Last night I was about to post a new blog. Once a week I do my best to post. “Is it funny,” Scott asked me.

“Nope, it’s a hard one.”

“Don’t post it,” said Scott. “Write something funny.”

“I don’t write funny. I’m not a funny person,” I told my husband.

“Write about the boys. Someone will laugh,” Scott said.

Instead I went to bed. I wasn’t in a funny mood.

God’s mercies are new every morning because I woke up in a much better place.

Recently, I had lunch with a precious new friend who follows my blog. “I really like your sense of humor when your write,” she told me. “Really? I didn’t know I had a sense of humor when writing,” I said to her. She reminded me of something I’d written about my four-year-old at church. That memory wasn’t funny to me at all. It was embarrassing. It was a loser mom moment. When I put it on my blog, I didn’t laugh, I cringed, but I really appreciated her telling me she found it funny.

I think I need to write more of these: Loser Mom Moments. So here you go:

It was the summer of 2005. In those days we had five children. The oldest, Cami, was about fourteen. The youngest, Joey, just a baby.

I’m on the phone with my literary agent trying to sound professional. Before this call came on my parents’ landline phone, I asked Cami, “Can you please watch your little brothers for me? This is a very important call I’m waiting for and I don’t care what your brothers do as long as nobody dies and everyone is quiet while I’m on the phone.”

We were living with my parents on their farm because the house we were building wasn’t finished yet.

So Cami is minding her brothers in the living room as I speak with my agent, Les, about my writing career. I am standing at the top of the stairs watching Cami take care of her brothers downstairs. I have a good view of things because the upstairs overlooks the downstairs.

In the midst of my conversation with Les, baby Joey poops his pants. Cami, being a trooper, decides to change him. She asks her eight-year-old brother, Luke, to go fetch her a diaper.

Two-year-old, John is kneeling beside baby Joey holding his hand while Cami removes Joey’s baby clothes. It is such a sweet sight, our red-haired toddler John helping his big sister Cami with the baby.

I’m smiling as I listen to my agent. Les has high hopes for me as a writer. I have high hopes that my children will behave while I’m on the phone pretending like I really know what I’m talking about. Truthfully, I have no idea what I’m talking about. I know next to nothing about the writing business.

My eyes are on Cami as she takes the poopy diaper off the baby and places it wide open on the floor next to her as Luke jets back into the room with a fresh diaper in hand. Luke runs everywhere he goes, and he’s moving fast, totally not paying attention as he’s running.

I see this all unfold while I’m having my “professional” phone conversation. I’m really winging it with Les because I’m not a professional writer. I’m a professional mom. At least I think I’m a professional mom. But watching the scene below with my kids, I’m starting to doubt myself in every possible way.

Luke barrels into the room running right across that poopy diaper. With poop on his bare feet, he begins screaming and jumping around like a wild boy. Poop flies into Cami’s hair, onto John’s face, and all over the baby. Cami screams too. John and the baby begin to wail. Now three kids are jumping around hollering with poop on them. The baby is screaming his head off. My parents’ living room will never be the same.

Watching the poop disaster downstairs, I’m still doing my best to remain professional with Les on the phone. But at this point, I don’t feel professional in any way, shape, or form. I feel like a complete and utter failure as a writer and as a mother.

My agent is going on about publishing, what I need to know, what we need to do to further my career. All I can see are my children losing their minds with poop all over them. “My kids are falling apart. I’m sorry, Les. I have to go.”

Later by email, I explain to Les about the poop disaster. “I cannot stop laughing,” he writes back. “You really should be writing about your kids.”

Ten years ago, I had no desire to write poop stories about my kids. I wanted to be a famous novelist. Today it seems I am only famous for my poop stories, but I wouldn’t trade my seven kids for anything.