Dolls Do It Too

I'm back! The Summer Writer's Institute was amazing, and I'll be posting about it for the rest of the week. But in the meantime . . .

In retrospect, I should have guessed what was happening.

Ellie was playing by herself in the front room on Saturday afternoon, and, frankly, I was thrilled. I was still exhausted from my 2 weeks of writing-working-not sleeping and was grateful for a few minutes to read lazily on the couch in the family room while Paul, who has been doing most of the childcare around here, took a shower and rested briefly.

My angelic young daughter walked back into the family room, picked up her Miss Piggy potty book (Bye bye diapers/Bye bye smell/Bye bye cold wet wipes as well) and her favorite Dora doll, the one that talks and sings and lights up and absolutely cannot go through the washing machine.

"Ellie, would you like me to read you that book? Do you need to go potty?"

"No. Bye bye mama!" She headed back into the front room and played happily for several more minutes.

Then she brought Dora back into the family room and put her on the potty.

I came over to help, and to encourage Ellie to take a turn on the potty. I noticed a couple of things simultaneously. There was a gritty brown substance all over (in the potty Dora was sitting on, on Ellie's cheek and legs, on the floor around them) and something smelled really really bad.

The phone rang, and I grabbed it while trying to wrestle Ellie out of her clothes to see if she'd had a messy/leaky diaper. She did not.

"PAUL! Could you come out here and help a bit, please! I need you to take care of Ellie while I answer the phone and try to determine what stinks in here." I was not using my patient voice.

I went to the foyer and looked into the front room and immediately knew what the problem was. For the first time in many months, Lizzi had decided to use the front room as her own personal patch of grass. And she had been prolific.

Ellie had spotted the pile and taken advantage of it, putting Dora on top of "her" poop, then showing her how she should have gone in the potty.

I told the friend on the phone that we'd meet up with her a little later, rather than sooner. Paul took Ellie to the bath, then the two of them gave Lizzi a bath. I cleaned up the poop, vacuumed the floor, used a strong chemical spot cleaner, then used our little Bissell to wet clean the floor, then vacuumed again. Then Paul and I each changed into clean clothes, washed our hands, and we went out to dinner instead of staying in our recently disgusting house.

I worked on Dora with Shout wipes to no avail; she still reeks.