Date Night, Explosions, and Babies: TMI Alert!

Yesterday, Ryan and I had the chance to have a date afternoon/night. The first one in a long time. It was sort of unexpected and just worked out at the last minute, thanks to Miss Linz, so we headed out of here at around 1:30 and went to the mall to do a little Christmas shopping, (aka: walking around aimlessly, actually holding hands with someone older than 7, not yelling at someone as they get dangerously close to running out into the parking lot, not pushing a stroller, and no diaper bag!)

Woohoo! Felt a little strange. We really didn't know what to do with ourselves and since I already have most of the kids' Christmas shopping done, we were killing time until we could go to the movie we chose. Have you ever noticed movie times are NEVER convenient? At least for those of us with kids. So anyway, we had a good time. Saw a 3D movie for the first time and then believe it or not it was time to head home.

We walked in to find the charming scene of Miss Lindsay sitting on the couch drawing pictures with Andrew and Betsy Grace. Scarlett playing the piano, and Juliana toddling around with a book in her hand. All is calm, all is quiet, all is happy. And then.....CHAOS!!! As I'm trying to talk to Lindsay and get the report, Andrew and Scarlett are fighting over who is going to bounce up and down on Ryan's legs. Betsy is interrupting every few minutes to explain her drawing, Juliana is whining to be held. I find rotten oranges in our fruit bowl, Ryan is trying to pass out medicine and vitamins in preparation for bed, then a wrestling match ensues in the playroom, someone is running in the house and careening around the Christmas tree. And believe it or not, Lindsay says they were good minus one small hitting incident involving Andrew and Scarlett's face.

After Lindsay is gone, we sit down to do our advent reading for the night which was thankfully, rather calm. Then, bedtime routine begins. Ryan puts the baby on the floor to change her diaper only to find that she has exploded out the back. There isn't much that rattles Ryan, but poop on the floor just about puts him over the edge, so I change the baby (on the changing table!) while he cleans it up. That disaster is over. Phew! Once the baby is in bed, I turn to my little man. He is potty trained now, but we still put a diaper on him at night. So, after his potty trip we get his diaper on and not 5 minutes later he's running to the toilet yelling, "Gotta stinky! Gotta stinky!" Really, we couldn't do that 5 minutes ago when he was on the toilet? I take his diaper off and he takes care of business, runs off to play. Less than 5 minutes later, he's running to the toilet yelling "Gotta stinky! Gotta stinky!" Seriously? Am I stuck in the movie Groundhog Day? So in the rush, I rip his diaper off as he runs. I follow him in order to help him take care of business and we return the living room to put the diaper back on, only to find that, without getting too graphic, I guess there was an "escape" into the diaper, which landed on the floor right under Ryan's propped up feet in our mad dash to the bathroom. Really?? Two poop incidents on the floor in one night? Not one hour after we got home from our blissful day out without the kids? Talk about a harsh return to reality! As Ryan was cleaning up the second poop incident and I was putting yet another diaper on my little poopin' machine, I could only laugh. I've always said that the last almost 8 years of my life have been about poop and snot. Wow, did they prove that last night!

As Ryan and I were getting ready for bed I was still laughing and made some comment about him cleaning up two "incidents" in one night. Then he said the most romantic thing. He said I was the only one he'd want to be cleaning up poop with. Haha! Is there something wrong when I think that's romantic!? He also wondered if Lindsay might have given them some chocolate Ex-Lax as a little joke. Just kidding, Lindsay! We know you wouldn't do that! Right?...

And just think! We're going to be cleaning up poop for at least another 3 years! #5 is on it's way! How do you like that for an announcement? Too bad you had to wade through the mucky TMI to get here! No pun intended....well, maybe...

April 21, 2012: Due Date for #5 and the continuation of my 8th year of diaper changing.

And just when I think it's all about poop, the Lord lets me see some fruits of my labor. My sweet Betsy Grace gave me this picture today. I think it's going in a frame! It says, "Thank you Mama for doing so many things for me! Love Betsy Grace" with a cute little penguin. Doesn't get better than that!