Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

No snow???!!

Blizzards to our north, south, east, and west.

I feel jipped.

Sunday, January 2, 2011

Poop

Anyone out there with babies, toddlers, or preschoolers? Do you fondly remember the days when you could have a conversation with your old college friends that didn't involve talking about your kid's poop? [sigh] Me neither. When you and your friends all decide to independently procreate at the same time, it's bound to happen.

Tonight my husband passed me in the hall. I had just finished putting down Rachel, and he was with Eric. We had come back from a friend's house only 30 minutes before. They have cats. I am allergic to cats. What I'm not allergic to is Benedryl. And what I found out tonight is you can take several Benedryl and not feel the effects while in an allergenic environment, but as soon as you leave said environment you are as high as a kite.

"There was poop in the tub, Jen."
"Huh?" I look at John with glazed eyes, drool pooling around my lips.
"Rachel must have pooped in the tub. There was only a little bit."
"OK. I'll bleach the tub." It's amazing how mellow I get about cleaning when doped up on medication.

John returned to Eric's room. I went to the laundry room and got the bleach. As I'm standing over the tub I do what any normal obsessive-compulsive parent would do: I look for signs of poop. Surely there must be some here. I don't see any. Well, whatever. I already have the bleach and the tub could use a cleaning. I clean the tub about once every vernal equinox. And the kids' toys could use a cleaning. I turn on the hot water, throw the toys in, scrub down the tub. I pass John in the hall afterwards.

"John, I didn't see any poop in the tub." John thinks anything remotely brown that's floating around in there must be poop. But I know how often I clean, so I'm betting on mold.
John replied, "I saw some on the mat so I wiped it up."*
"Oh."
So much for my mold theory. I'm too stoned on Benedryl to care about cleaning, but I can't help but think how different one's life is with toddlers. Before I had kids I never thought I would pick anyone's nose but my own, or willingly hold someone who was vomiting on me. 10 years ago I was celebrating New Year's in a bar. Now I'm lying in bed cursing the neighbors who bought fireworks. Ten years from now I'll have a teenager. Oh Lord... A teenager??!!

Life is going by way too fast for my taste.

*For those of you without kids yet, you don't want to know what he used to wipe it up with.

When it rains...

I hope all of my 4 readers had a great holiday (Hi Mom!).

In case there are those of you out there who had a holiday like mine, I just want to say "2011 will be better!"

Two weeks before Christmas John's work had a lovely dinner cruise for their employees. We had our great friend Laurie babysit, and we went on the cruise. We saw our good friends and had a lovely three course meal. Then we returned home where I spent the next eight hours purging my stomach of said meal.

The next day John took the kids and I had a true day of rest. For those of you with two in diapers, you know how unheard of this is. It was almost worth getting violently ill... until my 20 month-old daughter decided to dump an entire roll of toilet paper down the commode downstairs and thus flood our basement. Ah the joys of home ownership and begging our insurance company to cut us a check so we didn't have to pay $1200 out of pocket right before Christmas.

For the next two weeks I passed the stomach bug from hell onto both kids and my husband, making for a lot of sleepless nights and laundry. During this we also hosted a baby shower for good friends from southwest Virginia who are expecting twins. I am thankful that no one got sick who attended the party.

When the week before Christmas finally came, I was looking forward to traveling to my parents' house where I hoped things would calm down a bit and feel more like the holidays. Unfortunately, my parents got sick two days before Christmas, and we once again spread holiday germs throughout the family.

Now it's January 2nd and things are finally quiet. The kids are healthy (really hoping that's the case because Eric hasn't been in preschool for three weeks), John and I are healthy and somewhat rested, and I'm hoping that 2011 will be a year of prosperity and blessing to you and yours. As for us I hope 2011 will be the year of successful potty-training. :-)

Cheers everyone, and Happy New Year.