Time Shot

Occasionally I like to step back and take in whatever is happening in my life and imagine what I would have thought if I had seen a glimpse of this situation at some point in the past. Let’s call this a “time shot.”

For instance, my wedding day. If, as a junior in high school, I saw a glimpse of my wedding day, five years down the road I would have been surprised.  We married young and with no regrets.  I didn’t really expect, or even give any thought to getting married in college, but peeking in on that scene as a 16 year old, there I’d be with a man I wouldn’t have known, with bridesmaids I hadn’t met yet.  So weird.

Yesterday was a real gem of a time shot.  The scene: me, bewilderedly talking with my nonchalant 2 (almost 3) year old who has her pants and undies down at her ankles.  Gavin, soaking wet and excited.   What the heck, right?!

We are in the process of moving into a new house and getting all our crap organized.  If you’ve ever done anything with two tiny troublemakers, you know a few things.

1) every little task takes 10x longer to do

2) things can always get worse before they get better

3) a sense of humor is not only important, but vital (else you lose your freaking mind)

Luckily I know these things so I’ve taken proactive measures. We installed a baby gate in Molli’s doorway so I can contain them while productivity occurs throughout the house.  I toss a handful of pretzel sticks over the gate from time to time to improve morale and occasionally a new toy, like a paper cup or a balloon leftover from the previous year’s birthday party.  They generally don’t mind it and when the noise level gets to be too much I just close the door.  However when your two year old is babysitting your one year old behind a closed door it’s important to keep an eye on the monitor.  (side note, can we have a round of applause to whoever invented video monitors?!  A spy camera for my children? Yes, please).

Which brings me to yesterday…

Things were starting to look nice around our new house so I brought an annoyingly random bunch of stuff over from my parents to ruin all the nice. Grocery bags, laundry hampers, totes full of crap littered the new house so, naturally, I locked the kids up and closed the door to do my thing. Keeping an eye on the monitor, they played and I kept my space.  All was well until I saw Molli’s naked booty standing on a chair turning the light off.  Oh dear.

I used the walkie talkie feature on our fancy monitor and asked her what she was doing.

“I’m just turning off the light, Mom.”

She obviously didn’t understand the fullness of my question. I had to intervene.  I opened the door and she just looked at me as if to say, “oh hey mom, I thought that was you at the door. What’s up?” Totally casual.  Like, it’s no big deal that my pants and hello kitty panties are hanging out at my feet. She just stood there.  *Insert TIME SHOT

“What’s going on with your pants, Molli?”

“Oh, I had to go potty.”

“OK, let’s go.”

“Sure Mom, but I already did.”

“Oooh, you need new pants? You had an accident? Let’s go clean up then.”

“No, my pants are dry, not wet.”

“I’m confused.  You went potty already but your pants are still dry? Can you talk to me about that?”

“I went in the cups.”

It was about this time that I looked over at Gavin who was so pleased that I had finally returned that he was up on his knees reaching for me, soaking wet.  Soaking wet, as it turned out, with Molli’s pee.  Using my best deduction skills, I conclude that my daughter had, in fact, managed to urinate in last year’s birthday cups on her table and my son attempted to drink it.  Fortunately (I suppose) he hasn’t mastered cup drinking and spilled it all over himself.

Kids are so gross. 

I stripped Gavin down and cleaned everything up before continuing the conversation with Molli.  I reminded her that we only go potty in the potty unless we are camping or something and there is no potty, then we can go in the woods, but at home we only go in the potty.  She agreed and vowed to only go in the potty.  She sat silently and then stated inquisitively, “But Uncle Brian goes potty in cups.” 

(To ease your mind, Uncle Brian does not go potty in cups.  He had a drug test when he got hired at his new job.  My daughter simply does not forget ANYTHING.)