And then My Sister Called - Again.

My grown up life was, in a word, heinous yesterday. But just when the grown up world is miserable, my little exhibits pull out all the stops to make me laugh at how absolutely absurd life can be.

As usual, I got the two big exhibits out on Academic Tour (thank you Lion for taking morning carpool), checked my e-mail and then asked Marmie what she thought we should do with our day. "Let's make Nana Bread, Mama!" A quick glance toward the fruit fly cloud emanating from the top of the fridge and I knew she had a brilliant idea.

Side note: With the two big exhibits out of the house, we have been boot camping the potty training. This translates to minimal clothes because let's face it they just get in the way. Please note that I said, "minimal clothes;" not "clothing optional." This will become important later.

Back to the banana bread. I dudded her out with a child's apron (over her underpants - minimal clothing people) and set her up on one of the bistro chairs so she could reach the counter. All was clicking right along in our cooking adventure; she was peeling bananas, dumping sugar, and waiting patiently for the eggs.

Perhaps it was a moment of insanity. Maybe I hadn't gotten that first cup of coffee all the way down. But something made me think that maybe she could handle cracking the egg. And she did. Right onto the newly mopped floor.

Moving on.

The livestock trailer has been looking a little rough lately so I thought since I had time and distractions would be minimal I would clean it out and shampoo the carpets. Marmie was watching some cartoons and playing in the playroom so it was all going smoothly. I checked on her every few minutes and was clicking right along. Suddenly there was a banging on the door. I opened the door to see her poochie little lip. "I sawy Mama." She was trying to get upstairs to go potty and didn't make it. I assured her that all was well and sent her upstairs for a new pair of unders. Cleaned up the mess and went back to work on the van.

Banging on the door. "I sawy Mama." No puddle. No scribbling on the wall. But still no unders either. What happened kiddo? "I poop in your kitchen." Right beside where she had cracked the egg. Day two of mopping the floor.

Moving on.

We safely made it out the door to the carpoool line. Everyone made it home in one piece and then Orangutan decided that we "needed to talk." Grand Keeper had gotten her some new sneaks for school and she finally got to wear them yesterday. Apparently during PE she had to take them off for one reason or another. Well when it was time to put them back on apparently I had knotted them all wrong for her and her teacher and she missed recess time because I messed up. "Thanks for tying them Mom. But on Monday could you be a little more careful? I need to be able to keep up." I stand corrected, O. Please forgive me for inconveniencing your Kindergarten life so terribly.

And then my sister called. Now if you missed the first call from my sister you really should take some time to go back and review it. It's a gem. But it seems that my darling sibling brings out the nutty in my exhibits. I don't think we were two minutes into the conversation when the following happened.

Me: So any news other than...WHY ARE YOU NAKED?!?!?!
Marmie: Tee Hee Hee Hee
B: hysterical laughter
Me: No seriously! Where are your clothes?
Marmie: Tee Hee Hee
B: breathless hysterical laughter
Me: (sigh) Please go find your underpants and pajamas. AND PUT THEM ON!
Marmie: exit stage right - supposedly to go find her clothing
B: (catching her breath) That was awesome! I could actually hear her "Tee Hee Hee!"
Me: I should quit writing this stuff on the blog and start a comedy tour. As Heard at the Zoo or some other catchy title.
B: Tee Hee Hee (dissolves in hysterical laughter again)
Me: Oh stuff it! You're not funny. AAAUUUGGGHHH!!! You're still naked!!
Marmie: Tee Hee Hee
B: I think you should call the tour "Clothing Optional."
Me: Like I don't see enough butts every day of my life! I gotta go.
B: Tee Hee Hee (and more...you guessed it hysterical laughter.)

Lessons Learned at R.A.T.

(Reminder that's Rhino Academic Training.)

Lesson #1. Tighty Whities aren't cool.
If you want to keep the neato baseball and basketball underpants you wore to school on your body, you HAVE to take full advantage of every bathroom opportunity afforded you by your oh, so gracious teacher.

Lesson #2. It's the one with the boy on the door.
If you don't want to be known as the nutball kid in school, you have to use the right bathroom at the afforded bathroom times. It went something like this:

ZK (that's me): So what else did you do today?
R: Wellllll, I used the bathroom at lunch!
ZK: All by yourself?! Good job pal!
R: Yeah, but it was the girls' bathroom by accident.
ZK: Oh NOOOO! What happened?
R: Ummmmm....
ZK: Rhino, were there girls in the bathroom at the time?
R: Yeah. Too many
ZK: Did you leave and go to the boy bathroom?
R: No! I had to go REALLY bad so I just closed the door and went.
ZK: Let's go over this one more time buddy. Mommy can't go in the boys' bathroom so you have to come in the girls bathroom ONLY when you are with me. At school, you have to use the boy bathroom.

R: You shoulda aminded me about that this morning!

Lesson #3. If all else fails, blame Mom!

The New Innies and Outies

Well, there is a very good chance that we have FINALLY gotten over the hump with Rhino's potty training. It has been a long and tearfilled journey but he has finally taken mercy on me and decided that the potty is not the black hole of death.

In celebration of this fact we are now moving on to encouraging very "boy" behaviors such as standing and aiming. For the sake of my bathroom floor, we started this project outside. Yes, I have been encouraging my son to pee on trees in the back yard. And before you all freak out and call me looney because after all suburbia isn't country, we have a very high privacy fence and lots of trees and bushes. No one is "peeping" on my son. And he is keenly aware that this is only BACK yard behavior.

Last night we moved training inside. Unfortunately the timing could have been better. Orangutan was jumping in for her shower when suddenly a completely naked (fresh out of the tub) Rhino came sprinting into the bathroom screaming, "Gotta pee! Gotta pee!" Nothing like an entrance. He was all too excited to show his sister his new "trick."

I knew a conversation was about to happen but with Orangutan you never really know which way it's going to go.

"Hey Mom! Do ALL boys have those sticky outie things?"

(oh crap!) "Yes honey they do." (Dear Lord let it end now. Please! I beg you! Let it end now!)

"But girls have innie things."

"That's right." (Ok, this could still be saved as long as she doesn't ask why. And even then I can go with the God's plan line.)

"Well, that's just too bad for boys then." Said as if the conversation was done. On that note? Now I have questions!

"Why do you say it's too bad?"

"Well, if boys aren't paying attention then they'll miss the potty and make a mess. Then the Mommys will get mad and probably spank them for being messy."

"Is that what you would do if you were a mommy for a boy?"

"Oh Mom! I'm only having little girls. Boys are just a mess."

If only you knew O. If only you knew! And on top of that she still has no interest in boys which delights my little soul that much more. I thought we were having issues because there is a little boy in her class who adores the very air she breathes.

I did however forget to remind her that that was a Mommy-Orangutan conversation before she left for school today so I could be in for an interesting e-mail from Mrs. F if things go poorly.

Try not to think too much about this the next time you shower. Are you an innie or an outie?

Mom Tip #63: Parenting Knows no Limits.

It is a whole new day at Zoo Suburbia. A day I never even imagined much less anticipated. Ladies and Gentlemen. Loyal Readers. Friends.

Lion and I are paying for poop.

Soak that in for a minute (or maybe not). We are paying for poop. Those of you who have been with the Zoo for a while know that Rhino is being particularly hard headed about the potty training issue. He turns four in a month and there is still no real consistency to his pottying except that you are consistently confused, frustrated, exasperated and beaten down.

Last night we may have had a break through. He was sitting on my lap and "broke wind" (that is such a weird phrase!) and suddenly jumped up and said, "Mom, I gotta go poop." Well, run like the wind little man! Fly away to the potty!

And he did his thing! Woo Hoo and Party at the Zoo! I made a HUGE deal of it and gave out celebration marshmallows and was all excited. Lion called and I let Rhino deliver the news and we had another celebration on the phone and Lion said those magic words, "I'll bring a surprise home for you!" And then he forgot.

Resourceful Lion that he is he took Rhino to the Lion's Den and snagged some pennies out of the change bowl. Then the wheeling and dealing started. "Hey Dad? If I pee and poop in the potty some more can I have more monies?" Sure pal! A penny for the pees and two pennies for the poops.

I have a working score card upstairs. I swear everytime he takes a sip of juice he is going to the bathroom to squeeze out two drops. Who would have ever imagined that I would pay for poop?

How much do you suppose this little trick would cost me?

Mom Tip #54

Motherhood is gross!

I know I posted a vlog along this line during Motherhood Means (which you may have guessed by now was nixed due to lack of interest). In case you missed it and need a lesson in how NOT to empty a training potty, here you go!

But the point was driven home to me today. I was cleaning the bathroom and had already had to pull one child (Marmoset) and a dog out of the toilet! So you can guess that I was less than thrilled when I turned around to see Marmoset brushing her teeth with the Lion's toothbrush and B-Dog's teeth with MY toothbrush! I am having a hard time expressing just how nauseated I was when I saw this. I of course have disposed of the toothbrush but the heebie jeebies are still stalking me.

I went about my business cleaning the bathroom only to realize that the job "Mom" is, by its very nature, gross. Let me tell you all the gross things I have done in the past week that fall under my job title.

*Cleaning out the fridge. We all know what that is like so I will refrain from going into detail.
*Cleaning the toilets - potty chair included. All I can say for commentary on that is - Men! Of all ages!
*Changing butts. ::sigh::
*Washing the dog. I wash him because he smells. Somehow I always forget that I end up smelling like him every time I wash him.
*Sippy cup hunting. That funky smell in the bedroom is not coming from the laundry basket or the diaper pail.
*Sippy cup washing. Once you find them you have to so something with them.
*Playroom cleaning. Have I ever told you that Cheeze-Its will be the food of the cockroaches after the nuclear holocaust?

If anyone ever asks you why mothers shower at night rather than in the morning, I will give you the easy answer. To wash the crud off! We do not shower in the morning "to wake up" because we are already awake - probably before the rest of the house. We do not shower while everyone else is napping. That's when we get all of our gross stuff done without interruption. We wash up to our elbows before cooking dinner because we know that we are going to get the rest of our bath while we do baths in a little while.

The old hymn says "And they'll know we are Christians by our love." The mom version says, "And they'll know we are mothers by our stench."

Mom Tip Not so Mini

Contrary to what Wikipedia says, I think Murphy was a mom, not a scientist.

I had to run by CVS today before we went to pick up Mo from school. We popped in I grabbed what I needed and we got in line at the register. Of course this is when Murphy's Law kicked in.

You know how SM Rhino refuses to potty train? That only applies if we are somewhere that has an easily accessible restroom for customers. CVS doesn't have one of those. "But Mom I think the peeps are gonna come out!!! Stay peeps! Stay!!" Why not? I have no dignity left; let it rip son!

So I pay for our purchase, rush out the door and toss it in the van and then start to sprint up the hill to the Starbucks with an 18 mo old on one hip and three year old in the other hand. Whew! We made it! Thank goodness because that in the back of my van would have been truly Murphy.

Of course I'm the only person in Starbucks aside from the three baristas on duty and the store manager over there in the corner. My guilt gets the better of me and I make up a reason to buy a coffee cake - after all we did just come in here and use their potty. The darling barista behind the counter offers us some hot chocolate samples and makes sure that Rhino is holding his. I turn for the briefest of moments to pay for the coffee cake and Rhino drops his chocolate. Not just on the floor but in his shoes.

Understand this about Rhino. He doesn't do messy very well. Playing in the dirt is fine but getting something wet and sticky on him is an absolute no no. Remember how I said I had no dignity? Yeah, well, any that was left vanished when he started a full blown melt down right there in the middle of Starbucks. Now I have to figure out how to clean both feet and the inside of his shoes before he'll even think about moving from his soggy chocolate puddle.

And NOW someone else walks in. Where was she three minutes ago? If she had been here I would have slipped unnoticed out a side door and skipped the whole bathroom rental coffee cake! She of course was offered a chocolate too. As I finally got it together I rounded up my coffee cake, my children and a chocolate.

The only problem is that I don't think that was my chocolate.

Oh yeah. Murphy was definitely a Mom.

Mom Tip #48

Boys are completely different from girls.

Yeah I know. That is a “Well, Duh!!” moment but I have to explain myself because there are people out there who have not had the pleasure of having both genders in their family. Me, for example. I only have a sister. So I was not prepared for anything that came with raising a boy or living with a boy’s – shall we call them, quirks?

Boys could really care less about the potty. I think we have covered this in great length but it bears repeating. Munch has to “go potty” every time someone sets foot in the direction of the bathroom. Granted, she is not really doing anything when she is in there, but it counts, right? Not The Boy! He could care less. Tuck, go potty. “But I don’t wanna! (screaming, wailing gnashing of teeth)” And then he pees his pants while he is in mid-fit. What is that?

Boys have no concept of fashion and are not in any rush to get one. As long as they have pants and a shirt, all is right in the world. Shoes are optional. Colors are inconsequential. Socks only exist if you already sacrificed a few toes to the weather. He came out of his room is red shorts with blue pinstripes down the side and a lime green shirt with yellow and white surfboards which was of course backwards. His sandals were on the wrong feet and when I asked him to fix his clothes or at least change his shorts into something that might match a little I got, “But I like it like this.” There is no point in arguing.

Boys speak their own language. Tuck had a friend here the other day and they were out on the porch playing while I cleaned the kitchen. They were speaking to one another like they understood but I am at a loss for what they were saying. There were a lot of sound effects (fire engines, horns honking, back up alarms) and a language that I would be hard pressed to find a dictionary for. But they understood each other and played so nicely that I forgot where they were for a few minutes.

I will probably never win the potty fight. That will be something he just makes his mind up about one day. The fashion might have a fighting chance when girls enter the picture. But I do have a shot at the language barrier. I think they were teaching Munch a little the other day. I may actually have a translator in the works. I’ll let you know when she is preparing her dictionary.

A letter from the Zookeeper

Dear Zookeeper Sisterhood,

Please treat visiting Zookeepers In Training (henceforth referred to as Z.I.T.'s) with great care. I was hostess to a Z.I.T this weekend and I fear that I may have popped her.

My Z.I.T was holding up quite nicely to the craziness that is Zoo Suburbia in spite of Marmoset's determination to keep shoes on her feet regardless of what Zookeeper and Z.I.T. were doing when her shoes fell off. She was even beginning to speak Rhino with a fluency reserved for those of us who are in daily contact with him. Orangutan was at school but was so delighted to have the visiting Z.I.T. that she was on her best behavior and was containing her climbing antics to the exhibit closing routine.

Then the zoo began to reveal the ugliness that lies behind the solid wooden fence between exhibits. It began with Rhino's recounting of the debris I had just removed from his attire. "That looks just like a rocket ship! Coooool!!" I think the Z.I.T. might have considered tossing her cookies.

The following day we loaded the livestock trailer and visited Zoo Atlanta. I believe the Z.I.T. referred to it as herding cats on high levels of catnip. The Orangutan chose this moment to share her whine settings and Marmoset gave a lecture on The Effects of a Missed Nap. Rhino shared some delightful tips on How to Aggravate an Orangutan because he certainly couldn't be left out.

My Z.I.T. was holding up fairly well after an evening of rest but then I tested her skills to the limit. It was the trip to the food procurement center that did her in I believe. The Rhino chose to do some unsupervised investigation of the center, the Orangutan was back to her normal swinging from anything that was still and Marmoset was about to launch into her lecture on the Effects of Missed Meals. Did I mention that after arriving back at Zoo Suburbia, the Rhino thought it perfectly acceptable to start channeling his alter ego The Nudist?

Add to all of this that Z.I.T.'s have not developed the mutant antibodies that act as a Zookeeper's medical Armor All and she was starting to catch a bit of an allergy induced cold, and my Z.I.T. popped.

So let this be a lesson to you, my Zookeeper Sisterhood. When handling a Z.I.T., use extreme caution. Especially if your Zoo is one like mine. As a fellow Zookeeper once said, "Some quality time with my Zoo and your eggs will refuse to hatch!"

Sincerely,
The Zookeeper

Mom Tip #42

Naps are wonderful but time them with care!

Here at Zoo Suburbia things tend to hit critical mass from time to time. Our options when this happens are to either tolerate the incomprehensible screaming and wailing and gnash our own teeth or put some people in crash mode (full blown nap).

Yesterday we picked Mo up from school, ran by the grocery store and headed for home. I thought all was well until The Boy hit the door between the garage and the house. I don’t know what happened or who started it but it was ugly. There was serious screaming from Tuck and Munch and to this moment I have no idea what it was all about. Off to bed. Now here’s the problem. Critical mass didn’t hit until 4. With Munch that’s no big deal; she can take a nap at 4 and still go down for bed at the normal time. She plays pretty hard.

Tuck? Not so much! He went down for his nap and try as I might there was no waking him before 5. The rest of the evening was delightful with minimal fighting but then it was time to go to bed. Talking, talking, books, more talking. There was no end in sight. At 9:30 he came to tell me that Mo hit him. Could that be because she wanted to sleep and you were in her face? “Well, yeah.” Come help me pack lunches.

He talked me through packing lunches. Let’s go brush teeth and get Mom ready for bed. He talked me through that including a discussion on why Mommy has to take her “no baby medicine.” “Yeah we don’t want another Meghan!” Let’s go make the coffee. He talked me through that. Do you need to go potty? This is where I learned that when “the peeps” don’t want to come out it means they aren’t home. They went to the grocery store. I was exhausted so I asked. What do peeps buy at the grocery store? “Food, you silly goose!” What do peeps eat? (I was REALLY tired) “More peeps!” Please son! Can we go to bed?

So I let him snuggle with me in my bed but no snuggles were to be had until we sang The Little Old Lady who Swallowed a Fly. Then I tried to “pretend” I was asleep to encourage him to do the same. Next thing I knew there were toes up my nose. “Smell my feet Mom!” I don’t know what time he finally fell asleep. He was still talking about feet and peeps and coffee when I lost it for the night.

I do know that the peeps got back from the grocery store somewhere around 2:30 this morning. It happened on Daddy’s side of the bed which I heard about pretty promptly but since it wasn’t my side I made a mental note to just sleep really still.

Go ahead. Get those naps in – just make sure you time them early enough in the day. Or take a nap with them!

Mom Tip #26

Potty training a boy equals war. Call up the reserves.

Everyone told me that “training a boy was much more difficult than training a girl.” They didn’t tell me I would need seven battalions and the strength of Patton! Mo? Potty trained at 2 ½ in three days with some help from Grammy. Tuck? He is 3 ½ now and the war rages on. Now like every good war it is fought in battles.

Battle of the Stairs - Getting Tuck to go into the bathroom.
We live in a raised ranch so the basement is actually ground level with a bonus room off the garage that we use as a playroom/office. When I first started training The Boy it was a battle to even get him to go up the stairs to the main part of the house and the bathroom. He would flail, kick, scream, go limp, go board stiff, (and did I mention the screaming?) all the way to the top of the stairs. Then he would dissolve into the carpet like he didn’t have a bone in his body. By the time we got to the bathroom I would be a sweaty harried disaster and more than likely his pull up would already be wet.

Battle of the Seat – Getting his behind to make contact!
In the event that we DID actually get to the potty before he used the pull up we were now up against the sitting part. We tried the small seat that went on the big potty. Nope. We tried just the big potty. Not happening. We invested twenty bucks in a floor training potty. But if you’re sitting on it you can’t push the button to make it sing. Never mind that the potty will sing if you just pee in it! And by now we have used the pull up instead.

Battle of the Poo – Well, that’s self explanatory.
Boys stink. They start stinking with that first poo in the hospital and they don’t ever stop. Now imagine walking into a room and being knocked down by that smell? And nine times out of ten, he’s just sitting there like it’s the norm. Why?! Can someone please explain to me why?! And how?! How can he stand that smell?! We’ve tried treats, stickers, punishments, stopping our attempts only to try later. I even let the boy drop his drawers where ever he wanted while we were on vacation out in the country. Nothin’ doin’. The Boy will not go in the potty.

It is my husband’s idea that you don’t run into grown adults who aren’t potty trained out there in the day to day world so he’ll get over this. Just this once (and don’t you dare tell him!) I hope he’s right. Just this evening I was summoned to the front lines to deal with the enemy. He shows no signs of surrender.

I, however, have started to embroider pretty gold stitching around the hem of my white flag. At least I’ll go down with a flourish.

Mom Tip #20 - A Mother's Revenge.

Revenge is sweet (so keep a journal)!

Imagine if you will that we are fast forwarding 14 years to Tuck’s first date. Imagine that I take that opportunity to recount the following story.

While Tuck was potty training I made it a point to make sure that no matter where we were or what we were doing, if he said he had to go potty I would take him. It seems that his favorite time to tell me this was when we were in the middle of the grocery store. This meant parking the cart, unloading Meghan, grabbing the diaper bag and herding the three children into the handicap stall of the ladies’ restroom where there was room for all four of us.

On one particular trip, the handicapped stall was already occupied by someone else. Tuck made a beeline for the stall only to pull on the handle and find the door locked. So being a boy of two, he decided to check this situation out a little further. He was not content to just look under the door and see feet – no, the Boy had to stick his entire head under the door and yell, “Hey Mom! Dere’s a yady in dere!”

By this point I had him by the waistband of his shorts and was hauling him backward and into the stall next to the handicapped stall. Four people don’t fit in a standard one person stall so I was standing with the door open, Tuck on the potty (still lecturing me about the “yady” who was using “our” potty), Mo standing behind me emptying the diaper bag, and Munch on my hip trying to get down so she could personally study the cleanliness of the restroom.

Then the long suffering female next door coughed.

“Mom!! Mom!! Dat yady BARFED!!!”

Do you know how badly public restrooms echo? We finished our business and started to leave. This time – and only this time! – he decided it was imperative that he wash his hands. I’m sure the “yady” was done with whatever she was doing but took mercy on me and stayed in the stall until we were well clear. I couldn’t help but wonder though every time we passed someone in the aisles from that point on if she was the one.

Back to present now. Can you imagine how satisfying this moment is going to be?! Oh yes, son! Go ahead and embarrass me now but know that I will have my day!

Mom Tip #18 - Just Laugh.

Sometimes the only answer is to laugh.

When the wheels start to come off, and they will more often than you would like, sometimes the only thing to do is stop and laugh. There will be other options but they just won’t be as effective as laughing. Allow me to illustrate.

Since becoming an at home mom, my time has settled into a nice routine of rescue the kitchen, set the leprechauns up with breakfast, pour a cup of coffee and zip to the computer for some morning e-mail and social networking.

I was in the middle of an e-mail to a friend when Mo walked up beside the desk and started the following conversation.

“Uh, Mom? Tucker just made a big mess but it’s okay; Max (our Jack Russell Terrier) cleaned it up.”

Uh huh. What kind of mess? Please note that not only have I not taken my eyes from the screen but my fingers are still flying furiously at this point.

“Well it wasn’t pee and it wasn’t poop. But don’t worry! Max already cleaned it up.”

Wait! What?!?!

She indulged me and repeated the above and finished with, “I know it came from his butt and let me tell you Mom. It sure did STINK! And it was ah-sckusting!”

I wasn’t 3 steps up the stairs when I discovered (with my nose unfortunately) what the “mess” was but since the dog had already “cleaned” it up the where was still questionable. First things first, get to the boy. So we were off to the bathroom where I removed the offending (and were they ever offensive!) clothing and swished them in the potty. As if my gag reflex wasn’t already in overdrive my delightful son decided to provide the following commentary.

“See, Mom! There’s my carrots and my grapes and …Hey! Why did you slam the potty? I was yooking at dat!” Take a moment and picture a Peter Pan pose naked from the waist down – it really adds something!

Now there were several options I could have taken with my reaction. #1 I could have vomited on the spot! #2 I could have lost my temper and yelled and hollered about getting to the potty in time and ended up cleaning the whole mess up anyway. And #3 I could have laughed, cleaned and called it a day.

Just so you know I went with #3. So laugh. And invest in a good dog