Bad Parenting (And Other Misdemeanors)

Yesterday was a rough day.

Before I spew forth the contents of yesterday's debacles, let me defend myself early on by saying I work from home. This means, among other things- I work, take care of 2 boys, and because I'm OCD, I cannot/will not allow my house to be messy longer than 20 minutes. Imagine the stress this puts me under on a daily basis. This also means that unfortunately, in terms of quality mommy time, there are many times my boys get the short end of the stick. Some of you mom's that are amazing and cook and do crafts with your children and your house looks like crap .. well, good for you.

Evan can tend to be a bit high maintenance. Recently I had to move the toy box.

As you can see from the picture above, we have his toy box downstairs in the living room to encourage Evan to play with his toys where I can see him while I get work done. One day he decided to just climb on in. Then he got stuck and cried because he couldn't get out. Until... he learned that he could step onto his toys piled high, get one foot on the ledge of the toy box, grab the side of the couch and pull himself up. Once on the couch, he decides it's a great idea to terrorize the metal blinds. So, to show him that I can one-up, I moved the toy box. Then he was able to get to the Kleenex box and pull them all out. I thought it was funny. Until I had to clean them all up.

He has also recently learned and fancied the art of picking his nose. In addition, 2 nights ago, he thought it would be fun to stick peas up there. Jason had just put them on his tray and then came back to see him shoving them in one by one. Jason knows he saw him shove 3 up there in rapid succession. Jason was able to get 2 of them out.

Much to my great delight... Evan sneezed the third one out about an hour later.

Yesterday noon, Evan was eating lunch. I did not give him peas. I thought I saw a green thing protruding from his nose so I scampered over to investigate. I was certain it was a pea. I grabbed him out of his high chair and had the brilliant idea to take him up to his changing table and use his infant nose sucker to suck that puppy right out. I'm a genius I tell you! I got him up there and although I couldn't see the pea anymore, I sucked anyway. Nothing came out and Evan didn't like me so I quit. I took the boys to the park and when we got there, Dawson said "Mommy, I think I see a pea in Evan's nose". Wha? I just tried sucking one out and there was nothing. I got back to unstrap Evan from his car seat and I could see green barely protruding from his nose. Apparently he had sucked it back up because I looked again and the green was gone. Do you know what I did? No you don't. I took my mouth and started sucking on Evan's nose. Within 30 seconds the pea made it's long trek down from Evan's brain to the base of his nose. Unfortunately, the pea was too big for me to dig out with my finger. So I found one of Dawson's GI Joe army men laying on the floor of the car. It was holding a very pointy gun. I used the point to insert it's way beside the pea and wouldn't'you know, the pea popped right out. Guess Evan managed to shove 4 peas up his right nostril. 3 just wasn't enough. I asked Dawson if I should save the pea for a memory and he said no. The boys played at the park and then we went home.

I had several work emergencies come up during this time so I was glued to my computer while Dawson watched SpongeBob and Evan was upstairs playing in his bedroom. (His bedroom is baby proof and I can hear his actions in the monitor downstairs).

While I'm frantically working I'm quite certain I can smell something familiar. I ignored it because I didn't have the time to stop what I was doing, I had a deadline. About 10 minutes later, I continued to smell the familiar smell AND I noticed an eerie sound. Evan had been quiet. We all know the repercussions of silence when there is an 18 month old in the house and he's not napping. Now, don't we?

I stopped what I was doing and flew upstairs.

I found this:

I laughed out loud, and grabbed the camera. I realized Evan had been shaking the baby powder over the side of the banister, which is why I could smell it so strongly down below.

I grabbed the baby powder and went into his room where I found this:

If only it was cement. I could have his tiny little footprints engraved in my carpet for life.

I had to run back downstairs to grab a washrag and get him cleaned up. I could hear him jabbering and looked up to find him looking so cute:

I got him all cleaned up and then an overwhelming sense of guilt flooded over me. I'm not intentionally a bad parent. This stuck with me throughout the day and eventually later that night I was cleaning Dawson's room and I sat on the floor and sobbed. I guess the peas and baby powder and work and messy house were a bit too much for me yesterday.

So far today, the house is a wreck, but ...I got to take a shower.