An Adventure In Diapering

I was laying in bed with Fin, just doing pull ups, blowing bubbles, you know, baby stuff. When I heard the sound of mysterious happenings in her diaper. Is it a toot? The beginnings of a blowout? Just a normal dirty diaper, if such a thing exists? I pause, the only thing worse than a blowout is interrupting a blowout. And there it went again, and she even added a tiny grunt at the end for effect. Having had a bad experience that morning I picked her up and hurried to her room to change it before things got out of hand. As I walk into her room I flip on the lights and nothing happens. I reach for the pull on the fan, still nothing. The bulb is burned out. Strike One.
Now I had recently decided that it was just too bright in Finley's room and had covered all the windows so the only light in there was what filtered down the hall from the living room. I carefully weighed my options and decided that haste was in my favor. I began to change the diaper. There was an ominous little toot when I first started wiping but I did not heed the warnings. When the wipes seemed to be coming out clean I wrapped up the dirty diaper and reached in the drawer for a clean one... but, alas, there were none there. Strike Two.
I peered around the room and spotted them, just out of reach by the book case. I looked at Fin, who was happily playing with her toes, and holding one hand out by the changing table I dove for the diapers and leapt back. Once I had assessed that she had not managed to roll away in that unprotected second, I dug a diaper out of the new bag and tucked it under her. I flipped back the top of the diaper and... stared in horror. It had a long dark streak on it. Strike Three, OUT!
Finally realizing I was in over my head I rolled baby, changing pad, wipes and diapers all together and carried it into the living room. One look at the situation told me it was time to take a bath and make use of the advanced wash settings on my washer. I left her on the pad on the floor while I ran her water and this is what greeted me when I came to get her for her bath...

Those are the jeans that she had been wearing that are on her head. I'm just glad that her tushie is still on the pad or this post might have included a carpet cleaner.
So baby got a bath...

 And momma did a load of laundry and attempted to change the lightbulb, which is a whole other story involving a screwdriver, several stools, and moving large furniture.
Nathan, when I checked on him at the end of all this was blissfully unaware of any drama...

Get Your Goat

     The phrase "don't let them get your goat" has been running through my head today for some reason. It has really been a good day so I don't know what this thought has occurred to me today but here it is:

     A three year old is all about "getting your goat". It is their main joy in life to seek it out but the problem is that a toddler doesn't just "get" it, first he hits it with a spit wad, then once it takes off he lassos it, yanks it off its feet, hog ties it and then jumps up and down on its stomach gleefully yelling and waving his Woody hat. And once this has been accomplished, said toddler, has the nerve to look shocked and surprised at your reaction.

     With a four month old my goat is is a big open field with a sign that says "Sleeping Baby, Do Not Wake" and that is just too tempting, especially if I have had a sleepless night with her and need a nap to.

     But all is fair in love and war, of which this is both, and I am the only one who knows how to work the DVD player, or how to open the child safety locks on the cabinets with the snacks, so in the end I will triumph.

The Great Divide

     There are three major things I currently do with my life. It seems that everything fits in one of these categories:
Church
Children
Keeping House
   It sounds simple when I put it on paper but you all know that there is more to even one of those jobs than any full time job would allow. So on a daily basis I find myself feeling a bit guilty about neglecting one or the other of these things, or on really bad days I feel guilty about all of them. How do I escape the guilt trap?
     I am trying something new about the House part of things. I have set out a daily chore list that assumes I try to keep things picked up, do dishes etc. but gives me one more detailed task for the day. It has been a relief, at least for the first few days and I feel that my house is gradually getting cleaner each day. I still haven't decided what to do when something doesn't work out. For example on Saturday I clean the bathrooms, but there was too much going on here this Saturday for me to do more than one of the two. So do I catch up the next day? Do I wait another week? With something like dusting the living room missing a week is not that big of a deal, but bathrooms are another matter, especially with a preschool boy in the house. So a few kinks to work out but so far a success.
As far as my kids go things are a bit more difficult to parcel out. Their needs don't schedule as easily and if I miss a week it would be a big problem. Nathan wants me to play with him, read to him, color with him, admire his latest accomplishment, all great things to do together, but Finley needs to be fed, changed, put to sleep, held, and talked to. Most of Finley's needs are more immediately pressing than Nathans so he gets put off til she is asleep, and then the question is do I make lunch, or clean, or play with Nathan in the few moments I have. Heaven forbid I should decide to shower or do my hair, that stuff is right out. So the wise suggestion might be that they both tend to nap at the same time at least one out of four days, then I could clean, but...Mommys need naps too on occasion, I am up every two to four hours at night. But, I could go to bed earlier...
The conclusion I come to as I start to enter this vicious circle of logic is that what I need to do is survive, take care of myself, let my husband know I love him, let my children know I love them and hope that covers my multitude of wrongs. In the end even super mom is only human.