I am really a suborn person and at times, very slow to learn my lessons. You would think that after I found my two year old son sitting on the stove playing with knives while I was trying to sneak in a few more minutes of sleep. I would have learned the lesson that this was not possible. But, no this is not an easy lesson for me to learn.
Apparently, I have to learn it the hard way.
In my defense, I think that I am having such a difficult time learning this lesson because the boys, Jake and Quinn, insist on getting up before the sun. I can get up early in the morning but I have my limits and getting out of bed before 6AM is really pushing those limits.
When Hadyen was younger, he too was an early raiser. But I was able to entrust him to the electronic babysitter. I would get him a cup of juice and a bowl of dry cereal and then I would be able to go back to bed for at least 20 more minutes. It was awesome.
So why not try it with the others? I see no reason why turning Nemo on and giving them a cup of juice wouldn’t be able to hold their attention long enough for me to get 20 minutes of sleep. I’ll even agree to 15 more minutes. I just want to slowly wake up instead of hitting the ground running. That shouldn’t be too much to ask.
But my younger children have tried to show me, time and time again that this is not a good plan. And lets just say that I finally have to agree with them.
After the playing with knives incident, I did learn that I could not go back to sleep but I figured that maybe I could just lay in bed and relax for a few minutes. I would be some what more aware of everything going on and listening for those tell tale signs of mischief.
When the kids came into my room, I got up, got them juice, changed diapers, and turned on the babysitter. Then then put myself back to bed to rest and I listened.
Five minutes passed, no mischief. Ten minutes passed, no mischief. I smiled to myself, very pleased that this time this was actually going to work when…. THWAP! Something was lofted onto the bed and smacked me in the face.
I opened my eyes only to discover that I had been hit with a wet diaper. Crap! They must have overturned the diaper pail and were throwing them all over the house.
“Jeff, Jeff! Wake up. Can you go and check on the kids? I think that they are playing with the diapers.” He moaned and groaned and with a little help from me aka a shove in the back, he got up to investigate the trouble.
I couple minutes later, I heard him shuffle back into our room, “The diaper pail is fine.” Interesting, maybe I forgot to put that diaper away. Jeff stood there for a minute more and then he went into the bathroom to get ready for work.
I lay there wondering if I needed to get up? It was quiet, no sounds of mischief. I could probably sneak in a few more minutes. I close my eyes and settled in when I hear Claire begin to yell. I willed quiet to return but alas, it did not.
“Alright, alright. I am up” and I threw back the covers and got out of bed.
Claire met me as I walked into the kitchen saying, “Yuck. Yuck. Yuck, Mom.” I could tell by the way that she was walking there was something on her foot.
I picked her up and sat her on the counter to examine her. Then I spied the brown chunks on her foot. I had no idea what it was. I grab a towel and clean her foot off. As I did this she said, “Yuck, Mom. Jake poop.”
I looked up and her and I am sure if you were there in the kitchen with us you would have seen the light bulb that turned on over my head as the realization hit me as to what the ‘brown chunks’ were that I was cleaning off her foot.
“What?!? Jake pooped? Where?”
I set her down on the floor and hurried into the living room. When I rounded the corner, I saw the disaster. There was Jake laying on the couch sans diaper, in all his full manliness. I saw that brown streaks not only covered his legs but were all over the couch. As my gaze scanned the room, I not only found more streaks but piles, piles of poop. Who knew one little poop could poop that much?
I wanted to scream and yell at Jake for somehow loosing his diaper.
I wanted to scream and yell at Claire for walking through the poop.
I wanted to scream and yell at Quinn all for touching the poop.
I wanted to scream and yell just for the sake of yelling.
But I didn’t, I held me tongue and went about the process of cleaning up. I can now honestly say that after spending hours scrubbing poop from my living room carpet and couch, I have learned my lesson, no more sneaking sleep in the morning. And the electronic babysitter is SO fired…….
I think.
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