The first story for her wedding

Last night was the second of three birthday parties we have been to or will be to this week. Last night it was Emily's best friend Nevan's 4th birthday party. We love Nevan's parties because it is just as much for the adults as it is for the kids. It is always intimate - just three kids and their three siblings, parents and last night Nevan's grandparents were there, too. It was a lot of fun for everyone.

The adults were enjoying the dinner table to themselves, having wine, laughing, engrossed in their conversation while the kids, who had finished eating, were in the basement playing superheroes etcetera when I heard John beside me gasp "What the?" Silence hit the table. I looked beside me to see Emily, pants and underwear in a heap beside her on the floor, bent over, ass pointed at me, hands grabbing each cheek spreading them wide saying: "Mummy, can you check my bum? I went poop."

It was one of those moments where you think "this can't be real. This is a Dave Barry moment. It doesn't really happen, right?". And yet, there we were.

I scooped Emily up and took her down to the bathroom where I did the requested check. (As a quick explanation, she is just learning to wipe her own bum after the twosies and needs a little check to make sure everything is as it should be.) She kept asking me what was so funny. I couldn't stop laughing. I told her that the grown-ups just told a joke that I hadn't heard before and it was really funny. That satisfied her. I wasn't going to use that perfect, universe-stopping moment, that moment I will remember the rest of my life, that will most definitely be talked about at her wedding and told to her own children, to give her a lesson on appropriate behaviour in front of other people. It was too good to ruin it with that sort of thing. She bought the joke answer.

I'm guessing everyone else will remember it, too. I'm pretty sure they all thought it was one of the highlights of the evening.

Until I fell asleep last night I kept spontaneously laughing. The only thing that would have made it better would be if I could tell my mum about it. She would have loved that one.