Never a Moments Rest

Well, Philip is home from Hawaii. He’s been at a conference all week. Not just any conference, his conference. He decided to have a conference, he told the people to be there, he decided the location. So of course it was in Hawaii. Remember how Mike Brady was clever enough to be the architect of a building going up in Hawaii, even though the Bradys lived in Southern California? Well, apparently, Philip is pretty clever, too. However, unlike Mike Brady, Philip was not able to get his company to pay for his family and housekeeper to go along, too. So we stayed behind.

Our week was filled with naughtiness and attitude problems. The children’s behavior was slightly better. With wild thunderstorms that threatened to bring down the house, clogged toilets and neighbors knocking on the door at 9 in the evening, I was glad to see this week come to an end.

So the morning of Philip’s homecoming arrived. My oldest was up at the crack of dawn of course. I heard him in the bathroom at 6:15 and I thought for sure my day was off to a bad start. After closing my bedroom door I managed to get back to sleep for another 2 hours. Aha, morning salvaged, or so I thought. In honor of the occassion, I dressed Bip in a Hawaiian shirt. I set him on the bed so I could use the bathroom. I gave him very strict instructions: “Wait here. I’ll be right back. Don’t cry. I’ll be right back. Don’t fall off the bed. I’ll be right back.” I backed slowly into the bathroom. “See, I’m just going to the bathroom, every thing is good.” He smiled at me sweetly, as if to say, “Of course, dear mother, take your time. I’ll be right here.” I turned around, took the additional two steps into the bathroom, turned back to face him and yelled, “Bip!!” Because my angelic son had wiggled himself to the edge of the bed and was reaching for the clock radio, probably to amuse himself by chewing on the cord. He couldn’t reach with one hand so he was trying with the other, causing himself to roll off the bed.

Teleportation not being one of my superpowers, my calling his name had no effect and he proceeded to tumble off the bed.

Just call me Britney Spears.

After he stopped crying, I surveyed the damage. A big scratch on his forehead and a bruise and a bump on his cheek. Wonderful. This bruise has now developed into quite the shiner. The mercy in this is that my mother-in-law is not planning a visit. I don’t think I could handle a dissertation on my parenting skills.

So, baby dressed, injured and comforted, I head down to feed the older children. I manage to hold an ice cube wrapped in a washcloth to Bip’s bump until he became more interested in flinging himself off the couch.

I put him on the floor to play and Boo and Pumpkin Girl join him. Before I go to take my shower, I decide to read my email and favorite blogs. 9:30 comes around I start to head upstairs. Then I smell it – baby poop. It’s not a bad smell since he is still mostly breastfed, but it is stronger than usual.

No problem, right? Just change the baby, then take a shower. Except he hasn’t just pooped. As I said, Bip is still mostly breastfed, so his has nice soft, runny poop. Too much information? It gets worse. His poop has bubbled out of the top of his diaper, up on to the back of his Hawaiian shirt, down on to his shorts and on to the carpet. Where, because he doesn’t crawl, he has scooted over it, leaving short tracks across the carpet. Fortunately he didn’t get very far.

I haul him upstairs and peel off all of his clothes. There’s no helping it, he needs a bath. I call down to Boo to come upstairs. I tell him to take off his clothes, he and Bip are having a bath. If I’m going to bathe one boy, I might as well bathe the other at the same time.

Bath time goes without incident. My two boys are now sweet smelling and clean. Bip’s clothes and the changing pad cover go right into the wash and I spray carpet cleaner on the spots. It’s now 10:15. Bip goes into the super saucer where he can’t get at the foaming carpet cleaner doing it’s thing on the stain and I head up for my shower. But not before giving Boo strict instructions: “If the phone rings, please answer it. If it’s Daddy, tell him we’ll see him soon. If it’s anyone else, tell them I’ll call them back. Do NOT come upstairs to bring me the phone.”

I’m in and out of the shower in record time. I even got my hair dried. At 10:45 I take Bip up for his nap, Boo gets the same instructions about the phone. I return at 11:00 and Boo tells me that Daddy has called, he’ll be home in 30 minutes. We begin cleaning up the living room. Pumpkin starts crying about her not having a bath, I’m trying to explain to her that it’s ok, and Boo interrupts me for no good reason. I charge him 25 cents every time he interrupts me, so I send him upstairs to get money. He comes downstairs and says, “Daddy’s already home.” It was a fitting end to a difficult week.

Philip brought home all sorts of souvenirs, including tikis, chocolate covered macademia nuts, a pearl necklace and earrings for me, and coconut syrup. I’m hoping he bought the tikis at a souvenir shop and that he didn’t just find them lying around some construction site. Just in case, I have no plans to thread a leather cord around one, wear it around my neck and go surfing. He also had a Magnum, PI moment and bought himself 3 Hawaiian shirts. Philip is many things, but he is not a large, 6 foot tall, mustached white man. He is a rather compact Chinese man. Strong, but not big. When I heard he’d bought these shirts, I was worried he’d look less like Magnum and more like Lieutenant Tanaka or Icepick (go rent the Magnum DVDs and see what I mean). I was very, very happy to see that when he walked in the door wearing cargo shorts and one of these shirts, he actually looked quite good! I even let him wear the shirt to church.

In the end, I ate way, way too many chocolate covered macademia nuts and Bip was wide awake by 5 am (a connection?). He and Philip enjoyed some good bonding time watching TV until 7. All is back to normal.

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