Picture it.
It’s 7:30 PM, both kids are in bed snoring. My husband puts on Call the Midwife.
We settle in, tucked underneath our feather quilt and my favorite cat blanket. I am half watching the show and half reading the Reddit I am currently addicted to: WattsOffTopic.
My husband falls asleep. The house is blissfully quiet. I decide to sneak out of bed for some of that alone time I never get. I am envisioning writing, maybe reading a little, perhaps even taking a deep dive off into Reddit. The sky is the limit.
Only, Logan wakes up and it’s 10:00 PM so that means he has to nurse right away and go back to sleep or he’s going to be up.
I am not fast enough. He is up. So, I make him a peanut butter and then a peanut butter and jelly. I fill his water bottle with a little grape juice, he takes his tablet, puts on his songs and we go back upstairs.
Rory has also started baby led weaning, which is important to a later part of this story. Molly, our cane corso, has always enjoyed this age with our kids because it means she gets snack droplets rained upon her if she’s sitting by the high chair. Molly also has a sensitive stomach.
Logan eats most of his food, drinks his juice, wants more boob. He’s settling again. My husband wakes up, and sits playing on his phone. Then…
“Do you smell shit,” he asks, taking the phone away from his face.
“Uh, no. I smell bleach though from cleaning the bathroom.”
“I definitely…I definitely smell shit.” He gets up to investigate, shaking his phone to get the flashlight on. “I smell it to the point of almost tasting it that’s how— OH GOD.”
And there before him lie the beautiful, brown mound. Molly was kind enough to relieve herself on my husband’s sweatpants and then hide under the bed.
“SHE SHIT IN MY SWEATPANTS. IT’S NOWHERE ELSE BUT IN MY SWEATPANTS!!!”
I can now smell it too, and it is overbearing. I start laughing so hard I am crying. Logan, now distracted from his tablet starts coughing and shaking his head. It STINKS! And just when you think it can not get much worse, my husband takes his pants into the bathroom to shower them off before he washes them. The smell only permeates more as the hot water and steam infuse with the l’eau de dog shit. We are all now gagging.
Rory wakes up in the middle of the chaos. My husband is now yelling about the nose burning scent of dog poop and his frustration that the baby is up.
“There is just going to be so much shit,” he’s fuming as he scrubs. “When she gets sick like this it goes on for DAYS.”
I am trying to quiet down both kids and get them back into bed. “Her old cage is in the garage. We can just put her in there until she’s feeling better.”
My husband scoffs, irritated, like I said the dumbest thing. “We CAN’T put her in the garage! SHE WILL DIE!”
Trying to be a better wife and not roll my eyes, I take a slow breath before I explain: “No. I meant the cage is in there and we can get it and put her in the house in the cage so if she goes again it’s a simple hose down of a kennel and not shampooing new carpeting.”
He mumbles and eventually disappears to get the cage. I get the kids settled and take out both dogs.
“If you EVER BRING A DOG HOME AGAIN…”I hear him griping as I let the dogs in.
Fans are all full blast. Both kids have yet to fall back to sleep. Molly is in her kennel. And then I remember that I didn’t put Behr back into his belly band and he has had 20 minutes of bandless free reign as I sat to write this.
And then I hear, “BEHR!!”
He comes back into the office with his belly band several minutes later…
Welcome to the chaos and the night that ended with 5lbs of dog poop in one pair of sweat pants.
Katherine Kuzma-Beck 
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