Busy Day

So Maleen got to leave three times today, and I never got to leave the house even once. I made the poor decision of lamenting this to Maleen while she was home this evening. She replied simply, "It's like our lives are flip-flopped." She did not see why it was so hard for me to stay home with the kids. . . Blah blah blah . . . You know you don't HAVE to leave the house everyday . . . Blah blah blah . . . .

Ya, well, it's hard. You should try it sometime!

Three events took place today that demonstrate how I'm not built for domestic responsibility.

First, Pearl went cordless today.

I was showing the girls this morning how the cord was starting to fall off. I was using it for an educational moment. Maleen, on the other hand, felt it was time to clean the cord. She proceeded to do so, and then the cord stump just fell off. (I can't prove it, but I'm pretty sure she actually pulled it off to be the one who got it. Maybe there's some ancient culture that considers it a sign of luck or something.) Of course, this ruined my lesson on the physics of womb living.

And then it bled.

Now, I've heard that if you slice your belly button, you will actually bleed to death. This is because the belly button is designed to keep a freely distributing blood flow to the fetus, and we never grow out of that. (For all you mothers who don't need something else to worry about, I did a little searching on Google and proved it to be an old-wives' tale. Darn old wives!)

Now, we're not talking gusher, here, but I don't like the sight of blood since my days in Brazil. So, I had Maleen clean her up.

So on to the next thing. Daisy had "not enough" supervision today. She's got the standard I'm-almost-two jitters. She's worried she hasn't seen enough of the world yet, that or she's trying to see if I'm capable of beating a child within millimeters of life. And I don't know why, but she prefers to do these crazy tricks while I'm watching her.

We're playing Wii, keeping to ourselves. We were minding our own business! Daisy gets down and starts minding her own business there in the room. I didn't see a problem with that—I mean I can see her sitting right there. She had her back turned to me, but how much trouble can she get into?

Here's the photo:

She had managed to get into some paint that June had from an old art project. This was paint that I had forgotten we had because it was so old. Paint should expire and just dry up so you don't get children painting their foreheads, hands, and lips(!) with it. Somebody remind me to invent that.

She better grow up to be a famous (and filthy wealthy—no pun intended) artist.

In other news, apparently one "art strike" is not enough for a single day.

Daisy had barely made bail, and she was out on "good behavior." She was avoiding her parole officer, and left the containment area without permission. When we finally tracked her down (they get instinctively quiet when they're perpetrating), Daisy had struck June's room with a dry erase marker.

It was on the door, on the wall, on the doll house, on the new toddler bed (her own), on the carpet, on her face, on her legs, on her hands, on the sheets, on the pillow, on June's mattress, on June's sheets, on the Magna-doodle—that's probably where she started.

Being a fan of forced labor, I conscripted three volunteers to clean it up. Obviously, if I wasn't watching Daisy, they should have been. When will kids figure it out?

They were very helpful, and should anyone wonder, dry erase comes off of doors (magic eraser), doll houses (wet washcloth), toddler beds (magic eraser), carpet (washcloth), faces and arms and legs and hands (washcloth), and Magna-doodles (washcloth). It does NOT come out of fabric very well, we'll see what our laundry machine can do.

And now, the awesome poop story.

Every parent learns to deal with bodily fluids. We live by the motto that "Pee happens." Just for the record, so does poop, and blood, and vomit, and rancorous combinations of the above elements. Every now and again, you get something you can't identify, and then you just grit your teeth and get on with cleaning it up.

Well, just before Maleen left on one of her excursions, she said daintily and innocently, "I think Pearl needs a change." With that, she buzzed out the door.

Well, I've changed a few diapers in my day, so up we went to take care of business. I had placed Pearl on the bed, unwrapped her blanket, secured the wipes and replacement diaper, and steeled my nerves for the ordeal. (Wives, this may sound like a lot, but this is how we men approach the situation. If we could obtain a Haz-Mat suit inexpensively, we would.)

I disengaged the diaper fastening system and readied a wipe. Pearl, I have learned, has a hair trigger. It turns out that shifts in temperature either scare the crap out of her, or relax the crap out of her. Either way, guess who wasn't ready.

Oh, the first wipe went okay. I was neatly tucking the wipe into the spent diaper when Pearl sent a shot across the bow. Baby poop comes with a warning system: baby farts. Pearl sounded the "alarm" and I had a split second to decide what I was going to do. Rank amateurs would have been no match, but as a consummate professional, I acted quickly.

I should point out now that though I am a professional, I made the critical mistake a not opening the new diaper before the old one was off.

With one hand I shielded the bed and myself from the oncoming blast, with the other I reached for another wipe. I found hard plastic—no more wipes! The situation just elevated from yellow to red alert.

Just a note to any wipes manufactures who may be reading this. What the *&^% were you thinking making the opening for a wipes container that size? You do realize that people actually have to get their hands inside there sometimes, right? I for one, do not own a set of hands that will fit through this opening.

By this time, I had used up my early warning. Pearl squintched up her face. She looked like she was trying to wink at that place where the ceiling meets the wall, but was having trouble completing the maneuver. I did the only thing I could do: I cupped my hands in front of the opening so the splatter-blast wouldn't adversely affect other things in the room—like my bed or me.

It should be noted that the volume of a baby's bowels can most-likely be contained in one adult hand under optimal circumstances (as if those exist). However, when the contents of the bowels are hyper accelerated during exit, two hands are required.

I performed the extremely rare, but skilled first-hand deflection second-hand catch method. Most men are not skilled enough to execute this procedure. Most men who are sufficiently skilled seldom speak of it.

When I had ascertained the expulsion was over, I was left with the challenge of how to transport this warm brew from my position on the bed to the bathroom. I used my elbows to reposition Pearl so that her blanket would provide cover in the event I did not return to my post in time. Take a moment to imagine this. No seriously, put your hands together and imagine you are holding something warm and sloshy in them. Now try to move your keyboard with your elbows, pressing your fingers together to avoid spilling anything. Not easy. Not pretty.

I escaped to the bathroom to dispose of the stuff. I actually laughed on the way, "This was not what I was expecting to do this morning." No sooner had I returned to Pearl, I ascertained that her splatter blast was a careful decoy. It appears that her true objective was to soak my pillow in pee, which she had done while I was busy disposing. This child has a bladder of steel! I had four layers of a blanket (doubled up), a comforter, and a sheet between Pearl and her target. That's a lot of pee.

I hastily strapped a new diaper on her and started stripping the bed to get the bed clothes in the wash. Pearl did her best to look innocent.