Comment: Panda Hair Up the What?!

WARNING: NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART

As alert readers know, I spent most of last week on a cavalcade of fun and admiration, participating in the celebration of my mom and her many achievements in northern climes.

Needless to say, when I got home, the house was a mess.

NOW BEFORE YOU THINK I'M A TOTAL SHREW:

Let me say this: My husband ROCKS. He is a superhero as far as I am concerned. It is not easy to have the primary caregiver monkey travel when you have little kids, especially on weekdays, when you're supposed to be working more than full time at a demanding job, as he is.

So the fact that I could steal away for nearly four days DURING THE WEEK without repurcussions was HUGE. I just don't get away on my own that much because it's too hard to orchestrate most of the time.

Anyway, naturally, given the circumstances, I expected a mess. So I spent the past couple of days righting the house. I was in a truly workhorse frame of mind as I washed and changed all the sheets, vacuumed, tidied, cleaned, organized and washed every wooden floor and surface in the house. (Tomorrow? The only untamed realms left: The bathrooms. Quake in fear, my friends, quake in fear.)

So I've just been all business today with the housework. Woe betide anyone who gets between me and my mop, sponge or dustrag. (I just accidentally wrote "dustrage" and I think I've just coined a new phrase. Won't my friend and fellow blogger The Solipsist be pleased I have something else to repeat besides AspGap (TM)?)

DUSTRAGE=the irritability that occurs when anyone in your family, or friends, interrupts a cleaning bender

Anyway, fast forward to the evening, after a long bout in the kitchen, de-grossifying it. As my daughter waited for her turn in the bath, I noticed that her adorable bare behind looked a little, well, disturbing. Looked like somebody had trouble wiping.

Oh, how wrong I was. It wasn't poop, it was HAIR. For a split second I thought, this is one early pubescence, and a hirsute one at that! But then I realized it was...synthetic PANDA HAIR.

Yes, my daughter is going out for Halloween as a Panda, the costume having been worn more or less every waking hour since it arrived two weeks ago. And apparently this thing sheds. A lot.

Because she WAS wearing underwear, and yet, there was all this, SPH in her delicate little butt crack.

So disturbing.

Thank goodness for wet wipes.

Tomorrow, she wears shorts AND undies before donning that monstrosity.

But I'll probably still check to make sure it's all clear down there come bedtime.

Such is the glamourous world of parenting.