Toilet Talk

This morning, before running our errands, Eli ignored my request for him to use the bathroom before we left the house, and in my haste, I failed to notice.  So, I gave my "angry eyebrows" when he announced that he had to pee in the middle of our Target shopping trip.  I grabbed Marina and parked our cart so we could use the public toilets.  A woman was walking in the same direction just in front of us and held the door open for the poor disheveled woman carrying a car seat and corralling a hopping preschooler.

Since Marina's car seat is a bit cumbersome, our little family had to go into the "deluxe" stall just to fit, which happened to be right next to the stall that the woman just walked into.  It was awkwardly silent for a moment.  I had to pick up Eli to sit him on the toilet since it was a bit taller than he could aim into.  Immediately upon sitting, he let out a very loud fart and then announced that he was going to poop too.  Then he began a string of the loudest, most ridiculous conversation I had ever heard.  I couldn't do much about it but listen and laugh.  He started off by reminding me about the time when we were at Ikea with my sister and he sat on the toilet but his "business" was aiming out so he ended up peeing all over the back of his jeans and underwear.

Then he continued by making all of these statements - I even wrote them down immediately after so I wouldn't forget them:
"I sure love pooping." (More sung than spoken)
"When did I eat carrots!?"
"Mommy, do you see those huge carrots in my poop?"
"What are you laughing at?"
"That sure is a lot of poop, isn't it?"
"Mommy, you need to wipe all of the poop out of my butthole." (I know, this is shocking.  Judge me)
And the straw that broke the camel's back:
"Wait!  Don't pull up my pants!  My wiener is hanging out!"

I can't believe that with all the vulgar, one-sided conversation going on in our stall, inches from her, the woman did not make a peep.  We even exited our stalls at the same time and washed our hands simultaneously.  I didn't make eye contact with her since I felt like it was me who was making all of those foolish comments.

Apparently the full disclosure policy in our house needs to be reviewed and we need to start to talk about appropriate public behavior.  But in that case, I need to do a bit of study on my own.

Like the Corners of my Mind

Sometimes I open my refrigerator and find the oddest things.  Recently, there have been a number of dead plants in there.  What happens is that Eli will find something outside, like an old corn husk or one of those cat-tail plants (is that a real plant?) and bring them inside.  Since we have two cats that make it their mission to eat any plants or flowers that come in the door and then systematically throw them up all over the house, Eli has taken to hiding the plants. After meeting with parental disapproval for placing a handful of dandelions in the silverware drawer, he has decided that the ideal safe-from-cats place is the refrigerator.  So there, next to the butter and milk is a brown corn husk and a bunch of brown grass.  I don't really stop him from doing this, I just secretly throw it all away when he's not looking.  Yes, once again, I win the award for All-Time Awesome Mom for 2010.

These are the little things I will miss when my kids grow up and instead are hiding their weed in my fridge (haha, just kidding - I hope).  That, and having to fish whole rolls of toilet paper out of the already peed in toilet water (which has happened twice this week, oddly enough).  I feel like I should start singing Barbra Streisand's "Memories" song right now.  You might want to hum it through while you read this to get the fuzzy feeling I'm aiming at.

All Together Impressive

You know when you see someone who you haven't seen in years and they may or may not be partially considered your nemesis and they catch you off guard by being really nice but then as you are trying to impress them with the all-together-mother image that you always project, your son, who has been perfectly obedient all morning, starts to directly defy you in your face and it is up to you to decide how the all-together-mother should publicly discipline?  But then the power struggle doesn't go well and you look like an incompetent mom with a very strong willed child and you feel strangely embarrassed.  I know how that feels.

Or you start your blog entry off with the longest run-on sentence ever written.  I also know how that feels.

At least I was wearing my nice pair of sweats today and didn't fall down anywhere so I could conserve a small amount of my dignity...

Cribtastic

I have a few friends with babies that are the same age as Marina.  With situations like this, it is inevitable that comparisons get made.  How is your child sleeping?  How many teeth does she have?  Etc, etc.  It turns out that my kid usually pales in comparison.  How is she sleeping?  Well, she occasionally will sleep entirely through the night, but the majority of the time, she wakes up at 2 am or 4 am and screams until I lose my mind.  Since she still wakes all the time, we can't put her in the room with Eli yet, so we have a little fussy roommate occupying our space.  Up until this week, I have had her crib mostly covered with a king-size blanket that created a dark, cave-like environment for her to peacefully nap and sleep (occasionally sleep, I should say).  But now that she is scooting, partially crawling, and pulling herself up, she has found a way to pull her crib-cover down on her and attempt to suffocate herself.  This has resulted in a swift removal of the crib-cave.  Now, she is out in the open air where she has just to peer out of her crib to locate her parents before she launches her all-out protests.  I have tried numerous tactics to find that secret ingredient that will result in a perfect child and long, restful hours of sleep.  I have covered all the windows with black cloth to shut out the light.  I have a fan running and a noise machine.  And last night, in an effort to keep her from standing and flipping out of the crib on her head, I found it necessary to lower the mattress.

I put Marina in her Bumbo seat to watch me struggle with the screws and nonsense of the crib.  At this point, she really is too active to want to just sit and observe.  Instead, she tries to launch herself out of the seat, but I have outsmarted her by putting the tray on, so she is locked in.   Needless to say, it was really pleasant for the two of us - Marina barred in her plastic chair and me crawling around under the crib and mishandling the allen wrench.  

Here was the highlight of the evening:  while I was sweating and struggling to fit the world's tightest crib sheet on, I pulled just a little too hard and lost my grip.  My hand flew off of the elastic like a shot through the air and knocked me in the chin.  It was like the hand belonged to someone else who really wanted to beat my buttocks.  I punched myself in the chin and the blow was so intense, it made me see stars for just a minute.  It very much reminded me of my first day at my job where I pulled a water container off of the cooler to replace it and it came straight up to just about knock me out.  I nearly passed out and had a bruise to tell the tale later.  If you said I am a bit accident prone, you would to be totally accurate.

So now, in my darkened room with a newly lowered crib mattress, if Marina is napping and I need something like clothes, I have to army crawl on the floor in hopes that she will not wake up and look over her bumper and bust me.  While I was doing this last night, I stopped and observed myself and laughed at what kind of life I am currently leading - bad hair, bad clothes, saggy butt, a little bit crazy but a lot happy even in a tiny house where I have to crawl on the floor just to have something to wear after I get out of the shower (if I ever get a shower).  I love my husband, I love my kids and I even [mostly] love my butthead cats.  I must be a masochist.

Holy Flying Puzzles!

I am someone that doesn't like to do anything halfway, if I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it all the way (this statement is actually not very true.  Typically I take great delight in partially doing things and then leaving them, but for the sake of my storytelling, let's imagine the initial statement is true).  So, if I am going to have a clumsy moment, it isn't going to be a simple trip and quick recovery, it is going to be a stumble and then a plunging to the ground in the middle of a crowded mall.

A real life example for you:  I am currently going through a puzzle obsession stage.  I just want to sit around and do puzzles all day, but since I don't have any of time for something like this, I have to work on it at 11 pm every night.  Something about doing a puzzle gives me a rare sense of accomplishment, which is very important as a mother of two; I feel like I am constantly doing the same thing (cleaning up, washing dishes, disciplining) but somehow nothing ever gets done.  The difficulty with doing a puzzle in a tiny house full of cats and grabby kids' hands is that there is no real place to store your work.  But then miraculously, this week, I found the one place in this entire house where my puzzle-in-process can be safe.  I can slide my giant puzzle board (seriously giant) on top of our stackable washer/dryer (but then if I do laundry things tend to shift and there are more problems there). Today, while I was replacing the giant board, with the puzzle contents on top, in the hiding place, I somehow lost my grip and the bucket, which was balanced on the board, containing all the puzzle pieces (don't ask me why all the pieces were in an ice cream bucket, just know that I am nuts and have odd reasoning for most of what I do) gained momentum and flew off the board and exploded all over the kitchen (yes, our laundry is in the kitchen - we're poor and trashy).  In keeping with my faux-mentality, if I was going to make a mess, I wasn't going halfway.  All at once, like in a movie, 1,000 tiny pieces flew up in the air, rained down all over me and scattered to every corner of my kitchen.  And if I was going to exclaim something in response to the disaster, I wasn't going to be satisfied with a mere "Doggoneit!", I let the expletives fly (my children were peacefully sleeping).  Immediately after, the two dumb cats I live with came in and started knocking the pieces around and making an even bigger mess.

Twenty minutes later, the mess was cleaned up (though I have found a few rogue pieces here and there since) and order was once again restored to the Clinton home.  So rather than feeling a sense of accomplishment today, I have once again the feeling of clumsy-poopishness.

What's that?  Something ridiculous happened to Lily again?  What's new?

Van-tastic!

Now that I am a mother of two, I have been feeling some pressure here and there.  Some of the pressure is expected and some is a bit unexpected.  I expected to feel like a bad mother all the time (what's new?) and I expected to want to look like Heidi Klum, she pops out a kid then puts on her size 2 jeans ten minutes later.  What I didn't expect was to feel pressured to own a mini-van. 

I drive a Honda Civic.  I bought it after college and I love it.  I have no desire to own any other car.  It may be small and have limited features but it gets great gas mileage and is the car equivalent of me - a little dented here and there, not too many frills, but reliable with nice legs (wait a minute...).  I will admit that there are some limitations to driving a compact car with two children in it.  It is tough to transport additional people in the car, particularly when one has to squish between the two car seats in the back (sorry, Ariana).  To the rest of the world, it logically follows that after the second child is born, a mini-van soon appears.  But here is where the problem arises for me.  I am highly resistant to the idea of a van. 

Let's pretend for a moment that we magically had the funds to purchase one.  Since I love my Civic, I don't want to replace it.  Mark's car is still getting paid for so it would be foolish to get rid of that one.  These are the logical arguments against it, but here is the biggest (and illogical) reason - my pride can't handle it.  There are so many implications that come with driving a van; implications that I am not ready to embrace.  It means you are old.  It means that you are responsible.  It means that you are frumpy.  The following image flashes through my mind when I think of myself in a mini-van.

There is definitely something different about running errands wearing junky sweats while driving a Civic versus driving a mini-van.  It all seems more pathetic when I'm driving a "responsible" vehicle.  When you drive a van, you just can't wear pants that say, "JUICY" across the butt (or in my case "JUY" because the "IC" got eaten up by my wedgie), so I will have to throw out half of my wardrobe or people will think I am an unfit mother.   

If I own a van, the following will absolutely come true:  

I'll have to start cooking every day

I'll have to get a short, ugly haircut

I'll have to join the P.T.A.

I'll have to get fat

I'll have to stop flipping people off at stoplights

I'll have to start traveling around with orange slices and Capri-Suns

I'll have to carry all my belongings in a fanny-pack

I will age 10 years

I will say yes to a mini-van when I turn 36 and win one for free somehow.  Until then, you best not start nagging me about it again!

Wowzers

Marina, how do you feel about your Mommy's cooking skills? What about her sense of style?

The Talented Mr. Clinton

Yesterday, Eli turned to me and said, "Mommy! Look what I can do with my eyebrows!" I was thoroughly impressed with his new talent so I filmed it for posterity.

I also wanted to include an interpretive dance that I use to entertain our house guests when they come to visit but my computer gave me an error when I tried to upload it. It read, "This video has too much awesomeness to be supported by this system". Maybe you will just have to wait to be invited to dinner...

Park It Up

Another season of warmer weather is upon us and with that comes the exciting trips to the park again.  These last two trips have been an interesting contrast to last year.  As a 2 and 3 year old, Eli developed some strange fears of the park.  He wouldn't go down the slides or climb on anything.  He made us lift him and carry him around.  He never wanted to play with any other kids.  But in the last two days, as an almost 4-year-old, he has been a completely different child.  He is adventurous and active.  There is nothing that is off-limits to him.  He has mastered the "fast slide" and can climb back up the twisty one.  I can't believe the difference.  He even gets excited when there are other kids on the playground and tries to start games with them.  Who is this social and less-clumsy kid?  I love it!

One thing that has not changed is his mommy.  It is no secret that I only have a pool of about 8 kids that I like in the world.  All the rest of them are brats, in my opinion, particularly when one of them wrongs my child.  I am often getting in mental fights with 5-year-olds and glaring at grade-schoolers.  Today was no exception.  When we got to the park, Eli was disappointed that there were no other kids there.  Since I had Marina strapped into the Baby Bjorn, I couldn't really do a lot of climbing and sliding.  So, he entertained himself while I followed him around and praised his awesomeness from the ground.  Then a kid in sunglasses scooted up on a scooter accompanied by his mom and her chatty friend.  He was about as tall as Eli but likely a year older.  He possessed one or two playground tricks that outdid Eli's.

After observing him for a minute, Eli was excited about the prospect of having a fellow adventurer so he ran up to him and started laughing and chasing him.  At one point, Eli called him over to show him a bunch of ladybugs on a pole.  Eli likes to watch them and make up stories about where they are going.  He calls them his friends and neighbors.  As Eli pointed, I watched in disbelief as the playground bully lifted his foot and started to smash and kill all the ladybugs.  Eli's face fell a little but he admired this kid so he just accepted it.  They both ran off again.  For a while, I thought it was really cute how they were playing together, but then I saw the sunglasses kid push Eli onto the bridge and run in the other direction.  Eli was confused, but then laughed and followed him.  This continued for a little bit until it was clear that the little jerk (anyone wonder where my son gets his name calling habit?) didn't want to play with Eli, he just wanted to run away from him and do his own thing.  So I tried to convince my son to not chase anymore but to come and play with his mommy (not as fun, I know).  Soon after, the two talking ladies called to the bully and told him to say bye to his friend (he glared at Eli) and they left.

I know it is ridiculous to think that I can or should protect my kids from all manner of evil (especially from other little kids) but I have a personality that is very protective of the ones I love.  And I love my kids, so if you are thinking about offending them, or killing the bugs that they value, you better believe that I am going to follow your little butt home and break your scooter (before you call the police, this didn't really happen...)

Here are some pictures of my park conquerers.