You have all heard me speak of this 3-year-old boy from time to time . . . no?
He is exhausting, busy, unpredictable, stubborn, and naughty. He has peed on my washing machine, defrosted our freezer full of beef, peed on my dryer, made me question why God made me a mother, and broken no less than 78 pairs of glasses.
And he is precious to my heart.
Yesterday was a glorious day in which he decided to be my little helper. You see, Handsome Dude, as precious as he is, had created colossal messes in 4 separate rooms of our house. So, I asked him to start cleaning.
This never goes well.
Usually he throws himself on the ground for all the injustice and inhumanity in his world and shouts furious statements, such as:
“The Libbing Woom is too tired! I can’t clean it.”
“Cokey not helping me! He wee naughty.”
Cokey is his name for his brother.
And my personal favorite:
“I don’t like this. I’M GOING TO BED!”
Ah. That would be a shame.
Well, yesterday, as soon as I asked him to clean, he ran downstairs and cleaned his room. Then he proudly marched over to me and asked:
“What’s next, Mudder?”
Obviously, this means I am an awesome parent. Feel free to email me your quandaries with our own offspring and I will try to help you.
Handsome Dude also decided yesterday was the day for him to learn how to hang up clean shirts.
This task frustrated him.
(Look! See? There’s Horton Hatches the Egg! I told you people I have to read that darn book 3 times a day. I meant what I said and I said what I meant, I am not a liar, one hundred per cent.)
Finally, last night before bed, Handsome Dude was showing Little Dude a candle and telling him to smell it.
Calm down. The candle was not lit.
HD (short for Handsome Dude . . . keep up, people!): See, Cokey? Smewl it. Is nummy!
LD (short for Little Dude): Uh-huh!
HD: Cokey, wanna hold it?
LD: Uh-huh!
HD: Ok. But you gotta use three hands! I help you.
LD: K!
Little Dude.
Little Dude isn’t as helpful these days. If I ask him to do something, he yells,
“Just a minute!” or, more accurately, “Nah-Blah-Min-In!”
Yes.
My boys’ early language skills are impressive.
My boys.
They exhaust me. But I love being their mudder.
***
After the boys went to bed, The Lumberjack and I participated in, what I like to call,
“The Same Thing Happens Every Night.”
We are both exhausted, but like to pretend not to be. One of us suggests a show. The other agrees. One of us suggests a snack, even though neither of us are hungry. The other agrees. We eat. We watch. We sit. I ask my husband if he wants to go to bed or watch one more show.
“Another show is fine.”
Like the fool that I am, I fall for this trick of his nightly and in no time, he is twitching and snoring and snoring and twitching.
Such is my life.
Does anyone else have a spouse who does the weird tired-twitching thing when they are falling asleep?
Well, last night, while I was watching a show and LJ was twitching, the power went off!
Me: David! The electricity is out!
LJ: So?
Me: So? I’m scared.
LJ in his “I’m-too-tired-sassy-pants-voice”: Why are you scared?
Am I the only human who gets scared when wind is howling, the house is in complete darkness, and the fear of no electrical appliances in the morning lurks about?
Right then, we hear Little Dude wailing from downstairs in his crib. Little Dude is wee afraid of the dark. The Lumberjack and I try to get ourselves from the upstairs loft to the main living room and find some flashlights. We find a tiny one and use that one to help us find the bigger one.
Which is, of course, out of batteries.
The Lumberjack holds the tiny one for me so I can put in new batteries. I do and the flashlight doesn’t work.
Me: I wonder if I put them in wrong?
LJ: You did.
Me: Why didn’t you tell me I was doing it wrong?
LJ: Because you are an adult and you should know how to put batteries in.
Great. I see he is still hanging onto the “I’m-too-tired-Sassy-Pants-voice.”
I finally rush downstairs to Little Dude.
Little Dude was not wee afraid of the dark, friends.
Little Dude was wee covered in chunky vomit.
Ah. The joys of being a mudder.
So, I call to LJ that I need help and try to assess the damage. LJ comes down and, oddly enough, is annoyed at how I am handling things. He informs me that I need to get our son out of the crib.
This is information I am aware of.
However, it gets tricky because, may I remind you, OUR SON IS COVERED IN VOMIT.
LJ decides what I need is some trash bags and he heads upstairs to get some. When he returns, he is holding open the bag as I dump all the soiled linens in.
As I am dumping, he keeps sighing and rolling his eyes. Yes. He is still sassy.
Are we surprised?
No.
Me: Is something wrong, David?
LJ: Yes, Taylor. Why are you putting blankets in that don’t look like they have throw up on them?
Me: Hon. I’m just washing everything.
LJ: Whatever, Taylor.
Me: Can you get him in the bath?
LJ: Taylor. We can’t. There’s no power.
Me: We have no water?
LJ, again baffled by my stupidity: No, Taylor. But our pump is not going to work.
Me: Huh?
So, LJ disappears with vomit-boy into the dark abyss and somehow manages to wash him up, sans water pump, while I make up a new bed.
We get the sickly dude back to sleep and then go upstairs to get ourselves ready for bed.
Me: David, can I flush the toilet?
LJ: Kind of.
Me: David. Should I save flushes?
LJ: Taylor. We only have so much water and when it is gone it is gone because the PUMP is on ELECTRICITY.
Me: NEAT! Do you want me to not flush?
LJ: That would be great.
Then, I had the audacity to brush my teeth. As I was watering my toothbrush, he slammed off the water.
LJ: You just don’t get it, do you?
Me: Nope. Guess not.
So, we went to bed, grumpy and smelling like vomit. I was confused and scared and LJ was twitching and snoring.
A couple of hours later, I was awakened to a few lights and a very cheerful husband.
LJ: Look, hon! The electricity is back on! Love you!
Then he kissed me and went back to twitching and snoring.
That man exhausts me. All my boys exhaust me.
***
Alright! Thank you for voting for me in the Babble Top 50 Mom Blogs! I am now at #9!
Holla, Voters!
Holla!
I have no idea how long this contest lasts or how the voting works. I have heard from some people that you can vote once a day, while others say you can vote once. I don’t know when this will end. I don’t know how many more times I will shamelessly beg you do vote for me.
I apologize for all the unknowns.
If you wouldn’t mind, you can click here to vote. Once you click on the link, you scroll down a bit and find my blog’s name and then you click on the little “thumbs up” picture that says, “I like this Blogger.”
I would really love to remain in the Top Ten.
Thank you again!
Happy Tuesday!
Hey Taylor! I was able to vote again…if I’d known, I would have voted everyday!
So sorry about the throw up without water!! EWWW!!
A little advice from a “ruralville veteran”…if you are having “weather” come in, knowing it will be windy, ice will be hanging on the elec. lines. Fill up the tubs and lots of containers in case the elec. does go out. This way you will have water to flush toilets with and to brush teeth and maybe a little for cooking.
We have to do this at least once a winter….most of the time we don’t use it, but it sure comes in handy when we do need to!!
You’ve just described what happened every time the power went out when I was a kid. Minus the throw-up. That was just gross.
My Prayer after reading your post:
Dear Gracious Lord in Heaven…I am so thankful my kids have grown and have left the house. Please Don’t give me any more. Thank you and Amen. Oh and P.S. Lord, give Taylor three hands today!
I voted from work AND from home. Totally fooled the system.
I am sorry about your vomit chunks.
I am sorry about your twitchy, sassy husband.
I am sorry about your loss of power.
I am sorry you can not flush.
I am sorry for all the ways I relate to each and every sentence of this post. I thought I had put those things out of my memory, but alas – no.
I am very afraid of being without electricity. And water. There’s a reason why I was born in the twentieth century. Not sure how I ever survived three years in Africa, come to think of it.
HD reminds me so much of my own boys. Some of them are much older than three now. They still cannot hang up shirts.
Thank you LJW, thank you for moving to ruralville and sharing all the stories about peach walls, no Targets, schools, power or water, all while dealing with not leaving the house for days and being a mommy to 2 naughty boys and homeschooling 2 girls. For if you did not share all these stories, I may one day actually agree with my husband when he says that he wants to move to ruralville, and then I would go crazy after the move and become a not nice mommy or wife. So, thank you!!
My husband does the twitchy, snoring thing. He also votes to stay up for one more show, only to promptly fall asleep. What’s up with that? Why not just say, “I’m tired. I’m going to bed.” The mysteries of the male mind…
As for your power/water pump outage. I’m am speechless. I am just so happy I live someplace where my biggest annoyance during a power outage is that I seem to forget about it every time I enter a new room where I, of course, try to flip the light switch. I believe amnesia sets in when the power goes out. And, sorry for rubbing it in that I don’t live in ruralville. Oh, thought just popped in my head: baby wipes. Keep baby wipes around for cleaning when the water pump won’t pump.
I am so impressed that in the midst of the vomit-induced, power-deprived fatigue, you still managed to use an SAT word.
No, mudder isn’t it.
The word is quandaries.
And you used it properly. As a noun.
How do I know this?
Because it’s one of my class’s vocabulary words.
It’s great to be a mudder and a teacher.
😉
Hope Little Dude is feeling better and no one else comes down with it.
Think it might be time to tell LJ to invest in a backup generator if he is going to move you to ruralville:)
I had to laugh when I read your post (not that I don’t usually chuckle at them anyway), but I thought it funny because my post today was “you know your a mom when….”
I’m reading this while eating lunch and really should have skipped the whole “throw-up” part of the story. Yum, this chili is good!
In other news, I twitch as I fall asleep. Sometimes I twitch so violently that I wake myself up and promptly ask the husband, “Was I asleep?” He usually sighs and rolls his eyes and I take that as a “Yes, dear.”
Holla! Is that right… I never can remember. The joys of being a mudder! While I do not have two legged children, why is it my four-legged children have to climb into my lap to vomit? What is it with children?
Hope everyone is feeling better and so very happy you got your lights back on!
voting for you right now!
Well, I don’t like to be without electricity either. And the prospect of no coffeepot in the a.m. is too distressing to even contemplate. For that matter so is the no flushing. Just reading Lynettes tips in the first comment was like reading an excerpt from one of the Little House books.
I’ve voted a few times. The blog police aren’t going to come make an arrest are they?
Stay well because you’re the mudder and all mudders know they are not permitted to indulge in sickness. It says so in the manual. Oh, and start making some vacation plans. Pronto.
My Dan does the weird twitching violent thing as he is falling asleep. It’s annoying because I’m trying to fall asleep at the same time. LOL. 🙂
no water + vomit = me on the first plane outta town (assuming it was someone other than me that puked)
Sorry about that craziness. Husbands are good for making you nuts, huh? But they can come in handy sometimes, too. 🙂
Dude. Lumberjacks should not be sassy to a mama who is trying to clean up chunky puke with NO WATER.
Holy cow, Lumberjill.
Holy cow.
I voted the other day. But when you said some people were voting more than once I clicked on your link and was able to vote again. Hope you win!
I was able to vote again.
I think twitching mean you are overtired. However, dogs do it too. I think it has something to do with certain chemicals in the muscles that fire off. Boys are indeed delightful and fun to observe. I apologize that I have tried unsuccessfully to vote for you. The only explanation I can give is I’m on dial-up still and some things just don’t download properly. So solly. More photos of all please. luv em. can’t get enough. hi to all
Ewwwwww…vomit and no water don’t mix. So is he sick or was a random power-outage-induced-throw-up?
Also, cranky husbands are not helpful. This is a universal truth, I’m sure. Tonight, after one show, you should suggest he go to bed. Just a crazy thought. 😉
And I voted again. SO wish I had known I could vote more than once or I’d have been on it!!
When I was all of 20 years old, and a newlywed, we moved to the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex. Remember, I grew up 26 miles from the NEAREST town…
One day, I was taking a shower, and the power went out…But my water continued! I was astounded, and thought I’d experienced some sort of miracle…Imagine my excitement when I called to share the wonder of it all with Brent…My husband then explained to me what the giant water towers everywhere meant, and that city folk are not dependent on a pump to get their water out of the ground…
Go figure!
So many things to comment on but I’m just going to go with the twitchy husband. I really hate that! When my husband and I were newlyweds and still thought we needed to cuddle all night I ended up getting socked right in the face. Needless to say we don’t sleep that close together anymore just in case he decides in his sleep to knock me out, but I guess in that case maybe I would be able to sleep instead of having to kick him all night so he’ll stop snoring! Ah the joys of having to share a bed with someone!
ohmygoodnessgracious, what a night you had….i detest vomit!! anywho, i voted for you today and you are in 7th place st the moment!! =) take care..