“Mom. Mom! MOM!”

I cracked open an eye while trying to pretend I was still sleeping. 5:30. In. The. Morning. I don’t know why my boys are morning people. I only know that I don’t like it.

“MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!” 

Apparently, my five year old was not going to go quietly.

“What?” I could say I asked in a gentle, loving tone, but it was probably more like the growl of a mama grizzly awakened from hibernation too early by a cub looking for waffles while daddy grizzly continued to snore on his side of the cave.

“Come quick! E just did something really disgusting in the bathroom.” Isn’t that what every mother wants to hear before the sun comes up?

E, who is my three year old, has finally mastered the art of elimination on the toilet. Such skill has not come without casualties – countless pairs of Cars and Toy Story undies have lain in ruin in his wake. I have become, well, if not used to finding poop in places other than the toilet, then certainly not surprised to find a little nugget on the bathroom floor.

Shit happens.

So in the pre-dawn darkness, with the soundtrack of my husband’s snoring never skipping a beat as he slept on, I prepared to brave the bathroom. I thought, how bad could it be? Maybe he didn’t lift the seat or there was a foul stain on the seat or perhaps even a roll of toilet paper unfurled in a white, fluffy pyramid.

Not even close.

Let me interrupt this tale to say a little something about my three year old. Other than being an 11.5 pound transverse breech baby who spent the better part of nine months turning my uterus into a hammock that he apparently had no intention of ever leaving, he was the textbook definition of an “angel” baby. He slept great, he ate great (uh, hello – 11.5 pound baby), and he never cried. I mean it. His sister could drop a wooden block on his head and he barely blinked. His brother could bounce a ball off of his head, and he would keep on smiling. He was my perfect child. And this lasted for 2 glorious years.

Then it all went to hell.

My “angel” baby turned into the spawn of Satan. He still looked angelic, but in reality, he had turned into an unholy terror. Still adorable, still adored, but now, I try to keep one eye open when I sleep.

I don’t think that I will ever figure out the exact thought pattern he had that morning. Was he trying to tell me something? Was he showing that toilet that he was now the boss? Did his brother put him up to it? These are the questions that I will ponder when I’m old and waiting for an open table at the Denny’s Early Bird special.

And what did I find that morning? In my toilet, there was nary a sign of human effluence. Instead, there were:

16 slices of wheat bread, a box of phonics flashcards and three cars from the movie Cars 2 (specifically, Finn McMissle, Holly Shiftwell and Francesco Bernoulli).

I don’t remember much of what happened after that. I’m sure there was yelling. I’m confident punishment was meted out. And I’m certain that I shall never again allow my slotted spoon to touch food once I used it to address the disaster.

He is lucky he is cute. He is lucky I have a good sense of humor.

He is very lucky that he was sound asleep when, as I prepared to take a long, hot bath at the end of that banner parenting day, I found his dirty socks, six Lego bricks and a half-eaten hot dog in the bathtub.

Clearly, he spent the first two years of his life lulling me into a false sense of security before he embarked on his maniacal plan to strip me of my sanity.

To him I say, you are too late, my little friend. You’re the last of three children. My sanity was gone long before you arrived.

But I’m happy you’re here, anyway. Let’s just try to keep the food out of the bathroom, OK?