Everybody Poops.

There is a book titled "Everyone Poops" by Taro Gomi. There is also a book titled "The Gas we Pass" by Shinta Cho and then the one I am the owner of "Contemplating Your Bellybutton" by Jun Nanao. This last one always makes me think of the first title. Mostly because of the last 4 years of my life have been surrounded by mass amounts of it, between 3 kids and two Great Danes, it's a lot.

Having kids though has been not just poop, but many, many kinds of messes and they usually involve Bea. I need to write these down not only to preserve them for later stories, but to make sure I'm not the only one who deals with these kinds of messes. 

Prefacing this first story I have to say, "Yes, Mom, I know I deserve this for pooping in the silo when I was a little girl."  Bea has decided to become potty trained this last couple of weeks and it's been amazing and easy. We have a door lock on her bedroom door for safety because she likes to get up in the middle of the night and wander around by herself and get into things. Linus can open the door and does for her, but this last weekend, he was gone with Dad and Papa to go deer hunting. When I heard her knocking on the door, I opened it, and she handed me a reusable grocery bag proclaiming "I pooped mommy". Yup, instead of taking her diaper off and going pee like she usually does when Linus opens the door, she made less mess for the both of us by pooping into a grocery bag and handing it to me proudly. 

This morning, I found her wandering around after having gotten into my lipstick, all over her face and stomach. This is after finding her last week all covered in eye shadow, mascara, lip gloss, and powder and exclaiming, "I'm not mad, Mommy!". This girl sure loves the makeup and I sure do go through a lot of mascara these days.

I'm pretty sure she knows that I am single mom right now as a deer widow while Matt goes out and fulfills his desire to kill things (yeah, I am ok with it, I like it when he cooks venison for dinner). She tests my patience like... well... I guess like I did to my mom.

I found her with a pail full of toilet water and putting fish crackers in it, that I had gotten out for Linus, making fish cracker soup. Then she decided the sticky orange goo needed to go onto the table and all over the floor.  Then she decided that her green beans needed a good smashing by her hands and then rubbed all over the rug. As much as I love green beans, I hate their smell, and hate feeling them squish between my toes. 

She has managed to lessen the amount of eggs that she drops and when she does collect her "baby eggs" and sings to them all the way to the fridge and then drops them, she will finally pick the broken egg up and put it in the sink. But first thing this morning, she and Linus went out to play and there is a sprinkler that has a small leak and so there is a small mud puddle that the decided to have a mud fight in, in the cold morning about 7am. Get a door lock for the kids you say? Yeah, there is one there. Linus has just gotten really good at opening them at the ripe, old age of 4. 

My favorite though, she has a brother that can get a little rough and a couple of neighbor friends that get a little rough. Whenever she gets hurt, she comes to me for cuddles, but beware the Mommy Mandy who tries to discipline her brother or let her friends know it's not ok to hurt others. She had a bloody lip yesterday and she told me to leave her friend alone! I love it. I don't even raise my voice, if I sound firm at all or make my "mommy" face, she feels so compelled to protect the underdog. Woe to anyone who tries to pick on her brother or sister. I just hope Linus doesn't get embarrassed his little sister is sticking up for him... or to him. 

I got a really cute series of pictures I like to show people to show them what it's like to live with Bea... here you go.

This is the face I get when she's screaming at me when I'm trying to discipline Linus.