Children...

Two days ago I had a day. It started off by Chloe showing off in front of one of my friends--showing off would be one thing, but for Chloe, showing off involves mega screaming, running, yelling and generally wild behavior (she always puts on her worst self in front of this person; who is older and already sort of proper to begin with (if she weren't a really good friend I'd hate to know what she'd think about us). After which she proceeded to sit on her lap, grab and point at her breasts and inquire, "Are these your nickles? Does everybody have nickles?" My friend's face turned a lovely shade of white and since she obvioulsy was extremely uncomfortable, I quickly piped in with, "Yes, everybody has nipples. Why don't you go off and play." Perhaps this wasn't the wisest thing to say. She decided to do a bit more showing off, this time screaming and throwing everything from out of the dresser drawers in her bedroom; it literally looked as if a tornado had hit the room. Then ran out of the room and screamed, 'look at my room! Look at my room!' So, I calmy (not internally, but trying nonetheless), told her she had to clean up her room before she could come out and join us. So I closed the door (big mistake) and left her alone (biiiiiiiiggggggg mistake). Several minutes later, she was waaayyyyyy tooooo quiet, so I went in to check on her. Well, let's just say, brooms are not meant to sweep up poop, toy brooms, or otherwise. Nevertheless, she did and tried to hide the evidence. She wrapped up the poop in her ballet skirt. Then covered it with the shutters from her dollhouse and stuffed it in the first floor of the dollhouse; leaving the broom and a shirt, used as a rag, in a pile by the glassdoors (I hope glass doors don't prove to be a mistake too). Oh great, another thing I hadn't thought about until now... :0 Anyhow, I walked in the room, which absolutely stunk like crazy, and said,'where's the poop?' She proceeded to show me the broom, the shirt (by the way, as a side note, she had used a different shirt the day before as a toilet, I guess she thought pooping on the shirt was better than pooping on the floor; again, closing her door during time-out proved to be a big mistake!), and the poop stuffed in the dollhouse. I was so mad, but held it together so as to not draw attention to the massive disgusting disaster in her room, and proceeded to throw everything away, dollhouse (cleaned it and put it out at the road, along with all the play parts--it's too much of a poop attraction--this is not the first time this has happened, but certainly will be the last). So I get all the poop cleaned up. First, I scrub the swept up poop off the floor (which by now has dried onto the floor), dispose of the broom and shirt and throw (not literally) Chloe in the tub. Then, when we get everything cleaned up, my friend leaves, and I think certainly my day can't get any worse. Wrong!

I think Chloe must have known I had a lot to do that day to get ready to leave for the night with James at a board retreat (stayed at Bellwether, Chloe home with sitter all night--first time, poor lady, but that's a whole nother story, hope she'll come back again some day). So I proceed to go through my check list of things to do, one of which was to clean my house; it wasn't noticeably dirty, but felt dirty (you know what I mean). Anyway, washed sheets, so Laurel could sleep in a clean bed, dusted the room so she could breathe, etc. Then it occurred to me that Chloe was being awfully quiet. Suddenly I heard Emiko scream, 'Mom! You have got to come here!' Oh, great, now what...Well, I walked into Sayo's bedroom (the room that will be a bathroom someday), and almost cried. She had hucked everything around, the two puzzles I got from Nancy (550 pieces and 300 pieces) all strewn around the room, the Costco size box of Cup-O-Noodles (still closed, fortunately, no noodles went flying), Costco size bag of toilet paper, and then I see my 25 pound bag of rice. Now try to picture this, I have no idea how she did it, the 25 pound bag of rice was upside down, with the clip off (which had been used to seal it) and not one grain of rice was on the floor. Well, I saw the clip, but since there was no rice on the floor and the bag had been opened from the bottom to begin with, leaving the rice label in the correct orientation, I didn't realize it was open and proceeded to pick up the bag to move it; 25 pounds of rice came pouring out on to the floor. Oh, I tell you, I said things...things I shouldn't have said (almost a shout really)...'You are in so much trouble! If you ever thought you were in trouble, you have no idea! You are in so much trouble that I can't believe it!!!! Go to your room, don't come out. I don't want to see you!' Nasty, I know. Lost it, completely lost it...well, not completely, but close. So I put as much of the top layers of rice back in the bag as I could, then vaccumed up the remaining number of pounds(thank goodness James fixed the vaccum cleaner that morning before he left or I would have really been up a creek). Come to think of it, I haven't emptied the bag, do you think mice will notice and try to get inside my cleaner? Oh brother, another thing I didn't consider. Honestly, the bag is so full now, I really should empty it. It's just that at that particular moment, and until now, I just couldn't give it any thought, haven't had any time.

Ok, so I clean up Sayo's room, and God sends me an angel. My girlfriend Christina calls. 'Hi Shari, how are you?' 'well' I say, 'I am ok,' (with exasperation in my voice). 'What's going on' she asks? So I tell her and bless her heart, her own two kids are taking a nap and are at home with Dad, so she says, 'well, I am going into town, do you want me to pick up Chloe and bring her with me?' 'Do I want you to?', I ask. 'Hello! That would be great! Are you really sure? She's being a pistol today!' 'Yep' she says. Ahhh, fortunately for me, she has a Chloe of her own too, Jayden, (will be three in September). Suddenly, Emiko chimes in, 'Can I go?' 'No' I say, thinking to myself, I don't want to totally torture someone who is willing to take my wildebeast shopping (smiling as I write this, she sure is something else; but fortunately (for both of us), she's irresistably precious). Christina hears her and says, 'Emi's so easy, I can take her too if you'd like.' 'Really? That would be awesome!' Emiko is easy, there's no question, but Chloe is harder when she's with sissy than when she's alone. One on one, she's a gem to take shopping, but her energy level increases mega-fold when other kids (not just sissy) are around. So I tell Emiko she can go and the Niagara Falls she has created from her tears stops flowing. Christina and I hang up and Emiko begins frantically asking me when she will be here, 'I don't know' I say, but in my head I am hoping it will be soon! Emi gets ready, grabs the bag of money she has been saving (incidentally, she bought the pink swimming googles she had been saving up for) and happily goes shopping with Christina. Well, needless to say, I got my house clean and dinner made for the kids and babysitter (homemade whole wheat pasta noodles and spaghetti with vegetarian meatballs--or cracker balls as they are now known--I have to spoil the babysitter if she's ever going to come back again!) just as they were pulling back in the driveway. Oh, I was in such better spirits, now all I needed was a shower, to paint my nails (priorities!) and to get ready to leave in an hour. Fortunately, Chloe must have known I had endured enough torture for the day, and the rest of the hour went fairly uneventful (the car seat and a pull-up are glorious inventions!). I certainly wasn't going to leave her alone in her room while I was in the bathroom. Whew...Anyway, the rest of the evening is a whole nother story and I certainly hope Laurel will come back to babysit again, bless her heart; she and her husband have adopted my girls as their Bellingham grandchildren, since their own grandchildren live far away and our original Bellingham Grandma, Annnie, has passed away. They sure are wonderful people. Let's just say that they (especially Laurel, since she was mostly flying single that night, with a badly sprained ankle) earned and deserved the bottle of wine and truffles, both of which were a gift to us for attending the board retreat--works great since I am not a drinker and don't need any more chocolate! and the latte she received the next morning. Actually, she deserves much more than that, but that will have to come later.

Ahhhh, life, I love it. My smile is so big right now and my chuckle so cheery just thinking about these moments that I wonder if I have lost my mind. Funny how you can look back on frustrating times and laugh (after they are over!). I only wish I could laugh in the middle of them too. God willing, I will be more like Him and soooo much less like me. Looking back on how much I have changed, I see hope. I just hope I live long enough to see it come to fruition; it could be a while. :)