HAHA, I Told You!

I think our house may just be a little bit too small. I really like my house, but it's becoming a bit tight. The biggest issue is that we all are sharing one bathroom. It wasn't such a big deal when we first built our home. The "Leader of the FabFive" and "Little Miss" were just little kids at the time. Preschoolers. It was convenient to have us all right next to each other and sharing the same bathroom.

But now they are older and need privacy. And then there's also the fact that there are a lot more kids. The Dada and I are now outnumbered. The drawers are being taken over by kids toothbrushes. "Little Miss" has an entire drawer devoted to her hair stuff. All the adult stuff is being pushed aside to make room.

And of course there's also THIS problem. The problem where I will walk into the bathroom and find this:

You know what the funny thing is?

I called it.

Right here, I said it would happen. I just knew it. But where was I to put it all? There is nowhere in our home that is safe from our little Tornado. CamCam has access to it all. And he has curiosity on his side.

So yes, that's my new liquid eyeliner all over CamCam.

Looks like he had fun, doesn't it?

I wasn't even mad. Or upset. I knew it was only a matter of time. At least it was only one thing. It could have been all the new makeup.

Makeup is deceptively difficult to remove! I tried to wash his hands first, but the stuff wouldn't budge. I thought the Desitin incident from a few days earlier would help with this process, but apparently it had all rubbed off. Finally I put him in the tub and The Dada spent quite a bit of time washing up CamCam with a combination of baby wipes, soap and shampoo. It turned my tub brown. I had to soak it in bleach. CamCam also rubbed it throughout my makeup drawer. I had to throw out hair clips because I couldn't get the makeup off. There was a baby proofing cabinet lock in the drawer that is still tinged brown because I couldn't get it all off.

All of which, obviously, made me wonder.

What on earth am I putting on my face?!?!?!?

This Isn't Right

A Side Effect of Potty Training I Never Saw Coming

Recently my facebook status read something like: "I am equipped with stickers, charts, rewards big to small and am declaring today the End of Pull-Ups Day." A friend of mine commented that this should make for some interesting blog entries. But I pointed out that I was actually referring to "Mr. Trouble", my 4 year old who has been a NIGHTMARE to train, so no blog entries.

She was right, I was wrong.

I thought it would be better for "Mr. Trouble" if the rewards he earned were wrapped. Who doesn't like opening a wrapped gift? So I dumped out all the presents on my bed, brought up the tape and wrapping paper and got to work.

CamCam came in from the bathroom and sat on the floor at the end of my bed. He was so good. He was just sitting there, doing his little toddler chatter. Laughing from time to time. I was smiling, it was so cute to listen to.

But then I thought I smelt something funny. Not a yucky kind of funny, more of a I-know-what-that-smell-is-but-I-can't-put-my-finger-on-it kind. I went over to CamCam, who was back to me, and this is what he looked like:

What is this?

And why is there such a big glob of it right next to his mouth?

Yes, he had been brushing his teeth with Desitin. I don't understand why I heard joyful giggling, I should have heard gagging. Do you have any idea how impossible it is to clean up Desitin?!?! They say it protects skin from moisture, and boy are they not kidding! I could not wash that stuff off CamCam for the life of me! The more I scrubbed him with soap, the further and further the Desitin spread on his body and created a nice greasy coating all up his arms and all over his face. Finally I rubbed some powder Tide in there and that got most of it off. I figured the remaining bit would rub off on my furniture and walls. I never could get it up from my carpet, it just spread. Now we own an off-white carpet with greasy white spots throughout.

And CamCam's skin is very well protected from moisture.

Too Much Temptation

Guess what this is?

This is what guilt looks like. Pure, "I-knew-I-shouldn't-have-done-it-as-I-was-doing-it-but-I-did-it-anyways" guilt.

There isn't much that brings on this face from CamCam. Most of the time, when he's caught doing something he shouldn't, he laughs and laughs. Squeals with delight. Runs around in glee.

But not this time.

This time, even he knew he'd gone too far.

I've had quite the busy week. There have been school events, playdates, lots of errands, extra-late hours at work for me, and a snow day thrown in just to mess with me a little more. In amongst all this, I've been planning a bridal shower for my sister that I'm throwing this weekend. I had a very carefully laid out schedule of what needed to be done when to make sure I have everything ready in time.

Yesterday was the day I baked the cake.

CamCam thought I was making cupcakes. "Yummy! Up-akes!" he said more then once. It certainly did smell like cupcakes. When the cakes came out of the oven, he clapped. "YAY! YAY!! YAY!!! Up-akes!" I told him no, these were not cupcakes, and that they were very, very hot, and he wasn't to touch.

I should have know better. He gave me a look of "yeah, right." I should have known.

In the time it took me to go upstairs, get "The Baby" out of his crib, and change his diaper, CamCam had silently pushed a barstool over to the counter, climbed up, and had a little CamCam Cake Party all by himself.




My carefully laid plans have been thrown out the window.

Tornado Organization

Guess what I hate?

Books.

Yeah I know- books are good for us, we're supposed to read to our kids for 20 minutes a day so they'll develop a love of reading, books make you smarter.....blah blah blah. Picking up hundreds of books multiple times a day is NOT good for me. It doesn't make me smarter, it makes me angrier.

Why am I picking up so many books every day you ask? Do I volunteer in a library you ask? HAHAHA- this is why:

Ah yes, CamCam strikes again. Why does he do this? Can he not resist seeing the neatly lined rows and must instead have chaos?

Maybe it's like when dad looses his keys and so pulls the house apart looking for them. Maybe CamCam is looking for a particular book and cannot find it and so pulls the bookcase apart.

Or, and here's the one I'm betting on, maybe he just likes making messes.

He must just be laughing and laughing inside when he sees me working so hard to put all these back up on the shelves, trying to organize according to hard-cover, soft-cover, size and age-appropriateness. He knows that in less then 10 seconds he can have his big, beautiful, chaotic pile in the middle of the floor once again.

Cautiously Excited

I just bought myself some new makeup. I couldn't wait for it to arrive. However, now that it is here, I am nervous. I really like it, and it's been so long since I've had something other then Target makeup. This is grownup makeup, not the stuff I let my daughter play with.

AKA: Expensive.

So why am I nervous? This is why:

Can't you see the mischievousness in his eyes? Just looking for a moment when my attention is diverted from him so he can get into trouble.

A couple weeks ago, before I ordered my new makeup, I opened my makeup drawer and found this:

I thought for sure it was something yucky on it. You know what it looks like. Further digging though, found this:

And this:

He really got in there, didn't he? I don't even know where he put it all, since it was done on dad's watch. I don't know if dad even knew CamCam did this. I bought him finger paints, hoping he would get his creative self out in a more constructive way, but apparently he prefers alternate mediums.

Despite this, I went ahead and ordered my new makeup. I just hope I do not regret it.

Bad Mommy

CamCam was a very late talker. He actually said his first word at a very early age, and his second soon after, and then that was it for the longest time. Eventually he added a few more words, but he was always way behind where he should be. He never even did the typical baby babble. When he hit 2 years though, he started to talk more. Now he chats all day long, although he still has a lot of catching up to do.

Whenever he hears a word, he'll repeat it. Like the other day, the TV was on and CamCam was playing in the same room as it, but not watching it. However, and this is a REALLY good lesson for us all to remember, even when kids act like they are not paying attention to what's being said around them, they're actually taking in every word. So someone on the TV yells Charlie and then CamCam yells Charley! We laugh, so he says it over and over.

Today I had an oops. A big, bad-mommy oops. Last night I made a turkey for dinner. I put all the bones in a pot for today. Today I filled the pot with water, covered it, and put it on the stove to come to a boil. I kept checking on it, but man, it takes forever when you're waiting for water to boil. So I sat down at the table to eat lunch and started poking around on the Internet.

I totally forgot about that pot of turkey water on the stove.

Until I heard the dreaded "sssssssttttttt" noise of water boiling over. I looked over, and saw water pouring over the pot, and the flame under the pot scarily huge as it feasted on the fat from the turkey water. I jumped a mile and said it.

Yes, THAT one.

Oh sh..... You know the rest, I can't even type it. I was raised that swearing is wrong, and so I'm opposed to swearing. But I said it.

Guess who was sitting right next to me? And guess what he said?

Oh sh..., oh sh..., he says over and over. Most of the time when he talks, it's hard for anyone but his family to understand what he's saying, but not with this. Crystal clear. Perfect enunciation.

Another thing about kids is the more you try to get them to stop something, the more they do it. So every "CamCam, we don't say that word" was met with a "oh sh... ma". And every "CamCam mommy was naughty, she shouldn't have said that" was met with "sh... sh.... sh...." So I shall ignore it for now and hope he forgets.

Although we all know that won't happen.

He'll remember at a very inappropriate time when I'm out in public.