Pretending

Right now I am pretending I do not have children.

I am sitting at my kitchen table, drinking a peaceful cup of tea and pretending that I do not have children.  I do not see crumbs all over the table and floor from only one meal, nor do I see the row of booster chairs that line the wall.  I can see through the windows that are not so smudged with handprints one would think it is foggy out.  Second thought, I am not looking out my windows.

I am not looking out the windows so I do not see any children who bear unmistakable resemblance to n8 and me.  I do not see a short, brown boy chasing his sister and pulling her hair.  I do not see that white-blonde-headed girl turn around and whack her brother and shove him to the ground.  They are not my children.  Some other parent did a horrible job raising their youngsters.

I am pretending that I do not have children.  I am not checking to see if Navayah is climbing in the swimming pool with all her clothes, socks, and shoes on.  I do not see her climb back out, then lean into the dirt next to the garden and play in it.  I do not see her lay down in the dirt so she can scoop it better.  I am not thinking about how many loads of laundry I have to do because she can go through three sets of clothes in the summer.  I am closing my eyes so I do not see any of these things, and I am pretending that that child is not mine either.

I am pretending that I do not have children.

I am pretending that this was not one of the worst week of inexplicably horrid behavior that we have had in a very long time.  I am pretending that Eli did not need to be spanked before 10 a.m. on Wednesday because, in the space of a half hour, he willfully took toys away from both sisters just to piss them off, then hit one and pushed and pounded the other.  I am pretending that when Hannah had a friend over the other day, she did not spend the entire day mining the deep selfishness and pride of her heart.  I never did hear her deliberately showing off her “better-than-yours” toys to her friend, then delightedly yelling, “NO!” when her friend asks to play with them too.  Over and over and over.

I am pretending that this morning never happened, that Hannah was not really in time-out for hitting her brother twice, lying about it, then refusing to apologize to Eli, me, and God.  Thirty minutes of unbroken will and no breakfast but soap till she yielded.  I am pretending that my day did not start out that way.  I am pretending that I never had children, that n8 and I both work and therefore are very rich.  I am pretending that I get to be the selfish and proud one, not my four-and-a-half-year old.  I am pretending that my husband and I are water-skiing on a very fast boat on a clear, spring-fed Minnesota lake near a cabin, both of which we own and are not sharing.  And I am pretending that I do not have children.

This pretending is not an easy task; reality barges in continuously.  Before I finish this blog, Eli taunts Hannah that he has the stuffed lion and she does not (she was, seconds earlier, contentedly playing with Barbies by herself).  Suddenly Jealously is alive and well again, and I lose another thirty minutes I can never get back addressing the sins of both of their hearts, then their attitudes because instead of listening to me, Eli hurls the stuffed lion at Hannah’s face (“No, Mom!  It wathz jetht an acthident!”) since he was promised Certain Discipline if he continued in his disobedient and selfish ways…  And I have not been able to yell if I wanted to today because my voice has been gone since yesterday! (I have a cold in my throat.)

Before I finish this blog, Hannah, who had won my delight moments before with her tender and joyful spirit, decides to steal chocolate chips from her brother even though she has a FULL container of chocolate chips herself.  She did have more than her brother until this incident.  Now he has them all and she is in bed.

I do not understand them.  We are not coming down from a grandparent-attention high. They have had a good mix of friend-time and alone time.  We have kept to our routine.  I have played many games with them.  I have read to them.  I even let them watch movies one day.  They have not had too much sugar.  They are not be extremely sleep-deprived.  I have not been overly hard on them this week, nor disinterested and unengaged.  There is no reasonable explanation for why they have been consistently horrible this past week.

Now they are all down for their naps and I am praying for them… and having much more success in pretending that I do not have any children.

Shower

2 years 1 month 15 days.

 That is how long it has been since I have been able to take a shower in my own house. (sans leaks) Don’t get me wrong. I have been able to bathe in our wonderfully large Roman tub, but it’s not the same as feeling the water start at your face and end at your feet.

The last week has been a trial for us. We thought we had the shower done so we could be in it, and much to our chagrin, it was leaking around the shower heads. We have spent since then figuring out that the fittings were not sealed enough. Mark was about ready to kill something (or someone). Finally, my father in law came over today and solved the problem.

Praise be to God!

If we had not figured it out, we would have had to tear  out a section of the wall in our living room and then replace some piping. (It would have been that or tear out tile and replace that. Drywall and plaster is a whole lot easier to deal with.)

So I’m going to get my second shower in my own home in the last 2 years tomorrow morning after I take a run. Hopefully, there will be no leaks this time. (Please be praying for this. I would like Uncle Kevin and Aunt Betty to be able to shower when they stay here in a month. And congratulate Mark. He has done an excellent job on it so far. When is everyone coming out to see it? )

Is there a cure?

Disclaimer: This is another bodily-fluids post.

Eli, jubiliantly: “I th-meld my hanthz and they th-meld wike potty.”
Me: “Why, did you pee on your hands?”
Eli: “Nope.  Just in the toy-yet.”
Me: “Did you lick your hands?” (This question because a month ago he happily volunteered the information that pee tastes salty.  I had never even wondered that.  The only way he could possibly have found this out is if he had… “Yep,” he cheerfully nodded.  “I did.”  We had a long talk about hygiene.)
Did you lick your hands?
Eli nodded vigorously, until he saw my face.  Then he began to shake his head.  I sent back into the bathroom to scrub his hands until he had finished singing all four verses of “In Christ Alone”.

To his credit, his hands probably smelled not because he had “sprinkled” on them, but more because, just after he removed his morning pull-up, he sat naked on the recliner, elongating his Unit instead of getting dressed like I had told him to.  He thought it was hilarious; I thought it was disturbing.

I think he had been doing such stretching exercises a few nights ago as well.  As I leaned over to give Eli his final tuck-in check and good-night kiss before we headed to bed, I noticed that he was huddled in a wet half-circle that began at his nose and continued down to the top of his pants.  I wondered if he had thrown up, drooled badly, had severe snot issues, or spilled an entire glass of water.  The crescent of wetness was too high to be potty-leakage.

As I stretched Eli out to change him, I noticed the very tip of his potty stick peeking up above the waistband of his pull-up.  It could only have arrived there manually.  He must have fallen asleep while playing with himself.  The end result was that while he slept, he gently watered his chin and face. His pajama shirt was soaked, the top of his pants were soaked, the inside of his pull-up was as dry as a fresh diaper.

If such things continue to happen, I am going to cut. it. off.