When the No-Kid Zone Becomes the Kid-Zone

Or Mommy is a Silly Fool

I was off work yesterday; Dave was not. I had two goals for the day: 1. Grocery shopping and 2. Get to gymnastics on time. I did shower before bed Sunday night, but I didn't wash my hair so the top of me was in full greasy teenager mode even if the rest of me was at least not smelly. Since I have a monkey for a son whom I'm terrified to leave unattended for more than a few minutes at a time, taking a shower when I am the only adult in the house can be quite tricky. I decided I had to do it because while the people at Publix could probably handle my greasy hair, I wasn't about to walk up into the crowd of Perfect Moms at gymnastics looking nasty.

I opted to lock them in my bedroom and shower as quickly as possible with the bathroom door open. We prepared the area.

Ready for Mommy's Shower

As you can see from this picture, shower time requires a lot of stuff. A bag full of baby things and the baby to use it on, a doctor's kit for doctoring the baby and distracting the little brother, and three blankets for a rolicking game of Goody-Hog. (I have no idea what a Goody-Hog is, but I do know that it is a game they made up and it is not a groundhog. I also don't really understand the game except that they roll around in the floor in blankets and declare each other the Goody-Hog. When asked to play, I do so enthusiastically, but, really I don't get it.) Notice what is missing from the picture? The children.

That's right, we brought all their crap into my toy-free bedroom and they did not even play in there. Why? Because they were busy turning my shower into a Little People Naked Party, complete with the baby doll, Maggie Beth. She's not even made for bathing, but Ella scrubbed her pink anyway. We had to put her in the dryer when she was finished. Luke just ran in and out of the shower, waving his hands around in the air and yelling, "Wheeeee!" Like he does when he slides down the slide.

Little People Naked Party

Because there is no door on our shower, I could not contain him so the bathroom floor was one big puddle. The the hardwood outside the bathroom became a puddle because neither of my children grasp the concept of actually drying themselves with the towels I wrap around them.

Once I finally got everyone dressed and the bathroom and bedroom put back in order, I found this.

Luke dismantling the alphabet puzzle.

That was all well and good. He was occupied for a few minutes while I started a load of laundry until he realized I was doing laundry and needed to help.

Laundry Helper

At this point, every time I pulled one of Dave's shirts from the basket, he yelled, "Daddy!" Then he started throwing clean clothes back into the dirty clothes basket and we had to abort the mission.

We finally made it out of our house and did our shopping - at 2 grocery stores because my feeble mind didn't remember all of the things (that were on my list!) for supper. I got them home and fed them lunch, and put away the groceries and cleaned up the alphabet puzzle and unloaded the dishwasher and rotated the laundry.

Then I found this.

Mopping with Dog Water

They were very graciously mopping the floor with the dog's water. Poor dog. (Side note - EGR still prefers to go pantless most of the time. Luke is very much in the middle of the I-Just-Learned-How-To-Take-My-Clothes-Off Stripper Phase. There is a lot of nakedness in my house at any given moment and I'm not talking about the fun adult kind.)

After I cleaned up the puddle that was "drying" in the floor, I went back to the laundry and found this.

Alphabet Puzzle. Again.

That's the alphabet puzzle, out again, 6 feet down the hall from the original location. This is where I stopped documenting and just embraced the idea that I would just clean up after them and try to keep them from harm. We did make it to gymnastics on time, and I did pack their lunches and make dinner (which they refused to eat so they had Cinnamon Croast Tunch), but then I offered Dave $10 to bathe them while I hid in the basement. They went to sleep early and I sat on the couch.

This morning I got up at 5 and took a shower all by myself and got dressed and ate breakfast. All by myself. Then I got them up and dressed and to Grandmother's house, where I realized that they were ready for a break when Luke peeked up over the back of the couch and blew me a kiss, saying, "Bye-bye. Door!" while pointing for me to leave.

And all I could think was, "Well, played sir. I'll be on my way now."