Today is one of those days. At 6 weeks along I am in the throws of the lovely experience called "morning sickness." Really it should be called "Feeling awful all the time sickness." That would be more appropriate! What has made today especially unique is that my other children have realized that if mom is indisposed because she is hugging the porcelain throne again, then they have free reign in the house! What a day its been so far! The goals I set for myself were, I thought, not too lofty. I wanted to get the 4 loads of folded and cleaned laundry that have been taking up my living room put away, and then I really really wanted to vacuum. This means that the older 3 kids have to help clean up their toys first. Realistically I figured I could accomplish these two chores before lunch. Well, its after lunch now. I managed to get the laundry away - but the house still desperately needs to be vacuumed! This is because I have been living out my own version of the book"If You Give a Moose a Muffin," called "If You give a Mom a Muffin."
See, my problem is this: I ate a muffin this morning. A healthy (well kind of) muffin. But Baby Tu-Tu (the nickname my 3 year old gave to the baby) does not want to share his or her space with anything else! (namely food) Apparently the teeny tiny little human doesn't want to be bothered by me eating, even an innocuous muffin, so anything that I have attempted to ingest today, makes a reappearance. This has not been fun. You see, while I make a run for it, I am unable to keep an eye on my other 4 kids. This is not ideal. Every mom knows that at the end of the day, if you have kept your children alive and relatively unscathed, you have been a successful parent. This is most especially true if you have boys. I have 3. So I coined a new prayer today. In my head I sarcastically call it the "Puking Prayer." Its really short, and it goes like this: "Lord, please keep my children alive and safe while I am...." you get the idea.
I decided this prayer was necessary when I emerged from our bathroom to find my 1 year old had scaled his brother's bunkbed and was running back and forth on the top bunk - dumping out a water bottle as he went. Have to change those bed sheets now. Changing the bedsheets made me nauseous again and I ended up back in the bathroom. When I came out I discovered that the 1 year old had emptied the bottom pantry cabinets and dumped out a box of cereal. At least I hadn't vacuumed yet! Cleaning up the pile of crunchy cereal made me once again have to run for it. This time the 1 year old followed me and proceeded to imitate my wretchedness (literally) by pretending to throw up too. Thank goodness he's so darn cute! When the two of us left the bathroom I discovered that the 3 year old really, really wanted chocolate cake. Since mommy was busy revisiting the food I had just eaten, he helped himself. How industrious of him. How very, very messy of him...so messy that, yep you guessed it. The one year old didn't follow me this time, instead he decided to try to eat a marble that his brother gave him. I emerged in time to fish it out of his mouth and scold the 3 year old. (this is where it starts to sound like If You Give a Moose a Muffin by Laura Numeroff)By now I was starving so I attempted to eat some cereal and drink some mint tea. While accomplishing this feat I organized the older 3 kids into a "clothes putting away" team. Yes! Victory! The laundry is away! While finishing my tea my 3 year old decided to get mad at me so he ran into me, spilling the tea, burning my hand and yep, inducing the dreaded nausea! So much for my cereal experiment. Before tossing my cookies, er, cereal, I reminded my kiddos that they couldn't play outside until we had cleaned up and vacuumed. Then I dutifully headed to the bathroom, praying my prayer.
When I came out I noticed a breeze blowing through the house...which could only mean that the kids had exited the house and were playing in the backyard. So much for my reminder. I headed out back in time to see my now naked children plop the now-naked 1 year old into the sandbox! How in the world had they managed to remove all their clothes and the little guy's clothes? I hadn't been THAT long! I have little Houdinis, I decided, silently thanking our neighbors for not being home to see my bare bottomed kids, and went to collect the 1 year old who thought it would be fun to eat the sand he was sitting happily in. As I grabbed his grainy little body I discovered that a sand covered 1 year old boy will make a Mommy queasy. So he and I headed to bathroom where I was ready to deposit him in the bathtub. I fought successfully against the queasiness and discovered that most of the contents of my pantry was now in the bathtub! So before plopping my sandy son in the tub I had to remove all the food and canned goods! Looking at all that food made fighting the queasiness quite difficult, yet I was once again victorious. So I grabbed the sandy child (who was gleefully running all over the house, making vacuuming even more imperative) and landed him in the tub. As I was hosing him off (and he was loving every minute of it) he got so relaxed that he decided to relieve himself - of everything. What would normally have gone into the diaper, went all over the tub (as you may know, it floats). That was all my poor stomach could handle. At least I was already in the bathroom. Cleaning out the bathtub was perhaps a great opportunity for me to knock off some major purgatory time, and the advantage I did have was that by now my stomach was beyond empty.
At last the tub and my son were clean. I dressed him in a cute, little, preppy outfit just to make myself happy, gave him his sippy and tucked him in. Those little snuggles on my shoulder before I put him in his bed made all his messiness float to the back of my brain and fizzle away.
Next it was off to the land of sand to collect my other kids. I ushered them into the house, gave them baths as well, and then made lunch. By now I had a hankering for an omelet with lots of onions in it. Why not?! So we had omelets for lunch, followed by chocolate cake with cream cheese icing. Strangely enough, Baby Tu-Tu doesn't seem to mind that food combination.
Now I have children who are clean and fed. I have a relatively full tummy, that seems content to remain that way. Do I dare attempt the vacuuming.....?
"Mommy, can we read a story?"
The vacuuming can wait.
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