Overheard

My brain is just numb. I have an 11 month old who wouldn't sleep through the night if we induced a coma, a 4-year-old who is trying to kick the Pull Up habit by sleeping naked and a 2-year-old who is probably going to destroy our house soon.

There's been flour on the floor, water on the floor and breakfast on the floor. And today, she deposited poop on the floor for the first time in weeks and then took her underpants off and peed on a cushioned dining room chair that she had pulled over to the counter. Fiona has been the kitchen sink, in the bathroom sink, on the counter, in her brother's crib and in time out quite a bit this week. I need a straight jacket. For her. 


It's a good thing that my husband found a $25 steam cleaner at the thrift shop and managed to fix it. It's come in quite handy this week. When I called him at work to report the dining room chair incident, he told me to lock her in her room and don't let her pee on anything absorbent.


Her pee pee looks like a rabbit. My pee pee's over there. Danny was observing Fiona's pee pee puddle on the rug in his room. Jim was at the ready with the steam vacuum. Some kids cloud spot; my kids stain spot.

I've got to go change, Danny says while I was directing the evening clean up.
Did you just pee in your pajamas to get out of clean up time?
Yes, he says. Well, at least he's honest. I made him clean up in wet pajamas. I'm so mean.

Close the door. I need privacy, Fiona tells me while she's on the potty. Sure, kid, but I'm staying in here with you. No way she can be trusted in the bathroom alone after what she did to the flour.

Open your mouth when you speak, child. I'm trying to get Fiona to stop whining through practically closed lips.
AHHH, she says.

You pee your bed one more time and you're paying the water bill, Jim tells Fiona. She's been taking her clothes off and falling asleep naked.

God is good, God is great. Thank you for our pigeon. Thank you for our food. Amen. We've got a pigeon hanging out in our yard. The kids love him. Other things he's thanked God for this week? The titmouse (a type of bird in our yard) and his cousins.

Thank you bor the bood, Fiona says.

Dokey mole. Fiona's word for remote control.

Hey, I did a complete sentence. Yeah, that's right. I've been insisting lately that Danny speak in complete sentences when he asks for things. For example, he needs to say "I would like some apple juice, please" instead of us having this tooth-pulling conversation:

I want apple juice.
What do you say?
Please.
Complete sentence, please.
OH. 

I'm waiting. 
Please may I have some apple juice.
Why yes, you may. That wasn't so hard, was it?
It was hard work, mom. (Wait a minute ... I think that was harder for me than him.)


Why are you in time out, Fiona? Jim asks.
I hit Owie. 
What are you going do different next time?
I bite him.
Good luck, Owie, Jim says.

Come here, you rascal, Danny says as he wrestles a sapling to the ground in our backyard.

I'm trying to move that flat rock and find your old kitty, Danny explains. The flat rock is a gravestone for Stu, my old kitty who died when I was pregnant with Danny.
Well, he's probably turned back into dirt. He decomposed, I tell him. He knows about Stu. We talk about him and he's seen photos.
Oh, he dissolved! (He's still fascinated with dissolving.)

I want to do it that way, Fiona says after watching her brother pee standing up. Oh dear.
You can't do it that way, honey. Only boys pee standing up. Girls sit down, I tell her.
Yeah, Fi, I stand up. I have a penis and a butt, Danny chimes in. A few weeks ago, he told me the difference between boys and girls is that girls just have a butt, not a penis.


HEY, why are you little? Danny asked a woman jogging by with her husband. Her husband was very tall and she was very short.
Danny, you're little, Jim reminds him.
Yeah, and she's little, too.


Meanwhile, Jim hears the woman say:
Did he just call me little?
Yeah, I think so, her partner says.

And so begins a whole new chapter of parental embarrassment.