This is me – not shutting up

A couple of days ago I blogged about being a stay at home mom who isn’t going to shut up, no matter how passive-aggressively you ask me to via blogpost. Days like today are why. Because days like today happen, all too frequently. And sometimes we can laugh at them as they happen and sometimes we can’t. Today, I couldn’t. But I think that as I take the time to type this up and (naptime permitting) re-read for edits, I might be able to laugh a bit.

I got to bed at a reasonable hour last night & managed to fall right to sleep, thanks in part to being a bit sick – but not sick enough to justify going out to buy more NyQuil. The babies slept through the night & I was able to wake up slowly and leisurely. Imagine my surprise when I learned it wasn’t yet 6:00 am – but I felt rested! So, I took a shower, which I never get to do before naptime, had some coffee, and even had time to read a little before the twins started to wake up at 8:30! These kids are usually up & ready to go by 7:00. So this morning really felt like a rare gift.

Oh, but once they woke up…

We use cloth diapers at home. Although we started using disposables overnight when the monkey child got a fierce diaper rash that would start to heal during the day (when I was changing diapers every two hours) and then flare up overnight (when she was in the same diaper for 8-12 hours). The upside to using the disposables is that they do a better job of wicking away the moisture & lessen the chance that a baby will wake me up for a diaper change overnight. The downside is that if the babies sleep in a bit, or happen to poop overnight, the disposables just explode. They split down the seams & all the nasty little gel beads that absorb the pee spill out all over the place. This morning both babies slept in AND pooped overnight. Their pajamas were filled with nasty little gel beads of chemicals and pee. There is no easy way to clean this up, but I did the best I could – which means I made sure the babies were clean and free of pee beads, but I had piles of towels, diapers, etc that were being use as makeshift pee bead containers.

While I was changing the monkey child, the bug child snuck over to stand on her tippy toes & grab the leg of her pee bead filled pajamas. Once she had a good grip on that sucker, she ran – spilling pee beads everywhere – out of the nursery, across the hall, through the kitchen, and to her high chair. I put the monkey child, clad only in a diaper, in the living room & managed to get the bug to let go of her pjs, wash her hands, and then sit in her high chair. Meanwhile, the monkey was gleefully running half-naked through the house. One child secured, I grabbed the other, got her dressed, & strapped her into her high chair. And we had breakfast. While the kitchen floor was covered in pee beads. 

After breakfast, I put the kids in the playroom & cleaned up the pee beads. I thought to myself, “These days happen. But the kids seem in good moods & I got a full night’s sleep. Today can still be great.” And then I looked in the playroom and saw a pile of dog shit in the corner. The babies were on the other side of the playroom, so I quietly cleaned up the dog shit. While I was congratulating myself on managing to clean it up without the kids noticing, I realized they were no longer in the playroom. This isn’t panic inducing - they often play in the living room so I wandered in to see what they were doing.

Apparently, the other dog had also shit in the house. (Why? Because it’s raining outside and even if I leave them outside all day, they will wait until they come in the house to shit & I want to kill them. But I digress.)

Both children had a handful of dog shit.

The monkey child was smearing it on the wall & the bug child was tasting it, spitting it out, and tasting it again. I grabbed the still-warm dog shit out of the babies’ hands, with my own bare hands, and we all went into the bathroom for some serious cleaning, while I gagged a lot & called poison control to make sure I didn’t need to take the bug to the ER or something. (Protip: Nope. Feces is gross, but unless the dog is sick or the kid starts vomiting or has diarrhea, there’s no risk of poisoning.)

All clean, but emotionally raw, I put the babies in the playroom & took the dogs outside so I didn’t strangle them. I thought to myself, “One day, when I don’t feel like the worst mom on the planet, I will find this funny.”

I walked in the house just in time to see the bug child smash a wooden block into the monkey child’s head. I yelled, “NO!” In response, the bug threw her sister on the floor and proceeded to smash the block into the monkey child’s face repeatedly while laughing hysterically. I ran as fast as I could with my stupid foot in a brace to rescue the monkey, who was sobbing but not bleeding. After a quick inspection revealed there was no major damage, I collapsed on a chair, clinging to the child in my lap and bawled.

I tried to put the bug in “time out,” but then the monkey cried because she wanted to be in “time out.” {Clearly, I do “time out” wrong.) So I put the monkey in “time out” & I texted my mom & sisters. I called a couple of people, but they have lives and I just got their voicemail. I called my husband at work – which I never do – and cried. And he did his damnedest to not laugh. And the bug started to throw things at the monkey in “time out” so I got off the phone.

I put the kids into their jumperoos, turned on a Baby Signing Time DVD, and knowing they were safe – hid in the bathroom for a few minutes. Then I brewed a fresh pot of coffee, drank a bunch of water, ate a protein bar, & cleaned up the nursery because remember the pee beads?

This all happened within an hour of the babies waking up.

We had lunch & played a bit. I just put them down to nap. My husband came home early. I’m finally drinking that second pot of coffee I brewed and listening to the sound of the rain outside & my fingers on the keyboard. 

Today could still be a great day.