Not Sure How It Gets Much Better

“Umm, hey babe, she pooped on me.”

I was soft-screaming it from the baby’s bedroom. I was holding a naked infant on my lap. A naked infant who just pooped. But I was in shock. And maybe about to throw up.

I was only a few days past 23 years old. I didn’t know what I was doing.

My wife had gone to run the bath water. The baby had a “hurt tummy”. Not sure how she knew, but she was obviously right because the second she left, the baby’s “hurt tummy” exploded.

I have to admit, I handled it like a boss. I did like a half crab-walk, half old-man-shuffle into the bathroom, infant fully safe in my arms.

No carpet was hurt with poop in the process. Only my sweatpants.

Parenting is weird.

We tell that story to our kids quite a bit. They love it. Poop stories are always funny.

But if I’m honest, I’m so grateful that season of life has passed. Not because I would wish it away if I were back there again, but because every single season has gotten better.

There are parents who are in the middle of the poop-filled and sleep-deprived years. You feel like you’ll never exit the weird freeway, but you will.

You feel like you’ll never be able to sit through a meal again, or take your kids to a restaurant, but you will.

You feel like you’ll never sleep in past 6am again, but you will.

Last night, our kids wanted to run up to the middle school track by our house and workout. Then this morning, the three oldest girls asked me to wake them up early to go run at the same track. After work tonight, you guessed it, we went to the track again as a family.

Running laps, doing push-ups, playing catch, teasing each other, laughing, timing the fastest lap, running through the sprinklers on the field, being together.

I’m not sure why, but on one lap I thought of the poop story again. We’re far past those days now, even with our youngest.

I’m sure it came to mind because they’re all out of diapers and doing big kid stuff. Together. And with us.

It’s so simple, the evenings around a middle school track, but I don’t know how much better it can get. This is so dang good.

But I know it will, it has each season.

It’s certainly better than getting pooped on.