Survival Instincts

I have come to the conclusion that mother's who have a clean car - by which I mean a clean backseat - scare me. Case in point: we've had a rental car for about 3 days now, and Abigail has already destroyed it. Crumbs, dribbles of milk and toys abound. It's hopeless. I've tried - I really have! - to clean the backseat on a regular basis, but somehow seeing you hard work and painstaking vacuuming going to waist mere moments after your toddler gets into her car seat is demoralizing.

So Mom's out there who have an immaculate car: I don't trust you. It just doesn't seem possible. I'm sure you have a logical system for keeping it clean, something really simple like "no food in the car" and "only water in the sippies" and good for you, hope that works out well. Sadly my feisty daughter would not survive without her milk, her cheese crackers and her fruit snacks for each trip. The result being, naturally, enough food on the floor of the car to feed a family of 4 for the better part of a weekend.

All of this naturally leaves only one option: draw a line down the middle of the car - my side and theirs. Mine will be a clean Mommy-only zone: no cheese cracker crumbs, no sippy spills, no fruit snacks embedded into the carpet. And their side? I think I'll leave it alone on the off chance we're ever stranded and need food until the rescue chopper arrives.

A revelation

My husband came home from work the other day to find me - his lovely though frazzled wife - standing in the kitchen attempting to make dinner while also keeping the 2 year old from sitting on the 5 month old, and the dog from eating our cat. In short, it was a normal evening. Loving man that he is, he sees immediately that I am about 4 arms short of being able to handle the situation long term, and offers to help by taking one or both of the kids to the living room so I can cook in peace. I believe he does as much for my sanity as for the fact that a distracted wife tends to serve burned and over salted dinners. But first, he says, I need to go to the bathroom.

And then something miraculous happened: He closed the door.

He was in the bathroom, ostensibly using the facilities, and my 2 year old was on the other side of the door. Just staring. She looked bewildered, as though she had never seen something like this before - a magical entity that shut her off from the joys of interrupting an adult in the restroom. She looked at me, then at the door, and then at me again. "Daddy's going pee-pee" she announced and then ran off.

Why haven't I thought of this before? This amazing invention has been here all this time - and I, foolish Mom, have ignored it's power. So, if you'll excuse me, I think I'll go test out this new contraption right now and see what 3 minutes of privacy feels like.

Pairs Well With

My lovely 2 year old daughter and I have a great system worked out: anytime I wish to vaccum (which with a dog and cat is about every other day) she plays in her room and I clean downstairs. This has worked out marvelously, I get the cleaning done and she gets 15 minutes to play upstairs in the bedrooms. Most days I find her playing dress up in my closet or putting her stuffed animals to sleep in her bed.

However, that was not the case today. I went up to get her after the vaccum had turned off and she hadn't appeared at the top of the stairs to annouce "Mommy's done!" as usual. This was not a good sign. (As any Mom can atest silence never bodes well.) I followed a strange menthol sent to her room and found her half naked, a small pot of Vicks Vapo-rub empty at her feet. I leapt into action wisking my gleeful toddler to the bathroom for a wash off when I realize it's not just smeared on her chest - oh no, she has it down her legs, on her arms and worst of all on her face.

Have you ever tried to quiz a toddler about weither or not she's eaten something? She will invariaible tell you all kinds of intersting and useful things - but not the information you're after and even if she did tell you, you wouldn't believe her anyway because she's 2 will say or agree with the most rediculous things you've ever heard. (Seriously, try it, ask a toddler if they've seen a pink elephant recently - bet you they'll say 'yes.') I had no other choice: I calmly stuck my nose in her mouth trying to figure out if the menthol smell was from her breath or from her thickly covered cheeks. There was no way to tell for sure. Immediately I ran for the medicine to read what to do incase of ingestion. I scanned the bottle as quickly as I could (meaning I had to read it about 3 times before any of the tiny print made any sense) I came to what I was after: Call Poision Control. I could only shake my head and smirk - what did I think it was going to say: Pairs well with wheat crackers and fresh pressed apple cider?

Once I called Posion Control I got a very nice lady on the line (thank you to the peditrician for sending me home with posion control stickers for the phone!) who tells me the irritant in Vick's Vapo-rub is camphor, and wouldn't you know? She suggests I give Abby some crackers and juice to settle any possible stomach upset. Naturally. Now where did I leave those fancy crackers?