chlorox wipes for me. baby wipes just won't cut it...

i don't like to blog when the kids are awake. but i just need to vent real quick and then i will go back to being a wonderful, patient, beautiful, attentive mother...

topher woke up at 2am. then went back down. and then woke up again at about 5am. for good. (i miss his crib!!!!) we all tried to lay in bed together, again, as i continued to repeat our new mantra: "if the sun is not up you shouldn't be either. if the sun is not up you shouldn't be either..." we were all out of bed at 5:50. except for chris. he left for work at about 3:30am.

the kids and i were hanging out in the living room. since i went to bed at 10, i actually felt ok. not like the normal angry zombie mommy i usually am at 5:50am. so i was just sitting on the ground, watching dora the explorer, when i realized topher was not within eyesight.
"topher", i called.
no response.
he was probably in the kitchen, praying to the fridge to drop boxes of cereal into his greedy, chubby hands. he does that sometimes. i called him again.
"i do poo mom!" he called out excitedly.
that's weird cause 1.his voice came from the kitchen. and 2. i can see the green potty, it's about six feet from where i'm sitting, which means if he did poop, it wasn't in the potty.

so i slowly sauntered over to the kitchen, and to my horror, i found topher with crap smeared down both of his legs, an island of a steamy steamer a few steps behind him, floating in an ocean of urine. the horror. the horror.

topher got washed up in the tub, then sat in time out for 10 minutes where he was told to sit and think about what he had done. that's all i had. i have been told time and time again not to spank your kids for messing up while potty training. i'm just trusting other people on that, which is the only reason topher did not get spanked!  then i attacked the kitchen with a roll of paper towels, a plastic bag, and many a chlorox wipes. it looked like i got everything. so i threw the dirtiest plastic bag in the universe out to the outdoor trash. i went back to the kitchen and saw a tiny circle of smudged poop. how did i miss that during my disinfecting extravaganza? the only way i didn't see that is if... i was standing on it. i checked out my heel, and there i saw an identical circle of shmooshed poo. UGH!!!!!! one more cholorox wipe. for my heel.

then i looked at the carpet, right by the kitchen. (can i tell you again how happy i am that we live in an apartment right now? yes i will steam clean the crap out of the carpet. again. BUT, it is nice to know this is not my permanent carpet!) there was a wet spot. or it looked like a wet spot. i was hoping some urine had dripped off of topher's body while i rushed him into the bathroom. i approached the spot with more cholorox wipes. nope. it was more excrement. how did that get there, and why was it so flat?

well, it must have dripped off of topher's body, as i had predicted, and then i must have squashed the poo when i stepped in it. AGAIN. which on ly means i must have tracked poo from the kitchen to the bathroom. oh. the horror! i checked my feet to make sure that what i was hypothesizing was actually real, and there, on my foot, same one with the once poopy-heel, was a circle of shmooshed poo, identical to the circle of shmooshed poo on the carpet. MORE CHOLOROX WIPES PLEASE!

so, i guess topher's potty training is maybe not going as well as i thought it was last week. he takes two steps forward, then one step back. that step back today involved me getting a lot of dung on my dang foot.

are you crapping me???

topher is now in a big boy bed after a ridiculous incident when chris went to check on him in the middle of the night and he was climbed half-way out of his crib. ugh. i knew this day was going to come, but i was kinda hoping it was going to be when we were back into a house, and topher was like 5. he's been getting up twice a night, and we have been resolute to get up and put him back into his own bed every time. it's exhausting. and i could lock him in his room, cause i know that works really well for lots of people, but of course topher is kinda sick right now, so locking him up is not an option. at least not for this moment.

i don't know what topher is sick with right now. it's like a terrifying mix of insomniatic pms plus the flu. he's not really an insomniac. he is sleeping. but he wakes up so much that i guess i feel like the insomniac. and he doesn't have the flu. he just occassionally has a fever. and he doesn't have pms. he's just really moody and only wants to eat sweets.

so yesterday we had a GREAT morning. even though we had a TERRIBLE TERRIBLE night. we went to the zoo with our friends samantha and leila. i will have to post pics later. then the kids took a nap in the car and we went to chandler mall to play in the kids' play area and eat and look around. it was a pretty kid-centered day! we got home at 3ish and just hung out in front of the tv. i suddenly remembered that my wonderful photographer friend jenny, who took the kids' pics on tuesday, said she might post some pics of the kids. (i will post those soon!) so i went to my room to check it out. we have a laptop in the living room, but it's kinda slow. and i was going to be real quick. but of course, i was not quick enough, though i was out of the room for 3 minutes. THREE MINUTES.

i come back into the living room to find topher standing in front of the entertainment center smearing something on the top of it. i did the quickest assessment i could of the situation and deducted that he was smearing his own feces on our wonderful ikea furniture. this was deduced by the odor, the small serving of soft serve poop on the carpet, and topher saying 'poopoo!'. are you crapping me kid?!?!?

i picked topher up, yelled at lily not to touch ANYTHING or go near anywhere, and went straight for the bathtub. topher was wearing a diaper, but was squatting while watching tv, not leaving enough room for his excrements to fill the diaper, only allowing it to overflow out the back of the diaper, onto his pants and the back of his shirt, which in turn landed on the carpet, which of course he stepped in, and eventually got on his hands, which is when i found him, defiling our furniture.

i sat on the edge of the tub, and proceeded to undress the dirtiest kid in the universe, very carefully. sure there was dung everywhere, but there didn't need to be dung in his hair. cause kaka in hair is supergross. i washed his hands first. then his backside. and this was no ordinary excrement folks. it was like mortar. i could have built a fine, yet stinky brick wall with this stuff. most of it i was trying to get off of my hands, and down the drain, some of it i tried to put in the toilet, cause that's where poo belongs- IN THE TOILET. are you listening to me topher!?!?! (this wasn't really his fault. he was wearing a diaper. i don't know who to blame for this right now, but when i figure it out, that person is going to get an earfull. though i have a sinking feeling that this is partially my own fault.) then i washed his feet, cause his heels were covered in the stuff. i was amazed at 1.how he could have made such an insane mess in such a short time. and 2.how his beautiful little body could have produced such foulness. and 3.how i had yet another poo-related story to blog about.

lily was very good during this whole ordeal. she came over and sat on the edge of the tub with me. it was a little dangerous (cause it's the side of the tub, and cause there was crap everywhere.) but very sweet. she was a great support with all her head shaking in dismay, and "eww. gross topher."s.

i feel like a first-time mom these days. really tired, and surrounded by explosive excrements. it's all a labor of love though- the waking up in the middle of the night, and the getting tons of poo on my hands, and the shampooing of the carpet once again. and i just have to remind myself of that. and boy will i remind topher of all this! probably when he's older. and probably in front of a girl he likes, and a bunch of his guy friends.

"Eww. Gross Topher"

this is lily's favorite line of late. or it's my favorite line that she delivers with such gusto, a few times a day. topher is kinda gross. he's a boy, so apparently that's ok. but he's been pouring on the grossness pretty thick the last two days.

yesterday, topher was pulling on my earrings. i've been trying to 'dress up' a bit more lately. more for my husband than anyone else. and not that he made a comment about my appearance or anything. the mirror makes comments, and i just feel bad for the guy sometimes. so yeah, been trying to wear earrings to make it look like i am making an effort on my looks. and the kids love it. they really like looking at my giant fake jewels, and occassionally pulling on them. the hoops i was wearing yesterday were very kid-friendly. they 'snap' shut, so if they get pulled on, they come undone quite easily with no ligament damage to my ears. topher pulled both of my earrings off and then wandered off. i didn't really care. until about 5 minutes later when he was dropping off the browns to the superbowl. or in this case- the little plastic ikea green potty bowl. him pooping holding my earrings wouldn't have been a big deal if he hadn't dropped one of my earrings in his poop. murphy's law or something like that, right? good bye earrings. you may be kid-friendly, but you are not poop-friendly. one of those earring are in the trash, the other is floating in the pipes, in the midst of topher's poopies.

then this morning, topher was in a loving mood. which was wonderful. he was full of hugs and kisses. one kiss in particular landed right smack on my lips. which is usually so sweet and wonderful. little kids' kisses make my day. i love when my kids give me hugs and kisses for no reason. but this kiss in particular was gross. cause topher had a bit of a runny nose, and when he ran off after giving me a kiss, i was left with a booger on my lip. eww. gross topher. i love you too. but that's gross.

we went to walmart this evening. i put topher in his undies cause he peed right before we left the house, and i was planning on getting him to pee once at walmart too. and he did! it was so great. (by the way, after we got back from vegas, don't remember if i've already mentioned this, but topher is not 'potty trained' anymore! argh.) when i was getting ready to put him in his car seat, i gave him a kiss (no boogers!) and then felt my arm getting warm. at first i thought it was the warmth of the love running between my beautiful son and i. but no. it was urine. running through his undies, and his pants, onto my sleeve. oh topher. i would have been mad, only i was so happy that he urinated on my arm rather than his car seat. cause my sweater is easy to throw into the wash, his car seat cover- not so much.

so, that' my disgusting son for you. but i feel like i need to share something else that happened at walmart. cause i blog for you readers- to learn from my mistakes. cause i really make so stinkin many of them! anyhoo, after we had our wonderful time in the walmart bathroom, where both topher and lily peed, we were just walking around having a gay old time. when all of a sudden lily fell out of the shopping cart. when we go shopping, i put the kids in the basket-part of the shopping cart. they just stand in there and do their thing. it's not a big deal. or it wasn't before today. anyhoo, lily was standing at the edge of the shopping cart and fell backwards. like she actually did a flip in the air before landing on the ground, kind of on her stomach, but a bit of her head did catch the ground. of course. so there she was screaming and crying in my arms. i know there were some people around me, but i hardly noticed them. topher was sitting in the shopping cart, also crying, cause i guess he felt like crying was the cool thing to do. i was not crying, cause it's not pms week for me. but man did i feel like a giant loser. and i felt so bad for lils cause that really must have hurt and scared the crap out of her. it scared the crap out of me! one mom who saw the whole thing, came up to me and asked if we were ok and then asked if lily wanted a piece of candy. cause candy cures all. it was very nice of her but i declined. i would hook lily up with a treat in a bit. but the other mom said exactly the words that any mom needs to hear in this kind of terrible situation: "don't worry. that's happened to me before. you're not a bad mom." thanks lady at walmart! i needed that.

as for lily, she's doing alright. actually, she got over the fall pretty quickly as we started doing some grocery shopping and she saw that i was getting yogurt drinks (her favorite). i also let her pick up a box of cheese nips and carry them all over the store. she did tell me she was hungry and wanted to eat. that alarmed me since
1. we had some oatmeal before leaving the house and 2. she never says she is hungry. i thought maybe she was having a concussion or that the fall had turned her into a person who suddenly liked to eat. we had some rice at home and that seemed to appease her just fine. no bruise or bump, no throwing up, no passing out. i think we were pretty lucky this time!

so, if you take anything away from this post, i hope it's the knowledge that your kids can, and truly might, fall out of a shopping cart. or that it's not safe for your kids to poo while holding your earrings. or that you should wipe your kid's nose before they kiss you.

Poop to Vegas

it's been a week and two days since my last poop-related incident. so here's our newest one.

we left for vegas on friday morning. the whole fam- chris, lily, topher and myself in our minivan, jeehon, james, and sungu in theirs. we were on our way to vegas for our 3rd annual family trip in vegas. YES. three years straight of being in las vegas. which is surprisingly a lot family-friendlier than you think. BUT, we are putting an end to these trips to vegas cause, well, it's been three years. we just don't need to come here anymore! seen it all, done it all. (at least, especially after chris and i go to see the lion king tonight!)

so, we left at about 10:30am. the van was packed, the portable dvd players were in position, snacks, drinks, and portable potty were all readily available. yes, chris brings the potty with him whenever he goes out with the kids now. it's really eased his mind with longer drives, especially with topher. he continues to wow us with his potty training abilities. but truth be told, the kid stil can't go more than two days without an accident. oh well. he'll probably really smarten up when he turns two next month.

i give my hubby some serious props for being a hard-core potty-training dad! topher is always in undies when he is with his dad. and so he was in undies on our way up to vegas. this was ok with me cause i had just ordered waterproof car seat covers by Nomie Baby (i will write a real review later. heads up: did NOT like em.) it did it's job, protecting topher's car seat from his pee, but otherwise, i am not fond of my purchase.

on to the poop- we had already pulled over once to let everyone pee on the potty. except only topher peed- even though he had already peed in his pants. it was kinda too cold for lily, with the wind tunneling through the van as she tried to relax enough to let the urine flow. it didn't happen, but she also didn't have an accident for the whole ride, so whatev. needless to say, we had to stop again about an hour later though. something was starting to really smell foul, and we suspected our littlest watson. fortunately after the whole soiling-his-car-seat-undies-and-pants incident from the previous hour, i put a Pull-Up on him. Great move. GREAT move.

we pulled over to the side of the road. chris focused his attention on the lilster, and i had my sights set on mr. poopy pants. how convenient for you chris! topher had a turd in his trousers (that just sounds like a great sentence. but the turd was really in his diaper.) and so i cleaned that up. lily had a seriously monstrous pee. and then topher said he still had to poo. so he sat on the potty and dropped a steamer. good job son! chris is usually really good about how he disposes of the kids' waste product. when he is out with them, he usually tries to stop in a neighborhood, and then dump the potty remnants into thos waste buckets for when you are getting rid of your dog's poops that you have scooped. but we were in a hurry, so 'someone' actually dumped the dump on the road beside our car. 'someone else' was not very happy about the decision, but the deed had already been done, so what could you do?

we strapped the kids back into their seats. gave everyone high fives for a job well-done, and proceeded to drive away. as we started driving merrily along the highway, chris said he was pretty sure we had rolled over topher's poop. and that's what you get for not listening to your wife, or 'someone else', who had originally advised to throw the turd out on the passenger side of the car, not the drivers' side. and that's our poopy tale on our way up to our wonderful family vacation.

wowed by a four year old

today the high school kids at church put on a fundraiser to allow parents to drop off their kids so they could go on a day date, or a night date. they had tons of people sign up and needed help watching the kids. so i signed up to get a date, and to give dates. i just got home a little while ago so i need to make this fast, before 1. my kids wake up from their naps 2. i forget the amazing conversation i had with a 4 year old while i waited to wipe her butt.

so i hung out in the nursery today, but the 4 year olds classroom needed an extra helper for 5 minutes. so i volunteered. i wasn't in that classroom for more than 3 minutes when a little girl was talking about how she wasn't able to wipe her own bum and that she needed her mom to help her, and so she was wondering out loud when her mom might come back. not for another hour and a half, at least. but i told her i could help her and she was delighted. as were the other volunteers who were too young to take kids to the bathroom. super.

so i go to the bathroom with this little girl. she plops on the toilet and begins to talk:
"i cannot wipe my own bum. my mom always has to help me. except when she is taking a nap. maybe i will be able to wipe my own bum when i am five. or ten. you know when i am sick with a cold, or a feber (fever, i think she meant), or a stomach ache, i have really icky poos. but do you know what helps you get better when you are sick?"

"what?" i ask her. and am amazed that she is allowing me to speak. also please note that this little girl is german and has the faintest little german accent. it's so cute i want to throw up on her. and her poop is starting to get stinky so i really want to throw up on her. fortunately i am a professional mom, and poops don't get me the way they get guys when they have to deal with other people's 9read: their own off-spring's)poos, even though they (the dads) have the dirtiest poos of all. look i have diahrea mouth just like the 4 year old!

back to her question, which was 'do you know what can fix you if you are sick?'
"God can fix you." she says proudly. wow! that's awesome. this girl really knows what's going on.

"do you know what else can fix you? soup." again- wow!...

she continues: "my mom has a book of soup. it tells her what to put in it. there are other things in there. recipes. i don't like them. except for the one for pizza, and spagedi, and french fries. i have a friend, heather, and he (yes, she said 'he') and he just eats them up! he loves french fries. they are really good, ya? (think german people!)

"did you know I have 4 panty hose and 1 pair of stockings at home?"

"no." i honestly answer her, i really did not know that.

"i come to church every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday." (this is probably how she knows God and soup heals all ailments at such a young age.)

i ask her if she is part of the mom's group that meets on Tuesdays.

"no. i am not allowed to be a part of that my mum says. i have to go to the classrooms. that's a pretty bush," she says, noticing the fake TREE that is in the corner of the bathroom. (let's keep this pure people!)

we get interrupted by another little kid who needs to use the bathroom, and i did not lock the door.

"you should have locked the door," she tells me. not at all embarrassed that someone walked in on her on the can. i apologize.

"like, you should lock the door now." i've just been scolded by a 4 year old who has her skirt around her ankles.

"so, how do they have a bush growing inside? wow. i am noticing some glitter on your shoes. (there's no glitter on my running shoes, but i thank her all the same.) i love glitter. (she is wearing VERY glittery shoes) but i am missing some glitter right here (she points to the toes of the shoes that truly have no glitter left on em.) i had tennis shoes when i was 3 years old (she puts up 3 fingers for emphasis), but i grew out of them you know. i have some leotards at home. wow, i really like that bush."

finally she stops to breathe.

"are you all done with your poops?" i finally manage to ask. we've been in there for almost five minutes.

"yes!" i didn't know she was capable of one word answers.

"do you want to try to wipe your own bum?" i ask her. hopeful.

"no, you do it. you know, always always always sometimes my mum has to wipe my bum. and sometimes my dad does it. i can't wipe my bum by myself. i can't wait till my hair grows and is not in my face any more. i am tired of my hair in my face all the time."

wow. i have now wiped her tush. and i have looked in the toilet to see the biggest bowel movement come out of a child. seriously, there is the largest family of deuces sunk to the bottom of the toilet. (of course there were skid marks at the bottom of the toilet after we flushed.)this kid really had a lot of stuff to unload! physcially and verbally.

we wash our hands and exit.

wow. that is the most information i have ever received in a five minute period.

this is why...

chris is why, actually.

chris is why the kids have crazy poops. and chris is why the kids are crazy- cause he's crazy.

my beautiful husband got home from work at about 8:30pm. which is the time i was expecting him. the kids stayed up a hair longer to see him. and boy were they happy to see their old man. hugs, kisses, chaos ensued. finally the kids were in bed.

chris ate the leftovers from dinner while catching his breath on the couch. my poor husband and his crazy schedule. i had some work i had to do, so i encouraged my husband to go on the run he had been talking about since yesterday. dang it, maybe some of this is my fault... anyhoo, he digests for about another 5 minutes or so, takes a work-related phone call, downloads Glee Volume 2 to his MP3 player (with the happiest look on his face. i just got this for my birthday and he could not be happier about the gift that he did not give me.) then he was out the door.

about 15 minutes later i get a text from him: "Yikes!! Poop attack."
i respond: "Don't poo in your pants! Lily will be mad at you. So will I."
he responds: "I might go in a field."
i respond: "Wow. Eww. I still love you. Don't get arrested."
(we aren't on twitter. cause we don't unerstand it. and no one would follow us cause all we would do is talk about poo. like i do on this blog...)

then silence. for about 30 minutes. no response from the running pooping fool. and as i work at the computer, beside the window, i can hear the rain starting to fall. gingerly at first. then it really starts coming down. and all i can think of is my poor husband with his pants around his ankles, listening to Glee, pooping in a field with a bunch of cows staring at him, rain pouring down, police lights flashing. A mix of terror and delight (just from the music. it really uplifts the guy) flood over him.

finally i stop working/thinking about chris and decide to just call him. "where are you? are you ok?" i ask. trying not to sound panicked, but also listening for any sirens in the background. chris is ok. he's actually still running. he's 15 minutes away from home. he found a gas station. how anti-climactic. and that's the end of this terrible story. but at least i don't have to clean another poopy butt.

Got Pony?

does anyone have a pony i can borrow?

ok. i was just joking about promising the kids a pony if they pooed on the potty. but yesterday, topher pooped on the potty all by himself!

we were just hanging out in the living room. i was doing something. lily was chillin. topher was hanging out. then he saunters over to the potty, which is strategically placed in the middle of the living room, drops a deuce, then yells out: "Mama, I did pee pee!" I walked over to my boy, very proud of him already, and was so surprised to see the most beautiful little poop sitting so pleasntly in our little green potty.

"Topher! You did a poo poo! You get a cookie!" I say with a giant smile on my face.
"Cookie? Yeah!" All Topher ever hears is: "Cookie".
Then Lily chimes in: "Topher, poo poo? I'm so proud of you! She is not jealous or embarrassed by her little brother's achievement. Nothing in her makes her want to poo on the potty.

She has now pooped twice on the carpet. Fortunately for me, they were very solid and did not leave a mark on the ground. Fortuntaly for her, though the poops were solid- they were neither the size of babies, nor were suppositories involved in prying them out.

So Lily is 100% in undies during the day. 100% in Pull-Ups at night. And butt-naked when she has to poo. On the floor. Topher pees and poos on the potty, and often tells us when he has to go, even when we are out and about. But he also still pees in his undies, which is the main thing we are working on with him. I don't know if it's comfusing for him to be in undies/free-ball/Pull Ups during the day, and then Pull Ups at night, but he is doing pretty well in our books. (and yes, I said 'free-ball.')

if only we had a fan that crap could hit...

today was a long day. in our efforts to not have lily sleep in our bed, she now wakes up in the middle of the night and cries. last night i went to bed pretty late, and chris came home at about 3 am(from work. not clubbing.) so when lily started crying, no one took notice. except for topher. so chris and i woke up at about 5am to lily and topher crying their heads off. chris brought lily back to bed with him. i slept on the floor in topher's room with topher. only topher didn't sleep. he stared at me. did laps around the room. collapsed on to my face for kisses and hugs. it was all so funny and sweet. if only it hadn't been 5 in the frickin morning.

so that's how the day started. and it didn't get better. chris woke up at about 10ish. we started getting ready to go to costco, when the kids decided they needed a chocolate boost for the day- so they both said they wanted to potty. smart, conniving kids. so we gave them their dues- one m&m for sitting on the potty for at least 15 seconds. and i went to my room to get dressed, and to use the potty myself. topher was running around bare bottom, which happens a lot lately. but of course, today was a disaster. i was in the bathroom for a minute. max. i come out and find topher standing in his own feces that are stamped into the carpet. there is a GIANT turd right in front of me, a smaller turd beside that, and a smooshed turd, and little turdy footsteps leading to where my absolutely wretchedly disgusting son is standing. 'Oh no! Poo poos!' he says. i said the same thing, (in my head!) only using sinful adult vocabulary.

i threw him (almost literally) into my bathtub (where he dropped another baby deuce)and yell for Chris. kinda cause i need his help, but mostly so he can just see what happened. and boy was he disgusted and impressed. i am not joking- it looked like an adult had crapped on my floor. it was a big one. i picked up most of the poop with toilet paper. i scrubbed the crap outta the dirty spots with carpet cleaner and a sponge. there is surprisingly very little evidence left that anything inappropriate happened here today. i then proceeded to give topher a bath, and picked the poo in the bathtub up with my bare hands. cause why waste the toilet paper at this point? i already had stained hands from trying to get poo flakes to go down the drain in the tub.

so that was my day. it got better from there- but come on, how could it have gotten worse? i guess he could have pooed and ate it and then vomitted on the carpet on top of his poops...

Grossness = Being a Mom

I was going to write yesterday but I was too grossed out by myself to sit at the computer. And I was pooped. Literally. Figuratively. All of that.

Two days ago Sungu pooped on the carpet in his room. Again. This time it was WAY grosser. And this time Jeehon stepped in it, not me (Sweet! For me. Not Jeehon.) He did it during sacred 'Nap Time', and at the beginning of it, not the end (cause he had dried on poop on his foot, leg and butt). So when my sister went into his room, the first thing she saw was the poo on her foot, then her poo stained, pantless, diaperless son, who had gotten poop on his sleeping area. He didn't look like he had played in it at all cause his hands were clean. If he had some on his hands, he licked it off real good...

But that's old news. Today we had an action packed day. We went to the mall to hang out and play in the kids area. Though it was pretty crowded, we had an injury-free time! Yeah! Then we went on the carousel, which was perfect cause we had three kids, and three adults cause James was there with my sister and I. Then we went outside where they had a new shaved ice stand. SO GOOD. I am not a huge fan of sno-cones, but shaved ice is a million times better than sno-cones. The flavor runs to the bottom, but still gets every flake of ice wet with tasty-goodness on its way down. James was nice enough to buy the carousel ride and the icy treat. He was at the stand with Sungu, and after I got my kids and Jeehon situated by a grassy area, I went back to help James out. So I took Sungu from him and started walking over to the others. And I noticed my shirt was wet, right where Sungu was resting on me. I put him down, and sure enough, he had peed through his diaper. He had drank almost an entire bottle of water while we were in the play area, and now a lot of that was in pee form on my shirt. And James' too.

Then we got home, fed the kids dinner (yes, after they had already had dessert.) and started to go upstairs to get ready for bed. I was holding Topher when I was slapped in the face by a nasty stench. Topher had diahrea (sp????) and it leaked through his pants, and on to my arm. Awesome. So I got him changed, bathed, and in to bed, along with the other monsters.

When I got back downstairs I was ready to enjoy a quiet and lovely evening with my sister and brother-in-law. I started tidying up the living room, and I picked something up that looked like a little cashew. It was a little bit soft, but kept it's form. I had no idea what it was, so I did the 'Ultimate What is it? Test' I smelled it (the step down from the 'Ultimate Test' is the 'Serious Test' which involves licking). My being the idiot that I am (for SO MANY different reasons) I brought it too close to my nose, and so it touched my nose. And of course- it was poo. I don't know whose poo. But it was definitely poo.

So I stood in the middle of the living room wanting to just pass out. I had pee in my shirt, diahrea on my arm, and poo in my hand and on my nose. So I put the baby-poop in the toilet (cause that's where it belongs!!!!!!!!!), hung my head in shame and sadness, went upstairs for a serious disinfecting shower, and went to bed. I love being a mom. I really do. But if you see me, and I smell like poo, it's probably cause it's on my shirt, or in my hair, or on the tip of my nose, or all of the above.

Rite of Passage?

Nothing ruins my night like poo in unexpected places.

Watching the three kids alone is no big deal anymore. They kinda all play together, or all seperately, but the demand for attention has diminished quite a bit. Chris is even going to watch the three kids by humself on Monday when I go to work, and Jeehon goes back to taking some more real estate classes.

But, the thing that makes watching the three kids difficult is when you already have very little patience for life in general (read: you are sleep deprived) or when you find poo in unexpected places (remember when I stepped in Sungu's poo a few months ago?)

So here's how my kids pooed on our lovely evening last night:
I was on the phone with a friend who was having a SERIOUS issue. Serious beyond serious. In fact, if you feel led, pray for her and her hubby- let's just call them J & J. (NO. Not James and Jeehon. 'J' names are so common!) Anyhoo, I was on the phone with her, and I made the kids grilled cheese sandwiches with tomato soup. They have eaten this before, and liked it. So I thought it was going to be an uneventful dinner. Wrong. Because my attention was elsewhere, Lily thought this was an opportune time to entertain Sungu and Topher by smearing grilled cheese in her hair. She was a hit! They loved it.

Then round 2- I made some fried rice with peas, another fave of the children. More food was tossed about and landed in hair. And I was even paying attention to them at this point! Anyway, this didn't make me so annoyed, cause a lot of it was my fault, but it didn't exactly put me in a great mood.

So then we went upstairs to take a bath and get ready for bed. I put Lily and Topher in the bath too, and made Sungu potty before getting in. He peed for half a second and started to stand, where I proceeded to make him stay seated. This was great because he immediately started to poo. Then Lily made a motion like she had to pee so I pulled her out and put her on the toilet. I was still within arms reach of Topher in the bath, but I could really just see him from the chest up.

When Lily and Sungu were done (Lily did not pee. We are trying to do this whole pottying thing again...) I was about to put them back in the tub, except that there was a whole lot of poo in it! So gross! Topher had eaten quite a bit of fruit that day, so his stool was not firm by any stretch of the imagination. There were bits floating all around him. There was even a piece of poo stuck to his chest. I wanted to cry. Lily just started saying 'Eeewww.' Understatement of the century little girl. I unplugged the tub and watched most of the poo go down the drain, and for the pieces that wouldn't go down I picked em up (with my bare hands!) and threw them in the toilet. Not happy mama.

So there Topher was, sitting naked and disgusting in the tub with no water, and Lily and Sungu were standing there watching, also naked and I decided the best thing to do was bring them to my room to take a bath.

After everyone was disinfected and put to bed, I had the fun task of disinfecting lots of toys and the bath tub. Can't believe this is the first time I have dealt with poo in the tub, but what a way to be inducted into the club! Hopefully this will be the first, and the last?...