Shit Happens...Quite Literally

I started this blogpost today rambling on about my efforts to revamp myself and then shit happened. I'm not joking...shit literally happened. I was doing math with Peach while all of the other kidlets who had finished their school went running into the backyard. I just assumed Piper went with them. After finishing up the math lesson, I looked outside to check on everyone and didn't see Pi... This is never a good thing. It was suspiciously quiet. So, I went upstairs to see if she was there and saw her happily playing with her toys in her room. I started to back away slowly so I didn't disturb her and then stopped. Is that her butt crack? I slowly inch back towards the door and see that she was indeed butt naked sitting on the floor...and then it hit me. That well-known smell that strikes fear into the heart of all parents was so. very. strong. I walked towards her and saw it. Poo smeared all over her backside. Poo smeared all over the floor where she was sitting. That sock and headband sitting next to her? Covered in poo. She saw me, smiled and stretched out her chubby little hands towards me. You guessed it...also covered in poo. But what did I NOT see? Her diaper! Funny how you can go from having a good day to feeling so very defeated so quickly. In that minute the smell of defeat was as strong as the stench of the poo. So a bath happened. Again. This child takes more baths than any other kiddo I've ever had. Then the futile process of putting on clothes that I know she'll wiggle out of in under an hour. Then the scrubbing of the poo-covered laminate floors. Last but not least, the great diaper hunt. I found it on the floor in my room...which had been closed...with no poo in it. What the hell happened? 👀 I always loved mystery stories growing up. Clue was my favorite board game even! However, this is one mystery I could happily live without solving. 

Toddlers are cute for a reason. If they weren't, no one in their right mind would put themselves through this. 

Update: Before I could publish this, the mystery was solved. I heard loud complaints of "EWWW Piper has poop on her legs!" as Pi was coming in from outside for gods sake! I was doubly flummoxed by this point. She was still fully clothed, her diaper was still clean...how the hell did she get crap on her legs again? Then the littles started saying things like "Oh, maybe it came from the poop in her room." What poop in her room? I had just scrubbed all of that crap off of the floor! "Yeah it's on the Calvin and Hobbes book too..." Luke chimes in. By now I'm scrubbing Pi's legs with baby wipes asking what they're talking about. Peach says "Oh I'll show you!" and runs upstairs. Once we're there she shows me. It's the motherload. A nice pile right in front of Barbie's Dreamhouse. I'll bet Barbie's HOA didn't know what to think of that. Is there a fine schedule for "Dinosaur sized piles of shit on the front lawn"? Anyhoo, so now it all made sense. She's must've dropped trou in my bedroom, gone to play in her bedroom, and while having Peppa Pig and Susie Sheep invade Barbie's pink sanctuary, dropped a deuce right on the floor and continued playing. After that, she must have gone to the other side of the room where I found her sitting in all of the smears. But wait! There's more! She must've taken a short cut across the bottom bunk bed because the smears form a nice trail across the sheets as well. So when I bathed her and released her back to play in her room, she must've gone back to the dreamhouse, gotten her legs all mucked up a-fuckin-gain, and then run downstairs and outside to play with her siblings. 

Is it too early to pour some wine? Maybe a tequila shot? 

Apparently I shouldn't brag about it being a good day out loud because the universe hears me, gets that mischievous twinkle in it's eye.... and shit happens. 

Peace, love, and poo-free vibes. 

Hindsight is 2020...

 If I had any clue how 2020 was going to pan out after those last blog posts...oh man. Retrospect can be a real punch to the gut sometimes. It's kind of taking my breath away thinking of all that went on since then. Erik's coming home sick turned into a wicked case of the flu which of course spread like wildfire through the house. We were sick on and off through early March when we went to my cousin's wedding. That was an awesome roadtrip with me and my kiddos and we had such a blast. And then my Grandma passed away. We buried her on St Patrick's Day and were already starting to see the signs of the pandemic. Then it all shut down. Our campout was cancelled, our activities were all cancelled, the cabin fever set in and the new normal began. We went from having a full plate of outside classes, service projects, and Scout events to nada. Life got really messy at home and I can safely say I had some of the roughest times ever. Things have eased up since then. In some ways, we adjusted. In some ways, we still haven't. Part of me wishes I'd continued to blog like I'd promised myself, and part of me know I wouldn't even want to read it. Any journaling I did was private and sad to say the least. I went through periods of spamming my friends and family to keep in touch and periods of total withdrawal from everything. 

It. Was. Rough. 

But...we emerge, right? We evolve, we adapt, we move forward even when the very ground we attempt to make baby steps on feels like shattered glass. Resilience is bittersweet. Some of our coping mechanisms aren't quite healthy but perhaps they're what we need at the time. Mine tend to be repression, withdrawal, and food. Big shock there, right? Every blog I've had has had some tie to my struggle with food. Well, the pandemic and the home stress brought that out in full force. I left myself go big time. I leaned on food for comfort and naturally it was all the wrong kinds of food. I mean who comforts themselves with lettuce? Do those people even exist? If they do, can we talk? Teach me your ways....because my comfort comes in the form of cookies or fries. All of the hard nutritional work I put in when I was pregnant with Pi and afterwards is lost. Those days spent happily trying on dresses for Tay's wedding and feeling so happy with what I could fit into at the time...yeah those dresses wouldn't fit anymore. I'm almost back at square one. Not at my heaviest, but getting there. Emotionally, I snap easier. I let stress get the better of me. Even my dreams are stressful now and not the reprieve they used to be. 

So things must change and today is the day. 

I can't be any harder on myself than I have been, so I'm trying a different tact. I'm trying gentleness. I'm trying to give myself the same grace that I give so freely to others. I picked up a self care journal and a book of mindfulness exercises. I'm going to be more conscious of the things I put in my body. Because we emerge, right? We evolve, right? I know I can too, but I think I have to work with myself not against myself. I have a plan and I'm going to try to work it out here as well. We try. That's all I can do. 

I think in that case....Master Yoda was incorrect.... *gasp*

Peace, Love, and all the beautiful things.