Trying to cheer myself up a bit, I decided to read through some diary entries from worse days than this... It totally made my Tuesday morning. Here is a highlight--half an hour of a really, really bad morning:
“B’s eating dog food again!” Alyssa shouts over the theme song of the 8 AM Sponge Bob.
“I can only do so many things at once,” I say, hurrying back to shoo the baby away from the dog crates, only after sweeping several kibbles out of her clenched jaws and fists. Rushing out of the kitchen as I have, leaves the little boy I babysit wailing in my wake. He screeches his disapproval and toddles, panicked, after me, and we nearly collide as I re-enter the kitchen with slobbery bits of dog food in my hand.
The mini waffles that popped up from my toaster are dark brown around the edges. This won’t do. I use a butter knife to scrape the burned edges down to a more appealing layer of golden brown. Saved. I take the food to the table.
“This cup smells like wet dog.”
“It cannot smell like wet dog; it is brand new,” I lie. I reused her cup from last night—rinsed out, of course. The child has a nose like a bloodhound.
Dogs. I remember that the dogs are outside, and I let them in.
Speaking of which…“Did you feed the dogs?” Alyssa gets up to feed the dogs. She cannot seem to remember this chore, in spite of the fact that I have posted an index card right by the remote control that she just used to turn on Nick that reads, “Please feed the dogs. Love, G and M.”
I lift two dog hair-covered babies into their highchairs. How do they collect so much fur in such a short period of time? I will never understand why they make the clothes of mobile, floor-cruising babies out of staticky fleece?! Do they hate me? I attach bibs to their necks, before pouring Cheerios onto the trays as an appetizer. Then I add a few freeze-dried little yogurt melts, which the babies seem to dislike so far. I give Brooke her sippy cup half-filled with watered down orange juice. She tosses it onto the floor. The dogs lick the spout. Screw it. I am cutting up a banana for the babies, toasting a piece of whole wheat bread. Alyssa has finished her breakfast and is heading to brush her teeth, a chore that she mostly remembers.
“Please bring me your dishes.”
“Brushing my teeth is more important,” she reasons.
“Please bring me your dishes.” Exhausting.
“Then I guess you don’t care about my teeth. You don’t even like me.”
What?! “Just bring me your dishes, and then you can go brush your teeth.”
Brooke has, by this point, nearly climbed out of her high chair in spite of being strapped in, and the little boy is moaning in a way that makes me want to cut my own ears off. I remove her filthy bib, and take her out of the chair, mushing my fingers into partially-masticated, gooey blobs of banana that are stuck to her hairy pants. I carry her to the sink, pick the most offending chunks of breakfast from her clothes and fling them down the garbage disposal. I run her hands under warm water, accidentally wetting her cuffs. I use a wet paper towel to wash her dirty face. I put her down on the kitchen floor, and she scoots off happily towards the table.
I follow, trying to get the boy out of his seat before his deafening shrieks do permanent damage to our eardrums.
“QUIT IT!” Alyssa shouts all the way from the bathroom.
He has breadcrumbs stuck in the snot that has been permanently running between his nostrils and his upper lip. Drool cascades from the corner of his mouth, down his chin, and is soaking his food-encrusted bib. I gingerly remove the bib, trying not to get any bodily fluids on my hands. I reach in to pick him up and smell that he has pooped. I try to hold him away from me, but he rubs his face against my sweatshirt-clad shoulder anyway. Nice. Defeated, I carry him and his stench to the den to change him. I notice that Brooke has found her dog-licked sipper and is taking slugs from it. Thankfully, she follows us to the den sans sipper.
“What is that smell?” Alyssa says, disgusted, as she returns to her episode of Sponge Bob. It is the one where Mr. Krabbs becomes obsessed with the buried treasure board game and takes Patrick and Sponge Bob on a real treasure hunt.
Without answering, I lay the boy down on the carpet to change his diaper. I open the diaper, and he squirms to escape, smearing poop on his clothing and my hand. I manage to get the diaper away from his legs and feet before any more damage can be done. As I wipe and wipe to clean him, Brooke becomes interested in the process, and crawls close to investigate. She tries to get her hands into his dirty diaper, but I swipe her way with one hand—well, elbow. She settles for pulling wipes from the package, wipe after wipe after wipe. Not ideal, but I let her do it. I need to get the boy clean before he can defile anything else. I am already wearing his germ-laden snot and poop; I don’t want Nana’s Oriental rug to face the same indignity.
Once he is clothed again, I use the wipes that Brooke has discarded to clean my hands and to wipe the dry and wet snot from his face. I wrap up the diaper and put it into a plastic bag before throwing it into the garage garbage. The garage reeks of dirty diapers. G thinks it smells like rotten hamburger meat, Alyssa like rotten cheese. I quickly close the door. It is only 8:21.
Parts of this are cracking me up -- literally, laughing out loud over here. Alyssa's "you don't care about my teeth - you don't even like me" -- the drama queen of that reminds me of when she was 2 and Beebs taught her, "Uh uh Girlfriend" with the finger snap. Interesting how life comes full circle!
ReplyDeleteThe drama created by one 7-year-old is exhausting! I guess I could blame it all on Beeb for teaching her the finger-snap. That 'tude mutated!
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