Beyond the heartwarming hugs and the adorable little crayon drawings lurks the dirtier side of motherhood. Though they’re usually talked about in hushed tones at the monthly Bunco game or over a tall latte, we encouraged real moms to come clean about their kids’ dirty deeds. From boogers to germs, read all about the disgusting side of having kids.
Got kids? Then you’ve got disgusting stories to tell. We found that some of our favorite moms were more than happy to dish their disgusting stories — in fact, it was almost like free parenting therapy.
Blowouts: Not for beginners
Not surprisingly, several of these stories have a common element that we fondly refer to as “Number 2.” No mom has truly earned her mom badge until she has to go into full combat mode because of a blowout or accident. SheKnows writer and mom of three Katie Kavulla wrote on her personal blog about a particularly messy encounter she had when her son was 2-1/2 years old.
“We were running errands at our favorite outdoor mall when I had one of those dreaded diaper blow-out moments,” she remembers. “After having two girls first, I honestly had no idea how much little boys could poop, but Everett reminded me on that day.”
She was down to the bare essentials in her diaper bag, so of course, that’s when things went very wrong very quickly.
“Suddenly I felt like I was on a special episode of Survival for Moms,” Kavulla says. “I had one diaper, five wipes, one plastic bag and no extra clothes. There was no way that I could put his pants back on him and I made the executive decision (while changing him on the floor of the bathroom) that I was going to use the plastic bag for his pants, rather than the, um, mess, that came with this diaper change.”
She wrapped the mess — including the pants — and threw it away in the bathroom garbage. Since she had more shopping to do, she headed back out into the mall with her pants-less son.
“In true ‘this is my third child and I don’t really care if you stare at me’ fashion, I walked him to the other side of the mall, in his diaper and shoes, to buy some new pants,” she adds.
Brutal bath time
High school teacher, mom of two and writer Katie Sluiter wrote on her personal blog about a particularly challenging bath-time episode that happened when her oldest son was 2-1/2 years old and she was pregnant with her second son.
“I was still in my first trimester,” she writes. “This is important because I was still nauseous all the time. Eddie’s latest rave was to have a ‘bubbles bath’ and because he had been extra good for me at dinner, I loaded up the bubbles into the tub.”
As Eddie played and got clean, Katie passed back and forth by the bathroom door, getting diapers and extra clothes ready for the next day. Each time she passed, Eddie offered a happy comment about his fun “bubbles bath.”
“Finally, I walked into the bathroom to wash his hair and scrub him up,” she remembers. I turned on the water to fill up the tub cup (I didn’t want to wash his hair with the bubbly water in case it would sting his eyes). Then I shampooed up his curls and put a soapy faux-hawk in his hair, which we both giggled about.”
She recalls that there were so many bubbles in the tub that she could hardly see the bath toys.
“So I scoop up some water to rinse his shampoo out and I notice something,” she says. “The water is sort of murky under the bubbles. What the…? Why is all the water brown? Wait… what are these solids?”
And then it hits her.
“All of a sudden I drop the cup and I look at my shampooed, bubbly little boy and ask, ‘Eddie? Did you go poop in the tub?’ and his smile faded. And I turn to the toilet and vomit,” she shares. “When I look back he has a terrified look on his face and I realize he thinks he did something very bad. Which he did… but he really didn’t.”
Sluiter had to make a quick decision on how to handle the cleanup. Eddie’s bath was finished in the downstairs bathroom — with a second round of bubbles — and the upstairs mess was left for Sluiter’s husband, Cort, who was at his night class.
“I did text Cort to warn him of the poop-splosion in the upstairs bathroom,” she says. “He took care of it when he got home without even a gag. And Eddie hasn’t pooped in the tub since,” she happily shares. “In fact, he announces now that the tub is not where we poop. At least I know he’s paying attention.”
Deck the walls?
Writer and mom of one (soon to be two!) Tonya Adams remembers all too well her most disgusting parenting story.
“Lucas was 2-1/2 and I walked into his room and he had used his poop to paint the wall. My son couldn’t even take off his own pants yet,” she shared on her personal blog. “I did not expect to find what I did when I approached his room and heard cheerful singing after his nap. Upon entering, he greets me with ‘We need to get a new wall.’ Poop was everywhere… caked all over the wall above his bed, all over him, his sheets, his pillow, his clothes, his lovey, his hair, his books,” she remembers.
She was mortified and had no clue where to even start cleaning up.
“It was under his fingernails, smeared into the nightstand and his favorite stuffed kitty. I stripped the bed, stripped him, marched to the kitchen for the 409, started a load of laundry and drew a bath. It was as though it never even happened,” she recalls. “And then I had a margarita. Or three.”
Taste surprises
One mom, who asked to remain anonymous, shared a particularly disgusting tale of parenthood with us.
“My kid ate his own poop,” she shares. “His dad changed him but walked away for a second before disposing of the diaper. My son had recently had chocolate pudding for the first time and was obviously confused.”
She ran him to the bathroom to wash his mouth and hands off.
“Maybe this is why he’s a picky eater now? Trust issues,” she adds.
Debbie, mom of two, remembers something her son did when he was little that still turns her stomach today.
“When he was barely old enough to walk, he was playing outside with his older sister, and I saw him poke his fingers into a half-eaten dead bird,” she shares. “He then proceeded to lick his fingers! Yum!”
Surprise! Not a toy
Diana, mom of two, wasn’t too pleased with her son when he tried to keep himself busy in the bathroom one day.
“Sam [her son] and I were at the Tahoe Douglas Recreation Center picking up Maddy [her daughter] from soccer,” she recalls. “We went into the ‘family bathroom,’ which included a floor urinal, a toilet, a tall sink and a short sink. As I’m on the toilet, I look over — and Sam is on the floor playing with the sanitation/fragrance disk in the bottom of the urinal! Needless to say, I scrubbed his hands for about 20 minutes!” she admits.
Tasty nibbles — not
“Back before she knew how to walk, my oldest daughter Amy crawled her way through the house,” remembers writer and mom of two Jessica Torres. “One day, while I was at work, she was scooting her way through my mom’s house and found some ‘little things’ on the floor.”
Being a little kid, she picked up the little things and decided to eat them.
“Well, it turned out that those ‘little things’ were actually dog poop from one of my mom’s little dogs,” says Torres. “Needless to say, her mouth was washed out, and to this day, I still make her brush her teeth a little longer than is recommended by the doctor,” she adds.
Galit Breen is a writer and mom of three.
“My middle daughter, who has the most ‘spunk’ of all of my kids, once tried broccoli dipped in chocolate sauce! Oh my goodness, yuck! The kickers (there are two) are that she swears this is delicious and that she did this on a ‘dare’ from… wait for it… my husband!” she recalls.
Needless to say, that daughter isn’t in charge of the vegetables for dinner.
Taking care of business
Debbie’s son also found a unique use for a common personal grooming item.
“When he was about 3 and starting to brush his teeth on his own, I looked down the hall (because I was trying to let him be a big boy) and saw him bent over using his toothbrush to scratch that anal itch! Yes, gross!” she remembers.
Kavulla’s son answered the call of nature at the wrong place.
“At one of our favorite outdoor malls in Seattle, they have these fantastic, kid-friendly water features that are filled with little ones splashing and having fun on hot days,” she recalls. “Everett, who had just turned 3, was really enjoying it that summer, even stripping down to just his shorts to play among all of the shoppers.”
Suddenly, she glanced up to see Everett peeing in the fountain.
“I caught him just as he was, well, finishing up, and I nearly passed out on the spot. Thankfully, I don’t think anyone else saw him… especially the little boy who was drinking the water from the other side of the fountain. Needless to say, we made a quick exit… and said a silent prayer that the security cameras at University Village didn’t catch his public peeing action,” she adds.
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