What it's Really Like Around Here

I feel like I get in a habit of only reporting the the good or big things around here. The small or not so pleasant things kind of get skipped over. But, since this is our family journal, occasionally I need to report on those things so I remember them. Yesterday was one of those days...

First there was visiting teaching, and I had to wake up 3 little boys to go. It was rainy and cold, and not a good day to be out. Owen had just fallen asleep 15 minutes before I had to wake him up to go, and he was not happy about it. I spent the whole 2 hours of visiting teaching standing and bouncing a fussy baby.

I came home at noon to a kitchen that still needed cleaned from the night before, and laundry all over my living room floor that needed put away. For home evening the night before, we had taken the kids grocery shopping for the food bank (it's our ward's month to fill the food bank), so the housework hadn't gotten done. Scott and I went and answered phones for the Idaho Public Television telethon last night, and his mom came to babysit for us. So, I really wanted to get my house clean for her to come to. I went to work on the kitchen and got halfway through the laundry, then decided I had to take a nap. I rarely take naps. In the four months since Owen was born, I've taken maybe 4 naps. But, I was so exhausted yesterday, that I had to lie down for just half an hour. Owen was asleep, the kids were all playing nicely upstairs, so it was my only chance to get some rest in.

Twenty minutes later I woke to Sara saying, "Mom, there's poop on Nate's blanket!". Nate had been wearing a pull-up and no pants and had been playing upstairs when he pooped. Then he sat on the stairs and slid down on his bum. Then he came in and sat in my chair with his blanket, which is where Sara had discovered the poop. I jumped into action and got the chair cleaned and blanket thrown in the washing machine. I heard Sara yell, "Eww, there's poop on the stairs, too!". I looked at the stairs and saw a line of poop on the carpet down every stair, where he had slid down. Just then Owen woke up hungry and mad. I fixed a bottle and fed him, then asked Sara to hold Owen while I shampooed the stairs. I got my Bissel out and spent the next 20 minutes cleaning the carpet on my long flight of stairs. As I got to the top and turned it off, I heard Owen crying (really, really crying). I went down to my room where Sara was holding him, and she was just sitting there while he screamed. It took quite a while for me to get him settled down, and then we was very needy the rest of the day.

Now I need to backtrack to the day before (Monday). Just after Aaron had woken up (and before Nate was up), I went upstairs to gather laundry. In the middle of the boys' room, my foot stepped in something wet. I bent down to examine it, and realized it was a big puddle of pee. I got a towel and soaked up as much as I could. Then I went down to confront Aaron. He was still in his pajamas and they were dry, so it didn't take much for my mind to paint a picture of what had happened. He had climbed out of bed, and instead of running to the bathroom, he had pulled down his pants and used his bedroom carpet as a toilet. Gross! I asked him about it, and he said, "Well, I really needed to go." I told him that if he ever did that again he would be sitting on the couch in time out the entire day, and that if he needed to go to the bathroom, then he needed to run as fast as he could to get there, that it's never ok to pee on the carpet.

Now back to yesterday. After I was done with the stairs, and after I got Owen calmed down and finally to sleep, I used the Bissel in the boys' room. As soon as the hot water from the Bissel hit the carpet, the whole room wreaked of pee. I'm sure this was not the only time that Aaron has peed on the carpet. I cleaned it as well as I could yesterday, and plan on going over it again today. But, my whole afternoon was spent cleaning carpets instead of doing all the other cleaning that needed done. I had to just do the best I could and hope that the house wasn't too embarrassingly messy for Scott's mom to see.

In addition to dealing with bodily functions all over my house, I still am fighting Thrush. Yes, still. I waited till after pictures on Saturday before starting up the Gentian Violet again. And now everything is purple once again. It is improving, and I have hopes that it will be better soon.

I would love to say that yesterday's events are a rarity around here, but they actually are the norm. I'm so used to it that it rarely phases me. That's sad, isn't it? Yesterday was just worse because I was so tired and was trying so hard to have things looking nice before evening. I'm sure that 10 years from now, I'll read this and laugh. But now I get to go shampoo more carpet (I'm hoping that the second time will be the charm at getting the pee smell gone from the boys' room).