Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Tuesday is gymnastics day. I hate gymnastics day. Not because I don't love watching my girls do crooked cartwheels and swing from the uneven bars, but because it means that I spend an hour corralling at least one of my kids while another one gets to have fun on the gym floor. Now that my big girls are in the same class, that hour is so much better since I only have to keep up with Amelia. She's starting to become a handful, but yesterday she was happy to sit in my lap and stuff herself with yogurt puffs and stare at the little girl sitting next to us who kept saying "Mama...that yittle babe-ee has glassessss..." (her mom, by the way, pretended not to hear her daughter, which just made her say it again and again and louder and louder which totally cracked me up, because how many times have I done that very thing when Arden has said something completely inappropriate to a stranger?). I took the opportunity of a content baby to send a few text messages when the next thing I knew, Amelia had dumped my hot tea all over the floor.

As I was mopping up the floor with the most NON-absorbent paper towels in the history of man, I had a flashback to a day just over a year ago...

Claire was at dance class and I was doing the Arden-rodeo outside the studio, one eye on my twirling four year old and one on my wild two year old. I somehow managed to convince Arden to sit still for a few minutes (I'm pretty sure there were smarties involved) on an ancient wood pew underneath the window to the studio. All of a sudden I was aware of a dripping noise and looked down to see liquid falling through a crack in the pew and onto the concrete floor below.

Weird. Arden doesn't have a drink. Wonder what that is....

Pee! It's pee! OH MY WORD DID YOU JUST WET YOUR PANTS WHAT ON EARTH YOU'VE BEEN POTTY-TRAINED FOR MONTHS AND MONTHS AND YOU JUST PEED ON THE BENCH WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DIDN'T WANT TO QUIT EATING SMARTIES AND GO TO THE POTTY????!!!!????!!!!

After the initial shock wore off and I realized that there was actual urine falling on the ground, I sprang to action and ran to the bathroom for paper towels. Unfortunately, the paper towel dispenser was one of those automatic motion-sensor ones and only spewed out a tiny square of recycled paper at a time. I must have spent fifteen minutes in the bathroom, waving my hands like a mad woman in front of the sensor, before I gathered enough towels to mop up the puddle underneath Arden.

Once I had the floor and bench cleaned, I had to deal with the toddler. Her clothes were soaked and I, of course, had brought no spare clothes with us since she had been potty-trained FOR FIVE MONTHS. Claire's dance class still had forty-five minutes left and I hated to make her leave early just because her little sister didn't want to quit eating Smarties long enough to go to the bathroom. I'll admit that I briefly considered letting her go pantless since her shirt was on the longish side, but it was 20 degrees outside and that seemed like a good way to get a call from DHS. Instead, I walked into the dancewear store located next to the studio. I picked up the smallest pair of dance pants they had and took them to register, never looking at the price tag.

Ya'll.

They were forty dollars. FORTY DOLLARS. And I paid it because 1) my two year old was naked from the waist down and 2) I was too embarrassed to admit I hadn't looked at the price tag. I would like to tell you we've gotten a lot of use out of those forty dollar jazz pants, but, sadly, they haven't been worn since. Forty dollars down the drain because my kid chose Smarties over personal hygiene.

And the moral of the story is: never give your two year old five packages of Smarties and expect her to make sound potty-related decisions. Or maybe it's: always bring a change of clothes for any child under the age of three. But most likely, it's: the hour spent at gymnastics/dance will, without a doubt, be the longest hour of the week.

3 comments:

Sarah said...

Oh that story is just what I needed this morning! I especially loved picturing you waving your arms in front of the motion sensor.

Cortney said...

I am crying! Hilarious!

denise said...

I have a feeling that Arden will have one just like her and you'll get back that $40 in laughter.