Chain of eventsChain of events

I was, like, on a total high yesterday after learning about the prize that I’d won.

My friend Nichole called to congratulate me, and being the good friend that I am, I happily sat and chatted on the phone with her while nursing my baby in the front room of our house.

I’d been sitting and nursing and chatting for twenty minutes (according to the timer on my phone after I hung up).  I decided I’d better check on the older boys, so I started for our living room.  As I walked through the kitchen, I caught a whiff of a strange smell.  I couldn’t place it, but I somehow knew I was in trouble.

As I entered the living room, I heard Jude say, “Run, Jett!”

Jett peeked at me from behind the couch (yes, everything they shouldn’t be doing gets done behind the couch) with mascara all over his face.  Oh, great.

Well, you know if you can actually smell mascara from another room, it can’t be good.

I looked down and couldn’t believe my eyes (should be the name of this mascara, BTW).  My new, unopened tube of mascara was all over much more than Jett’s face.

Behold:

This deserved a spanking in my estimation.  Off Jett went to his room, but not before I snapped this picture:

After said disciplining had taken place, I started to clean up the sad, sad carpet.

If you’ll remember from yesterday’s post, Jace received his 2 month vaccinations yesterday morning.  I’d put him down rather abruptly to deal with the situation at hand.  As I was cleaning, Jace was wailing from his bouncy seat in the next room.  Poor, poor kid.  My heart just hurt for him yesterday when I could tell he wasn’t his normal, smiley self.

Well, in-between Jace’s cries, I heard another more faint cry.  It had to be coming from Jett in their bedroom.  I hurried to investigate the cries, after all, he was alone so I knew Jude hadn’t hurt him.

This is what I saw:

He had emptied the books off of the bottom shelf and crawled up there, only to get stuck when the upper shelf fell on top of him.  And yes, before I helped him, I got my camera (it was already out because of the mascara vs. carpet incident).  I could tell he wasn’t in any real pain, he was frustrated by being stuck.

I helped him out (eventually) and told him never to climb on the racks in the closet again, that he could hurt himself badly doing so.

I went back out to the living room to continue cleaning the carpet.  Jace had settled down by this point – thank goodness – and I was doing my best to keep Jude away from the soiled carpet.

By this time, Jett was nosing around, too, as I was hunched over on my hands and knees scrubbing the floor.  I looked up at him and for the first time noticed this:

Nice, huh?  Upon further investigation in their bedroom, I noticed that he peed in his training pants that were lying in a sopping wet mess in the middle of their floor. He’d taken it upon himself to put a clean pair of underwear on.  Just not quite the way it was supposed to go.  Notice the lines from the closet rack on his bum?  Despite my growing frustration at how my afternoon had quickly spiraled out of control from the heights of winning the mixer, that little hiney made me smile.

I brought the backwards underwear to Jett’s attention and he quickly turned them around the right way.  I went on cleaning, cleaning, scrubbing, and scrubbing the carpet.  The mascara wasn’t coming out with the mild solution of dish soap and water.  Actually, here is what the carpet looked like after about a half hour’s work:

Not exactly the result I was hoping for.  By this point, my shoulders and back ached from scrubbing, Jude and his mouth were getting out of control (my spanking spoon got a workout yesterday for the first time in a long time), and I heard another round of cries from the older boys’ bedroom.

I kid you not:

That little stinker had disappeared back into his room only to find himself in the same tight spot.  Urgh!  I could not believe it.

At least he had his underwear on the right way for this Kodak moment.

I’ll tell you what: yesterday was a difficult day.  I was ready for a good long break from my kids.  Josh, the sweetheart that he is, told me when he got home from work to take a break – that he would clean the house for me.  Trust me, there were many other areas of the house that needed attention in addition to the carpet.

I looked at him and in all honesty told him that I wanted to clean the house just to distance myself from those kids.  And that’s what I did.  I hit the carpet with Resolve for Round #2 while he sequestered the boys in our room.  It was the most peace I’d had all day.

But scrubbing for a long period of time will get you thinking.  You might even find yourself in an internal debate about whether or not you’d rather clean up a tough stain that covers a large area or if you’d rather clean up poop.  Or what about puke?  A tough stain that covers a large area or poop?  Hmmm… that’s a tough one.  And then you might just find yourself getting a little bit angry.  Pretty soon you just might feel like crying and/or moving far, far away.

But then you pick yourself up, count your blessings, spend some much needed tv time with your handsome, sympathetic, hunk of a husband, and suddenly you’re ready to take on another day.  It doesn’t hurt if you also happen to overhear your two boys telling each other bedtime stories of “…two boys named Jude and Jett who were acting naughty and are going to be good guys next morning…”

Remember when I posted about the watermelon that I’d hoped this week would be uneventful?  Well I’m hoping that again… starting NOW!

Famous last words, I know.