29 January 2010

22 January 2010

Follow-up

Old PackNPlay disposed of, brand-new PackNPlay acquired, and all is well! Aidan is back to being a sweetheart (though, molars have a long way to go yet), and Alan seems to have forgotten the incident (or, has forgiven me for it).

Now my biggest stress is Chad's work, which is messing with his schedule AGAIN, which may force us into one of those choices between what is "right" and what is "easy". But that is a story for another day once I have all the information. In the meantime, I could use some well wishes sent our way.

And finally, because life isn't all bad, I will leave you with a cute Aidan photo from this evening, right before I had to wake him from his nap (at 5:40pm).

Maybe this is why he sometimes spends 2 hours playing in his crib at bedtime before going to sleep? For once he's not clutching his beloved measuring cup :).

13 January 2010

Life with toddlers

Today's comedy of errors was such that I feel compelled to share, so enjoy at our expense!

Aidan was having a no good very bad day today. On Saturday he woke from his nap with a really high fever (103!!!) and two, possibly three molars poking through. Though I'm sure the teething wasn't helping matters, the fact that Alan had the same fever a week ago did not go unnoticed. As with Alan, the fever broke 3 days later and he was fine. Still, those molars can't be comfortable. As such, he woke up this morning on the proverbial wrong side of the crib. The tiniest little things sent him into a tantrum, the likes I have not seen for six months, and OH the drama! OH the whining!

As today is Wednesday, we had (nephew) Alan home as well. Normally having Alan around means Aidan is pretty entertained for most of the day. Today, however, all Alan had to do was look at Aidan to piss him off. Between the two of them, I don't think Chad or I had a moment's rest until finally, around 1:30pm, we gave up and put them to bed. Insert HUGE SIGH OF RELIEF. Poor Chad had to go to work, and I took a nap on the couch with Athena, Gaia, and Aurora. LOVE my warm, purring kitties! I think they were just as relieved that the kids were in bed.

I was hoping that a nice, long nap would facilitate an attitude adjustment for Aidan, but it was not to be. He woke up 2.5 hours later (which, btw, is an awesome nap, of which I am very thankful) just as cranky as he went down. sigh

Perhaps five minutes later I heard Alan whine. Now normally it takes him a few minutes to truly wake up, and if I try to go in too soon he gets overwhelmed, so when I heard him I put the water on to boil for dinner, poured milk into the sippy cups, and fished out a diaper from Alan's bag. At this point, Alan begins screaming. Odd...so I prepare to enter the bedroom. This is MAYBE three minutes from the time I first heard him.

The sight that greeted my eyes is one I shall not soon forget. No picture, unfortunately, but at the time I was simply in shock at the site before me:

Alan, sans pants and diaper, sobbing uncontrollably in the center of the packNplay, clutching Giraffe, Froggie, and Blanket. The diaper and pants lay beside him. Behind him, one ginormous turd, squished and smeared all around. I blinked, sure I was imagining this, but then reality set in and I prepared to clean up a mess the likes of which I had not seen since Jazzy's six 5 week old kittens escaped from their pen and tore apart my house (back in 2006). I picked up the still screaming Alan and was rewarded with a stinky puddle under him. Beautiful!

That's right: the child pooped in his diaper and then proceeded to remove pants and diaper, smear the poop everywhere, and then pee on everything, including his beloved trio of loveys. Judging by the dark smear across his lips, I believe he might have also sampled the turd. I suppose I should be grateful that the mess was contained in the packNplay and not below on my 100% silk rug.

By now, of course, Aidan is screaming too because I'm no longer holding him or giving him my full attention. Alan is screaming because, I guess, being covered in your own urine and feces was not all he had hoped and dreamed. So, two screaming toddlers and one heck of a mess. What fun!

It got worse, of course, when I removed Alan's shirt and put him in the tub to rinse off, sans his pee-soaked trio of loveys which went, along with all the bedding, directly into the washer, thankyouverymuch. Alan screamed for no less than 40 minutes straight before he finally gave up looking for his loveys.

Needless to say, he now believes I am the wicked witch of the east and was pretty darn happy when his Mama came to get him.

On the flip side, Aidan's mood improved tremendously once Alan left, and by bedtime he was (mostly) back to his old self. He even cuddled on the couch for a bit and went to bed without a fuss. I hope these molars hurry up because I want my sweet boy back!

So now I am left with a packNplay pad full of pee, and I have no idea how I am going to sufficiently clean this thing, being that it's the dead of winter and only about 20 degrees (which, btw, is 25 degrees warmer than it was a week ago). What I would really like to do is to take it outside and hose it off. Unfortunately, that's not exactly going to work. So, any tips out there for cleaning out packNplays? I would love to just get a new pad but I've never been able to figure out how to do this.

Heck, I would love to just buy a new one entirely. I am SERIOUSLY grossed out, and anyone who knows me knows just how difficult that is to do!

Ah, life with toddlers.