The other day I took my 3 year old nephew to the water park. Now, it’s been nearly a decade since I’ve had a child of that age (okay, maybe that’s a slight exaggeration…7 years) and in that brief encounter at the water park, I was reminded of the extreme grossness of having little kids. Here are my top ten grossest moments of having little kids.
1. They wear Pull ups. A pull up is not really a regular diaper. It’s worse because it’s actually more of a “hey, don’t pee yourself! But if you do, I’m here for you, buddy! But DEFINITELY don’t poop yourself. That won’t be good because your mom/dad/grandma/aunt will have to figure out how to wriggle your dirty butt out of that underwear like diaper without getting it all over their hands and your legs.
2. They lick everything. Nothing is off limits; hands, feet, boogers, banisters electrical cords. I watched my nephew lick a blow up pool the other day. I wonder if it tastes salty. Maybe this is where Miley Cirus got her start.
3. We eat their scraps. By scraps, I’m referring to food. How many moms go around cleaning up the dishes after their toddler has long abandoned the table and spoon that last bit of Mac and cheese in their mouth? Admit it. Everyone did it. And it’s really gross if you think about it and refer to number 2. But at some point in time, this becomes off limits because there is no amount of money you could give me to eat the pizza crusts my teenager has left on his plate. God knows where HIS mouth has been.
4. We wipe their snot off with our hands and don’t even flinch. They wipe their snot on our shirts and we don’t even change until the next day. I can actually recall picking the dried and crusty boogers out of my sick kid’s nose on several occasion. As a school nurse I can tell you that there’s no way in hell I’m doing that for any other kid but my own.
5. The stains…oh God the stains. their shirts, their pants, their faces. Is that chocolate or blood?
6. They are fascinated with toilet bowls. They will stick anything in there to see if it flushes, floats, whatever. Nobody’s tooth brush is safe from a toddler.
7. They never, ever want to get clean. My son used to practically hover above the bathtub when I broke out the shampoo. It was easier to give the cat a bath than to wash the inch of hair that he had on top of his head. I admit, there were times that I just sniffed his head and determined that it didn’t smell toobad and that we could just skip the hair washing for the time being.
8. They touch EVERYTHING. The walls of a bathroom stall, the floor of the bathroom stall. And they put their hands down their pants All. The. Time. And in their mouths. And most of the time, in that order.
9. They want to come in the bathroom with you. I recall on more than one occasion I was on the toilet and one of the kids wandered in and sat on the floor with a book or crayons and carried on like it was the most normal thing in the world. Notice that most of this list is about bathroom habits?
10. They let you kiss them. Their cheeks, their arms, their chubby little bellies. And they don’t even wipe the kisses off or turn their heads. Which might just make them the sweetest, grossest kids :).