Sleeping Children

It's always nice to look at a sleeping baby or child, but there are days when it is imperative in order to help one remember the true joys of motherhood.

Monday was one of those days. It actually started out nicely thanks to Jared who let me go back to bed for awhile in the morning while he worked from home. Worked is a relative term because with Luke running around in his office he doesn't obtain a perfect level of focus, but he took one for the team.

When I got up I decided that I'd try to clean the bathrooms. Let me just say that cleaning a bathroom with Luke tagging along is like trying to clean a bathroom with a monkey tagging along. He was climbing on EVERYTHING and grabbing sponges, sucking on toothbrushes, flushing toilets, pumping soap, etc. So I decided it was a day when we needed to go outside for a bit. While I was getting ready to go, Luke went into his room to find his jacket. Pretty soon he started tattling on himself for being bad. I could hear him yelling, "No, Luke! That's so naughty!" I went over to his room where I found he had emptied both his and Micah's shirt drawers and thrown their shirts all over his bedroom floor. After cleaning that up I found his jacket and got both kids into the car. We got into the car and I looked at the clock and realized that more time had passed than I realized and it was actually lunch time, so instead of booking it right to the playground we went to Chick fil' A. Admittedly this was mostly because I wanted a pick-me-up of sorts, and while I am a little irresponsible for spending money on lunch I was very responsible by not ordering the peppermint chocolate chip milkshake that looked oh so good. Anyway, he was very well behaved at Chick fil' A but was disappointed not to swing, so we went over to the playground that is across the street. While Luke was swinging and laughing a nice mother commented on how adorable my children are. I agreed with her (nicely of course) Unfortunately after only 10 minutes or so it was Micah's lunchtime, so we didn't get to swing for very long and Luke threw an out and out HUGE fit when we had to go. I had to pick him up kicking and screaming with one arm while carrying Micah's car seat in the other. I don't think that mother found my child so adorable anymore, but I didn't catch her expression.

Once we got into the car, though, he was his angel self again and was very well behaved. He even took a good nap. Then in the afternoon it was Micah's turn to cause some problems and Luke made the most of a bad situation. We went to CW with my friend Nancy to have a short walk. Luke did not want to ride in his stroller because it limits his rock-chucking-into-garbage-cans hobby as well as his ability to dart across the street to any and every air conditioner he can find. (Which is exactly why I wanted him in the stroller in the first place). Nancy wrestled him into the stroller for me and I wrestled Micah into his baby carrier. All went well until we said good-bye to Nancy and headed into the gardens. Luke's favorite place in CW is the palace gardens, and his favorite place in the gardens is the bridge over the canal which is the prime location to throw rocks into the water and to look for fish. I let Luke out of his stroller so we could descend the 3 sets of steps to get down to the water, and he was so good on the way down. He held my hand without any argument and said a polite Hello to all the squirrels. Really. He would yell "Hi, Squirrel!" very loudly. So cute. Unfortunately right when we got down to the canal, Micah had a huge blow-out and as I was wearing him and as he started to scream for a change, we didn't make it to the bridge. Holy Luke melt-down. I had to pick him up kicking and screaming, this time in a body bind behind my back so that I could protect Micah who was strapped to my front (I hope you can picture this-- but to get the full effect you have to imagine me in black sweat pants and crocs and with my hair sticking out funny because I didn't blow dry it. The only thing missing was my "white trash" sticker stuck to my forehead. How far I have fallen. Sigh.) Anyway I carry him like this huffing and puffing back up 3 sets of stairs to strap him back into his stroller and then wheel him as fast as I can to the family restroom where I change Micah's diaper and frantically yell at Luke to get his hands out of the urinal. Next time I will park the stroller facing the opposite direction. Then I get Micah back into the baby carrier and head out. But 2 minutes later Micah decides it's time to eat and he starts screaming again. So I book it as fast as I can back to the car where I stuff Luke into the drivers seat to let him "drive" while I nurse the baby-- with no nursing cover because I forgot it and in a crowded parking lot where I had the prime spot right across the street from a fairly busy shopping center. Awesome. Amid regretting letting Luke drive (which consisted of him re-adjusting all my mirrors, opening the sunroof and turning the volume dial up full blast) Micah had another blow-out. So I had to change him on the front seat after strapping Luke into his car seat. All this added up to a pretty intense half hour.

Well we got home. Luke was good during dinner meaning he actually ate. We mixed up some cookie dough and then I put Luke in the bath. The timer went off so I ran to the kitchen to take out the cookies. I could hear Luke playing and figured all was okay so I took the time to spoon out the next batch and pop them into the oven. Mistake. When I got back to the bathroom I saw that Luke was playing by dumping cupful after cupful of water onto the bathroom floor. I finished washing him really fast and then dumped him into his room and locked the door (which is what we call "big time out" in our house) while I finished mopping up the floor. I was a bit concerned because Luke wasn't screaming his head off as he usually does during "big time out" and then I heard his tell-tale trouble warning, "Luke! That's so bad!" Dang it! I opened the door to his room. He had peed on the floor. So I cleaned that up, stuck a diaper on him, and made him finish mopping the bathroom floor. And then I stuck him in bed. It was 6:50. Luke's normal bedtime? 8 pm. But sometimes it's just time to call it a day.

But later when I peeked in on him this is what I saw:

And somehow it made me laugh. I really do have a good kid and a good life even if they're both a little crazy.

And of course seeing this is always sweet: