatever has gone in come out straightaway.

We got home and I started putting away groceries, haphazardly throwing the cold cuts and cheese into the drawer and shoving the frozen items wherever they would fit. There was a knocking at my back door that had to be answered.

“Joshua, I’m going to potty. You and Emma stay in the living room!” It’s a directive I give at least once a day. A directive that is promptly ignored as soon as I’m pants-down on the pot.

So, here come both of my children while I’m trying to do my business. Joshua being generally insane and Emma carrying a box of cereal bars and doing the scrunchy faced smile she does that says “I HAVE CEREAL BARS AND THIS BOX OF CEREAL BARS IS THE MOST GREATEST THING I HAVE EVER HAD IN MY HANDS IN MY LIFE!”

I heaved a sigh of…defeat.

Can’t a woman poop in peace?

No. No she cannot. Apparently.

Joshua has a hard time keeping things together post-3:00. He’s like a mogwai that has been fed after midnight. He’s erratic. Laughing maniacally one minute and crying the very next.

Emma is, well, Emma. Mostly chipper. Except when she’s not.

There I am, on the toilet, with both of my children spinning in circles and shrieking and giggling and then Emma hurled the cereal bars in my lap.

“She’s trying to put those in your bagina! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!”

I sighed again. And also maybe chuckled.

I am trying to do my business. WHY do they follow me into the bathroom? All the time? Always? Every single time? Why is this? I do not want to follow myself to the bathroom.

I would like to get us all out of the bathroom because holy hell. This is just stressful.

Except I can’t reach the toilet paper because it’s been put up high and across the room since Emma’s favorite past time is unrolling it like she’s the Queen of England and it’s a red carpet.

And so finally it all makes sense, this following me to the bathroom. It’s an insurance policy against moments like this.

But Joshua can reach the toilet paper. So he does. Such a good little helper.

You can’t always get what you want, people. But if you try, sometimes you’ll find you get what you need.