Week 24: Mommy = Man of the House

I don’t know when I turned in my skirt and became the man of the house. Sunday morning around 7:00 Sailor came to fetch me. “Mac has bad poopies. He wants you to come wipe his butt.”
Good morning to you, too.
“Tell him to wipe his own butt,” I mumble from my pillow and roll over to find the warmest spots of flannel.
My next dream has barely begun when… “Mommy, I flooded the potty again.”
Now that’s more like it. I follow Mac to the bathroom. It is a lot earlier than I had expected. I pull out the plunger and expect to have this job completed in under 10 minutes just like last week’s potty plunging project. Thirty minutes later I am still plunging. Mac has been called to my side for assistance and is holding onto a little thing inside the toilet tank to keep the water from running. I have already plunged the toilet down to nearly empty and flushed. And flooded the bathroom with an overflow worthy of every towel in the bathroom. Sailor stops by the bathroom to see what is going on. “Are we going to eat anytime soon?” I gently tell him to make his own breakfast, but a couple minutes later when I go to the kitchen to get something to bail the toilet with I find Sailor at the table with a bowl in front of him. The bowl is empty. His head is on the table. I scrub my arms and hands, pour his some cereal and milk, hand him a spoon and peal open a banana. “Can you do the banana yourself?” He can.

By 8:00 a.m. I am desperate and nothing I do is working. I leave Mac to hold the water spigot thing-y and run downstairs to use my parents’ non-stopped-up commode. My dad doesn’t hear my explanation for waking him up and goes straight back to bed. It will be three hours before he calls me to inquire as to whether or not our toilet might be leaking. By the time I get this call I have bathed the boys and showered the poop water off myself, dressed us all, run out to Home Depot, and come back with $60 worth of supplies. I am routing and plunging like a mad housewife. It’s 11:00 a.m. and my dad says he will get dressed and come up and take a look. I try baking soda and vinegar. The bubbling action is impressive. The stink is, too. But the toilet is still stopped up.

I am working furiously. Both boys want to know when we are going to paint the dining room. It amazes me that small children can’t grasp that there is an order of importance to things and what they want to do is not always at the top. Thing is, I remember well that childhood impatience.

When my dad decides to work on the toilet I bravely open a can of yellow paint and let the boys start to paint the dining room walls. Yes. That's right. I let my boys start to paint my dining room walls.

We are painting and plunging and I am having more fun than I have had in ages. NOT! I call my sister to let her know she is missing out on the fun. She said she was working today. But when I call I have woken her up. Ah, to be single and free to sleeeeeep as long as you want.

The toilet is not going to budge despite my best efforts. I have even left the boys alone with the paint to try the router thing again. When I hit a brick wall – or a clog of poop – I come out to find both boys with rubber gloves on playing in the paint. Oh boy oh boy!

By 3:40 I have completed the painting of the dining room and wiped all the paint off the floor. The kids will have to have another bath before bed but I will leave that to my sister and my mom. I have a dinner date with my college best friend. After dinner I will pee for the 2nd time today.

We are still without a working toilet on Monday morning. I have set out the little training potty for the boys. Sailor complains that it is moldy. “It’s dirty,” I inform him, and rinse it off. We haven’t used the little potty in ages but I keep it in the bathroom propped at the corner of our bathtub for emergencies such as these. Sailor won’t pee in it this morning because Mac has. I dump it for Sailor. Amazing, the bladder capacity of this tiny boy.

We are out the door by 9:15 to drop some legal papers off to be fast-mailed to my lawyer. The divorce that wouldn’t go final.

It’s yet another day off and we are headed to the aquarium. We have never done the aquarium without the stroller before but today we are going to try. I do carry Sailor a lot but I don’t mind. We have stowed our coats in a locker and I packed our lunch in ziplocks instead of Tupperware and brought just one water bottle to share. It works well. Except the kids are more interested in the gift shop, where Mac wants me to spend $15 on a stuffed penguin and its baby for Aunt Minny. “I promised!” I try to explain that she will not want a stuffed animal. I steer him toward magnets, pencils and pens, and book marks. He won’t give up the toy. It is so hard to say no when they want to buy something for someone else. Finally I let Sailor buy a nifty postcard with three frogs on it and we head out. Mac is crying and begging me to let him buy a magnet for his favorite aunt. I remind him that there is another gift shop inside the aquarium. We haven’t even seen fish yet and we left the car ½ an hour ago.

The boys press a lot of buttons and we run into several friends. “It was fun to see my old friend Emmy,” Mac says. We watch the dolphins but Mac is bored and Sailor lies in my lap eating snacks that are not supposed to be eaten in the Oceanarium. It is fun without the stroller. Much easier getting thru the crowds. Mac never runs off like he might have a year or more ago and Sailor stays right beside me at all times. He is either holding my hand or asking for “uppie.”

Sailor is exhausted and falls asleep in the car. He sleeps for a long afternoon while Mac hangs out with my dad. He is “helping” my dad with a hobby project that I thought my dad could help him with. It is a pirate ship. I thought Mac could build it with a little help from my dad. Apparently I was very wrong. My parents tell me there is no way Mac could do any of it. One might have expected my parents to tell Mac to bring the kit back in a couple of years. Instead, my father takes on the challenge and spends a reported 6 hours working on the little ship model today.

Our toilet is working again. In our absence today my father’s plumber came. He left with a check for $75 from my father. And at that price one might expect that he could wipe his muddy footprints from my bathroom floor.

Sailor does not wake from his nap well. Mac has always woken up happy. I used to just love to see his cute little face and touseled hair when he would walk sleepily out of his room to find me after nap. He would come to my lap and snuggle and then hop down to get back to exploring the world. Sailor is a crab. He is whiny from the moment he finds me and won’t let me talk to him. My offers for drinks and snacks are rebuffed. I bring him downstairs to see my dad and Mac. They play for awhile while I use my parents’ computer to pay some bills online.

Back upstairs I look around to find baskets of laundry to be put away, garbage to be taken out, a dining room in the midst of a major paint project, phone calls to return. Sailor wants chocolate milk. But he had chocolate soy milk at the aquarium. We lock horns. Eventually we are battling about dinner. Which he won’t sit down to eat. He goes to the bathroom and returns wearing nothing but underpants. Which is a bad idea because it is very cold in the house. He is freezing. But he doesn’t want pajamas. And he doesn’t want clothes. And he doesn’t want sauce on his spaghetti. And he doesn’t want plain milk. And he doesn’t want the cup that I put the milk in. I put him in bed. Mac is quietly eating spaghetti. I am trying. Sailor is screaming. During his tantrum he has ripped apart the decorations on his bedroom door. I am furious. One of the decorations was a little sign my sister made before he came home for the every first time. It was faded and the edges were curled but I was saving it for him. And now it’s on the floor in pieces. Which earns him a quick spank. But even that doesn’t stop him. He will not go to sleep. “I’m starving!” he screams. I am not surprised, given his behavior. He comes back to the kitchen. Still screaming. I take him by the shoulders. This has gone on far too long. Poor Mac is trying to eat and so am I and this 45 minutes of tantrum is ridiculous. “Get it together!” He keeps screaming. “STOP! Sit down. Be quiet. Eat!” He still doesn’t like the cup his milk is in, but he is sobbing now instead of screaming. He slides off his chairs and puts his arms out. I lift him into my lap and hold him while he quiets his sobs. Poor thing. It takes him some time to calm down. I hold him. When he finally gives up and goes back to his sweet baby status it’s hard to stay angry. And hard to believe that he can carry a tantrum for so long.

By 6:30 both boys are in bed, though it will be another hour before they fall asleep. Mac gets out to measure his foot in pennies: the homework we forgot to do last week. Sailor asks if it will be tomorrow when he wakes up. He asks what we are going to eat for breakfast when we wake up. I tell him I may make scrambled eggs. “Scramma eggs sound like a good idea,” he says sleepily. I am glad he approves and hope we have time in the morning for scramma eggs.

Mac is asleep. I am in bed before 9:00. I take the opportunity to pop a bag of organic popcorn that I cannot possibly finish on my own. My kids are not allowed to eat popcorn until they are 6 years old. The choking hazard it poses is too much of a risk. I have seen the damage it can do to a child and I am unwilling to put my little boys at such a risk for a snack that is merely fun to eat. I just hope I don’t choke myself here in my bed!


Tuesday. I asked Sailor the other day if he was doing something or just standing around looking cute. His reply? Of course: “Just standing around looking cute.”

I am tired. Flat out exhausted. And it’s barely 8:30 p.m. Why am I so tired? Good questions. It’s not as if I am doing much from day to day. Tuesday I take Sailor to school then drive to Trader Joe’s with Mac. We decide it is our fave place to shop. What with the kid-sized carts and the “snack bar,” as Mac calls the counter that offers mini samples of things one can buy in the store. We tell the check out guy how we feel and he loves the compliment. We drive around running errands that two days later I now have absolutely no recollection of…. Oh, right, we take Mac to the pediatrician. He had a bloody nose 6 times in three days last week, including one that interrupted music class at school on Friday. I was concerned, as mine is not a family of nosebleeders. So, right, where was I? Yes, Mac also has a weird rash that started out looking like a fungus and turned into a crop of zits on his chin and is now creeping up his cheeks. An infection, says the doc. His med student thinks Mac is cute because he has launched into the entire medical history of our family, telling her all about when GrandDad was in the hospital to have part of a cow put into his heart. And about how when he had pneumonia and had to go in the hospital he didn’t like having that thing (the IV) in his arm like his friend Mackenzie. The med student gets more background info than she could ever have used. Mac reminds me about how sometimes when we come to the doctor’s office we get to go for McD’s shakes on the way home. I remind him that this is only when he gets a shot. And I realize I will have to come up with something else to bribe with, as we are no longer patrons of the golden arches. We swing by home and then pick up Sailor at noon. We drop Mac at school and head to Target. What for? I have no idea now. Oh, right, to use my 10% off coupon before it expires again. And use it I do. It’s bikini season. Yes, it’s snowing today. But the stores are telling a different story and the best selection of bikinis is now on sale. As are sandals. I find the bikini I have been eyeing and try it on. But trying on clothes around Sailor is no easy task. Sailor is maniacally obsessed with my bare skin. He can’t keep his hands off my belly, he buries his face in my belly button and runs his hands up my back. Yes, I am talking about my 3-year-old. He is ogling my pathetic excuses for breasts. “Mommy, I see your boobies. I used to suck them for milk,” he says in an awe-filled voice. And then he makes a little sucking noise. I want to call security to report a molester in my dressing room. “Mommy, you are getting fat,” he says, pointing at my sides. “No I’m not,” I argue. “Yes, look!” “I am not fat,” I repeat. I am not. Really. In fact, when I try on the blue and green tie-dye bikini I think it looks adorable. That’s the suit for me this year.

Actually, come to think of it, the purpose of the Target run is to fill the prescription for Mac’s antibiotic face cream, to be applied three times a day for ten days. The cause of the nose bleeds, is, apparently a skin infection that has gone into his nose. We finish shopping and Sailor wants chocolate milk from Starbucks. While the checker bags up our stuff and gets a price check on the Spiderman swim pants we are getting for a boy in Mac’s class whose birthday party is next week, Sailor and I get our Starbucks fix. Except when we get back to our check-out lane there is a problem with my 10% off coupon and Sailor wants to put the straw in his cup by himself and I am not able to adequately focus on two sets of problems at the exact same moment and so I pop the straw in for Sailor and his frustration escalates into hysterics. Whipping the straw out, he sprays me with chocolate milk.

Needless to say he falls asleep in the car almost immediately.

And the day goes on and on like this.

And Wednesday is the same thing. Oh, no wait, my memory fails me once again. I now recall that Wednesday was a nightmare. I have invited Sailor’s favorite school pal Jack and his mom and sister to come play. Thinking the morning might go well if Mac has a playmate as well, we invite around. The jackpot is the German boy. But within moments of his arrival there is utter chaos in my house. He and Mac are too much alike and they really rile each other up. By 11:00 the German boy wants to go home but his mother has gone to Target. I assure him we will eat lunch and then go to school. Except this boy can tell time and he informs me, “It is one hour until school.” Sigh. Indeed. The boys eat lunch, goofing off the whole time. They ignore my scoldings and run madly through the house slamming bedroom doors in one another’s faces, breaking toys, hurting each other and using their toys for everything but their intended purposes. By the time we leave for school I have more than had it. I am angry. I let my boys know that it will be a long time before they can have friends over again. Unfortunately it really wasn’t Sailor and Jack’s fault, but still. Though I realize too late that in our quest to find a suitable play pal for Mac this morning we have invited two other children to come play later in the month. Thus I must revamp my threat and I tell them they are on probation and that they can only have friends over if the moms come along. Enough is enough, you know? We were never this badly behaved as children. I was afraid of my friends’ parents and would have been horrified to get yelled at. Kids these days just don’t care!

After school on Wednesday, Mac has FTK and Sailor and I have to go back to Target to pick up a pin. Yesterday he asked the lady in the photo lab if she had any more Cars flashing pins. She said she had a few extras at home and would bring one for Sailor tomorrow. Which is today. Now, while I certainly appreciate this woman’s considerable kindness, I am not psyched about a return trip to Target. For no other reason than that I know it will cost me. And it does. There is a Princess Leia that we don’t have and I buy two sets of tiny StarWars guys for the boys to share. And chocolate milk. And a new cup with a straw for Sailor, who is scheduled to pass down his sippy cups on his half birthday, which is next Friday. The lady with the Cars pin has brought two for Sailor. How very kind! I can’t even believe she remembered!

We get Mac and head to Whole Foods for lactase enzymes. Both my kids are lactose intolerant and require lactase enzymes to keep them from getting tummy aches when they eat or drink dairy. Which is an all day occurrence. They have been taking a fabulous once-a-day pill for this but I realized the other day that there is sucralose in it. You know, fake, chemical, pretend, poison sugar. I would never put that stuff into my kids’ body (or my own for that matter!). And now I find out that I have been! I am horrified. And our trip to the pharmacy yesterday taught us that this particular lactase tablet is the least pure of all our choices. Great. Whole Foods will have the best ones, I am sure. $33. I have a little bottle of lactase in hand, which I will not realize until breakfast tomorrow morning is capsules, not chewables. I also have tofu dogs, organic ketchup, whole wheat buns, crispy rice cereal, and a package of a Jewish candy-like treat called chalvah! I am $3 short on cash and have to charge my single bag of groceries. We are tired. My mother has made dinner and we are officially late. “It’s Wednesday,” she says. Which means we will be getting a home cooked meal indefinitely on Wednesday nights as long as Mac stays in FTK. Whew!

Thursday we reverse all the errands from Wednesday. We backtrack to Whole Foods to exchange the lactase capsules for tablets.
We pop into Trader Joe’s and return to Target because Sailor’s new straw cup won’t open and I have a drawing/thankyou note for the lady with the Cars pins.
Mac and I have agreed to help my mom help the Alderman sticker postcards to go out for the runoff election next month. Except we go to her office instead of the campaign office, thereby cutting off a chunk of our available time to help. Mac is a great sticker-er and we have a nice 45 minutes of volunteer time under our belts. Mac has to get to school so he calls my dad and asks him to make him a sandwich so I can drop him off and go get Sailor. Tired reading it? Tired writing it! The highlight of the day is our return trip to the Alderman’s office after school so we can be on the evening news tonight (which I completely forgot about until my friend Kimberly emails me to tell me she saw me tonight).

Friday morning we play at the indoor play place. A nice mom with a tiny boy who has one of the names we considered for Mac says she has lots of single male friends. She takes my calling card and promises to call. She is good at this, she assures me. I believe her. My sister rings my cell phone while the boys and are in the bathroom. “I’m peeing,” I answer. She laughs. She reminds me of our plan to be engaged by December. I think when I planned this I really meant her not necessarily me. Tho if I want to have more babies….

School. An hour in Best Buy “fixing” my computer, which Mac stuck a paperclip into last night and blacked out the whole thing! PANIC at the Disco! It’s sweltering in the store and Sailor falls asleep in my arms. Lucky for us both he has removed his coat. Unlucky for us both I have not. He wakes up when I put him in the car because he is still very thirsty but doesn’t want anything I have to offer. I did not buy the lemonade h easked for in the store before he fell asleep and so he screams at me the entire drive home.

Mac has an appointment with his talking doctor after school, but we are 15 minutes late because we cannot find a street on which to drive north. There is traffic everywhere. We could have walked in less than 15 minutes. I take them for pizza and gelato after the appointment, then we swing by Home Depot so I can flirt with a 20-year-old paint tech while purchasing primer and trying to decide how to paint the dining room trim tomorrow. At home we clean up the playroom and I vacuum. The boys argue about which movie to watch for our video night. They choose Robots and here we sit. We have polished off a bag of booty between us. I am so tired I am tempted to tell them to meet me in bed. On second thought we could just bring the DVD to the bedroom. I am brilliant! Albeit a bit slow. I realize I have not written word one about the Book Buddy incident, my phone call to the IRS to find out how to file so that the child tax credit comes to the boys, or my ongoing legal issues with my lawyer who wants me to bring him $1,000 when we meet on Tuesday with my boys’ dad and his lawyer to try to settle things and get divorced without a fuss. I don’t know which ear he wants me to pull $1,000 out of. Considering we are currently living on less than $1,000 a month because it has been literally ages since we have seen anything even remotely close to a child support check of adequate means. Alas, Sailor is thirsty and wants more whatever to drink. And I am too tired to go into any of this right now.