I am trying to counteract Texas with a gym membership.
The problem is I am counteracting the gym membership with brownies. It is a vicious delicious cycle.
I had already biked 10 miles (without going anywhere, which is really a neat trick). I was two-thirds of the way into my pec flies and ten minutes into watching the Pioneer Woman make white chocolate raspberry bars when my phone buzzed. It was the childcare facility at the gym.
"Your daughter has... um..."
It was the "um" of an arachnophobe in a large room with a tarantula. It was a fearful "um", but one not entirely certain of whether death would be imminent.
The clearly childless girl tried again: "Your daughter has pooped, and I think it's on her pants." This last phrase was said in wonderment and disbelief, as if that very thing she had witnessed was not truly possible according to the laws of physics.
I abandoned my pecs and gluttony to end the childcare attendant's potentially paradigm-altering situation. I entered the playroom, and was welcomed by a familiar smell. Diaper. However, I'd smelled worse. As a mom of a three-year-old and a two-year-old, there's always been worse. Hannah greeted me showing no particular disquietude. "I stinky!" she declared.
"So I gathered." I replied very formally. I grabbed a diaper, some pants, and wipes, and headed into the bathroom. (I will note that the previously mentioned childcare attendant was huddled in the corner of the room, trying not to look like she was cowering.)
I laid Hannah down on the change table, but immediately noted that her landing had a certain squish about it, that was not normal for my twiggy little girl. I stood her back up and noticed the first smudge darkening the table.
I stripped Hannah of her jacket and noticed brown on the inside of it. Fun. I decided not to investigate further, quickly I stripped off her shirt, shoes, socks, and pants. If it had penetrated to her jacket, all other articles were to be considered contaminated.
Hannah is not stable. The proof is all over her shins. Her legs are riddled with the bruises and scraps of clumsiness that would earn her a social worker in any doctor's office. For some reason changing tables are made with contours. Which sucks. When you're daughter is covered in her own poop.
She slipped and my hand went to her low back to steady her. Gross. I'll have to burn those fingers later. She tottered again. Again, I reached out to steady her, but higher up this time. More gross. More digit burning required. Having learned my lesson, when she threatened to fall a third time, I threw my hands up and stepped back. You're on your own kid. (Star quality parenting here.)
My encounters with the offensive element had led me to ask the question asked by conspiracy theorists and double agents everywhere: just how high up does this thing go? And much like the spies, I was not pleased with the answers I received.
My gaze travelled from my daughters diaper line, to her lumbar spine, to her shoulder blades. Poop, poop, poop. Reluctantly, my eyes scaled up to her hairline.
Ah crap.
There it was: flecks of brown in the wispy tangles of her hair.
Supermoms get it. We see trouble, we square our shoulders, and we plunge ahead. Nothing scares supermoms.
However... every amazing mom, in a moment of crisis, has at least one second where their confident swagger retreats to the corner, starts rocking back and forth declaring a breathless succession of, "I shouldn't have to do this. Ishouldn'thavetodothis!"
But no one came to rescue me. No one appeared who had any more reason to have to handle all this poop than me. The poop fairy did not appear to wave her magic wand and make it all not so disgusting. So I squared my shoulders and dove in.
Half a package of wipes and a bottle of hand sanitizer later I had a mostly clean daughter. I washed her hair with foaming hand cleanser, scrubbed my hands like they had been soaked in bubonic plague, and dressed my little girl. Mostly.
The lack of smell was misleading. When I first walked in I thought, "This poor newb with no children is making a mountain out of a mole hill." But she was right to fear. It was a mountain. A big brownish-orange poo mountain. In my overconfidence I neglected to bring a new shirt for my girl.
I slowly pushed open the bathroom door, and my shameless daughter ran out half dressed, put her hands on her knees, juttered her teeth forward and laughed like a hissing cockroach. If the attendant had backed any further in the corner, she would have been scaling the wall. I whipped out a Minnie Mouse shirt, popped it over my maniac's beautiful little head and asked very nicely if she would kindly stop being a detriment to the planet's population boom.
The poo clothes went into a plastic bag. We gathered our stuff, thanked the poor, nice lady, and left.
All the mom's out there right now are like, "Yeah, we all have a poop story. Mine was in a gas station." Or a swimming pool. Or the backyard.
But here's the thing: I haven't opened the bag. I just can't do it. It is sitting there on the dryer all poopy and nasty and stinky, and I.CAN'T.OPEN.IT. The me in the corner keeps winning the fight every time I go to handle it.
"I shouldn't have to do this! Ishouldn'thavetodothis!" Where is the poop fairy who does laundry? Shouldn't there be a service that does this, that takes nasty pooped on clothes and washes them in a big, terrible machine, and returns them under your pillow while you sleep? If moms wrote fairytales that's what would happen.
You are a better mom than me! Because we all have a poop story, but I can't end it. I can't face that demon and be done with it. I don't know what to do. I am failing at momhood with every stinky second that bag sits there. At this point I think I would rather throw the whole thing in the trash than try and fix it. Who cares that it contains one of Hannah's two jackets? She still has one left! ... for now.
Saturday, April 16, 2016
Saturday, April 9, 2016
big man
There is an attending named Dr. Warren (name changed) in the PICU at Justin's hospital, who has the "old nurse demeanor." She thinks paper charting is where it's at. She doesn't smile too often for fear of losing all her hard-earned terror. No nonsense, to the point, lives are on the line. She is an older woman, unmarried, no children, whip-thin, keen eyes, mouth a line, peering over those glasses at the underlings scuttering about beneath her. She is excellent at her job. She DOES save lives. She is NOT Patch Adams.
This week Justin has been on 1:1 care with a six-week-old baby girl. 1:1 means that this child is not doing well, and it is Justin's job to sit next to her and make sure she doesn't die. He has no other patients or responsibility, just this: make sure she is breathing and her heart beats.
Dr. Warren came into the room the other night, and Justin snapped to attention. The piercing face took in the entire situation.
Dr. Warren's face suddenly and horrifically broke into a sunny disposition. "Well, how is my big man and the little baby girl?" she asked jovially.
......
Justin stared at the woman as if elves were crawling out of her ears. Dr. Warren, continued as if she had not just interrupted the flow of reality. She went over the baby's chart, checked the patient and left.
"WHAT?!" Justin sputtered out at the closed door. "Are we there yet? I didn't think anyone got there with you!"
The shudder was still visible as my husband relayed the traumatic story to me. He assured me years of intensive counseling might not set it right.
Everyone likes him! I swear that He is secretly Captain America, everybody's best friend. (Except of course for Iron Man. But give Justin and Tony Stark a week together, and I bet my husband would be Stark's "Big Man" too. ... Which is really all I need right now: my husband engaging in superhero bro-mances.) So to the rest of the planet: I know he's adorable, endearing, strong, smart, and funny, but lay off. The Big Man's mine!
This week Justin has been on 1:1 care with a six-week-old baby girl. 1:1 means that this child is not doing well, and it is Justin's job to sit next to her and make sure she doesn't die. He has no other patients or responsibility, just this: make sure she is breathing and her heart beats.
Dr. Warren came into the room the other night, and Justin snapped to attention. The piercing face took in the entire situation.
Dr. Warren's face suddenly and horrifically broke into a sunny disposition. "Well, how is my big man and the little baby girl?" she asked jovially.
......
Justin stared at the woman as if elves were crawling out of her ears. Dr. Warren, continued as if she had not just interrupted the flow of reality. She went over the baby's chart, checked the patient and left.
"WHAT?!" Justin sputtered out at the closed door. "Are we there yet? I didn't think anyone got there with you!"
The shudder was still visible as my husband relayed the traumatic story to me. He assured me years of intensive counseling might not set it right.
Everyone likes him! I swear that He is secretly Captain America, everybody's best friend. (Except of course for Iron Man. But give Justin and Tony Stark a week together, and I bet my husband would be Stark's "Big Man" too. ... Which is really all I need right now: my husband engaging in superhero bro-mances.) So to the rest of the planet: I know he's adorable, endearing, strong, smart, and funny, but lay off. The Big Man's mine!
Monday, April 4, 2016
there: a minion's tale
Have you ever flown with two toddlers? There is one simple way to make this be an effortless and smooth experience...
Don't.
I stood at the edge of the security line, which loomed like a fire-breathing dragon, out to consume all morality, sanity, and hope. Justin hugged each of the kids, instructed them to obey mama, and then tickled them until they would forget all previous directions. He wrapped me up in a big hug and said, "I'll miss you."
Yes. Yes, you will miss me... when this whole flying affair actually rears up its villainous head and kills me. Offer some nice poetry at my eulogy.
I hugged him a moment longer than necessary... how many seconds are in a moment? Is it, like, a thousand or fewer? The hug was clearly too long for my husband, who started the awkward hug ending cues. He was really going to do it. He was going to walk away, while I wrangled two children, two blankies, two monkeys, two juice cups, four carry-ons, one stroller, and ten dramamine pills through security, onto a plane, and across the country. ... Wait, I'm forgetting something... oh, me. Yes, I also have to wrangle me and my attitude problem onto that plane... without earning a strip search... which is really the challenging part.
A whole stack of little gray totes later, I exited security with two children, two blankies, two monkeys, two juice cups, three carry-ons, one stroller, and ten dramamine pills. Those observant of you who excel at math will note a slight variation between what entered security and what left it. At 3:45am I am neither observant, nor good at math, so the slight modulation of stuff eluded me.
Our plane was not leaving until 5:40am. Fun. Two hours to entertain the minions in an airport where nothing is open. We found our gate in two seconds. Then, we decided to walk. It was thirty minutes later as we passed a space ship that Noah swore looked like a lion (the very same one that ate Daniel's betrayers) that the PA buzzed: "If you recently passed through security checkpoint six and left a carryon, please return to retrieve it."
For half a second I actually thought, I don't really need that bag. It's not like we're going to the North Pole. It was then I looked down at my darling daughter's concerned face. Her kitty shirt was in that bag.
"Ah crap." I muttered, and we trekked half an hour back to security.
I needed juice to dissolve the dramamine, to drug my children. I'm not proud of that sentence.
We walked fifteen minutes back in the direction we had already gone to find an open store with orange juice that must have been squeezed from the rare golden oranges of Coranoque, which only grow once every seven years and are fertilized by a bee on the endangered species list. (This is the only logical reason why orange juice would ever need to cost that much.) We hoofed it fifteen minutes back to our gate, I engaged in alchemy, and I waited with perhaps too devious of a smile for my children to show signs of Aurora's slumber. ... They did not.
I changed Noah, but the process took so long that I did not have time to change Hannah. I'm sure that won't come back to bite me later on...
I wrangled our FOUR carryons, and all that other junk down the tunnel, Hannah boarded the plane, I folded up the stroller, Noah and I boarded the plane, we recovered Hannah from first class (a second later and she would have been sipping a martini and reading Forbes magazine), and found our seats.
It would be too much to detail the disaster that ensued. Therefore I will list the events and allow your imagination and desired chronology to supply the minutia.
Both children slept for forty-five minutes.
Hannah demanded goldfish.
Noah demanded goldfish.
Hannah ate Noah's goldfish.
Noah demanded fruit snacks.
Noah demanded the Ipad.
Hannah demanded the Ipad.
After being told to wait her turn, Hannah kicked the seat in front of her incessantly.
Hannah was strapped into her seatbelt.
Hannah stretch-armstrong-slid her way out of the seatbelt.
Unable to complete his dinosaur puzzle Noah kicked the seat in front of him.
Screaming.
Hannah peed through her diaper.
Mama cleaned the seat with baby wipes.
Hannah danced naked on the chair while mama tried to wrestle her into her kitty shirt.
Noah took his shoe off.
Mama threatened that all nakedness would end in death.
Hannah peed through her diaper again. (too much spiked punch)
Naked dancing.
No available weapons.
Baby wipes cleaning the seat.
Screaming.
Exasperation from the woman in front of us.
"Is this your first time flying?" condescendingly from the man in front of us.
Whimpering.
Turbulence.
Still.
Lots of turbulence.
Pretzels for Hannah and Noah, Cookies for Mama.
Pretzels for Hannah, cookies for Hannah, nothing for Mama.
Hannah demanded more goldfish.
Screaming (me).
I have now prepared a long and scathing letter for the makers of dramamine. Because this is all their fault.
Don't.
I stood at the edge of the security line, which loomed like a fire-breathing dragon, out to consume all morality, sanity, and hope. Justin hugged each of the kids, instructed them to obey mama, and then tickled them until they would forget all previous directions. He wrapped me up in a big hug and said, "I'll miss you."
Yes. Yes, you will miss me... when this whole flying affair actually rears up its villainous head and kills me. Offer some nice poetry at my eulogy.
I hugged him a moment longer than necessary... how many seconds are in a moment? Is it, like, a thousand or fewer? The hug was clearly too long for my husband, who started the awkward hug ending cues. He was really going to do it. He was going to walk away, while I wrangled two children, two blankies, two monkeys, two juice cups, four carry-ons, one stroller, and ten dramamine pills through security, onto a plane, and across the country. ... Wait, I'm forgetting something... oh, me. Yes, I also have to wrangle me and my attitude problem onto that plane... without earning a strip search... which is really the challenging part.
A whole stack of little gray totes later, I exited security with two children, two blankies, two monkeys, two juice cups, three carry-ons, one stroller, and ten dramamine pills. Those observant of you who excel at math will note a slight variation between what entered security and what left it. At 3:45am I am neither observant, nor good at math, so the slight modulation of stuff eluded me.
Our plane was not leaving until 5:40am. Fun. Two hours to entertain the minions in an airport where nothing is open. We found our gate in two seconds. Then, we decided to walk. It was thirty minutes later as we passed a space ship that Noah swore looked like a lion (the very same one that ate Daniel's betrayers) that the PA buzzed: "If you recently passed through security checkpoint six and left a carryon, please return to retrieve it."
For half a second I actually thought, I don't really need that bag. It's not like we're going to the North Pole. It was then I looked down at my darling daughter's concerned face. Her kitty shirt was in that bag.
"Ah crap." I muttered, and we trekked half an hour back to security.
I needed juice to dissolve the dramamine, to drug my children. I'm not proud of that sentence.
We walked fifteen minutes back in the direction we had already gone to find an open store with orange juice that must have been squeezed from the rare golden oranges of Coranoque, which only grow once every seven years and are fertilized by a bee on the endangered species list. (This is the only logical reason why orange juice would ever need to cost that much.) We hoofed it fifteen minutes back to our gate, I engaged in alchemy, and I waited with perhaps too devious of a smile for my children to show signs of Aurora's slumber. ... They did not.
I changed Noah, but the process took so long that I did not have time to change Hannah. I'm sure that won't come back to bite me later on...
I wrangled our FOUR carryons, and all that other junk down the tunnel, Hannah boarded the plane, I folded up the stroller, Noah and I boarded the plane, we recovered Hannah from first class (a second later and she would have been sipping a martini and reading Forbes magazine), and found our seats.
It would be too much to detail the disaster that ensued. Therefore I will list the events and allow your imagination and desired chronology to supply the minutia.
Both children slept for forty-five minutes.
Hannah demanded goldfish.
Noah demanded goldfish.
Hannah ate Noah's goldfish.
Noah demanded fruit snacks.
Noah demanded the Ipad.
Hannah demanded the Ipad.
After being told to wait her turn, Hannah kicked the seat in front of her incessantly.
Hannah was strapped into her seatbelt.
Hannah stretch-armstrong-slid her way out of the seatbelt.
Unable to complete his dinosaur puzzle Noah kicked the seat in front of him.
Screaming.
Hannah peed through her diaper.
Mama cleaned the seat with baby wipes.
Hannah danced naked on the chair while mama tried to wrestle her into her kitty shirt.
Noah took his shoe off.
Mama threatened that all nakedness would end in death.
Hannah peed through her diaper again. (too much spiked punch)
Naked dancing.
No available weapons.
Baby wipes cleaning the seat.
Screaming.
Exasperation from the woman in front of us.
"Is this your first time flying?" condescendingly from the man in front of us.
Whimpering.
Turbulence.
Still.
Lots of turbulence.
Pretzels for Hannah and Noah, Cookies for Mama.
Pretzels for Hannah, cookies for Hannah, nothing for Mama.
Hannah demanded more goldfish.
Screaming (me).
I have now prepared a long and scathing letter for the makers of dramamine. Because this is all their fault.
Sunday, April 3, 2016
switched at security
We just returned from a two week vacation to see Nana/Papa, Grandma/Grandpa, aunties, uncles, cousins, associate pastors, nursery workers, and pastor's wives. ... And mountains. Because the flat in Texas will just gnaw at you until suddenly you look down and find teeth marks in your soul. ... I'm not sure why we have to look downwardly to see our soul. Perhaps because it settles into our feet? That must be why I'm a dancer. Restless soul all saggin' in my toes.
It was a wonderful trip, one where we accomplished visiting with almost everyone and everything we have missed so dreadfully for six months. (I did not get to visit Coldstone. Which, really, was over half of the reason I was returning home. From the perspective of my cake-batter-and-reeses deprived tummy, the whole venture was a complete bust.)
It was such a supremely glorious trip... that I will never, ever go on vacation again.
I suspect that while walking through the metal detector in security, the magnetism (Is that what metal detectors run on? or is it radiation... or Kryptonite... Someone who took science in college let me know.) distorted the poles in my childrens' brains, replacing them with neurotic, spoiled, when-did-you-get-so-LOUD! munchkins. It must have been the security scanners which have resulted in such horrific behavior in my children now. It couldn't possibly have been this:
I'm sure this had nothing to do with it...
So you see, they had NO FUN AT ALL. And all that no fun has made mommy seem like the most exciting and interesting human being on the planet. They just cannot wait to jump out of bed in the morning and go adventuring with mama to... anticipation killing you?... Target! YEAH! And if they're extra good, we might take a side trip off the beaten path to... the GYM! WOOHOO!
No, Mama gets all the fun of re-disciplining the munchkins after weeks of wild entertainment, delicious pretzels for breakfast, and absolute adoration from every person they saw. Lucky Mama.
If anyone knows a traveling caravan that's currently looking for an incredibly bright three-year-old, and a two-year-old with more energy than an exploding star, let me know.
It was a wonderful trip, one where we accomplished visiting with almost everyone and everything we have missed so dreadfully for six months. (I did not get to visit Coldstone. Which, really, was over half of the reason I was returning home. From the perspective of my cake-batter-and-reeses deprived tummy, the whole venture was a complete bust.)
It was such a supremely glorious trip... that I will never, ever go on vacation again.
I suspect that while walking through the metal detector in security, the magnetism (Is that what metal detectors run on? or is it radiation... or Kryptonite... Someone who took science in college let me know.) distorted the poles in my childrens' brains, replacing them with neurotic, spoiled, when-did-you-get-so-LOUD! munchkins. It must have been the security scanners which have resulted in such horrific behavior in my children now. It couldn't possibly have been this:
Or this...
I'm not sure what this is, but I bet it didn't make one smidgen of difference in the spoiling my children underwent...
No, I'm sure playing in a helicopter under the ever adoring gaze of grandparents was utterly unrelated to their current foulness of mood.
No, Mama gets all the fun of re-disciplining the munchkins after weeks of wild entertainment, delicious pretzels for breakfast, and absolute adoration from every person they saw. Lucky Mama.
If anyone knows a traveling caravan that's currently looking for an incredibly bright three-year-old, and a two-year-old with more energy than an exploding star, let me know.
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