Tiny Dancer

My son is wearing a pair of pajama bottoms and a onesie. The onesie is snapped on the outside of his pants. Sort of like a really bad tribute to Madonna. Or a really really bad ballet dancer.
Why you ask is my son dressed like a strange girl?
Let me tell you.
My son has this fun game he likes to play where he goes off into another room quietly craps his pants, digs in there with his hand and then comes running up to me with his hand out to show me.
Kind of like a cat marching with pride up to his owner with a dead bird in his mouth to show off his hunting prowess.
Only instead of a cat.
Its my 2 year old.
And instead of a dead bird.
Its shit.
And no fewer than three times in as many days I have been given the stink finger.
So I embarked on a journey to find the right outfit to deter the doodoo mining.
First I tried the onesie thinking that since every time I turned my back, my son had his hand down the back of his diaper like his butt was a dyke and he was the little dutch boy. Well that didnt work. He poked his fingers through the leg openings. Next I put a pair of pants on over the onesie.
Butt covered.
Legs covered.
Wrong.
Being the little homo sapien that he is. He just took his pants off. Leg opening once again made available for easy crap extraction.
Ok, onesie with overalls. Deterred him for an afternoon, until I caught him standing in front of the TV, with both hands down the sides of the overalls grinning with pride.
This my friends, is why my child is now running around in what looks like a leotard with ill fitting leggings underneath. Took me a while, but I think I am finally one step ahead of my child.
At least until he learns how to work the snaps....

Kitchen Bitchin

My husband found a deal on line for this free video game and downloaded it to my computer. Its cute. Its this girl who runs a bakery and you have to wait on each customer, get their order right, and get them out the door as quickly as possible. Of course it gets progressively more difficult the further along you get. The orders are more complicated and the customers are in a hurry. You will eventually screw up and tick someone off.
I have wasted a small chunk of my life playing this game.
Then it dawned on me I spend a larger chunk of my life playing this game in real life. It hit me when I was getting dinner ready for my kids.
One child is protesting dinner and sitting in the family room. I get the other kid in a booster seat and hand him his bowl of pasta. He starts eating, and I go back to preparing dinner for my husband and myself. My son then tells me he is thirsty. I prepare him a cup of chocolate milk and go back to the stove. My 4 year old hears the words "chocolate" and "milk" and comes in asking for some. I tell him as soon as he is ready to eat his dinner, he can have some. He agrees.
I give him a bowl of pasta and go back to my dinner.
Im reminded that I have chocolate milk to prepare.
I make said beverage. Back to my dinner prep.
My other child who has been quietly eating his pasta like a caveman, decides he doesn't like the resulting mess on his hands and holds his hands out for me to wipe them.
Dinner prep once again abandoned for a quick hand wipe.Then as I go back to the stove I hear the sound of pasta hitting the ground. Then a bowl hitting the ground. And finally a sippy cup of chocolate milk hitting the ground.
I stop what I'm doing and clean up the mess, then clean up the kid. He decides he is not done and wants his cup back.
I could go on here but I think you get the idea. From the moment they sat down to eat until the moment they were done and walked out, I was going back and forth fixing something, wiping something, retrieving something etc.
*click*
*click*
*CLICKCLICKCLICKCLICK*
Damn mouse doesn't work in the kitchen. How do I turn this game off? I dont wanna play anymore!

Transcript from Hell

kid 1 to kid 2: Shush!
me to kid 1: Don't tell him to shush, that's not nice.
kid 2 to kid 1: You shush!
me to kid 2: Don't you tell him to shush now. That's not helpfu-
kid 1 to kid 2: Shush!
me to kid 1: NO! That's a NO NO!
kid 2 to kid 1: Yeah! No No!
me to kid 2: STOP IT!
kid 1 to me: Stop!
Kid 2 to kid 1: NO! YOU STOP!
me to everyone: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

I reiterate: Trying to discipline a toddler with a preschooler around is like trying to swim up a waterfall.

Dog Poo

Somewhere in the fine print at the very bottom of the contract you unknowingly sign when you push a human being out of your body it states that you have to explain death to your children.
I assumed telling them that Fido ran away (as did great Aunt Ethel and the guy down the street) was a good route to take. By the time they figured out the truth, they would have seen enough bad programming or played enough video games to know what really happens right? Ok, so apparently you cant do that..PFFT!
Our 13 year old dog took a turn for the worse and we knew the inevitable was coming and coming fast. So I dragged the kids to a book store, asked the guy for "books about dogs (whispered 'dying')". He nodded and pointed us in the right direction. I couldnt decide, so I grabbed three and went home.
I sat my son down and felt like I was tricking him, since he eagerly sat down expecting to hear a story about dogs and probably some fun adventures. I just imagined him listening to me and thinking "What? What the hell is this? The dog is dead? He is in a hole in the ground? The kid is crying? What is this shit?"
He took it all really well, so I assume he didn't really get it. But who am I to force the issue? When I was done, I explained a little about our dog and how he was very old and didn't feel very good, and I took him by the hand and led him out to the garage so we could pet the dog and see that he wasn't in great shape. My youngest who was playing in the corner got up and followed us into the garage. When we got back into the kitchen he was holding his hand out. I assumed he wanted me to hold his hand now too. So I grabbed a finger or two, led him through the kitchen and then let go. I was still talking with my 4 year old trying to make sure I wasn't scarring him for life and ruining any chance of ever sleeping peacefully again. So we went back into the living room, my 22 month old in tow. He is still looking like he wants my attention. I look at him and he holds his hand up at me again.
Im trying to find a funny picture of our dog from earlier times and so in a hurry I shake his hand and say "Nice to meet you!" and go back to flipping through the album.
And then it hits me.
The smell.
Coming from my hand.
And it all started to make sense.
He did not want me to hold his hand like I just did with his big brother. No. He didn't want to shake my hand either. Nope. What he did want however was to show me that while I was busy dancing the death talk tango, he was quietly in the corner doing his own little number (two). And he had the proof on his hand. And now MY hand!
Perhaps he sensed I was struggling with the topic and wanted to lighten it up a bit. I guess I should thank him.
Thanks. :/

Wet Floor and Drywall

I like to think that as my son stands in time out with his face crammed in the corner that he is thinking about why he is there.
Like maybe he is thinking about how it might not have been a very good idea to take an unopened fruit cup, walk into the kitchen where his mom is loading the dishwasher and announce "Watch out!! Flying peaches!!!" while simultaneously hurling the fruit cup into the air towards her. And that as the fruit cup travels through the atmosphere in slow motion and makes a hard landing, splits open and ejects its contents violently all over the floor, and he goes from excitement to immediate fear when he sees his mothers face wrinkle up and the door of the dishwasher fall open as she charges him like a bull whose sees the matador has tripped in the dirt, that maybe, just maybe...he should have thought this thing through a bit more.
But no.
Most likely he is thinking, "I wonder what this wall tastes like?"
Lick.
"Not bad."
Lick.
Lick.

Like Sands Through the Hourglass

My husband took the day off. My first inclination was to get dressed and sneak out of the window and leave him with the kids so I can sit in a Starbucks somewhere and just be.
Then I decided on something a little less selfish and suggested we take a drive to the lake and let the kids splash around in the water. So we pack up and head out.
This being California and in, I dunno, year 40 of a drought, the lake level was really low. This meant the hike from the car down to the water was significantly longer.
We grabbed the stroller, the kids and dog and start down the hill.
About 20 feet in, my 4 year old starts to feel the sand creeping into his sandals and is not impressed with the sensation. So he starts to complain. He hops onto the stroller my husband is pushing and it immediately sinks into the sand and stops. So he gets off and grabs my hand and asks me to carry him.
Um. hell no.
I tell him I have the dog and I cant carry him and he can just rinse his feet off in the water when we get to it. I point to the lake and remind him why we are here.
Keep your eye on the prize buckaroo! Eye on the prize!!
"I dont want to go to the lake! I want to go home! I dont want to go to the lake! I want to go home!!"
Im being pulled by the dog who is trying to keep up with my husband who is pulling the stroller backwards through the sand and rocks at breakneck speed trying to get to the water as quickly as possible. My youngest is sitting in the stroller, cheeks bouncing up and down and he has this look on his face like "WTF."
My 4 year old is wailing behind me and acting like we are walking through glass and fire. I look back at him and he has this drool strand hanging off of his lip and flapping in the wind.
All I could do at this point was laugh. Im cracking up at the whole scene. It was something straight out of a Chevy Chase movie.
After what seemed like an eternity, we finally made it to the waters edge. And thankfully everyone ended up having a great time. But man, did we have to work for it.

Pot-Bellied Pig

I am on a mission. I have been rummaging through my sons old baby clothes looking for onesies. I thought that he had outgrown them, but I see a huge glaring need for them once again.
I cannot keep his hand out of his diaper.
Its there. All the time. Walking around, sitting, sleeping even.(I had to take a picture of him sleeping like that. Need to fatten the blackmail photo album in preparation for the teen years.)
Apparently there is a fear running rampant among men that at any given moment, their man parts could fall off. They have to keep close tabs on them at all times.
Step, step. Check. Step, step. Check.
He looks like a little Al Bundy. All he needs is a remote in the other hand.