both boys have now managed to poop on the kitchen floor, or, who wants to come over for dinner?

I am totally going to give up any attempt at keeping my kitchen floor clean. I can spend 45 minutes sweeping and steam mopping the entire kitchen floor, hallway and entryway only to find that exactly 2 minutes after putting the mop away the floor is dirty again. So every night after dinner I sweep the floor and then I usually turn Bob loose to do his cleaning thing. Bob, named by my big five year old, is our robotic floor cleaner. He works great to keep an already clean floor clean, and at  least sanitized, which is important in my home seeing as my boys spend more time laying about the kitchen floor than practically anywhere else in the house. But Bob is blind. If there are spots of any kind on the floor he just rolls on over them, totally oblivious. I would say that this proves that my floor cleaning robot is a male but I got called out by my sweet husband on a previous post for not pointing out that, while he did, in fact, forget to feed the boys dinner one day last week, he was the one who made them the peanut butter sandwiches I insisted they eat before we put them into bed that night. I don't want to be called out again.

Cleaning my kitchen is a later in the week task, so the floor won't be steam mopped until Thursday or Friday. So keeping it as clean as possible every day is kind of important to me. But I give up. And here's why.

Last night my sweet husband and I were still sitting at the dinner table after the boys had been excused. The tiny toddler tends to leave the table and then wander back a few times, taking bites here and there. Yesterday he had actually eaten pretty well, except for the large amount of meat he chewed and then spit out. This happens so often that I just put a paper towel over his plate and kept talking to my husband. My tiny boy then wandered over to his brother's chair and climbed up. This chair doesn't have a booster seat so he was able to stand up, which he did. He then pointed his tiny bum bum at me, shook it, and yelled "poop!". "Poop" is his new favorite word. I asked him if he needed to go potty. He said "no". We haven't really started potty training him yet but when he walks right up to me, shows me his bum and tells me he is pooping I feel a little guilty, so I asked him.

He continued to mutter words like "poop" and "ewww", so I should have known. Then he dropped his brother's cup of red kool aid on the floor, splattering a few drops. I handed him a paper towel and asked him to get down and wipe up the floor. He climbed down, bent over, and all hell broke loose. Turns out he had, in fact, pooped. And now it was all over my kitchen floor. Panicked moves around the kitchen previously only seen by clowns riding tiny cars ensued. I yelled to my big five year old to run upstairs and get me a diaper.

Me: "Matthew, run upstairs and get me a diaper for your brother- hurry!"
MZW: "Ewww! I don't want to touch a dirty diaper!"
Me: "Why would I ask you to bring down a dirty diaper? Get me a clean diaper, NOW!"

The big five year old then runs up the stairs while I chase the tiny toddler around the kitchen, finally tackling him and holding him down on the ground so he will stop splattering, well, you know. The big five year old returns, throws a handful of wipes at me, and heads back to the living room.

Me: "Hey! These are WIPES. I asked for a DIAPER!"
MZW: "I thought you said wipes." (he makes no move to go back and get me the diaper.)
ME: "This is what I have been talking to you about, you have got to really listen when people talk to you!" (I then realize that maybe now is not the time to drive this point home with my five year old.)

I continue to hold down the tiny toddler while  my big five year old runs back upstairs and tries it again. This time he is successful. I clean up the tiny toddler and put his clothes in a plastic bag to take down to the washing machine. Then I clean up the floor, putting the disgusting diaper and wipes into another plastic bag. I then send my tiny toddler up the stairs to his waiting father, to have a bath. And then I hear: "Why is he wearing a clean diaper?" (implication being that he was just going to take it right off, so why put it on in the first place?)  Dear sweet husband. I know you didn't see the mess all over the kitchen floor but trust me, if I had sent him up those stairs without changing that diaper we would have had to replace the carpeting. Seriously. Why do you think I changed it? IT WAS GROSS.

Now we are two for two. Both boys have, at one time or another, pooped on the kitchen floor. So the real question is - who wants to come over for dinner?

Please tell me this has happened to you.

As you all know, I became a mother of two this year. My big four and a half year old was, well, four and a half years old, so he was starting to get past some of the weird and clingy  sweet and cute baby/toddler behaviors just in time for us to bring home a new baby/toddler. And the cycle started again, only this time it was a little more intense.

Being a mommy means...

you will learn eye/hand signals that rival the military and that allow you to converse, silently, with your husband. Eye contact, head jerk towards the hallway, fingertip to the lips in that universal "don't make a sound" gesture totally tells my husband my plan to sneak away from the children and lock myself in the bathroom. and if I flash my cell phone at him he knows I am not sneaking away to answer nature's call.

you will make three variations of each meal, despite your pre-children mandate that you would never do this. grown up mommys cannot live by chicken nuggets and applesauce alone! if creating child friendly versions of the grown up meals we like means extra work for mommy, it is so worth it. besides, I have yet to find a wine that pairs nicely with chicken nuggets...

never leaving the house on time. at any given moment one of your little monsters  angels will lose their hat, refuse to leave the house without their stuffed monkey, decide to use to the bathroom after the heavy coat is zipped and buttoned, or need a major diaper change.

someone is always hungry.

your view of "clean" changes. Pants that were thrown onto the bottom shelf of the changing table are certainly clean enough to wear again. Socks that were shoved into shoes and are the only pair you can find are clean enough. if the living room floor only has three matchbox cars, two stuffed animals, a handful of fruit gummies and one sippy cup half filled with pear juice you declare it clean enough.

your kitchen cabinets become storage for all those things you need to keep out of little sticky hands. Simply placing your cell phone and sharp scissors on the counter will not keep it away from tiny toddlers with super human strength who are capable of moving heavy kitchen chairs and hurling little bodies up onto counters.

you are never clean. at any given moment you have peanut butter, chocolate, glitter, snot, or something even worse somewhere on your clothes.

you eventually get to the point where you have changed so many poopy diapers that you begin to smell poop when there are no children around. this results in your looking like a maniac as you smell your fingers and try to finger out where the hell the smell is coming from.

you are never without children. even when they are not physically with you you are thinking about them.

you will never eat a snack or drink a drink you prepared for yourself again.

you can sense the fight brewing between your children in the living room and you choose to stay in the kitchen and turn up the radio.

you become a pro at "backwards math". if little johnny needs to be at school by 8:30 then we have to be in the car at 8:05 which means breakfast has to be done by 8:00 so we have to be dressed by 7:40 which means the kids need to be out of bed by 7:25 which means I need to be out of bed by 6:45 although if I don't wash my hair or put in my contacts I can sleep until 7:15. and you still wind up driving them to school in your pajamas.

every so often you realize, usually in the  middle of the crowded grocery store, that you forgot to brush your teeth/put on deodorant/comb your hair.

you are simultaneously thrilled and terrified when your kids sleep past 7:30am.

you need at least a week's notice for any "spontaneous" outing with your spouse or friends in order to secure babysitting and prepare yourself for a night out. (i.e. shave your legs.)

you have driven, alone in the car, for at least 30 minutes before you realize your son's Laurie Berkner Band CD has been playing and you continue to sing along.

you are always at least a little tired. always.

you are amazed at what you can do with a bottle of white glue, yarn and one googly eye.

your lap is never empty.

you can read your kindle/phone/laptop screen through the fingerprints.

you know what love truly is.