Ew--Part II

I really hope all kids are this disgusting and it's not just mine:

Earlier this evening I was sitting outside with the kids while they were playing in the baby pool. We put bubble bath in it so they were really having a blast. I even fill it up with warm tap water from the kitchen so they don't have to play in freezing water from the hose. See? That should be enough to keep them entertained for at least a few minutes, right?

I had to run inside for literally 2 minutes (just so you know, we have a big, tall, secure fence around our yard so it's not like the kids are free to roam around the neighborhood or anything), and as I was walking back towards the door I noticed that Sarah was on the patio playing. So I started scanning for Patrick and I saw him calmly approaching the patio. Oh good; everything's fine.

About 5 minutes later we were all inside and I was drying them off and I noticed Patrick had mud smeared all over his upper thigh. I was wiping it away with my bare hand when it dawned on me that I was wiping poop. Obviously I immediately tossed him onto the bath and scrubbed him down. I was about to pluck him out when I realized that he still stunk! It was then that I saw a leaf glued to his hair with...yup...you guessed it...Poop.

During the time that I was finishing bathing Patrick I heard the front door open. The front door opening is cause for concern as there is no fencing and many lead-footed teenagers who think they can drive better than they actually can. So I hurriedly dried PatPat and ran to the window to determine the quickest route to grab Sarah. OH NO!! Where is she!? I was not quite to the panic stage, but getting close when I suddenly spotted a little pink-clothed body laying perfectly still in a pile of leaves. She is in a phase right now and she plays dead a lot (?). By the way it has rained here for the past 3 days and those leaves were not at their freshest. Yuck! Is it just my kids or is this kind of stuff normal??

Wanna See What Happens...

...when I sit down for 10 minutes to nurse? This is my little girl, Sarah. She looks very innocent and harmless in this photo, right? The other night she was having a tea party by herself and she went into the bathroom after I sat down to nurse Patrick. I heard the water running and didn't think much of it; I figured she was rinsing her teacups or making new "tea". This is quite common and normally not cause for alarm. The only mess she usually makes is water on the floor and around the sink which is no big deal.

Not this time. When I became suspicious and went to investigate this is what I found:

Yeah, it's shaving cream. A lot of it. As in Rick's ENTIRE supply. And this used to be a candle:

And here's what's left of the cream and our toothpaste:

Then while I was cleaning this mess up Sarah went into the kitchen, opened the dishwasher, climbed up on the counter, and rummaged through the cabinets until she came across my supply of emergency chocolate. Hey, at least she was generous enough to share with her brother!:

If you are very observant you may have noticed that in the pictures the kids are in their jammies. So that means they had already had baths, and I was ready to put them in bed. Needless to say, bedtime was a bit delayed that night...

I have a cleaning suggestion if you ever find yourself with a bathroom covered in a shaving cream-toothpaste blend: Don't spray it with Windex (or whatever cleaning spray you use) until you have wiped as much excess off with paper towels as possible. The Windex just makes it worse somehow. And just toss the candle. It's easier to replace it than trying to scrape cream and paste out of it and save the wick.

Yesterday Rick came home from work sick so I banished him to the bedroom in an attempt to keep the sicky germs isolated. Men are sooooo funny when they're sick. When the mom is sick nobody cares--dinner still needs to be cooked, the laundry doesn't quit piling up, and kids certainly don't behave. When the dad's sick? Whole different story-he has a little cold and you'd think he's on his deathbed. The pitiful way he moans and calls for drinks and needs so much TLC. I know I am mean for laughing at his misery, but I seriously can't help it. It's my passive-aggressive way of thinking how unfair it is. I would love to be sick if it meant he would take over the household and childcare duties and I could sleep in bed for hours uninterrupted!

Here's my main reason for writing: while Rick was watching TV I had the kids in the kitchen running amok helping me fix something to eat. Sarah and I were chatting about babies and I was asking her if she remembered when Patrick was "in my belly". She didn't, but she was very interested in the concept of a baby growing inside of a belly. She had a very confused look on her face and rubbed my admittedly slightly pooching belly and asked, "baby?". I should have been offended, but I wasn't-I just said, "No, there's no baby in there yet." She paused contemplatively and looked at me. A look of understanding came upon her face and then she stretched her arm behind me and patted my very spacious butt and asked again, "Baby?". Okay, that time I was offended.

Ew.

I cleaned out my car the other day because it was starting to smell funny and I was losing the kids in there. No, really. They came up with a new game: they'd get in the very back seat (we have a Yukon XL) and lay on the floor very still and see how long it took me to find them. I knew it was time to clean it when we had to go to the car every morning to find clothing to wear.


It was ridiculous-I've seen my car messy before, but nothing like this. I actually felt shame. It honestly didn't seem like it had been that long since I'd cleaned it out? If there had been some massive natural disaster I could have easily fled the house and we could have survived for a couple of months with no problem. You name it, I had it in that vehicle. See for yourself:

(Notice the mouthwash...cause you never know when you'll need minty-fresh breath!)

And here's a bunch of clothes on the other side:That was just the stuff I had to bring in. There were two garbage bags full of trash, too. I know-yuck! I found what I think was a McDonald's chicken nugget from long ago, a sippy cup that I wrote off as lost, about $15 in change, a Hershey's bar that looked alarmingly a little too much like poop smashed in the floorboards, among other things.

So after 4 hours of cleaning you'd think I would have learned right? Wrong. Don't look in my car right now...it's getting scary again. What is it with the car? Oops...dinner's burning...