Friday, July 11, 2008

I'm pooped.



I was fully prepared for the new relationship I would have with baby poop once Pepper arrived. In fact, I expected to be constantly talking about Pepper's poop, assessing Pepper's poop, and just generally obsessed with all of her heiny products. Having the expectation prepared me for it and helped me accept it. What I did not prepare for was the other poop I would be confronted with and how this other poop would slowly wear me down and threaten my fragile sanity.

When Husband and I got home from a long day out and about, we found the remnants of a Macaroni n' Cheese box distributed about the downstairs. Cheese powder was strategically ground into the carpet. One of our Jack Russell Terriers, Wilson, had discovered the box of food stuffs that I had neglected to remember to bring to a local food pantry. Apparently, Wilson had also found an old packet of seasoning to make Thai Fried Rice. Cleaning cheese powder out of the carpet would turn out to be the easiest part of the clean up job.

The fallout began when Wilson puked in our bed at around 2 am that night. The next morning, I came downstairs to find trails of diarrhea all over the living room carpet. I quickly discovered that it is very difficult to hold a one month old baby and scrub runny dog poop out of synthetic fibers. Pepper didn't like it very much either, actually. I finally gave up, sat down on the couch, held my baby and my nose, and quietly wondered if other mothers are thrown into a spiraling depression by the thought of their baby some day crawling around on carpet infested with petrified dog diarrhea. It certainly seems possible.

10 comments:

Julia said...

Oy!
We don't have a dog, so I am making this up as I go along, but I imagine there is a service you can hire to scrub carpets with serious chemicals and very hot water. So I am wondering if it wouldn't be good for your mental health and your carpets to hire a service like that.

a/k/a Nadine said...

Oh no. And I repeat, oh no. Having two dogs, I can imagine what you're going through. I have lots of sympathy for you, my dear!

Aurelia said...

We used to have two cats that constantly threw up pooped etc on the carpet...end story....I ripped it out out of fear that it was bad for the kids.

I did try to cleaning it, professionally and just me, and it never really worked that well.

My sympathies.

Cate said...

This same thing happened to me when A was just learning to walk. Our dog had pooped on the carpet in the middle of the night. I set A down in the kitchen and started making his breakfast. He wandered into the livingroom and tracked dog poop all over in his footie pajamas. Like all over the house. It was such a mess I didn't even know where to start. I just stared at it in despair. Luckily, our neighbor two houses down has a carpet cleaning business and keeps his equipment in his garage as well as his vans parked in his driveway. A and I stayed holed up in the kitchen until a reasonable hour and then I went over there and begged him to come clean our carpets. He was so gracious about the whole thing and even offered to do them for free.
I personally don't worry as much about germs as some, so him steam cleaning the carpet was good enough for me. But I totally relate to the overwhelming feeling you must've had...looking over your living room filled with dog poop.

Cibele said...

OMG, poor you! a newborn and 2 dogs is just too much. HUGS

Casey said...

Ugh. I hope it's just a temporary funk and not a spiraling depression.

BerryBird said...

Oh, Nicole, I am so sorry. That sounds indescribably horrible. I vote for a cleaning service, too.

Electronic Goose said...

Weird--my two dogs have been making a mess more than usual too. In fact, two days ago I had to go rent a wet vac just to get rid of the stained urine that I couldn't clean up right away because of Bean.

We must be on the same wave.

thrice said...

Yeah, I had that with Ace and three aging cats.

The carpets are gone and I won't replace them no matter how many times the downstair's neighbor complains to the building. My beloved aging cats are buried and not replaced.

Just too much work!

Anns said...

Ugh, that doesn't sound fun at all. I'd stay on that couch, pick up the phone and call Stanley Steamer.

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