And now, the exciting conclusion...

Wednesday night we went to a picnic with some of our old classmates. About half the people have kids, so we met in a pavilion right by a playground. Ben was having a great time playing while we were catching up with old friends. Then he ran up and said he had to use the bathroom. I was very glad he did, because sometimes when he's running around with other kids he's too excited and just forgets until it's too late. I happily accompanied him to the bathroom, where he pooped and then we went back to the party.

About five minutes later he came back and said he had to poop again. I was a little frustrated, since I've been trying to express to him that he needs to get ALL the pee and poop out when he uses the toilet, so we don't do this back and forth dance for 20 minutes. However, he was listening to his body, so once again we trudged to the bathroom and once again he pooped.

Five minutes after THAT he was back again. This time I was very frustrated and I said I would take him, but I finished up a conversation before we went. By now I should know better, right? I do anything for my own pleasure at my own peril. And finishing up that conversation meant that BEN POOPED IN HIS PANTS.

WTF, internet? Seriously, WTF? My almost-four-year-old who has NEVER ONCE POOPED IN HIS PANTS in the year he's been potty trained POOPED IN HIS PANTS after having already gone twice in the last 15 minutes.

Am I getting too uppity? What's the lesson here? Why am I being tortured with poop?

So only three days after Sam's poop fireworks (see previous post) there I am, kneeling in a park restroom trying to wipe poop off Ben's underwear. Again I considered it for about two seconds before throwing the underwear away. I've NEVER thrown away clothes because of poop and then I did it twice in a matter of days.

Of course the kicker is that Ben, giddy from going commando in public, pulled down his pants to show another little girl that he didn't have any underwear. Awesome.

He better get a 4.0

Sam's definitely an overachiever, for he has topped himself once again in the poop department.

Picture it: Father's Day, 9:00am. We're just sitting down to breakfast at a diner we like and Heath fishes Sam out of his carrier. As he picks Sam up I notice a telling stain dripping down his shorts. STEALTH POOPER STRIKES AGAIN! And even though usually on the weekends I make Heath take care of the poop, it was Father's Day so I threw myself on the grenade.

Wonderfully, the little diner we like so much doesn't have a changing table in the bathroom. *sigh* So I dragged Sam out to the car (holding him at arm's length the whole time) and set up shop in the trunk (thank goodness for SUV's).

The first thing I realized was that there was a lot of poop in his shorts and there was no way I was getting them off without smearing it EVERYWHERE. So I bit the bullet and pulled them off, coating his legs in his own excrement. And of course a 7 month old won't stop kicking his legs just because they're covered in feces, so it was really a lovely sight. I'm sure everyone in the packed parking lot appreciated it.

At this point in the story I want to take a moment to thank my grandmother. She had the foresight to give me a plastic bag dispenser for the car and it REALLY came in handy during this situation. Thanks, Grandma! :)

So, I opened up the diaper and discovered that somehow Sam had managed to poop directly OUT of the diaper. The middle of it wasn't even soiled. He's learned how to defy physics! This does not bode well for me.

I managed to subdue his kicking legs and clean him off. Luckily I'd just put a new package of wipes in the diaper bag, otherwise we'd have lost Russian roulette. I contemplated what to do with the shorts for about two seconds and then I chucked them in the trash. Not worth it.

I think this kid is trying to break my spirit. He's pooping 3-4 times a day and now there's no break. It's just poop all the time. That is what my life is right now. Cleaning up other people's poop (and cat vomit).

And now I think my children are ganging up on me. But that's a story for another day...

(Ooohh, cliff hanger!)

Personality 101

I've talked a lot about Ben being an extrovert and it's because so much of what makes him happy and comfortable is exactly the opposite of what makes me happy and comfortable. I see an empty park and I sigh with relief. He sees an empty park and doesn't even want to play. It puts us at odds a lot, so it's something that's on my mind.

However, I'm guessing that in a lot of ways, parenting an extroverted child is easier. I never have to goad him to play with other kids. He was never uncomfortable going to school. We rarely have to deal with him being shy. I almost feel like I'm being "racist" against my own people saying that, but it's true.

It will be ironic if I get my wish and Sam is an introvert, because though I know how to be an introvert, I'm sure parenting one is a whole different thing. At least I'll understand when he just wants to sit and read on a bench while Ben's running wild at the playground. But now I also understand why my parents forced me to do a year of soccer and a year of softball and a year of dance. None of those activities really stuck, but they forced me out of my head for a little while.

However, the fact is, I'm not ready to make a call on Sam's introverted vs. extroverted personality. He's definitely calmer than I remember Ben being, and sometimes when he's a little fussy or squirmy he just wants to sit by himself. He plays well on his own for a while, but ultimately he wants to be with us most of the time. So who knows. It's going to be interesting to see what he's like as he gets older, and how he and Ben interact and bounce off each other.

It's not a mommy blog if I don't talk about poop once in a while, so fasten your seat belts folks...

My baby has a super power! Sam is... STEALTH POOPER! Able to defecate and disguise the smell until the diaper is opened! Seriously, I'd say 60% of the time I never know Sam's pooped until I start changing his diaper. Have you ever been surprised by poop? It's not fun, in ANY context.

It doesn't help that there's no rhyme or reason to his "schedule." At this age Ben reliably pooped once a day, usually in the morning. Sam won't poop for a week and then it's like the excrement carnival came to town. And it's always at the most inconvenient times. At the playground, in the middle of a movie, on a long walk. Basically any time we're NOT AT HOME. At home we have an almost unlimited number of wet wipes. But, no, Sam wants to play Russian roulette and see if my feeble pack of wipes runs out at the zoo.

The worst was a few weeks ago. We were at a friend's wedding and I took Sam out of his car seat to feed him. I set him on the crisp, white tablecloth and scooted him back a little so he wouldn't tumble off. I'm sure you can see where this is going. I noticed a peculiar stain coming from his butt and sure enough, his diaper had leaked and I'd proceeded to smear it all over the place. So, Heath took Sam to the bathroom while I tried to clean up the mess at the table. I wiped and wiped at it, but it wasn't very effective, so eventually I gave up and just put a plate over it. On a completely unrelated note, I'm suddenly realizing why people might decide not to invite children to their weddings.

UPDATE: That was the worst when I started writing this post yesterday, but Sam has topped himself! The boy is nothing if not ambitious. We went to the pool yesterday afternoon (I can already hear your groans). After swimming I took the boys into the bathroom so Ben could go and I could change Sam into a dry diaper. I neglected to grab the wipes from my bag because Sam had taken a giant poop before we left the house (occasionally he throws me a bone and poops at home), so he couldn't POSSIBLY poop again, right? Horribly, horribly wrong. Do you know what's worse than white-wedding-tablecloth poop? Watered-down-pool poop. So I'm frantically grabbing paper towels, hoping Sam doesn't roll off the changing table and listening to Ben whine at me to pull up his wet swim suit. It must not have been comfortable having his butt wiped with dry paper towels, but Sam just grinned up at me the whole time. I'm sure he was thinking: STEALTH POOPER STRIKES AGAIN!

Sam Laughing

A pat on my back

As a stay-at-home mom it can be very difficult to know when I'm doing a good job. After all, what is my job? It's to raise my children and help them become good people. That's not exactly a goal that gives me weekly progress reports and promising statistics. It's very hard to quantify "turning someone into a decent human being."

Honestly, most days I feel like I'm doing an awful job. I let Ben play the iPad too much. Sam's clothes are always covered in spit up and drool. I'm not consistent enough in my rules and punishments. I never come up with fun games or projects or adventures for us to do. I yell and get annoyed too often. There's no boss to swing by my desk and tell me she likes my work (and I'm getting a raise!). So I take my solace where I can get it, if Ben says "Thank you" without a prompting, or if I make Sam laugh.

But sometimes I get a big thumbs up from the universe. Ben's been taking soccer classes all year and recently graduated up to the class without a parent. We get to watch and I've been utterly delighted. Not by his soccer skills, but because he's one of the best behaved kids in the class. He always listens to the teacher, follows directions and he rarely runs off to do his own thing. It makes me proud to watch him out there. Proud of him for being such a good student and proud of me because I DID THAT.

An experience I didn't think I'd have

Heath's brother Todd is getting married tomorrow, so Wednesday night I decided to get a pedicure with blue nail polish to match my dress. When Ben saw my toes he said, "You have such pretty toes!" Then this morning he asked if he could have his toenails painted. Not one to shut down a reasonable desire, even if it crosses gender lines, I said of course I'd paint his toenails, after school.

So, that's just what we did. Sam was napping and I painted Ben's toenails red. And in true Ben fashion after I was finished he said, "Your toenails are like Thomas [the train] and my toenails are like James." (Blue and red trains, respectively.)

Half a year!

Sam is six months old today and he had his check-up:

Weight: 19 lbs. 11 oz - 90th percentile
Height: 28 in. - 95th percentile
Head circumference: 44 cm - 75th percentile

I thought for sure he'd be over 20 pounds. Though he has super chunky thighs, he still seems like a small boy to us. However, as the pediatrician said, we have a warped idea of what's normal. (At six months Ben was over 23 pounds.) I never imagined my second baby would be so much smaller than my first. It's just a reminder than even though it looks like I gave birth to identical twins three years apart, they are very much their own people.

Sam's doing great. He's starting to unsteadily sit up on his own, which is very exciting. This is my favorite time during the first year, this period from about six to eight months when he's interested in exploring toys, but still not independently mobile. Of course, Sam obviously wants to be wherever his big brother is, so he might explore locomotion sooner. He's not showing signs of it yet, but who knows. We may have a crawler on our hands in a couple months. Oy.

Now at six months Sam is going to enter the exciting world of food with flavor! First up are pureed veggies. I know we all went through this and just can't remember, but how amazing would it be to experience every food for the first time? Sam doesn't even have any idea how amazing his life is about to get. I think that's one of the draws of parenthood. You don't truly get to experience these things for the first time again, but watching your child go through it is almost better. It's all the excitement without all the stress.

I do not think it means what you think it means

Scene: For some reason Ben thinks the Nike swoosh symbol means "power." He went to put on his dark coat.

Ben: This is my black power coat.

I couldn't come up with anything remotely clever pertaining to teeth that I hadn't already used

Sam's first tooth popped through! No photographic evidence yet, as you can barely see it, but it's definitely there. The thing about baby teeth is that they're SHARP. He can't eat Cheerio's yet, but he could slice the flesh right off my finger with no problem.

The thing about teething is that IT SUCKS. Sam hasn't been quite as grumpy as when he was sick, which is good, but he still hasn't been his normal charming self. Charming people don't consistently wake up before 6am. Or, if they do, they don't force you to get up and make them breakfast. They make you breakfast. And bring it to you. At a reasonable hour. My mantra these days is, "It's a phase. It's a phase. It's a phase."