And then there was Poo!
Welcome back for the very first time today! Yes, I have been known to listen to the Twelfth Man. Its a challenge to find new and exciting ways to start my blog, finish my blog and put something interesting in between. Lucky I have DW and the kids.
*** WARNING ***
The following contains graphic description that may offend some readers. Please look away or at least cover your eyes and look through a gap in your fingers. I read all my blogs that way, which is also why I type so slowly.
All children go through the stages of toilet training which vary in degrees of horror. For Princess, the most scary time we had was when she used to relax a little too much in the bath. For Little Man, that has not been a problem and currently all indications are that it will not be the same with him. However, he had his own Poo Incident in January.
It was a very hot day, too hot to wear anything but a nappy. Obviously I'm talking about Little Man now, not the rest of us -we were in suits of armour. Little Man was having some trouble getting to sleep that steamy morning. He had been up for a while but was grumpy so we put him back to bed for his morning sleep. He fussed for quite a while and we checked on him a few times but eventually he went quiet.
When he goes quiet, it means one of two things. The first and most desirable is that he has gone to sleep. The second and slightly less desirable is that he has found something to amuse himself. The latter is marked usually by giggling and singing and the rattling of the little bars on his tiny baby jail. However, on this particular day, he was quiet so we assumed he was asleep, and when we found him he was. The only problem was how he had amused himself before he fell asleep.
We use disposable nappies which have little grip tabs. These are very effective and are easy for an adult to apply and remove but far more difficult for little finger to undo. Not impossible though. At some point most kids probably figure out how to undo these tabs and by this stage they are also starting to become aware of the purpose of said nappy. However, the first time those little fingers find their way inside a nappy, either by undoing or just wiggling determinedly, hilarity ensues. Whacky fun for all. Or not.
DW found Little Man in his..."state of self decoration" when she noticed an unpleasant smell outside his room. Now when I say unpleasant, I mean horrific. And when I say noticed, I mean it hit like a hammer to the face. From my vantage point, I saw her go through a doorway and come staggering back, her nose bleeding and offended as she fell to her knees and emptied her stomach. That may be a slight exaggeration.
Anyway, we rushed in to see what terrible thing had befallen our little boy, only to find him sleeping, well, like a baby. Happy as a pig in... He was covered from head to foot. His bed was equally defiled. Apparently there was sufficent left for hurling around the room. He seemed to have concentrated on hitting Princess' bed. It was probably lucky she wasn't in it at the time. Amusingly, none had actually hit the fan we had cooling the room.
So we decided the best course of action was to give him a shower immediately. DW decided she would be the one to get in the shower to clean him and for a moment I thought, cool, I don't have to do it. Unfortunately, that left me with the task of picking the sleeping child up out of his quagmire and carrying him to the shower for DW to deal with. So I gritted my teeth, took a deep breath and re-entered the house.
Because the day was so warm and we had the fan on, one side of Little Man had dried and become like a kind of crispy shell. However, the side he had been lying on and sweating, was now extremely slippery. And he was somewhat surprised to be woken up and flailed about, making things extra difficult. My plan to hold him at arms length didn't work and he had already put his poo covered feet all over my shirt anyway. So I gritted my teeth even more, kept holding my breath, popped him on my hip and carried him to the shower. He was dazed and confused and one of his eyes couldn't open properly.
I delivered him to DW and proceeded to change my own clothes while she scrubbed him in the shower. I had to find a nail brush for him before I confronted the scene of the crime. It took quite some time to clean up, but eventually I found all the debris. At least I thought I had. When the smell still permeated the house several hours later, I had to go hunting again, and found a couple of culprits hiding stealthily beneath the cupboard.
I had all the windows opened, had removed every item of bedding and clothing that had been soiled, cleaned spots on the carpet and had two fans going crazy just to disperse the smell. I even started spraying various deodorisers into the room, along with a can of Brut, but still the smell lingered. For two days. However, we have been lucky and Little man has not repeated his actions. We are not out of the woods yet, not by a long shot, but we remain hopeful that we have experienced the one and only Poo Incident.
Anyway, you asked for it and there it is. The Poo Incident. Let us never speak of it again.
Ciao!
Thought for the Day: Everyone wonders if the little light stays on when you close the fridge, but does anyone wonder if its still cold inside? Just me then.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Good morning all. I'm back. Now don't look at me like that! I know where you live. Obviously that's only true of the people I know. Those I don't know, you can look at me any way you want. I don't care.
Anyway, I know I said I would be posting more often this year and I still fully intend to. I've just come back from leave and I haven't been writing my blog while away. I have a very good reason for that. But now I will do as I said I would and write 100 blogs for the year (98 to go - after this one). Fortunately I did jot down a couple of things to mention while I was away.
This year started off pretty much like the last few. DW and I promised each other that we would do everything we could to try to have a good year, a positive year, a year of self exploration and fulfillment of goals. A year we could look back on and say ""We achieved something good and valuable this year" rather than "Holy crap! How did we get through that year?" As usual we looked at our previous year's goals and New Year resolutions and had a good laugh and decided what to set for ourselves this year. Pretty standard stuff. Having failed quite spectacularly to achieve all but two of my 2006 goals, I decided I needed to set the bar much higher this year. I'll let you know how that goes.
So far, we've had January. I'm lucky there are more than two months in a year or I'd be halfway to failing again. And I'd be a little over 385 years old. So, I now look to February to counter balance January and move forward from there.
On the family front, DW has resumed her quest for two world titles this year. WHTMF (Who Has The Most Fabric) and the more prestigious WHTMPOTGAAGM (Who Has The Most Projects On The Go At Any Given Moment). I don't think she is winning yet but I know she is trying her very best.
Princess starts kinder this week and we are all VERY happy about it. She is getting a little stir crazy at home and if there were a prize for that, Princess would not only win it, she would probably have the trophy named after her for all future generations. She has reached the stage of mental development where she tries to express every single thought in her head and is constantly thinking up ways of causing trouble and being able to talk her way out of it. Kind of like a short, blonde Houdini if Houdini were a verbal escape artist. And also not very good at it. You see, Princess believes the crap she spews out while trying to explain why Little Man is lying face down on the ground with her footprint on his back. She is committed to whatever story she dreams up and seems to believe that the more far-fetched (and therefore more unprovable) an explanation is, the more likely we are to accept it. So we are all looking forward to her going back to kinder.
Little Man is moving forward in his own way. No longer the quiet little boy of days gone by, he has decided that Princess' shadow is not for him. He knows he can hurt her and will stand his ground, though he seems to forget that she can also hurt him and usually does. That said, they have started to enjoy playing together, at least for a little while, and it warms the heart to see it. Unfortunately the game they like playing most together is who can squeal the loudest and a warm heart does nothing to protect your ears.
Anyway, there's a lot more to tell and 11 months to tell it so I will leave the rest until next time. Who knows, maybe I'll even be ready to talk about the event that has become known in our house as "The Poo Incident".
Ciao!
Thought for the Day: Always leave them wanting more.
Anyway, I know I said I would be posting more often this year and I still fully intend to. I've just come back from leave and I haven't been writing my blog while away. I have a very good reason for that. But now I will do as I said I would and write 100 blogs for the year (98 to go - after this one). Fortunately I did jot down a couple of things to mention while I was away.
This year started off pretty much like the last few. DW and I promised each other that we would do everything we could to try to have a good year, a positive year, a year of self exploration and fulfillment of goals. A year we could look back on and say ""We achieved something good and valuable this year" rather than "Holy crap! How did we get through that year?" As usual we looked at our previous year's goals and New Year resolutions and had a good laugh and decided what to set for ourselves this year. Pretty standard stuff. Having failed quite spectacularly to achieve all but two of my 2006 goals, I decided I needed to set the bar much higher this year. I'll let you know how that goes.
So far, we've had January. I'm lucky there are more than two months in a year or I'd be halfway to failing again. And I'd be a little over 385 years old. So, I now look to February to counter balance January and move forward from there.
On the family front, DW has resumed her quest for two world titles this year. WHTMF (Who Has The Most Fabric) and the more prestigious WHTMPOTGAAGM (Who Has The Most Projects On The Go At Any Given Moment). I don't think she is winning yet but I know she is trying her very best.
Princess starts kinder this week and we are all VERY happy about it. She is getting a little stir crazy at home and if there were a prize for that, Princess would not only win it, she would probably have the trophy named after her for all future generations. She has reached the stage of mental development where she tries to express every single thought in her head and is constantly thinking up ways of causing trouble and being able to talk her way out of it. Kind of like a short, blonde Houdini if Houdini were a verbal escape artist. And also not very good at it. You see, Princess believes the crap she spews out while trying to explain why Little Man is lying face down on the ground with her footprint on his back. She is committed to whatever story she dreams up and seems to believe that the more far-fetched (and therefore more unprovable) an explanation is, the more likely we are to accept it. So we are all looking forward to her going back to kinder.
Little Man is moving forward in his own way. No longer the quiet little boy of days gone by, he has decided that Princess' shadow is not for him. He knows he can hurt her and will stand his ground, though he seems to forget that she can also hurt him and usually does. That said, they have started to enjoy playing together, at least for a little while, and it warms the heart to see it. Unfortunately the game they like playing most together is who can squeal the loudest and a warm heart does nothing to protect your ears.
Anyway, there's a lot more to tell and 11 months to tell it so I will leave the rest until next time. Who knows, maybe I'll even be ready to talk about the event that has become known in our house as "The Poo Incident".
Ciao!
Thought for the Day: Always leave them wanting more.
Monday, January 08, 2007
Happy New Year! What?!? It started a week ago? My brain hasn't quite fully registered that we have started a whole new year. This year I turn 35. I will have been working for my employer for 11 years and Princess and Little Man turn 5 and 2 respectively. And still I refuse to grow up. It seems that I probably should but I have decided to wait until I am 40. Some say life begins at 40. I think I will start to feel like a grown-up at 40. I'm also postponing my mid-life crisis until I'm 65, so that when I decide to radically change my life and buy a flying porsche (which I'm sure they will be making by then), I can use my retirement money. And yes, DW would probably have something to say about that, but I suspect she will drowning in fabric and quilts and craft supplies by that stage, and may even welcome a flying car, if only to get to the perimeter of our ever-expanding stockpile. Her mantra is "She who dies with the most fabric, wins!"
So what does this year hold in store? As I have no idea, I do what most other people do: I plan a bunch of things that I will probably review with disappointment at the end of the year. Some people call them New Years Resolutions. Others call it turning over a new leaf. I call it "bunch of things", (which incidentally is why DW names my short films).
Ok, so where to start. Last year I wanted to post 100 blogs but then dropped the target to 80 when I realised I was going to be well short. I then missed that target as well. But this year, I am going to try to actually hit the big 100. Also, I am planning to watch 100 films this year, so if nothing else, I will be able to write about each film. I should mention that of the 100 films, at least 50 must be films I have not seen before. Last year, DW and I watched around 60 new films, so we thought we'd up the ante this year.
I'm also planning to finish my first novel that I have been plodding away at for the last few years. I hope that doesn't come as a surprise, that a hapless blogger might also be a frustrated novelist. It probably should go without saying. Anyway, I have taken January off work so that I can make some serious headway and it is going slowly. DW has been very supportive, as she has been all along, but I am still having trouble gaining momentum. Writing at home can be difficult as the kids are like time-vacuums. And even if I'm not looking after them directly, they know I'm about and when DW can't respond to them because of housework, they come looking for me. Also, they an affect your storytelling. I have to go back over my writing and remove references like "yucky" and "big girl pants" and I'm pretty sure evil overlords don't get sent to "the naughty spot". Still, I have made some progress and I am mostly enjoying the Writerly life, but I'd need to write far more if it would ever have a chance of being a reality. I guess I'd better keep my day job.
Ok, before I stop today, I'd better tell you what movie I opened my "bunch of things" challenge with. Mike Myers' "So I Married and Axe Murderer". I have seen this movie before but DW and I both love it, even more than the Austin Powers films and I bought it for her for Christmas. Anyway, its a very clever little film and though Mike Myers himself can be a little annoying after a while, his portayal of his own Scottish father is fantastic. "HEAD! PANTS! NOW!" So if you haven't seen it, make sure you do. If only to sing along to the Bay City Rollers.
Ciao!
Thought for the day: Where HAVE all the flowers gone?
So what does this year hold in store? As I have no idea, I do what most other people do: I plan a bunch of things that I will probably review with disappointment at the end of the year. Some people call them New Years Resolutions. Others call it turning over a new leaf. I call it "bunch of things", (which incidentally is why DW names my short films).
Ok, so where to start. Last year I wanted to post 100 blogs but then dropped the target to 80 when I realised I was going to be well short. I then missed that target as well. But this year, I am going to try to actually hit the big 100. Also, I am planning to watch 100 films this year, so if nothing else, I will be able to write about each film. I should mention that of the 100 films, at least 50 must be films I have not seen before. Last year, DW and I watched around 60 new films, so we thought we'd up the ante this year.
I'm also planning to finish my first novel that I have been plodding away at for the last few years. I hope that doesn't come as a surprise, that a hapless blogger might also be a frustrated novelist. It probably should go without saying. Anyway, I have taken January off work so that I can make some serious headway and it is going slowly. DW has been very supportive, as she has been all along, but I am still having trouble gaining momentum. Writing at home can be difficult as the kids are like time-vacuums. And even if I'm not looking after them directly, they know I'm about and when DW can't respond to them because of housework, they come looking for me. Also, they an affect your storytelling. I have to go back over my writing and remove references like "yucky" and "big girl pants" and I'm pretty sure evil overlords don't get sent to "the naughty spot". Still, I have made some progress and I am mostly enjoying the Writerly life, but I'd need to write far more if it would ever have a chance of being a reality. I guess I'd better keep my day job.
Ok, before I stop today, I'd better tell you what movie I opened my "bunch of things" challenge with. Mike Myers' "So I Married and Axe Murderer". I have seen this movie before but DW and I both love it, even more than the Austin Powers films and I bought it for her for Christmas. Anyway, its a very clever little film and though Mike Myers himself can be a little annoying after a while, his portayal of his own Scottish father is fantastic. "HEAD! PANTS! NOW!" So if you haven't seen it, make sure you do. If only to sing along to the Bay City Rollers.
Ciao!
Thought for the day: Where HAVE all the flowers gone?
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