If I write about this, it will become funny

I know it's not a good week when I clean my desk. Why would I clean the rabbit warren of papers, photos, cans of cat food, books and pens that is my desk? Well, I'll tell you: the cat threw up on it. Nothing like some cat vomit to make you clean. But this was apparently the warning shot, as it were.

We had a lovely day at the park with friends, and Mister A came home exhausted and I snuggled him and put him down for a nap. What did I not do? Send him to the potty before the nap. He had not gone since preschool. This is a long time for a small bladder.

Years ago, our beautiful kitty Niles climbed into a plastic bag and got the handle caught on his neck when he tried to get out of the bag. He panicked, then literally pissed himself while rocketing around our house, looking for a safe place to hide from the scary bag that clung to his heels. He made a beeline for the tiny channel of warmth under our waterbed, spraying urine the entire way. We had to drain the bed and steam clean the carpets immediately. It was an insta-nightmare of cleaning.

I had a flashback to that today.

A woke up from his nap sick and disoriented with a need to go NOW NOW NOW. Half awake, he became convinced that what he needed to do was get his pants off and he would stop having an accident. He got his pants and knickers around his ankles and discovered this was not the case. Now hobbled by his clothes, he stumbled around his room, peeing freely, down the hallway, peeing freely, and was finally able to get his sopping wet pants off in the library. At this point he remembered that he should have gone to the bathroom and he burst into tears with embarrassment.

I was rocking the baby to sleep. I went to comfort the crying half-naked boy and discovered puddles of urine. If you imagine two dozen puppies having a free-for-all pre-paper training, this is what my floors look like. Exactly what you want with a crawling baby in the house.

Baby L is cutting four molars right now, huge purple bulges in his gums with sharp white edges peeking out, and molars are the bitch. I have considered giving the baby Vicoden. I have debated the merits of single malt versus bourbon for the fourteen-month-old set. Baby L needs to be held every waking minute or he screams.

Do you know when you can't hold a baby? When you are on your hands and knees scrubbing the floors of urine. Do you know when the baby can't be with you? When you are in a veritable river of urine, doing a check on every fool thing on your child's bedroom floor to say, "Splattered or not? Wet or not?" Baby L doesn't scream much, so holy hell, when he screams, he has a year's potential of screams ready to go in one intense, never ending blast.

Babies are all asleep now. The floors that were urine-puddled are shiny clean. C's back to work for a long haul night. One load of urine-soaked toys has been through the wash, two more loads of urine-soaked bedding is in the dryer, and I've got three more urine loads to go tonight, plus a bathtub full of water-safe things that need to be disinfected. Time to debate the merits of brandy versus single-malt for the mommy.

And of course it's this day

Where I discover the automated litter box was not plugged in, so the poop's been building up until someone finally protested by pooping on the towel we keep the litter box on, which is fine, but then whichever cat it was tracked a certain amount of poop all over the upstairs.

Of course it's today.

And we're back...

A has the imprint of someone's jaws on his thigh, upper and lower, but thankfully the skin wasn't broken. He is beside himself, crying at the drop of a hat, so he stayed home today.

They got a nap at the same time, which is good, but my plans for Target, pumping milk, and making it to a reading tonight are all shot to hell. Even if I had a wet nurse, the only thing I'd be good for tonight is scowling and twitching.

This is when it's not fun to be the mommy. Oh, to have my kids farmed out to some day care/babysitting situation where I can say, "Gosh, can't you take them? Thanks." But then someone else would be raising them, right?

That Day

Today was not supposed to be That Day. Today was supposed to be busy but doable. A had a playdate with H where JJ would took both boys to Balboa Park and I was alone in the house to clean. (Yay JJ! There are probably not two toddlers less alike, but they genuinely enjoy each other's comapny.)

And I cleaned: scrubbed toilets, scrubbed floors on hands and knees, once with degreaser, once with bleach, dusting, clearing clutter, laundry, and even some mild outside work. I banged out some thank you notes and the minutes from Sunday's meeting. I made vanilla gelato to chill for the ice cream machine later, plus cupcakes, plus simple syrup. Plus lunch for everyone when they returned from the park.

My domesticity just astounds you, right? And I'm good in bed too.

But somewhere between this wildly productive morning and now, things fell apart. A toilet broke. A wouldn't take a nap between lunch and speech therapy. I got out of the shower I finally had to take to find A standing in a puddle of urine in one of the clean bathrooms. And then there was a wipeout in a puddle of urine, which means he'll have lovely bruises for his birthday part. Plus, A needed a quick shower instead of a bath because his speech teacher was coming in fifteen minutes and I had already scrubbed the tub once today.

So once he was clean and dry and clothes, I scrubbed the bathroom floor (again). Scrub number two plus cleaning a urine-soaked boy meant I needed shower #2.

And then the shower door fell on me.

I'm fine. My back hurts, but that's being pregnant and scrubbing floors.

This doesn't mean that I'm happy. If I were a cat, my back would be arched, my ears flat, and my hair standing straight up.

So instead of using my speech therapy downtime to call people on various organizational-related business matters, I'm blogging, listening to This American Life, and playing Civ. That shit will all just have to wait until tomorrow because I am in no shape to be charming or gracious right now.

Peel me off the ceiling

Today, A took no nap except for the time spent driving from preschool to home. This matches my mood because I didn't sleep very well last night.

I got him home, thought I could do a swift diaper change while he was sleeping, and put him to bed, but no dice. He stayed woozy but awake for a long time regardless of how much Beatrix Potter I read him.

Argh.

So we ate lunch, played for a bit, went to the library and the store since we were in desperate dire need of milk. He almost fell asleep on the way home, but again, no luck. This is all complicated by the fact that the new car was in the shop (broken strut, under warranty, thank you very much) and so I was in the lovely old Volvo parking on the side of the garage I never park on. Parking in our garage is already graduate level parking, I think, but the whole different car/different side put me in a foul mood.

Which I was already in.

Because the boy had not napped.

C came home and I said, "Hi, here is your son, he's having cereal for dinner, and I am going to go away now." A little Jon Stewart, a little cat vibes, a little embarrassingly obsolete Civ, and I'm almost back to normal.

For general relaxation, I can't say enough about the wonders of a huge hot pad on your back with a couple cats for weight. I'm falling asleep just thinking about it.

Drive-by parenting

We were in the library yesterday, picking up my book on reserve (and damn you, SD Public Library System, for receiving eight (8!) of my holds the day after I pick up my one lonely book on reserve). A loves the library but the whole waiting in line to get checked out makes him cranky, because it's right next to the kids' DVDs and he wants to go look through them all again.

Anyway, I'm saying no and he has a tantrum. I'm calming him down as quickly as I can--I can't leave with an armful of books; I have reserve items I need to pick up or I'll get fined--and he settles easy enough. It's never quick enough in the library, though. In the process of having a tantrum, he's kicked a shoe off.

There's an older woman behind me. She says to me, "How old?" and I tell her he's two. She picks up his shoe, but instead of handing it back to me, she says to A, "Look at this nice shoe I found. Maybe someone doesn't want it any more. Maybe I'll take it." She mimes putting it on her own foot, and A holds his hand out for it. "Maybe if you said, 'Please, can I have my shoe back?' Hmm? Nice boys ask for things." A holds his hand out again and makes an agitated grunting noise, which to my mommy-sense, means tantrum #2 is on its way.

"No, not until you ask nicely," this woman says.

"He doesn't talk," I say. "He's got a moderate speech delay." A is pressing his hand against his chest in the sign for 'please.' "He's signing please."

She hands the shoe over to me. "I didn't know," she said. "But he was certainly loud enough before." Yes, lady, thanks; I didn't feel enough like a crappy parent before you decided to turn into the question Nazi and of course all children are silent angelic cherubs until they gain the power of speech.

Arrrgh, mateys!

My pirate name is:

Captain Bess Flint

Even though there's no legal rank on a pirate ship, everyone recognizes you're the one in charge. Like the rock flint, you're hard and sharp. But, also like flint, you're easily chipped, and sparky. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.
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