I think every parent has them. You know those “days”. This moments when you either decide to laugh or cry, and often you’re not sure which one to do.
Mine was last Thursday. The simple plan was just to go to the library. We finished lunch early, and every had their shoes on and at 11:55. This was kind of a miracle. I decided to check the laundry real quick to see if I could get the next load started. And when I walked in the laundry room this is what I saw….
Yes, laundry soap everywhere. Almost 2 gallons of laundry soap to be exact… Turns out during the “spin” cycle on my washer it vibrated so hard that the big jug of laundry soap bounced right off the washer and broke the lid and spilled all over the floor. You can’t see how deep it actually is by this photo but there was a ton of soap on the floor. And while I try to use all natural products and such, and have even made my own laundry detergent in the past, this was just the plane old not natural not organic full of all sorts of stuff laundry soap. Anyway the boys and I started a massive clean up.
They were a huge help, I did tile by tile and actually managed to scoop a lot of the soap up and put it into cups and water bottles to save and use later. The boys handed me wet wipes and paper towels as we went tile to tile, they wiped down the other laundry baskets and even pulled out the clean clothes from the washer and got them in the dryer over the top of me cleaning up the mess. All in all it took us a good 35 minutes to get the laundry room back to normal (minus the very strong smell of laundry soap everywhere).
And then we headed to the van. Somehow Caedmon’s buckle got wrapped up inside itself and the strap got bent over so that the buckle wouldn’t slide up or down. I have no idea how that happened. And I could not get it to move or the strap to get straightened out. I literally was braced in the back of the van with both feet and hands pulling and pushing on the silly thing, while sweating bullets, trying to get it to budge.
25 minutes later we finally got it. I got everyone strapped in and we finally left the house a little over an hour after we had planned. Which also happened to be that time when everyone gets cranky and crabby before nap/quiet time. We made it to the library and Leighton went off to find books for himself and Edric headed towards the train using anything but a “inside-library voice” and Caedmon followed me to the early reader book section. It was then that I noted that Caedmon was “dancing”. You know as in “I-really-need-to-find-the-bathroom-kind-of-dancing that 4 year old boys are pros at. I asked Leighton if he would walk with Caedmon down to the bathrooms to go while I tried to find some books. Both boys took off happily and I started looking for books.
Less than a minute later I could hear Caedmon crying from across the other side of the library. As I found him I heard him say “I don’t like noisy potties”. Yes, for those of you without young children, being frightened of public restrooms is common. (at least in my house). I’m not sure what it is about the white porcelain thrones that strike deep seated fear in Caedmon, but there is something about them…I carried him back downstairs and found the offending bathroom, which in fact has a very normal toilet and it’s not that noisy. But by the shrieks that Caedmon let out, I’m sure most people thought I was dangling him over a cage of hungry alligators who were snapping at his feet.
I remembered that there were bathrooms in the basement and headed that way with him, sobbing (not quietly) the whole way. He decided those potties were also too noisy (even though I offered to let him go, then go wait outside while mommy flushed the potty so he didn’t have to hear it at all. Mommys are somehow immune to the noisiness of potties and we are brave enough to do the flushing… It wasn’t going to happen. So I carried him back upstairs still sobbing but not quite as loud. I didn’t even look up or make eye contact with anyone in the library since we had pretty much destroyed any “quiet” rules that they have.
I knew at that point we had approximately 5 minutes to pick out books, check them out and get headed home before we might have an accident. And since I had already broken a number of “quiet” rules in the library in the short time we had been there I didn’t want to add to my list of crimes “child peeing on the floor”. Leighton was mopey and moody because the series of books he likes he’s read most of and was convinced any book I found for him he wouldn’t like. Edric didn’t want to share the toy trains he found and Caedmon refused to let me put the book he wanted in the bag.
So I don’t know what books I got for the boys. We somehow ended up with 19 of them though. I’m not sure when they are due back…hopefully it says something somewhere and I don’t run up a huge bill. But we managed to make it out of there and home all in one piece. Clint was home from his nice lunch that he had with another adult by the time we got home. I gave him a look and said “I’m going for a walk”. I figured it was better then saying “I’m drinking a full bottle of wine right now at 1:45″….especially since I don’t drink at all.
These days happen. And while they are crazy and frustrating, I have to remember to just look back and laugh because while things don’t go as planned (most of the time actually), it keeps things interesting and fun and adds some spice to the days.
Hiking Mommy 