An afternoon several months ago

Wow, so I'm now posting monthly? Or just about. . . apologies, for my absence. (again). Been busy. Yadda etc. Sigh.

As busy as I have been however, I recently unearthed a reminder of how busy I am NOT. I happened to pick up my Sudoku (Yes, I Sudoku. When I can, anyway. It's relaxing- Try it.) book, and flipped through it. In the back, I found a hastily scribbled account of one afternoon a few months ago, when Babyman was still pretty brand new and Sweetcheeks was still potty training. I remember grabbing the handy Sudoku book to write it down, as a means of release and to remember the nitty gritty of daily life at that time. Here follows that record.


Mr. Sweetcheeks, who should be napping but isn't, dumps a large box of cards out while I am nursing Babyman. I am temporarily immobilized, so all efforts to get Sweetcheeks to clean them up are ignored. He wanders off.

Babyman poops in the fresh diaper that I'd just put on him, and then promptly falls into a sweet contented sleep that I am loathe to disturb. I lay Babyman down so I can get Sweetcheeks to clean up the cards. After one brief stint in time-out, we finally get that done.

Babyman begins to cry. At least I can change his diaper now.

Freshly diapered, I lay Babyman down awake. I'm folding laundry. Sweetcheeks wants to pet the baby. His hands are quite dirty- I tell him that if he wants to touch the baby, he must wash his hands first. He tries several times to pet the baby anyway, then finally agrees to wash his hands. We go to the bathroom, where he decides he wants to go potty. I help him remove his pants and diaper, and he manages to pee a few drops in the potty. Yea! I help him wash his hands. Babyman starts to cry, so I let Sweetcheeks stay naked the waist down. [note: I used to do this a lot, as it helped a great deal with the potty training. Most of the time, it went well.]

I go pick Babyman up; he poops. As I am changing his diaper, he poops twice more- and pees too, but I have a washcloth strategically placed so at least I don't get showered. Halfway through all this Sweetcheeks begins to scream. He's in the bathroom. He comes to me crying about his eyes, which (when I mange to get his hands away from them, all while in the midst of the ongoing baby diaper change) I see are covered in soap. It's ALL over his hands and eyes.

Babyman chooses this moment to pee again, and this time he sprays all over my shirt. I get Sweetcheeks to sit still and not touch his face while I finish putting a diaper on Babyman and lay him down, half-dressed, indignant and screaming.

I take Sweetcheeks to the bathroom to clean him up and doctor his eyes. Babyman screams.

I finish finally, and rush to pick up Babyman. He wants to nurse, so I settle in for that. Sweetcheeks comes in and lays on the floor to mope. Next thing I know I look over to see him rubbing baby's blanket on his naked penis. I scold, because he knows he isn't supposed to play with Babyman's things, and probably knows I wouldn't want him using them like that. He is maddeningly unrepentant, in such a way that leads me to believe the activity was intentional just to annoy me. I am temporarily immobilized nursing though, as he is well aware.

Sweetcheeks then comes over and stands next to me with his head in my lap. He says, "I wuv you, Mommy". I rub his head gently, telling him that I love him too, and I that I need his help- that even though I love taking care of them, it is hard work, and he needs to help by being a good boy and trying not to do things that he knows I will not like.

We all remain that way in companionable silence for just a few moments, when I hear a suspicious sound. Do I really smell pee?? I can't believe it. I wrack my brain for another explanation. It had sounded like a lot. I can't see over the baby to check, so finally I ask Sweetcheeks, "Did you just make pee pee on the floor?"

"Yes", he calmly replies.
AAAAAAAAAAAARGH! <<[That was just my mental reaction, luckily, along with a small internal explosion. I don't now remember what I actually said, but I bottled the explosion in until I could grab the nearest paper and writing instrument- sudoku book and pencil- to record my, er, difficult afternoon.


After reading this little bubble of memory, I actually felt quite grateful for my current tribulations with my boys. We've come a long way in 8 or so months!

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Thumbs up tonight for the free online Sudoku puzzles!