A Day to Remember...

I think I'm finally recovered from the disaster called Tuesday. Here's how it went... (This is a little long)

7:00am -- I had to wake up at 7:00 to get to the kids to their doctor appointment. This may not sound early to most of you working people, but Emma doesn't sleep at night, so after about three hours of sleep, I was having to crawl out of bed, throbbing eyeballs and all. I got ready to go and woke the kids up and had them all dressed and ready to go on schedule (we needed to leave by 8:30).

8:30am -- I take both kids out to the garage and start putting Emma in her carseat.

8:31am -- Jordan trips in the garage and lands face down on top of his banana. Black shirt has smashed banana smeared everywhere.

8:32am -- I change Jordan into a fresh white shirt.

8:34am -- As I finish buckling Emma's carseat, Jordan finds a half-full can of Dr. Pepper in the garage and promptly pours it all over his white shirt.

8:35am -- I change Jordan into a gray shirt.

8:37am -- As I lift Jordan into the car, I am struck by the familiar odor of the poopy diaper...

8:38am -- I change Jordan's diaper. He struggles, kicking the poopy diaper onto the floor. I then have to clean up the poop on the floor as well as the poop on his shoe. Finally we are ready to go.

8:46am -- I get Jordan all strapped into the car. I grab three bottles of water for the car.

9:15am -- Stuck in traffic on our way downtown, I realize the stroller is at Grammy's house. I can't stop because our appointment is in 15 minutes.

9:26am -- I get to the parking lot of the pediatrician. I get the kids out and decide to make a sacrifice, leaving the diaper bag behind, because I don't think I can carry one child in each arm, a purse, AND a diaper bag.

9:31am -- We are all checked in at the doctor's office and sitting in the waiting room. I smell something strange but don't worry about it.

9:37am -- We are called into the examination room. I set Emma on the table to undress her and realize that the strange smell was poop. It is running up the back of her dress all the way to the neckline. It is running down her tights all the way into her boots. It is running down the side of my shirt, as well as the leg of my pants. Oh yeah, and I don't have a diaper bag.

9:38am -- The nurse runs down the hall to grab some wipes and a diaper. Jordan follows her. He falls in love somewhere in these couple of minutes.

9:50am -- The nurse finishes her part of the job and leaves the room. Jordan is devastated. He begins screaming.

10:20am -- The doctor finally comes in to examine the kids. Jordan is still screaming, and continues to scream until...

10:50am -- The nurse comes back in to give the kids their shots. Jordan immediately stops screaming. I don't have a stroller so I can't confine Jordan as Emma gets her shots. As Emma gets her shots, Jordan tries to climb onto the table to get the attention of the love of his life. The stool slips out from beneath him and he falls to the floor. He smashes his chin on the table and bites through his tongue. Blood everywhere, Jordan screaming, Emma screaming from the shots and the terror of her brother's screams...

11:07am -- We finally get out of the doctor's office and into the car. WHEW.

11:21am -- Stressed out, I stop at McDonalds for lunch. They forget to give me a straw.

12:40pm -- We are finally home. I sit on my bed and feed Emma, and Jordan is quietly playing behind us. I finish feeding Emma. I turn around and see that Jordan has taken the barbeque sauce out of the McDonalds bag. It is smeared all over our white sheets.

Approximately 5:30pm -- After meeting a friend at Costco and doing our shopping while Jordan tried desperately to smash Emma out of the cart, then coming home and spending the rest of the day cleaning, Jordan gets into the refrigerator. He takes out a couple of eggs. He smashes them together. They explode all over his face, the fridge, the floor, the cabinets. He is horrified. I am horrified. But I can't help it and I burst into laughter. He runs over to me and hits my butt. He tells me "Bad Mama!" and runs away crying. I have to pretend to be serious as my insides melt into a pile of out of control laughter. I put him on timeout and try to count to twenty without laughing. Tears roll down my face.

6:00pm -- I finish cooking dinner for us (Dave had to work late). I give Jordan a bowl full of it. He takes a bite. I ask him if he likes it. He makes a gagging face and his whole body shudders. He hands me his full bowl and says "Bad Mama."

6:01pm -- I consider adoption. ;)

Dear Grandpa

Dear Grandpa,

Your grandson does not understand how you got the quarter from his ear. He has spent most of the morning emptying his dad's change holder onto his head, grabbing a single coin, placing it on his ear and yelling "woooooooooooo!". It wouldn't be a problem, but his dad keeps about $50 of coins in the change holder.

Never So Sweet A Surprise

There is never so sweet a surprise as climbing into your warm, cozy bed after an exhausting day, pulling the soft sheets up around your neck, squishing your face into the lovliness of your favorite pillow and taking a deeeeeeeeep breath... and filling your nasal cavities with the familiar smell of the leaked contents of a rancid diaper.

Sidenote: Dave, sorry I traded you pillows in the middle of the night.

These Are The Moments

Sometimes motherhood presents me with challenges I never thought I'd face. Sometimes it's as easy as how to get through a grocery store with two babies when one can't sit up in a cart yet. Sometimes it's as difficult as deciding how to discipline my toddler when I know that particular behavior came directly from my own bad behavior. But one of the biggest challenges I never thought I'd face is enjoying every moment.  I am incredibly fortunate to be able to stay home with my little ones. I think of it as a luxury, a blessing, and the hardest job I could ever imagine. There are many moments I genuinely don't enjoy, particularly when they involve cleaning up poop. But when I watch my son playing on the floor and I realize that he is almost always smiling, it makes it all worth it. When I lay down and snuggle up my daughter and read a book to her, and her tiny hand reaches up and crinkles the page and she giggles at the sound... These are the moments. They are the moments that you can choose to let slip away into the grayness of faded memories, or the moments you can think about and hold onto forever. I like to think they are the moments that make me smile just a little harder- that make the lines on my face just a little deeper- that may make me look older- but that I wear with pride, as a symbol of all of the beautiful moments I didn't miss out on. 

A Day of Ruins...

We had a horrible day last Friday. It started out great, with the normal relaxing time in the morning, full of coffee, yummy breakfast, and happy kids. But Fridays are my designated cleaning days -- the one day where I pay less attention to the kids and more attention to the house in an attempt to keep some degree of cleanliness in this house. I started with laundry. The laundry baskets were overflowing onto the floor. I carefully sorted through the clothes and started the first load, later the second, then third... Three loads in and it was time to fold a load of whites. Or now a load of pinks. Jordan often "helps" me do the laundry. He snuck in some help today. Thanks, son.

Moving on to the bathroom. As I scrubbed the counter down, I made a pile of things that don't belong in the bathroom (Emma's pacifier, a pile of clothes, the handle to our cheese grater that Jordan likes to play with). Jordan picked up the handle to the cheese grater. I told him to go put it in the kitchen sink. We've been working on that lately. He immediately turned around and threw it in the toilet. GROSS. As I looked under the sink for a glove to pull it out, WHOOOOOOSHHHHHH. He flushed it down. The toilet is ruined now too.

I walked into the kitchen to breathe away my frustration when I noticed the garbage can lid was not shut all the way. The reason? Emma's clean clothes were in there. Covered in coffee grounds. Not a good day. Loads seven and eight of laundry...

I walked back into the bedroom just in time to see Jordan pour my cold cup of coffee on our bedroom floor. On the carpet. Most of it came out, but that sludgy part at the bottom... well, that's still on the floor.

As I was scrubbing the coffee out of the carpet, I noticed that the VCR wasn't shut all the way. We don't even use the VCR so I thought I better check to see what the problem was. I peeked into the little door, and pulled out three DVDs, Emma's teether and a pair of underwear.

Sometimes I wonder why I even bother trying to clean the house. It stays cleaner when I focus all my energy on making sure Jordan doesn't get into things.

My Favorite Pillow Case

You know when you get really attached to your pillow case... when it has been washed so many times that it's at its peak-softness -- the point where the threads are so worn that you have to be careful when you put it back on your pillow so that it doesn't rip... and it always smells the same and you absolutely love it... and then it gets a tiny hole in it? Why is it that the hole has to be just big enough and your son just curious enough to stick his little finger in it and rip the whole thing to shreds, then laugh hysterically when you see what he did and he sees the shock on your face? And why is it that nobody has invented the soundproof parent bubble for moments like this?

I Can't Ear You

We were sitting on the couch last night, visiting and watching tv, when Jordan slipped away beneath the coffee table. I called to him playfully, "Jordie, where'd you go?!" ... Moments later, he popped up. Complete with an apple slice sticking straight out of his ear.

You Know You're a Mom When...

You know you're a mom when:

*You go to flush the toilet and the handle is missing.
*You find a jar of mayonaise in the closet.
*Your primary means of communication with the outside world is textual because the house is too noisy to talk on the phone.
*You can sing all the theme songs to Sesame Street, Cailou, Dragon Tales and Make Way for Noddy.
*The last time you got a full night of uninterupted sleep was at least a year ago.
*There are teeth marks in your bar of soap in the shower.
*You wash your dishes BEFORE you use them.
*"Burp cloth? It's okay, it's too late. I just rub it in... No need to create more laundry."
*You don't actually know how long your hair is, because the last time you wore it down was on date night... a few months ago.
*You check inside your tennis shoes before you put them on because there is normally either a liquid or a solid in there that you don't want to be surprised by.

Clean as a Little Dirtball

I was trying to get Emma down for a nap earlier today, and Jordan was playing on the floor in the bedroom. He got bored and moved into the bathroom and I could hear that he wasn't getting into the toilet or the drawers so I let him continue playing in there while Emma slowly went down for her nap. When I finally got her into the crib, I went into the bathroom to retrieve him. I completely forgot that the shampoo and conditioner I bought at Costco last week had pump-tops. I also learned where Jordan picked up the word "Dammit".

Parking Lot Imperfection

The problem with shopping at stores like Babies R Us is that pregnant women shop there too. At the store we regularly go to, there are special parking spots for expecting mothers but the spots are normally all taken. I parked next to one of these spots the other day and decided they really should designate more of these spots after I opened my door and kicked my leg out before looking down at the ground. And milliseconds before my foot hit the ground, I frantically pulled my foot back into the car and slammed the door shut, throwing the car into reverse without hesitation. I backed up all the way to the parking spot on the other side of the street, and the pile of vomit that my tire had already rolled through (and that I came centimeters from plopping my foot straight into) followed us across the parking lot. I just decided to keep driving.

A Break

I unintentionally took a break from blogging this week. My posts weren't appearing when I posted from my computer and typing everything out on my phone was too time consuming with the two little ones! Regular posts will resume starting today! :)

Just a Thought

Just a thought: chewed up raisins that have been spit out on the floor can be quite deceiving. If both my kids hadn't been fully clothed when I found those... I would have contemplated renting a carpet cleaner.

???

I wrote a new blog today, but I can't find it. How does that happen?!