Kids are gross

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So… I haven’t blogged in a while. Say, about a year. You know, I’ve been busy. I renovated most of house. I built a bridge in our backyard. Mostly, I kept 2 tiny humans alive EVERYDAY. That’s something. But, it’s the New Year and it’s time to start again. So, here I am, starting again.

Now, let’s be clear, I’m not committing to be consistent or anything. That’s way too much pressure at this stage of life. Heck, I’m doing well to brush my hair. No, instead, I’m just… trying this outlet again. The outlet where I can record the unbelievable & precious & horrifying moments of these days. Memories like… my kids are gross.

Cause’ they kind of are. Not kind of. They REALLY are. I mean, I love them in all their grossness, but I kind of wished someone would have prepped me for this. I was mostly totally in the dark about oh so many kid-secrets before birthing these beautiful humans. I mean, I knew about diapers. I hadn’t EXPERIENCED that many diapers, but I knew about them. What I didn’t know was…

• How far infant boys can projectile pee. Seriously, it’s impressive! I once saw a little boy shoot liquid off the changing table and hit a lamp shade on the other side of the room. I kid (haha) you not.
• Where their snot goes when they have a runny nose. As in… everywhere. Namely, their shirt and your clothes. And my hair. How does it get in my hair? And my mouth. Because I forget they have a runny nose and I’m not always focused with 2 eyes on the child in front of me and your child never wants to kiss you more than when they have a runny nose.
• How much you will be thrown up on. More than carpet at a frat house, people.
• The disgustingness of potty training. SERIOUSLY. I hate potty training. There are oh so many ways this goes wrong until it finally goes right, no matter your method.
• How easily a toilet can overflow with toilet paper or toilet paper rolls or toilet paper still on the roll.
• The hurricane that is left behind in EVERY room unless I’m hovering like a drone. WHHHHYYY?
• The sheer joy they get in eating their own boogers.
• The lack of self preservation in relation to toilet water. I think they’d drink the stuff if I’d let them. Shudder.
• How long it really takes for a child to realize poop in dirty. I will leave it at that.
• How much food ends up on the floor. And the walls. And between the slats on the backs of their chairs. And all over them. Did any actually make it down that tiny throat?

I mean, let’s face it, it’s almost impossible to keep a super clean house when you have littles. I know there are people out there that do it, but I don’t relate. Before I had kids, I would clean the house and it would STAY clean… for days! I could leave the house or take a nap or, I don’t know, BLINK and it would STILL be clean. Now, as soon as I get one area clean, they’ve managed to move onto the next and no number of cleanup songs can truly fix the fact that THEY’RE KIDS and kids will be kids. And I want them to be kids. Right? I think. Sometimes. Until there’s ketchup on the walls. It’s then that I reconsider. I could put a straight jacket on them.

I may or may not have thought of that.

Older, wiser women tell me to cherish these days and that I’ll be sad one day and miss these moments. And I believe them about some amount of my day. But I’m 100% convinced that they’ve forgotten the poop and the toilet water and the snotty kisses. Or maybe they haven’t and that’s just… weird. I don’t think I will ever feel nostalgic about my child taking their diaper off and THEN peeing on the floor… four times… in one day.

But hey, maybe I’m wrong.

Mascara

One morning not too many sleeps ago, I was getting ready for the day.

Now some moms make it a priority to be totally dressed and ready for the day before their children wake up. What??? I am not one of those moms. So, instead, I let my kids come into the bathroom with me while I am applying gobs of concealer on the bags under my eyes, taming brushing my hair, and going to great lengths to fix my lovely locks in what is now (praise God) the trendy messy bun.

Side note: I am so thankful for the trend of the messy bun/ponytail/hair. At least in my mind I’ve decided it’s cool and have even convinced my husband of this fact. So BAM, I’m not dishevelled, I’m hip. Yep, “Hip Mom”. Except then I remember that growing up, the moms that thought they were hip were really delusionally un-hip, and so… NO! I really am hip! I must believe this! I’m holding onto the messy bun.

So, there I was, not too many sleeps ago getting ready for the day. My son was with me and on this particular day I decided I would one-up the concealer and add… are you ready for this?… mascara! <signal church choirs joyous songs>. My son was kind of watching what I was doing while also happily looking through the things in my bathroom drawer. He likes playing with hairties. Satisfied with his occupation, I leaned into the mirror and applied that mascara. Just like I used to, before kids required that one eye watch my offspring at all times. And this was my mistake. I used BOTH of my eyes while applying the mascara. I should have only used one eye while the other remained steadfastly tracking my “Little Explorer’s” every move. Because you see, that’s exactly how long it took…

I looked down and to my horror saw my “Little Explorer” had explored his way right into his own version of “mascara just like Mommy’s”. Except, it wasn’t mascara at all. He was holding a bottle of red nail polish and had just used the brush like a mascara wand, coating his eyelashes with red nail polish. RED NAIL POLISH. SERIOUSLY!?

I panicked and quickly removed the bottle and started looking into his eye to assess the damage. He kept blinking and blinking and I quickly called my good ole’ friends, the poison control center. Oh yeah, it’s me again. They’re always so calm, by the way, as if people call all the TIME with nail polish used as mascara. The very nice, very calm lady informed me he’d be ok. I just needed to put him in the shower for 20 minutes, making sure that the stream of water is constantly running over his face and eye. I thanked her and hung up.

WAIT. WHAT!???? You want me to waterboard my son, who HATES water in his eyes for 20 whole minutes? Maybe they’re so calm because they’re on CRACK? Because that’s obviously the only reasonable explanation for such a suggestion. What kind of 3 year old is going to let you hold their eyes or face under running water for 20 minutes? Not mine. Definitely not mine.

I called my second go-to emergency number, my husband, who has faithfully guided me through several toddler mishaps with his medical expertise. He agreed that 20 minutes of waterboarding was a bad idea and instead recommended a shortened timeframe of rinsing the eye. I had some help in holding my son down and we doused that nail polish with water. It didn’t end up being that bad. It was only on the lashes and not the actual eyeball. Thankfully.

It did somehow leave a bright red semi-circle of polish on the skin right under the eye that made him look like he had a black eye.

Later that day a mom looked at me lovingly, knowingly and said, “He got into the markers, huh?” I replied… “uh, well… no.” “Oh,” she said, “he ran into something, then? Don’t worry about it, my kid does that too.” I sheepishly replied, “Well, no… actually, it’s nail polish.”

She looked a little surprised at that and then stopped trying to relate and make me feel better. Oh well. At least poison control was calm.

Obeying Mommy on the Museum’s Potty

Like most parents, I love it when my kids obey… the first time… all the way… with a happy heart. It’s a continual work in progress.

Today we went to the children’s museum. We had an errand to run afterward and before we ventured back into the big ole’ world, I told my son he HAD to use the potty at the museum.

He doesn’t like using public lavatories, and I mean… who can blame him? So, I have this whole system to make it toddler (& mommy) approved. I disinfect the public toilet with a germaphobe’s love, the anti-bacterial, anti-virus, anti-everything wipe. Then I cover it with this disposable potty cover I bought on Amazon, so that no portion of porcelain is actually accessible to the rear or hands. Then I put this portable potty over the disposable potty cover and voilà, a sanitary pot. I know. I’m ridiculous. He gets it from me.

So, I did my magic and created a hygienic throne right there in the museum’s restroom. I told him it was ready and he began his very common, “No, Mommy, No, Mommy, I don’t have to peepee” routine. I wouldn’t have any of it, knowing it was time, so I put him right up on that commode. Now, he’s been doing GREAT potty training, although our latest deal is learning to aim down, being that he is male and all.

So, there we are with him on the decontaminated crapper and me squatting in front of him, trying to keep my second child from touching ANYTHING. Except when I tell her “no” she comforts herself by sucking her thumb. Do you know how many gross things there are in one little stall that you DON’T want going in your toddler’s mouth via thumb sucking? Oh, let’s say: the trash can or the flushing lever or the rail or the floor… shutter.

And my son is propped up there and was all like, I’m NOT going to do this

and I’m all like, You are SO going to do this

and he’s all like, I’m so not going to do this

and I’m all like, Oh yes, you are.

When all of a sudden, he just obeyed. Just like that! He decided, yes! I will peepee!

And in normal circumstances, I would be mind-chanting “Go me, go me, I’m awesome, I’m awesome. Mom-winning. Bam!” Except…

I forgot to remind him of the whole aiming down thing and so he just went. And it shot 3 feet in front of him and hit me in the hair, since I was, of course, trying to keep my one year old away from tearing little pieces of toilet paper off inch by inch and was, of course, crouched down trying to reach her and was, of course, in the perfect position, therefore, for a shooting fire hydrant of urine to find its way to my beautiful tresses.

Yep, hair pee. And then, you find yourself there… in that moment… pausing… and you know what you must do. Because he did indeed obey.

“Good job, bud. You went.”

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Photo credit: By Ben Schumin – Own work, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1493122

Interacting with children

After much observation over the past 3.5 years, I have come to the conclusion that people, in general, have no clue of how to interact with children. And really, who can blame them? They are like perpetual little drunk frat boys.

Don’t believe me? Let’s consider the process of getting out of the house.

It’s time to leave. Child 1 is naked. Butt naked. Why? There are no reasons. Child 2 keeps dropping a feather and picking it up again and again and again in wonder. Neither child knows where their shoes are or their socks or their pants. They need assistance in getting dressed and continual reminders of where we are going: “To the door. No, that’s the couch. To the door. No, that’s the kitchen. To the door.” We get outside and they stumble down steps and trip over their own cute little feet and need to be reminded, again, where we are going: “To the car. No, that’s the grass. To the car. No, that’s still the grass. You don’t need a bouquet of grass. To the car. Please get out of the grass.” They then need to be drug inside the car, although the older one now insists he can do it by himself. Not.So. Much. Little drunk frat boys. The thing is, I’m their mom and am completely proud of them because at least now they can pick a bouquet and hey… walk! Others, however see this and…

It seems others don’t quite know how to interact with them. Take for example, the time we took a little trip to the post office.

It started as a normal trip, until a random guy in the parking lot started making loud cat noises at my children. “Meow! Meow!” Repeatedly. I thought that maybe he had a mental disability or was joking, but he seemed completely normal in every other sense except for the repeated cat noises directed at my kids. He ended up in line near us and continued to meow at my children until I finally, awkwardly said, “Um… so… they’re not cats.” He seemed to finally realize I was there and realize that yes, he was an adult man making cat noises in public. But… why????

There’s a grandparent who regularly greets our kids by barking at them. I have no idea why and have repeatedly explained they aren’t dogs. And still… there is barking. And the kids love it and so it continues. The interaction… drunk frat boys.

A couple of weeks ago, I was on a mommy daughter date with my little girl and we were headed back to our car in a parking lot. Suddenly, I see this car whip around and screech to a halt in the parking spot 2 places down from us. She had crossed incoming traffic to do this and had obviously suddenly decided she was in a hurry. Weird, I thought… until she nearly jumped out of her car and briskly started walking towards us. She was an older lady and I thought… what did I do? Was I accidentally flicking her off? No… I wasn’t pointing with my middle finger. Did I cut her off? No… I wasn’t anywhere near her car. And I surely didn’t recognize her. So, I braced myself until she made the few remaining steps to us.

“That is the CUTEST little girl I have seen in years! She is absolutely adorable!”

“Uhhhh… thank you.” And then she just stared at her until I awkwardly turned around and cautiously walked to the other side of the car.

Now, I agree, my daughter is beautiful, but this lady almost got into a wreck to jump out of her car to tell me. What!?

So, after much consideration, I have come to the conclusion that people don’t know how to interact with these little frat boys. I mean, I don’t either sometimes, but at least I don’t meow at them. Oookaaay… sometimes I meow. Just a little.

Rubber Boots

Last spring I bought a pair of cute rubber boots. They are adorably polka dotted and turquoise and were on sale at Target. It was spring and the weather was beautiful and I dove into gardening with my cute boots. I was glad I did that… used the boots. I have fond memories of those boots planting colorful flowers in the gentle breeze. 

Those memories changed today. 

You see, we’re potty training. Why? Because my husband said that if my son doesn’t get it before his next (4th) birthday, it starts getting weird. So, I sucked it up and decided this was it. I must do this. No going back. Failure isn’t an option… again. You see, we’ve tried thrice before and have yet to succeed. I don’t blame my child. Oh no. I blame myself for complete and total potty training ignorance. 

And also my teenage years when I shirked babysitting and worked at a tax prep place instead. I DID try babysitting… once. But, it ended with me locking myself and the kid out of the house and the parents having to come home from work to let us back in. So… fail. Just. Like. Potty. Training. 

People don’t really tell you the truth when it comes to potty training, especially if they’re old and have mentally blocked the ordeal out over the past 20 years. They tell you things like, “It’s easy” and “You basically trained yourself” and “just stick them on that potty.” 

Let me shoot it to you straight. They’re lying to you. Lying. It’s not easy. You didn’t train yourself. Sure, they stuck you on that potty… right before you reached into it, grabbed your own turd and launched it at their face. Splat. 

That’s why they mentally block it out. Because they don’t WANT to remember you as The Excrement Launcher. 

Soooooo….. we’ve been potty training. And it’s been going… uh… well… we’re committed this time. That’s what counts. 

Today started out as a great day. The kids had fun playing with a friend. I got an errand done. Lunch was peaceful. I had it all together and was feeling a little like supermom. And what do supermoms do? They bake gluten-free, vegan, low-sodium black bean brownies, of course! So that’s just what I decided to do. Bake my wonderful children some “clean eating brownies.”

Side note, what the heck is “clean eating” anyways? I mean, really? This insinuates dirty eating. As in things like ice cream are dirty. There ain’t no dirt on this ice cream. There’s just wonderful chocolate. And syrup. And caramel. Melting in your mouth like a swan gliding on the water. And…

I was baking some clean eating brownies. My cute little daughter was propped up on the island helping me feel good about my supermom-ness. We started the eggless egg blend (what?) and preheated the oven. And then I paused. Because my son had been missing for at least a couple of minutes now and I heard no sounds. Just suspicion. As in silence. 

I started towards the bathroom because I faintly heard him say “peepee.” Thankfully, my eye caught it just before my foot did. What, you may ask? The water streaming quickly down the hall. Streaming. Quickly. No joke. I new instantly. It was toilet water. 

I’d like to pause here and reflect on this moment. If you’re a mom, you know it well. It’s the moment when something happens and time freezes and you ask yourself, “I am the adult. I should remain calm and fix this. And yet, I’m actually clueless. I’m actually 100% unsure of WHAT THE HECK TO DO!” 

So, yes. I panicked. But only inwardly this time. And I tried to think… how do I wade into the bathroom without swimming into potty water? Because it is a lot of water. 15 feet, 3 inches in fact (I later measured because I’m weirdly curious like that). And then it hit me. An idea, not a turd. My rubber boots. OF COURSE! My beautiful, polka dotted, cute rubber boots. So I quickly grabbed them and a stack of towels and the mop and a bucket and started wading walking. I saw that my son had realized the mess he made and was stripped down and in the tub attempting to wash off the potty water. 

“What happened!?” 

“Uh… the potty went <insert jet sound here>.” 

“Why did the potty go <said jet sound>?” 

“Uh… toilet paper.” 

“Son, did you put a lot of toilet paper or a little?” 

“I put A LOOOOOOOOOTTTTTTT!” he exclaimed with a loud smile & grand hand movements.

And he had. The new roll was gone. I saw its remnants in the overflowing toilet. I calmly started mopping up the mess when my one year old decided to join me. Without rubber boots. 

It was everywhere and it was deep and it was gross. I totally drenched a stack of giant towels before it was kind of under control. I threw those into the wash & started mopping with bleach. And mopped and scrubbed everything, even my boots and thought mean thoughts about clean eating. 

And this is why you should buy the cute boots NOW and wear them NOW and create wonderful boot memories NOW. Before the potty goes <insert jet sound here>.