Albert Einstein is credited for saying “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.” Great. Thanks, Al. It should be just that simple. But I wonder if Einstein ever had to balance his workday with collecting his child’s stool sample? I bet not. I bet he could just spend his days being brilliant and thinking about theoretical physics. All day, everyday, with few interruptions. I’m a little jealous.
Of course, I know that as a mom, these things come with the territory. Parenting is NOT all about cute school art projects, decorating cookies, and kissing boo-boos. It’s about forgoing sleep when your child is afraid of what the dark closets could be hiding at night. It’s about insisting your child not get on anything with wheels without a helmet, even though helmets look sooo uncool. It’s about not having a peristaltic reaction upon the sight of your child’s vomit. And these are all before the teen years! I’m not even going to guess as to what I’ll have to brace myself for in years to come.
But today I just wanted to work. I wanted to be in the office when volunteers came by, do a little space planning and reorganization, maybe type up my notes from yesterday’s meetings. I wanted to be all about action items, to-do lists, and more meetings! Instead, I was strategically planning how to collect my son’s poo efficiently and effectively. So you could imagine my distain when his pediatrician pointedly explained to me that I would need to collect FIVE stool samples so they could run some tests. Oh. My. God. Oh, and no dairy. FINE! No dairy. Please – for the love of God! – I begged her to let’s just start with ruling out dairy and go from there. Nope, no, negative. I had to face the fact that I was going to have a very close encounter with my child’s poop. Well, five very close encounters.
The minute she told me stool collecting was a key component of the tests she wanted to run, my mind started racing. And the questions poured out of my mouth – What do I put this in? How long will it stay good (as if)? Does it have to be in a clean container or do I just fish it out of the toilet and bring it to you in a ziplock bag? Are there written directions? And I kid you not, she looked like she was going to SHUT ME DOWN. That’s fine. She could have. I clearly needed some sense slapped into me. After all, my kid’s the one who feels terrible. Still a shitty task was looming over me.
Of course, I had to tell Tom what was about to go down. I called him the minute I got in the car and said, “The doctor wants to run tests just to ‘rule a few things out!’ I have to collect a stool sample.” Sympathy would have at least been nice. Instead I got, “I am NOT all in. I’m OUT.” I guess in Tom’s defense there was that one cat puke incident, so I guess all things are fair. At least I could count on him for humor, as you can see by our email conversation:
Me: I just did the first stool sample. I am soooooo grossed out. LYL
Tom: I just threw the fuck up. It’s not on your hands, is it? LYL
Me: I wore latex gloves. Also involved: aluminum foil, a basin the doctor gave us, tongue depressors, and step 3 of the instructions that read, “Replace lid very tightly and shake gently to mix. Point away from face and eyes.” Great. Thanks for the brilliant fucking advice. I was just about to point it at my face and shake it with the lid askew. LYL
Tom: Dry heaving here. LYL
What does LYL mean, you wonder? Love you lots. And yes, it’s perfectly fine that we end every email with it, even when the subject is shit.
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