See Mom Run

"What are you reading?" asks my seven year old, most likely enticed by the cute robot on the cover of See Mom Run: Side-Splitting Essays from the World's Most Harried Moms, a new anthology of real life stories from blogging moms, compiled by Beth Feldman.

"It's stories written by mommies," I offer.

"What kind of stories?" she asks, still intrigued by the pink robot, but two seconds away from losing interest.

"Well, there's one mom who was driving to the water park and her daughter threw up all over the back of the car. "

"Really?" said Mia, her eyes lighting up.

"And there's another mom and a lady asked her if she was 'with child' when she wasn't pregnant and she wanted to ask the lady 'Are you with brain?'"

I added this last episode for the benefit of my husband who was walking by and would get the joke. I laughed loudest at this one, but to recapture Mia's attention, I added: "Yeah, and there's another mom who was at a restaurant and her baby pooped and pooped and wouldn't stop pooping!"

Mia, who is entranced by all things scatological, dissolved into loud and happy giggles.

Every parent has a immature digestive system story of his or her own to share. My favorite from our family starts when Mia was only a few months old and had been worrying her ever-observant mother with two days of wet, but not dirty diapers. One night I laid her on her changing table and tried a little infant massage in gentle circles on her belly. She complied with a big mess in front of me. Yeah!

A couple of weeks later, we were visiting with my husband's sister and her husband who had a new baby of their own. I was talking with my brother-in-law about how cute the little cousins were and he mentioned, "It's so funny to watch them poop."

"Yeah," I said. "It's like soft-serve!"

My brother-in-law gave me a half horrified, half-puzzled look and I suddenly realized he was talking about the funny faces that kids make when they are struggling with their innards, NOT the actual product of their struggles.