Barbec-eww!

Sometimes, when Venus is aligned with Jupiter and the moon is waxing crescent and it's payday or thereabouts and my leg hair is at the proper rate of growth and I position my teeth just so, Curtis and I get the chance to socialize together with other adults.

But because we now have four children (and all boys, to boot!), one of whom is a newborn, it costs approximately $1,856 per hour to hire a babysitter. So over the weekend, we had a few friends over to our house - where we could subject other people to the boys' rambunctiousness no sitter was necessary.

Although I realize now in retrospect it may have been smart to hire one anyway. Because while I was busy cooking and serving and hostessing and being my witty and fabulous self, Coby was wandering around largely unattended. And when an almost-three-year-old wanders around largely unattended, bad things happen.

You know how it is. You get a group of adults together, talking and laughing, and everybody assumes somebody else is watching the kids - when in reality the kids are, like, practicing tightrope walking on the power lines outside. As long as they're out of everyone's hair, nobody checks.

Anyway, just as I was setting out the burger toppings, Coby came into the kitchen and announced, "I peed in the bathroom!"

No one but me found this suspicious. So what, he peed in the bathroom ... that's where you're supposed to pee, right? The thing is, though, when Coby pees, he tells me that he peed in the big boy potty. Not just "in the bathroom." So this prompted me to say, "Where?"

"On the floor," he answered nonchalantly, as if urinating on the floor were a perfectly viable option.

I abandoned the burger preparations to check the bathroom, and sure enough, there was a puddle right in front of the toilet. With a couple of random squares of sodden toilet paper thrown on top for good measure, Coby's obvious (if failed) attempt to clean up the mess.

So I took care of that.

Fast-forward to an hour or so later. We had just finished eating (thank the Lord). The kids had picked at their food and then retreated to the bedroom to play ... or so I thought.

Then here came Coby.

He stood in the middle of the kitchen, hands on hips, and said, "Where's my dad?"

"He's outside," I said. "On the deck."

So Coby went to the door to look out. And when he turned his back to me, I saw that the backs of his legs were crusted with brown.

"Uh, Coby?" I asked hesitantly. "What's all over your legs?" Pleasedon'tsaypoopPleasedon'tsaypoopPleasedon'tsaypoop

"... Poop," he answered in the same nonchalant tone he'd used earlier.

WTF.

He had pooped in his bedroom (which thankfully is the one bedroom in the house with easy-to-clean laminate flooring). But then he had tried to clean it up using toilet paper from the bathroom, which is across the hall. So he had tracked a poo-path from the bedroom to the bathroom. Not to mention, he was solid turd from practically the waist down, where he had a.) failed to wipe and then b.) pulled his shorts up, resulting in a heinous smear.

All while we had company. Lovely.

It was beyond something that baby wipes could remedy; this mess warranted a bath. I tried to hurry, but the poo on his legs had dried and its removal nearly required a putty knife. By the time I finished, I learned that Curtis had gotten called in to work, and the guests were starting to leave. As the last of the poopy water swirled down the drain, my dreams of putting the kids to bed and swilling wine with other grownups quickly dissipated.

And my husband was going to be gone (because apparently the sixty-two hours he had already worked last week weren't enough). Which meant I was going to be left with all the dinner dishes, and in charge of putting four kids to bed. Alone.

But, my adult socialization time was fun while it lasted. And our friends weren't too put off by the disgusting messes; after all, most of them read my blog.

"Put it this way," I told them. "You just got to see 'Fighting off Frumpy: Live.'"