Always with the Poop

I feel like every other blog I post has something to do with poop. With a 4-year-old boy, a potty-training daughter, and an infant, I suppose this is to be expected. But today tops them all, I think. After tucking Ella in with a book for her nap, I heard her quietly calling "Mooooo-myyyyyy" from her room. As I was nursing the littlest, I was in no hurry to get up. She wasn't crying or sending me any urgent messages. So when I wrapped up the burping of number three and entered her room mere minutes later, I was shocked--SHOCKED--to find her crib yet again covered in poop. This happened a year or so ago when she took off a poopy diaper after a nap and played with it a little. But today was something new. I guess she felt the urge to poop, but rather than call for me and ask to go potty, she disrobed, removed her diaper, and squatted and pooped on. the. book. THE BOOK! We are a family of readers! This is downright blasphemous! Pooping on a book? And then, she evidently used her pants to wipe her bottom. Yum. And when I shared this news with her father, it went something like this:

Me: Ella pooped on a book.
Scott: *sigh* Everyone's a critic.

Nice. And that, dear future teachers of my children, is why they will not know the story of The Jungle Book.

TGIF

Ahhhhh Friday. Here at last. Even a stay-at-home mama such as myself appreciates a good Friday. The jam-packed week full of appointments, errands, and playdates come to a close with the promise of a relaxing evening, maybe a glass of wine, maybe a movie with the hubby, followed by a jam-packed weekend full of parties, barbecues, and visits to the beach. The latter is what my hubby informed me today that he had in mind for tomorrow. Our third-born's first visit (while outside the uterus) to the beach and the season's inaugural visit for the whole clan. I was going to relish this Friday, with its morning of cleaning followed by a playdate with my daughter's favorite friend and capped off with an evening of dinner and wine with some of my girls.

And then last night happened. First, Ella woke up at eleven with a terrible cough and a fever. Yay. We spent most of the night taking turns cuddling her and administering infant tylenol in the always-accurate dose. Then Owen awoke. He "didn't feel good." I remember making this statement as a child and thinking that it said it all. As a parent, it might be the most frustrating sentence to hear. WHAT doesn't feel good?? Anyhow, he went back to sleep in the recliner, so we wrote it off. Fast forward eight hours. My phone rings, and it's Owen's teacher explaining that his belly hurts and even 25 minutes of toilet-sitting have done nothing to help the situation. Super. So I pick him up (and he insisted that I carry all 45 pounds of him. Awesome.) and take him home, putting him up in our darkened bedroom watching Star Wars. Scott lays with him, and pretty soon we are seeing the tell-tale signs of impending puking. You know, the cold clammy skin, the quiet groans, the gurgling stomach. Scott does his best to explain what throwing up might feel like, as at the age of nearly-five, the child is lucky enough to never have experienced it. So with the explanation that it might feel like your food wants to come back out of your mouth really fast (not a bad explanation, I thought), we settled in to wait. And sure enough, inside of an hour. Owen gave his breakfast back. Yum. And can I just say thank God for Daddy! Because, as all-mom as I am, I cannot CANNOT do vomit. I suppose if push comes to shove and I'm the only one home with a sicky, I'll handle it, but let's not test that theory, k? So Daddy handled clean-up of both boy and barf very calmly. Crisis averted.

But that Friday plan? Yea, that's way out the window. No cleaning happened this morning. Too tired from a night up with the fevered one. And no playdate. Didn't want to expose our favorite friends to aforementioned fever. And dinner and wine with friends? Enh. (That's supposed to be a buzzer sound. Hmm.) And beach tomorrow. Double enh. Too bad. But still, TGIF. Because if today is F, then tomorrow is S, and any day that begins with S is good. I hope. At any rate, Daddy is home to suffer with me through whatever S may bring. Cheers to teammates!

My Big Boy

Owen is 4 years and 9 months old on Monday. So big. So old. He'll be 5 in July. And, come August, he'll go to kindergarten. Kindergarten! Perhaps you didn't hear me--my BABY is going to be in KINDERGARTEN! This is pretty seriously freaking me out. Time flies! It's so cliche, but that must be because it's so true and it's such a powerfully overwhelming realization that you can't help but say it. Time is literally flying by me. I can so very clearly remember the moment that the midwife broke my water, the contractions began to come hard and fast, and then I was pushing, pushing, pushing, and then he was here. And I was--we were--completely and utterly transformed. In a moment we went from being a newly-married couple to a family. "It's a boy!" shouted by our teary-eyed midwife. Those words forever changed our lives. I remember seeing tears in Scott's eyes. Something I was pretty sure I would never see. (Like many foolish men, he prides himself on his stoicism. I say why hold it in? But whatever...) Tears in his eyes as he took in the little face and began to make calls to our family to announce the arrival of the first grandchild.

We became a family. And like I said, that was yesterday. Seriously. Where has this time gone? Since then, we've sold four cars and purchased 3 others. We've put our house on the market, moved to Illinois, and moved back. I've worked at two different schools. I've taken many months off work to care for my babies. We've traveled to Alaska, Yellowstone, Costa Rica, and Jamaica (That's not so bad in list form like that! How lucky are we?). We've repainted our house, sodded the backyard TWICE, put in new carpet and floors, spent roughly a billion dollars on Thomas the Train paraphernalia, and spent countless hours rocking babies, walking babies, swaying with babies, soothing babies. We've hosted barbecues, birthday parties, and baptism celebrations. And still, even with all these markers of time marching on, I can't believe Owen is as old he is. It seems like yesterday that he couldn't support his own head. Now he can name all of the letters of the alphabet, count to 100, list the planets of the solar system in order, and identify the parts of an insect. I can't believe that in a few short months I'll carefully select his first-day-of-school clothes, lovingly pack his first-day-of-school lunch (a good balance of healthy and yummy), and walk him the 0.8 miles to school, dropping him off at his kindergarten classroom. Crazy. And before I know it, it'll be the fifth grade dance, eight grade graduation, learning to drive, first dates, prom, graduation and off to college! Oh dear. I need to stop all this before I'm a blubbering mess. He's my baby. And he always will be. Now I understand that my mom really meant that when I was fourteen, and she still means it now. I love my little man. My big boy. My baby, grown up and (almost) off to kindergarten.

Enjoy the moments, whatever stage you're in. Even if the moment isn't the most fun, even if you're exhausted or up to your elbows in poop, enjoy it. Look at the face of that newborn/baby/toddler/teen/whatever, and drink it in. Love em up. And enjoy them while they're still yours!