Poopy Finger Painting

This morning I was very tired when I woke up. I had a hard time getting to sleep last night. I chose to entertain my insomnia until 3am watching Dane Cook’s stand up performance named The Vicious Circle, or something to that effect. I took a Xanax about 2am hoping that would do the trick, so I must have fallen asleep somewhere between 3 and 330. I woke up to “Mama mama mama icky. Ucky. Pee pee. Poo poo. Mama”. I somehow peeled myself out of bed, stumbled down the hall, where the smell off poop got stronger with each step. I immediately knew what I was in for, from previous experience. Sure enough, I opened my daughter’s door, and was slammed in the face with the awful smell of toddler poop. The poopy fingerpainting had kept her busy while I was asleep. It was so gross I couldn’t tell if Lily had stripped down before she pooped, or had pooped in her diaper and was annoyed by it, therefore ripping it off after. She was totally naked; clothes, a poopy smeared diaper, a poor dirty Elmo, blankets, and a book smudged up the whazoo with poop. There was doody everywhere! All over her crib, the sheets, everything in the crib, her hands, and then I laughed. She had given herself a dirty sanchez. For the sake of decency, I wont describe, but if you go to www.Urbandictionary.com, you will find the definition. All I could do was wrap her in a towel so I didn’t have to come in full contact of her, and plop her into the bathtub. After she was clean, I had to somehow remove the lovely artwork she had painstakingly created for me. I stripped the bed, and threw all the clothes, animals and sheets into the washer. I scrubbed the book and every square inch of her crib with Clorox wipes, using up most of the giant sized container of wipes. I had the fan on, her window open, and it took forever to air out. I made my husband keep her busy while I was sanitizing everything. He had the nerve to yell through the door and see if I was done yet. Oh, yeah honey, I am, I just wanted to sit and bask in the lovely aroma, you jerk off. This is not the first nasty excrement cleaning task I have had to endure. But it is the worst. Poop is pretty gross. Lots of bacteria, and can make you pretty sick if you aren’t diligent at washing your hands and sanitizing wherever it has been smeared. To make matters worse, you gotta scrub at it, because if it starts to dry up, it really sticks! Too much information? Just trying to keep you healthy, and help you out. Sorry. If anyone in your family has a gastroenteritis (fancy pants name for a stomach virus that makes you vomit, poop, or both) watch out. It is not only very contagious, but you need soap and water to kill the virus on your hands. Alcohol hand gels wont cut it. WASH your hands, for a minimum of 15 seconds. Clean your bathrooms like you have to eat off the surfaces in there. I love Clorox, Lysol or Mr Clean wipes for sinks, vanities and toilets. Lysol toilet bowl cleaner is great, it smells like wintergreen mints. I also use The Method (A Target product I think, because I can’t find it anywhere but there) on showers and tubs. At the end, wipe or mop your floors with Lysol floor cleaner, or just use a solution of one gallon hot water to a quarter cup of bleach. Don’t forget to wash your rugs, wipe the door handles down or spray with Lysol, and scrub the sink handles and toilet flushing handle. A lot of work, but better than barfing your guts out if you don’t kill all the germs. I am a total germaphobe and insist on wiping down or lysoling all the frequently touched surfaces. Door handles, refrigerator handles, the pulls on cupboards, light switches, phones, you name it. I am a nurse and a human being. I know how dirty people are and I appreciate a nice, sterile house!

My Honey Is Handi

And by this I mean Handyman, handicapped, a rollercreep, wheelchair bound, however you want to say it. Questions, you ask. Well, ask away. Where do you start? What can he feel? What can he move? Can he pee? Do we, you know, do it?

Pretty much everything is a pain in the ass for him us to do. Anywhere we go there are a thousand challenges. Decorating is a nightmare. Finding furniture is difficult. Buying a house? That was tough.

Our current challenge is trying to buy a new bed. We have been sleeping in a queen size bed since before we were married, and we wake up during the night yanking at covers, telling one another to move the hell over, and getting generally pissed off at the sleeping arrangements. Here is the deal: I am a shrimp with a bed hogging problem. He is 6′5″ so his feet hang off the bed. That means, we can’t have a bed with a footboard that is at or above the height of the mattress. He can’t feel his feet really, so they could be banging up against the footboard, at a weird angle, or not even fit on the bed if we don’t get just the right bed. He gets spasms sometimes too, which could really injure him if his foot was flopping and thumping against a wood rail. We know what bed we want, but we can’t seem to find it. It also can’t be very high, or he will have a hell of a time getting in and out of the bed from a wheelchair. A platform bed, you ask? Nope. Then when he goes to park his chair next to the bed to transfer over, there is that huge gap between the side of the bedframe and the actual mattress. There is an awesome canopy bed we like at Pottery Barn, but I think$1800 is a lot to spend on a bed frame, plus we still need to buy a mattress set. No, we don’t want a California King. We need that four extra inches of width that a regular king sized bed has.

I took an entire weekend and went bed shopping. Since it takes SO long to get my husband, his wheelchair, and my wiggly 20 month old daughter in and out of the car, it was smarter to leave everyone at home and go by myself. After trying to dodge the salespeople that seem to pop up out of thin air and grin at you, I began to enlist them all to help me. However, they don’t really understand what I was looking for. Everything they tried to show me either sucked due to its cheapness, ugliness, crazyass price, or was the exact opposite of the requirements that I had told them I was needing. What does a girl have to do to find a bed under 2G’s that my husband can sleep in?

Eat Something, Dammit!

My 20 month old daughter is going through her hunger strike/power trip phase. She has run for most of the day on a dozen pieces of frosted mini wheats with a splash of milk. And I mean RUN all day. She theoretically should be ravenous, since she is the wiggliest, most wiry little girl I know. I give her all kinds of activities that might make her hungry. We run around the yard, jump off tree stumps, dance to Elmo music, fingerpaint, you name it. When I ask her if she wants anything to eat, I get “No.” Scrambled egg? “No.” Banana? “No.” Cereal? “No.” Ravioli? Nope.I have tried everything from PB & J to stirfry. Maybe about 5% of the time she will eat what I give her. Sometimes I can’t even get her to try what I have made. This stresses me out! I know, it’s a phase, but that really does nothing to make me feel any better. I look at her spindly little legs and teeny arms and offer ten more snacks to her. Which, of course, are all happily answered with “No!”Today, before Lily’s nap, I asked if she wanted a yogurt. They are these yummy Breyer’s YoCrunch yogurts, vanilla flavored with a separate container attached to the top full of crushed Oreos. She says “Yah”, so I get excited at the prospect of her actually eating, and pull a yogurt out of the fridge. After I open it, dump the cookies in the yogurt and stir it up, “No!” defeated again. Tricky little….Thank goodness for Pediasure. I am happy for any sip I can get down her. It’s like a vitamin and protein fortified milkshake. The smell leaves something to be desired, but she doesn’t mind.I also beef up her meals whenever I can. Adding nutritious forms of calories are important, I don’t substitute fatty, non-nutritive things such as butter, oils or sugars. I use whole milk and an extra sprinkle of mozzarella or cheddar to macaroni and cheese. Throw in a few Tablespoons of frozen mixed veggies and TADA!

Meatloaf is one of the best veggie disguises, and it packs a lot of protein too. Use lean ground beef or ground sirloin. A bit pricier, but definitely worth the extra buck. Add a half cup of Quaker Oatmeal that’s been soaked in the same amount of milk, for more fiber (that’s a whole other post in itself…) and iron. Gather some veggies and shred them on a cheese grater or a mini cuisinart and you have a well balanced meal. I like broccoli, celery, carrots, and onion. Variations I’ve done include ground turkey or chicken, and additions of BBQ sauce, cheese, mushrooms, crumbled Cheez-Its, or whatever you think will get your kids to eat. Or to at least take a bite.

Pizza is another wonderful way to get some nutrition in your child. Even on her pickiest day, my daughter will eat pizza. I get a step stool and she “helps” me make it, from start to finish. Boboli pizza or the equivalent is the quickest and easiest, screw the kind where you have to prebake any crusts. I put on the sauce, Lily sprinkles on the cheese. I cut the tomato slices, she sets them on top. And usually swipes a handful of cheesy sauce, leaving her signature on every pizza we make. Shredded squash and zucchini are great on top, with some chopped fresh basil and onion. Hint- put foil on every baking sheet before you use it. I hate washing black burned stuff off them and doing dishes is not in my top ten favorite activities.

So your kids don’t choke, cut hotdogs lengthwise in half, and then in half again, to make them really skinny. Then wrap them in a refrigerated cresent roll. Sometimes you can find turkey dogs or chicken franks. They work, but I love the pork and beef hotdogs with the casing. Add cheese before you wrap it up and bake them according to package directions.

Mexican lasagna is a fun twist too. Burrito shells are substituted for pasta, and layers include taco seasoned cooked ground meat, black beans with cheddar cheese, whole grain rice precooked in chicken broth, and a salsa/ranch sauce. After you bake it, top the casserole with chopped tomatoes, avocado, and light sour cream.

Always serve a veggie with every meal, and a fruit at breakfast. Even if your kids wont eat them, at least they get used to seeing them, and learn that other people eat and like them, so they must not be too bad. Don’t stress out if they are still on the plate at the end of them meal. Your kids will only think its a cool new way to get rise out of you. Don’t offer alternatives, or your child will learn that it is a made-to-order restaurant. You can say, “Hey, do you want corn or peas”, but leave it to that.

Fun placemats help. We, of course, have an Elmo/Sesame Street one on our table. We play the game “How many bites can you eat” where I speak like the count on Sesame Street. One, one bite, ahhh ahhh ahhh. It really works.

Good luck, and if your child is still young and eats whatever you give her, just wait. You will soon understand.