15 minutes in my life

Today I was having a hard day. In order to better cope with the kids and their eternal demands and whines I decided to make myself a cup of tea. After the kettle boiled and I was waiting for the tea to steep (5 minutes; I always set the timer because that’s the way I like it) I got out the sugar pot. There was only half a teaspoon of sugar left and I require three-quarters for my perfect cup. I’m sure this has happened to you; it can’t only happen to me:
Open cupboard to get more sugar to refill pot
Move a bunch of pantry items to get sugar container
Knock molasses onto the tile floor
Clean up glass and molasses from floor, baseboards, wall and inside the bottom three shelves of the open cupboard. This includes wiping molasses off multiple items such as raisins, canned fruit, crackers (snack shelf), rice, pasta, potatoes, flour (carb shelf), and recipe books (bottom shelf).
Wrap glass shards in paper bag
Since you’ve taken the last one, add lunch paper bags to grocery list
Throw out glass shards and molasses mess – discover the garbage is overflowing
Take garbage out
Clean up hockey sticks from driveway before someone runs over them
Put hockey sticks back in corner of garage and discover spider
Perform elaborate spider-trapping ritual and set the critter free outside
Head back upstairs to find boys engaged in game of “toss the library book”
Stop the “game” and build them a fort using furniture, pillows and blankets
Head back towards kitchen, see calendar sitting out and remember that tomorrow is a field trip
Fix collapsed fort
Go upstairs to get red field trip vest so you don’t forget it tomorrow
Change laundry to dryer, hang “do not dry” clothes in bath
Wipe toothpaste from sink
Take discarded pyjamas back to clothes hamper in bedroom
Get red vest
Seeing bed reminds you how tired you are, think to yourself you could really use a cup of tea
OH YEAH! MY TEA!
It’s now so cold and so strong but I have to drink it anyway. It’s the principle of the matter, really.
See ya,
Cinders

Just your typical week

I’d like to know who designed the sensors on toilets. You know, the automatic flush? Seriously. Because it never auto flushes when I’m actually done, but usually halfway through – the bidet effect. Bidets are okay if you are expecting to use a bidet, but when it takes you by surprise, look out! I try to keep my torso still while stretching my arm for the toilet paper, but invariably I move just a little too much for those happy flushers and KER-SPLASH! Surprise! But then, just try to get it to flush when you want it to. You get up off the toilet, move a little to one side, then to the other... before you know it, you’re doing this insane toilet shuffle dance in your stall. But the secret is to keep your feet still so nobody outside can tell you’re boogieing in there. Unfortunately your feet are usually pointing towards the back wall at this point since you’re looking to see if it’s going to flush, so probably everyone is wondering how a man snuck into the ladies’ room anyway. And a dancing man at that. After you wave your hand up and down and shake your body all around (throw in a little hokey pokey if you’re really into it), please just admit defeat. The flush is LAUGHING at you. Just cave in and press the little button. They try to hide it because they like seeing you squirm (and by they I am of course referring to the little flushing gremlins who work the auto flush) but it’s there. Since you have to press the button yourself every time anyway, it makes you wonder why they spent a million dollars per toilet anyway. But it’s their nickel I guess. And I think the inventors of the auto flush also operate the sensors at traffic lights because THOSE never work for me either. But since certain watches stop ticking when placed on my wrist, and debit cards never work when I have to swipe them myself, I’m beginning to think it may just be me and my delightfully magnetic personality.
I had a treadmill war the other day. I got onto #3 (which, not surprisingly, is located between #2 and #4) and started off with a brisk warm-up walk, which was Walk button plus .5 mph. #2 was walking also, but cranked hers up a couple of notches to match my pace. After 2 minutes, I pressed Jog, which took me to a 5 mph pace. #2 also pressed Jog. After a minute of Jog I realized it was too slow and I pressed Run (7 mph, or 8.5 minute mile). #2 let out this disgusted noise somewhere between a sigh and a snort, and pressed Run also. (Maybe she didn’t know that I saw her but she actually pressed Run and then down two notches – slacker) After 10 minutes of Run she was grunting, and I pressed Jog to take a drink of water. This time her sigh was Relief with a capital R, so when I pressed Run again after 1 minute she was not amused. She kept darting these dagger looks at me as she’s gasping for air – c’mon! I’m just doing my own thing here! After another 10 minute set I Jogged for another drink and then Ran – that was it; she slammed her hand into Stop and stormed off. I got to chuckling and nearly fell off the treadmill like my friend did (not naming names here but it starts with “S” and ends in “andy”). I got serious and finished with another 10 minute Run.
It is only 2 weeks to my triathlon, after all. I got in another good run on Thursday, yesterday I cycled but only for 30 minutes, and today I did a killer cardio class which involved some boxerfit moves. I haven’t done that since before we were married so those muscles aren’t exactly thanking me today. I am drinking a ton of water and find myself in the bathroom constantly.
Which was the scene of my most recent humiliation. We were at the airport waiting to pick Mike up from Fargo, ND (geek conference, lost luggage, snow) and we paid a visit to the restroom. (how come I have no trouble using the terms restroom, bathroom, ladies’ room, toilet interchangeably but if I ask where’s the bathroom in LA they look at me blankly until they say oh, you mean the RESTROOM like they’re so completely different and I must be a moron) The only stall big enough for Jack, Ethan, and me is a wheelchair one at the end and once I determined that we weren’t taking the spot of a needy wheelchair occupant, we went into that one. The lock was broken, but Ethan was already peeing so I figured ok, we’ve committed to this one. When it’s my turn I said, as specifically as possible, “The lock is broken on the door, okay? So please don’t touch the door because it will swing open and I don’t want it open while I’m on the toilet, okay?” Ethan tucks into the corner and Jack nods solemnly. I sit down and half way through Jack starts to move towards the door (you knew it was going to be him, right? Because if anyone is going to pretend not to hear me, it’s going to be him. And he has to do it so darn cute-like which is infuriating because you still want to squeeze him and eat him all up. But I digress) as I say “Jack, noooooo”. He throws a look over his shoulder at me and gives one little one-finger push (like Nemo touching the boat with his fin; you know what I’m talking about) and the door swings wide, wide into the aisle. I’m panicking but can’t exactly MOVE at this given moment, and Ethan, God bless him, blocks anyone’s view of me, reaches for the handle and swings the door shut. Jack leans back against the other wall with this “Oh” look on his face as in “Oh, I’m going to get it now but I’m sure glad I did that anyway”. I was mad but since nobody in the restroom actually saw me, the only thing I did was took away the star he’d earned at dinner for good behaviour + no accidents.
He’s actually already earned his first prize – a binder with hockey card inserts for all his cards. Ethan needs one more star to get that, and he’s dying for it. He’s more into hockey anyway (he’s outside playing as I write) and he’s got more cards to put in there too. Jack got to 10 (which sounds good but we’ve actually been doing it for about 60 days) and he’s now at 2 on the second round. Ethan’s at 9, first round, but now he’s seen the prize he’s a little more motivated.
I went to see Chris Rock this week. He was very funny. Raunchy, racial, but funny. The opening act was hysterical too; I had tears pouring down my face and my cheeks hurt. It’s so hard to remember what he said and how he said it but it was something about mutes and cell phones. Chris Rock himself was great, although I found myself swearing a lot the next day. Guess it was catching!
That’s it for now, see you next week!

Thoughts In No Particular Order

Pet peeve of the week: my thigh bones. I have discovered through scientific methods (observing other bus passengers) that I have abnormally long thigh bones. Other people seem to be able to sit there straight and comfortably in their seats while I have to sit diagonally. Some people even have room to – can you believe it – cross their legs!!! I have suspected this for a while, especially since the KLM flight I took in January from Vancouver to Amsterdam. Even with my butt slammed back as far as it could go against the back of the seat, my knees were still pressed into the seat in front of me, so much so that I could not put my water bottle or my book in the seat pocket in front of me. I had divots in my knee caps by the end of the tortuous flight. At a soccer match in Liverpool years ago, same thing, yet when I stood up, some of my uncle’s friends were taller than me. What gives? So here’s the thing: standard seat pitch is 30 inches for an airplane seat in coach. Butt to knee cap, I measure 29. I will obviously need to fly first class from now on, and in fact I should get special consideration due to the fact that it is a genetic mutation and completely not my fault. Next on the agenda is to look back at family photos and see where this thigh bone issue comes from; then I can curse that ancestor for my current difficulties. I believe my sister suffers from the same affliction.

I also have issues (well you knew that already, but anyway) with bus travel in general. Some people seem to find it so easy to walk onto a bus, pay their fare or flash their pass, find a seat and stay there until their stop, whereupon they exit gracefully. Not so for me. As I walk onto the bus, sometimes I trip or stumble; then I invariably stick the transit card in the wrong way and have to reinsert it. Once I used cash and accidentally stuck my coins into the paper slot and jammed the machine. I was popular that day! I am always juggling my purse, briefcase, iPod and umbrella. Juggling your iPod, you say? Well yes; most people are able to stick the earphones in, put the unit in their pocket and Bob’s your uncle. Again, not so for me. Although my thigh bones are unnaturally large, conversely my ear holes are unnaturally small so my earphones often spontaneously eject, usually when I am trying to reinsert the transit pass and I get all tangled. I have perfected the sheepish grin and my standard line (AM) is “Sorry, I’m not quite awake yet” and (PM) is “Sorry, I’ve had a long day”. Unfortunately, week to week it’s the same driver and same passengers on my route, so I guess the jig is up. So as I walk up the aisle to find a seat, my main objective is to find one close to the front (the less distance I have to walk, the less chance I have to trip and fall). Now there are definite politics involved in choosing a seat. You scan quickly BUT do NOT make eye contact. If you make eye contact you are obligated to take the seat beside that person, otherwise it’s just rude to reject them. You choose your seat based on the size, smell, and overall cleanliness of the window seat passenger. If you are lucky enough to get a window seat of your own, you are not home free yet – oh no! In fact, you may be worse off because then you have NO say in who sits next to you. Sometimes it is better to choose a semi-decent second seat rather than risk the awesome (relatively speaking) window seat with potential crazy smelly seat partner-to-come. And in the case where I have a window seat but somebody chooses to sit by an undesirable instead of me, I am affronted. I want to ask them what made them choose that seat? I want to list my attributes: I’m relatively slim (although I do need to sit diagonally – see thigh bones above), I’m quiet (at least until the earphones eject), I usually don’t fall asleep on other people’s shoulders, I smell all right, and I don’t mutter. All of which is definitely an improvement over Left Window Seat 3! I’m usually ok once I am seated and arranged (briefcase on floor between my legs; umbrella underneath the seat; arm looped through purse and it on lap; iPod in and on; bus ticket tucked in pocket; cell phone in other pocket; lipstick applied) but I average two step-on-foots and one lurch-into-guy’s-shoulder per bus exit.

I must tell you about my most famous exit of all, though. Unfortunately, I also suffered the indignity of having two co-workers witness the event. I was in the back row of the bus, up two stairs from the exit. The seating back there is a big U-shape, i.e. three benches of seats. I stood up as we approached my stop and I thought I had everything under control, bags arranged and so on, and I was holding onto the strap as I took a step down. The bus lurched forward at that point (I think he waited until I was off balance; that’s something they teach them in bus-driver school) so when I tried to bring my lead foot back for support it hit against the stair and I was stuck. Still hanging onto the strap, I began to pivot on my back foot in slow motion, the weight of my briefcase dragging me down. I called out dramatically, “I am falling” and slowly collapsed across the laps of no less than four passengers on the right hand bench. I found myself fully prone, lying across them with Rajie looking down at me saying “Uh, Tamsin – what ARE you doing?” The ladies on the left hand bench opposite gave me scores of 5.5 and 6.0, so it must have looked pretty good. I was apologizing profusely as I scrambled up and composed myself. I’d like to say I had my head held high as I exited the bus, but in reality I slunk off, laughing a little but with a face as scarlet as you’ll ever see.
The Earth needs to thank me for going green on my commute to work since Lord knows nobody else enjoys my bus company.

Two weeks is a long time to spend in close proximity with your children. I am of course talking about spring break. One good thing about spring break is that it prompts parents to find lots of activities to fill their children’s schedules for summer vacation. It’s definitely more than a coincidence that all the flyers for summer camps are coming out right now. This year Ethan’s break was a full two weeks, due to Easter and some tacked-on non-instructional days, and Jack’s was almost as long. The first weekend of the break was Jack’s birthday party, the cousins’ visit, and the family brunch. We didn’t really leave the house at all that weekend, and the Monday was a collapse-on-the-couch day. Mike was working a ton, and so it was just the three of us for almost 12 hours a day. Every day. Easter weekend we went to Whistler after having a nice dinner at Susan’s on Good Friday. On Saturday, we all skied the Magic chair for a few hours. I took Jack over a small jump and he loved it so much we did it about 20 times. Ethan jumped it himself and did very well! Mike’s back was really sore, so after skiing Barry and I carried in and built the new dining room table and chairs. The next day, we had an Easter egg hunt early in the morning (the Bunny found us at Whistler – amazing!) and then Barry took Ethan skiing for the day, while we put Jack into Kids Camp. Mike and I decided not to ski, and went for brunch instead. Then he had work to do, so I read and relaxed. We came home on Monday, and stopped at my parents’ for dinner. We still had a week left of spring break!

Tuesday night the 25 Club girls got together for jewellery making at Kim’s. Now I can add one more “task I am not good at” to my list. Everyone’s creations were beautiful, and while I liked my stuff in the end, it took me FOREVER! And nobody else seemed to have the problem I had where beads kept flying off my string. I don’t understand why my fingers just don’t listen to my head sometimes. Poor Kim will be finding beads under her radiator for years to come. I lost a “few”.

One accomplishment I am proud of for this week is the mini triathlon I did on Saturday at the gym. Ethan was at a birthday party at the YMCA for two hours, so while he was there, I swam 700 m (20 min), biked 14 km (30 min), and ran 4 km (20 min) all in about 90 minutes, including long “transition times” where I showered and got changed in between. I am registered in the Delta Triathlon on Saturday, April 26th, which is a 700 m swim, 20 km bike, and 5 km run. I am feeling like I am actually capable of this. My last sprint triathlon was 5 years ago – 6 months after having Ethan – and it took me 2 hours then so I am hoping to do a little better although I know I will still be fairly slow for my age group. Race time is 8:30am at the Ladner Rec Centre so anyone who wants to come out and laugh at my red face is welcome to! Since I can’t use my iPod during the race, you can sing some of my favourite workout songs to help me keep my pace!
Eminem – Lose Yourself
Justin Timberlake – Sexyback
Kid Rock – Bawitaba
Limp Bizkit – Break Stuff
Queen – We Will Rock You
Madonna – Ray of Light
Young MC – Bust a Move
Beatles – Hard Day’s Night

I’m quite glad to be back in the routine of school although getting up early again sucks. The kids are pleased to be back with their friends and teachers, too – they were sick to death of me. Hopefully we can get along a little better now that we have a little time to ourselves here and there! Next on my agenda is booking a full-body, sports-recovery massage at Casbah (the best spa ever) for April 27th.

On a final note, I came across a cute thing this week – “Mommy Memoirs” – how to sum up life with your children in six words. Here’s mine (do mathematical operators count as words?)
Two boys = energy + love + crazy busy

More Birthday Pics of Jack

There were too many cute photos of Jack on and around his birthday. Here are just a few – isn’t he having a blast?

Jack Turns Four!

Jack turned four on the 6th. It’s unbelievable that he’s already so old, and at the same time his infancy seems like eons ago. Since we didn’t sleep for the first year of his life, it’s understandable that we don’t remember much from 2004. Every year on their birthdays, I take a little trip down memory lane. It’s not as bad as Billy Crystal’s mother in that movie City Slickers, where she calls him every year on his birthday to tell him how many minutes old he is, but something like that. I thumb through the scrapbooks I did for their first birthdays, and I read the journals I kept while I was pregnant with them, and then sporadically for their first year. I also write a card to them with a photo of them on their birthday, and I stick the cards away in a sealed box for them to open on their 19th birthdays. So I re-read what I wrote on their previous birthdays, too. Then I blow my nose and go downstairs, back in my role of Cinderella, and in general take care of whatever crisis has arisen since I sequestered myself an hour before.
His birthday was on a Thursday this year, so we celebrated simply, with a meatball pizza (by request from the birthday boy even though he only ever picks off the meatballs and never eats the pizza so it seems like a colossal waste to order it for the 5 or 6 meatballs he actually consumes for his dinner) and cupcakes. He had a great day and enjoyed his presents very much. We had given him his big present (ski equipment) in February, but he still had several little things to open, so he was quite thrilled.
I was really struck by how old he looks in the face. I know what you’re thinking because he’s just a little guy, but I can really tell, though. He is still so physically small that people have actually doubted me when I tell them his age. As if I don’t know his age! I find myself defending him: “No, he really IS four” before I realize how ridiculous the argument is and steer it to another topic.
His party theme this year was Space. I asked him, did he want a rocket cake? And of course, he said no – he would like all the planets in the solar system. A week before his birthday I baked all the cakes in different size glass bowls and then froze them. The morning of his party I was icing all the cakes in different colours to match all the different planets. I even took a paintbrush to draw Earth’s continents in green icing on the blue-iced planet, until my sister pointed out how ridiculous I was being. Then Mike came upstairs and asked, “Is that Venus” and I came very close to smashing the darn thing into his face. I was most proud of Jupiter with its stormy red spot, and the much-maligned Earth (I even did Greenland and Australia – why could nobody SEE that?). He had invited three kids from preschool and four other close friends, plus his cousins and Ethan. The party was a big success, with a “toss the flying saucer” game, and a “stick the planet in the solar system” game. The highlight was the scavenger hunt for their goody bag items. I had made up a poem and they had to listen for the clues to figure out where their goodies would be. They got Mars bars, Starburst candy, Glow sticks, Alien eggs, Rockets candy and Glow-in-the-dark stars. We were exhausted when everyone left!
It was great to see Briana and Rob for the weekend, too. Liam and Kieran played very well with Ethan and Jack and they really enjoyed themselves. Briana and I got to play on Saturday night, too – we joined Jen, Sonia, Jas, Shannon and Jen at Breanne’s place to play Rock Band. It was a lot of fun, and we each took a turn on the four instruments. I discovered I can rock the guitar and the bass, too, although I still need a lot of help before I can get off Easy level on the drums. Vocals are still my favourite – I am onto Expert level singing at home. If you have ever heard me sing, you would be laughing at this point, but it's true - for one reason or another, I can kill these songs when I sing them on Rock Band...
Last night Marzia had a group of us girls over for dinner. Lori was in town for a visit and it was fantastic to see her again. I thought she looked wonderful despite the three-year struggle she has had with TTP, a very serious autoimmune blood disorder. She has come a long way since the early days of the diagnosis, since the steroids and the chemo and the plasma exchanges, since the shocking news that as recently as 20 years ago this diagnosis was 90% fatal. Marzia, Chantal, Lori, Michelle and I had a delicious dinner, champagne and wine, tiramisu and limoncello for dessert but the best part of the evening was being able to laugh like old times. We also had some interesting conversations about spirituality and alternative healing methods. It was a very enjoyable evening and I was sad to tear myself away at the end of the night. Hopefully Lori will be back again this summer, and we can spend more leisurely time together.
We’re looking forward to an appearance this weekend by the Easter bunny (because my kids sure do need more candy to add to their – ahem – energy) and a little more spring break next week. I am loving the sleep-in mornings although I am puzzled by the fact that the kids are sleeping later and also going to bed earlier. It is so hard to get them to bed at a decent hour on a school night, but they’re snoring by 8 o’clock every night in spring break. Go figure.
So go pig out on chocolate and jelly beans, everyone. Stay away from those nasty marshmallow Peeps, though – ew. Until next week!

More bum stuff? Are you serious?

Have you ever heard something like this:
“Mummy, my brother just stuck a marble up his bum!”
There are various thoughts that rush through your head as you sprint up the stairs three at a time towards said sibling’s room.
#1 Why would someone be SO interested in that area of his body? (See last week’s post for much more detail on that particular area)
#2 How did he get the marble up there?
#3 Will we be driving to emergency in the next few minutes?
#4 If so, do we choose a different hospital from the one who extracted the peas and corn from the nose of older sibling? (Just in case they have a “file” of some sort started on our family)
And by the end of question 4 you are likely already in the boy’s room, and you’re wondering what happened to his pants. Because you know you put pyjama pants on him an hour earlier and personally you usually keep your pants on and you feel that if HE could just keep his pants on, certain parts of the body might be less tempting in general. And then you find yourself turning the boy over and looking in areas you would rather not peruse while demanding “Is it up there?” You will be relieved to discover that the marble is not in fact still "up there" and you are happy to have it in your hand until you remember where it WAS prior to the alarm being raised. Then you are even happier to throw it in the garbage and scrub your hands (“Out, damn spot” – as Mr. Shakespeare would say) just as you scrubbed your hands not even a week prior when the pootastrophe happened. (again let me direct you to last week’s post)
Take a deep breath because now you must have a conversation with your son; one of the ones that fall into the category of “I never thought I would need to say this, but...” did you know it is a bad idea to stick things up your bum/nose/ears? If it got stuck the doctors would need to cut your bum open! Your son considers this for a second, then states that cutting his bum open might hurt. You confirm that it would, in fact, hurt a LOT and that he’d better NOT be putting ANYTHING else up ANYWHERE ANYTIME soon. Kiss good night, tuck in, shut out light, close doors, scrub hands intensely one more time, go and fetch a hefty gin & tonic and rue the day you gave birth to boys.

Poo

If you don’t have a strong stomach, skip this one. Really.
For those of you who are involuntarily drawn in by the fascinating title of today’s post, read on. I have no pictures to add this week, and I think you’ll thank me for that. Having children has really opened my eyes to the disgusting side of life. I don’t think it’s entirely due to the fact that they are both boys, but... my friends who have girls don’t seem to talk about things like “the fart zone” or endless discussions about poo. Which brings us to today’s topic.

In the beginning, when the boys were infants, the first poos were a bit of a surprise. What came out of them was completely unfamiliar to me – it looked like black tar. Then that changed within the first few days to something that resembled Dijon mustard, but smelled just the teensiest bit like buttered popcorn. We lived that life for a while, with the occasional “blowout” where the poo would somehow blow up out of the back of the diaper all the way up the back of the onesie into their hair. Otherwise, the breastfeeding days were not too bad – people would still smile when they heard the boys filling their diapers.

When they started on solid food, things got worse. All of a sudden, my mother was not as interested in doing the diaper changes when we visited. The smells got intolerable, especially when meat was introduced into their diets. With Ethan particularly, who was allergic to so much, there seemed to be an inverse relationship with how good it smelled as food and how bad it smelled as poo. We also discovered the different types of poo, from the hard nuggets that would roll out of the diaper when you opened it to change them, to the “pootastrophes” of diarrhea that would spill out and pour down in a tidal wave off the changing table onto the floor. We also lived our lives in absolute terror for 21 days when Jack was 4 months old – he went that whole time without pooing once. We were terrified as to what would come out when he finally did go. It was actually kind of a let-down when it was just a normal one on day 22.

Toilet training was a treat. This time of our lives was my least favourite as a parent so far. We went through SO many accidents with Ethan. He didn’t care if he crapped everywhere, and given the fact that he has a – ahem – healthy digestive system, we were cleaning up a LOT. In the first three days of toilet training with him, we went through 21 pairs of underwear. Yes, you read that right. And I’d love to say that I was only cleaning up pee, but alas, that was not the case. There was an ever-rotating laundry of underwear that I’d flushed the gross bits out of, the soaking in the sink pile, the pile in the washer and the pile in the dryer. Underwear never even made it into his clean clothes drawer before it was in use again. That stage went on far too long but eventually we got over the hump.

We still wipe Jack’s bum, but Ethan is self-sufficient now. It means we go through a lot of toilet paper and soap, but I’m cool with that. Jack will get there one day.

But I’m not done with poo – I have my top five favourite stories to tell still.
#5
Ethan was 2 months old when we flew back to Vancouver for the first time. I nursed him and changed him with plenty of time before our boarding call, but of course he chose the moment the flight was announced to have a total blowout, prompting a run to the restroom. Not only did I use up his emergency outfit before we even got on the flight (which we nearly missed due to his timing) but I had to completely bathe him and wash his hair in the airport sink. I did not have a change of shirt for me, however, and arrived into the loving arms of my family exhausted and smelling like baby poo and spit-up.
#4
Jack was only about 8 months old – a crawler – when he decided to navigate downstairs (maybe to let me know he needed changing?) He was new to stairs, and so he would go down backwards on his tummy. Well, he was only wearing a diaper and crawling backwards opened the Velcro on the diaper and he squirmed right out of it, smearing poo down 11 stairs. 11 stairs carpeted in off-white carpet, of course. Good times.
#3
Ethan gave up his naps at 17 months, on basically the same day that Jack was born, but I kept trying for “quiet time” for a while afterwards. I would put the baby gate on his doorway and he would bump around for a while and play with toys. One day I thought I was actually successful, that he had actually gone to sleep, but I should have realized that the eerie quiet could mean nothing good. I went upstairs and the smell hit me around stair 5. Ethan had taken the contents of his diaper and painstakingly finger painted the entire baby gate with poo. Baby gates are FULL of tiny crevices, and this one was no exception – about 50 diamond-shaped holes that were all filled with poo. But he hadn’t stopped there – oh no – he had also paid careful attention to the door of his room. You know that little hole in the door frame, where the sticky-outie part of the door shoots into when the door is closed? He’d stuffed that full of poo, too – it was carefully packed in. I had to pick it out with Q-Tips. And to add insult to injury, when I took the gate outside to clean it with the hose, the nozzle was set to something close to sandblasting. So when I sprayed the gate, the poo-water sprayed right back up into my face, up my nose and into my open mouth. And that was the Poo-gate incident.
#2
Jack was extremely resistant to toilet training and was 3 months past his third birthday with no hope in sight. Then he announced on the eve of our road trip to California that he was ready to pee and poo on the toilet now. And that was it; he went from diapers one day to staying dry both day and night the next. He did have one memorable accident, though, just as we were trying to get to the next rest stop in time. He pooed his pants and I carried him into the rest stop bathroom. Of course, there was no change table, and it was about 110 degrees in there and FILTHY. I got into a tiny stall and laid paper towel down on the floor to get Jack undressed. His sweaty little feet stuck to the paper and it started to shred so he was standing on the bare floor. I put more down and laid him on it to take off his underwear. When I took it off, there was only a small poo mark in the underwear, and no poo – I was confused. Then I noticed that the whole ladies’ room line-up had gone silent, and I peeked under the door. The poo ball had rolled out into the aisle. I reached for it under the door and picked up the ball while trying to ignore the gasp from nice-sandal lady with toe ring. I dropped the poo ball into the toilet with a splash and used every last wipe on Jack, my hand, and even the floor out into the aisle where it had rolled. I walked out of the stall without looking at anyone and washed my hands for five minutes before wiping the sweat off my face and returning to the car with Jack. Mike asked me what was wrong and I just told him I wasn’t ready to talk about it yet. It was about 500 miles before I told him and we could laugh about it...
#1
Jack’s most recent accident is what prompted this whole rambling poo retrospective. On Tuesday, we were playing in the fort we had made in the living room, when he started farting. Jack reminds me of the Fire Swamp in Princess Bride. You know how the flame spurts are preceded by several popping sounds? Well, he’s like that too – you can always tell when he needs to go number two. So he started farting and over the next half an hour, I repeatedly asked him to go to the bathroom. He kept insisting he didn’t have to go, until the moment where he ran to the hall and there was this giant “plurp” noise. The look on his face said it all and I ran him upstairs to the bathroom (Why, oh why, did we ever buy a place with no bathroom on the main floor?) dripping the whole way – on those darn stairs again! I couldn’t throw him into the bathtub because I had clothes drying on a rack in there, so I put him on the floor and pulled everything down. What a nightmare! He was hopping all around because he had to pee now, too, so there were poo footprints all over the tiles. I put him on the toilet so he could pee and washed my hands just so I could pull the drying rack out of the bath. Jack kept slipping off the toilet (use your imagination why) so I quickly ran the bath to clean him up. Guess what a bum shower is? Ask Jack to demonstrate. Once he was clean I threw him out the door and lifted the pants into the bath. I guess I had underestimated the volume and depth of the contents of the underwear, and now I realized I had to flush this down the toilet, not rinse it down the drain. I had no choice, and I admit to throwing up in my mouth a little, but I used my hands and took two fistfuls of poo and threw them into the toilet. I could then rinse the pants and underwear enough to get them into the sink to soak. Did I mention I was yelling “I’m going to throw up” over and over again? Ethan poked his head in once, took one look at my face and smelled the stench and ducked right back out again. After the pants were soaking, I then had to clean up the toilet, the bath, the floor, the cupboard door, the toilet paper holder and of course the stairs. I wrapped the clothes in a towel to get them to the washer and went back to the sink. I scrubbed my hands like a surgeon. I’m serious, I worked on them forEVER! And even still, all afternoon I washed my hands every time I needed to use them. I remembered what those hands had done and I needed to wash over and over again. It was traumatic, to say the least.

I hope you’ve enjoyed the poo stories if only for the fact that you didn’t have to live through them. You may have some of your own, but I really hope not. The glimmer of hope for me is that Jack turned 4 yesterday (more on his birthday next time) so there will eventually come a time when I don’t even need to be involved in anyone else’s poo. I am eagerly awaiting that day!