This has been a nightmare of an afternoon with my boys. We started off doing pretty well this morning. Breakfast of eggs and fruit, baths, and getting dressed for church. We went to church and both of my kids were pretty sweet and well behaved. Now I suppose I should just be grateful for their fairly decent behavior in public, but man I had no idea what was in store for me this evening. Both boys fell asleep on the car ride home from church and as a bonus I was able to get both kids in bed from the car without waking them up. Even better. Then, better yet, I was able to get a three hour nap myself, as this was how long they napped. I figured that they would be pretty well rested and ready for a nice relaxing evening at home. OMG I was wrong. The following is a real and true account of the shit storm (this is a fairly literal statement, so if you are sensitive to slightly inappropriate and graphic stories turn back now), that hit my home this evening. In the course of the evening I had to call my mom twice to keep my cool, carry on, and not burst into tears, instead of picking up the pieces and cleaning up the mess. I try hard to deal with my kids on my own, but occasionally you gotta pull the red "help me" card and call someone. Here is an account of the events leading up to the red card pulling:
At around 5 pm this evening I heard my boys waking up from their extended nap and giggling to each other. I smiled, thinking it was a good sign that they slept three hours and woke up happy. I got myself out of bed and walked down the hall to their room. As I opened the door I got hit right in the face with...a poopy pull up...No just kidding, actually what I got hit with was a preverbal slap in the face with an awful smell. If you've read any of my previous blog posts you may have an idea of where this is going. I walked into poop smeared from one end of the crib to the other. Alex's brand new sneakers that I bought him yesterday were covered in poop, which mad me so angry I could barely see straight. Both kids, the cloth bed rails were covered, all the bedding was covered in Alex's bed. I stripped his bed down, put the dirty stuff in the wash, resisted the urge to cry, cleaned up both kids and prepared to go cook dinner. I was sick this whole time, some sort of sinus thing that has led to me being dizzy all day, to the point where I ran into a wall when I got out of bed this morning. This being the case, I decided leftover pizza it would be for dinner and had gotten it out of the refrigerator and put it on the counter before I walked into the kids room. As I was stripping the beds Daniel and Alex pulled the pizza down on the floor and Alex helped himself. I had started to eat a piece right before I walked into my son's room and had put it on the counter next to the other pieces. Daniel chose that piece. I tried to give him a new piece of his own and get them in their booster chairs, but that was apparently not freaking good enough, and Daniel chucked the new piece of pizza at me in favor of eating the one that I had started. In the grand scheme of things did it really matter? No, not at all, but I was not feeling well, therefore still tired, had just had to clean a bed and two kids up from their earlier finger painting efforts. I guess I may have been feeling just a wee bit possessive over my pizza and pissed off that I spent money on new sneakers for them to be covered in feces the next day. Because I was upset do you think that we could have just ended this bad note and moved on to more positive happy moments? No, because that isn't what happens when you have kids. I have to be in tears before Alex and Daniel will stop laughing at me when I am trying to provide discipline or punishment for negative behavior. Time out is only marginally effective. This was when the first phone call to my mom occurred.
After I got off the phone I was feeling a tiny bit better and more calm. At this point I was trying to load the dirty bedding into the washer and I suddenly heard the front screen door slam and the sounds of my sons laughter and screams of "hi, hi, hi" coming from the outside of the house. Not exactly what you want to hear when your inside your house and they are outside your house. I put the sheets down and ran outside to find them playing on the lawn mower and saying hi to the little boy that lives across the street. I drug them kicking and screaming into the house (well I wanted to drag them), instead I took their hands and led them inside. I explained that they would not be playing outside due to the wet grass from the rain the night before, and the poop smearing incident from naptime. They screamed, they yelled, they got mad, but they moved on as kids do. I put a movie on since I was still feeling sick and we sat down to watch it. Alex got up to play in his ball pit (we have a three room play area and ball bit with 200 balls in our living room, thanks granny!). I did not think anything of this, as they like this toy a lot and it is one of their favorite places to play. All the while Daniel (who was the culprit in the previous incident, I could tell by the evidence he left behind on his bottom when I cleaned him up), was sitting on my lap watching "Bolt". Which is an incredibly cute movie btw. I heard Alex saying "poop, poop". All I could think about at this time was "please no, wtf, no, no, no, please god no". (You probably shouldn't use the acronym for a curse word when praying, but I was a little beyond that). I put Daniel down, walked over to the pit, and low and behold what did I find? You got it. Mushy, smelly, runny, poop all over the inside of the ball pit and all over the balls. This was when the second phone call happened. My mom talked me through it and talked to me as I was wiping down the balls and the fabric inside the ball pit. Daniel decided to take it one step further and start pulling multiple wipes out of the package and throwing them around. After spending $130 on baby supplies and household supplies last week and another $95 last week on summer clothes, than almost another $130 on supplies between Friday and Saturday of this weekend, I was feeling pretty bitter about wasting things at this point. I took the wipes from him and Alex actually began to help me clean the balls up. I was totally about this until he started to try to eat the wipes covered in poo. I guess it's sorta like a chocolate covered pretzel minus the pretzel?
I was talking to my mom all the while and started to get awful stomach cramps myself. I ran to the bathroom to take care of my own personal issues and of course my children followed me. Daniel started to take his pull up off and I quickly noticed that he pooped yet again. I asked Alex to bring me a wipe, which he actually did. I guess he figured it was time to start kissing up! My kids actually can be pretty good helpers when they choose to be. I cleaned up Daniel while sitting on the toilet myself. Alex started to push me and yelled at me to "get off". He did this several times, and I told him that I could not move. He continued to push for another minute or two before finally grabbing his little man part and peeing on the floor in front of me, all over my shorts, (which I had removed for more mobility while changing a dirty pull up and meeting my own needs), as well as all over my feet. I told my mom I had to go. (Yes my poor mother went to the bathroom with the boys and I via the phone). She told me to get off the phone and take care of the situation at hand, which I did. She later sent me three emails that report that "feces fun" as they put it is normal around potty training time. (WTF???). I'm glad this may be normal, but eww, it's gross, it's messy, and defiantly not something I read about in "What to Expect When You're Expecting". (Maybe they cover that in the Toddler Years What to Expect. I wouldn't know since I didn't buy it). I put both kids in the bath tub at this time, which was probably what they wanted in the first place. This seemed to settle them down.
We then journeyed out to the kitchen to finally eat dinner, which consisted of grapes and cold pizza. The desire and gumption to heat up the pizza was totally gone at this point. My kids love cold pizza, so this worked well for all of us. The boys ate their food, while yelling "stink bug, STINK BUG", at the stink bug sitting in the corner of the kitchen. (Which was actually a piece of food they threw on the floor at an earlier time). I ignored this and washed the dishes while they ate. I think that tonight's behavior would have been hard and frustrating either way, but probably would not have brought me to tears if I was feeling a little bit better. The night was almost over at this point and I put the sheets back on Alex's bed and discovered a puddle of pee drying into Daniel's sheet when I moved his blankets. I stripped his bed, and put a clean sheet on it, because at that point I had no energy left to get mad and what else can you do? I then brushed their teeth and put them in bed, where they proceeded to scream and cry and talk to each other for another thirty five minutes. I was typing this and praying that I won't walk into a mess in the morning. I guess that's the day in the life of a single parent with two kids. At the end of the day I still love my babies, but I did send an Facebook post to their godmother offering to gift her my kids. She responded with, "you would miss them by tomorrow". She's right I would. I will already hate having to leave them to go to work in the morning. I know it. I think on that note I am going to turn in as it is late. Good night readers!
Erica
At around 5 pm this evening I heard my boys waking up from their extended nap and giggling to each other. I smiled, thinking it was a good sign that they slept three hours and woke up happy. I got myself out of bed and walked down the hall to their room. As I opened the door I got hit right in the face with...a poopy pull up...No just kidding, actually what I got hit with was a preverbal slap in the face with an awful smell. If you've read any of my previous blog posts you may have an idea of where this is going. I walked into poop smeared from one end of the crib to the other. Alex's brand new sneakers that I bought him yesterday were covered in poop, which mad me so angry I could barely see straight. Both kids, the cloth bed rails were covered, all the bedding was covered in Alex's bed. I stripped his bed down, put the dirty stuff in the wash, resisted the urge to cry, cleaned up both kids and prepared to go cook dinner. I was sick this whole time, some sort of sinus thing that has led to me being dizzy all day, to the point where I ran into a wall when I got out of bed this morning. This being the case, I decided leftover pizza it would be for dinner and had gotten it out of the refrigerator and put it on the counter before I walked into the kids room. As I was stripping the beds Daniel and Alex pulled the pizza down on the floor and Alex helped himself. I had started to eat a piece right before I walked into my son's room and had put it on the counter next to the other pieces. Daniel chose that piece. I tried to give him a new piece of his own and get them in their booster chairs, but that was apparently not freaking good enough, and Daniel chucked the new piece of pizza at me in favor of eating the one that I had started. In the grand scheme of things did it really matter? No, not at all, but I was not feeling well, therefore still tired, had just had to clean a bed and two kids up from their earlier finger painting efforts. I guess I may have been feeling just a wee bit possessive over my pizza and pissed off that I spent money on new sneakers for them to be covered in feces the next day. Because I was upset do you think that we could have just ended this bad note and moved on to more positive happy moments? No, because that isn't what happens when you have kids. I have to be in tears before Alex and Daniel will stop laughing at me when I am trying to provide discipline or punishment for negative behavior. Time out is only marginally effective. This was when the first phone call to my mom occurred.
After I got off the phone I was feeling a tiny bit better and more calm. At this point I was trying to load the dirty bedding into the washer and I suddenly heard the front screen door slam and the sounds of my sons laughter and screams of "hi, hi, hi" coming from the outside of the house. Not exactly what you want to hear when your inside your house and they are outside your house. I put the sheets down and ran outside to find them playing on the lawn mower and saying hi to the little boy that lives across the street. I drug them kicking and screaming into the house (well I wanted to drag them), instead I took their hands and led them inside. I explained that they would not be playing outside due to the wet grass from the rain the night before, and the poop smearing incident from naptime. They screamed, they yelled, they got mad, but they moved on as kids do. I put a movie on since I was still feeling sick and we sat down to watch it. Alex got up to play in his ball pit (we have a three room play area and ball bit with 200 balls in our living room, thanks granny!). I did not think anything of this, as they like this toy a lot and it is one of their favorite places to play. All the while Daniel (who was the culprit in the previous incident, I could tell by the evidence he left behind on his bottom when I cleaned him up), was sitting on my lap watching "Bolt". Which is an incredibly cute movie btw. I heard Alex saying "poop, poop". All I could think about at this time was "please no, wtf, no, no, no, please god no". (You probably shouldn't use the acronym for a curse word when praying, but I was a little beyond that). I put Daniel down, walked over to the pit, and low and behold what did I find? You got it. Mushy, smelly, runny, poop all over the inside of the ball pit and all over the balls. This was when the second phone call happened. My mom talked me through it and talked to me as I was wiping down the balls and the fabric inside the ball pit. Daniel decided to take it one step further and start pulling multiple wipes out of the package and throwing them around. After spending $130 on baby supplies and household supplies last week and another $95 last week on summer clothes, than almost another $130 on supplies between Friday and Saturday of this weekend, I was feeling pretty bitter about wasting things at this point. I took the wipes from him and Alex actually began to help me clean the balls up. I was totally about this until he started to try to eat the wipes covered in poo. I guess it's sorta like a chocolate covered pretzel minus the pretzel?
I was talking to my mom all the while and started to get awful stomach cramps myself. I ran to the bathroom to take care of my own personal issues and of course my children followed me. Daniel started to take his pull up off and I quickly noticed that he pooped yet again. I asked Alex to bring me a wipe, which he actually did. I guess he figured it was time to start kissing up! My kids actually can be pretty good helpers when they choose to be. I cleaned up Daniel while sitting on the toilet myself. Alex started to push me and yelled at me to "get off". He did this several times, and I told him that I could not move. He continued to push for another minute or two before finally grabbing his little man part and peeing on the floor in front of me, all over my shorts, (which I had removed for more mobility while changing a dirty pull up and meeting my own needs), as well as all over my feet. I told my mom I had to go. (Yes my poor mother went to the bathroom with the boys and I via the phone). She told me to get off the phone and take care of the situation at hand, which I did. She later sent me three emails that report that "feces fun" as they put it is normal around potty training time. (WTF???). I'm glad this may be normal, but eww, it's gross, it's messy, and defiantly not something I read about in "What to Expect When You're Expecting". (Maybe they cover that in the Toddler Years What to Expect. I wouldn't know since I didn't buy it). I put both kids in the bath tub at this time, which was probably what they wanted in the first place. This seemed to settle them down.
We then journeyed out to the kitchen to finally eat dinner, which consisted of grapes and cold pizza. The desire and gumption to heat up the pizza was totally gone at this point. My kids love cold pizza, so this worked well for all of us. The boys ate their food, while yelling "stink bug, STINK BUG", at the stink bug sitting in the corner of the kitchen. (Which was actually a piece of food they threw on the floor at an earlier time). I ignored this and washed the dishes while they ate. I think that tonight's behavior would have been hard and frustrating either way, but probably would not have brought me to tears if I was feeling a little bit better. The night was almost over at this point and I put the sheets back on Alex's bed and discovered a puddle of pee drying into Daniel's sheet when I moved his blankets. I stripped his bed, and put a clean sheet on it, because at that point I had no energy left to get mad and what else can you do? I then brushed their teeth and put them in bed, where they proceeded to scream and cry and talk to each other for another thirty five minutes. I was typing this and praying that I won't walk into a mess in the morning. I guess that's the day in the life of a single parent with two kids. At the end of the day I still love my babies, but I did send an Facebook post to their godmother offering to gift her my kids. She responded with, "you would miss them by tomorrow". She's right I would. I will already hate having to leave them to go to work in the morning. I know it. I think on that note I am going to turn in as it is late. Good night readers!
Erica
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