Poopastrophe

It’s a given that most of us never get around to starting or finishing projects around the house until we find out we’re moving and need to sell our house.  And then once those projects are done we wonder why we hadn’t finished them a long time ago so WE could be the ones to enjoy them, not the people who buy our house.  Now that Leslie and Ryan have found themselves a part of that procrastinating group we all belong to, we have been spending a lot of our time the last couple of weeks helping them paint, tile, pack, clean and finish all those other little projects they knew they had years and years to complete because they were never going to move.

 

And, since we are also planning to move in a couple of years, when we haven’t been helping out at their house, we have been staining the woodwork we hadn’t managed to get around to for four and a half years ...

... because we were never going to move either. 

We’ve all been in pretty high gear for days but recently all of our engines have begun to misfire.  Our gears have been grinding and sometimes we can barely get from first gear to second.  It became obvious we needed to idle a bit.  So today Leslie and Ryan left to spend a night in Denver and enjoy a concert they’d gotten tickets for way before they knew their life would be crazy at this moment in time.  We are keeping the kids while they're gone because Ryan’s parents were busy and we couldn’t think fast enough to come up with a reason to get out of it.  Juuuuust kidding.  If it wasn’t for those kids I wouldn’t be entertaining you with this blog post.  I’d be sitting out on the deck … in my glider, drinking a gin and tonic … listening to the birds sing … waiting for Dean to feed me dinner.   Instead I’m at the computer, drinking a gin and tonic …waiting for three kids to fall asleep ... so I can too.

So……the kids arrived at 9:40 a.m. this morning all geared up in hiking boots, hats, jeans, long sleeves and carrying their special nature bags.  Off we went to the grocery store to buy our nutritious Lunchables and Crackerjacks.  As everyone was choosing between slimy fake turkey, oily cheese and crackers, or slimy fake beef, oily cheese and crackers or slimy fake ham, oily cheese and crackers, I realized  that I had forgotten to bring any washcloths so I went searching for some kind of hand wipes.  But since I never buy hand wipes, and we were in a store I don't normally shop in, I couldn’t find them.  I could have asked somebody but I just didn't feel like it so I decided we’d be fine just wiping our hands on our jeans.  We were going hiking and rock hunting after all.  We weren’t going to an afternoon tea at the Governor’s Mansion.  I had no idea what serious ramifications that seemingly innocent decision would wreak upon me a few short hours later.

Loaded with two small coolers filled with our nutritious lunches, two backpacks filled with extra jackets, water, sunscreen, camera, and water bottles, and three special nature bags, we headed out of town to our destination.  All went well.  We scrambled over rocks, 

discovered amazing fossils, 

helped speed up the natural process,


























 and had an awesome lunch of slimy meat, oily cheese and Crackerjacks. 

Near the end of our adventure Myra got a panicked look in her eyes and said she had “to poop.”  I hadn’t factored pooping into my equation when I chose not to pursue searching out the wipes.  All I had was half a kleenex in my pocket.  Once Myra made sure it wasn’t “full of boogers” she accepted it.  I found her a place near a bush which was nice and flat, had no cactus in sight and left her.  “Be sure to bring the Kleenex back,” I said.  “We can’t leave it out here.”

When I got back to where Pierce was waiting he had the same panicked look in his eyes and I caught a whiff in the air that had definitely not come from the few wildflowers we’d seen blooming.   I took Pierce’s hand and we headed to another “bathroom.”  Myra handed off the half a kleenex to me as she headed back the other way.   As Pierce and I walked I was trying to remember how I’d done this with my own girls years and years ago.  Did I just brace them as they squatted or did I make a triangle of my arms with their little butts pointing through the opening?   I found another nice flat spot, cactus free, and I pulled down Pierce’s jeans and underwear, still not quite sure of my role in this pooping matter.  Then I looked down and realized the whiff had been much more than just a spurt of gas.  Think underwear filled with gooey wallpaper paste.  Only brown. That tiny square of already-used kleenex was not going to cut it.

Squatting was definitely not an option now.  I quickly made a triangle of my arms and lifted him up hoping to contain the thick “paste” globbed onto his cheeks.  I knew immediately that I needed reinforcements.  As I held him up, jeans and overflowing underwear bunched up around his ankles, brown butt pointing through the opening in my triangle arms, I yelled “I need help!  I need help!  I need help!”  Emerson came running.  “I need a plastic bag or a coat or a shirt or, or, or, anything!”  She opened the two backpacks and I saw coats and shirts flying.  One backpack held plastic bags but they were filled with the remnants of our oily cheese and slimy meat lunches.  I wasn’t really desperate enough (yet) to use a bright yellow shirt as toilet paper so I said, “tell Papa I need help!”  She yelled.  “Papa!  Nada needs help!  She needs help!”  In the meantime I looked down at the ground and discovered Pierce had been hard at work and on the ground was, well, more “wallpaper paste.”  As he was calmly propped in my triangle arms, tiny brown butt hovering over the ground, his pants leg dangling dangerously close to everything he’d eaten in the last 12 hours, I continued to yell for help, Emerson continued to yell for help, and Dean hollered back, “Nada can take care of it.”  (Later he told me I “didn’t sound desperate”)

I couldn’t let Pierce stand up because the “paste” would plop down his legs onto his pants.  I needed to get those pants and the overloaded underwear off but I couldn't get them off without taking off his hiking boots first and I couldn’t take off his hiking boots while he was nestled in my triangle arms.   Pierce was completely at ease but my arms were becoming tired and Dean was 50 yards away nonchalantly gathering the coolers and water bottles we’d left when we went exploring after lunch.  Finally Emerson convinced him my situation was becoming desperate and he arrived with two nearly full water bottles.   Dean carefully got Pierce’s boots, socks, jeans and underwear off, and then I tipped Pierce’s butt up as Dean began pouring water and I wiped the brown sticky “paste” from his little butt with my hand.   Yes.  My hand.  Because a few short hours earlier I hadn’t thought we would need wipes. 

So there we were; Pierce was in my triangle arms, tipped up so his little skinny butt was nearly facing the sky, Dean was pouring water on him, I was smearing the “paste” around and hopefully off of him, while girls and Pierce are all laughing.  At least we were in the middle of nowhere.  Two quarts of water later he was clean (enough) and we decided it was time to call it a day.  Other than Myra running into some cactus (which required some miniscule needle extractions), a tree branch (which resulted in a few tears), and a rock, (a few more tears), the walk back to the car was uneventful.  We stopped for ice cream on our way home and nobody even wrinkled their noses when we walked in to the shop. 

It was a day of learning.  The kids learned about rocks and fossils

 and what “going commando” means.   

 I learned never to go anywhere without hand wipes.

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Poopastrophe

Men and Their Toys

We have  a new yoga instructor for our Saturday morning class.  Early in the summer, Elaine, our former 76-year old  instructor announced that she was giving up the class because she didn't want to have to commit every Saturday to this class. When you're 76, isn't every day Saturday? Can't you pretend like one of those Saturdays is Monday and that's your "yoga work day"? Maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe no matter how old you are, Saturday morning is always Saturday morning and who in their right mind would want to commit all of their Saturday mornings to anything other than sleeping late, drinking coffee, cleaning your house and doing the laundry and ironing? Who would want to teach a bunch of tired, creaky, stiff people with butts formed to the shape of their office chair? 

Our new instructor, Elizabeth, didn't begin teaching until late in the summer.  Not that I noticed since I got to spend so much quality Saturday time with the shhhhhh....BFD.  Part of me misses Elaine because she was into the "this is Saturday and you've all had a long week at work so we're just going to have a laid-back, easy stretch yoga class."   It was easy; I didn't have to push too hard.  But the part at the end when you "play dead" went on way too long.  I wasn't really tired or sore and it's hard to pretend you're relaxing and recovering when you're not and are really just making a mental list of what you want to do when you leave.

Elizabeth, our new instructor, is young and doesn't seem to care that we've all worked hard all week; we're tired and stiff and we're only here because of guilt.  We would rather get up and drag our sorry office chair butts to a Saturday morning yoga class than sleep late and live with the post-butter and syrup slathered pancakes guilt.   She works us hard.  This morning we did the bound warrior.  It looks simple in the link.  No, not the partially naked woman ....the pose below it.  Be patient.  It's not.  Try it.  And then clap your hands for me.  I did it.  Once on each side.  That's twice.  And Dean told me he even completed it .... on one side.  I know.  Who knew.  Amazing.

At the end of a yoga class of other "really? my body should be able to do that?!" moves, when Elizabeth says  "lie on your back with your eyes closed and your feet splayed out in this dim room with soft music, and pretend like you're dead" I'm happy to oblige, because I am so sore and tired I can't even muster the energy to make a mental list.  And she doesn't give us much time to do that anyway.  Before you know it we're up and dragging our sorry, but guilt-free butts home. 

But I digress.  What I intended to write about was what happens at our house before we put our chair butts through tortuous moves on a Saturday morning.  Here's what I did yesterday morning before yoga.  I slept in, read the paper and drank coffee.  Yes, caffeinated. Before yoga. Where you go to unwind and relax and find your chi or be in the present.

Here's what Dean did.  Before yoga.  He got up at the insistence of Shadow who has not figured out yet that Saturday morning is different than Monday morning, or Tuesday morning, or Wednesday morning ... and whose doggie clock still goes off at 5:30 a.m. at which time she begins pacing back and forth from bedroom to hallway, click, click, click go the toenails, back from hallway to bedroom ... click, click, click.  Stand and stare at Dean.  Back to the hallway ... click, click, click, click.  Back to the bedroom ... click, click, click, click.  Stand and stare at Dean.  Sometimes Dean gets up.  Sometimes I yell "SHADOW!  LAY DOWN!"  Sometimes Dean even yells at her but mostly he just sighs and gets up.  Once they returned from their walk, he put on his "I mean business" coveralls because Friday night he received this:

It not only blows those pesky leaves and debris away but it sucks them up and uses its

metal impeller to DESTROY them! 

So yesterday morning, before yoga, while I was basking in the sun at the kitchen table drinking coffee and reading the paper, he was outside doing this.

I had several titles for this blog post.  One of them was "a man in love" but when I asked Dean to gaze upon his new friend with the love and affection I knew he was feeling he did this

and made gun noises.  Geez.  Boys.

This morning he has taken it to Ryan so he also can experience the unbridled joy of destroying innocent leaves.  There's a saying that women marry men who remind them of their fathers.  Be careful Ryan.  Be very careful.  You may begin to feel an uncontrollable urge to wear sandals with white athletic socks.  If you do, seek help.  Seek it quickly.

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Men and Their Toys

Vroom! Vroom!

Back before I discovered my husband has obsessive/compulsive leaf sucker disease I intended to write about cars, guns, cats and pirates.   Since that time, we were ... cursed (no more leaf sucking) ... blessed (no more leaf sucking) with weather that looked like this.

Jeez....it's only October!

The dropping temperatures and white swirly stuff flipped a switch in my little brain and activated the finish Myra's quilt ...  finish it NOW lobe of my brain.  I had no choice but to listen to that voice in my head and get down to business.  Are you finished? you say.  Where are the photos? you say.  No. I say and I don't want to show you yet, I say.  I'm close, but there will be no photos until the top is finished and ready for quilting.  Soon, though.  Soon.  I hope.  In the meantime I intend to talk about cars, guns, cats and pirates.

A few days ago Pierce and I spent some time together while Leslie took a feverish, fluish Myra to the doctor.  There was only a brief moment of panic in his eyes as he saw the door close behind his mother, which I quickly squashed by grabbing a little toy car, pushing it along the floor and saying, "vroom, vroom" with a look of excitement in my eyes. 

He never stops moving

Sadly, that's the extent of my knowledge of how to play with boys.  Okay, not boys per se but little boys.....uh, small boys .....  um...........grandsons.    Anyway........I am the mother of two girls.  I have never developed the highly specialized skill of making noises.  Okay, that's not exactly true.  I know how to whine, cajole, and make mad mother noises, but I am a dismal failure at the noises cars make when they're being

Pierce knows how to make a gun noise....

pushed on the bedroom floor, or what a plastic pirate guy says or what that dragon you're swooping down to attack plastic pirate guy sounds like.  I'm not very good at sword play either.  I tend to be more worried about collateral damage.  I am sorta good at the gun cocking sound and pretty darn good at the gun shooting sound.  BANG! I say with a really loud voice.  But that's about it. 

So, when Pierce and I spent that time alone a few days ago there was alot of BANG! BANG!  VROOM!  VROOM!  in between lessons from Pierce on how to turn on the siren for the car and how to attack a cat. 

Cat wrangling is also a very important skill to develop.

He didn't seem to care that I only said BANG! when I shot the car or the cat with his gun (I did know how to cock it---so there!), or that I couldn't even come close to remembering what a pirate says.  I'm pretty sure it's not just where's my parrot? And when a dragon came swooping down to attack the pirate ship, he didn't even seem surprised when my dragon sound was"eeeeeeeeeee, roar, eeeee,  roar".  He just grabbed his sword and protected his little plastic pirate guy.◦

Vroom! Vroom!