There are things you brace for as a parent.
You brace for spilled juice.
You brace for mysterious crumbs in your bed.
You brace for a tiny, jam-covered hand gently stroking your face at 3 a.m., saying, “Hi.”
But I was not braced for what lurked at the bottom of the bathtub recently.
Everything was fine—bubbles, giggles, toys bumping around like cheerful little dinghies. The rubber duck was holding court. The washcloth bobbed quietly, pretending it wasn’t part of the chaos. The child was busy smacking the water with a plastic bucket and laughing like he’d just discovered comedy.
Then, it happened.
It began with a look—a very suspicious look—the look a raccoon gives you when it’s holding something shiny and thinks you might take it.
He paused mid-splash. Looked at me. Smiled. And then made the face.
Parents know the face.
It’s the faraway stare. The slack jaw. The subtle grunt of focus.
“No,” I said, slowly. “No no no.”
But yes.
Yes yes yes.
Out it came, bold and uninvited.
One second: peace.
The next: a silent, brown missile slipping beneath the bubbles like some kind of terrible submarine.
I leapt into action, full of the frantic grace of a parent whose world has just changed forever.
“Okay! Okay okay okay!” I shouted, as if saying it fast enough might rewind time.
He, of course, was delighted. Absolutely beaming.
He pointed toward the water and made a sound somewhere between “Bah!” and “Buh!”
Not a word. Just… excitement. A celebratory grunt.
As if he was saying, Look at what I just made!
…. or boat! Maybe he was saying boat.
I, meanwhile, was trying to lift him out without letting anything touch anything else. Like fishing a statue out of a swamp.
The poop, unseen but known, had settled somewhere below us, lurking like the villain in a thriller.
We got him out and wrapped him in a towel. He tried to twist back around to look into the depths. I told him no with the voice of someone who has lost their innocence.
The cleanup was quiet and solemn. A vigil.
I’m different now. A shadow of who I once was.
Parenthood, they say, is full of surprises.
And this was one of them.
Sinking. Waiting.
Surprising.
My son pooped in the tub.
And nothing will ever be the same again.
The CJBuzz 