It seems amazing to me that I always have so much material for this blog. All I have to do is write about what kind of day I'm having and it usually adds up to something unusual. I've been wondering if everyone has days like these, or is it just people who insist on going to the mall with two young children during the day. Unfortunately, I generally have a lot of things that need to be accomplished and the only time to do them is between nap times and always accompanied by my two short friends.
Take today for instance. I needed to return about 15 items to Old Navy, after some poorly thought-out purchases yesterday. So, the majority of the Clinton crew began our adventure at the mall. I've found that Marina does much better in these situations if I carry her in the Baby Bjorn carrier instead of the stroller or car seat (I would only bring this in if I was wanting to punish myself). If I was thinking clearly, I would have remembered that last night I did a 30 Day Shred workout that resulted in sore shoulders this morning. When you hang a baby off those shoulders for an hour and a half, the situation may become unpleasant.
We entered the mall, as always, from our secret Macy's prime parking spots (there has been a great debate about the best location to enter the mall. Ariana and I will only ever go in this door.), though they were a fair distance from our destination. I had the Bjorn on, my purse over my aching shoulder and a giant shopping bag to carry, plus a little jumping bean in shorts to try to steer. I tried to get Eli to hold my hand the whole time but he kept breaking away and punching the mannequins. I have no idea why he was doing this but right after, he would yell out, "Look, this one has no arms!"
Finally, we arrived at the store to do our return, where a very crabby girl did not crack a smile at my impulse buy jokes and seemingly could not understand why I would want to return $80 worth of merchandise the very next day (or why my son was pulling everything off a nearby shelf). She probably thought I stole it all.
After I had emptied one of my hands of the heavy bag, we walked further into mall. Not long later, Eli informed me that he had to pee (what's new?). Luckily, I looked up and we were standing right by the mall bathrooms that are down a long, hidden hallway. We rushed into the bathroom and, as usual, we were not alone. Yes, I really do have one more bathroom story to tell. Once again, we went into the deluxe bathroom so we could fit. As I was busy trying to get the door to stay closed, I turned around and saw Eli with his pants already down and trying to aim into the toilet, but it was several inches higher than where he measured. I quickly shouted at him to not pee yet and then rushed over to awkwardly lift him onto the seat while I had another child strapped to the front of me. We also had to make sure his pants were low enough so he didn't pee on them (again). As I stepped aside, the oddest thing happened. The pee squirted straight out of the toilet, between his little spread legs and in an arc the stretched for about 5 feet. He must have really had some power behind that pee. After about 3 seconds of pee, Eli screamed when he realized what was going on. He was horrified. He started whimpering and yelling that the pee was coming out of the toilet and asking why his wiener did that. He was really upset. It was amazing that I wasn't standing in front of him, because both Marina and I would have been pee-soaked. I tried to comfort him and tell him that sometimes these things happen and that he should just close his legs and lean forward so the rest of the pee could go in the toilet but he was not having it. He was trying to get up and would not be consoled. Finally I had to threaten him so he would finishing peeing and even that took another 2 minutes. I looked at the soaked pee floor and thought about bending down and wiping it up, but then I remembered I had a child attached to me and leaning her down to a puddle of pee on a filthy public bathroom floor might be unwise. As we left our stall to wash our hands, I saw that the second stall was still occupied and just before we walked out the door, Eli made a comment about the particular stink coming from the bathroom. Nice.
As you can imagine, the rest of the trip went downhill after the raining pee incident. Immediately after, Eli got his leg jammed in a kiddie ride machine and was screaming. Then he was tired of walking and insisted I should pick him up, which obviously couldn't happen, so he just followed behind me for about 20 minutes shouting that he was "out of energy" and "I don't like this idea" until we got back to our secret spot, miles away.
At the end of the day, even though he was pooped out and literally "peed off", I was proud of my tired little trooper. He even carried my bag for me (before you panic, it was from Hallmark and only had a card in it), which made him feel so proud and helpful. His mommy is always dragging him places and expecting him to act like an adult, when in actuality, he is a three-year-old with an impressive wit and vocabulary and because of that, and his tendency to have bathroom incidents, he is often the subject of my ramblings.
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