Public Bathrooms, Private Conversations

Luke came with me into the bathroom at the gym this morning. There were several other people in there.

He came in the stall with me, and he went the bathroom. He stands. My turn next. I don't stand. Which prompted Luke to ask (in his new 1000 decibel voice) ~

"Mama you gonna make a poop? Mama you gonna make a biiiiiiiig poop?".

I started to launch into an explanation of how, NO, girls go potty differently than boys do and Mama was going to go pee just like Luke did......... but halfway through my calm and enlightening anatomy lesson Luke yelled ~

"GOOD JOB MAMA! You did it Mama!, Mama you gonna wipe your butt?" and I simply could not even talk as I was laughing so hard. I heard laughter from at least two women around us. I felt confident that they had all been there at some point.

Maybe it's time we started working on more PC bathroom talk around our home.

Diego Drama

So. Luke seems to be wanting to potty train. I decided that rather than have him running around naked all day, we could create some excitement and go buy Luke some underwear. I mentioned that perhaps we could get some Diego underwear. Of course, Luke went CRAZY with this idea and was talking about his "Diego Unwear" all morning. I sweated the entire ride to Target ~ having never underwear shopped for a toddler, I had no idea if I would actually be able to procure Diego underwear. I had to ask three people to even find the kids underwear section, and when I did I immediately saw Diego's smiling face adorning a three pack of underwear. I never imagined that seeing a little cartoon character frolicking with a football on some tighty whities could so relieve and thrill me. Luke carefully selected three three packs (Spider man (which I thought funny as he has no idea who Spidey is), Diego, and Mickey Mouse). As I shopped with my two happily chatting toddlers, I had a flashback to one of my previous trips to Target. (I hardly ever go there, it overwhelms me, so my bi-annual trips always seem to be for some significant purpose). I was 39 weeks pregnant with Luke, on maternity leave, and bored. It hit me that I would need some "supplies" for the post partum birth joys. I waddled around Target, and spent about 30 minutes in the feminine hygiene aisle. I had no idea what to buy. I had never done this before. I was not familiar with the products, with what I would need, with what I should get. I had that 39 week pregnancy brain, making a decision seemed paralyzingly difficult. All around me harried Moms were pushing/pulling/dragging children around the store ~ all of whom seemed to be miserable. I had this one moment of sheer PANIC. Like, lose my breath type panic. I felt trapped. I felt like my brain didn't work, and likely would never work again and like I was facing years of wandering around Target with the look of a caged, cornered animal as I wrestled my impossible children into submission. I left the store, called my best friend (the mother of two small kids) in tears, asking her if this was all horrible and I was surely facing the end of life with the soon to be arriving baby. I asked her if I was going to die a slow sure death of Target shopping motherhood misery. She reassured me that life was not about to end. Anyway, 2.5 years later, the trip was actually fun. The kids were great, we picked out underwear, and my short term panic is something that I can just look back at and laugh at.

We got home and Luke immediately needed to try on his underwear. Each pair, in succession. He then determined that "Luke do dat" and insisted on putting on his own underwear. He frequently put both legs in one leg hole, and shimmied the underwear as far up his legs as he could. He then said ~ "Mama, HELP!" when he realized that he could not walk. Underwear went from thrilling to annoying to me in a space of about 15 minutes.

Tonight I put him to bed and went downstairs. About 10 minutes later he was crying and calling me, which never happens. I ran upstairs, and he told me he had to poop. Golf ball (puck is out and golf balls (2) in this week) in hand, I got him up on the toilet and sat down on the tub so that we could have a chat. I was thinking that getting his mind on something else might distract him and he would poop. He pee'd, we chatted about the Dog, and I heard a splash. I have to admit that I jumped up excitedly to peer into the toilet ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ only to see a golf ball in the toilet. No poop. "Oh Jeez" Luke said, as he looked up at me. Something overcame me. I don't know what happened. I blurted out, "Luke, can you poop on the golf ball?" ~ I don't know where that idea came from. Somewhere deep in the weird illogical part of my brain I was thinking that it might encourage him to go. Luke looked up at me, his eyes HUGE, and said "NO Mama! No go poop on Luke's golf ball!". I felt as though I had just asked a Priest to defile a Bible. I felt terrible. I had just asked my child to poop on his favorite thing in life. I started cracking up at the inanity of it all. One slatted spoon and some bleach later, Luke and his freshly cleaned golf ball were back in bed.

Leaving.

So Luke (in that first pic) looks about like I feel. Nana is sick. Tony and Carolyn are helping Nana, and childcare plans have been radically altered over the course of the past 4 hours. We are dealing. Thoughts or prayers for Nana (Nate's Grandmother, Carolyn's Mom) please.

I am both a wreck about leaving the kids, and thrilled at the prospect of doing so. I cried, yet packed with joy. Go figure.

I have managed to (I think) maintain the illusion that my house is neat and orderly, that the laundry is always sorted, and that everyone is always clean. At least, if someone showed up here at the moment, they might be fooled into thinking that (as per the plan of deception :).

Tonight I was giving the kids a bath. While I hand washed Jules dress in the sink, I heard Luke say ~

"Mama! Don touch da soap! No no nooooooo"

To which I said "you can touch the soap, just remember not to eat the soap" (Bar soap, long back story)
I heard ~ !"MAMA! LUKE EAT DAT SOAP! LUKE NO LIKE DAT SOAP. MAMA GETTITOUT, MAMAMAMAMAMAAAAAAAAAAA"

I approached the naked babies. One perfectly fat and pink cheeked, one growing increasingly more stringy and boy-ish with white stuff coating his chin, and encrusted on both his top and bottom teeth.

Mean Mama set in. "Luke, did you eat the soap?" said Mean Mama.

"Yah, in da mout" said Luke's bubbly little white crusted mouth, as he pointed to it fervently. (I will give Luke credit for being honest to a fault).

I sat there looking at him, while he kept his mouth open, drool running out, bar of soap still tucked firmly in hand, and giant tooth marked bite of soap laying on his slippery little thigh. I simply could not keep up the "Mean Mama" routine.

I washed his mouth out, while (mostly) hiding my laughter.

I am going to miss the ever loving CRAP out of you sweet kids. You seem to know that I am leaving, and you seem to be extra edible. Jules ~ You are just this little walking/talking blur of pink cheeks, blue eyes, and blond hair. Luke ~ You are just a funny little man. I will miss your sunny spirit.

I know that you are going to have a great time while I am gone. Thank you to everyone who is helping us with the kids!

And my very BEST Mothers Day present is going to be crawling into bed beside your warm, sleepy, heavy little body when I come home on Sunday night. Cause you know I am gonna.

Happy early Mothers Day all!

(Oh, the pic of Luke with the little plastic cup is his first endeavour with sprouting seeds. He wants to check the seeds at least 5 times a day. The other day, two sprouted (marigolds) ~ "MAMA~ TWO! TWO MAMA! TWO, IN DA DIRT!" This was him showing me his tender little sprouts )

Dr. Luke

I have a ton to catch up on, but this moment needed its own little post. Today we were at the Please Touch Museum with Christine and Ronan. One of the areas is a play hospital, complete with fake babies, Dr's coats, stethoscopes and the like. Julia, exhibiting a complete and utter lack of maternal instinct, picked up one baby, threw it on the floor, and delicately stepped over it.

Luke also went straight for a baby. He picked it up tenderly, by palming its head like a basketball. He promptly took off the babies clothes, and yelled, Mama! Baby Naked!". He then inspected the baby thoroughly, as a good Dr might. He turned the baby over, and declared with utter delight, "Mama! Baby Pooping!".

Dr Luke may need to brush up on some anatomy courses.

And anyway, since when did they start making baby dolls with penises? Has anyone ever encountered a plastic baby doll with baby boy goods?

I'm sitting here laughing out loud just writing about it. Poop Penis baby.

No Pee Pee in Julia's Eye.

We have bid adieu to the potty seat. We actually have three potty seats, two that are hand me downs and one that I bought. Two are being used as step stools (they have lids which turn them into stools, very convenient for hand washing and climbing up onto the toilet), and one is being used as a toy. In some sick twist, it has become a (bleached, cleaned) toy. It was a hand me down from our friends Kate and Tom, and sings, lights up, flushes, and pretty much does everything but cook dinner. Amidst a playroom full of toys, that potty is the toy of the week around here. I wake up with the "Toi-let paper, toi-let paper, on a ROLL! On a ROLL!" song running through my head all night long. Nothing quite so bizarrely sweet as watching your two kids play together around the glow of the plastic singing potty.


Luke climbs up on the toilet himself most of the time ~ insisting, "LUKE DO DAT!" the whole way, and uses it (seated)......then winds his naked, winter pale way down from the toilet, insisting "Luke DO DAT!". This makes for a lot of naked time in our house every morning and evening. It all started off a few weeks ago when Luke pee'd on the floor. "No pee pee on the floor, Luke" said I. Luke took that idea and ran with it. In the course of the last 12 hours here is a (literal) list of the places Luke has told me (in no uncertain terms) that he is NOT supposed to pee pee.

*No pee pee in the bath!
*No pee pee on the bubbles!
*No pee pee on Mama's shirt!
*No pee pee on Julia's towel!
*No pee pee in Julia's EYE! (he has taken the "don't touch the babies eye" thing to a new level with his insistence that no one, EVER, pee pee in the babies eye)
*No pee pee on Panda Bear! (the book of the week)
*No pee pee on the dog!
*No pee pee on the toothbrush!

So there you have it, folks. Luke's definitive list of places NOT to pee pee.

Snow Day

We awoke on Friday morning to a world awash in white. Now, I freely admit to being probably the least aware person in the world of what the weather forecast is supposed to be (I mean, who cares when you are a stay at home Mom with a roof over her head and infinitely flexible plans?), but I was totally shocked to see that it had snowed, and was snowing. Hard.

The storm seemed to be centered directly over our house. Literally. The roads in our immediate environs were insane, with accidents closing the road at both ends of our street, as well as the main roads near our house. It was nuts. We ended up with almost 5 inches of shocking, beautiful, lovely bright snow. I can't remember the last time that it snowed before Thanksgiving in this part of PA.

Luke was utterly enthralled with the sight of the falling snow, and kept pointing to the doors and windows yelling ~ "Know!!!!". When asked what color the snow was, he proudly proclaimed, "GEEN"! To me, it looked white, but whatever. Maybe he is artistic :) Jules didn't really seem to care about the snow, other than to love the way that it made the windows that much colder for her gnawing, gummy pleasure.

We bundled them up and took them outside to play all afternoon. Luke just laughed, laughed a lot. He also ate copious amounts of snow, proclaiming it " ooold".

Jules was so bundled in her snowsuit that I sat her down on the snow, she went to crawl, and fell face first into the snow as her straight jacket like snowsuit so encumbered her movement. Not kidding. The horror that I felt for her as I snatched her up was somewhat mitigated by the fact that I was laughing so hard, and so was she. Jules is one tough cookie.

I freely admit to being like a child when it comes to the glee I feel when I see snow. It just brings me joy. I loved sharing it with my kids. Apres snow play we came in for some hot chocolate and snacks, and then Nate and I went to the gym for some sauna/Jacuzzi/recovery from snow much fun time. When I had to pick up a wet Luke and a wet Julia I was holding well over 50 lbs. of squirmy child. Who needs to work out at the gym when you have two young babies? Having fun is fun, but having fun is really exhausting too!