Fun with Kiddos!

Here is Joe, proudly displaying his work of finding and opening my party lite winter stash and forming it into a little wax army. Or perhaps it was some sort of train. Anyhow he was proud of himself. I may have sent a dual message to him by telling him that my candles were strictly off limits and that he would be punished if he ever got in to them again, while at the same time capturing this photo for posterity.

Whatever parenting is, it is certainly not boring. I do get tired of cleaning the house. But the children help to keep it interesting for me (as in the above example). How many people without children spend time cleaning up a room covered in candles in formation?

Yesterday I got to clean the bathtub, but again it was not boring. First I was alerted to it's need for cleaning, not by noticing some soap scum or residue, but by a screaming older brother, "Judah pooped! Judah pooped!" Thus I was summunsed from the other side of the room to fish out washcloths, toys, cups, candles, small boys and clods of stringry brown excrement, in that order. Then I got to bleach as usual, but all the while with alot more excitement than my average tub cleaning from my past days as a house cleaner.

And then there is the fun of picking up. Before, I got to pick up a pair of shoes by the front door or a coat carelessly strewn over the couch. Now, in addition, I get to remove spatulas from under my bead covers, plungers from the kitchen table, library books from every orifice in the house, tupperware and sippy cups from the bathroom, as well as pens and important documents from under the couch cushions. See, not boring.

And then you never know what else might happen. Today I awoke and saw a naked toddler bounding back and forth in front of my bedroom door. Cause for suspition? I beckoned him to come for a danger check and he looked fine. Then to my dread, he uttered those words, "Joe poopy". I turned him around and saw a large poopy swath of bottom. We headed immidiately to the bathroom, where I was confronted with a dirty diaper and a toilet that had poop scrapings all over it. Evidently he had tried to clean out his diaper (or bottom) into the toilet. After 10 minutes of cleaning the encrusted poop with wipes, he and Judah had another bath, in the freshly cleaned tub from the day before.

On a final note of excitement I will share with you a few items that my smallest son has been found carrying around our house today: a knife, a toddler toilet seat, a toddler toilet pee bucket and used papertowels. If he had his way, that list would also have included a poopy diaper, toilet paper, wipes, and something special from the garbage can.

What fun!