Brown nose

With children there are good days and bad days. All of them precious in their own ways. However, then comes the day where I very nearly lost my mind. The day my youngest, Wesley, removed his diaper and pooed everywhere but the diaper. EVERYWHERE.

It was smeared all over himself and on his fingers and in his mouth. (Yes, you read that correctly. He gave it a taste!) He came to me, pointing his little poo covered finger in my face while crying.
I whisked him away into the bathroom and stood him in the tub. I had to give him a pre-rinse prior to an actual bath to get all of the poo chunks off of him. Dear God, there was so much poo.

I got his bath started finally after washing away the poo. At this point I was crying and laughing at the same time. Wesley was looking at me puzzled. Surely mommy had lost her mind. (Yeah kid, I did. It was somewhere amidst the massive amounts of poo running down the drain.)

Luckily my middle child Max came walking in and watched dear Wesley while I sought out the diaper. I found it in the middle of the play room. It was bone dry and completely poo free. He had even folded back up nicely. (What kid does that? It seemed almost a smug thing to do.) Sitting beside the diaper was a pile of poo. A big pile of poo. (How on earth can this much poo come from such a tiny kid?!) I scanned the toy covered floor for any other surprises. I found two more neat piles and one more not so neat pile. This pile had been used to paint numerous toys and I assume it was the one he used to paint himself with.

I cleaned up the poo piles, threw the toys in the washing machine, gathered my little angel from the tub and put his diaper back on and this time put pajamas on the kid. He was going to keep this diaper on. I then poured a drink and sat down on the couch to gather myself. Not five minutes later Wesley walked up to me like this:



(Yes, that is poo on his nose). I had missed some poo obviously. But where was it?! I cleaned his face and his ankle as there was poo smeared there as well. (Why?! Why was this happening?!) I scooped him up and told him to show mommy where the poo was. As if he would answer and show me. No. I got the blank big eyed stare with that huge grin.

By this point I was sobbing and yelling, "Where is the damn poo?! Where?!". I was stumbling over toys and scanning every bit of the floor, walking as if in a mine field. Each step expecting to feel a squish. Nothing. I could find no more poo. Where had he put it, smeared it, stashed it? Where oh were was the poo? I was at my wits end. I couldn't give up though. Just knowing there was poo someone in the room, poo that Wesley would inevitably play in again, made me frantic. I could smell poo but could not pinpoint just where. Then I saw it. Little poo streaks all over the glass on the entertainment center. All over it. I was relieved. Glass is so much easier to clean than carpet.

After all was cleaned I once more plopped onto the couch exhausted. Then Wesley crawled up and onto my lap. He hugged me and leaned in for a kiss. A kiss I denied. The vision of his little poo covered mouth was still fresh in my mind. No kid, no kiss tonight. But I'll hug you and love you none the less

Meet Merv

     Halloween is my favorite Holiday.  I adore it.  I always have.  So when my husband suggested we make a dummy to hang as we have in the past, I jumped on it.  (The idea, not the dummy.)  So I went to work  assembling our dummy.  Merv came to be yesterday afternoon.  Born of old clothes and plastic bags on our kitchen table.  I sent photos to my husband who then texted back that Merv's hands should be bound behind his back to make him look more authentic.  I found the twine and made it so.  Then I texted my husband back asking if I can bloody Merv up a bit.  His response:  absolutely.  Had anyone read these out of context, we would sound quite savage.  It was such fun.

     Once he was finished I scooped him up to move onto the porch.  As I walked through the front door a neighbor walked by.  I can only imagine her thoughts at a sweaty, disheveled looking woman cradling a bloody body with a bag over its head. I smiled and hoped she didn't think me crazy.  She smiled and kept on walking. After all, it is Halloween season so this isn't too odd. Had it been Easter or Christmas, perhaps she may have reacted entirely different and rightfully so.

With Merv in place I went back inside.  I had forgotten him completely by this morning.  Not long ago I opened the front door to check for packages.  I would usually look through the peep hole but I have it covered with more decorations.  Upon opening the door I jumped and screamed.  (I even peed myself a little.  Birthing three kids does this to a woman.  But that is a story for another time.)   So I suppose Merv is a success as dummies go.

The Laundry Conundrum...a poem

Four baskets of laundry sitting in a row, staring at this woman whose thinking "No fold no!"
Four baskets of laundry persistant in their demands, how am I to do this with only two hands?
Four baskets of laundry really making me mad, if I dump them in the closet is it really that bad?
Four baskets of laundry sitting like a lump, if they would only fold themselves I wouldn't be such a grump.
Four baskets of laundry no solution do I see, combining two together...now I have just three!
Three baskets of laundry causing such a stink, perhaps I'll just ignore them and poor myself a drink.

A Letter to my kids...

Dear Kids,

Contrary to popular belief, the house is not self-cleaning. Backpacks, shoes toys, etc., do not sprout legs and walk themselves to where they belong. The vacuum does not run itself and the mop does not dance around all the floors like in Fantasia. If Disney would make that happen then I would finally believe in "Happily Ever After".

The clothes that you all like to wear each day do not wash themselves and hang themselves up to dry. Nor have they, to the best of my knowledge, learned how to use an iron or mastered the art of folding themselves.

The toilets do not scrub themselves and neither do the shower, the bathtub or the toothpaste spit stained sinks. (Seriously, can't you rinse that down when you're done brushing? It's a real bitch to clean up once it's dried.) Oh, the mirrors do not magically shine to let you see your smiling little faces either. It takes some elbow grease and windex. It's almost an art to get them looking fabulously streak free so keep your damn fingers off or risk losing them!

The refrigerator dose not take a trip to the grocery store and fill itself with food. Nor does it prepare the food and put it on the stove, in the oven or microwave. Also, do you really have to touch every inch of every stainless steel appliance? Heaven forbid there is once place that does not have a grubby little finger smudge or face print. Really? A face print? Which one of you closes the fridge with their face?! Don't answer that. I don't want to know.

The dishwasher does infact wash the dishes. I do not deny this. However it has not learned and never will learn how to load and unload itself. You can stop assuming that this is how it happens because it most definately does not.

The lawn does not suck the grass in to make it shorter each week nor does the lawn gnome spring to life and pluck it uniformly short. The mower has to be gassed, primed and pushed over the yard repeatedly for it to be cropped so neatly.

Please consider this my letter of resignation. By this I mean that I am resigned to the fact that I will continue to do these things regardless of the recognition or lack there of.  I will do them because I love both of you.

Love,
Mom

Feelings of verbal and written inadequacies...

Sometimes I find it hard being married to a man who is a much better writer than I am. I've be so overly critical of everything I put to the page that a new neurosis has formed to join the abundance of others I have. I will type out a sentence and then re-read it over and over to see how I can make it better. This is a no-no. "Let it flow. Don't look back. Feel the moment and write it down." Advice from my college creative writing professor. Advice I have yet to take...even now as I write this. I've re-read these few sentences numerous times already. Looking for...what? I don't know exactly. I know what I don't look for when I re-read. I don't look back to make sure my gramatics and syntax or even my spelling is correct. I gave up on those things long ago. (Actually I just caught myself spell checking what I have written. Check that of the list of what I don't look back for.) I suppose look back to make sure that what I am writing will be of the most possible interest to anyone reading my words. In doing so I tend to be overly wordy, a puking of words so to speak, that are completely unnecessary but without those words I wouldn't really have much to say at all.

Wow, have I digressed from my first sentence. Let me try to bring it back around. My husband is a phenomenal writer...among other things. Writing comes to him with such ease. The way he writes, the things he writes about, are all so captivating and engaging. I envy him and a little bit of me admittedly hates him for his creativeness. Just a small part of me...not the important parts mind you. Just the bit that resides in the back of my brain that whispers ugly insults at myself for not being better at one of the things I love to do. The bit that holds me back for fear that I will never compare to his abilites so why even bother trying at all. The dark bit that I mostly try to ignore but which festers just on the edge of my conciousness, waiting to get it's grips in and turn me into an angy blubbering mess of words that spill onto the screen haphazardly like this.

The Potty Train

So I realized the other day that Maxwell takes things quite literally as most 2 year old's do. I told him that he cannot go to pre-school ever if he is not potty trained. My son looks at me with such excitement and exclaims, "I get to go to school if I ride the Potty Train! I want to ride the Potty Train. Where is it?" Once I picked myself up off of the floor where I had fallen in the throws of laughter, I tried to explain to him that there is no Potty Train but he was having none of it. When I told my husband about the incident, a light bulb when off in his brain. He told Max that when he uses the potty and not diapers anymore he can go on the Potty Train with Daddy. His excitement was encouraging. We will see what happens.Post Options

Adventures in Potty Training

My youngest son Maxwell is in the midst of potty training. And let me tell you, it is not a fun place to be right now. More so for mommy than for Max. This kid has a stubborn streak that runs deeper than the Grand Canyon and as long as the Great Wall of China. I say "Yes" and he says "No!" I so "No" and he says "Yes!" I say "Up" and he says "Down!" I can go on and on but I'm sure that by now you got the point.

My frustration has been mounting over his unwillingness to use the potty rather than his pants. Some people say to me that he will let me know when he is ready and not to push him or it will take longer. Well I say that when your son comes up to you carrying a new, fresh diaper and says "I need to be changed. I pee pee." Well, then he is damn well ready to start using the toilet I say.

Now, I'm not known for my patience. In fact I usually only have a small surplus of such and I have reached my limit. So, when my son informed me that he was going to wear diapers forever I nearly lost it. Images of me as a gray haired old lady changing her 30year old son's adult sized pampers sent me to the bathroom to weep.

Well, once I regained my composure, I decided he was going to wear his big boy underwear today. Let me just say that having a toddler wearing underwear for the first time is kind of like trying to potty train a puppy. (Which, for the record, I tried a while back and failed miserably at.) I feel the need to follow him around the house trying to prevent any sort of accident. I think Max is beginning to understand how I feel when he is my constant shadow. When he goes to play cars, mommy is there. When he runs to play on the keyboard, mommy is not far behind. When squats in the corner to do his business, mommy is there to scoop him up and whisk him away to the potty. You can imagine how old this gets. I eventually stop shadowing him and just obsessively ask him if he needs to go potty. The answer? Always "No!" I mean, he told me no as he stood in front of me actively peeing through his undies, down his leg and onto the wood floor! Even then he insisted he was not wet. (I can only surmise that he gets this from Kevin's side of the family, as my side is not stubborn in the least.) Then Max inform me that he did make a puddle on the floor earlier. He takes me over by his toy box and book shelf and points at the floor. I look and see nothing wet. I don't feel anything wet either. But the unmistakable smell of pee is definately there. Upon closer inspection I see that he has either used a book to try to clean up his mess, or just squated over the book and did his business. Trying to get a straight answer from his is harder than convincing a rebublican that McCain in no way measures of to Obama. Anyhow, there was no saving the book. At least it was one of his and not the library's. Imagine explaining that one to them.

So, Max is on his second pair of underwear and doing okay for the most part. At least I think he is. I haven't been upstairs in the last ten minutes. I sit here imagining piles of poo and puddles of pee riddling the living room floor. (Which isn't too far from the truth. The pile of poo on the floor is a whole other story.) As much as I am dreading it, I must go investigate the silence up above....