Oh, come on. You knew with the impending strike that there would have to be at least one t.v. analogy.

Growing up, we weren’t allowed to wear makeup. I think we weren’t supposed to wear it until we were like 15 or something. It was my mom’s attempt to keep us from becoming hussies (no comments from the peanut gallery necessary, Husband). I used to sneak mood lipstick in the 8th grade but I always got busted.

Then something happened. I remember my mom trying to take a picture at Christmas of the 4 girls years later and she said, “You girls should put on a little lipstick.”

Sorry, Mom, but that ship has sailed. I’ll bet we don’t have $40 worth of makeup between the four of us now. I take that back. Kate might have some good stuff. But we really don’t care. I always say it was because we had to wait too long. By then it was too late. Makeup itself had jumped the shark.

I’m having a makeup experience right now.

I’m on my fourth email. They started out pretty innocuous.

Dear Kristen,
Please sign up for your parent-teacher conference on Friday. We can’t WAIT to tell you how The Boy is doing.

They progressed.

Dear Kristen,
Slots are filling up FAST!!! HURRY TO GET A TIME THAT’S CONVENIENT FOR YOU!!

Well, if you are gonna watch both my kids so I can talk to you about school, then ANYTIME is convenient for me.  Since I have to schlep them both along, let’s dispense with using the word “convenient,” okay?

Now they are seeming a little panicked, like I might be attempting to blow the whole thing off.

Dear Kristen,
We noticed you haven’t signed up for a time slot. Please give us a CALL!!

I don’t even know what the last email said because I didn’t open it.

Here it comes, Internet. Parent-Teacher conferences are tomorrow and I’m still not signed up. Before you FREAK OUT on me, I’m going. Honest, Mom, I’m gonna go. I just think it’s a little sheisty that the whole place is set up to keep you wondering what the hell is going on and then they are all, “you’d better get here quick.”

School policy: You can’t observe the class until November. It’s better for the children to be able to get into a routine.

Then there is drop off and pick up. It’s great in a downpour, but because of it, I haven’t met one person. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not looking for a BFF but it would be nice to find someone to carpool with so that I’m getting a little more than 30 seconds in between drop off and pick up. My sister, the former preschool teacher, explained that this process is so the teachers never have to talk to the parents. Ever.

But the kid is happy. Delirious. He comes home and obsessively pours a gallon of milk into a shot glass. Clearly pouring is in the curriculum. It’s not like I haven’t tried to find out what’s going on at school. I’ve asked The Boy but therein lies the problem. He is A BOY and he is TWO. What the hell can I get out of him? I have asked The Boy but he says things like, “I play with Denny.” It takes me two weeks to find out there is no Denny but there is a Danny. Is he talking about Danny? “NO, MOM. DENNY.”

Notwithstanding the multiple notes sent to school about why he is coming home soaked in urine, and of course, that incident where they lost him, I have officially given up. For all the good that is going on at the school, they are clearly missing the communication factor with us. One of my friends asked me the other day what The Boy was doing at school and I may have responded that they could be running a crystal meth lab, for all I know.

Or building a rocket, based on the crap he is muttering under his breath these days. Look, the kid has come home dry for the last 2 weeks, they haven’t lost him in at least 2 months and he is doing all these creepy mechanical things with his blocks. What more do I need to know?

After that sweet little tribute to Nathan, we now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

K:  Do you need to go potty?
E:  NO.
K:  Are you sure? (cause now it’s only a matter of time before he gets kicked out of school for not being potty trained)
E:  No. 
K:  “No,” you don’t need to go or “no,” you aren’t sure?
E:  No.
K:  (saying words under my breath that would make a sailor blush)  We’re going.  Right now.  To the potty.
E:  NO!!
K:  (now dragging him through the house) Yes, you have to go to the potty.
E:  I no go potty.
K:  (now in the bathroom)  Our bathroom did NOT smell like this growing up.
E:  (clearly having a change of heart as evidenced by the tinkling in the toilet) I go potty, Mama.
K:  (realizing that the smell isn’t going away despite wiping down the floor with Clorox wipes) Great.  Why is your little potty here in the middle of the floor?
E:  I go potty BEFORE, Mama.  I pooped.
K:  When?
E:  Dis morning.
K:  6 hours ago?
E:  YEEEESSSS, MAMA.  I go poop before.
K:  (looking in the little potty and not seeing any poop) So where did it go?
E:  Dare, Mama.

And oh, so slowly, I turned to find a large turd in the sink.

Wedged under the stopper.

Smelling faintly of Milk and Honey soap but mostly of crap.

Apparently he hadn’t gotten the memo that you dump the poop from the little toilet into the big toilet and THEN, and ONLY THEN, do you wash out the little potty.

I’m not sure which grossed me out more. The fact that there was crap in my sink for 6 hours or that I’m not quite sure at what part of the hand washing process the “poop debacle” occurred. There are pictures, but it would just be so wrong to post them.

I went to the bathroom this morning.  I know.  Where do I ever find the time?  I’d like it noted however, that I made bacon, eggs and toast for the men in the family before I indulged myself so outrageously by taking 15 seconds to go to the bathroom.

 During that clearly-way-too-long 15 seconds, I heard my son pound past the door.  I came around the corner and he was gone.  I looked in the living room to see if he was with his babysitter, Diego, and the couch was empty.  I had a weird feeling and turned around to look out the french doors that go out to the back porch. 

There he was, peeing like a race horse.

And peeing, and peeing, and peeing.

I ran out screaming, “STOP!  STOP!”

He stopped.  I could hear the puddle pouring through the boards and splattering on the patio below. 

K:  WHAT ARE YOU DOING?
The Boy:  Peeing, Mama.
K:  Well, stop.  (feeling like maybe I had said this 900 KABILLION times)  Where do we put our peeps?
The Boy:  In the potty, Mama.
K:  Is this the potty?
The Boy:  (looking at me like I was an idiot)  NO, MAMA.  This the Porch.
K:  Alrighty then.  Do you think we can take this party inside to the potty?
The Boy:  But I go already, Mama.

Yes, you did.  Maybe this is better than cleaning up puddles of urine around the can everyday?

This is one of the many posts where I complain about the men in my house.  I complain because I grew up with 3 sisters and a father who knew better than to get in our way.  He had his space, we had our space and frankly, I think we are all the better for it.  I am going to gloss over the fact that I know how a men’s room smells at the end of a concert.

That being said, I now realize that my father was either a relatively clean person in his bathroom or my mother was cleaning the bathroom every day.  I just don’t remember the nastiness that is my world today.

K:  Did you let The Boy stand up to pee when I was gone?
D:  We didn’t do so great in the “peeing” department while you were gone.

Not to be confused with not doing so great in the “getting to sleep before 10″ department, “doing the dishes from last Wednesday still in the sink” department or “keeping track of The Boy’s only pair of sandals” department.  I know exactly how things go around here when I am gone.  Last night at 9 I heard hysterical laughter from The Boy’s room.  I had to go upstairs to tell the two of them to “cut it out now and go to sleep.”  The Boy AND my husband. 

But back to the urine.  Cause that’s really why we are all here, isn’t it?  Just last year I used to enter my sister’s bathroom every single time with paper towels in one hand and 409 in the other.  This being an hour after she cleaned it.  She explained that this was just the world of boys. 

So I thought I would combat this by making my son sit when he goes to the bathroom.  It’s not the aiming problem.  It’s that he is just too little to pee standing up.  He is a bit of a diminutive child to be honest.  His solution is to stand on the toilet seat.  And then it becomes an aiming problem.  I have listened to the arguments from the defendant’s counsel and I have found no merit in them. 

But when Mama’s away, her boys will play.  I came home to a bathroom that took my breath away when I entered it.  The two of them didn’t seem to notice. 

Thank you, God, for Clorox wipes.  If only I could use them on the boys. 

Excuse our appearance.  The new look is coming soon but I just couldn’t not blog another day.  Now back to our 10 things…

 1.  The incessant flushing after each and every contribution to the bowl.  I know I said it could be your treat but even at only 1.6 gallons a flush, those 137 flushes a day could do the ol’ septic in.  And nobody wants that.

2.  Using the hand towel as toilet paper.  Because the baby wipes, grown up wipes and toilet paper are just not enough.  Clearly they are not enough as evidenced by nice streak down the hand towel.  Still hanging from the rack.

3.  Continual fondling of your manhood.  So it was my mistake to do the “naked potty training method.”  Could you just do that in your own room?  Or at least not in the kitchen right before you start running around opening all the cabinets with the hands involved in #2 above.

4.  Caressing the lav.  I know you are on there for a while, but what is the actual allure to rubbing your hands along the seat, bowl, tank?  I really want to know.  Whoever invented Clorox Wipes deserves a Nobel peace prize because those wipes are the only thing standing between me and all out war over here.

5.  The necessity for using the entire bottle of antibacterial soap after every visit.  In retrospect and after re-reading the above, perhaps this isn’t such a problem.

6.  Wiping your face with the hand towel after you dry your hands off.  The hand washing after the potty is different from the hand/face washing after lunch.  Take my word on this one.

7.  Those damn people over at Dora who made the potty seats to go on top of the toilet seat.  Now we can clean two toilet seats instead of one every 7 minutes.  Don’t worry.  We’re all getting the tongue-in-cheek of the printed “Vamonos” on the seat.  “Let’s go,” my ass.

8.  The crooked bookshelf in my kitchen.  I realize this is a little off topic but with $87,965 worth of tools in our new garage, the man couldn’t find a level?  So I’m now going to have to look at this crooked shelf for the next 20 years?  I’m not even a picky person.  I could live with a little lean.  But this bad boy is leaning so much it’s bound to become a slide option for our children in a few years.

9.  The problem of starting to pee in order to realize you need to pee rather than, I don’t know, just going to the bathroom to pee every once in a while.  That’s what most of us do.  I know you gotta learn somehow, someway, but do the people at Bissell really need a large portion of your college fund in order to pay for those huge bottles of carpet cleaner?

10.  Naked bike riding, naked car driving, naked train playing, naked couch sitting.  OK, all things naked.  If I didn’t have such a fear of doing the laundry or any other household requirement, I would just put those little Underoos on you all day, switching them out every seven minutes. 

I’m just saying I thought potty training would be a lot less annoying.