Can I just say “TGIF”? Or even “TGID” (Thank God it’s December!)?! As loyal blog-friends know, the MONTH of November has been full of both wonderful and WHOA. Parent pixies, boogars, ear infections, car sick, blah blah blah. Well, November would not go quietly and the last day of the month was one for the Mommy Record Books.
Even the weather was in on the joke. After wonderfully mild days of 50+ degrees, the Minnesota chill settled in and we woke to 8 degrees of warmth outside – without the wind chill! After a night of a screaming Liam (he is still off his sleeping schedule after the whole ear infection), I struggled to bundle the kids into their winter coats so I could get Kate to school on time. We scurried outside (because I forgot to put the car in the garage) where we were temporarily delayed by Kate’s amazing discovery of being able to SEE people’s BREATH. She just could not get over it and demanded a full scientific explanation of it while we stood on the porch. We just could not do anything until I explained “why my breathing is white like a cloud”. Ok, quick science lesson while Liam – looking like a giant puffy blueberry in his enormously cozy blue bunting, with only his eyes and nose exposed to the chill – kept gasping and grunting due to the cold. We RAN to the car and I pressed my auto-door-opener.
Nada.
Pressed it again.
Nada.
Here is a description of what followed as all doors to the car were frozen shut.
Maggie attempts to open each of the doors. Pulling with all her might. Bracing one foot against the car and throwing full – and not insignificant – body weight into the task. Nada. Maggie pounds around the perimeter of the doors like knocking a secret code on a hidden panel in an attempt to break lose any ice inside. Nada. Maggie ends up crawling into the car through the trunk while the children look on from the frozen yard. She gets the front door open, but the back doors still are not budging – not even from inside the car. She loads the kids in through the front seat.
Hey – at least I did not have to load them in through the trunk. Needless to say, we were late for school.
The next fun event came as I picked Kate up from school. She had a great day– after all, they made tambourines and played marching band! She did NOT want to leave school. She refused to put her coat on. I wrestled it on. She threw her mittens across the floor. She hid behind her teacher, clutching her legs wailing “iiiiiii waaaannnt to staaaaay and plaaaaaaay” (all the children are now gone except for her!). After about 10 minutes of what was like wrestling a greased pig, I got her coat and mittens and hat on and literally dragged her out of school as she kicked and screamed. Her protests became – well, guttural. She sounded like the exorcist child, sans swearing. She writhed and twisted and did that limp as a noodle, stiff as a board thing. She would become dead weight so she was immovable. Let me remind you, dear reader, that I have a giantly huge heavy baby in an even MORE giant snowsuit in my arms while all this is going on. And the car is parked almost a block away. All the kindergarten moms are in their warm minivans parked on the street waiting for their kids – and watching me wrangle an insane three year old while holding a record setting mass of a 9 month old. I ended up carrying both kids - each under one arm - like one might carry an armful of grocery sacks – except one of the sacks has a very red face and is kicking violently. This was very hard. Every time I put Kate down to readjust my grip, she would run back toward school and I would have to run after her, so we would lose some ground. And it was 8 degrees outside. The whole time. About 20 minutes worth of frozen freak out.
I don’t know how, but I finally got her to the car. More miraculously, I don’t know how we got to the car without (a) me collapsing on the frigid ground crying in frustration and exhaustion, or (b) me becoming one of those mom’s in the supermarket that you see that is so unhinged that you wonder if maybe you should call the Department of Children and Family Services. EVERYONE needed a time out. I honestly had never seen her behave so insanely and felt so overwhelmed! It was invasion of the body snatchers type stuff! Anyone who knows Kate knows this was unusual for her character. But I guess not unusual for any and every kid to experience from time-to-time, right? In other words she is normal. She is normal. She is normal. :) Most days she is exceptional, but THIS aspect of her behaviour was normal. tee hee
I will skip the details of the disciplinary action because it is just not as funny as me wrestling preschoolers. But Kate informed me that she was very tired (not surprising since her brother screamed all night and kept us all awake). She was then robbed of her TV show for the day, her stuffed animals were confiscated, etc. etc. She would go home, have lunch, and go straight to naptime – no toys or anything. I honestly have never been more frustrated with her and more questioning of my sanity and my ability as a parent.
Once home, in my commitment to follow through with disciplinary action, I told Kate to go “tinkles” before naptime while I quickly cleaned up after lunch. She went into the bathroom and after a few minutes of silence I called out “Kate! What’s going on?” She came tearing into the kitchen. Bottomless. With her kiddie toilet seat on her HEAD. Laughing. Maniacally.
Ew.
Immediate correction. Faster than immediate. I mean – ewwwwww. I instructed Kate to GO TINKLES and then left her on the potty.
Two more minutes go by with no action if you know what I mean, so I went to check on her and she is sitting there. Bottomless. With a BEACH BALL-sized wad of Toilet Paper in her lap. Grinning proudly. And, yes, she is attempting to utilize it in the fashion for which TP was invented. She had unrolled the entire brand new roll of TP. ARRRGGHHHHH.
I am just going to skip over the rest of the day, which consisted of ongoing instances of selective hearing and memory loss on the part of Kate. She did better after her nap, but my nerves were shot.
Cut to 5pm. Kate is instructed to go potty. Wising up, I supervise this time. All goes well. I leave her to wash her hands and it sounds like things are fine. I hear a strange gurgling noise while she is running the water in the sink. Sounds like we have air in the pipes? Maybe from all this cold it was freezing up? But wait – what is THAT sound? It sounds like a loud rush of water, like maybe the tub faucet is on. Darn it! Is Kate playing in the tub now? Just as I launch forward to the bathroom as I hear the sound, I also hear a loud shout from Kate. I tear into the bathroom to see a literal geyser of water erupting from the TOILET.
Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
There was water everywhere. It was, as Kate said, “a fountain”. So I have water pouring over my feet, over every inch of the bathroom. Kate is freaking out. I cannot get the water to stop. Kate is screaming. Kate is laughing. Liam is crawling into the bathroom. Liam is in the toilet water on the ground. The water is rising. I start to think about it seeping into the floor and causing our ceiling to collapse. The TV is right under this bathroom and Grey’s Anatomy is on tonight! OH NO!
Looooong clean up follows. Dozens of towels are used. The entire bathroom is disinfected from floor to ceiling. The children are cleaned. And somewhere in there was a call to Nick where apparently I screeched into the phone “Nooooo woorrkinnggg laaaate toniiiiight. Pleeeassee get hooooommme! Sob sob. Hysterical giggle. Sob.”
Did I also mention the cherry on top of this day? I have pinkeye. In both eyes. I look like a demon in tortoiseshell glasses. And because of our late start I was wearing sweats the whole day. And not cute “juicy couture style” sweats. We are talking giant grey sweatpants that are stretched out because I wore them through pregnancy and a gross grey sweatshirt. Which meant I was monochromatic, which I hate being.
My white night showed up in the maroon ’95 Honda Accord as soon as he could and helped out. I put the kids to bed and when I came downstairs the kitchen was clean and the house was – QUIET. Ahhhh.
Seriously, was this day not like the movie “Mr. Mom”? You know, where the washing machine becomes unbalanced and “walks” across the basement and the vacuum eats the woobie and the kid explodes a can of chili on the stove? I thought those were supposed to be overly exaggerated situations to make it funnier.
Well, this day was reality, not a Michael Keaton flick. And darn it, it WAS FUNNY! Not always in the exact moment. But I am laughing out loud right now at the thought of it. And I hope you know that none of this is complaining – I just want people to laugh along with me.
Ok, FINE – and AT me is ok, too. It is warranted!
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