Bookends

This post is brought to you by my bookends, the eldest and the youngest of the AIRY5 Brood.

Today, my eldest figured out how to get "free" ringtones on his cell phone. Damn. I had hoped to avoid that awhile longer. What's my objection? It's the relentless acquiring of things that really bothers me. Plus, I don't trust that free part. I am waiting for my next cell phone bill to allay or confirm my suspicions.

Anyway, he got some pop song du jour for a ring tone. Today's pop music irritates the hell out of me, for the most part. But I remember being a teenager, and wishing desperately that my parents understood just how incredible my favorite songs were, wished they could appreciate the intensity, the passion, the phenomenal talent of artists like The Cars, Tom Petty, and Billy Joel. (For the record, and to hold on to some shred of respectability, I have always been first and foremost a Beatles fan. No band or singer has ever toppled them.)

I have one vivid memory of listening to a Tom Petty record with my friend Kathy. My dad walked through the room and made some noise of utter disgust, rolling his eyes dramatically. "Dad! I swear! This is good music! Just give it a chance! It's not depraved junk!" I begged, with a fervor unique to teenagers. He grabbed the record jacket and read the first lyric line his eye fell upon: "Baby don't walk out, I'm too drunk to follow." He tossed the jacket on the floor and walked out smugly, disgust intact.

I mostly do the same to my own kids regarding their taste in music, but I'm trying to be more open. I'm trying, at the very least, to encourage their love of music, familiar as I am with the earnestness of youth, and with feeling like the music I listened to was the most powerful, incredible, amazing, honest, emotion-filled artistic expression ever to fill a set of speakers . So today, when I heard Sam's phone ring, instead of making it clear that what I really wanted to do was rip off my ears, I did some goofy little dance as I walked through the room, trying to indicate that I was not condemning his choice of ring tone. All I got for my troubles?

"Nothing bugs me more than dancing 42 year old."

Forget it then. I think that comment gives me license to show my disgust early and often.

* * *

Back down at the other end of the age range, my littlest has had a rough week, including a bad tummy, which has had her shooting noxious substances out of both ends. It's been rough. One such bout had her hiding in her room, attempting to clean her underwear and her own bottom with several baby wipes, a pajama top, and a very large bath towel. When none of these methods did the trick, she decided to stuff the entire lot underneath her bed, leaving quite a trail along her floor as she did so. She, and her room, were an unholy mess.

I will gloss over the part where she was sobbing mightily, two and three big fat tears coming out of both of eyes simultaneously, begging me not to be mad at her. (See why we need a therapy fund?) I will skip ahead to the part 24 hours later, after we had been through several pairs of underwear and this mama was weary from the mess, the stench, the endless cleaning, and the small but toxic loads of laundry.

This is the part where I realized that after five kids, we may have gotten a little lax in some areas. You know how it is: with your first, and maybe your second, you are scrupulous about teaching them how to do every little thing, making sure they get the proper instructions time and time again, worrying that they will miss something and grow up lacking critical information to get by in the world. As the kids get more numerous, you take a little less care, and forget to remind them multiple times about elbows on table tops, nightly teeth brushing, and proper telephone etiquette. Add another kid or two, and the youngest is lucky to have a sippy cup at all, let alone one that hasn't been underneath a bed for three months. The youngest has to raise herself, in many ways. The fact that this may be the greatest gift any child could receive is a subject for another day. Suffice to say, every now and then, I realize some new way I have failed my youngest.

After the brazillionth time of cleaning her bottom today, I wearily remarked: "We really need to get you pooping in the potty."

She looked at me with 2 parts unbelief and 1 part pleading, and said: "You mean, every time?"

Um, yes. Yes dear, I do mean every time. I'm sorry I haven't made this clear before now.

One more time to the drawing board for me!

* * *

Date Night, A La Mom of 5

K.

Just had a night out with my hubby.

Can't remember the last time that happened.

It was fun pretending to be a care-free chica, out for fun on a Friday night. Reality came crashing home when I leaned back, in ultra-relaxed mode, feeling pretty happy after a mojito and two glasses of wine, put my hands in my jacket pocket and discovered a pair of soiled underwear hastily stashed there a few days ago.

You can take the mom out of the fray, but you can't take the fray out of the mom.

* * *

A couple of days ago, I took Sam to his housesitting job, with Talllulah in tow. She had an accident while we were there. A small one, I swear. Like super small, not much substance, just enough to justify removing her drawers and bringing her home commando-style.

Just enough to be OK with stuffing the contents in my pocket.

With just enough sleep deprivation and just enough other crap happening for me to forget they were there.

Kind of changed the whole "night out" experience for me. I bet I was the only person in T-Rex tonight with a pair of poopy underwear in her pocket. I am so totally grossed out, and would probably be too embarrassed to blog about it, except that thanks to the rum and the wine, I had a great time anyway.

I have to give a big shout out to F. A. D'Bee, for watching the natives and making this night possible. She's a Rock Star.

I'm going to go do a little laundry, soak my hand in "Hanitizer" (T's phrase for hand sanitizer), and then go rest my alcohol-soaked head on a pillow.

Life is good. Strange, but good.

* * *

Of Course. Warning: this post is potty-related. Not for the squeamish.

Little T has been slowly, ever so slowly, inching her way towards being totally diaper free. Daytimes are almost free of diaps: we can go anywhere we need to without a diaper bag, and she never has a pee accident. Poop? Another story. Turns out, she's one of those kids, the ones who resist proper voiding of bms for whatever reason. Control issues? Fear of parting with a significant piece of herself? Just wants to piss me off? Who knows. All I know is that when we are at home, for the past four or five months, we've had successful poops maybe 15 times. The rest of the time, I've been cleaning up an ungodly amount of...well...shit.

Many days, by 5pm or so, I have thrown in the towel (after throwing the actual towels in the washing machine on the hottest possible setting and then needing to do a bleach-only rinse of the machine before putting anything else in there) and resorted to diapers to get me through the evening. No one wants to make dinner while monitoring a pooper, am I right? Amen, I am right.

Without getting too graphic here, the problem is that she has been resisting the whole experience so much that she produces small amounts of stuff multiple times in one afternoon or evening. It's not a one-off and we're done. It's excruciatingly repetitive.

So I'm still buying diapers.

Sigh.

I have, on principal alone, refused to buy the huge Costco box of diaps. I just haven't wanted to accept that we still need the damn things, and somehow, buying the smaller pack at the grocery store has helped me feel closer to the end line.

What a fool I am. I should have known that the surest way to not need diapers anymore was to bring that ginormous box home and wait.

I finally gave in the other day and bought the 125-count box. This week? I forgot to put a diaper on her one night, and she woke up dry. So she has decided she doesn't need them at night, and it turns out, she's right. And during the day? 3 out of 4 days have seen pooping success. One trip to the toilet, and done for the day.

Of course.

I have 100+ diapers left and I am begging and pleading with the Diaper Gods that I can offer these on Freecycle sometime very, very soon.

* * *

It's All A Big Joke To Her

Two toddlers walk into a bar...

... and proceed to compare stories of the ridiculous things their parents do in the name of potty training.

The ridiculous things I'VE done are paying off, I guess, sort of. The crazy bargains and the stupid songs I am ordered to sing while we are sitting, just sitting, waiting for something to happen. The time I spend sitting on the edge of the bathtub. The wierd way I end up talking about just how fabulous voiding is, and how wonderful life will be when she voids appropriately. The fact that we now visit the public bathroom everywhere we go, just to keep the conversation going and to prove that she truly can go anywhere she happens to be.

This is day three of The Great Underwear Campaign. A few accidents. A few successes. Quite a bit of time sucked up and away and out of my life, never to return.

She thinks the entire proceedings are hilarious. She thinks it's quite funny to tell me she has to go pee, and then sit there for 10, 15, 20, 25 minutes with nary a tinkle.

She mocks me.

* * *

I Can See the Finish Line. I Just Can't Get There.

I have been a mother for 4,111 days.

That's how many days I have been changing diapers. I would do the math to figure out how many diapers that translates into but (a) I would cry and (b) I would give all those environmentally-minded, population control people way too much ammo. (Just an aside: the water required to launder cloth diapers cancels out the landfill impact of disposables. Did you know that?)

My youngest is over 3, and there is no nice way to put this so I'll say it with asterisks: she is f***ing with me. She knows what she needs to do. She just refuses. She's got the physical control. She knows where the job needs to be done. She'll even sit there every so often. She claims to be a "big girl." She claims that she uses the potty. She is a great big huge flaming liar.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, she won't go to college in diapers, yadda yadda yadda. I don't even want her to go to the grocery store in diapers, and we're leaving as soon as I finish this post.

I am so ready to be done with this phase of parenting, I can almost smell the fresh air. I am so tired of the wrangling, the smell, the disposing, the managing, the cajoling, the training, the waiting, the rewards, the disappointment, the frustration, the patience required of the mother of one who is potty training.

And the child in question? What does SHE think of the whole subject. I think this photo sums it up quite well.


Further proof. She hates me.

* * *