July 17, 2007 | Mama Smith

mom's little helper

It was a deceiving morning. Levi slept peacefully. Brighton romped around boy-style in his boots, smashing ants and throwing dirt. I sat on the steps perusing my favorite cookbooks for tasty kale recipes, thanks to a massive bag full of veggies from Lizzie and their community garden.

Here they soak. Bathing in grapefruit seed extract. Waiting to be prepared into some creative fare.

As the day wore on, the only creativity I could muster was to slice a few eggplants to add to our spaghetti sauce. And chop some kale to drizzle with oil and parmesan before ushering it off to the oven to bake for a bit.

For today was one of those days. You mothers know what I mean. Today Brighton somehow managed to…

• Get stuck under his bunk bed a mere two minutes after I’d begun nursing Levi who had just woken up screaming from hunger. Unstick screaming Brighton or feed screming Levi. The fun choices of motherhood.

• Unscrew his sippy cup to create a milky “river” for his trains on the new coffee table.

• Hide a chicken nugget from lunch in his diaper. To be found after he woke up from his nap.

• Convince me to read “The Little Engine that Could” over a dozen times despite the fact that I hate that book. At least we were able to go through “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very, Bad Day” a few times…which is a little more up my alley.

• Wedge one of the connector knobs on one of his train tracks up his nose, running to me sobbing with the track bouncing on his face, unable to dislodge it himself.

• Dump a bucket of water on me and my book, after leaping out of in his pool and shouting “Mama! Watch this!”. I suppose that phrase should justify the water-dumping. Thinking, “Hey, I warned you, Mom. It’s your own fault if you’re too slow getting out of the way of my bucket of water.”

• And the best was his attempt to be mommy’s little helper…and “throw away” his poop in the toilet himself. Ahhh yes. That was the epitomy of the day.

Silence is never a good thing with a toddler. Especially when the silence is coming from the bathroom. I was changing Levi and called Brighton back to the bedroom after a suspicious 10 minutes of silence. He comes running down the hall, “Poop, Mama. Poop in the potty”. Cool, I think. “Sure Brighton, you can go poop in the potty if you want.” He was diaperless because we had just returned from pool play outside and he was next on the changing table after Levi.

What I didn’t notice, as I picked up Levi and followed Brighton to the bathroom, were the poop footprints down the hall and into his room. Then the scene unfolded before me. A poopy toddler potty tipped over. A trail of poop clumps to the toilet. A pile of poop resting on the seat. Handprints on the sink and tub. Footprints on the rug and out the door. And a little bum with half the smelly convict smeared and still hanging on.

Do you scream out of frustration and disgust or praise your beaming toddler for going poop on the potty?!

“I put poop n’ potty, Mama,” beamed Brighton.

“Yes, you did,” I managed to squeak out through clenched teeth and a forced smile.

Our weekend flew by with a successful yard sale on Saturday – the remains above – and a fast-paced Sunday with friends. This weekend is bound to be the same. I swear it feels like we’re booked up from now until we head out of dodge. Guess that’s part of saying goodbye. Everyone gets the strong urge to pretend they love you and want to spend time with you :)

To close, Brighton tidying up our yard this morning in his pjs and boots.