HELLO!!!

I've discovered that there is a very distinctive succession of events that lead to tears.

It usually goes like this: Thump, "Whoa!" and then screaming.

This doesn't happen just anytime, it happens when my hubby is with the boys. They love to play with daddy and daddy loves to play with them. The problem is that they get so wound up they lose the ability to control their movements and he doesn't always know when to stop.

The perfect example of this happened yesterday while I was well...shall we say, indisposed?

The master bath is located directly above the family room and the sound carries right through the floor! I could hear the boys - all three of them - giggling away then heard Thump, "Whoa!" and then screaming, followed by, "Oh my God!"

Oy Vey! OMG means blood!

Unless it's his own, hubby doesn't handle the sight of blood well. Anyone else's, especially one of the kids, and all bets are off. Composure goes out the window and panic sets in.

He began to scream for me and I foolishly tried to yell a response.

I then heard him wrestling with the gate at the bottom of the stairs while I desperately tried to finish my "business."

He yanked the bathroom door open just as I pulled my pants up and stood there, with a bleeding stuntman in his arms, looking shocked to see me by the toilet. Not sure what he thought I was doing but, "I have to go to the bathroom," usually means one of two things.

I grabbed the first aid box (not kit, we've learned that the small kits just don't cut it for us) out from under the sink and got to work.

Stuntman had bitten his tongue.

Saliva made it look like he was going to bleed to death, but as far as actual blood goes there wasn't much and it stopped bleeding very quickly.

Hubby announced that he had to go back downstairs because, in his state of panic, he'd left the Engineer on the sofa!

Seriously?!

His panicked states are pretty much the same regardless of the circumstances. His ability to think or act rationally just goes right out the window!

The other day while changing the Stuntman's diaper, the stuntman decided to poop. I had the Kitchen Aid whirling away and didn't hear him screaming for me. Suddenly there was loud banging followed by louder, "HELLO!!!"

I sprinted up the stairs to find hubby with a screaming stuntman on the table, legs up in the air as daddy desperately cleaned up the poop. The Engineer was on the floor screaming because daddy's screaming had frightened him.

Ummmm.....Yeah... really?! You were screaming because of poop?!

OMG! 

Despite his panic and gagging, there really wasn't much I could do. So I picked up the hysterical Engineer and tried to calm him while trying desperately not to yell at my hubby and upset the babies even more.

Most of the time he's a really laid back guy. Evidently, poop and blood are his kryptonite.

He's one of the handiest hubbies on the world. Need recessed lighting installed? How about hardwood floors? Sheetrock? He's the guy. He really can do anything except walk through a room without hitting a toy.

He. Never. Looks. Down.

We are 13 months into this parenting thing. He has tripped over countless toys. He has fallen down, stubbed his toes, and made things squeak in the dark and yet he has not adjusted his walk.

It's weird. I noticed early on that, while in the house, I had developed a gate that allows me to move forward, without scuffing my feet, by barely lifting my foot off the floor. This way if I do contact something I don't step on it or trip over it, I push it out of the way. Sort of along the same lines as the old trains with the cow catcher on the front.

We have a play-mat that we keep upstairs for the boys. We use the mat more as a home-base for the upstairs toys because we can move it from room to room as needed. At night we usually put it in the hallway out of the line of traffic so we don't trip over it in the dark.

Hubby decided the other night that he would leave it on the floor in the bedroom, precisely placed so as to not trip over it if he had to get one of the kids.

It didn't work.

He tripped.

And tripped.

And tripped.

The mat has these tube things that arch up and connect diagonally at the corners. Once in, it's like trying to get out of a crab trap.

The toys rattled, the one set to come on with motion began to play music and he even stepped on the praying Angel, "Now I lay me down..."

"Shit!"

Snark.

"Shut up," he said with a laugh.

Don't Put That in Your Mouth!

I have mentioned in previous posts that hubby and I have our usual chores around the house. I do the laundry and cleaning and he does the guy stuff like taking out the trash. One morning a few weeks ago, after harvesting the pumpkins and squash, before leaving for work, he decided to empty the diaper pail in the playroom.

To be honest, it was really stinky!

I love that he takes out the trash and does the "hubby jobs" around the house. I hate that he has this really annoying habit of forgetting to put a new bag in the can.  As was the case this particular morning.

I didn't notice this until I rushed one of my boys to the diaper changing table with a massive blowout in his footie pajamas.

Not good!

Hmmm...well, I thought, I'll just put the diaper at the end of the changing table and dispose of it when I was finished. In theory this should have worked out really well.

There was a fatal flaw in my thinking.

At 11 months he is pretty long and his feet come to the end of the diaper changing pad. I couldn't leave him on the table to go get a new bag, I couldn't set him on the floor covered in poop and couldn't put the diaper on the floor because my other son was now standing between my legs.

I removed said diaper and placed it at the foot of the changing pad, hoping for the best, and tackled things with the wipes. Lots and lots of wipes. I piled them up on the offending diaper and grabbed a new diaper to put on him.

That's when the trouble started.

The boys' desire to squirm or rollover is directly proportional to the amount of crap on their butts. The bigger the poop, the more they want to squirm.

When I prevented him from rolling over he got really mad and slammed his feet down...right into the poop filled diaper.

I screamed. Yeah really actually screamed. It sort of...splashed!

My scream startled him and he began to cry, then in a show of some sort of twin solidarity, the other one started to cry too.

Greaaaaat!

Not only do I have a colossal friggin mess but now I have two screaming children to deal with, one of whom was also naked and covered with poop!

When all was said and done, the baby had a new diaper, tears had been dried, the pad on the changing table had been changed and, most importantly, there was a new bag in the diaper pail. Of course I handled it like a pro but then again I am here alone, it's not like anyone else was going to do it. It's just another poopie experience to add to the list.

But...what I am proud of is the fact that I didn't call my hubby and rip him a new one. I didn't even send him an obnoxious text message. Mostly because one of the boys fell down again and needed his boo-boo kissed and by the time I finished dealing with that it was snack time. Ranting at him about something like a trash bag just seemed so menial at that point.

Falling down is the norm around here. They are constantly hitting their heads...usually on the floor. They have learned to avoid the coffee table and the bottom of the kitchen hutch but they trip...when crawling no less, and face-plant. Either or both have been known to have pretty good bruises on their foreheads at least once a week.

I've gotten used to the sounds of their playing...and falling. Depending on the sound of the thump, I've learned to respond appropriately. Sounds in general tell me what's going on but more importantly, the sound of silence is even more telling.

Last week, during our morning ritual, I was enjoying a cup of coffee in the rocker in the bedroom while the kids played in the hallway. They like to crawl around in the hallway, the bathroom,  their room and our closet.

It suddenly dawned on me that it was completely silent.

Not good!

I left my coffee and headed down the hall to find that one of the boys had unraveled most of a roll of toilet paper, which was now piled up in the middle of the floor, and the other was happily chewing away on a wad of it that was so big it would make a professional baseball player jealous.

About the time I walked into the bathroom the one that had been doing the unrolling, discovered this little handle thingy on the toilet tank.

Flush!!!

Unfortunately, he liked the sound. Fortunately, it takes about 35 seconds to refill the tank on the toilet. Which is approximately the amount of time necessary to gather up the toilet paper, remove the disgusting pulp from the one's mouth and move both boys out of the room and close the door.

The bathroom door is now closed all the time and, just in case one of us should happen to leave the door open, the toilet paper is now located on the edge of the sink.

I draw the line at removing the flush handle.

As I've mentioned, I like to start my day slowly with a cup of coffee and the boys like to play upstairs. We now keep all doors upstairs closed with the exception of the master bedroom and the master closet.

They love to play in the closet.

Chewing on shoelaces is a favorite pastime as is, evidently pulling dirty clothes out of the laundry basket that serves as our hamper.

This was discovered one morning as I sat happily rocking away, sipping my coffee and reading the news. I noticed that the boys were a little too quite. As I was getting up to head into the closet to see what they were doing, one of them came crawling out of the closet with a pair of my panties in his mouth like a lion dragging home a kill!

Eeeeeeeeeew!!!

Nobody saw it and if I didn't write about it, no one would even know...but I was mortified! They carry stuff in their mouths all the time...just not my underwear. I don't even think it would have been ok if he had had a clean pair in his mouth. Somethings you just don't put in your mouth...period!

This no doubt will not be the last time that I am completely grossed out by something that one of my boys' puts in his mouth. I am sure the words, "Don't put that in your mouth!" will be said at least a million times but hey, that battle's got to be better than dealing with a flailing, poop-covered baby...Right?!