Stinky, stinky, stinky.

 

“One advantage of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries” A.A. Milne 

When you own your own home and have a large family, it’s good to know certain money saving household repairs.  I for one, know enough plumbing, construction, mudding and such and with my husband’s avid watching of DIY streaming videos we make a pretty good team.  When we don’t know what we’re doing, we call my Dad and he lends a hand or gives advice.  So I’m educated on the fix-it tasks and I’m project orientated, but I should know better than to start projects while the three year old is awake…why don’t I know this…I've been through three other three year olds. 

I’m up on a ladder mudding some cracks in our kitchen ceiling.  I would rather be decorating for Christmas, but I also want my kitchen to look good for our annual Feast of the (fill in any number multiple) Fishes on Christmas Eve.  I’m now the proud owner of a “new to me” kitchen since we’ve been collecting some odds and ends over the last few years to piece together a more modern version of our 1940’s Kitchen.  I’m excited, exhausted and over-zealous about getting the project done so I can move on to putting up some decorations…I’m also feeling the pressure since we have already lit the Second Advent candle.  People there are only four candles…FOUR! 

I keep getting visited by “Mr. Curious” every so many minutes and I redirect him out of the kitchen.  There are drop clothes everywhere and me on a ladder and joint compound…it’s a mess.  My mess maker is getting ever more inquisitive and talking to himself about fixing things and helping.  I keep redirecting him.  “Don’t come in,” I say, “It’s messy.”  “Oh, it’s messy?” he says with a queer look and a twinkle in his eyes.  But he leaves only to come back in two minutes wearing a Tigger costume.  He now won’t leave the doorway of the kitchen even with my pleas.  He just ignores my requests and says things like, “I a tiger…Rawhr”.  I’ll hand it to him, he’s cute, but I plea one more time for him to go and play with his trains, blocks, cars…anything, just don’t come in this room and he says “okay, okay.” 

I get back to mudding and I’m feeling pretty satisfied with my work until I come to a particularly bothersome corner.  It has been ugly for five years and I just want it to look better…it takes some skill, and reworking.  Patience and lots of mud start to produce a nicely finished spot and then it happens.  That “Tigger” came back, he’s getting out of his uniform of stripes in a quick fashion right outside the kitchen door right under my ladder.  I hear him say, “I gotta go poopy,” and with a flash of flesh and buns he runs into our half bath off the kitchen.  I call out, “Okay get in there, you didn’t have an accident did you.”  He says “No…stinky, stinky, stinky.”  I say, “Do you need help?” and he replies, “No, I all done.”  He runs out of the bathroom sing-songing “Stinky, stinky, stinky” and he runs out of the kitchen.  I can hear him singing his ditty in the living room and now I know he’s heading back into the kitchen.  Now it’s a broken record back and forth in the kitchen out of the kitchen always singing “Stinky, stinky, stinky”. 

I’m almost finished, but I also have impending doom.  What if his “trip” to the bathroom wasn’t so smooth, what if he did have an accident?  But I didn’t smell anything so I really didn’t worry.  I start to climb down the ladder and I see it.  The horror.

See, the thing about a three year old is their language skills aren’t refined and sometimes their definitions aren’t what they should be.  “Pee-pee” is sometimes “Poopy” and vice-versa and what I thought was “Stinky” was clearly…”Sticky”.  My lovely three year old had stepped in my compound plops that fell from the ceiling and he sang his foot prints from one side of the house to the other.  Before it could all dry I was on my hands and knees wiping up all of the white prints and trying to remain calm.  I told the three-year-old to stop running around so I could clean off his feet, but he was still singing his song.  The flash of flesh was back in the bathroom trying to clean his feet off in the toilet.   

I’m thankful it wasn’t poop on his feet. Really.  That would have made it so bad. Very bad.  I would have cried bad. This second week of Advent stands for Peace.  Lord, give me Peace…please.