Mindless Mom

My three-year-old decided to ‘test the waters’ so to speak tonight and threw eleven washclothes into the bathtub while she waited for her turn in our nightly bathtime assembly line.  I had just dried off her younger sister and was throwing her into a pair of mis-matched pajamas (yeah, yeah, yeah….I’ll get to the laundry) when I noticed the opened, empty towel drawer. 

I cackled right along with her and then let her know that she could use half of the towels to clean her stinky butt and the other half to do some overdue tub scrubbing.  Funny, she didn’t think that was as cute as her towel toss idea.

She managed to lather up six of the eleven faceclothes and touch one elbow, a wrist, a kneecap, a boo-boo on her foot, her left shoulder, and managed to wash the “boogas out of hers nose”.  She used another two or three to cover pirates that had been leftover from her brother’s bath.   At one point she was telling me that the towels were manta rays covering each of the pirates and taking them away to the mommies of the manta rays so they could “be puts in time outs because they’s beings bads pirates”.  What can I say, the girl enjoys grammar in the plural sense?!?

I reminded her that she had to take care of some cleaning business at some point in the pirate zone.  She quickly started gathering the towels and placing them one by one on top of her knee cap.  Each one was placed on, followed by a “whoa………this is lots of towels”.  After she piled all eleven towels on her right kneecap she decided to give me a lesson in how to fold washclothes.  So much for the cleaning.

 “Folded” waschlothes.

I picked up the following from her little tutorial:  1) No need to wring out the washclothes - just leave them soaking wet.  2) If you bunch them up into a ball, you can achieve the same finished look.  3)  If you get tired after folding three or four, just leave the others to collect at the drain for your mother to pick up.

Eleven washclothes did manage to clean the kid eventually.  Of course, there’s still some tub scrubbing that needs to be done. 

If only I had a towel…………….

From this day forward I will not provide underwear options to my three-year-old.  If the day comes where I have an extra thirty-five minutes to spare, then maybe I’ll reconsider.  Until then, my mantra is going to be you get what you get.  “Oh look, it seems as though the only clean pair of underwear in your drawer is the yellow, pink-striped, star-butted Nemo underwear - enjoy!”

Today, I made the mistake of asking my potty training three-year-old which underwear she would like to wear for the day, thinking this would generate excitement and also serve as a reminder throughout the day to not crap her pants.  Little did I know this motivational technique would result in deliberations, mind games, fashion shows, and regrets. 

I started by pulling underwear options out of the drawer.  This would be the exact moment in time I’d like to rewind to and delete.  My magic showcase from the underwear drawer should have simply been “Looks like we’re wearing Dora today!”.  Instead, I took the liberty of placing seven pairs of underwear on her bed for her to choose from - three being the same exact design, color, and size.

She patted each one down while laboring over her decision.  She pulled the Dora pair toward her, giggled, then quickly switched to Little Mermaid.  When I tried to rationalize removing two of the same Care Bear undies from the sea of options, she heatedly argued that they were in fact very different shades of purple. 

When pressed to choose, she would pick a pair, get so far as to place them at the base of her feet to step into, then pull a psych card out and say she changed her mind.  I tried to convince her that she had enough to wear a different one each day of the week.  But she decided that she’d be better equipped to make her decision after seeing them displayed on her stuffed animals. 

Harry the Hippo walking the fashion runway.

The stuffed hippo took the brunt of the humiliation by sporting Dora the Explorer, Little Mermaid, and Care Bears throughout the following fifteen minute fashion show.  None of them proved to be very flattering.

After giggling uncontrollably through the entire fashion show, potty girl eventually landed on a pair of fashion-forward Dora the Explorer undies and made her way downstairs.  Within five minutes of being downstairs I heard a loud “uh-oh”.  I quickly ran down the stairs to find her standing in the bathroom, pee dripping down her leg.

Rather than cry, she looked up at me excitedly and said “I want the Little Merwmaid ones now.  I didn’t weally wike those Dora ones anyway”.  

Well, I generated the excitement……so much for the reminder.

Last night I had to print some pictures off for last minute Father’s Day gift prepping.  Better translated - the kids painted wooden picture frames for all of the grandpas and I had to fill them with recent snapshots.  So I borrowed my mom’s portable printer and set up shop in my bedroom - a location that would allow me to have all three kids within earshot as they played together.

My youngest made it the easiest on me, deciding to sit on my lap and fingerprint all the pictures as they rolled hot off the press.  (Like their faces weren’t dirty enough in the pictures without the external ketchup smears.)  My older two were playing Care Bears and Rescue Heroes while running back and forth between each other’s bedroom.  I thought they were doing a good job of keeping themselves busy. 

In retrospect, I should have known something wasn’t quite right after a ten minute period without screaming, crying, hair pulling, pouting, shouting, and sprints to my side in order to be the first to tattle on the other.   But silly me, I was trying to actually complete a task.  Happy Father’s Day.  

So after 10-15 minutes of printing pix, my one-year-old and I moved on to her room to play with her baby dolls.  She decided that it was time for every stuffed animal to go to sleep.  It’s right after my daughter shrieked that Elmo couldn’t sleep next to Dora, that my son hollered, “Mom, you gotta come see this”. 

In my house, those words are never a sign of good things to come.  Especially so, when timed with the thought that certain children have been too quiet for too long…………and the voice hollering is filled with squeamish delight.  I did mention that it had been a whopping total of 10-15 minutes since I started printing pictures, right?

So I followed the beckoning call…….and I was blessed with the visual of my five-year-old and three-year-old sitting on the bathroom linoleum floor with what looked like 10lbs of 2″ X 3″ paper and plastic cards laying all around them.  I quickly glanced to their legs.  My son was holding a washcloth to his left shin and shooting a politician’s smile up at me.  My three-year-old then shouted (because I’ve decided she has the inability to talk at a non-deafening volume) “Mom, do you like my tattoos?”

I scanned their playdoh legs. 

Both kids had 10-12 fake tattoos all over their legs.  Washcloths were all over the bathroom.  From my rough estimate, they must have needed a separate one for each tattoo.  Each tattoo must have also required 3 gallons of water, because the bathroom floor was soaking wet.   And apparently the thought of getting rid of the evidence never crossed their mind, because they even asked me to help clean up their mess after a five minute show-&-tell session. 

My son’s tattoos climbed all the way up his back end.  I want to know who he thought was going to be seeing those graffiti’d gems.  My daughter’s tattoos were all facing upside down.  And apparently she decided that a tattoo that read “Girls Rule” with a purse in the background would be best placed on the top of her big toe. 

I’m happy to inform you that bicep and back tattoo placements aren’t cool for the 5 and under crowd.   They were having a hard enough time pointing to the backs of their knees and their rear-ends……I can only imagine the drama if a mirror was needed to admire lower-back artwork.

Needless to say, I have since hid the remaining temporary tattoos in the house and washed a load of towels.  I have also decided that now would be a good time to start inspecting earlobes and belly buttons for any holes/piercings.   You never know what may happen on one of my quick runs to the basement to change a load of laundry?!?!?   Then again…..that scene probably wouldn’t play out so quietly.

Let me start with - I can’t make this shit up.

Today I walked in on my 3yr-old daughter having a conversation with/to my 1 1/2 yr-old daughter.  My youngest doesn’t talk yet and basically just smiles when being spoken to. 

“Oooops, I just tooted.”

Smile

“Oooops, I just tooted again.”

Smile

“Tooted is when sumpin comes out of you’s butt.”

Smile

“Did you hears me?  Sumpin comin’ out of you’s butt.”

Smile, with a slight nose twitch

“You smell sumpin?  I smell sumpin.”

Smile slowly fading to a grimace

“Oops I tooted again.”

Grimace turns to high pitch crying

“Mom, I think she smells sumpin.”

Notify the pageant circuit.  I think we got ourselves a future beauty contestant here.