5 Minutes Can Change Everything

It was a long day. I signed up to go on Kiddo #1's first field trip; I'd never been to an apple orchard, but had romantic notions of cute pictures and frolicking amongst the trees and whatnot, so I signed the form.

I was given a group of 3 little girls, one of which was my own daughter, and I brought Kiddo#2 along, too. Everything was fun and frolicky (?) and the kids all had fun. And I, a teacher, a professional kid-minder, was the only volunteer who (temporarily) lost a child. Sigh.

So, as I said, it was a long day.

I got home, tired and having half an asthma attack from the hay barn we all played in (I have a randomly severe allergy to dust and, as luck would have it, the kids all played in the super dusty hay barn. It was fun and frolicky (? I don’t know. It’s colicky from colic, so shouldn’t it be frolicky from frolic?) so I had to be in the middle of it all taking pictures. But it made me tired from the breathing difficulties.

When I went to take Kiddo #1 home (I let her ride the bus back from the orchard to school with her friends-- I remember that being the best part of a field trip) she cried because she couldn't ride the bus home, too, which made it a longer day.

And Kiddo #2 had gone the entire day without more than a 45 minute nap twice (he's a power sleeper normally). And, frankly, I'd gone the entire day without a nap (I'm also a power sleeper normally). So, yes, it was a long day.

I got home with Kiddo #1 still kinda weepy from not taking the bus, but excited at the same time because she found, and brought home in her hand on the bus, 6 lady bugs which were transferred to one of her lunch box containers and which were now buzzing around my car because "I have to open it Momma-- there's one that isn't moving and I need to see if it's dead."

It wasn't dead, in case you care. None of the other five were, either, and they are now finding wonderful places to hibernate in my pit of a car. Lucky duckies.

So it was a long day. And I didn't have any sort of dinner plans or ideas or, as it turns out, food. But I couldn't quite get to any of that because Kiddo #2 was crying-- when he teethes he gets ferocious sores on his bum (Kiddo #1 did, too.) and I'd thought we could put him and Kiddo #1 in a bath with Epsom salts to fix his bum and to just get the hay and debris off both of them before bedtime.

I looked in my bathroom and remembered that we were out of Epsom salts. I nixed the bath for now and decided I'd send Hubby out for salts after dinner. Dinner. Yes. Frickin' dinner.

Pouring Cheerios into four bowls, I declared dinner prepared and went to snuggle the kiddos. Hubby came home. We ate. It was a long, tiring day for everyone. 

 And then, Hubby realized he needed contact lens solution so he could play his first Volleyball game later that night. And then, Hubby realized we're out of dog food (which is probably why the dog was holding her dish and pointing to the cavern of emptiness all this time, but I was too tired to figure it out). 

So he said, "Uh, Wifey, can you go get me some contact lens solution? Oh, and we're out of dog food."
And I said, "Seriously? I've had the longest day of my life. Can you please go get it? Oh and we need Epsom salts so the kids can have a bath."
And he said, "Well, sure. What kind of dog food do we get?" I looked at him and realized that I had no idea. I just get the bag with the dog on it and the aquamarine colour. I couldn't even tell him the first letter of the name. Frick. Well played, husband, well played.

I rolled my corpse into the standing position and smiled and said, "Ok. I'll get the stuff. You stay with the kids." The dialogue rolling through my head was not smiley or nice, but I was tired and when I'm tired I feel like the whole world needs to kiss my booty a little bit, and perhaps could light on fire and be hit by a big bus.

I've learned it's best to just think those things, though.

I said, "Well, can you unload and load the disher and then check on the pump for the pond? It's not working but it's plugged in. I think it's a shorted wire thing." Bwah haa haa. He couldn't say no because I was going out to get his stuff. Winner declared!

So, I went to the bulk food store and got some Epsom salts. I also walked every aisle and got some candy for a Thanksgiving craft I'm making this weekend. Then I meandered to the pet store and found the dog food bag. And, as I was giving them my phone number for their frequent buyer program, it occurred to me that I could've sent Hubby in here with my cell number and they could've looked up what we buy. Sigh.

Then I sauntered to Walmart and walked semi-quickly through that store to find the contact lens solution. I say semi-quickly because if you walk at a slow pace, you will be there for several hours. And there were roughly 10 thousand families there trying to buy Kleenex (or something for their crying, screaming children) and I didn't want to spend the night listening to that.

After about an hour, I drove home and brought in the things we needed. I came around the corner and began dumping Epsom salts into my giant bowl (I add essential oils to them so they smell wonderful). Husband came around the corner holding Kiddo #2 and looking frazzled.

"You ok?"
His eye bugged out of his head, which I took for a negative response.
"What happened?"
"Well, you may have noticed the dishes have been unloaded and loaded."
"Yes." What did he want? An award? (ok, I was still a little bitter apparently)
"Well, after I did that, the baby was sleeping, so I decided to go outside and check on the pump. I fiddled around with the plug and, yep, there's something wrong with the wiring like you thought."

"Ok. What do you think I should do? Should we get a whole new pump or try to fix it?" I was busily adding lavender and lemongrass drops to the salts and stirring them together.
"Oh wait. I wasn't finished." I looked up; his eyes got big again. "I was out there for all of 5 minutes, and when I came in, the baby was crying."
"Ok."
"Well, he was doing that "I've been left alone and my feelings are hurt" cry that he does, so I went in and changed his diaper and his butt is raw."
"Yep, that's why I'm sitting here mixing the Epsom salts."
"Well, then he started really screaming when I tried to put more cream on his butt."
"Yeah. He gets all wound up sometimes."
"Well, I finally got the new diaper on and came to the kitchen to get him some milk."
"Uh-huh."
"Well, I'm pouring the milk and I hear "Daaaaadddy? Daaaaaad?" over and over again. So I set the baby on the floor and go to find Kiddo #1."
"Ok."
"You will never guess what I found."
"Um. Did she have a giant spider in her hand that she found somewhere and wanted you to get her a container to put it in?"
"Nope."
"Am I on the right track?"
"Nope."
"Ok. Was her video done and she wanted a different one?"
"Nope."
"Was she looking for Pinkie Poodle?"
"Nope. She'd shit her pants."

"Whaa-haaat?" I started to giggle. Husband cracked a smile and said, "Yep, not only had she shit her pants, but when I came around the corner, she'd filled the bowl, too. And she was calling me for help because she knew she couldn't move because of the mess in her tights and panties."

I was on the floor doubled over in laughter. I mean, crying, can't breathe laughter. The vision of my husband, trying to fix the pond pump only to come in and have everything unravel in a matter of 5 minutes, for some reason, was KILLING me. I was even doing that Old Man wheezy laugh-turns-to-cough laugh. Hysterical.

“Oh no. She must be sick from the long, tiring day.” (she never, ever has accidents, least of all this kind, unless she’s got a flu bug lurking around.) 

And, on a side note, it’s nice to read how loving I sound when I read those words, because when I said them, I was in the middle of laughing my butt off so they didn’t sound very sincere at the time, despite the intention. 

Husband nods and proceeds with his story.

"And, as I'm trying to figure out what to do next, the baby starts screaming in the kitchen. So I said, "Kiddo #1, try and get yourself cleaned up while I get Brother some milk and I'll be right back." I got the baby some milk and put him in his high chair and returned to find Kiddo #1 standing over the toilet, not quite clean because she couldn't really reach parts of the problem, but now she's out of toilet paper and every last square of it is also in the toilet bowl." Now I'm laughing like a fire engine.

"When, my darling, was the last time YOU had to reach into a toilet bowl full to the brim?" Oh that's it. I can't handle it. Now I'm howling. I'm leaning on the kitchen counter for support. The tears are dripping down my face and ... legs (That's new. How novel. Another bonus from Motherhood methinks).

Instant Karma is all I can think about. That's what you get for not knowing what type of dog food we buy, Husband! Hardy har har!

But, 24 hours later (with several of those 24 hours spent sleeping), and I think it was something else. I was so pissy about having to go out to get dog food, contact lens solution and Epsom salts, but I think instead of instant karmic retribution unfolding on my Husband (which isn’t the way karma works anyway), I think it really was the universe conspiring to make sure I got the heck out of the house and away from this mess before it happened. The universe could sense that if I'd been there for all this, I would have first, looked for hidden cameras and second, packed a carry-on suitcase for Mexico that very minute.

I think it happened for Husband because his telling of the story would make both of us laugh at the insanity of the situation; after the long tiring week we had, laughter was exactly what the Doctor ordered. Once we got everyone bathed (in wonderful smelling Epsom salts) and into bed, Husband and I looked at each other and started laughing again. Husband got into his Volleyball gear and went out to relieve some frustrations and I snuggled into bed to play Plants Vs. Zombies on my iPod.  I giggled, replaying the story in my head, while the game loaded and promptly fell asleep. 

Like I said, it was a long, tiring day. 

To get automatic updates via email, scroll down to "subscribe by email" and follow the directions.  If you landed here looking for Tangled birthday party stuff, click on the archive for June 12th, 2011. Thanks! 

Suddenly I See Why The Hell It Means So Much To Me

As I sit at our craft table, downstairs in the basement, surrounded by: gold glitter, 1.3 million buttons and roughly 30 Styrofoam balls in various stages of being covered with chunky yarn, I feel tranquil. Kiddo #1 sits beside me doing her "music homework" which consists of colouring a fireman, gluing it onto a brown paper bag and figuring out that F on the piano is two keys away from D (the dinosaur, in case you're wondering what our last puppet was).  She is gluing and pouring gold glitter on the buttons of Fireman Fred. The two of us sit, feet swinging in crafty bliss while the baby sleeps and the husband watches some movie off Netflix.

This is significant, this moment of peace and tranquility, because since Kiddo #1 started school, her hearing and vision have taken a dive down the toilet. Oh, not in the "Call the Doctor!" kind, but in the "Holy FRICK I'm moving to Antarctica. Call me when she is back to normal," sort.

Take this morning when she sneezed three times in the span of 10 minutes. All three of those sneezes required, REQUIRED, two baby wipes each.  Had we been out of tissue, this would have seriously been a catastrophe. So, I said, "Honey, why don't you stay home from school today?"

She, in the fashion I usually reserve for 14-year old girls, recoiled in extreme horror and ran screaming and crying to her bedroom, where upon she threw herself onto her bed, bawling and wailing phrases such as "You HATE me!" and "Why are you trying to RUIN my LIFE?"

Kiddo #2 and I looked at each other, as if to confirm that her reaction could not possibly pertain to what I'd said, and I slowly head toward Ground Zero.

"Honey?"
"I'm not talking to you."  Clearly.
"Ok. So I'm not sure what just happened, but you've got to get it together if you want to go to school today."
"I SAID I WANT TO GO TO SCHOOL!"
"Ok. First: time out for screaming at me like that.  Second: once you've calmed down we'll figure out what's what."

I left her in there, yelling about I don't even know what, and went back to the baby.  I really should have "The Baby" <--- written like that, since he just turned one, and he's the size of most two and a half year olds. It's unbelievable. Kiddo #2 drank four litres of homo milk  in a 6 day span, last week.  For those of you outside Canada, that's a freakin' lot of high fat milk.

When she finally got herself together, I walked in and she said, "Momma, I'm sorry for the way I acted. It's just that I want to go to school, real bad."  (if you're wondering whether she really said that, I assure you, that's verbatim.)

So I said, "Ok. All I said was maybe you wanted to stay home because you're so congested. But, if you really want to go to school, I'll write a note in your planner telling the teacher how you're feeling and to call me if she thinks you should go home."  Truthfully, I wanted to write that in her planner so that the teacher wouldn't call Children's Aid on me for being negligent.

Kiddo #1's eyes got big again, she sneezed (we cleaned that up) and then, once we were all settled in the sneeze department, she yelled, "I SAID I WANT TO GO TO SCHOOL!"  and stomped back to her room.

(you may not wonder why we miss the bus in the morning)

I walked (calmly) to her room, opened the door and said, "That's what I said I was doing. Now you have another time out for yelling and for talking to me that way.  You will not be riding the bus this morning because by the time you get your time out done with, it will be too late."

I walked away feeling smug because I know that my child will do whatever it takes so that she can ride the bus to and from school. There's something about sitting in a giant vehicle without a seat belt that she finds intoxicating. Riding the bus is like a drug for her.  I don't remember it being that exciting, but apparently it is.

Not taking the bus, in case you're wondering, also opens up a good 20 minutes of extra time in the morning, since I can't drop her off at school until after 9am.  So I waited for her to calm down. Then she had her second time out (all before 8:40! New record I think.) and we talked about how she needs to use her ears better.  She, admitting I am the supreme ruler of the universe, calmed herself down and even got to where she could giggle at her hilarious inability to hear what I was saying.

I put the baby in the car (he was in his highchair this whole time, so don't worry and call Children's Aid on me for negligence) and came back in to find Kiddo #1 looking for her shoes-- her shoes that were directly in front of her.  I actually thought she was being hilarious and playing some funny joke on me because there were her shoes, in front of her.

I wish my body could turn into whatever I was talking about, like that 70's cartoon, The Barbapapas. Alas, this hand/arrow is simply an artist's rendition.


I looked at her and sweetly asked if she'd looked around the kitchen yet. She said, "Yes! I've looked in my room, in the bathroom, in the kitchen, in the hallway, in your room and your bathroom!"

I said, "Are you sure you've looked everywhere?"
She said, "Yes! Help me or I'll be late for school!"

So I said that I'd give her one more chance. If she didn't find her shoes before 8-5-0 on the clock, she would lose her movies and TV for three days.

Harsh? Yes.

But, I suggested to her that if she couldn't see her shoes, she probably couldn't see anything on the TV  anyway, so she surely wouldn't miss the action. Oh yes. That felt good.

Anyway, I took the baby some milk and came back in the house to find Kiddo #1 still frantically searching for her shoes, and now also needing a Kleenex possibly more than she needed her shoes. I gave her a tissue. Then, I stood in the kitchen, by the table, behind her shoes so as to not hamper her ability to see them, and called to her.

"Kiddo #1, could you come into the kitchen?"
She raced in and asked, "Have you found my shoes?"
I said, "Yes. I have. So, I'm going to give you one more chance to find your shoes before I go get them and you lose your movies. You need to look in your room, the living room, and the kitchen. They are in one of those places."

I kid you not: she took off, looked in both those rooms and returned to the kitchen with a big, pouty lip. She sauntered over to me and was about to throw herself at the mercy of the court when she tripped over her shoes.  "MOMMA! MOMMA! I found my shoes! I did it!"

Oh yes.  I smiled sincerely (despite my overwhelming disbelief) and told her to get the shoes on quickly so we could get to school on time.

When we got there I got out of the car, crossed the street with her (with baby on my hip) and as soon as I got to the actual school property, she turned around and said, "Momma. You can't come back here. It's for kids only."  She kissed me on the cheek and trucked off to her big life all by herself.

I took a deep breath and remembered that, if all else fails, and I need her to stay a kid another day or two, I can hide her stuff in the middle of the floor and play with her all day. But not too often. Just often enough.




To get automatic updates via email, enter yours in the box under the Gerbera daisy and click submit. If you landed here looking for Tangled-themed party info, click on the archive for June 12th, 2011. Thanks!