Don't Eat the Soap (Or Do...I've Checked Out)

WOOOOO FRIDAY NIGHT!!!!! It’s a wild one here, let me tell you. The hubby is working all night, and I am left alone with the small wild things, hugging a box of Kleenex for my boundless congestion, attempting undies on the girl for the first time, watching Bob the Builder for the millionth time, and sword-fighting the cat. 

That last bit needs an explanation, does it? So here I am, lying on the dirty floor, trying to ignore how badly it needs to be vacuumed while struggling with some fancy stretches for my lower back, which is jacked up for some unknown reason (read: inactivity?). Then, low and behold, a friendly cat is all up in my grill, and a nice wooden sword next to him. It. Was. Epic.

Also, I bought Tuesday some cute little girl underpants (we will never ever never ever call them panties cuz it's a creepy word, even at my age) and she is super jazzed to wear them. Why not tonight? She turned two in August and is aware of passing #2 and has shown interest in the potty. Aren’t those the signs? Strangely enough, I already forgot how potty training transpired with Dirt, who will be four in March, and potty training feels new all over again. Anyway, there are three pairs of cute little girl underpants that were already christened. She was very upset each time, which I think is a good sign…or is it?

I know all you kid-free party animals are sooooo jealous of my rock and roll lifestyle. Just think: if you can dream it, you can achieve it. (Just as I write this, the boy gleefully yells, “Mom! Come see my big poop and wipe my butt!” For reals. Only a little ironic.) Woooooo Friday!

I let the kids play mostly unsupervised while I was writing the other night. I found Tuesday with marker all over her face, arms, and hands. And teeth. Then I found Dirt, fully clothed, sitting in the bathroom sink—which was full of water. The very best part was that he had ingested hand soap, and was blowing bubbles with his mouth and laughing. Only when I made the mistake of asking him how the soap tasted did he start freaking out about it, screaming like a pig and sticking his tongue out, greatly distressed.

Sometimes (or always. whatevs.) I get so tired of the constant policing of motherhood that I check out and let them run amuck while I sit on the computer as if I wasn’t surrounded by utter chaos. (La la la I can’t hear you!) At this very moment I am ignoring the fact that I hear the clamor of children on kitchen counters, opening cabinets—don’t worry they’re very agile—like squishy nudist panthers. Oh, now I hear dishes, or perhaps glasses…Tuesday says she’s making coffee…hmmmm. Dare I go investigate? They sound happy; I’d hate to rain on their parade of playtime camaraderie. But things keep falling. I hear the falling. What items are they digging out of cabinets and throwing to the ground? Nothing breakable…yet…UGH…FINE!!!! So I finally got my lazy arse up, and they’re merely building Tupperware towers. Making a grand mess, but harmless. 

Whenever I'm in another room, I fear the anarchy and destruction I will discover when I go to see what the kids have been doing, unsupervised. Recently, I was en route to catch them in an assumed act of terror, and Dirt met me in the hallway, barring my passage. Then he pulled me by the hand in the opposite direction, saying, "You don't see in there!" When I inevitably did see, after all the building concern, it was nothing—just that they had knocked a lampshade off the lamp—and he immediately said he was sorry and repeatedly told me that they had made several attempts to fix it. It was adorable, even though he was grinning like crazy, as if the lampshade was a cover for something else. Something else that I never found.

Here's the girl in the shiny shoes at least.

When I leave them alone for mommy-free amusement, they often turn to the aforementioned sink time, and I end up having to mop up water all over the counter and floor. Or they take out all my shoes and bras—and I mean all of them—and for someone that defaults to the same three pairs of shoes and the same three bras all the time, I sure own a lots and lots of both. So that equals a huge mess. It also equals hilarity, when they’re staggering about in mismatched high heels, clutching various bras to their chests…regretfully the only pictures I have of this event might be verging on inappropriate (my children are seldom dressed). The part their daddy really appreciates is when the boy hangs a scarf over his head as “long girl hair” and then proudly struts around in my shiny shoes, saying “I’m a pretty girl!”

Seriously though. I get so tired of making constant reprimands. I can’t fight them on Every. Little. Thing. All. The. Time. It really is tiresome saying NO every freaking second of my life. So I allow-slash-ignore the insanity and let them have a crazyball. If it were up to my wonderful mother-in-law, every minute would be Crazyball time, because she is the epitome of wild, fun, indulgent grandmother, and we all love her to bits. What “we” love to bits slightly less is the cleaning up after Nana-induced Crazyball time, or listening to Nana-amplified Crazyball time. My children love screaming. It is ear-splitting. They scream more when excited. They are excited by their Nana, who also loves screaming. It's hilarious and terrifying all at once, the crazy happy cyclone of noise that can occur.


On another note, guess what? I am mostly done with Christmas shopping!!! Before Thanksgiving! My mom made me go shopping with her, and we were Christmas shopping rock stars, even though I was snorfy mucusface all day. So the good news is no last-minute shopping; the bad news is, I have a month to reconsider my purchases and then buy supplemental ones to make the doubtful originals better. 

Christmas shopping gives me great anxiety, and not necessarily just because of the large-ish lump of money one must fritter away, but because I never know what to get anyone. I feel like it’s wasteful on both the giving and receiving ends, because the gifter is throwing away money on some random crap that the giftee doesn’t even want or need, and as a result, the former is broke and the latter has an excess of random crap that they don’t want or need, but they keep it forever out of guilt. I know this because I am a crap collector. I can’t get rid of anything, no matter how ugly or useless, especially if my uncle’s brother’s girlfriend’s mom gave it to me for Christmas, because then it has tremendous sentimental value, and what if I see them again in eight years and I’m not still visibly treasuring it for all the world to see? That would be atrocious. 

Once in a long while I find something that I know the giftee will like, and in that rare occasion, I do enjoy giving gifts…but usually it’s just like, “Well, I gotta get something…here, have this gallon of mouthwash! It’s Iceburg Blue!” I feel like I need to offer an apology along with the gift. Am I alone in this?