Free Shampoo Anyone?

10 Bottles of shampoo on the floor, 10 bottles of shampoo. Take one down, pass it around, 10 bottles of shampoo on the floor.

See the thing about that song is that today, it is funny. A month ago it was SO not. August was a hard month for me. Yes, motherhood reared her ugly head (yet again) and well let’s just say that at various times I threatened to let the UPS man come by and pick up the kids and ship them off to Timbuktu. I’m only sort of joking.

Back to the song --- It was a beautiful August morning that started with such promise. I had cleaned the entire house the day before since I was expecting company that night (my parents and aunt and uncle were coming into town to catch the Yankees game! Matt and I were going on our first outing WITHOUT kids since Chloe was born!)

I had also been up late the night before. I am self-employed as a graphic designer and when a deadline calls, a deadline calls. (I think I managed to flop into bed around 4 a.m. after topping off Chloe’s “milk tank” in hopes that she might sleep in!) Matthew had already left for work, the boys (or so I thought!) were firmly planted in our bed sleeping away, so I decided to revel in the extra sleep. I must have fallen back to sleep and been dead to the world because when I awoke, all I hear is this click-click noise. Everything else in the house is perfectly still. Chloe is asleep, Cade is asleep --- uh oh --- Camden has left his post.

I laid there for just a bit realizing that the click-click noise was coming from the master bathroom which adjoins our room, so I knew Cammy was safe. I was so perplexed by the sound I heard because I just couldn’t place it. I decided to quietly walk to the mostly closed bathroom door to peek in and see what that noise was.

Sitting on the cold ceramic tile was my innocently naked middle child FINGER PAINTING with shampoo and conditioner. That clicking sound was him opening and closing the various bottles as he EMPTIED THEM ONTO THE FLOOR. He looked up and with this delightful smile said, “Hi, Momma. I painting!”

I wanted to hurt someone. Anyone.

I sat there for a minute contemplating exactly how in the world do I clean up this amount of shampoo and conditioner --- all the while imagining in my mind soap suds spilling out of every window of our house. I decided the best course of action would be to put a video on for the boys in an attempt to CONTAIN the mayhem while I cleaned up. Movie in. Kids secured. Baby still sleeping (thank the Lord God above).

I gathered every dry towel in the house and began to clean up. Fifteen minutes later and just as I was wiping up the final slippery, soapy residue Cade peeks around the door and just as sweetly as ever says, “Hi mom.” What he should have done is handed me a loaded gun and said, “Here mom, you’ll need this next.” (Again I am joking --- lighten up people.)

So, Cade proceeds to explain to me that Cammy made ANOTHER mess. Because shampoo EVERYWHERE wasn't enough? No, my sanity was being tested and apparently those tests were coming in rapid fire succession. I JUST WOKE UP PEOPLE, this is SO not fair.

Cade: “Cammy got the sugar out.”
Me: WHAT? THE SUGAR? HUH?!?! Are you speaking English? Did you say, SUGAR?

I was so proud of my triumph over the shampoo and conditioner swamp, but before I could revel in that victory, yet another MESS awaited me. In my head a voice said, “Clean up on aisle 5” as if to MOCK me. How dare "they" mock me.

I walked down stairs and was greeted by an entire canister of sugar DUMPED out all over my office/study. The hard wood floors were no longer a lovely, dark mahogany. Instead, little two-year-old size sugary footprints wound around the whole first floor of the house.

My BARE FEET and I walked calmly to the vaccuum and began yet another clean up session. Now where's that number for the UPS man?



(Oh, and because I know some of you may wonder, Why is this crazy person stockpiling shampoo in her master bathroom? It's not because I am awaiting the apocalypse or anything quite that dramatic. I used to coupon a lot and would get Suave shampoo for like 25 cents a bottle, sometimes I would get it completely free --- and who turns down FREE shampoo?)

He's Everywhere...

How is it possible for a two-year-old to be everywhere all at once? I swear Camden has super-human abilities and that someday I will find out he has an alter-ego capable of making messes in every room simultaneously --- and that I wasn't just imagining things. It's pretty sad when daddy arrives home from a long day at work and instead of asking me how my day was, all he has to do is look around at the house and quickly assess how exactly the past 8+ hours have been.

There are good days ---and then there are bad days. Days when I think I have mastered the art of keeping my kids so incredibly occupied that they have little time to even think about touching anything around the house, and then days where I find myself still in my pajamas at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, not due to laziness mind you, but because when my feet hit the floor earlier that morning I was already half a day behind in the mess-making department and well, you just never recover from that type of handicap in the land of mothering. (when was the last time you wrote an 92-word sentence trying to capture the essense of mothering a two-year-old? yeah, I thought so --- oh, and i dare you to go back and count just to double check!)

Anyway, a wise woman (my mom!) once said, "It's not that your kids are bad or hard to control or anything like that, it's just that they are CONSTANT." I knew when she said it exactly what she meant... constantly moving, constantly testing the boundaries, constantly hungry, constantly into everything ---constant, constant, constant. You know what being the mom of a two-year-old has taught me? Domestic Engineers like myself should have unionized all those year's ago ---we get no coffee breaks, no lunch breaks, practically no potty breaks (unless you count having 2 or 3 kiddos in the lieu with you as you hurry to pee before someone gets into something they shouldn't a real potty break!), no vacations (need I say more?), no holidays, oh, and my favorite --- no paycheck. What other profession puts up with these working conditions?!? We missed out on the union ladies.

Instead of union benefits, I get the following:

- at least 50 hugs, "i love you's" and kisses per day (not many from Cammy, but I'm not bitter, no,really!)

- told "Mommy, you're so pretty!" on days that if Cade really knew what the world considers "beauty" the word pretty wouldn't have even made it in his sentence!

- smiled at by Chloe, just for showing up --- just because I'm the mommy!

So, I guess afterall what I do have is a pretty good deal ---if I can just make it long enough to look back on these days and savor the memories! I get stopped in the grocery store at least once a week (do I really look that pathetic and worn out?!?) by someone with kids older than mine and they always say the same thing, "Cherish these times, you will miss them---someday!" Here's to figuring out how cherish these years ---not only 'someday'---but also now, smack dab in the middle of them!