Doozy of a Day

Today was quite a doozy of a day:

-Leah woke up at 2 a.m. and was awake for a couple of hours last night, screaming her head off, mad at the world. (This in and of itself is pretty typical, but sets the scene for the rest of the day, including Mommy’s level of patience).

-Both children were up shortly after 6 a.m. Now that it’s cooler and still dark at that hour, I’m having a harder time waking up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and jumping out of my warm, cozy bed so early in the morning.

- I planned a fun stay-at-home-with-Mommy day of free play at the train table at Barnes and Noble, followed by story time. It should have been an easy, fun-filled morning.

-When we arrived, Luke decided that he didn’t want to share any trains with the other children at the train table. Setting clear boundaries, I gave him a choice to either share or we’d have to leave the train table. Luke tested me, and off we went, kicking and screaming.

-We made it through less than 10 minutes of story time. Leah was fussy due to no nap yet and her party animal behavior in the middle of the night. Luke was the only child who would not sit still, listen to the teacher, or pay attention to the story. There were at least 10-15 other kids there, ages ranging from 18 months to 5 years, and I had the only children who were the least bit disruptive/misbehaved/ill-mannered. I scooped up Luke (who had a full-blown tantrum), braced him against my hip like a potato sack, and pushed Leah in the stroller with my free hand, calmly stating how disappointed I was that we couldn’t have a fun time today. Exiting the store and buckling everyone into their car seats for the third time this morning was as fun as you can imagine.

-I pressed my luck and made a “quick” stop at Walmart to pick up a few things. Leah sat in the smaller, seated section of the shopping cart, while Luke rode in the back, surrounded by the ever-growing pile of groceries that we collected.

-Suddenly, Luke stood up in the back of cart, shouting, “Mommy, I have to go potty, NOW!” I was really not thrilled with the idea of him using the public bathroom at Walmart, but nonetheless raced in that general direction. Less than 5 seconds later, Luke said, “Mommy, I had an accident.” I looked down to see that his pants were soaked and that most of my groceries were now randomly “sprinkled” with wet drops.
(Footnote: I can count on one hand the number of accidents that Luke has had since he has been potty-trained. This is the kid who refuses to go to the bathroom before bedtime out of sheer strong will, but can hold it for 12 hours until the morning. It makes me wonder if today’s shenanigans were intentional).

-In disbelief, I proceeded to the cashier, wiped each item down with baby wipes from my diaper bag, and strictly told my son not to move or speak. I prayed that the cashier wouldn’t notice his wet pants/think we were absolutely vile/shrink away in disgust.

-I stripped Luke out of his wet clothes in the parking lot (yes, we lived up to every Walmart stereotype that you may have), very carefully buckled my naked child into his carseat, and placed my cart in the cart return that was right beside our parked car.

-Unfortunately, an elderly woman took this exact moment to return her cart, too, and looked into the backseat of my car (the car door was still open). The look on the lady’s face changed from one of polite, sweet admiration of my darling children to one of horror as she saw Luke, all of Luke, in his birthday suit. She quickly averted her gaze, squared her shoulders and raised her nose high up in the air, in righteous indignation.

-I sighed, got in the car, completely exhausted and defeated, and looked at the clock. It was only 11:25 a.m. I called Mark, relayed our morning to him, and he chuckled. I retorted that it was only funny because he was sitting in an office surrounded by fully-clothed, continent grown-ups.

-We came home, hosed down Luke in the tub, fed him lunch, and counted the seconds until Quiet Time. In the 5 minutes that I was putting Leah down, this is what Luke did to his room:



How a three year-old can so quickly and effortlessly overturn his mattress, remove every book from its basket, and destroy an entire bedroom is beyond me. What you can’t see is that the rest of Luke's bedding, his pillows, and every single stuffed animal that we own was hastily stuffed into the window seat/toy box. I officially gave up at this point and realized that it was just a dud of a day.

And then the miraculous happened. My son, who no longer naps, completely redeemed himself by sleeping for 4 hours this afternoon. It was beautiful, necessary, and gave me that ability to regroup and be thankful. The best part is how and where I found him:



And in that one, adorable instant, all was forgiven.