Oh for the love of poo!

The situation: birthday party at a large indoor play structure. Intricate rope-floor climbing, lots of tunnels and tall slides.

The issue: 5 minutes in, from atop the structure, Elliot gets 'the look' and calls down to me, "I had a poop accident."

*sigh*

I tell him to carefully come down, and then I panic - we don't have any other pull-ups except the ones he's wearing. Not even any extra underwear. (Bad mother!!!) A friend's husband offers to run to the nearest drug store for me while I get him cleaned up.

In we go, cleaned up, pants back on. I waiver - do I let him back on the structure sans containment - poop accidents are notorious for coming in multiple around here. But it seems so unfair to make him sit out the rest of the party. And it should only be a bit longer before reinforcements arrive.

And then it happens. Just as the parents are rounding up all the kidlets and herding them into the party room, my mommy instincts kick in. I glance up. Sure enough. Same area. Same look. Same refrain. This time I tell him to stay put and I quickly look around: friend's hubs isn't back yet. We have no spare clothes. (Bad, bad mother!) I vent to my friend as I make my way over to the multi-floored rope area and start to slither up through. There must be at least 6 levels. I reach Elliot and wonder how the frack I'm gonna get him down without raining poo on those beneath us. Luckily, the lump had stopped on his calf and I whipped his socks up over his pantlegs and then we waddled over to the opening in the floor, singing our waddling song as we went.

Made it to the bottom and good friend (who has already loaned out hubs for the pull-up run) hands me her daughter's yellow ladybug print shorts. She takes Elliot to the loo while I talk to the staff and tell them there may be errant poo. Up into the rope labyrinth I go but thankfully, I didn't find any escapees.

Hosed Elliot down, soaped up his legs as he was getting ripe, just in time for hubs to arrive with pull-ups, and - oh my!- a Starbucks iced mocha. Delish. Bestest. Friends. Ever.

Enjoyed the rest of the party. Headed home, uneventfully. Until after supper, anyway, but I'd gone out for groceries, leaving Jay home with the boys. Not my turn!

Conversations with Elliot

Me: What will you do when you grow up?

Elliot: I'm gonna have my own factory and make lunch. I'll make macaroni and cheese everyday. You can come visit me. You'll have your own factory next door.

Me: What else is in your factory?

Elliot: There's an elevator. And an escalator. And when you go up 3 escalators I have an office with a window and a big desk and paperwork and lots of paper for drawing. And a phone.

Me: Do you have a bedroom there?

Elliot: To get to my room, you go down 4 escalators and in my room is a ginormous bed and a small basket full of books and a ginormous TV and a toy box under the TV.

Me: What do you watch on the TV?

Elliot: Dinosaur Train, Wordworld and the Wiggles. And sometimes Horton Hears a Who.

ME: Anything else in your factory?

Elliot: When you go down 5 escalators there's a big party room! A Ginormous party table and party hats and some presents. And 100 people can go in. And you can go outside to see my animals. I have an elephant and a hippo and a monkey tree. And I let the monkeys out and they'll chase you to your factory.

Me: How old will you be when you have your factory?

Elliot: 5

Be gentle, it's my first time.

After 31 years, I finally got over my heebie-jeebies and made an appointment to give blood. I remember going with mom as a young child. It would almost always be evening time, and there would be other kids hanging around and we'd run in and out and around the building while our parents were donating. Then we'd all have cookies. I remember my sister not feeling well, suddenly, one night, and all the blood ladies ran over and cooed and put her on a bed and gave her juice. Such a magical place!

Hubby's 12 year old cousin had an in-service day from school, so she came over to play with the boys. But I sent them to daycare and took her with me instead. The nurse at the front desk said that my daughter could come with me into the room. Oops!

The second nurse had to do a finger prick, to make sure I had enough iron in my blood to donate. As she was squeezing my finger to make it bleed up into the dropper, I suddenly started spraying blood all over the place. It was just like when my milk would let down while nursing the boys and I'd fire-hose any nearby objects. Weird enough when it's milk, but blood? And onto someones desk, shirt and paperwork? So not cool. To her credit, she didn't freak out. Or ask me to take my mutant blood home. On top of this little incident, the drop of blood she tested for weight didn't sink in the liquid - which possibly meant not enough iron. So she had to - carefully - squeeze more out to put in a different machine. While she cleaned up and reprinted some papers, the machine spat out a good result - 13 point something for an iron level, which was strong enough for them to stick me up for more.


She gave me a sticker to wear that proclaimed my virgin status and told me to put it somewhere extra visible so the other nurses could monitor me. Then, around the corner I was sent to fill out more paperwork in a privacy booth, then another nurse came to collect me and took me to a new little room to answer personal questions, review my paperwork and to check my blood pressure and temperature. And it was time for the show! My cousin nervously agreed to come into the actual collection room, but she read her book the whole time and didn't look around much. I don't blame her.

My nurse cleaned my arm and put in the needle. Another nurse - a newbie, who was on her second day of training, came over to shunt off some blood for testing purposes. Then I was left alone until the collection bag filled. Took 7 minutes for 610g of blood. They had me rest for 5 minutes, then we went back out front where the volunteers had hot soup, cookies, coffee and juice waiting for us. Delish!

I made another appointment for 65 days from now. I'm giving the gift of life, lookit me! It wasn't so bad after all - why it took me so long, I really couldn't tell you. The worst part of the whole thing (other than the initial Carrie-esque hosing of the nurse) was thinking about the blood come out of me as they left me on the bed. I kept imagining it running out of me and missing the collection bag and pooling on the floor. Eeeew. Deep breathing - try it, it works wonders!

We'll see how it goes in July.

Longest April Fool's ever...

not to mention cruelest.

I thought long and hard how to title this post. Surprise! maybe? Now you see it now you don't! maybe? Whatever the case, here is the photographic evidence. I thought I might wear a dress to work yesterday, and then quickly decided against it.

(Ignore Elliot's messy room!)

Um nope. Not pregnant. I swear. And I have a bunch of peed-on sticks that tell the same story. But I sure had you fooled, right? You and everyone else I pass on the street. I don't even get mad when someone asks anymore. Because it's pitifully obvious that I must be expecting twins, right? Yeah, my chocolate and yeast babies. I have such an old man's beer gut. Disgusting. And I know what to do to fix it - lay off chocolate/sugar and breadstuffs. But I can't. And it's seriously hurting my body.

If I could only muster up the energy to do some exercises and tone my flabs, then I could at least hold the beast in convincingly.



But, alas, I fail at that too, and so now I'm just going to blog about my self-induced misfortune. I'm enjoying my food. I really am. And that's only a tiny part an excuse.

But seriously, folks, now that tax season is over, I'm planning to escort myself to the gym. I do miss it - it's been at least 4 years since I darkened their doors!

And just for fun, a bird's eye view: