Sometimes there are times in motherhood that you enjoy in the moment, like when your kids are all sleeping like angels or playing happily. Sometimes there are the moments that you realize you will only enjoy years later while telling the story to someone else.
My five year old woke me up yesterday by coming next to the bed and telling me he had to go to the bathroom. I told him to go. I’m not sure why he still asks about that. Does he think I will tell him no? A few minutes later, I extricated myself from my sleeping baby and three year old, and went to check on him, since he’s still a little hit or miss with wiping. I found him lying on the bathroom floor with his pants still down. As I helped him back into his clothes, he told me he puked in his bed, on his floor, and in the hallway. He seemed rather unconcerned about this. I got to go clean all this up, but it wasn’t too bad at least. He seemed a little out of it in the morning, but by afternoon he seemed pretty normal, other than his stomach was still upset. I tried to have him be careful about what he ate. He went to bed on his clean sheets and seemed fine by that point.
This morning, he came in again. He told me he had puked in his bed and on his floor. I went in his room, and discovered he had managed to puke off the edge of his bed, so it went on his sheets, down the rails of his bed, on the bunk bed steps, on his brother’s bottom bunk, in the drawer under the bed, on the clothes in the drawer, and on the carpet under the bed. It was a fun clean up operation. I also discovered the piece of pie crust he had hidden under his bed weeks ago, along with the bugs living in it. Something ended up stuck to my ring. I’m not sure what, and I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know.
I’m not sure if that topped my fun at the lake or not. This was getting to privately enjoy puke. That was more of a public embarrassment. My husband is a fan of small swimsuits, so I was wearing a bikini that didn’t cover a lot anyway when we went out on the boat at my grandma’s lake cottage. My daughter wore a life jacket that went around her chest, and had little floaties for her arms. Her older cousins like them, but on her, it went to her elbow, so she couldn’t move her arms well. She spent most of the boat ride alternating between enjoying watching the water and the boats, and screaming because she was so mad about her baby straightjacket. She finally fell asleep just a few feet from the dock. Since she had not napped well the last few days, I wanted to keep her sleeping without sitting in the boat in the sun, alone, all afternoon. I managed to climb out of the boat while keeping my upper body angled back so she would stay asleep- no easy feat. I realized as I climbed out of the boat that my swimsuit had managed to no longer be covering most of my backside through the wrestling match with the baby, so I got to walk all the way up the dock on display for the neighbors and anyone going by on the lake. My husband thought it was hysterical. Me, not so much. Of course, the baby woke up a short time later.
There are often many moments with children that I wish were more greeting card perfect, and less sitcom episode worthy, but when my siblings and I are together, we rarely sit and discuss the happy times. It is more often the humiliating things that make such great stories years later. I just try to remind myself of the great memories I am creating when things aren’t going my way, and ignore the smell of yesterday’s dinner.
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