Editorial & Blog Samples

Never Mix, Never Worry.

I have been a barely present presence on the Interweb this past week and a half. Turns out being one with the living has its perks too, but I think I’m done now. My half broken computer calls me hence.

What have I been up to?

I feel bad that the focus of this blog has shifted from complaining about my family to concentrate on vegan and sustainable living, so I’m starting a new project for the productive junk which will really allow me to get back to the heart of the matter on this space: how terrible everyone I am related to is.

Case in point:

I guess it is Christmas soon or something because apparently the 7 year old is in dire need of a red scarf and top hat by next Tuesday’s Holiday Concert Extravaganza (which is at 1:45 in the afternoon because most parents are unemployed and need something to get them out of the house midday, right? Also, does anyone else find it somewhat unreasonable to ask every family of a male child to produce a felt top-hat in the year 2009? Where the freak does one find a top hat? I went downtown, but there was no one who even vaguely resembled the Monopoly guy to ask. Perhaps I’ll hit the business district this afternoon. There’s got to be a tycoon somewhere who’s willing to share).

So we stop at the playground in the midst of our shoppery to let the 2 year old run off some steam and I notice he has to pee. So I ask him, “Hey buddy, do you have to pee?” but he assures me, in no uncertain terms, that he does not need to pee and I am a huge asshole for even implying such a preposterous suggestion. I spend the next 10 minutes watching him tug mercilessly at his crotch and run in increasingly tiny circles until he is kind of hop spinning in place and giving me the finger every time I gently remind him it is time to visit the potty. I finally convince him to push his own stroller to Starbucks for an apple juice, because what the kid clearly needs at this point is more liquid.

As soon as the juice hits the little bugger’s lips, it’s go time. Now he has to pee and I better produce a potty quick and how could I possibly leave it to the last minute, have I no compassion? So I leave the 7 year old to ensure my soy chai latte is indeed “easy foam” and venture into the handicap bathroom because I truly believe that balancing a squirmy, 30 pound, 2-year-old boy over a filthy public toilet whilst balancing a squirmy 10-month-old girl in a sling across your belly -- all the while trying not to get completely soaked in urine -- is a HUGE handicap.

Things would have been fine if it was summer and the two-year-old was sporting his requisite uniform of elastic waist shorts and dirty tank top. But, no, it’s winter, so he’s wearing like 16 t-shirts and his jeans with the fastener that looks like a regular button, but is actually this weird hook thing, but looks so much like a regular button that I fight with it at every bathroom visit because I have the memory of a goldfish these days. And his brand new winter coat: his puffy, fluffy winter coat with the cowboy pockets and super handy detachable hood.

Needless to say it is hard to get a grip on his pants anyway because at this point he has to pee so bad that being still is no longer an option. I am squatting above the suspect floor, wrestling wads of toilet paper out of the baby girl’s mouth while trying to tug the boy’s pants down without undoing them, all the while wondering if my friendly and eager-to-please 7-year-old is being recruited into some sort of Starbucks-based prostitution ring (and this was before Pizzagate!), but it is all for naught anyway because as soon as his little trouser snake sees the light of day, it is all over.

I hop back on my heels to protect the baby from the backsplash while still holding on to the boy’s hands, leaning him forward like my husband taught me (cuz I don’t have a the plumbing that requires you to know these tricks) in an attempt to save his pants and shoes as much as possible.

But it just keeps coming and coming and I have to let go of his hands and take another step back or risk drowning my daughter and I in his steamy wake. “I have ax-nit on floor,” he whimpers, still unleashing a vicious stream at maximum velocity. There is so much pee that I don’t have time to marvel at how cute it is that he says “ax-nit” instead of “accident” and aren’t 2-year-olds just darling? It is time to build a dam or risk seepage into Starbucks proper and that will never do. I begin throwing handfuls of paper towel at the puddle and, conscientious little planet saver that he is, the 2-year-old immediately bends down, still peeing, mind you, and picks up a soggy mass and offers it to me. “Here Mommy. You drop.”

I swallow a scream, because the last thing I need is a helpful barista in the mix. “No, no touch! Yuck!” I hiss, sounding more evil than I intended, which scares him and he begins lurching towards me with a quivering lip, pants around his ankles, arms out in search of a comforting hug. He’s finally emptied out, so I coax him out of the puddle, try to keep his piss soaked mitts off his sister and begin the daunting task of pulling up the jeans from hell.

But it’s wicked slippery on that there floor.

I feel I need to make a slight digression here. I HATE PUBLIC WASHROOMS. Before having children, I would avoid them at all costs, holding my water for inordinate periods of time, becoming Queen of the Hover. I have nightmares about public washrooms, in which I have to pee so, so, so bad, but every stall door I open reveals a scene more horrifying than the last: pubies, poopies, icky-lady business as far as the eye can see. So you can understand why what happened next will haunt me until my dying day.

I am yanking up the boy’s jeans with my arms out as far as they’ll extend because I don’t want to germify the girl, but the pants still aren’t undone so it’s a tight squeeze and I don’t have a fantastic grip and his shoes are slippery with his own waste and the next thing I know the boy goes pitching forward and belly flops smack dab in the middle of the yellow pool of his own creation.

I freeze but for a second before the adrenaline kicks in and I have him by the back of his coat, like a hideous parody of a lifeguard frantically pulling my kin to safety. But his shoes keep slipping and I lose my hold—he’s falling again! With lightening fast reflexes I grasp his hood and then the unthinkable happens: one by one I hear the snaps that hold the stupid thing in place releasing and then he is gone, falling to his doom, doing a potty paddle on the bathroom floor and all I have left of my beautiful son is his eerily hollow, unoccupied hood.

Sufficed to say, we did make it out of that bathroom, sans coat, sans dignity. The 7-year-old was still there and if he joined some sort of cult in our absence, he’s not telling. Ironically, the first thing the 2-year-old did upon emerging from the devastated bathroom was drop his apple juice all over the Starbucks floor. As the friendly barista promptly mopped up the innocuous yellow puddle while ordering my boy another drink, on the house, of course, she assured me that she mops up similar puddles at least 2-3 times a day. And, as I guided my harried clan out of her establishment, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of calm, knowing I ensured her yellow puddle quota would most definitely be met that day.