Poop in the boot

Let's pretend this is the 100th reincarnation of the your-1o-minutes-are-up ditty, "Pants on the Ground." Let's also pretend that the lyrics have nothing to do with real life.

Poop in the boot
Poop in the boot
Never did I think
There'd be poop in his boot

No such luck. Parenthood brings a host of surprises—one of which for me this week was the unfortunate development of poop in my child's boot.

Potty training Noah is going along relatively well, but we haven't managed to make much progress beyond peeing. So maybe when I dressed Noah to go play outside in our smooshy yard and began to put on his rubber boots, I should have immediately given pause to the toddler babble in my ear, "Mama, there's some poop in my boot."

Instead, it took him at least three times to tell me in his most adamant little voice before I said, "What?" and slid the partially-on boot off his size 10 foot.

I hesitantly tipped the boot upside down, and much to my horror out rolled a miniature log of poo that landed right on my fuzzy-pants leg.

There was nothing for me to do but stare. I'm sure a few seconds passed before I said to Noah, "Buddy! Did you put poop in your boot?!" (As if someone else in our house had.)

There was no question. I'd seen that poo before; hundreds of dirty diaper changes make you an expert in knowing more than you want to about human waste.

But now what? I was sitting on my kitchen floor with a lump of feces on my leg with my toddler looking on with a pleased-as-punch expression on his face. Paper, paper, where is a piece of paper?!

I managed to wrangle an available strip of paper (in lieu of Charmin) and remove said feces from my leg and put it in its proper burial place.

At this point, I could clearly think to ask Noah, "Guy, why did you put poop in your boot? When did you poop? Where did you poop?"

He responded: "'Cause I did. Yestertime. In the living room." Well then.

Two thoughts came to mind at that point: how did I miss Noah pooping (well, that's easy... he's always hiding somewhere in a corner), picking it up, finding his boot, and stashing it inside?

And, how the heck do you effectively clean the inside of a rubber boot?

A few days later, a little perspective makes me wonder if maybe Noah was channeling his inner Woody from Toy Story: "There's a snake in my boot!"

Snake... poop... they're close, right?