Not to brag or anything, but on a previous blogging venue, I was rather known for my poop stories.  Ok, obviously I am not boasting, since it is really a sad indicator of what your life can become when you are a stay at home mom: Do I have some stories for you!

Try as I might, I cannot recall a time in the past seven years when I wasn’t up to my elbows in poop.  I am sure there was a year or so between Linus and JD that I wasn’t changing diapers, but I wouldn’t swear on a Bible or anything.  Chronic sleep deprivations tends to make memories a little blurry.

For the first two boys, I did a lot of poop blogging.  By the third child, I rather felt it had all been done.  I had no new material, except for the occasional treasure found in a diaper (the intact Mary Jane wrapper being the most memorable).

JD has given me a new lease on old territory.  The boy cannot drink apple juice without dire consequences.  Naturally, one Facebook posting let me know that this was much more common that I would have imagined.

While we were camping, the two year old at the campsite next to ours was sucking on a juice box.  JD saw this, and made a beeline for a cooler.  He squawked when he couldn’t get the lid open, but eventually he got his way.  I watched this all through extremely puffy eyes while clutching my coffee cup.  JD then fished out a juice box and brought it to me.

“Ohhhh!  Ohhhh!”  Translation: “I am thirsty!  Help me!”  I popped the straw in for him, observing a little too late that it was apple juice.  He toddled off, victorious, sucking vigorously on the straw and giving the stink eye to the neighboring toddler.

Crap.  Literally.  Crap!

A few hours later we all found ourselves at the preschooler playground.  I was hovering over JD, who likes to yank my chain by standing too close to the fireman’s pole.  He and the neighboring toddler were taking turns at the steering wheel.  I caught a whiff of what I knew to be “eau du apple juice.”

I pulled open the back of his diaper for a peek.  Nothing.  Hmm.  Olfactory hallucination?

A few minutes later, another waft.  I peek again.  This time, the toddler’s grandmother spots me.

“Is someone stinky?”  I nodded.

She asks the little girl, are you stinky?

She nods and says “I am fine!”  The grandma explains that the girl had apple juice that morning, and her son had warned her that the next diaper change was probably going to be “messy.”

Aha!  I know an apple juice poo when I smell one.  Ok, that kind of accomplishment isn’t the kind of thing you can put on your resume, but I needed a little validation after the last batch of salsa I made was less than stellar (my assistant tossed out the jalapeno seeds, the best part!).

We are back from camping, but I can’t seem to escape the apple juice problem.  My husband, while meaning well, has never had to actually suffer the ALL DAY consequences of the juice.  When JD toddles up to you for the fifth time carrying his box of baby wipes and you just say “AGAIN?!  Seriously?”

“Did you give him apple juice?”

Pause.  A guilty pause, because Mommy knows.  “No, I don’t think I did.”

The proof is in the diaper, folks.  Or diapers.  Plural, almost exponentially so.  You cannot lie to a professional poopy butt cleaner.  Oh yes, I know that you gave the baby chocolate pudding.  And blue Kool Aid!

As a former childless person, I remember eavesdropping on similar Mommy conversations with such abject horror that I couldn’t imagine ever doing so myself.  Times and people change.  Drastically.  Potty training is so far off in the future, I prefer not to contemplate it!

But here comes JD saying “uh oh, uh oh” which can only mean one thing…..