My husband is a saint.

Anyone who reads this blog realizes that.  Can you imagine being married to me?  It’ll be 2 in the morning and I will bolt out of bed, run down the stairs and make magnets.  Read email while The Boy takes a bowl filled to the BRIM with milk and cheerios up the stairs, except by the time he gets upstairs, there is no milk and cheerios in the bowl.

D:  WHAT is going on here?
K:  (reading email) Huh?
D:  There is a trail of milk all the way up the stairs and down the hall.
K:  (thinking good for The Boy to at least keep the cheerios in the bowl)  Really?
D:  And there is a puddle of milk here on the counter.
K:  (glaring at The Boy because despite it being HIS bad behavior, I’m getting chewed out for my failure to pay attention).  I already cleaned up one puddle.  There is another one?
D:  Didn’t you know what he was doing?

Of course I knew what he was doing.  But I am determined to make the Number One Parenting Mistake.  Inconsistency.  That’s me.  I told him 7 times that he couldn’t take a bowl of cereal upstairs to eat in his bed.  I cleaned up the first mess.  I told him to sit down to eat.

and then I gave up.  Because he doesn’t listen to me.  Because I have passed (from my gina-saur–thanks Cake Lady for that one) myself.  I don’t know how all of you people who have known me all of my life or who have been forced to ride in a car with me in the early hours of the day when I c-a-n-n-o-t-s-h-u-t-t-h-e-h-e-l-l-u-p did not ever beat my incessantly talking mouth.  I am exhausting.  Alway have been.  No caffeine, no sugar, doesn’t matter.  And now I am getting it back in spades.  I do NOT want a closing argument intended to sway me to see your most ridiculous side.  I am TIRED, people.  I am TIRED of listening to the 30 minute explanation for WHY I should allow you to take a bowl of cereal up to bed.  Tired.  Tired.  Did I mention I was tired? 

I just want to check my email.  I just want to respond to my email.  I just want to be at some small point where I feel like I am caught up on work or at least the end is in sight. 

Maybe my goal should be to see the end of toddlerdom in sight.  Oh, wait.  The Baby just toddled by with a dinner plate and a full set of utensils.  That light at the end of the tunnel?  We call that a mirage. 

(live near clifton, VA?  They are having their annual Spring Scavenger Hunt tomorrow at noon.  The Easter Bunny will be there.  I am TOTALLY sitting on his lap for a picture.  I hope I don’t break his leg…)

The Baby won’t crawl down the stairs.  The other day I heard him heckling me from the second story.  When I came around the corner, there he was standing at the top of the stairs with one leg hovering over as he was getting ready to step down.  This is logical, of course, because he’s been walking all of 20 minutes.  I, for the MILLIONTH time, told him to “turn around, feet first.”  I came to the top of the stairs and turned him around and put his feet first.  He screamed, locked up his legs, turned around and lunged for my neck.  Lazy little bastard.  He just won’t come down the stairs.  It’s not difficult, but he refuses to learn.  Fastforward a few days later.

We are all piled on the bed yesterday.  The Husband was already gone and the kids were clammering to get up.  I was clammering for five more minutes sleep.  Times about a thousand. 

They start playing this game where they are chasing each other over the mountain.  The mountain being my ass that is clearly the highest place on the bed.  Over, over, over, over.  They are hysterically laughing.  I’m torn between deciding if I am going to wake up and tickle them until they throw up or sleep another 5 minutes.  I mean, once you get out of that bed, it’s over. 

Suddenly I hear The Boy pop down off the bed and jump into the rocker in the corner. 

The Boy:  I’m rocking.

K:  That’s great, Eat.

I open my eyes to see that The Baby has decided to follow his brother off the bed.  But here’s the thing.  He’s trying to figure out how to to get me to put him over the side of the bed and onto the floor.  I find this annoying. 

K:  If you want to get off the bed, turn around and put your feet fir…

He flips around before I can finish the sentence and goes feet first off the bed.  The very, very high bed.  He lands with a thud and I lean over the bed to see how he is doing on the carpet below.  He’s lying flat on his back and he is PISSED. 

K:  Like I was saying, Feet first and “HOLD ONTO THE BLANKET to slow you down.”

Funny me.  I thought I had at least 2 months to drill this into his head before he did it.  Oh, well. 

So I’m in the shower this morning and The Baby is in his blue tub at the bottom of the shower.  The Boy has run off with my I-Phone to God only knows where.  The Boy suddenly reappears at the bathroom door without the phone.

TB:  MomMomMom.  Your phone is on the green couch. 
K:  Yeah, I would prefer to have my phone here.

The Baby opens the shower door because, God FORBID, he miss anything.

K:  Shut the door, Nate. 
TB:  But it’s on the green couch.
K:  Then I would like you to go down to the green couch and bring it back to this bathroom. 
TB:  (quite cheery) OK, Mom. 

And runs down the hall.  I need that phone back because when it locks, it only allows emergency calls.  I need to know if someone thought we were having an emergency and now some form of emergency response unit is showing up.  You know how the locals get fiesty about repeatedly showing up at your house for nothing. 

I continue to wash my hair and as I close my eyes to rinse out the shampoo, I feel a cool, univited breeze on my body. I look down to find the shower door open and a very wet, very naked, very fat-assed Baby toddling precariously across the very slick bathroom floor.  Because if you have been walking for all of 3 weeks, you should jump right to the Wet Tile portion of the show.  The door flies open and The Boy hands me my phone. I look down to see that the Notes function is open and the word “Jugg” is written on the pad.  The Boy points to what he has written.  I yell to The Baby to get back into the shower and he yells, “MOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMYYYYYYYY”  and starts to walk away faster.

Their father would be so proud. 

The Boy (that’s for you, Marelle):  MomMomMomMom.
K:  Yes, Ethan.
TB:  MomMomMom. Why don’t you have a bag?

Hmmm.  I glanced over to see him pointing at the sea of purses, sachels, handbags, pocketbooks, diaperbags, ect.  There were five women at Chick-fil-a and there must have been 70 bags.  Easily.

K:  Yeah, um.  I don’t carry a purse.
TB:  But what about a bag for Nate’s stuff?
K:  Am I supposed to carry stuff for Nate (looking around frantically).  Does he smell?  Did he poop?  Nate, did you poop?  You already pooped an hour ago.  You can’t poop again. I don’t have a diaper. Damn it, I don’t have a diaper.
TB:  He didn’t poop, Mom.  I just ask because those OTHER moms have bags.

Whatever.  Why we gotta be keeping up with the Jones’s when the kids are 1 and 3?  Seriously. I have, on occasion, carried a purse. But why would I carry a purse if my husband can hold my keys and my wallet? Hello? Why did I get married? I mean, other than for his hot bod? When I had The Boy, I even carried a diaper bag. I had to because the kid had blowouts twice a day. Every single day for the first year of his life. I have never, ever, ever seen someone so full of crap. The Baby? Crapped once a week for the first 6 months of his life. Scared the ever living hell out of me. I thought he was broken.

That being said, The Baby has had a total of like 3 blowouts in his life. I NEVER carry a diaper bag and on occasion just route around in the trunk for a diaper to change a wet one. Change of clothes? I spit on a change of clothes. I did just start taking one diaper in a bag to church on Sundays because after doing nursery duty one week where every other child had a bag with 6 diapers, two meals, a 24 oz. box of Cheerios, two bottles and 7 changes of clothes, I thought that maybe The Baby felt left out. I mean, what if he actually peed in the 19 minutes he was left in nursery.

So today we are on our way into church when Derek brings it to my attention that The Baby is soaked from his armpit to his thigh. He’s holding him up in the air to show me.

K: It’s gotta be milk.
D: I don’t think so.
K: (leaning over to take a whiff) oh, that isn’t milk. That would be pee.

I’m thinking horrible things until I remember that I was the one who changed the diaper last. Just like me to start to cast stones in the church parking lot. I ran back to the truck to route around for a change of clothes.

I came up empty-handed. Nothing. I didn’t even find something of The Boy’s. N-O-T-H-I-N-G.

I crawled back into the building and went up to the Nerve Center of Childcare at the Mega Church.

K: Would you happen to have a change of clothes for a child whose mother is so incredibly irresponsible that she doesn’t. even. have. one?

The answer was yes. And, as is always the case, they only had girl clothes. Because mothers of boys only buy 3 outfits and make the boy wear them until they wear out. The thought of giving away one of those three worn out outfits never crosses the mind of the mother of a boy. She would be too embarrassed. Now the 27 girl outfits that looked like they had been worn 1/2 a time? Adorable. They found a nice brown shirt for The Baby with the cutest pink heart on it. We sent him on his way and it was only after I handed his bright pink cup over the door that I realized that Nate was going to end up Natalie today.

Personally, I think it’s his fault.  You can’t go switching it up now.  You are the Non-Peeing, Non-Crapping Child.  That is your identity in this family.  Any deviations from the personality traits already set in stone at 11 months Will Not Be Tolerated. 

A: You have good energy.

I assumed she meant my aura because not having slept in 3 years, no wait, make that 3 1/2 years, I felt like a walking corpse.

We had just finished a discussion about having kids. She said that she wanted them. Hearing her, I refrained from relaying the story of the day–coming around a corner to find a costco sized bag of salt and vinegar chips piled 12 inches high on the living room floor. The DVD cabinet hacked into and DVD’s piled on one side of the carpet and DVD packages lying on the other side. The furniture that had been knocked over. The window that had been “washed” with Dawn Advanced Action spray. The cream cheese in The Baby’s hair. More marker stains on the carpet. Stickers on all the walls.

She had said that singlehood sucks and is lonely. I refrained from saying that married life can be even more lonely sometimes.

She was in love. She had that look. As she went to work on my Bert-esque unibrow, I waited.

A: how do you k–
K: know when you’ve met “the one?” you just know.
A: is it because they put up with y—
K: put up with your crap? Nope, “the one” thinks your “crap” is cute. It’s not a burden.

I don’t finish my sentence. It’s not a burden until now everyone has had to scrounge around 3 days in a row looking for clean socks. Hey! Those socks don’t clean themselves. What do you want here? Do you want me to make a million dollars or do you want clean socks? Don’t answer that!

A: We ended up at the ring counter.
K: You are SO gonna marry this guy.
A: Do you really think so?
K: Listen, it’s the right guy when you don’t have to try to convince yourself and everyone else that he is the right guy. You know if he is the right guy. You know it.

A: Hmm.

I think he’s the right guy. You just know it.

Then you come home and your right guy says, “Nice haircut. You look like a Charlie’s Angel.” And you know he doesn’t mean Farah Fawcett.

But you love him anyway.