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

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

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

Sweet thing

I love my rambunctious boys. They have endless energy and love playing together. They make me laugh. But they are often exhausting. The pile up couch pillows and jump over them or on top of them. They ride their "bikes" down hills with their feet off the pedals. They run around the house at top speed, chasing each other and laughing deliriously. They are a wonderful pair. But I am so glad to have a sweet little girl for number three. Just look at this face:

She is a true sweetheart. She is full of huge smiles these days. She rarely cries unless she is hungry (and then she is pretty vociferous). The boys were good babies but not nearly as calm as this little girl. She doesn't even fuss when I wash the spit-up off her in the bathroom sink.

A third wild boy might have been the death of me, but instead I have a sweet little girl. I'm lucky. Until she turns 13 and is moody teen, and I am the source of all her angst. I don't look forward to that. For now I am just enjoying our present family dynamic. The two energetic boys and the precious little girl. I love it.

--MM