Livin' the dream, friends

After two incidents earlier in the week {both of which I can't bear to even write about}, I think I've hit the trifecta.


Fred woke Thursday morning around 3AM.  No reason, just up.  He did lay in bed another hour or so, but finally got up close to 4:30-ish to play.  Great start to the day, eh?

Fred came to me around 8AM to tell me he'd spilled his potty in his room. Assuming he'd just bumped the training potty, which has some water in it, I figured I'd just find a spill on the laminate floor in his room, easy peasy, right? Well, that's not what I found. Here's what I did find.

Training potty, open, on the carpet in the hall. Poop and potty spilled out on the carpet.
The above, splashed on the wall in the stairway higher than I can reach even with a ladder, and splatter all the way down to the bottom step, in the dining room, and on the floor in the entry.
Oh the smell. Feces and urine all over my carpet, wall, and stairway.  We're livin' the dream, friends, livin' the dream.


I tried not to cry.  I tried not to yell.  With everything else I've been dealing with this week, not the least of which is being super busy at work, I knew I had to keep my composure or risk going over the deep end.  With a deadline before me for work (I'm a part time telecommuter), this was not what I needed to start this, or any, day.

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All this, and Ethel still wanted me to get the pool out for them in the back yard.  Because I'm apparently made of nothing but time.  Oh save me.

I dare anyone to be jealous of the work from home mom.

And the fun continued.

I let the kids have 1 hour of quiet time in their own rooms before having some together (just over an hour) now that school is out for Ethel for the summer and neither of them naps. With Fred's poop incident in the morning, I realized I couldn't fly off the handle because it would be for all the wrong reasons, stresses unrelated to the poop on the wall. Not that the poop on the wall wasn't a good reason to go all Crazy Mama, but I digress.

So I went upstairs to help the kids clean up since they'd been playing really well together for over an hour (or so it sounded), and to let them know we could call it quits on quiet time soon.

That's when I found Fred with his ARMS IN THE TOILET!! Up to his elbows!! Then Ethel said, "You can't catch me!" and she ran into his room, and he ran after her. OMG, OMG, OMG, OMG.......

I had asked them 30 minutes prior to start cleaning up and I'd set the timer, usually an effective tool.  They hadn't done jack! I took 5 deep breaths and made Fred wash his hands, then told them they needed to clean up. Fred resisted, declared he didn't want to, etc.  Ethel hopped right to it, though. I followed Fred, telling him to pick this up, where to put it, etc, all he did was smile. So I went and got a garbage bag and started to bag up Fred's things that were all over his room. Animals, pillows, books, you name it. He began bawling, saying he'll start to clean up, the whole nine yards. I am UP TO HERE and told him no, I was giving it to the neighbor for her garage sale. Oh, the tears that flowed from that!

Ethel was frantically cleaning up her room when she started to try to bargain on Fred's behalf, telling me I'd never taken her stuff and given it to the neighbor, so maybe he could have his stuff back some time. Poor dear.  She is so protective of her brother. 

I put his stuff in the closet in the guest room and will hold it for one week. One of the things I took was Maxy dog, the dog he sleeps with. Well, that's the way that cookie crumbles kid!

These are the days when Calgon isn't nearly enough.  It's got to be Bloody Mary therapy.