Dee Dee's Pinata

        We have a column cut from the satirical page of the Asheville weekly attached to our fridge.  “How do you know if you’re ready to have a baby?” a teenager named Lucy writes in to “Kid Care With Arnold.” Arnold, a fictional Vietnam vet, replies, “Dear Lucy, There’s a very simple test: Stay awake for four weeks straight chained to the sofa in your living room listening to a looped recording of someone screaming. Periodically explode a pinata filled with pee and poop in every room of your house. Then burn a pile of money while your mother-in-law yells at you for not doing it correctly. If you think that sounds like fun, then you’re ready for a baby.”
This column cracks me up every time I read it. Thankfully, it seems we have pretty much made it through the first trial, despite Sylvia’s persistent weepiness. The money part goes without saying, even though I have a supportive mother-in-law, who even if she thought I “ wasn't doing it correctly” would never say so to my face. It is the pinata line that never fails to give me the giggles, so aptly does it satire the reality of my experience with motherhood. Take this week for example...
On Monday, as usual, I put Dee Dee down for “quiet time” in the Pack-n-Play in our room. It was quiet for a little while, and I presumed Dee Dee was reading as she normally does in lieu of actually napping.  Then there were some rustlings, some bangs, sounds I chose to ignore, calculating that I’d rather enjoy a few more minutes, if not of quiet, at least of solitude, even if it meant having to clean up later whatever she’d gotten into. Soon, however, a loud crash brought me in, and this is what I saw.
Dee Dee, naked from the waist down,was on her knees on top of my dresser. Her bare legs were streaked with poop. The dresser sits in a corner, and the walls that met there were smeared in feces, like two Jackson Pollock canvases in monochrome. The offending turd had evidently cascaded down the dresser, of which, unfortunately, some drawers were slightly ajar, and landed squarely on a plastic easel that was in a pile of things to be donated to Goodwill. My dresser, a housewarming gift from my parents when I bought my first house in Asheville, has broad, artsy groves between the boards. These grooves were now spackled with a compound whose tint very closely matched the stain of the wood, although the fragrance and the consistency were all wrong.  Even my jewelry box, which I had painted and decorated with beads in another life--one in which I had time to contemplate, and even execute, such crafts--was now covered in shit.
Of course I did not, at first, take all of these details in. I simply gasped as the stench. Dee Dee peered down at me from her perch atop the dresser, looking a bit like Diego on his scaffold.
  “I pooped,” she said matter-of-factly.
I picked Dee Dee up by the underarms and carried her to the bathtub for two rounds of cleansing. While she played in the tub afterwards, I tackled the dresser clean-up with toothpicks, spray cleaner, and paper towels. I emptied the contents of the jewelry box into a plastic bag and then threw the box away, telling myself I was sort of tired of it anyway. By the time I finished the clean-up, quiet time was over, and I went to let Sylvia out of her room. When I opened the door, she was standing over a puddle in the middle of the floor, pant-less and diaper-less.
“I peed,” she said.

“That’s it,” I told Don later, “I’m done. Our room is now a kid-free zone.” The girls haven’t napped in weeks, months even.  Let them not nap in their own room, together. Let Dee Dee destroy her own stuff, smear poop on her own walls. She had done her last quiet time in my room.

***

That, at least, was my plan. The next day, I avoided quiet time altogether in favor of an afternoon trip to the park. On Wednesday, Sylvia was so exhausted and tearful, I was sure she would nap if given the chance. I didn't want her sister in there disturbing her, so instead I set Dee Dee up on the futon downstairs.
For almost an hour, I heard nothing. Could it be? Maybe, just maybe, I allowed myself to hope, she’d been so cozy on the futon she’d fallen asleep. Then I heard footsteps on the stairs. I saw her head appear first, then her torso, then... oh no! Her bottom half was completely bare.
“Oh no, Dee Dee!” I said. “What did you do?”
“I pooped!”
Into the bath she went. While she was soaking, I went downstairs, dreading what I'd find-- with good reason. There was poop on the futon cover, poop on the comforter, a poop-filled diaper on the floor. I thought that was the worst of it until I saw the brown streak on the rocking horse. Maybe it was mud but I didn't bother to check; I just scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed.

On Thursday, I went on a walk in the morning with a good friend, with whom I shared my recent travails with the poop and pee pinata exploding in my house. I don’t know what to do, I say. I know that the obvious answer is “Potty train!” After all, “does not tolerate wet or soiled diapers” is a textbook example off the  “Your toddler is ready for potty training when...” checklist. But honestly, I just don’t feel I can bite that off right now. With four kids to take care of most days of the week, I’m pretty maxed out. When we’re out and about, it is a relief that the girls are still in diapers; it’s one less thing I have to worry about. And even when we’re not, it doesn't feel much easier. Dee Dee wants you to read War and Peace every time she sits down on the potty. Meanwhile, the baby needs feeding and the dishwasher emptying and the lunch made.... For better or for worse, I've been holding off on true potty training until summer, when Don will be around and there’ll be one more pair of hands.
So what to do? Abandon quiet time? Admonish Dee Dee with threats?“There will be no Dora unless you keep your pants on!”
“Well,” my friend shared, half-joking. “The mother  of one of my daughter’s classmates says she used to have to duct tape her daughter’s diaper.”
Aha! That afternoon before quiet time I found a roll of shiny red duct tape in the closet. “Ok, Dee Dee,” I said. “Let’s change your diaper!”
“No! I don’t want...” she began. And then it came to me-- the best idea ever.
“Look, Dee Dee!” I cut her off.  “You can look like a super hero!”
Because she could! As I attached the glossy red tape to the front of her diaper, it did look rather superhero-like.
“I want to see!” Clayton said, coming in. He’s obsessed with anything Halloween, make-shift superhero costumes included.
He looked at Dee Dee lying on the changing table with the red tape on her diaper and nodded seriously.
“She does, right?” I confirmed
“Yeah.”
That did it. If her brother thinks she looks like a superhero, she’s sold.
“Super Dee Dee!” she yelled as she grabbed my hands and jumped to the floor.

I wish it ended there. That would be such a good ending! But alas. That afternoon, I put the girls down in their room together. Again the promising quiet, fueling my ridiculous hopes that a nap might actually be happening.
Then, “Aaaahhhh! Dee Dee pulled my hair!”
Inside, the room is a complete shambles, the floor covered with barrettes  blocks, and books. It also reeks. I glance sharply at Dee Dee, but although her pants are missing, her diaper is intact! Hallelujah!
A few minutes later I notice the poop on the rocking chair, just one slender swipe, like someone had wiped a chocolate-covered finger on a napkin.  Oh no! Dee Dee has immediately headed downstairs to find Clayton, and yep, that’s her poop. Still, I am triumphant. It was just a finger swipe! Just one little bit of poop on a chair, and only her hands to wash. What a victory.
It is only that evening as Sylvia sits on my lap reading books that I realize what an idiot I am. I absolutely failed to put two and two together. Dee Dee had poop on her hands; Sylvia was crying because Dee Dee pulled her hair. Is it any wonder the top of Sylvia’s head smells so awful?

On Friday, I put Dee Dee downstairs again, with the duct tape and a serious talking-to about not taking off her pants. And, low and behold, when I go downstairs to get her she is reading a book on the futon, poopy diaper intact, pants on.
She is very proud of herself.  “I left my diaper on! I didn't get poop everywhere! I pooped but I didn't take off my diaper. I left my diaper on...”  (Honestly, she never stops talking.)
I am proud of her, too, but mostly I’m just relieved that today I don’t have to drag anything out to the driveway to hose off. Maybe we’re getting somewhere, after all.

* * * 

I wish that were the end. That would be a good ending, too-- uplifting, optimistic. But, again, alas.
Today I started this post while the girls were doing quiet time. The quiet ended with the predictable screaming, but when I went to open the door, it would not open. I leaned in and forced it ajar. Inside, Dee Dee had barricaded the door with Sylvia’s crib. Beyond the crib, it was as if the room had exploded. The diaper basket, the dirty clothes hamper, the bookshelf-- all had been emptied onto the floor. There was a stuffed turtle in the garbage can and little Indian bracelets all over the changing table. And standing on the other side of the crib was Dee Dee, butt naked, covered in poop.