Vomit, Poop, and the F-word

As a newcomer to the blogging world, I have discovered that “mommy blogging” is huge. Really a big deal. And there are some hilarious ones. Some things I have learned from reading many of them that it’s important to: A. Be yourself, and B. Use fake names. From now on, my kids will be Dirt and Tuesday. Our 2-year-old girl couldn’t say her brother’s name for awhile and actually called him Dirt, so there’s that. Plus he's always dirty, duh. And Tuesday just makes sense. Hubby shall be…Bonesaw. He’d like that. Or should I call him Beiber? He’d hate that. (Apparently not bad enough to erase certain things from his Facebook profile, though.) Naw, we’ll just stick with Dooley. It’s not a real name anyway. I will remain Sarah. Whatever, you can’t nickname yourself. The animals will keep their names too.

Two of my favs are Rants from Mommyland and Insane in the Mom-Brain. If I was internet savvy enough I’d do the embedded link thing, but you should look them up if you aren’t already fans. The one thing mommy blogs have in common is CRAZY. Apparently, all moms are somehow crazy. Glad I'm not the only one, cuz...wow. Insanity is the name of the game. And so, humor seems to be prominent in mommy blogging, because how else can you deal with insanity; some are clean and sentimental, and some favor the shock-factor of including naughty language and scandalous metaphors in their blogs, which can be super duper funny, but some of them seem like they’re trying too hard to be Chelsea Handler. Or they're just way too fond of genital jokes. I personally am a big fan of poop jokes. I guess I am too much of a prude to talk about my downstairs all day long. I have a good vomit story too, though nothing can compare to this one: http://www.rantsfrommommyland.com/2010/03/public-display-of-morning-sickness.html. Here’s mine:

Tuesday was sick. Or at least she had had a fever for a few days with no other symptoms. Dooley and I were sitting around the coffee table eating dinner in luxury—on the couches instead of at the dining table—not like we ever sit at the dining table cuz it’s the drop-off zone for crap when we come through the front door. Anyway, Dirt and Tuesday were in their mini folding chairs eating dinner at the coffee table with us (just the right height…and adorable), and Tuesday was eating like a bird as usual. We told her to take a BIIIIIIG bite so she could finish and go to bed before midnight, and she obligingly stuffed an entire ravioli in her mouth. A couple minutes later, still holding the thing in her mouth (as is customary with my gross kids), she gagged. Just a little, but made this awful adult-style retching sound. Responsible and caring and mature as Dooley and I are, we couldn’t stop giggling as the retching continued. She had her teeny tiny hand over her mouth and kept periodically gagging but then nodding, watery-eyed, that she was okay. Don’t judge. It was funny.

Finally I picked up her plate and held it in front of her so she could just spit the darn thing out. Not a moment too soon, because out came the ravioli, along with additional previously-consumed-and-partially-digested chow. I whisked away the plate in business-like disgust. [The funny thing was that she was eating off one of those sectioned off kid plates, and her vomit was contained in one area of her plate. I considered keeping the food that was still safe and clean in the other sections…but I decided against it.] AAAAAANNNND as soon as the plate was gone, more barf came out. And more. And more. Dooley and I could only watch in helpless shock as wave after wave of barf came shooting out of our darling daughter. What are you supposed to do? Pick her up and run her to the sink so there is a trail of vomit all through the living room and kitchen?? And we were still sort of giggling. I know, we are horrible. But we cleaned her up (and the table, and the chair, and the floor) and then cuddled on the couch. The thing that was most distressing for her was that her horsey PJs were soiled, so no biggie. She was fine after that, but now we don’t stress “big” bites quite so much.

Okay, so now it’s Dirt’s turn. No, not a puke story. Some random 3-1/2-year-old funness…first off, he told me yesterday “You have no weiner. You have a butt.” One advantage of being a boy is peeing standing up, and I have to explain to him that mommy and Tuesday can’t do that. So while he was proudly peeing while standing, he wanted to be sure that I wasn’t about to try it too. Hence the disclosure. Thanks, buddy!

On another note, I finally talked Dirt out of his old beat-up pillow. The thing was in saaaaaaaad shape. Brownish color, despite many washings, with the stuffing falling out all over the place. Like seriously half the pillow was ripped open and there were smaller holes all over, and Dirt would NOT part with it. But we got him all jazzed about a NEW pillow, and let him pick it out (it HAD to have squares on it like his beloved pillow), he was able to throw out the old one, by himself, with no regrets. I am relieved, cuz I was considering taking a needle and thread to it. And I can’t sew. Or cook. At. All. I really am a terrible, terrible housewife. Cleaning and baking are the only domestic skills I can even begin boast, and I am mediocre at best. Why the fork don’t they teach home ec anymore?! It’s not like physics or geology are helping me. My endlessly vast knowledge of wildlife is starting to come in handy, though…

One night Dirt said the cat, Hotdog, needed to go outside to go potty, but I told him Hotdog needs to stay inside at night so coyotes don’t eat him. Then I had to show him many, many YouTube videos of coyotes. Dirt was very, very concerned for Hotdog’s wellbeing, and said gravely, “We will spank the coyot-ee-uhs very hard when they eat Hotdog,” and made sure that I watched him closely as he demonstrated a very hard spank. One of the videos we watched was a close encounter between a coyote and a guy who sounded Canadian, and as the coyote nipped his foot, the guy called the coyote a f***er, to which Luke quickly replied, “He’s not a f***er!” Thanks for springing to defend the innocent coyote, and with such well-articulated words. Nice.

And I DO have a poop story. Aren’t you relieved? What is a mommy blog without poop and vomit? Really? Soooo Dirt is back on track to pooping on the potty (WOOOOHOOOO!), only he wants to show me EVERY. SINGLE. TURD. INDIVIDUALLY. The reason for this is the fact that I used his competitive side to goad him into pottypooping. Yeah, so…my dearest sister sent me a PICTURE of one of her son’s particularly massive upright turds. I showed it to Dirt as a motivational tool. “Can you beat THIS? We’ll take a picture of YOUR poop and send it back to your cousin and your Auntie!” So. We had a seven-poop extravaganza the other night where I had to take pictures of EACH one. And each one had its own descriptor: Big circle poop, leaning poop, mustache poop (???), left and right poop, etc. Whatever. It worked. And after trying every tactic, from rewarding him with praise or stickers or treats, to threats and punishment (I know, BAD move), taking pictures and versing his cousin is what seems to do the trick. Awesome.

So...do you freak out like a deer in headlights when your kid vomits? Do you laugh at your kids and then feel like a total jerk? Are your kids hopelessly attached to some random, old, gross item? How did you get them off it? Do your children use profanity flawlessly? Do you have an awesome potty training trick?