Double, Double Toil and Trouble; the House Will Burn, the Toilet Bubble

Eldest child has been in a weird mischievous funk.

For instance, in the span of the last two weeks he’s taken to licking things---the carpet, the walls, the baby’s head.

Yep.

The baby's head.

I’m talking full on droolage all over little brother’s slightly misshapen noggin. Not that it matters much I guess, since the baby’s always wet from his unending string of spittle, but still…it’s unnerving, you know.

Like he’s tasting him.

Now, I’m fully aware that Jake’s head looks slightly like a giant lollipop on a stick, but I’d still rather not have my three-year-old trying to figure out how many licks it takes to get to the center.

In other news, the mysterious funk that has encapsulated my son has also put him on the track to having “Felony Arson” attached to his name forevermore. About the time the licking weirdness began, I started finding a variety of highly flammable objects in my oven --- a kitchen towel, a pie tin full of soft plastic baby toys, the LINT from my dryer screen. Can you say FLAMING. BALL. OF. DEATH? Fortunately, I haven’t had occasion to use the oven because my gourmet cereal dinner doesn’t involve any actual cooking.

And to top it all off, what mischievous child is void of toilet curiosity?

Luke’s had a little fascination with trying to see how much TP will actually go down the toilet all at once. The other day I overheard him in the bathroom cheering, “C’mon! Go down! C’mon! Go down!” I ran in and found him staring down into a bowl brimming with an entire roll of unrolled toilet paper.

On separate occasions I’ve also had to fish out an entire roll of TP still on the roll, his underwear, and a hand towel from the depths of toilet-dom. Who knows what might have actually made it through? The baby does happen to be missing a conspicuous amount of pacifiers. Maybe he'll do me a favor and flush the dirty laundry down the toilet.

Sigh.

I think I need a job transfer.

As Long As He's Uncomfortable Too...

I’m cold. It’s 73 degrees inside my house and I feel like I’m in a meat locker.

There is this ongoing battle in our house for temperature control. It’s a nasty one too…with all sorts of mock guilt trips being tossed around like salmon at a fish market. The problem? Chris is perpetually sweating-to-the-oldies hot at any temperature above 67. I am perpetually hell-just-froze-over cold at any temperature below 77. And so, we both end up being perpetually uncomfortable because the definition of “compromise” always means lose/lose at our house.

In the battle of wills, that Chris is a wiley one.

I woke up a couple of mornings ago to all the windows in the house completely open.

I promptly began to close all of said windows.

“What are you doing?”

“Closing the windows.”

Whining like a baby, “Ahhh, it was finally starting to get comfortable in here.”

Also whining like a baby, “Baaabe! I’m soooo cold. It’s like 40 degrees outside and the thermostat says 65!”

Trying to guilt-trip me, “I guess what I want doesn’t matter.”

Unphased, “You’re right, it doesn’t.”

3 Seconds

Do you ever get distracted?

Turns out, I have the attention span of a goldfish. Shiny objects and other such things tend to make me….

Ooooh, a quarter!

Anyway, so I couldn’t remember if I put conditioner in my hair yesterday while I was showering…it’s also possible that I don’t remember if I did it twice. Then I put face scrub in my hair. I have very clean hair.

See, I spend almost the entire day of most days in my own mind. That amount of time spent in the fantasy land of my brain is liable to distract me from reality….a lot.

It wouldn’t be such a problem if I were solving the great mysteries of the universe, but more often than not I’ve got a song playing in my head like some movie theme while I imagine all sorts of situations that could possibly….maybe….probably not….happen. But seriously, you never know when you might end up as a character on LOST (only for reals, because we all know that could totally happen) and have to run away from the smoke monster.

This trait isn’t something new. When I was little I knew exactly what sort of super-human fighting moves I’d do if a robber ever came into our home. And I could fly.

Chris hasn’t learned his lesson yet. He still asks all the time, “What are you thinking about right now?”

I got tired of making up fake normal thoughts so I started telling him the truth.

“I was just thinking that if I killed someone and I had to hide the body, I would put it back in those trees. I mean, that area looks like no one’s been in there in months.”

“Really? That’s pretty creepy.”

“Yeah, haven’t you ever thought about stuff like that?”

“Never.”

Awkward silence.

(Darting eyes around furtively) “Oh…me neither.”

So, what do I do in the rare moments when reality comes knocking? I shut the door in its face and continue washing my hair with my face scrub while mentally practicing my “hi-ya” moves on ninja monkeys.

What Did I Just Say?

Toilet-training has been hard. The kid stubbornly refused to go number 2 in the toilet for a solid month (and that’s not counting the first attempt back in August). I had entered the desperate begging version of praying when at long last he got it. Finally. Finally.

After the long, arduous, terrible ordeal that is potty-training, there’s only one response you can give when your three-year-old proudly yells out everyday from the bathroom, “Mama! Come look at my poo poohs!”

You sigh. You run in. You say,“Gee whiz buddy! Look at that poop! It’s yellow today!” And you remember how one month ago you would have given anything to see that version of food at the bottom of the toilet.

Then he turns his wide eyes and big grin toward you and says, “It makes Mama happy again.”

Yes it does, Gooba.

Every. Freakin. Time.

The Post In Which Fence-Sitters Get Violently Shoved to the Correct Side

If any of you have been questioning whether I’m the queen of all idiots or just the village idiot, wonder no more.

I give you my dreadful tale of embarrassing woe:

But first, a little back story. Luke has been charismatically disrespectful as of late. Megan came to see me a fortnight ago. After witnessing some gnashing of teeth, a suggestion was made to turn Luke’s doorknob around so that I could contain the little bugger whilst mothering the other one. Megan, I totally blame you for what follows. (Not really, I’m just kidding. Kind of. Almost.)

So, yesterday (and by yesterday I mean several days ago---why can I never do things on time?) started out deceivingly good. No real gloom and doom on my end, a rarity in recent months. We enjoyed the late morning at the park and when we came home the two critters and I headed upstairs to play “trains”. (I like to try out the ‘good mother’ role every once in a while.) (It never sticks.)

I walked in first with the baby, laid him on Luke’s bed, and sat down for some track construction. In the meantime, Luke came in and shut the door. Heh heh. This is where it gets good. Luke asked for milk. I tried to leave the room, but the doorknob was alarmingly immovable.

Jiggle.

Jiggle…jiggle…JIGGLE.

Huh. Not good.

I rummaged around in Luke’s toy box for something to pick the lock.

Nothing.

I opened his closet door. Ah ha-- a wire hanger. I can do this! I’ve read WikiHow on picking locks.

Twenty-minutes later…yeah, WikiHow, not so helpful.

I quickly calculated my options: Break legs while jumping out window, wait three hours for Chris to come home, open windows and yell hysterically until someone comes to help.

I opened the window and braced myself…

You thought I was going to jump didn’t you?

I was. But, I had no idea if the front door was open and what good would my daring act of bravery have been if I was unconscious from blood loss and locked out of the house? I mean, how stupid do you think I am?

So, I put my pride aside and picked the next best option. I hung myself out the window like a lady of ill repute and called out to the weed-whacking workers across the street…

and the man jogger with the headphones…

and all the cars with the windows rolled up…

I finally got the attention of one of the workers across the street who stopped what he was doing, hit his buddy on the arm, then did the “man nod” in my direction. After some misinterpreted signaling, they stayed put.

Stupid man workers.

Finally, 45 minutes into the ordeal, our neighbors’ lawn care guys pulled up in a truck and I did my best blonde damsel-in-distress gig.

It worked. One of them came over and freed us from the awful nightmare.

“Boy, that’s not something you come across every day. I’ll have to remember this one,” he said as he chuckled out the door.

Gee thanks.

After he left, I picked up the shattered pieces of my self-respect and put both kids in front of a Baby Einstein video…they’ve got to get smart somehow…I’m only going to give them the idiot genes.

Jacob Kimball Bailey

Baby Jacob made his debut Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008 via c-section. He was 6 lbs. 3 oz. and 19 1/2" long. We didn't have any complications, though he did have the cord wrapped around his neck 4 times. I'm slowly adjusting to having another baby around the house and the exhaustion that comes with it. I love my boys.

Because I'm Always Late

Okay, so I know it has been two whole months, plus some. I’m just like that. I keep thinking of things to blog about, but wouldn’t ya know…it’s hard to blog when you have other things to do and besides, I’m pregnant (and that excuse covers everything).

So, just a quick update, and then hopefully some meaningful---whelp---okay, I won’t lie to you---just some straight shot dull blogging after this.

RECAP:

September--nothing happened.

October--a few things happened.

November--some more stuff happened.

FINE.

I'll do a quick recap.

I’m now 36 weeks pregnant and very fat. Behold. The. Glory. These are only because Erin Faun insisted on humiliation. I'm going to go poke my eyes out now:

I think tomorrow will be the official day in the timeline of pregnancy that I had Luke…so pray we don’t have a turkey-sized baby for Turkey Day. Pictures are coming of the nursery and Luke’s room—eventually…I can’t promise anything soon because, well, read the title. Both are painted, neither are quite finished. We are painting our living room/entry way this weekend...pics to come probably next year. Wow. We are SO. NOT. DULL. And here are a few pictures to catch you up.

Luke carving his pumpkin and then smelling it. He didn't like touching the guts, but he was willing to stick his face in it?? Go figure.

He liked putting the pieces back in like a puzzle. He was so excited for the finished product...

...and the moldy finished product a few days later.

Costumes: If you can't figure them out then I'm ashamed.

Me stuffing my face at the ward Halloween party. These were half of Costco-sized pumpkin pies. Enormous. I was pretty proud of myself for not upchucking the pie and the baby---Gabe on my left, yeah, total pukage that night. Sorry Gabe...he ate all of his and took one for the team by eating a small slice of mine too.

Still---I didn't puke---I can totally eat like a champ.

Okay, enough with the family-bloggy-ness. This blog is supposed to be about me and my thoughts and, oh yeah, me some more...so thank your lucky stars you got updates AND pictures---they were mostly still about me, but, hey, what did I just tell you?

I'm sure tomorrow will be fun...we'll talk about my first Thanksgiving disaster! Woohoo!