Poop in the Sink

It was Sunday night and the end of a great weekend was fast approaching. My family and I had spent the day visiting with friends and the time had now come to say good-bye. The boys had spent the majority of their day in the basement playing hockey, so everyone was helping to gather up all of the gear and move it to the front door. During the process our little friend Sammy passed me as he was exiting the downstairs washroom.

“What’s brown in your sink?” he asked.

Brown in my sink? I had no idea. Rust stains? The more I thought about it, though, that didn’t make sense. We had a water softener and the house was still new-ish.

As soon as I could I checked out the situation. I am not sure what I had expected to find when I pushed open the door, but it surely was not what I found – poop in the sink!

Soft, brown poop was smeared around the sink basin and had plugged up the drain. Right away I made the assumption that this had been done by my daughter, who at times liked to “play” with unconventional substances. The next assumption I made was that Cinderella – that’s me – was going to have to clean this mess up. Really, there are no words!

Parenting 101 states that you should never humiliate your children in front of others – or at least that’s what this mommy says. So I closed the door behind me and casually announced that should anyone need to use the washroom before leaving they could just head upstairs. Although more than one questioning glance was sent my way, I just smiled and then quickly helped our friends to, and out, the door.

With our company gone I thought how best to handle the situation. If I was correct and it was my daughter that I needed to speak with, asking her why there was poop in the sink would not be the right approach. So I asked her to join me in the washroom, and then I simply pointed and began with, “Did you do this?”

“Yes,” came her response.

“What were you doing?”

“I wanted to conduct a science experiment!” And the tone of her voice said that she felt that was pretty obvious.

I wish there were a manual telling parents how to respond in situations such as finding poop in the washroom sink.  But there isn’t. Once-upon-a-time this mommy would have reacted in anger. I would have yelled unkind words and undoubtedly crushed my child’s spirit. But to what end? So this time I chose humor.

“Well my girl,” I said matter-of-factly, “if you were trying to conduct a science experiment then you certainly earned yourself top marks for originality. In the future, however, I would advise that you rethink your choice of materials.”

What more can this mommy say except that poop happens!