Party pooper

I wish I had one of those blogs where I gush about my sweet, perfect children. But that would just be a bunch of lies. So instead, I offer another awkward story from my life.

We attended a four-year-old's birthday party this weekend at the Y. The kids played basketball in the gym and enjoyed cupcakes in the party room. The festivities ended with a trip to the pool. I sat on the side holding Lena, while T took the boys in.

This particular Y has a cool baby pool with water fountains shooting up, buckets dumping, and water cannons than you can aim at unsuspecting swimmers. There is also a mini-water slide that the boys love. After a half hour or so, T took Q into the big pool to float around on a noodle. I stood up to be able to quickly grab R if he fell under the two-foot water.

He was repeatedly going down the slide, when he decided to up the ante. He jumped off the top, banging his head on the way down. "I'm OK," he assured me though I could tell his head hurt. That's what he always says when he does something bad.

I walked over to tell him firmly that you do not jump off the slide, but he had already slid down again....leaving a puddle of brown behind him.

Oh no. I hoped for a moment it was from some other kid, but no luck. It was R.

"What's that?!" the horrified girl next in line exclaimed.

I grabbed R by the arm and pulled him out of the water to confirm that his swim diaper was in fact full of poop.

Truth be told, if no one was looking, I would have just wiped away the poo shmear and let the chlorine dilute it. It wasn't much really. Most of the now water-logged poop was still trapped in his swim diaper. But that darn little girl made a scene, and then the party organizer notified the lifeguard. I dragged R toward the locker room, though he was not happy about ending play time early. I handed Lena to another party-goer and went in to wash R's bum.

Thankfully, this was at the very end of the party, so R actually helped usher everyone out of the water. Unfortunately, when this sort of thing happens, they empty both pools, not just the baby pool. So the big pool was cleared, including big kids playing basketball and lap swimmers. One guy who was clearly a serious swimmer and another who had lifted himself out of a wheelchair into the water were not very happy. I was fairly mortified.

So, that was the end of the party. When I asked R if he pooped in the pool, he said, "No, I pooped on the slide."

Details.

--MM

Not a pirate

The good news is Q will not have to wear an eye patch! His glasses apparently did the trick to even out his eyes.

The bad news is in an attempt to prepare him for the possibility of wearing a patch, we were kind of talking it up and saying how he was going to look like a pirate.

 I think he was a tad bit disappointed when the eye doctor said he was in the clear. No pint-sized pirates this year.


--MM

My little lambs

I assure you these children were not drugged before the taking of this picture....

Look! Even the lamb is smiling!

 --MM

NOT a hockey mom

I am officially a soccer mom. Unfortunately, my soccer players are the one distracted by their hands at mid-field:



or ignoring specific instructions from the ref:



They don't exactly have super-athlete genes (T and I were mediocre athletes), and they probably have a future filled with participation trophies, but they're getting exercise and wearing snazzy pinneys.

--MM

Hot dog!

I love a good theme. In that spirit, I planned R's third birthdya party with the tongue-in-cheek theme of a sausage party. It was going to be almost all boys in attendance after all! So we stocked up on brats, hot dogs, and veggie dogs, and I made bowls of all the fixings. We even got Ruby a special costume for the occasion.

I wanted to make a hot dog cake of some sort, but those all the recipes I found online involved wrapping artifically-colored fondant around Twinkies. That did not sound appealing, and frankly I find food that looks like something drastically different than it tasts like is gross. So I decided to go abstract:

                                                          I made a lemon cake that was very light, tart and tasty. Then I had T roll two cartons of raspberry sherbert into a log to be our hot dog. We wrapped it in waxed paper, and let it refreeze in the freezer. When we were ready to go, I sliced the lemon cake down the middle and put the hot dog in place and a swirl of whipped cream from a can became our surreal mustard. It was really tasty.

I wanted this party to be super fun for the kids, but I did not have the energy to plan a lot of games and activities. Instead, I invited just our cousins, grandparents, and the family of our old nanny. And I rented this:

I didn't tell the boys it was coming, and it was so much fun to watch them watch the guy set it up! They had a blast jumping around in that thing and were sad to see it deflated at the end of the day.

--MM

This weekend by the numbers

What this weekend entailed: one giant giraffe bounce house, eleven small children at R's birthday party, two soccer games for three- and five- year olds, four miles run late Sunday evening trying to beat the rain, five loads of laundry, one new swing set from Grandma and Papa, eight hours spent trying to put it up (it's not there yet), a first experience with baby cereal (she liked it!), 80 degrees on Sunday ( I liked it!), one full cup of green tea spilled everywhere by R's flailed pillow, dozens of hot dogs, veggie dogs, and brats with all the fixings (it was a hot dog-themed party), one annoyed wiener dog in a wiener costume, one lemon cake with raspberry sorbet constructed to look like a hot dog (I was quite proud-pictures to come), ten gift bags, one cat left outside in the storm, one entire bottle of baby shampoo dumped in the bath, eight Ibuprofen tablets consumed, 0% of homework completed.

It was a bit hectic.

--MM

Three years ago today....

Happy birthday to R! Three years ago today he came into the world and changed our lives. Now he is a little brother and a big brother. A beautiful, blue-eyed, brawling, over-active, talkative, sweet little man.

His birthday is admittedly pretty crappy because I am at work and school, and T is out of town. But the real celebration is this weekend.

--MM