There is something wrong with the toilet...

Just as I am about to relax, because I think all three kids are sleeping, I hear a rumbling from up above. My daughter is awake from her nap, or did she ever really nap? As she comes running down the stairs with a plunger in hand, she is yelling that there is something wrong with the toilet. This is not, what one wants to hear a three year old proclaim!

Off the couch, I start running towards her, because now the rumbling I heard from up above distinctly sounds like the toilet running over. Yikes! My daughter is so excited, jumping up and down happily declaring that she had tried to fix it. Wasn't she a great mommy's helper? Yes, what a helper she is!?!

As I assess the damage, I see that a whole roll of toilet paper is stuck smack dab in the center of the toilet bowl. A whole package of baby wipes and a little rubber ducky has all made it to the party! The floor is soaking wet as well as every towel that my daughter could find. In case that wasn't enough her little potty is full and there is some poop in the bathroom sink! How and why does she consistently do stuff like this?? Where did I fail? I always gave her plenty of attention. I mean really now, who does this????

Since my daughter was born she has always kept me on my toes. At 9 months she figured out how to "swing" her legs and up over the crib. She has disrobed and rubbed poop everywhere. She has polished her bedroom with Vaseline. She has put her potty in her bed so her toys could use it. She's broken 3 crib tents and bent her rail that prevents her from falling out of the "big girl" bed. She has covered the walls with band aids and now has a great desire to figure out how the toilet works and where the water goes!!!

Oh my! She just keeps going. Don't get me wrong, I love her zest and energy for life. I love that she is so curious and how she wants to continually learn. She makes me smile and fills my heart with so much joy. But sometimes she tests my patience like nothing else. But I guess that is what children are all about. They teach us, just as much as we teach them. She has taught me to always smile & laugh because otherwise I'd be crying, especially after seeing poop floating in the sink!!!

I love a good photo!

When my daughter was born almost 3yrs ago, I couldn't take enough pictures of her. My friends and family were sick of the constant emails with multiple jpg files attached. I took so many because I just couldn't get "the shot". Now, I have moved on to having someone else take the photos. Last fall Pottery Barn Kids had a promotion and I met an amazing photographer named Amanda Dahlgren. She captured my daughter's personality so well, that I decided to have her photograph our family at Christmas. My husband wanted big belly photos of me, again I called her. So now that the twins have arrived, it was time to have her visit with the camera for some great baby photos. After 3 hours of her persistence and patience, she was able to proclaim that she thought she had some really great shots. You have to realize my house was a zoo while she was trying to work. If one baby was quiet, the other was crying. If they were both peaceful, one would poop suddenly and if that wasn't enough, my husband kept asking "if we were almost done" and my daughter was jumping in circles all over the room on a major sugar high. I am surprised after this last experience she hasn't blocked my phone number or my email address. Amanda was kind enough to email me a sneak peak of what I could expect and now I can't wait to see all the proofs. I have a feeling I will want to buy them all! Check out her website at http://www.amandadahlgren.com

It's just killing me...

Being a mom of newborn twins, I expected to be fatigued and overwhelmed. I can handle that because I know soon enough this period will end. The one thing that has taken me off guard is the stench that is coming out of the nursery. My beautiful fresh smelling home now has the notorious scent of baby poo wafting throughout. I just don't know what to do. I didn't have this problem with my daughter. Is it because there is twice as much poop? Is it because they are little boys and this is a sign of things to come? My Glade scented air fresheners are working double duty and there are not enough cans of Lysol to dissipate the smell. The stench is just killing me! Any suggestions?

She's gonna blow!

Once again, my life has become a world of poop & pee. If I am not changing one of my sons diapers or getting peed on by them, I am running after my daughter to make sure she has used the potty. My daughter & I have come a long way. She has finally gotten over her strip teases, where she totally disrobes, with a diaper full of poo, smeared all over every inch of her bed, walls and herself. Gone is the duct taped diapers secured on her with the footed pajamas placed on backwards and the feet cut off. We have evolved to nighttime pull ups and no tape. The unfortunate side is, that we still have "poopy issues". The main issue is, that she typically poops while she is sleeping within the first hour of being in bed. So as each day passes with out a poop, the bedtime ritual becomes more of a fear. Is this it the night she is going to blow! My husband & I both fear the "big one" and unfortunaltely tonight was the night. After my husband & I both fed, burped & changed the boys we were both anxiously awaiting an early evening of sleep, but as we heard the voice of my daughter yelling from her room, the fanatasy of sleep quickly diminished. So it was back to changing and bathing her and washing the crib sheets. As we worked together we realized that it was almost time to feed the twins again. So yes, my life is all about poop & pee...it should end in a few years, right?!?

How does she do it?

I just can’t figure it out, but somehow my daughter has figured out how to unzip the pajamas that I have put on her. I know this may not seem like anything extraordinary, but you have to recognize that, the pajamas have the feet cut off, and are place on her backwards. Why do I do this…well, you can read an earlier blog, but basically she likes to strip off her clothes, take off her poopy diaper and then toss it around the room as well as paint the wall with the filth. She is potty trained now, but she has the tendency to poop in her sleep. So the potty training really doesn’t help. So now I just don’t know what to do. The pajamas on backwards, with her diaper taped on was working, up until today. So now what? As I hover outside her door, smelling it to see if she’s gone and my eyes are glued to the video monitor …the fear is back! At this point I just don’t know what to do. Any suggestions?

I think she's got it!

I think my daughter may have turned the corner onto bigger and brighter things! At least in my world. No wet diapers at all today. Each time on the potty. Even better yet, she called me from her crib a few minutes ago to ask to use the potty. She hoped out of the crib, stripped down and planted herself down onto the little potty and out came a poop!!!! I know it is strange but it is what I've been dreaming about...the day she could poop on the potty. Much less of a mess until I stared at the perfectly swirled brown pile on the bottom of the tiny potty. That was a little icky...thank goodness for Clorox wipes!!! Could this mean the end of the tape...dare I dream?

I use packaging tape on my daughter!

I love being a mom but at I times, I wonder what my life has become. This thought entered my mind the other evening when I heard my daughter laughing & playing in her crib at 9pm. Once I opened the door, I new instantly something was totally amiss. There she was naked and covered in her own poo, announcing proudly that she had “painted” a picture of our family on the wall. As she happily showed me her work, I started assessing the situation. It was bad, very BAD. Both arms and legs were completely covered in poop. Almost as if she had gone to a spa and had a lovely clay masked applied top to bottom, but whom am I kidding. It was ugly. Not to mentioned that every square inch of her crib was no longer white or pink, but was replaced by the color brown. How could my sweet, beautiful blue-eyed daughter who always says please & thank you do something so unsanitary & gross? I immediately called my husband for back up, interrupting his quality down time with the TV. All I remember is him repeating, “Who does this?” “What is wrong with her?” as he dry heaved and gagged in the background. His job was to bathe her and mine was to well, scrub every inch of her crib and room. 2 1/2 hours later I was done. So the footed pajamas, with the feet cut off, placed on backwards and her diaper snugly secured with packaging tape, is now our nightly routine. Do I feel bad that I tape my daughter up every night? Well yes. Do I wonder if I will scar her for life? Absolutely! Or that she will grow up with a strange bondage fetish. Of course I do! But do I now sleep soundly without having to dread another 2 hr clean up? You beat I do! And if she grows up with issues from this taping experience, well I guess that is, what therapy is for. Right?!?!