The brown berry incident

I've been getting a lot of questions about the brown berry incident. Here it is. To the certain embarrassment of my son.

It was the summer 1999. Our small family of three had spent that lazy afternoon picking blackberries which grew wild in the empty lot near our house. While I managed to get a lot of berries in my bucket, my son mostly held his berries in his belly. It was a fun afternoon. He was only 2 years old at the time. My son was potty training but still in diapers.

We were hosting Hubby's parents who were going to attend a high school class reunion. Their best friends were also visiting. Being a good little host, I was entertaining the four seniors in the living room when That toddled in.

My first thought was, "How did he get chocolate?" There was brown stuff all over him -- his hands, his face, his legs. And the second thought was, "OMG!!! That's NOT chocolate!!!"

See, what we figured out happened was That wanted to be a big boy and go to the potty himself. He only managed to get the tab off on one side of the diaper. The other side was too hard to open, so instead of opening it, he just climbed up on the potty and went. Unfortunately, the runny poop that came out didn't really make it into the potty and instead mostly hit the diaper and smeared the toilet. It gets worse. Knowing he didn't quite do it right, he decided to elicit help from Mom or Dad. He went looking for us. He tracked brown berry down the hall into my husband's office, then he decided to look in our bedroom and also in his bedroom. Unsuccessful, he went to the living room and we all took in the HORROR.

It was a very bad day.

There was a moment of paralysis. I couldn't even think what to do first. I tossed the boy in the bathtub but what about the carpet? And the poo all over the bathroom? And how could I ever kiss that boy again? There was poo in his HAIR!!!

We did manage to clean it all up, with only a couple of freak outs in front of the in-laws. (I say that, even though we ended up moving out of that house and ripping the carpet out.)