It's Not Easy Being Green

In an attempt to save some money and stop wrecking the environment so much I decided to purchase a few cloth swim diapers for my 2 yr old daughter who had zero desire to potty train. We were always at the pool (the Y in off-season and friends pools in the summer) and I was tired of spending literally hundreds of dollars on an item you use once and throw away. I eagerly went online and purchased 3 pair – one white, one pink and a red one that would go with a super cute red striped rash guard I had just acquired.

I also decided to join the pool at a nearby golf course. I figured that by the end of the summer I would have saved enough in swim diapers to justify this splurge. That and I really wanted to hang out pool side any time the weather was nice. I also treated myself to a new Pottery Barn beach towel for being such a good mom, I was tired of using towels with Hello Kitty or unicorns and wanted to look sophisticated that summer.

The kids were thrilled when I told them we were going to a new pool and were jumping up and down with excitement. After 40 minutes of running around screaming about how we were going to the pool I finally wrestled them into their swim suits; C in her ah-dorable red and white rash guard with the matching swim diaper bottoms I just received in the mail. It took another 10 minutes to herd them to the car and strap them in while they vibrated with anticipation.

The pool was amazing, there were only a few others there; hanging out in the deeper section so we had the shallow end to ourselves. T was tall enough to stand in the shallow end near the steps and was jumping into the pool every 5 seconds. C was kicking her chubby little legs all over the pool and both were squealing with delight when I spun them around and tossed them into the water. We had already spent a few hours there and I planned to stay as long as possible.

While playing I smelled something unpleasant. It was the tell-tale sign that C was going to drop a deuce in the near future.

“C, honey, do you have to go potty?” I asked.

“No Momma”

“C, come on, let’s try to go potty. We can get right back in as soon as you finish”

“Nooo Momma!” She whined.

I grabbed her arm and through gritted teeth uttered “C, we are going to go to the potty now. If not we are going home. Do you hear me?”

She looked at me with her big blue eyes and announced “I already went”

“You pooped?!?” I pulled out the back of her swim diaper to look and assess the situation, as all mothers do.

Ew.

I scooped her up and laid her back on the lounge chair I had covered with my brand new beach towel. Then it hit me. Her brand new, reusable red swim diaper did not have snaps, Velcro, or any other way to open it and pull it off like a disposable one. This one had to come off – down her legs.

I looked around in a panic to make sure no one could see us. The pool water had created a watery mess inside her diaper and there was no way I was putting that in my car to change her at home. Miraculously I did have the foresight to place a brand new container of wipes, a plastic grocery bag, and a change of clothes in the pool bag.

At this point the situation had become even more grim as the cess-pool was beginning to leak out the legs and back of her swim diaper. I yelled frantically at T to GET OUT OF THE POOL. NOW!! as I could not leave C laying in feces or perform a miracle on C while ensuring the safety of T (who was 4 and didn’t use swimmies in the pool).

T heard the hysteria rising up in my voice and darted out of the pool yelling “What’s wrong?” at the top of her lungs. I am sure at this point the pool goers at the other end were watching but it was too late to do anything about it. The situation had to be handled right there on the lounge chair.

I opened the wipes and put the grocery bag on the ground, took a deep breath and attempted to pull the swim diaper off C without spilling it everywhere. I failed miserably at my attempt; the mess streamed down her legs, spilling out the top onto the brand new towel and her rash guard. It was flowing out of the bottoms like a raging shit-filled river.

Once I finally got the stupid bottoms off I quickly put them on the end of the towel and rolled it up to where C was laying, legs covered in crap. I pulled out a fistful of butt wipes and quickly cleaned her bottom, legs, and feet. I picked her up, bare-ass to the blazing sun, and rolled the rest of my $25 crap covered towel into a ball and shove it into the plastic bag. Using my toes (I was holding C out away from me like she was contaminated – cause she was) I pulled out another towel and tossed it and C back on the chair.

I wrenched her top off, tracking crap up her back, and hurriedly stuck it in the bag with the other evidence while giving her a head to toe rub-down with baby wipes. I wrapped her up with the fresh towel, grabbed the bags, barked out orders to T to get her shoes, and ran out of the pool area stopping only to throw the poo bag away before squealing away from the pool like a criminal.

In my attempt to save money and decrease my impact on the environment I threw out around $80 worth of items, used an entire pack of butt wipes, and emotionally scarred myself and quite possibly other pool-goers. Sorry, Mother Earth, I tried to do you a solid but my daughter took care of that for me.



Screw you, Mother Earth



UnSolved Mystery

Recently we got an aquarium as well as a few fish and a snail to help clean up the tank. All was fine and dandy, the fish were doing whatever the hell it is fish do and the snail was working it. The girls named it Tiny Joe, and Tiny Joe was all over every surface of the tank sucking up any algae there was to be found. Our tank was immaculate; I really need to Google “house snails” to see if I can buy a few to help clean my house.
To get back on track here – the snail was growing quickly, the girls were excited to have pets of their own, and I enjoyed watching the boring fish and Tiny Joe in the tank while I futilely cleaned my kitchen 15 times a day.
One day while feeding the fish I noticed something weird on the bottom of the tank lid. It looked like a teeny tiny brain. So naturally I left it alone since it was crazy gross, I didn’t want to touch it or search online to see what it could be; I am still scarred from images I viewed in the past when googling something – there is some nasty shit posted that will give you nightmares. Anyway, I learned my lesson and the lesson was this, leave it alone and let the hubs deal with this one.
Naturally this meant that the creepy brain-thing stayed attached to the top of the tank for FOREVER, or a few weeks. While feeding the fish about 2 weeks later I noticed Tiny Joe was climbing above the water. I sat and watched him climb to the underside of the lid and just hang there. I opened the lid a crack to knock him down and saw something strange coming out of Tiny Joe: little eggs. Tiny Joe was actually Tiny Josephine, and she was laying hundreds of eggs.
At that point I felt I had no choice but to Google Mystery Snail eggs and saw that, yes indeed, the creepy brain was a clutch of eggs. But we had only one snail and she had been with us for nearly 3 months at this time, so how could she lay eggs? These kinds of snails are not asexual (I read that once I started Googling – I can assure you I am not a snail expert), there has to be a male and a female to make babies.
When my oldest, T, saw all the eggs she declared “These eggs are just duds since there is no boy snail in there with Tiny Joe. We won’t get any snail babies.” She was very matter of fact, not disappointed at all.
What the… How in the world did she know that? Since she didn’t probe into the specifics of why you need a mommy and a daddy I agreed with her and crossed my fingers that this wouldn’t be the beginning of “the talk”.
A few days later Tiny Joe took the snail trail to heaven. We held a funeral for her, complete with a eulogy given by T. I wrapped her up in pretty tissue paper, tied a ribbon around it, and we placed her in front of the house in a spot that we didn’t mind digging up since there already was not grass there. The girls pulled flowers from the plants I have worked so hard not to kill and placed them on her grave (and have continued to do so daily since she died).
Without Tiny Joe my tank was starting looking like the rest of my house, nasty and filled with scum. It was time to clean the tank, and go snail shopping. The kids were excited, they love cleaning the tank. I got the holding tank and rinsed it out. While doing this T looked in the tank and called out “Mom! There’s a baby snail in our tank!”
Suuurrrrrrreeee there is. That tank was so nasty it was probably some piece of slime just stuck to the side of the tank. “T, it is probably just scum. Don’t worry; we are going to get a new snail later today”
“Noooo! Mom, really, there is a baby snail on the side of the tank. COME LOOOOOK!!!!”
Ugh, fine. I trudged over to point out to her that it was just a bubble of yuck and she was delusional. I peered in, and had to admit that it did look like a lot like a baby snail up against the glass but I couldn’t be sure, the tank was so dirty there were all sorts of slimy things in it other than snails. I looked closer then grabbed a flashlight to confirm.
Holy Shell! It was a baby snail! We looked more and saw 4 other baby snails. I turned to T and told her Tiny Joe left us babies to remember her by; it was a good thing we didn’t clean the tank and kill the babies.
T declared “No mom, this is a miracle from God! He knew we missed Tiny Joe and turned her duds to babies!” as she told me this tears streamed down her face from the joy of this slimy phenomenon.
While I do think that our Lord and Savior can and does perform miracles, I highly doubt this was one of them. Instead of letting T know my thoughts or the disturbing fact that I read online that Mystery Snails can actually hold sperm in their bodies for months (and then having to tell her about sperm) I just smiled and agreed with her that yes, the babies were a gift from God. But I did inform her we are not going to keep them all; I have no plans to start the miracle snail farm anytime soon regardless of how happy it makes her.
Okay, I’ll keep two and try to train them to mop my floors.