It's all fun and games til someone eats poop.

Just when I think I have toddler-proofed my house beyond recognition (next purchase: stylin' oven guards, because would prefer child show up at preschool with all fingers accounted for), just when I'm starting to trust the speed of my reflexes when it comes to don'ttouchthatputthatdowngetbackhererightnow, my kid falls down the stairs and eats dog poop.

In the same day. I mean really, goddesses of the mother-world. Throw me a frickin' bone, here.

We do not have carpeting on our stairs, which has made me extra cautious as the Munchkin learns how to pedal her four tiny-yet-unpredictable extremities up and down the staircase. Having lived in a split-level for the last three years, this is the first time I've had to deal with a full-length threat of skull-smooshing potential.

Mind you, I'm cautious but I know when my kid is trying to manipulate me. So when she quit a mere two steps from the bottom after sliding down on her butt almost all the way, I stepped onto the landing and said, "You can get down yourself, you know how to do it." I probably also mumbled give me an effing break, but I digress.

To make a long story short, she somehow got her feet stuck under her, pitched forward and landed flat on her back. And thanks to the handy presence of gravity, her head led the way and her skull made such a horrible splat on the hardwood floor that I felt certain her eyeballs had catapulted out of their sockets.

She's fine, of course. Mommy? Traumatized and guilt-ridden. Kid? Cup of juice cures all wounds.

Cut to our morning walk, about an hour later. As usual, we moved at a snail's pace because to a toddler, every stick and rock and piece of dirt is a sacred treasure. As the Munchkin squatted to inspect a pile of leaves, I took my eyes off her and started to space out. I figure if she's gonna run into traffic I'll at least, y'know, hear the horns and the cussing.

I took a few steps ahead of her, turned and said, "C'mon, Munchkin!" She grinned at me, holding up a fistful of dried dirt. A long, curiously-shaped fistful of um, "dirt." And then, I kid you not, before I could even move, she took a little nibble off the end. Gross. Gross gross gross.

And now, a note to my neighbors: that woman you saw earlier today, the one huffin' it back to her house carrying a screaming child over her shoulder because the child was pissed that the walk had ended early and that mommy chucked her fun new toy into the street, the woman twitching and yelling, "DIRTY POO-POOS, MUNCHKIN, DIRTY POO-POOS..."?

I don't know who it was. But if the ruckus threw off your downward-facing-dog or interrupted your daily viewing of The Price is Right, I apologize on her behalf.