Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Sleeping in a wet bed at 40

What is the threshold for sleeping in a pee spot? I ask because our large and lumpy king size bed is so full of people in diapers most mornings that this comes up a lot. My 3 yr old comes in at night and baby H wakes up and wants me so I bring him in also. How much pee warrants a middle of the night sheet change? For those of you who don't ever sleep with your kids, let me fill you in. Diapers and pull- ups leak, and sometimes they leak a lot!

The other night Husband woke up to find 3 yr olds pull-up had soaked his size of bed. (She usually is on my side, but I had the baby so she ventured to his side) He actually got up and started to change sheets in middle of night! I was incredulous.
I called him an amateur and rolled over. I can't even count the times I've woken up wet, from leaking breasts to leaking diapers to leaking sippy cups. Unless it's vomit (and a lot of it), a towel goes over it and it's dealt with in morning. Then the size of spot must be analyzed carefully. Quarter sized through Apple sized and up to dinner plate size are just aired out and ignored. Actual Vomit (and not baby spit-up which just get a wipe) and a true diaper explosions are really the only time actually sheets are changed in the middle of the night. This includes kids beds (we have 3) as well as ours.

"But this is the size of a basketball!!" he wailed. Get a towel and go to sleep. It's only pee. (and pee filtered through a diaper, which is hardly pee anymore at all)

Husband did as he was told, put the towel over spot and insisted we change sheets in the morning. Of course, I assured him, I'll change them tomorrow. When morning came, that pee spot had sort of dried up and didn't seem like such a big deal anymore. And it's a much bigger deal to change all the bedding. Especially since cleaning ladies were coming in a few days. Once again, I weighed my options.

So when Husband came home from work....he asked "Did you fix the bed?" I replied, Yes, honey it's fine now.

And is was fine. He would never know that the pee had dried and the sheets would be changed in a few days when the cleaning ladies came. Nobody was going to be hurt.

And so, I ask, what is the threshold to change the sheets in the middle of the night or even in the morning for that matter?

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Poop or chocolate; The Mommy Dilemma

The name comes from my experience of finding round brown, softish morsels on my floor . Now it could be play-dough, or it could be a raisen, or it could be a little piece of chocolate that fell out of someone's little mouth in the frenzy to consume it. But by now, I know it's none of these things. It inevitably is some rogue nugget of poop that has escaped from a diaper or kiddie potty. I'm not complaining, I just never thought I'd be dealing with so much excrement!

To give you an idea, I have a 6 year old girl who wants me to wipe her when she has diarrhea because it's 'yucky'. I tell her that's part of being a person, you gotta wipe your own you know what. I know it's yucky and I don't want anything to do with it.

I have a 3 year old girl who is potty training now. So we have little potties all over the house so she can find one easily when she feels the 'poop train coming down the track'. The best poop moment recently was the other day I was loading up the stroller on our front porch and she bent over to pick up a toy. When she stood up there was a log the size of my foot gleaming in the autumn sun. She looks at it and decides it looks like a turtle. And since I was on my way to pick up 6 year old from the school bus I debated with myself whether to leave it there until I got back, (nice package for mailman), toss it into the yard and blame it on some errant dog owner or clean it up. You see, cleaning it up would not have been easy since this thing really was the size of my foot an I'm a size 10. I had to find a bag big enough to pick it up with one swipe otherwise it would have rolled off and splattered on stroller, where are the bags? I can't find one....can't miss the bus or they take your kid to some holding room and call child services on you... It was all I could do to wipe her so she didn't soil the stroller. So, I left it there until I got back. (6 year old really thought it was wild to see poop on the porch. Talked about it all night)

And just to cap off my poop olympics, I have a delicious 6 month old baby boy who just started eating food. He's freaking out becasue he doesn't have these soft wet sweet smelling poops anymore. They are hard, smelly, tough to get out and there is a lot of them. The poor little guy pushes and grunts like he's passing a hummer. Then all I find is a little Milk Dud like gem for all his hard work.

Anyway, that's where the name comes from and I think Poop is funny. I have to because it just keeps coming and coming and coming.