Monday, January 5, 2009

And then there are days like today.

I love being a mom. Really I do. These two little men who rule my life have added so much depth and dimension to everything I do. Their discoveries as they grow and learn are constantly amazing me. My capacity for loving them astonishes me. They truly seem to shine with some kind of internal light I had never witnessed before becoming a mom.

And then there are days like today.

Let's just say that "today" started late last night. Big Dog suffering from the flu, had spent most of the day sleeping. When a reasonable bedtime rolled around, he was feeling better, bolstered by pedialite and tylenol and lo and behold he was no longer sleepy. Little Dog, worn out by his own precociousness, fell asleep at an unheard of 6:30 pm. Mr. Dog opted to put him in bed and he slept soundly. Soundly until 11:30 pm, at which point he was up and raring to go. Unfortunately for me, Mr. Dog was also suffering from the flu, so he was in bed. And though I was feeling some, um, digestive upset to put in gently, I was well enough to watch the boys. So I did. I watched them until 3 am when exhaustion won out and I exerted my maternal authority and forced them to bed. We struggled and argued, but finally managed to all fall asleep.

We slept until I was awaken by the sound of the nanny banging on the door. Seems that I slept past a normal waking hour and ended up running very late to work. Mr. Dog was still dragging from his night of vomiting so I made breakfast, washed dishes (remember my bastard dishwasher is still refusing to be modern or convenient) and rolled in to work very very late. Luckily the first day back after a two week shut down, this kind of thing goes largely unnoticed.

When I got home this evening, things seemed quiet. Mr. Dog was home, still feeling slightly sick, but watching football while the boys played on the SuperWhy website. I praised Little Dog on his potty training efforts of the day, which he disputed (Me: "Hey, I hear you went pee pee on the potty!" Him: "No I didn't" Me: "Really, NE says you did. That's great!" Him: "Nooo!") at which point he proceeds to pee on the floor. So within minutes of getting home I'm sopping urine off the playroom floor.

I cleaned up the mess, got him settled in clean underpants, reminded him that we pee in the potty then headed off to make dinner. I bring dinner to the family, Mr. Dog refuses because he's still queasy, the boys take the food but neither of them eat it. As I go to start my meal, the dogs get antsy. "They might want to go out," says Mr. Dog, with no explanation of why he hadn't let them out earlier, but since he's sick I decide to let it slide. So I head back downstairs to let the dogs out, wait a reasonable interval then call for them to come in. Dashiell comes right back, but Nikita, our stubborn little girl decides to hold out. Upstairs my dinner is getting cold as I call and call to no avail. I slip on some flip flops on the porch and go out to force her inside and step right into a big pile of steaming dog shit. In flip flops.

When I get back inside, I clean up, eat my dinner and try to read my book. Since there is a break in the football, Mr. Dog decides now is the time that I need to talk to him. Instead of initiating a conversation like a normal person, he starts making absurd statements to see if I'm listening. And I'm not, because I'm reading. So he keeps it up. Finally I look up thinking he is telling me something important. "What?" I ask. "I have a giant clown inside my head!" he says. WTF? "I was just testing to see if you were listening, but you were ignoring me." Um, yeah. I'm reading. And if football was on, and I tried to ask him anything he'd have been ignoring me too.

Anyhow, with Little Dog in underpants, it's time for him to go potty again. I suggest it. He jumps up and runs toward the bathroom, then decides to turn it into a chase. I'm not up for it. "Little Dog, I'm not going to chase you. You need to go sit on the potty," and he responds by jumping on the guest bed chanting "You gotta make me!" So instead of arguing, which never gets me anywhere, I decide I'll go do the dinner dishes and head to the kitchen. A few minutes later the boys come down with Mr. Dog. Little Dog had gone pee pee on the potty and wanted to tell me. Fantastic! "Want some raisins?" I ask as a method of positive reinforcement (yeah, he still thinks raisins are a treat) and he gets positively giddy. I give him a small bowl of raisins and one for Big Dog as well. Which Big Dog promptly spills all over the kitchen floor.

"It was an accident," he explains. I say that's fine and he seems to take that to mean "No, by all means leave the mess. Mommy just LOVES picking up after you," and goes back upstairs. Great. But then Little Dog decided to start picking them up. Cool! That's really helpful. Well it is until he starts putting them in the dog bowl, or eating them and spitting rejected raisins into the tupperware drawer.

At this point I make pudding. I need something chocolately to cope. Mr. Dog comes down to retrieve the errant child and I finish making our little dessert. When I get upstairs, both boys have eaten dinner, and are playing together so I sit down to enjoy my pudding solo. And in walks Big Dog, he has his Leapster and is swinging it around by the stylus. I ask him to stop because he is getting dangerously close to hitting Nikita with it. Does he stop? No. And in two more swings he whacks her right in the head. I scream. (Yeah, not cool, but I'm losing it.) He cries, I lecture, he apologises to the dog, I relent, we make up...all very emotional and exhausting. In the midst of this, Little Dog asks for pudding. I tell him if he pees in the potty, he can have some. He runs off and pees in the potty! Score. So he gets pudding and Big Dog and I celebrate our reconciliation with pudding too. And as I sit and enjoy my much needed chocolate rush, Little Dog say "Sorry! I spilled some on my pants." But he isn't wearing pants. When I look over his legs are smeared with chocolate pudding.

They are both in the bath now. And I'm blogging about this shit. It's almost funny when I read it. Almost.


Sarah Vasquez said...


Sounds like a positively shitty day.

Hopefully they go to bed at a reasonable hour tonight and you get a much needed break!

Jessica R. said...

Oh my. No, it's not funny, yet, but it might be one day. And anyway, it's great bribe material. You have it written in black and white that they owe you a nice big fat wonderful Mother's Day.
I hope tonight goes much, much better!

Anonymous said...

Here's to Tuesday being a better day than Monday. I know I could use it.

Beth said...

Stepping in warm dog crap is almost as bad as getting puke in your hair. Poor thing!

On the bright side, it sounds like real progress is being made in the "we pee in the potty" arena. Why even I'd pee in the potty for some chocolate pudding!

Have a better Tuesday!

geekymummy said...

I'm exhausted just reading this. But it is funny!

AnnetteK said...

Oh honey, you poor thing. No, days like aren't really funny until you can look back on them knowing you won't have any more LIKE them! I hope today was a better day!

LTYM said...

Oh, it's funny. From 1000 miles away, it's funny. Especially the flip flop incident. Hope your day's better today.


Green said...

Oh my god. That sounds awful.

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