Lucky

This afternoon, as Elaina and I were playing in the kitchen, she crawled under the table to fetch something she'd dropped.  As she comes crawling back out, I see she has something dark and sort of round in her hand. A quick mental inventory of what that might be didn't yield anything very comforting. We have cats, and while they're normally elegant, fastidious creatures, accidents can happen....

"Elaina..." I asked, dread building, "What's that you have in your hand?" 

"Poop!" she declares, happily.

I'm horrified--well not as horrified as I would have been before having kids, but still, pretty horrified.

"Drop it! Drop it! Drop it!" I say, hurriedly. "Elaina, we never pick up poop!" (I'm not yelling, but I'm emphatic and urgent.)

Elaina, ever the dutiful daughter, drops it and looks at her hands, which are a little dusty and dirty from crawling around under the table by the baseboard heaters, and one supposes, holding poop doesn’t help.

"Don't move! Daddy has to get rid of this, and we have to wash your hands. We never, never, NEVER pick up poop."  I continue her education in this area, talking urgently all through my dash to the bathroom, returning with a piece of toilet paper.

So, I pick it up…and it's a blueberry. (Blueberries are dark. I'm colorblind. My little angel said it was poop....)

"Elaina...this is a blueberry."

"Lucky you!" Elaina says brightly.