tomorrow was better...mostly

So many posts on so many mommy-family-type blogs I see out there, including mine, are about happy/funny/cute/proud/craftsy accomplishments/anecdotes/activities/milestones. This post is not one of those posts. This post contains an honest and straight forward confession.

We had a bad day. That happens every once in a while. I like to think that it happens in other people's homes sometimes, too. I hope.

I think it really started on Thursday night when the girls were all tucked in and I came into the living room to rest on the couch a bit before getting ready for bed myself. I saw a book on the shelf that I had forgotten I was reading. That's how often I find the time to read these days. I love reading. I decided to read for a few minutes which turned into a few hours, and sooner than I thought possible into several hours. So I didn't get enough sleep. What was I reading? The Three Musketeers. Is that funny? I'm not sure. It's one of the very few books on my shelf that I hadn't read. Most of the books I haven't read are about submarines sinking or bush pilots in Alaska (aka Brian's books).

So Friday morning came and after I sleepily go into the girls' room and greet my sweet princess daughters, opening the blinds and singing sunshine songs, Cumorah starts the day off by peeing on the bathroom floor. Lately, this has been an increasingly frequent happening. We don't even have a new baby yet. I thought that reverting was supposed to happen when they start a new preschool or a new baby arrives or some other big and possibly traumatic event. For whatever reason though our Cumorah has decided that really it sometimes is too much of a bother to get her potty seat set on the toilet. I know that for a kid her age it really doesn't seem strange that she would have an accident but she's been potty trained for over six months and has rarely had accidents. In the past I have never made a big deal about accidents. I just say, "That happens." (I must say it a lot because now Cumorah comes to me and says, 'I color on the wall', or 'I push Rivers over', or 'I burn the house down'. And then she puts her chubby little hands out, shrugs her shoulders and says, "That happens.") We just clean up and life goes on. But this time I wasn't so happy because I was really tired, accidents are becoming a habit, and when she pees on the bathroom floor it doesn't just stay in a nice easily wiped up puddle. Nope, within a matter of seconds it flows along all the grout lines and fills the entire bathroom floor and even threatens to spill over into the hallway. In other words, it's a really big pain to clean up and I'm a little weary of doing it. So I asked her one of the stupidest questions that a parent ever asks a toddler, "Why did you do that?" She knew I was exasperated. And if she didn't know from my stupid question then she knew from my very short and very dignified fit of foot stomping. Begin crying. There was a lot of crying on Friday. There was a lot of whining on Friday. There was too much wailing of 'I want my daaaaaddyyyyyyy!' on Friday. By the end of the morning I was ready to pack a snack and a water bottle into Cumorah's backpack and send her out the door in search of her beloved daddy. I tried to be a good mother. I really did. I sang to my girls. I fed them yummy lunches. I even fed them vegetables along with their chicken salad sandwiches and fruit, and they ate the vegetables. I did dishes and changed everyone's sheets and even started a load of laundry. I played with the girls. I sent them outside on the deck to enjoy the good weather. We worked on cleaning out the car together. But there was always something to cry about. Like the time when I put the red bib on Rivers when it was really Cumorah who wanted to wear it. She couldn't handle being at the lunch table with us for a few minutes after I told her that I was sorry but it was Rivers' turn for the red bib and tomorrow could be Cumorah's turn. Friday was a highly emotional day. Way too many girls around here, and one of them is pregnant which can make it even worse.

Towards the end of nap time I heard Cumorah start crying. Loudly. I rushed in to see what the matter was. The matter was that her pink potty was not in her room when she woke up (totally my fault) and she had peed on the floor. Again. And I was unknowingly standing in the middle of it, my pants slowing soaking it up. Nice. So I'm taking my pants and shoes off, getting a towel to mop it up and I'm a little frustrated. (Remember this whole accident thing is a fairly new issue.) I asked Cumorah in a frustrated and pleading voice why she hadn't called for me. Second stupid question of the day. She starts crying even more because I was frustrated and then she starts expressing her desire to see her daddy again. Now we have come to the part where I lose it. And I scream (yes, I really mean scream, a not very effective calming technique) at my precious two year old, "Stop crying!" That's when the doorbell rang. Cumorah's room is right next to the front door. Whoever rang the doorbell heard my shameful outburst. To make it worse, I couldn't really answer the door right then as I had just removed my pee-soaked pants and was trying to clean up and calm a two year old (this time I was employing more gentle and effective ways of calming even though I was still frustrated). I think I know who my visitor was, as I was finally able to make it to the window and see a glimpse of a red car just finishing pulling out of the driveway, and I want to apologize to you. I also apologized to my daughter, of course, but you deserve an apology as it is never pleasant to find yourself in the middle of someone else's less-than-perfect behavior. So somehow everything got cleaned up and everybody got clean pants and I found myself crying. I was crying because it really had been a sad day and because I was so upset that I had lost it, again. I was crying and wondering why on earth my Father in Heaven is blessing me with a third baby because I certainly don't deserve any more children because I'm such a horrible mother, etc., etc. (My mother hates it when I say things like that.) So how did the day end? Well, as usually happens in life, we just kept going and we just kept trying. I stopped crying and stopped thinking negative thoughts. We went to Wal Mart to pick up some groceries that we needed and some new big girl shampoo with conditioner for Cumorah (how exciting is that? it smells like strawberries) and a new $1 ball that we had to dig for in the $3 ball bin in an effort to alleviate contentious sibling encounters surrounding Rivers $1 ball from her birthday. Then we came home and had pizza night with Daddy which was very nice. And Cumorah peed on the bathroom floor again, but this time when she wanted Daddy, he was here. Mommy was very glad that Cumorah at last got what she wanted. Then we had baths and kisses and stories and prayers and the girls went to bed. And Cumorah peed on her bed. She was gleeful in relating the story. Quite pleased with her ingenuity. When asked if she had peed in her bed she whispered, "Yeeesssss." in her Daddy's ear, relishing the moment. We were calm about it and just switched the sheets and said goodnight. And we said, "Tomorrow will be better. Tomorrow always is."

Tomorrow was better. Except for the part in the morning when Cumorah pooped in her pants (I was so shocked, she has never done that) and it fell out while I was escorting her to the bathroom and I didn't realize it until Rivers slipped in it on her way to see what was going on. My determination to remain calm rather failed me and I let out an "aaarrrghh!" worthy of any fearsome pirate captain. Brian came to investigate the matter and found me cleaning the floor and Rivers sitting in the bath tub waiting for her feet to be cleaned. But other than that it was a long and busy and good day that found the girls playing quite well together on the back deck while they were being ignored by their parents who were fixing and deep cleaning the minivan. Oh, and we even made and played with kool-aid playdo. See, I'm really not that bad of a mom.


Brian and I decided that our new tactic in dealing with Cumorah's current difficulty is non-emotional clean up with very little conversation. We're getting quite good at it as we've had two accidents this evening. They're not really accidents, they're more like on-purposes. (Brian wants to put her back in diapers, but I don't like that idea just yet.)


And I have decided on my own that my first born and I are most likely going to be the best of friends and the worst of enemies throughout her childhood years. We are both alike in many ways and just enough stubborn, proud and mean spirited to really go at it. Oh well, hopefully we'll be just enough loving, humble and compassionate to really go at it, too.


**My brother says that when you sit down to read my blog you feel like you really need to settle in and get comfortable. You know, put your feet up and get your cup of hot cocoa. He is commenting on the length of my stories, obviously. I'm not always very good at summarizing. But I figure, really, I'm not forcing anyone to read this. It's for me and my posterity and anybody else that cares and/or is interested or maybe just really bored. If you need clif notes, just ask Jared, he has experience in writing them for my ramblings and he's really quite good at it.