Tuesday, February 26, 2008

The Pink Power Ranger

One night about 2 weeks ago, when he was supposed to be in bed and should have long since been asleep, my son got up to use the potty. Apparently, he got distracted on the way back to bed by some clothes that a friend had lent me for my daughter. They were sitting on the upstairs landing - not too far from the bathroom door, but definitely out of the way if he was on his way back to bed. As he perused the contents of the bag of clothes, he tried to put on a zip-up, "floaty-enhanced" pink swimsuit. Then, he got stuck in it and started crying.

Let me stop right here in the middle of the story to tell you that my son has night terrors. He's had them for years now. They occur more often when he's not on a good sleep schedule. We are having trouble maintaining a good sleep schedule right now, as he's trying to give up his afternoon nap. Go ahead, scroll down to the bottom and see how old he is according to the alligator. And yes, while most kids his age have given up the nap, he still takes one most days (lucky me!).

So, we heard him crying upstairs, and thought it was a plain old night terror. Go ahead and try to imagine our surprise when we walked into his room and saw him crammed into girls size 3 swimwear! Notice I said try, because you really can't imagine, and I can't do our reaction justice with words alone. To say we could not stifle our laughs is putting it extremely mildly. Of course, we pried him out of the thing as fast as we could (imagine taking the casing off of a 3.5-foot-tall sausage.....). He cried for at least another 10 minutes after we got it off of him (while Mom and Dad failed miserably to stop their bodies from shuddering with laughter).
Do you know how hard it is to sound comforting while your entire body is shaking because you are laughing so hard and trying at the same time to not laugh out loud? Thankfully, we kept the lights off (we could see well enough by his nightlight) or he'd have been much more upset.

By the way, do you know how badly I wanted to have my camera in the room to take a picture? But, my son's pride won out - putting this on the blog is bad enough, I think. By the way - the "Pink Power Ranger" thing is just between us, ok?

Alrighty, then!

For those of you who don't know my daughter, she's a bit headstrong. She has no problem letting you know what she wants, and she's getting more verbal (and more determined) every day. I know this will be of great benefit to her one day - but I mostly don't like it when she uses these tactics on me. After all, I'm the adult (most days). Well, tonight, this skill came in kind of handy for her - and for me!

Note: For those not accustomed to the very open dialogue moms often have about the bodily functions of children, stop reading now. You have been warned.

OK, so I'm reading a book while my dear daughter plays in the tub for a bit before the actual hair-and-body-washing-negotiations begin. Pretty normal, run-of-the-mill evening, right? We did our usual let-her-sit-on-the-potty-and-shove-tissue-squares-between-the-knees thing while I ran the water into her semi-bubbly bath. Then, she's ready to get into the bubbles and splash around a bit, and I pick up where I left off months ago in "How to Make Your Children Mind Without Losing Yours." I'm making pretty good headway for not having picked the book up in ages - still awake enough that I'm not reading the same sentence over and over without it making any sense - when my growing girl says, "pee pee." I look at her - notice she's holding herself "there" - and say, "Yes, that's where the pee pee comes from," and go back to reading. She waits a moment more and does it again. So, only partly concerned that I'm about to open the door to more potential tp waste, I ask her if she wants to sit on the potty and try to pee pee. "Hessssss!" is her enthusiastic response. (In 20-months-old-today-speak, that's a big 'ol "Yes!") So, on the potty again, dripping wet from the tub. She asks to wrap up in a towel (a trick she learned at her last bath when I put her on the potty post-bath and was afraid she'd get cold. She's got a bit of a track record with peeing on the floor after bath time if she doesn't get a diaper fast enough. I thought I'd give it a shot, you know? So far, nothing doing.... But I digress....). So, she gets the towel and milliseconds later, asks for some tp. I give her a few squares, then take it off the holder so she can't waste too much more, since she can reach the holder from her perch atop the BIG potty. Then, she gives me back the towel and suddenly, she's
actually peeing in the potty! She goes a bit, then stops - and I'm woo-hooing and clapping and have that huge, silly, mommy-grin - then goes a bit more and stops, then a bit more before she's done. The house is quiet enough that I can actually hear that there's something going into the potty. The whole time, I'm clapping and woo-hooing, she's grinning and clapping, too. Then, while we are clapping hands and all excited, she says, "Toot toot." Yep - the girl passed gas, too, and told me all about it! And all the while, the boys are downstairs, oblivious to all of the celebrating going on upstairs. So, we had our just-the-two-of-us celebration, then shared the news with the boys once my little one was wrapped in a nice, dry towel.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

A Tail of Epic Proportions

No, folks, that's not a typo up there. I really mean tail. Let me explain....

It was a dark and snowy evening (really!). As I piloted the mommy-van home from church this evening, I was struggling to see through a foggy windshield - the heavier-by-the-minute snow not aiding me one bit. Suddenly, I see a small, furry animal in the road ahead of me. A million (well, ok, only several) things flashed through my mind at once:
- "Move small, furry animal - I don't want to hurt you!"
- "Outta my way, small, furry animal - I don't want to kill an animal with kids in the car!" Not that I ever want to kill small furries, but my son and I have had lots of talks about Heaven and dying of late, and I am not interested in him being around for the actual moment of death.
- "Ewww, yuck!" - in the event of an actual mommy-van v. small furry encounter.

Yep, you guessed it. After small furry's attempt to get out of my way, and my attempt to not hit small furry by pressing firmly on the brakes and trying to steer around it (darn that foggy windshield and the headlights of oncoming traffic), well, small furry lost. But - can you imagine that there is more to this story?!? Oh, yes! Not only did I hit a small, furry creature while my entire family was riding along with me - small furry was a SKUNK!

Soooo - 2 carwashes later (yes, on a dark and snowy night I took the mommy-van to a touch-free carwash and parked my front wheels over the undercarriage wash until it timed out), a bottle of super-strong odor-eliminator (not just that stuff you get at Target), and 30+ minutes (in the snow) emptying the car of everything that could take on skunk odor, the mommy-van still stinks. I even went out (on a dark and snowy night) to buy a new air filter. Oh, yeah, there is plenty of skunk funk in the AC filter! When I took out the glove compartment to change the filter, the odor was much stronger. However - oh, yeah, still more to story - the directions apparently don't match my particular mommy-van. So, I'll be taking it to the dealer tomorrow to let them change the stinking thing (literally, it stinks!). They will love me. Just in time for Valentine's Day.