Life is Like a Pit Toilet
In the immortal words of Forest Gump, "Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know
whacha gonna get."
When we're talking parenting or motherhood specifically, we often hear how we're "in the trenches."
But there is definitely a stage of parenting where I say that life is like a pit toilet; you never know when you'll be surrounded by someone else's crap.
That was the case yesterday--regardless of the precautions I had taken (obsessively cleaning hands, keeping away from other sick children, feeding my brood a healthy, balanced diet) I still found myself knee-deep in the by-products of my children's excretory system.
It all started yesterday when I picked my eldest up from kindergarten. I had made plans to take her over to a girlfriend’s house so she could have a playdate with my friend's two little girls but then my friend texted saying her husband had the flu and we had to raincheck
No problem, I thought. As a consolation prize, I offered my daughter to trip to her favorite café while we waited for her younger siblings to get out of preschool. Although she was disappointed not so see her friends, she gamely agreed and even perked up when I offered the treat of a blueberry muffin and a lemonade.
It was while we were sitting at the café enjoying our snacks and drinks that her face suddenly screws up and she says "Mom, my stomach hurts."
Now, I'm no fool. I know there is a stomach bug going around but as I have said, I took precautions, so I ask her if maybe she just needs to go to the bathroom.
"Maybe." So, she goes to the bathroom. Twice. At this point a different girlfriend has joined us at the table and suggests peppermint tea.
Perfect. I knew she would love the treat of a "grown-up" drink. I order her a medium tea and get two cups so that I can cool some off for her and just drink the rest.
Wrong. She whined about the tea until it was time to leave, which I deemed was right after the started coughing--you know the couch--the "My throat knows I'm about to vomit before I do" cough.
So, I said goodbye to my friend and loaded up my daughter and went to get her siblings.
We walk into the school, hand in hand. My daughter has finally taken a sip of the peppermint tea and declared her stomach all better so it is with a light heart that I enter the preschool room to check out my boys.
While they are not in the room with the sign-out sheet, their stuff is and my light heart sinks when I see not one, not two, but three plastic grocery bags filled with soiled pants/underwear. (I should mention potty training isn't going super well over here.)
So, I trudge back down the hallway to get my boys. When I enter the room where they're playing they're sweet little faces light up and my train of thought shifts from that of a defeated, slightly sinister woman to mother-earth, embracing my sweet cherubs. As I hug their little bodies to me, I ask the teacher if we can just stick with pull-ups until my boys are more interested in potty training. I'm told that it is truly easier for the teachers to deal with soiled underwear than a pull-up. I nod and the teacher is truly sympathetic and because she is a saint (like I'm convinced all preschool teachers are) she apologizes to me because my boys aren't potty training. Because it's totally her fault and not at all their stubborn, gross, boyness. I assure her it's not her fault and start herding my brood out the door. That's when I see a huge wet stain on the back of one son's jeans.
Peed-on dirty laundry: 4
Robbin: 0
After I get my other daughter from her classroom (much to her displeasure) and I've corralled everyone from their mad dash in and around the parking lot, we head home.
As soon as I get home I changed both boys and put the back in pull-ups.
I switch over the (what I had thought was last) load of laundry that is already in the machine and start a new load with my son's pants and underwear.
I get the laundry turned over and my eldest daughter is curled in a ball on the couch.
"Mom, can I just go to bed now?"
"Sure, Kiddo. Just change into your PJs and I'll tuck you in." I absently take a sip from the cup from the café.
"Mom, isn't that my cup?"
Oh. Shit.
"Yup. Sorry Kiddo. I didn't realize you'd brought in your cup too."
"It's okay, Momma."
While she is back in her bedroom presumably getting dressed for bed, I ask my husband if he wouldn't rather just order a pizza since we're having a realtor tour tomorrow and we just payed the house cleaner today.
"Don't you have something planned?" I close my eyes so he doesn't seem them roll to the top of my head and just nod. "OK, sure. I'll just make everyone dinner too. Please don't get up from reading your phone, I got it." Passive aggression, making marriages stronger since Adam and Eve.
I call everyone to the table after dinner is ready and once the 3 littles are settled, I go to check on y big girl. I find her naked, curled in a ball on the floor in her room. It is definitely her stomach but also her flair for the dramatic that has left her in this position so once I assure her that I will get her a vomit bowl for her bedside and help her get dressed, I finally get her tucked in.
The rest of the evening passes uneventfully and we actually get everyone to bed by 7:30 (I was in bed at 7:35--don't judge).
At 7:40 one of my sons walks into our room saying he has to go potty. One of my sons who peed his pants twice at school and refuses to potty train in general has come into our room saying he now has to go potty
Because of course.
I let his father handle it and try to go to sleep--at this point my stomach has started hurting and I'm trying to sleep and ignore it.
8:30 my husband and I are still kind of chatting when we hear it: the cough.
We jump out of bed and run to our daughters' room. She appears to be sleeping peacefully and we are confused until the smell creeps up. I roll her over and there is a mound of puke underneath her sleeping body. Apparently, she also planned to go to go to sleep and ignore her stomach.
We wake her up and my husband gets her in the shower while I clean her mattress and change her sheets after laying down several towels between the sheet and mattress top. Luckily, the boys soiled clothes have finished cleaning and I can move laundry again to start the vomit sheets. I add the clothes from the dryer to the basket in my room, all the time thinking I'll have to either fold or hid the laundry before the realtor tour of our home tomorrow.
Its 9:15 and I'm almost asleep when the husband and I hear it again. We hop out of bed together and this time swap rolls while we cleanup the second round of puke.
The bedding from round one isn't clear yet so we put this load of vomit soaked bedding in the hallway by the laundry area.
This pattern happens at least three more times that I can remember (except my husband has fallen asleep so it's all up to me and my cramping stomach to clean the mess). I'm not sure what time I finally get to sleep--I do know that its late enough for at least one more load of laundry to be cycled through the washer and this morning when they boys woke me, I went into their bathroom and saw towels on the floor and a wet rag in the sink. I have a vague impression of the rag but I honestly don't remember touching the towels. Did I lay those out last night? Did my daughter?
I decide to grab my computer and write about this since I won't be going back to sleep and my stomach is still cramping (unfortunately my kids didn't inherit my steel-trap of an excretory system or this post would never have been written).
Just now, as I'm typing my youngest daughter walks into the living room to watch Sprout with her brothers. She comes and tries to snuggle me even though I'm surrounded by toddler boy on both sides.
"Babe, lets snuggle in just a minute, okay?"
"Okay…. Mom, my stomach hurts."
#Blessed
When we're talking parenting or motherhood specifically, we often hear how we're "in the trenches."
But there is definitely a stage of parenting where I say that life is like a pit toilet; you never know when you'll be surrounded by someone else's crap.
That was the case yesterday--regardless of the precautions I had taken (obsessively cleaning hands, keeping away from other sick children, feeding my brood a healthy, balanced diet) I still found myself knee-deep in the by-products of my children's excretory system.
It all started yesterday when I picked my eldest up from kindergarten. I had made plans to take her over to a girlfriend’s house so she could have a playdate with my friend's two little girls but then my friend texted saying her husband had the flu and we had to raincheck
No problem, I thought. As a consolation prize, I offered my daughter to trip to her favorite café while we waited for her younger siblings to get out of preschool. Although she was disappointed not so see her friends, she gamely agreed and even perked up when I offered the treat of a blueberry muffin and a lemonade.
It was while we were sitting at the café enjoying our snacks and drinks that her face suddenly screws up and she says "Mom, my stomach hurts."
Now, I'm no fool. I know there is a stomach bug going around but as I have said, I took precautions, so I ask her if maybe she just needs to go to the bathroom.
"Maybe." So, she goes to the bathroom. Twice. At this point a different girlfriend has joined us at the table and suggests peppermint tea.
Perfect. I knew she would love the treat of a "grown-up" drink. I order her a medium tea and get two cups so that I can cool some off for her and just drink the rest.
Wrong. She whined about the tea until it was time to leave, which I deemed was right after the started coughing--you know the couch--the "My throat knows I'm about to vomit before I do" cough.
So, I said goodbye to my friend and loaded up my daughter and went to get her siblings.
We walk into the school, hand in hand. My daughter has finally taken a sip of the peppermint tea and declared her stomach all better so it is with a light heart that I enter the preschool room to check out my boys.
While they are not in the room with the sign-out sheet, their stuff is and my light heart sinks when I see not one, not two, but three plastic grocery bags filled with soiled pants/underwear. (I should mention potty training isn't going super well over here.)
So, I trudge back down the hallway to get my boys. When I enter the room where they're playing they're sweet little faces light up and my train of thought shifts from that of a defeated, slightly sinister woman to mother-earth, embracing my sweet cherubs. As I hug their little bodies to me, I ask the teacher if we can just stick with pull-ups until my boys are more interested in potty training. I'm told that it is truly easier for the teachers to deal with soiled underwear than a pull-up. I nod and the teacher is truly sympathetic and because she is a saint (like I'm convinced all preschool teachers are) she apologizes to me because my boys aren't potty training. Because it's totally her fault and not at all their stubborn, gross, boyness. I assure her it's not her fault and start herding my brood out the door. That's when I see a huge wet stain on the back of one son's jeans.
Peed-on dirty laundry: 4
Robbin: 0
After I get my other daughter from her classroom (much to her displeasure) and I've corralled everyone from their mad dash in and around the parking lot, we head home.
As soon as I get home I changed both boys and put the back in pull-ups.
I switch over the (what I had thought was last) load of laundry that is already in the machine and start a new load with my son's pants and underwear.
I get the laundry turned over and my eldest daughter is curled in a ball on the couch.
"Mom, can I just go to bed now?"
"Sure, Kiddo. Just change into your PJs and I'll tuck you in." I absently take a sip from the cup from the café.
"Mom, isn't that my cup?"
Oh. Shit.
"Yup. Sorry Kiddo. I didn't realize you'd brought in your cup too."
"It's okay, Momma."
While she is back in her bedroom presumably getting dressed for bed, I ask my husband if he wouldn't rather just order a pizza since we're having a realtor tour tomorrow and we just payed the house cleaner today.
"Don't you have something planned?" I close my eyes so he doesn't seem them roll to the top of my head and just nod. "OK, sure. I'll just make everyone dinner too. Please don't get up from reading your phone, I got it." Passive aggression, making marriages stronger since Adam and Eve.
I call everyone to the table after dinner is ready and once the 3 littles are settled, I go to check on y big girl. I find her naked, curled in a ball on the floor in her room. It is definitely her stomach but also her flair for the dramatic that has left her in this position so once I assure her that I will get her a vomit bowl for her bedside and help her get dressed, I finally get her tucked in.
The rest of the evening passes uneventfully and we actually get everyone to bed by 7:30 (I was in bed at 7:35--don't judge).
At 7:40 one of my sons walks into our room saying he has to go potty. One of my sons who peed his pants twice at school and refuses to potty train in general has come into our room saying he now has to go potty
Because of course.
I let his father handle it and try to go to sleep--at this point my stomach has started hurting and I'm trying to sleep and ignore it.
8:30 my husband and I are still kind of chatting when we hear it: the cough.
We jump out of bed and run to our daughters' room. She appears to be sleeping peacefully and we are confused until the smell creeps up. I roll her over and there is a mound of puke underneath her sleeping body. Apparently, she also planned to go to go to sleep and ignore her stomach.
We wake her up and my husband gets her in the shower while I clean her mattress and change her sheets after laying down several towels between the sheet and mattress top. Luckily, the boys soiled clothes have finished cleaning and I can move laundry again to start the vomit sheets. I add the clothes from the dryer to the basket in my room, all the time thinking I'll have to either fold or hid the laundry before the realtor tour of our home tomorrow.
Its 9:15 and I'm almost asleep when the husband and I hear it again. We hop out of bed together and this time swap rolls while we cleanup the second round of puke.
The bedding from round one isn't clear yet so we put this load of vomit soaked bedding in the hallway by the laundry area.
This pattern happens at least three more times that I can remember (except my husband has fallen asleep so it's all up to me and my cramping stomach to clean the mess). I'm not sure what time I finally get to sleep--I do know that its late enough for at least one more load of laundry to be cycled through the washer and this morning when they boys woke me, I went into their bathroom and saw towels on the floor and a wet rag in the sink. I have a vague impression of the rag but I honestly don't remember touching the towels. Did I lay those out last night? Did my daughter?
I decide to grab my computer and write about this since I won't be going back to sleep and my stomach is still cramping (unfortunately my kids didn't inherit my steel-trap of an excretory system or this post would never have been written).
Just now, as I'm typing my youngest daughter walks into the living room to watch Sprout with her brothers. She comes and tries to snuggle me even though I'm surrounded by toddler boy on both sides.
"Babe, lets snuggle in just a minute, okay?"
"Okay…. Mom, my stomach hurts."
#Blessed
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