Toddlers Run Amuck: A No Good Very Bad Day

**disclaimer**

If you are eating, suffer from morning sickness or suffer from an easy gag reflex, you may wish to read this post later. It's kind of gross and disgusting in a parent-of-toddlers kind of way.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

Okay, so have you ever had one of those days where you have something weighing on your mind and so you throw yourself into being busy so that you'll quit ruminating on it all the live-long day?

Well today was just such a day (and it's only 9:55...the day barely begun!) Lord, have mercy!

My day began at 5:30 am when I hauled my carcass out of bed to get a move on.

I'm SO not a morning person, so this is especially hard for me...well, that and the fact that due to my diet have been avoiding caffiene.

Let's put it this way...it's a good thing I'm the first one up, because I'm not forced to talk to anyone. Which is a good thing, because if others up and needing my attention at that early hour, my name would quickly be changed to GrumpMama.

Needless to say, this morning as I got up and started moving around I noticed that my back was 'out' (or that in the night my muscles relaxed in some contorted way)...which usually means I've overdone it the day before lifting too many heavy things.

Like, say, getting three todders in and out of their carseats while running errands yesterday and then later unloading toddlers and groceries and carrying it all into the house.

Pitiful, I know, but such has been my thorn-in-the-flesh since my c-section with Judah turned my abs into a six pack MINUS the cans.

As in the empty plastic ring thingie with big HOLES in it that is supposed to hold the cans together.

I'm pretty sure that's what the muscles look like inside of me after the doctor ruthlessly slashed through them in his hurry to get Judah out. My body has not been the same since. My abs offer little by way of support, and just don't seem to hold everything in the way they did before.

I know, I know...TMI, but I tell you all that because I simply can't let an opportunity slip past where I can grouse (with good reason) about that botched c-section.

Some folks just don't understand the great cost...the sacrifices we c-section moms had to make (especially emergency c-section situations) to give birth.

Ahem. Sorry for hopping down that little bunny trail. I'll try and refrain and get back to my story.

SoOOooo, I threw myself into sorting and switching over a load of laundry, making salsa for tonight's dinner, firing off a quick e-mail to my mom and getting some food items prepared in advance for tomorrow night's lock-in with 15 teenagers at our church, all the while trying to sort out what the Lord would have me to do with a difficult situation going on in our lives currently...and in so doing, got sidetracked.

I heard the kids giggling, but didn't think too much of it, happy that they'd found something to play at together that was fun for girls and boys. I know that the girls get tired of boy stuff like cars and Thomas the Train and G.I. Joes and Rescue Heroes and stuff...so this was actually a nice change of pace.

At one point, I passed through the living room and saw sofa cushions and stuffed animals all over the floor. "Pick those cushions up and get them back on the couch" I said sternly, and got back to work.

About the time I was finishing up that e-mail to my mom, I felt water droplets being flung on me, and the kids shrieking with glee. I truned around and saw that there were tons of water droplets on my guest room floor, the craft table, my computer desk and the closet doors...a sopping wet potholder in Judah's hand, and cups and sponges in the hands of the little girls I babysit.

At my roar exclamation of "What are you DOING?!!", Judah ran from the room as fast as his little legs could carry him, the girls hot on his heels, Judah slipping and falling on his back and hitting his head on the floor.

Because the living room floor was wet.

Very, very wet.

As in every inch of flooring throughout our entire living area soaking wet.

Oh, but it wasn't just the floor.

As I looked around, I beheld the carnage that three little tots could unleash in a matter of about 5 minutes, and saw water dripping down my taupe walls (creating lighter spots where it was damp), water spots on my curtains, the TV, the couch (devoid of cushions) the cushions on the floor, and sloshing around in the bottom of the tub of Rescue Heroes I'd set out minutes before to keep them occupied while I worked.

The round pot holders I'd given them to play with earlier that morning as a soft indoor frisbee was still dripping water. The sponge and cup, I deduced, had been taken from the bathroom.

As I picked my crying son up off the slippery floor, I glanced over to see the youngest little girl chewing on something.

Having a dangerous penchant for putting things into her mouth (like the bite she took out of Judah's hot pink and orange Nerf football yesterday) I opened her mouth and found a huge wad of soggy white stuff, which looked strangely like toilet paper.

So I went into the bathroom...and beheld further carnage.

A floor covered in water with globs of wet toilet paper stuck in it, an empty cardboard roll (which was new just that morning) on the counter, an open toilet bowl, and the toilet brush removed from it's holder.

And then the realization dawned that the TOILET was where they had gotten all the water they were so gleefully splattering across my house!

Needless to say, I was NOT a happy camper.

Nor was I feelin' the love.

In fact I'm pretty sure there may have been smoke emanating from my nostrils at that point.

During a little take a deep breath-and-count-to-ten exercize, I managed to put all three toddlers down for a very early nap, and spent the next HOUR wiping down walls and floors and furniture and counters...all splattered with toilet water (which I could only hope, judging by the small amount of water I could actually see due to the roll's worth of toilet paper stuffed into the bowl, was CLEAN toilet water).

I had to stand on beach towels and inch-skate my way around the entire floor to get all the water up, all the while bemoaning that my distractedness may well result in needing to re-paint the walls they looked so bad.

Then I tackled the bathroom.

When I finally cleaned everything up to my satisfaction, I could hear that the kids were still awake in their rooms.

And then I remembered noticing a stinky diaper earlier, but in the middle of food preparation had opted to wait to change that tot...and forgot.

So, I walked down the hall to change her, opened the door...and beheld even more carnage.

The first thing my eyes fell upon were her clothes.

On the floor.

She'd stripped off every stitch of clothing...except the diaper, thankfully.

However, the entire bedroom reeked of dirty diaper...and when I got a little closer, I realized why.

Those clothes she'd discarded? Covered in finger prints and smears. And there was, um, stuff in her hair...on her hands and all over the crib.

**gags**

SoOooo, after cleaning her up, rounding up some PJ's for her to wear for her nap, disinfecting the crib, tossing her clothes in the next wash load, and then changing the bedding...I finally got her back into bed for her nap, checked in on the others and told them to get to sleep and promptly came into blog about it.

Just shy of streaming live footage of the incident, this is about as good as it gets. Real-time coverage.

That's life in the trenches for ya...but now, I find the house blessedly quiet and I think I'm going to go take a well-deserved nap.