Updates and such...

I haven't posted in a while bad me so I'll catch you up on all the wonderful, exciting... yeah, I can't even finish that sentence without laughing so hard I can't type. I'm feeling well enough to finally clean my house more than half-assed, except now it's piled up and I have three days of work ahead of me instead of one. Blech.

And do you know what toddlers do when you try to clean? If you're a parent, you do; if you've babysat a toddler, you do; if you've ever observed someone cleaning around a toddler, you do. If you are none of the above, thank your lucky stars you did not have to witness the beat-head-against-brick-wall exercise that is cleaning when toddlers are around and conscious. Seriously. They come in behind you and undo every blessed thing you've just done, and they make two other messes to go with it. Your only real recourse is shove the little monsters at your significant other and order them out of the house, or distract their destructive little selves with something even more fascinating than making Mommy scream and blubber like a madman.

For my children, this is not easy. They've learned that when Mommy gives them full cups of juice, a big bowl of food, and a movie, there must be something awesome going on. They don't stay in their room. They come out and demand to know what you're doing, and can they do it too? "No," makes them cry, but there comes a point when you'd prefer murderous screams to redoing everything three million times. I reached this point when Andrea turned two. She's now three and a half. You do the math.

But if I don't do all of these three things, they inevitably read: every five minutes come toddling out and ask for one of the three. And because they can never synchronize these things, I get interrupted by each child each and every time they think they need something. Oh, and don't forget diaper changes/potty time! Throw a few of those in there, too. At the worst times. Like when I'm elbow-deep in cleaner. Example:

Raven: "Poop! Poop!" as she comes running out to me, pulling at the back of her diaper like she's got the worst wedgie of all time.

Me: Rolling my eyes, sighing, and washing my hands clean again of the bleach water I've been using to sanitize things. "Lovely. Okay, monkey, go lay down." I call my youngest monkey because she climbs everything and screeches and hoots like one. She's weird. I'm so proud!

Raven: "'Kay!" She proceeds to run to the couch, pull down the blanket, hide under it, and make a two-minute butt change take ten because we must play "where's the baby?"

If I'm lucky, I get ten minutes of peace between interruptions. If I'm unlucky as I was that day I just manage to get back to my cleaning when the other one comes out for something, or the same one remembers something else they needed. In this case, it was the other one...

Andrea: "Mommy?"

Me: "What, Andrea?" as I try, valiantly really, I should get medals for not strangling these kids to hold back the snarl of frustration.

Andrea: "I'm hungry and thirsty."

Me: Sigh. I've just given her food and juice, so I know she's neither. Or if she is anything, it's probably thirsty because she wolfed down her juice and then her food, in that order, and it dried out her mouth and/or throat. Oy. "Bring me your cup, and I'll give you a little more juice."

Andrea: "And something to eat!"

Me: "No, Andrea, you just ate. You need to wait a little while."

Andrea: With the most indignant tone ever heard by man, "But I'm hungry!"

Me: "I doubt that, honey," and seeing the immediate protest forming in her little brain, I added, "You're not getting any more food." End of story, right? *falls over laughing*

Andrea: "You hate me!" as she goes into full pout mode. It is at this point that I start praying for patience and have the overwhelming urge to slam my head into the nearest solid object. Repeatedly. My lovely child has entered the "you hate me, nobody loves me, wah" stage. God help me.

Me: "I don't hate you Andrea. I love you very much. I just don't want your stomach to explode." Humor is lost on three year olds...

Andrea: "My tummy's not gonna splode! It's hungry!"

Me: I'm laughing now, and this so doesn't help. I stifle it long enough to ask her, "Are you going to bring me your cup?" She stomps off ranting about something unintelligible, and comes back a minute or two later with her cup... and her plate. Sigh. I take them both, put the plate in the kitchen, and splash a little juice in her cup. "Here."

Andrea: "What about my foooooooooood?" Oh god, the whining. It's worse than the defiance. At least that was just loud talking, something my poor eardrums are used to by now. They will never get used to the whining.

Me: "No."

Andrea: "But whyyyyyyy?"

Me: "Andrea, don't whine. Talk like a big girl."

Andrea: "No! I'm not a big girl! I'm a baby!"

Me: Grumble, mutter, snarl. It escaped me at the time that she had, in fact, complied and talked like a big girl... while she sassed me. Geh. "Babies who whine and cry are usually tired and get put down for naps. Do you need a nap?" This is like threatening her with brutal torture. Nevermind that at three and a half, she should still take a nap. She cut those out just before she turned two.

Andrea: With a horrified look on her face which is probably one of the funniest things I've ever seen she yells, "No!" and runs off, food completely forgotten.

I don't know whether to do a happy dance that our round robin on the food subject is over, or drive an icepick into my skull because now her sister has come around again, begging for something or other. I don't even remember what she wanted. My brain had shut itself off at that point... I'm pretty sure in self-preservation. I do remember giving up on my cleaning less than an hour later because of a vicious migraine. I wonder how that happened? Insert hefty dose of sarcasm here.

So my foray into cleaning my entire house should be fun. I say fun, I mean eye-gouging torture. Wanna come over?!?! *twitch*