Life’s injustices! Post #1
I have been thinking lately that to add some balance to my somewhat euphoric Simple Pleasures blogs that I should really post about the small cryin’ shames that seems to also happen all the dang time. Now, I don’t promise to post every day like I did with the Simple Pleasures blogs (and poorly so as you may have noticed since I tend to forget or not have time and then bust out four posts to make up for my remissions). But I DO promise that they will be funny. I mean, who really wants to read about what a drag someone else’s life is?! As my most delightful and astute friend Miss Stefanie C. pointed out, and I’m paraphrasing here, “Everyone likes to hear about bad crap happening to other people if it’s told in a funny way. Because then, you’re like, hey… it’s not just me! I’m not alone in this world of ridiculous grievances!” Too true, madam Stefanie, too true. I shall now begin my inaugural post about my morning thus far. Stop reading now if you are offended by vulgar, crass explanations of bodily functions. Seriously, I mean that.
Ready? Let’s go.
Not all posts are going to be as verbose as this one will be, mostly it will just be something like, “Right when we’re about to walk out the door for school, Colette wiped her snot-nose all over my clean outfit” and probably some goofy commentary about it. But since that was the very last of a string of small injustices that happened this fine morning, let’s just start at the beginning. It’s kind of Les Miserables over here, y’all. Colette and I both have a cold that prevents us from forming speaking with any dignity (“Fank you berry mush”), and I have some other complaints to add. Namely that there is yet another UTI raging in my lower parts and a nice pregnancy to boot. I don’t actually mind the being pregnant part, but you have to understand that it puts one in a less than stellar physical landscape. You’re bulky, you’re off-balance, you’re needin’ to pee more than usual, your sleep is interrupted often (if not by that toddler honking away in the next room), and you’re not feeling exactly attractive for myriad other knocked-up-related reasons. My thoughts about being pregnant are that it’s mainly just a mild, chronic nuisance that will one day be over and for which you will receive a very wonderful prize indeed. That said, I have been prizing sleep over pretty much anything else. Woe to whomever gets in the way of this. WOE.
Colette’s cough prevents her from sleeping in the mornings past, oh, about 6:30. This is a full hour to hour and a half before she normally deigns to arise. You can see where this is going. 6:ish am finds a toddler shoving her way into my bed (and I accept because I know she generally sleeps longer if we’re cuddling in those wee hours). But yesterday and today it’s a sad tale, y’all. It’s coughing, head-butting, kicking, coughing, shoving, pulling out of eyelashes, coughing, “Mama? Mama? Mama? Mama? Hack-hack-HONK-hack! Mama? Mama?”, sticking of fingernails into the creases of my elbows… and I ask you. WHO can sleep through that?! WHO! I’ve found that the best thing to do is to lie still, pretend you’re asleep, and eventually she goes back to sleep. Not the last 2 days. Nope. Colby has been a gem, graciously taking her into the kitchen for an early breakfast allowing me a few more precious moments of sleep. Today I tried for so long to get her to go back to sleep that it was already well after 7 am when she finally decided to trot into the kitchen for Daddy-time. Bliss? Well, short lived… Gotta get up in 20 minutes.
Colby left this morning around 8 to go get my UTI antibiotics from the pharmacy before work. I spotted a half-naked tot in her high-chair ready to get down. Although yesterday was a disaster in terms of potty-training success (like, not a single one all day), I was hopeful that, you know, today is another day and perhaps it can be like Tuesday was, full of stickers on the Potty Chart, adhesive rewards for a job well done! She got out of her chair and busied herself with whatever it is that interests not-yet-two-year-old minds. Kitchen utensils, mainly. Pictures of baby animals. Junk like that. Meanwhile, I finish my regularly abbreviated breakfast and set to work getting dressed. It’s just then that I see the look in her eyes. It’s the one that tells me she’s about to make the poop. Swiftly, I whisk her onto the potty, knowing I can save the day! I notice but a milk-dud hanging on for dear life outta her super-cute rear portions. It lives to die in the proper place- ye olde potty! Hooray! In fact, kid gets the full load all the way in! And, whoa, what a cargo she has been hauling. I mean, she left 3/4 of her body weight in there. I’m not even sure how it was possible to have a turd that enormous inside of such a slight frame as hers. In any case, I was overjoyed, and threw a little party (you know, by myself) for her efforts.
Chanting, “Poo-poo on the potty! Poo-poo on the potty!” I decided to finally give in to Colby’s urgings that we ought to reward (read: bribe) her with chocolate chips when she scored doodie points. Okay, wicked witch of the west (in terms of sugar) is finally going to lighten up. Here, kid, have a chocolate chip! The mirth that befell my child’s face this morning is hard to describe. I thought she was going to cry with joy over that chocolate chip. And as she’s daintily nibbling the edges of this marvelous, wondrous spoil, I notice she’s squatting. Nononononononooooooo!!! Getting her to the potty on time was a joke this time. A cruel, sadistic, joke. Tiny turdlets scattered the living room area adjacent to the miniature booty. By the time she got up from the potty, me sprinting from the bathroom, toilet paper trailing like the dang Hale-Bopp comet behind me, she’s found a way to disperse more chunks. Seriously, it’s like they just exploded out of her, landing with their silent, gentle thuds on my hardwood floors. Where the hell are they all?!!
Frantically treasure-hunting, it ultimately came to my attention that Colette’s last foray on the potty was… sauce. Said gravy was now covering much of my child, rapidly spreading plague-like onto the rest of my living room surfaces. Did I mention we need to leave the house in 20 minutes?! Bathtub. NOW.
Colby’s back from the pharmacy!
“Don’t come any further!!!”, I yelled from the tub-side. ”Doodoomergency!!!”
Bless that man for grabbing a mop and some cleaner and going after the minefield while I hosed and scrubbed our little grubworm. Then we switched off, him drying her off and me bleach-spraying all the contents of our house within an inch of their lives. Kissing the man goodbye for work, I sniffled a nice snot-sicle back up into my nasal cavities and flitted off to get this now sparkling-clean kidlet ready for school. Heck, my living room and bathroom were cleaner than they’d started the morning! I then changed, made a miniature lunch and decided that the last thing I needed to do was apply some snot-sucking action to Colette’s nose. I mean, really, child. You just can’t go to school with sea-slugs hangin’ out your nostrils.
Let me just say right now that if you are reading this, and silently judging me for taking my kiddo to school with a cold, it’s probably your friend’s kid there that got her sick in the first place. Also, I read somewhere that children her age get colds something stupid like 10 x a year. It’s par for the course, and I have totally given up trying to protect he from colds and other kids from hers. If I thought she had something more dangerous like, oh, say, flu, lice, polio, meningitis, encephalitis, laryngitis, conjunctivitis, strep throat, scabies, measles, impetigo, scarlet fever, diphtheria, any fever whatsoever… she wouldn’t be going. (Heck, she’s got shots for half of those anyways, but you know what I mean.) My point is that toddlers are pretty much chronic-cold-havers, and I’m goin’ with the flow! All the other moms follow this protocol, yo. Lastly, I’m pretty sure the sauce was because she didn’t poop all day yesterday and had some MAJOR back-flow. In other words, we’re not talking about diarrhea that could ostensibly infect other innocent children. So, you know, save the hate mail!
Back to the story, which, you may be thanking me, is at and end. ’Member when I said she wiped her nose all over my clean outfit? Then that happened, I did a quick spot-clean, and took her butt to school. Go learn some alphabet crud, kid. Mama’s gonna need a nice little therapy session at the computer and a decaf coffee…
I think the rest of this day can only get better. Really. And honestly, if I didn’t see the humor in the fruit of my loins’ doodie-splosion, I think I’d probably just throw in the towel and go back to bed! Alas, Internet. I love you so much I decided to share. Hope you have a glorious, poopless day!!!
