Well, no, actually it started with yesterday's less-than-wonderful trip to the library, which would explain why we were home all morning today. Perhaps I should just be grateful for that, since we could have had poop at the library. But I digress.
Normally, I take the kids to story time at the local library on Wednesday and Thursday mornings. Yesterday's trip was not an overwhelming success, though -- and by that I mean that when we drove by today, my throat actually closed, so clearly it is a place to be avoided for a few days. Last week was lovely; Isaac fell asleep so I could devote all my energy to singing "My hands wave hello!" with Suzannah and all the other little ones. Yesterday, he cried through everything. And it wasn't his angry/starving cry, just his mildly fussy one, and honestly, with two big daycare groups there in addition to the usual crowd, I didn't think his sounds were all that noticeable. Still, I decided to slip out into the hallway with him to see if I could settle him a bit. Suzannah and I were near the door anyway, and I figured she could either come with me or stay and sing "The Wheels on the Bus."
I figured wrong. She most definitely wanted to stay, but she most definitely wanted me to stay with her. As in, seated on the floor, not even walking (bouncing, swaying, shushing) in the back. But Isaac's volume increased as I attempted to sit down again, so I sighed, whispered to Suzannah that she could come with me or stay and sing, and slipped out the door again. I should mention that she could have easily seen me from where she sat about three inches away, but she burst into tears and sobbed, "Mommy, please, I wanna stay in there! Mommy! Stay in there!"
It was an overreaction on her part, of course, but she's three, and I could kind of understand. She's a shy girl, and she's only just starting to really get into story time. And yesterday, they sang all these songs she knows and likes, and she was really loving the books, and to her I'm sure it seemed that Isaac and I were basically trying to ruin her whole day just as it was getting good. So she cried, and Isaac cried, and I tried really, really hard to get them both to CALM DOWN.
I was moderately successful, I suppose. By the time stories were over and the story lady was handing out stickers, Isaac was asleep and Suzannah was okay. But I was weary and anxious to get out of there, and in my haste to do just that I nearly backed into another car in the parking lot, eliciting an angry honk, which did wonders for my nerves. I decided we'd stay put today. The morning started out well enough; Suzannah and I made a card for her friend Katie's birthday party and had a tea party and read a couple of books. Isaac napped and seemed pretty chill when he woke up.
And then he filled his pants so exuberantly that I'm pretty sure our next-door neighbor heard it over the sound of her own newborn's screaming.
I carried him into the bedroom to change him, and of course it was one of those diapers that sort of explodes as soon as you take it off, so he had baby mustard poop running all over his legs and he immediately stuck his feet in it and basically had a grand old time. It was like fingerpainting on the changing pad, only with the entire lower half of his body. (I gotta tell you, though, that his diaper cover didn't leak at all -- his onesie was spotless. Here's my little shout-out to Thirsties covers and Green Mountain prefolds. They don't ever leak, even with Mr. Volcano Bum here.)
I gave up trying to clean him after three wipes and decided it was a good time for a quick bath. Suzannah always likes to help with those, and Isaac is really loving his baths these days -- his eyes get all wide and excited and he kicks his legs happily and slaps his hands in the water and seems pretty proud of all the splashing. The bath was fine. I carried him back into the bedroom, which is in the same hallway as the bathroom, and proceeded to dry him off.
The bathroom door closed. Suzannah is kind of weird about making sure the doors in the hallway are closed all the time -- all three bedrooms plus the bathroom -- so I didn't pay much attention, until she called, "Mommy, I need to go potty."
"Okay," I called back. I didn't rush over there, because she is perfectly capable of going in the bathroom and going potty without me standing over her.
"Mommy," she called again. "Come on. I need to go potty."
I sighed and left Isaac wrapped in his towel in his crib while I darted to the bathroom. I tried to open the door, but it was locked.
"Suzannah, you locked the door?" I sighed. "We don't lock the bathroom door and then close it when we're not in the bathroom. Now we can't get in."
"But I need to go potty!" She was starting to sound a little shrill. I refrained from snapping back, "I have been asking if you needed to go potty for the past hour, and you said you didn't need to, so you can hold it for three minutes." Instead, I said, "Give me a minute, kiddo. I need to get your brother dressed." Isaac was back in the bedroom, undiapered, and I knew he was pondering just how much he'd need to pee to hit the ceiling. I slapped a clean diaper on him and reached for a clean onesie.
"MOMMY I NEED TO GO POTTY!"
So I wrapped Isaac back up in his towel and stepped back into the hallway.
"Can you use Mama's bathroom?" I asked. Clearly, that was the dumbest suggestion I'd ever made and I'll leave it at that. My only other option was to break into the bathroom. Now, this is not all that difficult; it's a skill you learn early if you have siblings you like to annoy, so I credit my little brother for my ability to get around a locked door, except! It didn't work. The paperclip didn't work and the toothpick didn't work.
By now, Suzannah was doing a dramatic potty dance and crying because I kept saying infuriating things like well, YOU LOCKED THE DOOR, so we CAN'T get in. In the meantime, Isaac was crying about being coldly abandoned. I went hunting for a screwdriver, because it was becoming increasingly clear to me that the only thing left to do was take the doorknob off
I actually managed not to join in all the wailing; I kept my cool, for the most part, although I did dart into the study and send a quick IM to Matt and I TYPED AT HIM IN CAPITAL LETTERS, if you know what I mean. And then, once everyone had settled down, I decided to take us all to the mall -- an easier place than a library to deal with a fussy kid if it comes to that -- because I thought this would be a good time to use my Bath and Body Works gift card (tell me this day doesn't call for a bubble bath) and get something at Starbucks, since I hadn't even eaten breakfast.
Naturally, my kids were as good as gold. Suzannah held my hand very sweetly and Isaac slept, and when he wasn't sleeping he was grinning at me.
"I see you've got your hands full," said a man in line behind me at Starbucks. He was about my dad's age, I suppose, and he told me about his grandchildren and how he remembers his daughter struggling to handle their outings and tantrums when they were very young. It was completely obvious to me that he was more than a little in love with all of them. We chatted for awhile, and then he said, "Uh-oh -- looks like the troops are getting restless." Suzannah was tugging on my sweatshirt and Isaac was beginning to grunt, so we moved forward.
"You really do have two beautiful kids," he said as I paid for our drinks and scones. And I smiled gratefully, because I could see that he meant it -- and also, he was right.
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