blogtober - day 1
In celebration of Blogtober (it's a real holiday, if you don't have an extra long weekend this month you should probably talk to HR), some friends and I have committed to blogging each and every day.
I know what you're thinking - my life is boring (unlike Tiffany's) and I have nothing to blog about. That is so untrue.
Do you want to know what the trick is? To take boring stuff and try and make it interesting, or a little funny, or a little self-deprecating. If that fails, make it sound like your kids are out to get you. That's always good for a few comments.
And don't edit. I never understand how people don't have time to blog. Are you rereading your work? Checking your grammar? Don't bother. I figure that if it takes me longer to write it than it takes people to read it that I'm probably putting too much time in. If it's not something spell check doesn't high light in dead-canary yellow then it's not something I'm going to fix.
Where was I? Oh right, boring stuff.
Take today, for instance. I could say "I went to diaper gym this morning, and someone (don't worry Amy, not naming names) left the keys in the hall Wednesday morning so we were effectively locked out, but instead of going home right away we decided to wait in the front entrance for an hour and a half just in case some passersby just happened to have a key, because we can't handle morning after morning alone with our children in our own homes. Nobody came so we left, shed a little tear and carried on with our day."
Nobody wants to read that.
I get to diaper gym this morning. They key isn't hanging in it's special hidey hole, just waiting for eager, desperate lonely moms who really really need other grown up contact, especially after yelling at their kids for half an hour to please, for the love of all that is good, stop laying on the floor and put their shoes on. I ascend the steps. The door is locked. I wiggle the door. Oddly enough, the door-wiggle does not magically unlock the deadbolt.
I decide to wait. Surely the minister (diaper gym is located in a church building) will show up soon. Or perhaps a thrift store lady, also bored on a Friday morning, and will come to hang out amongst the moth-eaten twice handed-down clothes and cast offs. Even though the thrift store isn't open Fridays. We can only hope.
I take a seat on the bench, confident that my three youngest children will wait patiently for the door to be opened. Elliot starts to fuss. I rock her in her carseat with my toe, like any good mother. Mitchell and Tennyson play with the lift chair that brings physically unable people up and down the stairs. I tell them to leave it alone. Tennyson asks why. I explain. I feel bad because I don't want him to think that older people can't walk up the stairs, but I have no other way to explain it. He put me on the spot, what can I say. Instead the boys stand on the bench and rearrange the stuff on the bulletin board. Nothing like swallowing a push pin to put hair on their little chests.
Eventually Amy shows up, and upon realizing that I'm locked out of the hall she confesses that it's all Stephanie's fault, but that she'll take the blame - but only because Stephanie had a baby yesterday.
We take turns wandering around the grounds, hoping to find the caretaker, but no luck.
Angela shows up. We're now three women and six kids hanging out on the landing hoping that someone will feel sorry for us and magically appear.
Tennyson has to poop. It's great that my kids take the most inopportune moments to announce this. It's always when I've just loaded $100 worth of groceries into the mini-van in the furthest corner of the parking lot and buckled the four of them back in. That's when they have to poop. Or when we've walked 46 blocks to the park and it's starting to prairie dog. That's when they have to poop. Or when we're locked out of the hall, and we're too stubborn to just go home. Perfect time to have to poop. I tell him to wait. I threaten him against pooping his pants. Nothing like a threat to scare the poo back into it's little cave.
Did I ever tell you that Tennyson used to sit on the potty and tell me that the poop was coming out of the tunnel? No? Okay. I won't then.
Some more moms show up. We decide that for comforts sake we'll move off the landing and into the lobby. Because only losers would hang out in a crowd on the landing. And we're winners. The lobby it was. At this point Tennyson is whining a little more adamantly that he has to poop. We'd tried to phone the minister a number of times and there was no answer. We didn't actually have seating for fifteen people in the lobby.
Did we pack up and go home? Nope. Not yet.
Did I mention you can't pop a lock with a butterknife found in a mail box?
At this point Tennyson found the sword that Ange had hidden in her stroller. She's a good mom that way - she actually hides the weapons. Under her sleeping babe.
Tennyson ran around and hit people with the sword for a while, but it was okay, because - One: it took his mind off of the poop he'd been holding in for the past hour, and Two: because my son would have the foresight to use the broad side of the sword, so all was well. And I suppose three: because eventually Angela took it from him and hid it - in the same spot it had been hidden in the first place. Because you know they're not going to think of that - they're going to assume it's someplace different.
He only took it out once more.
He still had to poop. The chocolate cheerios being passed around weren't helping anymore, and he really had to poop now. I finally took his little hand and went downstairs to the daycare. We had been to the daycare once already, asking if they had a key for the diaper gym hall. They didn't. I noticed a big sign on the wall announcing that the bathrooms were not for public use. I was going to try anyway, he was three for crying out loud.
I knocked on the door. Again. I'm sure us being locked out was a little annoying to them too, whatever. I was getting grumpy, and less inclined to care. The woman that answered the door told me to wait a second while she checked with her supervisor. They okayed it. Mitchell followed me down too. Tennyson and I entered . . .
. . . Tennyson and I entered the bathroom stall. Mitchell climbed the step stool to play with the sink. I heard a three-second tinkle, and then Tennyson began his full-body peepee wiggle. I really should mention this, because it's cute. Just skip the rest of this paragraph if you don't want to know details of his bathroom habits, but it really is cute. When I was potty training Tennyson I used to shake his knees once quickly just to shake off that last drop or two (he sits to pee). I don't know why, as I write it it sounds dumb, but I didn't want his gitchies wet. I stopped doing it. Now, he pees and when he's done he shakes his entire body for a few seconds before hopping off. I'm actually convinced that his entire body shakes, except for his pelvis. It's funny.
I hear this full-body tinkle, and he starts to wiggle (crap, tense change again. bear with me, we're coming to the end anyway). "Tennyson, don't you have to poop?" I ask. He looks at me like this is coming from left field. "No," he says, innocently. "Just pee."
And hour and a half of "I have to poop Mommy, I have to poop Mommy, I have to poop nnoooowwww." And then it goes away. Seriously.
Back to the lobby. Kids are hitting each other with the one sword, toddlers have big white rocks in their mouths, they're scavenging each other's snacks, fingers are being pinched in doors, and they're all on the stairs any chance they get. We finally decided to leave at about 10:15. I had been there since 8:45. I'm the best mother ever! Nothing like breastfeeding in the lobby of a church we have no keys for to emphasize that.
Later, on facebook, another member of diaper gym asked where everyone was this morning. I told her we had no keys, and that we waited there until after 10 before giving up and leaving. She said we must have just missed each other. We also must have just missed whoever came and opened up the door, because it was wide open when she got there.
I know what you're thinking - my life is boring (unlike Tiffany's) and I have nothing to blog about. That is so untrue.
Do you want to know what the trick is? To take boring stuff and try and make it interesting, or a little funny, or a little self-deprecating. If that fails, make it sound like your kids are out to get you. That's always good for a few comments.
And don't edit. I never understand how people don't have time to blog. Are you rereading your work? Checking your grammar? Don't bother. I figure that if it takes me longer to write it than it takes people to read it that I'm probably putting too much time in. If it's not something spell check doesn't high light in dead-canary yellow then it's not something I'm going to fix.
Where was I? Oh right, boring stuff.
Take today, for instance. I could say "I went to diaper gym this morning, and someone (don't worry Amy, not naming names) left the keys in the hall Wednesday morning so we were effectively locked out, but instead of going home right away we decided to wait in the front entrance for an hour and a half just in case some passersby just happened to have a key, because we can't handle morning after morning alone with our children in our own homes. Nobody came so we left, shed a little tear and carried on with our day."
Nobody wants to read that.
I get to diaper gym this morning. They key isn't hanging in it's special hidey hole, just waiting for eager, desperate lonely moms who really really need other grown up contact, especially after yelling at their kids for half an hour to please, for the love of all that is good, stop laying on the floor and put their shoes on. I ascend the steps. The door is locked. I wiggle the door. Oddly enough, the door-wiggle does not magically unlock the deadbolt.
I decide to wait. Surely the minister (diaper gym is located in a church building) will show up soon. Or perhaps a thrift store lady, also bored on a Friday morning, and will come to hang out amongst the moth-eaten twice handed-down clothes and cast offs. Even though the thrift store isn't open Fridays. We can only hope.
I take a seat on the bench, confident that my three youngest children will wait patiently for the door to be opened. Elliot starts to fuss. I rock her in her carseat with my toe, like any good mother. Mitchell and Tennyson play with the lift chair that brings physically unable people up and down the stairs. I tell them to leave it alone. Tennyson asks why. I explain. I feel bad because I don't want him to think that older people can't walk up the stairs, but I have no other way to explain it. He put me on the spot, what can I say. Instead the boys stand on the bench and rearrange the stuff on the bulletin board. Nothing like swallowing a push pin to put hair on their little chests.
Eventually Amy shows up, and upon realizing that I'm locked out of the hall she confesses that it's all Stephanie's fault, but that she'll take the blame - but only because Stephanie had a baby yesterday.
We take turns wandering around the grounds, hoping to find the caretaker, but no luck.
Angela shows up. We're now three women and six kids hanging out on the landing hoping that someone will feel sorry for us and magically appear.
Tennyson has to poop. It's great that my kids take the most inopportune moments to announce this. It's always when I've just loaded $100 worth of groceries into the mini-van in the furthest corner of the parking lot and buckled the four of them back in. That's when they have to poop. Or when we've walked 46 blocks to the park and it's starting to prairie dog. That's when they have to poop. Or when we're locked out of the hall, and we're too stubborn to just go home. Perfect time to have to poop. I tell him to wait. I threaten him against pooping his pants. Nothing like a threat to scare the poo back into it's little cave.
Did I ever tell you that Tennyson used to sit on the potty and tell me that the poop was coming out of the tunnel? No? Okay. I won't then.
Some more moms show up. We decide that for comforts sake we'll move off the landing and into the lobby. Because only losers would hang out in a crowd on the landing. And we're winners. The lobby it was. At this point Tennyson is whining a little more adamantly that he has to poop. We'd tried to phone the minister a number of times and there was no answer. We didn't actually have seating for fifteen people in the lobby.
Did we pack up and go home? Nope. Not yet.
Did I mention you can't pop a lock with a butterknife found in a mail box?
At this point Tennyson found the sword that Ange had hidden in her stroller. She's a good mom that way - she actually hides the weapons. Under her sleeping babe.
Tennyson ran around and hit people with the sword for a while, but it was okay, because - One: it took his mind off of the poop he'd been holding in for the past hour, and Two: because my son would have the foresight to use the broad side of the sword, so all was well. And I suppose three: because eventually Angela took it from him and hid it - in the same spot it had been hidden in the first place. Because you know they're not going to think of that - they're going to assume it's someplace different.
He only took it out once more.
He still had to poop. The chocolate cheerios being passed around weren't helping anymore, and he really had to poop now. I finally took his little hand and went downstairs to the daycare. We had been to the daycare once already, asking if they had a key for the diaper gym hall. They didn't. I noticed a big sign on the wall announcing that the bathrooms were not for public use. I was going to try anyway, he was three for crying out loud.
I knocked on the door. Again. I'm sure us being locked out was a little annoying to them too, whatever. I was getting grumpy, and less inclined to care. The woman that answered the door told me to wait a second while she checked with her supervisor. They okayed it. Mitchell followed me down too. Tennyson and I entered . . .
oh shit - I changed tenses in here somewhere. Bet you wouldn't have noticed had I not pointed it out. Whatever. Remember - no editing in Blogtober.
. . . Tennyson and I entered the bathroom stall. Mitchell climbed the step stool to play with the sink. I heard a three-second tinkle, and then Tennyson began his full-body peepee wiggle. I really should mention this, because it's cute. Just skip the rest of this paragraph if you don't want to know details of his bathroom habits, but it really is cute. When I was potty training Tennyson I used to shake his knees once quickly just to shake off that last drop or two (he sits to pee). I don't know why, as I write it it sounds dumb, but I didn't want his gitchies wet. I stopped doing it. Now, he pees and when he's done he shakes his entire body for a few seconds before hopping off. I'm actually convinced that his entire body shakes, except for his pelvis. It's funny.
I hear this full-body tinkle, and he starts to wiggle (crap, tense change again. bear with me, we're coming to the end anyway). "Tennyson, don't you have to poop?" I ask. He looks at me like this is coming from left field. "No," he says, innocently. "Just pee."
And hour and a half of "I have to poop Mommy, I have to poop Mommy, I have to poop nnoooowwww." And then it goes away. Seriously.
Back to the lobby. Kids are hitting each other with the one sword, toddlers have big white rocks in their mouths, they're scavenging each other's snacks, fingers are being pinched in doors, and they're all on the stairs any chance they get. We finally decided to leave at about 10:15. I had been there since 8:45. I'm the best mother ever! Nothing like breastfeeding in the lobby of a church we have no keys for to emphasize that.
Later, on facebook, another member of diaper gym asked where everyone was this morning. I told her we had no keys, and that we waited there until after 10 before giving up and leaving. She said we must have just missed each other. We also must have just missed whoever came and opened up the door, because it was wide open when she got there.
Happy Blogtober Everyone!
Comments
That's awesome.
Jake has this song that goes "push that poop train, out of the butt tunnel"
where do they get this stuff?