About Me

Last night Magoo’s month-long-already-been-to-the-doctor-and-she-says-it’s-nothing cough turned nasty, he sprouted a decent fever and some pretty sweet green elevens. All night long he coughed and hacked and yelled, “Mo-mmy! OWW-EEE!” He slept best when sitting upright on my lap so you can imagine how much sleep I got.

This was complicated by the fact that we thought we’d take one more whack at getting Laylee to stay dry through the night. We’ve tried pretty much everything. She just really likes peeing in her pull-up. You think I jest, but oh no, I do not. She will wake up, walk into my room, get this spaced out look on her face while I’m talking to her and then announce that she just had a “pee-splosion”. Sometimes she refuses to use the potty before bed but then goes in the pull-up 3 seconds later while I’m reading her story.

So we thought maybe switching her back to diapers at night would make her want to stay dry. Not so, my friends. Switching back to diapers is the funnest thing EVER. Switching back to diapers at night means you can talk baby talk and stick your butt up in the air, commentating on the entire process as your mom wipes you down.

Last night I decided that enough was enough and she would simply have to stay dry through the night. At about 2 am, I was leaving Magoo’s room and I found her in a pee-soaked shirt, new underwear, no pants, sleeping in a sleeping-bag on the floor next to her saturated bed.

All day today I walked around in my pajamas, smelling pee in every room. What did she do, take a pee tour of the entire estate? It was driving me nuts. About 4:30 this afternoon I bent over to pick something up and realized that the smell was coming from my t-shirt. When I picked her up last night, I guess she had rubbed off on me. Blick! I’m considering beginning a strict regimen of personal hygiene the next time I get more than 3 straight hours of sleep. This will involve showering daily and possibly wearing new clothes each day, particularly when the ones I have on are drenched with dried human waste.

But the day was not without humor. Laylee has started a new style of joke.

Laylee: Ding ding. Now you say “Who is it?”
Me: Who is it?
Laylee: Awaura.
Me: Awaura who?
Laylee: What?

During dinner she asked to play outside and I told her to pretend she was outside.
Laylee: I want to go to real outside.
Me: It’s too dark and wet and cold. Why don’t you just pretend?
Laylee: I hate pretend. I can never never pretend.
Me: Okay. Why don’t you just stare at the wall?
Laylee (settling herself in a corner with a huff): Okay.

All through dinner the little coughing melon-head cried his brains out. We did everything we could think of to make him more comfortable. Juice? Loosen your high-chair straps? Tylenol and cough syrup spritzer? Hot stone massage?

Nothing helped. We decided bed was the answer. As I picked him up, Dan noticed the giant splotches of ooze, spilling over the bottom half of his gingerbread PJs. The one thing we hadn’t thought of! All he needed was a new bum. Now he’d been sitting in killer sandy acid pear poop for half an hour. OH, the humanity!

As I was soaking him in a warm bathtub, Laylee and I had this conversation:
Laylee: Magoo was so sad at dinner. It makes my heart hurt.
Me: Oohhh. Me too.
Laylee: Why was he so sad?
Me: He had ouchy poop and it was burning his bum-bum.
Laylee [eyes widen. A minute goes by.]: Can I see the light?
Me: What light?
Laylee [peering sideways over the side of the tub]: The fire light.
Me: What fire light?
Laylee: The fire light that was shining out his bum when it got burned.

Now you want to know if I let her see it, huh? I would tell you but I’ve got to go change my shirt and teach Magoo that he’s pronouncing one of his favorite words incorrectly. There is no “H” in “sit”.

This year instead of resolutions, I’ve written up a few family commandments. If these really take off, I may consider licensing them to other families. Stay tuned.

1. No Comparisons Shall Be Made:

Walking through Costco yesterday, my children were staring into space immobilized, momentarily mesmerized by a stack of bargain-priced designer jeans. At that moment, a woman came around the corner with her daughter squeaking softly and straining at her lap belt.

The woman pointed to Laylee and Magoo and said to her daughter, “Look at those kids. They’re not screaming and trying to get out of the cart.”

“Catch us in five minutes,” I laughed, earning a glare from the “comparison shopper”.

Seriously, I say down with comparisons. There will be no comparing myself to the woman with 8 kids who still wears a size I haven’t been acquainted with since second grade, no comparing Laylee’s fits of personal expression with Magoo’s sleeping form, no comparing my salary with Dan’s (Honestly how can he possibly compete with what I make teaching one piano student and blogging? It’s just demoralizing.)

2. All Children Must Needs Nappeth — Laylee made the mistake of asking for a nap yesterday and then… actually sleeping. It’s all over now. Last week I would have said, “My daughter stopped napping over a year ago.” Next week I’ll be saying something much more witty and fabulous because I’ll have an hour every day to LET MY BRAIN RELAX. (Of course you know now that I’ve typed this, she will never sleep again, day or night.)

3. When Thou Cuttest the Hairs of Thy Head, the Shortest Layers Shall Not Be in Length Smaller Than One Half the Length of the Longest Layers, Resultething in a Mullet or Anything Like Unto It.

This does not mean necessarily that I’m cutting off Magoo’s curls. I think a bushy mullet is an acceptable mullet, at least for 2007.

4. I Shalt Not Zone Out

If I think of any more, I’ll let you know.

Well, I’m usually clean. The good news is, my kitchen has been clean for over 24 hours.

I decided yesterday that since I could not, in fact, keep my house clean as long as Laylee and Magoo were still residing in it, I could pick the one room I can control and set it up as a fortress of clean.

When we use a dish, it goes straight in the dishwasher. When we make a crumb, we wipe it up. When Magoo finishes a meal in a fantastic display of doneness by sweeping the contents of his tray onto the floor, I wipe the floor before declaring breakfast finished.

The strangest thing has happened. When the kitchen and dining room are clean, the rest of the house sort of maintains itself at a low-boil of play-time catastrophe. Dan reminded me that the kids are old enough to help and I’ve brought mean motherhood to a new level by having them clean with me several times a day before they move onto the next activity.

Magoo likes it so much that he’s been dumping out baskets, saying “Uh-Oh” and cleaning them up just for fun.

The freeze has subsided. Dan is back at work. The Christmas decorations are up and I want a dumbwaiter. Seriously. Do you remember the dumbwaiter they had on Webster? I want one in the worst way. I’ve even figured out a place where it would fit. We just need to annex the coat closet downstairs and the linen closet upstairs. They’re directly in line with each other as though the builder was leaving space for an optional pulley system.

I am also looking to hire someone to stand at the top of the stairs, unload the dumbwaiter and put all of the things away. Send references to kathryn@daringyoungmom.com.

This afternoon Dan and I will be taking Laylee to see the Pacific Northwest Ballet production of the Nutcracker. Heads will explode. I won’t be surprised if she shrieks in ecstacy at inappropriate places. I will cry. I always cry. When I hear good live music, I cry. Dave Matthews, Dave Brubeck, the Broadway Beauty and the Beast. They all made me cry. The Backstreet Boys also made me cry but for a different reason.

Laylee has made peace with the concept of death in fishes. She just told me that when JackAgain dies, we will have to get a new fish and we will name her Kafrin Lafrin Laylien Bitsy Thompson. This name I like.

It’s sort of a relief to think that if we do get pregnant again, Laylee will be there to come up with a name and all Dan and I will have to worry about will be minor details like food, shelter and post-partum cocktails. Just trifles, really. Maybe by then, the pills will come in fruity flavors and then we’ll have one less thing on our minds.

Laylee really wants us to have a girl baby, possibly tonight. Last week she told me that she was gonna remind Jesus to send us one and then tonight she said, “Aren’t we lucky that we’re gonna get a girl baby?!”

Me: Well, that’s up to Heavenly Father if he wants to send us one sometime.
Laylee: I think he’s building it RIGHT NOW!
Me: Well, after he builds it, he’s gonna have to figure out a way to get it into my tummy or it will never grow big enough to come out and play.
Laylee: How’s it gonna get out?
Me: The doctor will take it out.

Laylee then described an Aliens-worthy scenario involving a gaping wound and the attachment of a large flap of skin to make my tummy all better. Very reassuring.

The conversation quickly turned to other things, like how Tuesday’s her BALLERINA CLASS WITH MISS MICHELLE and then her head exploded so I’ll have to update you on her health and whether I was able to find a skin flap big enough to put it all back together in time for her dancing debut.

I really hope she likes the class. Just the thought of her in that leotard with 14 other 3-year-olds in ballet and tap shoes leaping around like adorable spazoids makes me dry-heave from the unbearable cuteness. I’m almost as excited as she is.

reasons: white sailboats on a blue Lake Washington summer day, fat cheeks resting on the shoulders of a sleeping toddler, ballet shoes the size of a Vlasic stacker, Dan reading jokes from the Reader’s Digest