What Is He Drinking?

I was trying to put Emma down for a nap in the bedroom today, and was snuggling her up, hoping that would help. She was having trouble falling asleep and Jordan was in and out of the room making lots of noise. I finally told him to go get his ball. That's what we tell him when we need to buy a couple of minutes away from him, because he'll go searching and will often get distracted before he actually finds a ball. So Jordan left the room and came back in a couple minutes later with a brown liquid on his face and some on his shirt. He was giggling and acting like he did something naughty as he climbed up on the bed with us. I grabbed him and sniffed his breath. I don't know what's worse: knowing that your baby just drank coffee at 4pm or realizing that your 17 month old child actually enjoyed the taste of cold coffee.

Later in the evening, we had a second miss-a-sippy. We were all in the living room when Jordan jumped over me and smashed his mouth on Dave's knee. He started bleeding, so Dave jumped up and grabbed him a sippy cup full of water, a paper towel and of course some Jelly Bellies (is that really the plural of Jelly Belly?) to make it all better. Jordan put the JB's in his mouth and took a sip of water, then took the jelly beans out of his mouth and wiped them off on the paper towel. He paused a moment, then put the jelly beans back in his mouth. It was so weird! It wasn't until he got excited and shook up his cup that we figured out what happened. "What is he drinking?!"... "Uh.... It looks like soap.... Yep, that's soap."

I Knew I Forgot Something

I thought I'd make a new kind of to do list last Sunday. My old write-it-all-down-cross-it-off kind hasn't been working very well, and I can pretend I have the flu all I want but the truth is that I don't have the flu- I'm just being lazy and I don't know why. But on Sunday I decided it must be the format of my to-do list that is the real and true problem. So I drew seven boxes on a piece of huge non-standard sized paper and started writing down tasks that I do each week and each day in the boxes. I decided to do laundry Monday/Wednesday/Friday so I wouldn't have to do it every day and I thought I could just agree to always make the Costco trip on Thursdays. Well, I forgot to put that I should update my blog on there so I forgot to write it for two days. But I'm not sure it would have mattered anyway because honestly I haven't done anything that I did put on the list either, although I did think about doing those things.

Halloween Fiasco

I've been trying to find Halloween costumes for the kids for a few weeks now. None of the baby stores I have been to have any good ones! After browsing through five or six different stores in an attempt to find two decent costumes, I finally decided to go to a Halloween specialty store. I assumed they would have plenty of costumes to choose from there... right? Wrong. The first specialty store I went to had two costumes that would fit Emma and only one that would fit Jordan. I didn't feel like dressing my baby girl as a devil or a Tootsie roll, and Jordan was already a pirate last year, so I had them call another store. After waiting a while, the lady who worked there hung up the phone and came back to help us. "They have the Hulk, Shrek, a cow and a devil." Seriously? What happened to all the girl costumes?! This is so frustrating! So today, I made a trip to another specialty store even further away. They had no costumes that would fit Jordan. And they had a no return policy. That's a no-go when you're shopping for kids. So what did I walk out of there with? A realistic looking toy rat that squeaks and has been scaring the sh** out of me all day. Good shopping, Mom.

Mom's Day Off

We had a mommy spa day yesterday, where seven of us mommies met up for a day full of fun empty of children. It was the first time in a long time that many of us had been away from our kids, and although my kids are my world, it was a welcomed reprieve.

I was driving to the spa to meet the ladies when I realized I hadn't been alone in a vehicle in a non-residential area since I was on my way to the hospital the day Emma was born. So I plugged my iPod into the stereo, put it on shuffle, and cranked up the volume like a teenager experiencing the sweet taste of freedom for the very first time. The speakers unleashed the fury... Of Alvin and the Chipmunks. Next song. Raffi. Next song. Baby Einstein. Next song. Chipmunks again. Nevermind shuffle. Papa Roach on repeat it is.

I made it to the spa and couldn't wait for my massage. 80 minutes of silence and relaxation and time to focus on me... What more could a tired mom want? I climbed onto the massage table and sunk into a meditative trance when my therapist came in. And proceeded to talk about her 5 month old baby, how wonderful her baby is, how she picked her baby's name, the names of her future babies, the cute things her baby does, her pregnancy, her baby's birth, her friends' pregnancies and all subsequent births, her childhood, her parents' childhoods, her friends' childhoods... REALLY?!?!?!

A Day of Surprises...

Our day started as usual -- a cup of coffee and breakfast outside. But that was the only usual part of it. The rest of the day was full of surprises.

Surprise #1: I decided to clean out Jordan's toy box after breakfast because it hadn't been done in a couple of weeks and he had been putting toys from his room in the box, so it was completely overflowing and our living room was filled with toys. I started emptying the toy box out, and when I got to the bottom, what did I find? String cheeses, hot-dogs, bananas, bread, tomatoes... all chewed up and spit into the toy box. Some of them had clearly been in there since the last time the box had been cleaned out. YUCK. Guess I'll Clorox-wipe that.

Surprise #2: I put "So You Think You Can Dance" on in the living room for Jordan while I folded some laundry in the other room. When I returned, there he lay, butt naked, on the kitchen counter (he climbed the bar stool), wiggle-dancing to the music. Guess I'll Clorox-wipe that too.

Surprise #3: I gave Jordan a shower. I dried him off and he scrambled out of the bathroom while I cleaned up. Only seconds later, I heard him scream, and looked out of the bathroom just in time to see that... not only had he pooped on our bedroom floor- he stepped in it. And as if that wasn't bad enough, he was sliding his foot across the bedroom trying to get it off. Rubbing poop into the carpet as he went. I think I'm going to invest in a carpet cleaner. Clorox wipes wont even fix this.

Surprise #4: After scrubbing the poop out of the carpet, we finally got ready to go to the store. I opened the garage door and Jordan ran out into the driveway. He stepped on a snake (yes, a real and living one), then grabbed its head end as it wriggled to its death. I freaked out that my 17 month old baby was holding a snake (a snake!!! I hate snakes!!!) and I ran over to grab it from him. But he threw it at me instead. While he stood there fearless, I did the heebie jeebie dance in the driveway.

Surprise #5: We finally got to the grocery store. Jordan was in the back of the cart and Emma was in the seat in the front. I stopped for a moment when we walked in so that I could check my list to see what I needed. When I looked up, Jordan was eating bread. We didn't bring any bread into the store with us.

Oh S***

I just changed Jordan's diaper. He just brought me his diaper. It has the telltale marks of something that needed to be wiped, but there is none to be found. I can't believe I have to hunt for this type of egg. He was just playing in our pillows.

Ugh

Sometimes I wake up and think about all of the things I have to do for the day. I usually make a to do list when I have a lot of things that need to get done. Sometimes I put really stupid things on my to do list just to feel like I did more than I actually did. I'll write things like "make the bed" and "brush my teeth", just so I can cross them off and feel productive. The problem is when I have one of those no-sleep nights with the babies and I wake up feeling like somebody sprinkled salt in my eye sockets and snuck Nyquil into my coffee. Then I start putting things on the to do list like "change Emma's diaper" and "eat". Today is one of those weeks. One of those weeks where I'm wearing clothes I dug out of the dirty laundry basket because I don't want to fold the laundry that has been sitting in the dryer for a week. And I certainly don't want to rewash the laundry that has been sitting in the washer for a week. I know it's just a button to press. I'm just not into pressing it today.

Eyes in the Back of my Head

Jordan wanted Emma to wear his sunglasses, so he was trying to put them on her while they were playing. I told him not to put them on her because he was going to poke her in her eyes. He stopped. When I looked over at her next, she was wearing them on the back of her head.

Sound Puzzles

I bought some "sound puzzles" for Jordan, thinking that he would like hearing the animal sounds when he put the puzzle pieces in the correct spots. He lost all the pieces and we found out that the sounds are activated by any change in light. Now we have a really annoying board that we probably paid ten dollars for so I don't want to throw it away. So instead we hear guinea pig noises every time we turn off the light. But today the puzzle is lost. Somewhere where the lighting continues to change. I'm hoping it has button cell batteries.

Belly Monster

We were sitting on the couch last night after dinner, as we do every night, when Jordan stopped playing with his toys. He walked over to Dave, looked up, and started screaming. Not like your normal baby scream; not like the "something's wrong" scream; but a scream like the Jim Carrey's "most annoying sound in the world" scream. We asked him if he wanted water. The screaming continued. We asked him if he was hungry. Screaming still. We asked if he wanted to snuggle, if he wanted to go to bed, if he wanted to play. The most annoying sound in the world was still reverberating through our living room. So Dave stood up. The screaming stopped. Sounds of excitement ensued. "Oooooh... oh ho ho.... oooooooo!" And Jordan ran into the kitchen, glancing back to see that Daddy was following him every couple of steps. When he was sure Daddy was going to continue following him, he ran over to the pantry and pointed up. That's where we keep the stash of Jelly Belly's.