Happy Monday, Or the Rest of the Week Should Be Great After This....

Warning!!! This post is not for the weak-stomached or those who are eating.....


I'm willing to bet that this is one of the worst Monday mornings one can have......Last night was crazy, to say the least. I didn't get to bed till rather late, after 11 pm, and then I had a hard time getting comfortable and falling asleep. I must have fallen asleep, though, 'cause I suddenly awoke (well after midnight), convinced that the cat had been scratching the carpet and possibly using it for her litterbox. I leaped from bed and walked around the house (not a long trip, our place is tiny) looking for the cat and evidence of her misdeed. I should mention that she's never used the carpet as a litterbox, but our previous cat had on a couple of occasions. I was wrong, however--all was peaceful and excrement free. I went back to bed.

About 2:30 am or so, I was awakened a second time--thought I heard the dog roaming about and the cat hissing. I got up to look around and didn't find anything amiss, though Gillian's bedroom door was open. We close her door at night, so this meant the dog had pushed it open. I didn't see the dog in her room and Gillian was still asleep, so I closed the door and went back to our bedroom. Chuck was awake now and groggily asking me where the dog was. So I went back down the hall and opened Gillian's door. I was greeted by a horrible smell and a wagging dog. When her wet tail hit my leg, I knew I was in for it.... I got the dog out the back door and went to check the damage. I took a flashlight into Gillian's room, hoping not to awaken her, but she was sitting up in her crib. I directed the flashlight beam around the room, but couldn't see anything despite the incredibly foul odor, which was most intense by the door. Since Gillian was most definitely awake--curious and alert, wondering what was going on--I went ahead and turned on a lamp, and discovered a huge mess of dog diarrhea behind the door. The door was actually swinging through the mess when I opened and closed it. I could also see tiny drops of poo all over the floor (through which I had been walking....ugh). The dog must have exploded!

I took Gillian back to our room and tucked her in with Chuck, closed the door, and went to arm myself with a spray bottle of Simple Green and paper towels. Besides the aforementioned mess on the floor, I also found tiny drops on the walls and furniture. When I'd roughly cleaned up what I could see, I started up our Lil Green Machine (getting out the Big Gun!) and wet vacuumed (lots of detergent!) everything. I put a wool blanket on the back porch for the dog (no way was she coming back in), then I scrubbed my feet and legs and crawled back in bed with Chuck and Gillian.

Between Gillian kicking and tossing and the scent of dog poop that had taken up permanent residence in my nasal passages, I couldn't get back to sleep. I eventually took Gillian back to her bed (the room didn't smell and was now relatively safe to walk across). Chuck and I had a brief, sleepy discussion of what the crime scene looked like and what might have made the dog so sick. He said something like "I guess we're grownups now." I agreed, but of course I've been feeling that way for 2 years, since Gillian was born--sitting up nights with a crying, vomiting child'll make you feel grown up really fast.... Then we went to sleep again. Or at least Chuck did. I lay there for a long time, trying to decide if I really needed to go to the bathroom that bad and if I was really that hungry. Turned out "yes" on both counts. I finally drifted off after visits to the bathroom and the refrigerator. No worries, I always wash my hands!

This morning, in the cold light of day, I discovered, like some CSI, castoff poop spatters everywhere the dog walked on her way out of the house last during the night. So, I spent an hour or so scrubbing and wiping along the "trail" and also running our upright carpet cleaner all over Gillian's room. As a precaution, I'm going to clean the floors and carpets between her room and the back door as well. As you can imagine, we now have a no-second rule as far as food hitting the floor is concerned.....

We still need to wash the dog.




P.S. Yes, it's been a very long time. I promise to write about the wheres and whys and hows of what I've been doing instead of blogging. Soon....