This morning I woke up to Tommy shouting from the hallway that he needed to go potty. He can’t just get up quietly and go–no, he has to wake up the rest of us. Then the unpleasant realization dawned on me that I’d invited a couple from church over for dinner tonight and my house is, to put it bluntly, a pigsty. And the fridge is semi-empty. It’s been one of those weeks. (I’m happy to say, however, that I think I’ve jumped through every possible hoop to have myself and my car legally licensed in PA.) So while the kids started breakfast (a strange affair, with no milk or bananas–Tommy had half and half on his cereal and Elizabeth tossed egg on the floor disinterestedly), I rushed to clean the bathrooms. Tommy gets really upset when I scrub the toilet and just flushes the cleaner down, so I have to do it when he’s otherwise occupied.
After breakfast, the kids were playing happily in the family room as I got ready to take a shower. I held Baby French in my hand, wondering if I should plug them into the TV while I showered, but I decided to skip washing my hair and hope they’d stay happy for 5 minutes without TV. Because my kids watch TV only on dire occasions, and I didn’t think this would be one of them. (Note to self–when in doubt, use the electronic babysitter, for crying out loud. What are you trying to prove to anyone?)
Upon getting out of the shower, Elizabeth was screaming bloody murder downstairs. I came down to find Tommy running around naked and Elizabeth in the bathroom soaking wet, an unflushed toilet, and an entire tube of cottonnelle toilet paper (freshly placed in honor of our company) all over the floor. I yelled to Tommy to go flush and wash up like he’s supposed to and hauled his sister upstairs to clean her off in the other bathroom and get her into new clothes. Tommy decided in the midst of this that he needed his clothes on, too, and insisted I help him get dressed at the same moment.
When I went downstairs, armed with clorox wipes (I really should take out stock in those things), I discovered that Tommy had put all the toilet paper into the trash but had left the poop on the floor. A horrible thought struck me–had she eaten poop?!–but Tommy assured me she hadn’t. (Is it a sign of carelessness or insanity that I took him at his word and neglected to check her mouth, anyway?) I cleaned the bathroom again, only to hear Elizabeth fiddling with the broom and dustpan in the kitchen. Apparently poop isn’t tasty enough–she prefers the fuzzy stuff that sticks to the bottom of your broom.
I locked the kids in the back porch (where they’ve been happily playing trains, by the way) and sat down here to get my temper under control before I venture to the grocery store with these two messmakers. Remind me why I ever even bother cleaning anything?
Emily, I have to say you gave me a good laugh this-morning. I know there are some weeks Nathan goes several days without showering (and on other days the entire roll of toilet paper has ended up in the toilet). Christina also loves the dust on the end of the broom (although not as much as the pile of dirt after I finish sweeping, I have to be pretty quick to prevent her from picking out any left over food items!!). Hope the rest of your day goes well.
Hahahaha! Oh, Emily! What a week, what a week…thank the Lord a fresh week starts tomorrow! It was a very funny post anyway. 🙂