“Oh, the surprises that come, when parenting a human is no longer a cute idea.”
For anybody’s who’s been in the business of raising littles, these wise words of mommy blogger Jess Johnstonring painfully true.
And nobody could agree more than Clint Edwards, a dad who’s built his base of loyal fans from admittedlyhaving NOidea what he’s doing when it comes to the skillful art of child-rearing. On his Facebook page, No Idea What I’m Doing: A Daddy Blog, Clint regularly takes readers through his uniquely wild ride of fatherhoodmarkedbytrial and error…and trial.
His most recent parenting saga paints an all-too-relatablepicture of being knee-deep in crap (literally) with his 3-year-old daughter, Aspen. With a shovel, a Band-aid and a dose of humorous bravery, Clint handles his poopy lil’ princess like a champ…and leaves us with a nuggetof parental wisdom that you simply can’t afford to miss:
“Norah (age 7. Not pictured) found some dog poop in the front yard. In the time it took me to walk to the backyard for a shovel, Aspen (age 3) grabbed the poop and smeared it on her sister.
I didn’t teach her to do that. I want to get this across right now, because I’m not taking credit for my child’s poop handling. She figured that out herself.
Norah ran into the house crying, Aspen chasing her, me following the two with a shovel like some sort of a gravedigger, not sure exactly what happened during the five seconds I was in the backyard, but confident it had something to do with dog poop.
It all came to light quickly, however, when Aspen turned to me with her poop hands, and as I dropped the shovel so I could keep this little turd handler from touching me too, she fell and cut her knee.
As you can see from the picture, she cried long and hard like she’d been caught in a bear trap, poop hands out for me to hold her.
Suddenly I was faced with a decision. Leave her on the ground and forget that I have a daughter. Or pick her up and comfort her, all while most likely getting dog poop on me.
Sometimes your kids are sick and dripping snot, and they come at you like Jabba The Hut asking Princess Leia for a kiss, and you pause for a moment, wondering if this whole parenting gig is really for you. Ultimately you kiss them, though. You always do. And sometimes they handle dog poop and cut their knee, and it’s your job to make them right again.
So I did it.
I cleaned her hands and her cut, her screaming the whole time, me crying on the inside. I sat her on my lap, all the while trying desperately not to get poop on me, but failing. No one gave me an award. Chances are, she won’t even remember this moment. But I know I did the right thing.
So if you are knee deep in poop, my fellow parents, I see you. I respect you.
Hold strong. I can’t say that whatever nasty thing you had to endure was worth it. But what I can say is that you are parenting like a rockstar.”
You may not have won any awards, but today we salute you, feces-slaying fathers of America.
Your prince-like chivalry may be masked as poop shovel-rybutyou sure make it look GOOD. 💩
Read more here: http://www.faithit.com
