Fake Nail and Diaper Goo - the Diaper Part

... part two of the post started yesterday...


We join the story as I am fumbling around the house with my fake nails making my hands feel like my normal fingers have been replaced with useless, painful nubs.




Sabotage #2 - Dalton and Belle

But according to my PLAN, I needed to get laundry done.  And because all of my fingernails were achy (and my middle finger was downright painful since I'd accidentally glued the skin on the tip of my finger to the fake nail which was pulling the skin excruciatingly...) I solved my problem by recruiting help.  I perched Dalton on top of the dryer, held up a laundry basket and he tossed his and Belle's clothes into the washer for me.

And that was how Dalton tried to help me but inadvertently sabotaged me.  The laundry was started in record time and I smiled in blissful ignorance as we headed back up to do some school only an hour behind schedule.

(No, Dalton, I can't help you peel apart the papers you glued together wrong.  I can't use my fingers.)

45 minutes later when we went down to change the load I discovered the problem.  When I opened the washer every single item was covered in gooey gel.  

Belle's contribution to the sabotage was that she had left a pull-up inside one of her pairs of tights which Dalton hadn't noticed.  Do you know what happens when a disposable diaper is submersed in water?  The gooey gel inside expands and expands and expands until it explodes out of the diaper and coats every surface it can find - clothes and washer.

So between

• Googling "PULL-UP WENT THROUGH THE WASH!" (which returns a surprising number of hits...), 
• stopping to feed Liam, 
• brushing off every single small item of clothing that was in the very full washer, 
• stopping to change Liam, 
• cleaning as much goo as I could out of the washer then running a load of old towels in an attempt to clean it completely, 

I wasted most of the rest of the morning.

Yup, no school done, no laundry folded, no floor cleaned and a nap time looming when I KNOW it's going to take me ten times longer to make each necklace that it would have if I had the use of my fingertips.

And these are the times when I drop my head into my hands (ouch - stupid nails) and think longingly of the days of being a cubical drone in an office.   That is until nap time is over and my sleepy girl wants to sit in my lap and read a book and her big brother shows up to help read and the baby wakes up and grins at me.

So I pack up the jewelry stuff, pull the now clean laundry out of the dryer, man up about the finger pain and count my blessings that I have so many interruptions in my day.

Fake Nails and Diaper Goo - Part I

I had one of those days last week.  I kept solving problems and my solutions had repercussions that rippled destructively through the rest of my day.

Since Liam appeared on the scene we've been a bit...fluid with our schedule around here.  Before he was born we had a rhythm.  Breakfast, school time, lunch, nap, errands, dinner.  And yes, Dalton and Belle provided innumerable interruptions and minor emergencies that had to be dealt with during the day, but in general we could keep the Progress Train chuggin' down the track.

No longer.  I have lost long chunks of time to do anything and instead spend the day not-quite-completing a half dozen things that I have attempted a half dozen times each.  Like emptying the dishwasher or folding laundry or finishing Dalton's math lesson or (the worst of all when left incomplete) trying to drink my morning coffee.

And every time Liam interrupts the schedule, the older two bolt away like hyper puppies when the front door is opened.

But I decided that Liam is old enough that I can try to plan a little more. So last Wednesday I was up before everyone and got my trusty daily schedule paper and filled it up - conservatively, (I thought) and allowing for a lot of Liam-time.  Just some homeschooling in the morning, fold some laundry, sweep and mop the floor.  Then during nap time I had a bunch of necklaces to make for my Etsy shop.  Cool.  Totally doable.  After all, I'm the one in charge in the house, right?  So I decide what we're doing, right?

RIGHT? (Cue crazy eyes and desperate voice.)

Unfortunately everyone, including myself, was out to sabotage my day.

Sabotage #1 - Myself

I was up early and as I was going to sit down and work on my Etsy shop I snagged my thumbnail on my sweater. Again. You see, I have two fingernails that are broken so far down that they just will not heal.  So I decided to buy some short acrylic nails and put them on to give the nail underneath time to grow out.  And I'm going to stand by the fact that this was a good idea.  At least as far as my nails were concerned.

(Side note:  I had fake nails once before for our wedding and my main memory of them was that I basically lost the use of my fingers because my nails felt so unwieldy.  I even remembered this fact and laughed at myself...but then kept going...)

So I rushed through putting on nails since kiddos were half a breath from waking up.  It took until I was attaching the tenth nail before the mental light bulb went on so brightly that I the kitchen actually got brighter.  There I am, holding my last fake thumbnail on with fingers that are now pathetically clumsy, and I froze.

I froze with a stupid slack-jawed expression as the ramifications of my actions sank in.  In an effort to fix a couple nails I had just made my hands UNUSABLE.   OK, maybe not "unusable", but they did have the approximate dexterity of my two-year-old's hands.  And I had done all this next to my computer with my Etsy shop open to the page showing that I had 12 orders for wire wrapped necklaces.  Twelve of these:

Because that sure doesn't look like it takes any fine motor skills to make, does it?  Oh no.  Tiny teardrops, thin wire, tiny rings, tools.  Oh crap.  I stared at my (admittely cute) french manicured fake fingernails in horror.  I even pulled on a couple to see if they'd come back off.  Ouch.

And then started a morning of feeling idiotic as I found task after task that now bordered on the impossible. Tasks like:

• Typing.  It took me about 5 minutes to do a quick email. 
• Picking up the wire for my necklaces.
• Peeling a sticker off an apple
• Scratching my nose without jabbing a nail into it so hard I made myself cry.
• Picking up the baby without scratching the back of his head.
• Moving my hands past ANYTHING without spearing my nail into it causing my real nails to feel like they had been pummeled by a hammer.
• And I quickly gave up trying to text my husband about my problem. 

And yes, I acknowledge that this was very sad.  The acrylic nails were the shortest I could have possibly bought.  But still, they were completely debilitating.  So because of my own idiot decision, my morning began to grind to a halt.

...to be continued....

Should I be worried... 2nd edition

This could become a regular post on my blog.  I am constantly asking myself if I should be worried about the odd things my kids do.  Of course, I think I'm going to write a book about how children hit all the major types of mental illness as they grow.  It'll be a best seller for sure and change the way child psychology is viewed.

• Baby happily hitting the same dangly toy over and over and over again?  OCD.
• 2-year-old laughing, then crying, then peaceful, then screaming?  Manic depressive.
• 5-year-old LOVES gym class and has the best time ever but the next week hates gym class and cries to go home? Schizophrenic.

See? As an adult it's a mental illness.  In a child it's a "developmental phase".

But I digress.


Should I be worried of weird phobias? 

A couple times now, in the middle of happily eating bacon Belle will suddenly put down the bacon and say, with a very concerned face, "Mommy, I don't like bacon.  It really scares me."

'Cause I kind of am.

Scared of bacon?  I'm scared of people who don't like bacon.  I love bacon.  Will I still love her if she doesn't?  I don't know.  Probably, but I can't be sure.

Should I be worried that I yell at the kids too much?  

Dalton told his sister the other day, "You don't yell at me!  Only Mommy and Daddy yell at me!"

'Cause I'm not.

I mean, I'd like to yell at them less, but D seems to think it's perfectly fine that I do it, so why stop? 

He looks innocent, doesn't he...

Should I be worried that there is yet another baby-related game going on? 

This one is called "Napping" and it consists of one child putting their head down (while never giving any other sign that the game has begun) and when the other one speaks the first one looks up and yells, in as crabby of a voice as possible, "Don't wake me up! I'm napping!" 

'Cause I'm not.

Well, I'm not terribly worried about the game.  Yes it shows that I am horribly crabby about them waking the baby from his nap, and that may not be a part of my personality that I want to see mirrored, but I really don't want them to wake him up.  So any reinforcement of that idea is good, right? 

And besides, there's an aspect of the game that is funny.  Belle refuses to close her eyes when she's the 'napper.'  When Dalton points this out and says, equally crabbily,"You were not napping.  Your eyes were open." She show in her response that she still believes something firmly that I thought she had grown out of.  "Dalton," she replies condescendingly, "I always sleep with my eyes open." 

Months ago she first informed me of this and when I told her that everyone sleeps with their eyes closed she said, "Yup.  Everyone but me.  And Dalton."  But then she dropped it for a long time.  Until the napping game started.  Then last night when I went in her room 90 minutes after I'd put her to bed to tell her in my most intimidating mommy voice that she needed to "lay down, be quiet, close her eyes and GO TO SLEEP," she replied, "No."  Then she must have seen my unhappy face (see last post) because she quickly continued, "I sleep with my eyes open."  

(Deep breath) Fine.  Lay down, be quiet, leave your eyes open and GO TO SLEEP!

Here she is, clearly fast asleep.

Should I be worried that Liam might not be the cutest baby in the world?

Nope.

"Unhappy" faces

Belle started a new pastime around the house.   She started squinting her eyes and pursing her mouth and saying, "This is Daddy's unhappy face," meaning the face he gives her when she's about to get in trouble. 

Needless to say the game immediately caught on.

Apparently their dad and I have very different unhappy faces.

Belle's "Daddy's unhappy" face:

 

Dalton's  "Daddy's unhappy" face:

Belle's "Mommy's unhappy" face:

 Dalton's "Mommy's unhappy" face:

And of course once the camera came out and Dalton got wound up,

he decided that Mommy's unhappy face really looked more like this:

I wish. That's way more intimidating than the whole wide-eyed thing.

Highs and Lows - Daylight savings edition

I was just thinking that when I classify my highs and lows they are always from my perspective (since I'm the beautiful, glowing center of my own universe... and I can prove that because my incredible gravity makes my kids want to be right at my feet all day long) when in reality one man's high is another man's low.  Or in my case, one kid's high is a mother's low. 

So here's an effort to be more inclusive in my approach to highs and lows...

High for kids - Low for Mommy

The doughnut:
One morning D and Liam and I were up hanging out together.  D was eating a sprinkled doughnut (excited about how he didn't have to share it with Belle, even though it was the last one), Liam was chillin' on the floor and I zipped upstairs to get Belle up.  Two minutes later I came back down and D was looking sweetly at Liam from his perch up at the table.

D: "Did you say it is alright if Liam eats sprinkled donuts?"

Me: "No, sweetie.  Liam only has milk.  Nothing else at all.  He's too little to eat a doughnut.  But it was nice of you to think of sharing."

Then D gave me that look.  The one where he's dying to tell me something but suspects that whatever it is might get him in trouble.  And he looked at his doughnut - and he looked at Liam - and then back at his doughnut.

Me (looking with growing alarm at my two month old): "DID YOU ALREADY GIVE HIM SOME OF YOUR DOUGHNUT?!!?!?!"

D (looking a little nervous): "Um....yes."  (But trying to dig himself out of the hole he senses he is in) "I gave him a bite from the really good part right here in the middle where there's lots of icing and sprinkles."

Me (looking back and forth between the completely calm baby on the floor and my eldest son) "Really?  You really gave him a bite of icing and sprinkles?"

D (starting to speak patiently to me like I'm a little slow and pointing at his doughnut): "Yes, from right here."

Me (sort of baffled): And Liam ate it?

D (now looking at me like he's sure I'm crazy): Yup

Me:  You SAW him eat it?  Because Liam can't eat something like that.  He doesn't know how to.

D: Yup, I saw sprinkles in his mouth.

Me:  Liam, open your mouth, baby! (Which, by the way he did, immediately.  Can you say baby genius?)

And I have to say I saw no sign whatsoever that my two month old just ate some sprinkles and icing.  No funny colored tongue or drool.  No sprinkle bits in a mouth that has NO IDEA how to eat something like icing and sprinkles.  But D swears he ate some. 

So, a High for the boys because:

1. The boys were smiling sweetly at each other like best friends.
2. My son at least intended to share the best part of his doughnut voluntarily with his baby brother.

But firmly in the Low category for me because:

1. I swear my son knew not to feed anything to the baby so the amount of worry this opens up in my life is huge.  

High for Mommy - Oh, never mind, Low for Mommy

Daylight savings time! 

An extra hour of sleep!  Yippee!!

Oh no, wait.  I have kids and a baby who show complete disregard for the clock on a regular basis.  Dang.  

So lots of other people get an extra hour sleep but I don't.  Crap.  May you all be up for various trivial and irritating reasons tonight. 

High for Mommy - and no one else cares - which is what makes it a high.

Awake for the crack:
Medman is on a rotation where he has to be at the hospital at a hair past the butt crack of dawn.  Actually, it would have been a hair past the butt crack of dawn in the middle of the summer.  Now, even with daylight savings it's still half a cheek before the butt crack of dawn.  But ANYWAY... he has to be up and so I decided to get up too.  Normally being up this early is not good, but I have to say that Liam has been sleeping ok til around 7ish, so suddenly Mommy has an hour or two of absolute peace and quiet.  It's fantastic.  Weirdly unsettling but fantastic.  And since Medman is ready for bed at about, oh 5:45 every night, I'm still getting "good sleep."  And since Liam turned 12 weeks old this week, I'm thinking that soon I may even get to stop putting quotations around the words "good sleep".