Sunday, June 29, 2008

Flashbacks...

This afternoon I'm not feeling terribly well. In fact, I'm feeling quite terrible! I woke up this morning looking somewhat like a cyborg or something-the left side of my face was swollen so badly that my eye was just a slit and when I smiled it was rather scary looking: one side turned up, the other turned down! So off to Dr. I went to be prescribed an antibiotic to treat a "rather acute sinus infection."
Fast forward to now: I'm feeling a little bit duh-headed and just can't seem to snap out of it so I keep laying on the sofa and sort of dozing off. I woke up to hear Little One was on the middle of the kitchen table sitting naked on top of a massive pile of cheesies. She had just thrown a glass plate off of the table and it was smashed into many little bits. So I cleaned it up and while picking up the mess I had to retrieve a new roll of paper towels from the pantry to get the job done. You see, for some reason I thought that wet paper towels would catch the tiniest little particles of glass that I was sure were lurking under the table. Wet paper towels pick up everything, right?
So now I decided to sit with Little One on the sofa and snuggle for a minute which translated to me falling asleep and her pooping her pants. And nobody could find the wipes. Diaper bag is in the car, hubbie is out. Still, I can manage, #1 fetches the paper towels. Mess somewhat taken care of, I decide (oh so NOT cleverly) to give her bottom a rinse in the bathroom sink. The sink where my older two have spat large quantities of Sponge Bob toothpaste this afternoon upon discovery that I had purchased a travel size tube for a little trip we're going on this weekend. Little One's backside now has blue and white streaks but at least she smells like bubblegum--that's better than what she smelled like 5 minutes ago!
All diapered up, sink scrubbed down, backside nice and clean and now things are looking relatively normal. I decide to check my email. I must seriously be in a fog and not hearing anything because I turn around LITERALLY 2 minutes later and that brand new roll of paper towels is now spread from the living room to the kitchen and back into the bathroom and now an empty cardboard tube is lying on the floor behind the sofa. As I was cleaning up this mess it made me think of a recent post by Bridget, a lovely gal who is deliciously pregnant. I have to confess, I do love preggo belly. I am an intensely private person and I think I've only touched someone else's baby belly once in my life but something about the pregnant silhouette just makes me mushy. I really enjoy watching the journey that women go on as that little baby develops right inside mama's warm bun oven! It's so exciting and while I've taken the journey 3 times myself I still feel my skin come alive when I'm near pregnant women--it's like electricity in the air, all that vitality and newness of life and knowing that they're nourishing a precious little gift inside them. OK, enough!
So as I was cleaning, I thought of a recent post by Bridget and had a vivid flashback to spring last year that I thought I'd share with you. Honestly I hadn't really shared it before because my landlady sometimes reads my blog and I didn't want her to be terrified when she read it but she's a pretty cool lady and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that she understands. After all, she's got two little ones of her own that keep her pretty busy!
Let's see, Little One was about 10 or 12 days old and hubby had decided to go to Albany for the evening, leaving me home for roughly 7 hours with the 3 little mohicans. Well, I popped in a brand new movie to watch with the little angels and I actually cried (it was a cheesy Barbie movie too, you know it had to be the hormones) watching it. All was well and good until I fell asleep with the baby in my arms on the sofa. I don't know how long I was out of it but it couldn't have been more than half of an hour. I woke up to the terrifying sound of running water and a little kid slipping and falling on her bum in the kitchen. Rather than bolt upright and race to the scene of the crime, I tried to gently ease the baby onto the sofa and then race to investigate. I cannot tell you what the two monkeys had been doing, but I can describe to you what I found and what I surmise they had done.
From my refrigerator to the other end of my kitchen there was a vast sea of chocolate and strawberry syrup. And a puddle of water. And a brand new, off white, organic cotton bath towel that was no longer brand new or off white which now was swirled into a puddle of syrup on the floor. There were footprints that led to the bathroom where the sink was left running and chocolate fingerprints lined the wash basin. There were two sticky, drippy cups out and about--one on the bathroom counter, one rolling across the kitchen floor. And two naked children... wet, sticky, slimy, pink and brown naked children.
Dazed, I grabbed some cruddy beach towels and threw them down on the floor to start mopping up the mess. The naked children were placed in the shower along with my once off white, recently new organic cotton towel. I sprang into action, cleaning, scrubbing, sopping, lecturing, etc.
Here is how I envision this scene going down: One child says to another child, "Hey, want some chocolate milk?" To which child # 2 replies, "No, I'd prefer a tall glass of strawberry milk, I do find it rather refreshing." Two little monkeys then scurried off to the refrigerator, grabbed the syrup and popped the little squirt tops open with their teeth. Upon tasting the sweet syrup straight, they decide to leave the milk alone and it's bottoms up with the Nesquik. Hmmm, this stuff makes quite a mess on clothing, maybe it'd be better if we got naked to drink it, that way Mom won't observe any evidence on our clothes and our little indulgence will go undetected. They strip. Somewhere in the action, a drop of syrup hits the floor. Ooh, now that was fun. Now I can see them having squirting wars with the bottles of syrup as those were also brand new.... I'd be pretty willing to bet money that you could squirt the strawberry syrup a good 4 or 5 feet, easy. After the joy of the squirt-a-thon as worn off the see that they've created quite a mess. Hmmm.... Let's go get a towel to clean this up... enter BRAND NEW towel. The towel just isn't cutting the mess so they decide that water will wash it all away and nobody will ever know the difference. Hence the bucket brigade of topless sippy cups that was used to pour water over the whole sloppy mess. At this juncture the floor became slippery instead of just sticky, causing a toddler-esque bum to fly up into the air and cause a loud thud when gravity pulled that bum back down to the ground. Enter disoriented Mom.
Yeah, that was a fun night. If anyone thinks you can mop up that sticky mess off the floor, think again. You have to get down on your hands and knees and scrub every square inch of that linoleum. On the bright side of things, I felt perfectly fine the next day when I picked up a piece of grilled cheese sandwich off of the floor and confidently reintroduced it to my kid's palate. It may have hit the floor but that sucker was CLEAN!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow! That absolutely tops my what-my-kid-did-when-mom-took-nap story. All that I've got is the time the 3-year-old colored her entire face with a purple marker (she had been watching Barney).
The Barbie movie ... it didn't happen to be "Barbie and the Diamond Castle"? We've been on the hunt for that one, which I'm sure is a classic.

Bridget said...

Holy Cow, that story had me cracking up- though I'm sure it wasn't funny at all at the time. Thanks for sharing, it makes me feel better about my nap story but it's still too fresh to share. Mine hasn't become funny yet ;o).

Anonymous said...

Okay I am Laughing SOOO hard here!!!! Your ol land lady has some funnies along with some serious messes that have been made in her house as well (she's got the pictures to prove it!!!) When you are "out of it" it's amazing the things that the lil munchkins can do. Our latest involved our son making oatmeal for his lil' sis....all over the kitchen...and the dining room....and the bathroom=) Can't wait till munchkin #2 walks...oh wait, yes I can!!!!

Anonymous said...

hee-hee!! Love all the cute stories!! makes my week and my cheeky kiddies antics pale in comparison! You gave be a good giggle - thanks!!

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