When did my second day of this challenge start? Did it start at midnight? Or did it start when I woke up in the morning? If it was the former, I had started day two on the loo while begging to whatever deity was listening to spare me. Drinking all of that water throughout the day had resulted in a lot of trapped wind and discomfort. I had cancelled the 5 am alarm when Terry had put me to bed just after 1 am with a hot water bottle. There was no way I was getting up at 5 am. I had hoped to get to 9 am before I had to deal with my little darlings but we all know that parenting rarely works this way. Shortly after 7 am, I was woken with an elbow to my stomach.
“OOOF!”
“Morning mum! Can we have cereal?”
“Yeah, sure, just give me a minute.”
My stomach felt tender and ached from the spasms of my late night on the loo; having a wrestling slam used my insides before my eyes had opened didn’t help.
I dished two bowls of cereal out for the kids that were awake. Miles was still locked away in his bedroom, snoring as if his lungs and nose might collapse if he didn’t pull every available drop of fresh air into his growing body. From the smell of hormones and body spray leaking under the bedroom door, there wasn’t a great amount of fresh air left in his room. I don’t normally venture in there but seeing as I was awake and turning over a new leaf, I should extend it to my children.
Creeping in through the door, the stench hit me.
“Dear…blegh….”
For a second, I thought I was going to boke. With my hand over my mouth, I crept around the room to the window, throwing it open to the fresh air outside. I may have been imaging it but I could have sworn there was an audible whoosh as the stale air was sucked outside. This room needed a small nuclear explosion to go off in it to cleanse it of its sins. For the state of the mugs on the dresser (was that hot chocolate? When did we last have hot chocolate in the house?) and the trainers on the floor (is that waves I see coming from them? Is that heat waves or smell?) there was a chance that a struck match would make the Fat Man and Little Boy bombs look like nothing. My stomach rumbled, threatening me with violence. This was not a great room to be in after the events of the night before. And then it happened. I didn’t throw up. Instead, there was a feeling of rocks moving through my intestines, threatening to exit straight out of my abdomen like an alien exiting its host. Tripping over clothes and god-knows-what as I left Miles’ room, I headed to my own room to use the en-suite. The door was locked.
“I’m in the shower babe!”
“Again? Why!? Doesn’t matter – right, ok, I’ll use the other toilet!”
The main bathroom is the bathroom I had grown up with. My mum had planned on decorating it for years. While everyone else in the street replaced their coloured bathroom suites with fresh white ones, we still had the deep blue and pine that was installed before I was born. Don’t get me wrong, it was ugly, but it all still worked.
As I sat on the toilet, I prayed that it would not be a repeat of the night before. Calming myself, I breathed deeply, trying to relax myself as I braced for whatever was going to happen. And then…
THUD
The pain eased and I opened my eyes. Something had happened. I was still upright. The spasms had gone. Was it over?
Curiosity got the better of me and I looked into the toilet to see what the cause of my pain over the course of the last eight hours was. I had been expecting the toilet to look like a slurry trailer had capsized. Instead, what I stared at in the bottom of my toilet bowl astounded me.
“Babe? You ok?”
“Err… yeah, I think so.”
“Did you go to the toilet? Do you need another hot water bottle?”
“Yeah, I went. I, errr….”
The pause that hung in the air was almost as bad as the smell.
“Can I come in? You’re kinda freaking me out.”
One thing you need to know about me, I have a rule. That rule is that nobody is allowed in the bathroom with me. The only time Terry has seen me pee is when I was heavily pregnant. And that one time I drank a litre of whisky at Halloween and couldn’t remember how to take down my knickers. Admittedly, I had also farted, laughed hysterically as he held me upright on the toilet, and then I threw up over his shoulder and down his back before I passed out. The irony that I was dressed as a “sexy nun” that night was not lost on me.
I opened the door, knickers and pyjama bottoms still around my ankles.
“I don’t know if I should be proud or mortified.”
Terry edged his way into the bathroom, closing the door and locking it behind him.
“What could be so awful? We have been together forever and there is nothing you could do that would turn me off… JESUS CHRIST!”
Together, as husband and wife, we stared at the contents of the toilet. At the bottom of the bowl was a turd that had to be the size of a large honeydew melon.
“That came out of your arse?”
“Yep.”
“Did it hurt?”
“Apart from the pain I was in last night, no. It came out with surprising ease.”
“Huh.”
We took another moment to marvel at a literal ball of shit that was bigger than a newborn baby’s head.
“Will it flush?”
“I dunno. It’s a bit fucking massive. Did you weigh yourself this morning?”
“No, I was in a lot of pain. Why should I have weighed myself?”
“Because, look at the size of it. It must be a good 5lb turd right there. Would have been nice to know the actual weight.”
I looked at my husband. His eyes were fixed on the toilet and I knew he was debating lifting it out and slapping it on the bathroom scales.
“Right enough, turn around and face the wall.”
“What? Why?”
“I want to wipe my bum and I can’t do it with you watching.”
Terry didn’t even bother to argue with me. He turned around and gave me some privacy to wipe my backside. I am fully aware that he had been looking at my poo and it doesn’t make sense. It’s like getting into bed with someone and then being awkward afterwards. They have already seen you naked, why should you be embarrassed to walk around in your birthday suit?
“Ok, time to flush.”
We both stood and said a silent prayer that this beast would flush away. Otherwise it was rubber gloves, the mop, and a compost bag to hide the evidence. On the plus side, if it did overflow, we had replaced the blue carpet with white tiles a few years ago. Small wins and all that.
For a moment, as the water started swirling around the bowl, it looked like we would have a clean up operation on our hands. At the last moment, as the water was on the edge of overflowing, suction and pressure took over, whisking my oversized bowel baby away.
“Well, that was an experience.”
By 11 am, I was feeling good. My stomach was better. Like, a lot better. I was showered, and had done some stretches. There was no way I was attempting any sit-ups this morning. The kids were all up and dressed. Miles had ventured into the shower. I’m not mentioning that because he doesn’t normally shower, he does. It was just that he had gotten himself showered while I planned on bathing Summer and Jenson tonight.
Although, Terry had bathed them last night so maybe I should skip it tonight?
No, no, we needed to stay consistent. The plan was to bathe them every day, so they were getting bathed every day.
“Mum, what are we doing today?” Jenson asked.
“Not really sure yet. I want to make a start on clearing things out. We have a heap of old clothes that need donated. And I need to get my car booked in for the MOT.”
After yesterday, I was already falling behind with what I wanted to do. Looking at my face in the hall mirror, I could see the slice along my forehead. It wasn’t as bad as you would expect. Plus, the bruising was very light at the minute.
“Ok, this is what we are going to do today. We are going to clear out the garden and the garage, get all of the outside toys sorted, and then you can play in the garden as much as you want over the holidays.”
A collective cheer went up from the little ones. They loved playing in the garden.
Gardening is not my thing. I cast my eyes over the garage, the back garden, and then looked at the front garden, I realised we had a problem.
“Well, this is a mess.”
“Let’s get the sand pit!”
Before I could say anything, Jenson and Summer started working on pulling the sandpit out from the corner of the garden. I have no idea why, there was no sand in it.
“Guys, you might want to play with something else. Or you could help me.”
“I wanna help!!” They both screamed at me.
“Ok, let’s start at the front.”
We threw the garage door up and pulled the brown bin out the front with an ancient garden brush and a dust pan.
“Right, you guys can start pulling weeds. I’ll get the lawnmower. Together, we might just make this place look reasonable again.”
I don’t know why kids love digging in the dirt so much. They didn’t want any tools, they just wanted to take their little fingers and smudge them into the dirt, wriggling them around with the worms, fishing out the roots of dandelions and daisies. As they started poking around for weeds in the forgotten flower beds (which were full of weeds and no “proper” flowers) I reminded them that weeds were growing out of the cracks in the driveway. The driveway was not a “proper driveway”. Like the beautiful blue bathroom, the driveway was an original feature. Over the years, the pebbles had been driven into the ground. For 40 years, the original stones that had been left by the builders had been walked on, pounded down by the rain, hundreds of bikes and car tyres had rolled over them. It might as well be cement at this point.
“Guys, start with the driveway while I run something over this grass.”
Looking at the length of the grass, I would need the strimmer over it first.
“Actually, you two, go into the living room and watch from the window. I need to use the strimmer first.”
“But you said we could help!” Summer wailed at me.
“I know. And you can. But I need to cut the grass with the strimmer first and I don’t want stuff flying up and into your eyes. Just wait inside. And when I’m done, I’ll call you out and you can help again, ok?”
“Ok,” they both huffed me before trailing their feet back inside.
It has been a while since I’ve used any of the garden equipment, this is normally Terry’s domain. But he wasn’t here. He was doing too much overtime. Sure, he was in the house this morning but I wouldn’t see him for the rest of the day. I might not see him until tomorrow if I was lucky. I sighed as I lifted the strimmer from the hook on the wall. There was no way I was doing this without eye protection. Unfortunately, the only eye protection I had was my own sunglasses. Terry had eye protection for when he worked in the garden. But he had those glasses away to work with him. He also normally didn’t let the grass get this long. It was up to me.
I must have looked a sight. Leopard print welly boots, skinny jeans, a black tank top, messy mum-bun and a pair of oversized sunglasses. Miles had opened the blinds and all three of my children were sitting on the back of the sofa, gazing out the window. With my strimmer in hand, I got to work. But before I started, I had to lift it in the air and give the motor and wee “buzz buzz” for my audience. They laughed. Miles will never admit that he laughed but he did. He also rolled his eyes so hard, he saw the back of his skull.
The strimmer worked. There was a whirling sound coming from the head. As I set the head onto the grass, it flicked grass clippings up. I could see Summer clapping her hands at the flurry of green flying into the air. Tiny specks of green hit the window. They struck it with a small ping. And then there was a big ping. I turned off the motor and looked at the window. Apart from the three shocked faces looking back at me, there was a giant hole in the glass. Thankfully, it had only smashed the first pane, the second was still standing.
“Are you guys ok?”
“Yeah!”
From behind the window, I could hear Miles say, “This is why mum wanted you inside, see, see?!”
Two little heads bobbed up and down in agreement.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket. I took a picture and sent it to Terry.
Any idea what I’m supposed to do with this? I’ve smashed the window while I was cutting the grass.
He was probably driving. There would be no reply for a while.
“Mum, what do you want us to do?”
“Nothing. Just stay inside, I’ll clean it up and I’ll have to phone for a glazer to come out and fix it.”
I set down the strimmer and paused.
“Actually, when I get the glass cleaned up, you guys can check the grass for stones. We don’t need a repeat of this happening.”
My phone buzzed in my pocket. Terry had texted me back.
Nearly broke the toilet and now you broke a window? On a roll today JoJo.
I love my husband but sometimes he is a pain in my ass.
At 9 pm, I fell into bed. After the drama of the garden, getting the window fixed, and juggling a million other tasks; I was wrecked. The biggest issue I had that had rubbed me the wrong way: getting out of my welly boots after I had finished the garden. They were stuck to my feet. It took Miles a good ten minutes of pulling at my boots to get them off. This is why rich people have things like boot-jacks in their mud rooms. I did not have a mud room but I wouldn’t say no to a boot-jack. Rolling on to my back, I pulled my phone out and starting recording my update for the day.
“Hey everyone. So. . . this was Day Two of my Up Spiral thingy. I’m wrecked. First of all, I did not sleep well last night. I drank so much water over the last few days, my stomach started to go a little bit crazy. And then this morning. . . I can’t believe I’m gonna say this out loud. . . this morning, my stomach was really sore. And then I went for a massive poo. I don’t mean it was, like, long. It was, like the size of a honeydew melon. And I swear to everything that is holy, I didn’t think it would actually flush away. Once I got over the shock of that, I started to work on my garden. May or may not have smashed a window in the process. Look, it was an accident. I didn’t realise there were stones in the grass and the strimmer flicked one up and cracked my living room window. Apart from that, I did some tidying, managed to cook a half decent meal that didn’t come from a freezer bag, and my head is doing a lot better. It’s still a beautiful colour but it is healing nicely and isn’t infected. So, yeah, that’s it for today. Tomorrow is another day. I’m just glad that I didn’t hurt myself today. Ok, bye.”
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“Downspiral” is subject to copyright laws and cannot be reproduced in any way, is owned in its entirety by The Wright Press LTD. This is a work of fiction. Unless otherwise indicated, all the names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents in this book are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. The Wright Press LTD assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions in the content or for any actions taken based on the information provided.