Adventures in Parenting - Naptime Fiasco

I started writing this shortly after it happened, (IN OCTOBER!) but somehow never managed to actually finish until today. Unfortunately, even with my outline, some of the details managed to slip my mind by the time I finished, and, as a result, I don't think that you will get quite the full effect that you would have if I had written it all earlier.

It was just a normal Tuesday. The kids were both grouchy and needed a nap, so I put Samantha in her bed, nursed Jacob and then put him in his bed. It was about 2pm. Samantha was still awake, but she was laying down and was being quiet, so I thought she would fall asleep soon, and I didn't worry too much.

She started singing. Sometimes loudly, sometimes softly. That's fine, she does that regularly, and Jacob will often fall asleep to her singing without going into his crying mode before he falls asleep. When she got too loud, I went in and told her that she needed to be quiet and pretend to be asleep so that Jacob would go to sleep. By 2:20, I could hear that they were both still awake, but things were still quiet, so I let it go, hoping that they would finally fall asleep. I kept on working, doing laundry and dishes.

At 3pm, they still weren't asleep, and I heard what sounded like Samantha climbing in and out of Jacob's bed, so I went in to tell her that she had to come sleep on my bed now.

I opened the door and saw Samantha standing by Jacob's bed. Then I smelled the poop. Then I saw it. Smeared all over Jacob's mattress, the bars and railing of the crib and the floor. Yes, both children had explosively poopy diapers and by Samantha climbing in and out of the crib, there was poop smeared everywhere. In Jacob's hair, on his hands, on his blanket and stuffed animals and on his pacifier that was in his mouth. Ugh.

I fussed at Samantha for getting into Jacob's bed without asking and told her that she was going to have to help me clean up all the poop, because it wouldn't have gotten all over if she had stayed in her bed like she was supposed to. She was glad to help...excited even. Hmmm...that wasn't quite in the plan, but at least she was helping without too much of a fight.

I changed Samantha's diaper. I took Jacob out of his bed and changed his diaper. then I tried to keep him out of the way as Samantha and I worked on wiping the entire crib down with baby wipes. That was not easy. He was not happy and made sure that I was aware of that fact. He wanted to be with us and he wanted to be in the middle of what we were doing. And he kept pulling my hair in his attempts to crawl over or around me to get to what we were doing. Finally we got the visual signs of poop off the crib and I stripped the bed. Then I got out the clorox wipes and told Samantha to play with Jacob in the living room while I finished cleaning the bed.

She started throwing a temper tantrum yelling that she wanted to help me. I explained to her that she couldn't help because the cleaner I was using wasn't safe for kids. That didn't matter to her, though. She still wanted to help. I told her that she would be helping me by keeping Jacob away from the room while I cleaned. No dice with that one, either. She wanted to do the cleaning. Finally I just told her that I'm, sorry and even though she wants to help, she can't. So the temper tantrum went on and on the entire time I cleaned. And I had to stop cleaning and pick Jacob up and move him out of the room every few minutes. And of course, he had a temper tantrum every time I did so. Such fun times.

I finally finished cleaning the bed, decided that the carpet would have to wait and went off to the bathroom to bathe the kids and start a load of laundry. I bathed Jacob first, with Samantha continually trying to get in between me and the washtub he was in. She kept telling me that she was helping to wash Jacob or that he needed a toy. I did not tell her that she was just making my job harder and longer rather than helping, but I was sorely tempted to do so. Instead I just told her that Jacob didn't need any more toys and that I had to be the one to wash him to make sure we got all the poop off. She still kept trying to get over to him, but at least she wasn't throwing a temper tantrum.

After I got him out, and got his medicine and the Aquaphor all over him, and got his PJs on him (yes it was incredibly early, but I had high hopes of no more clothing changes for the day), it was Samantha's turn for a bath. I closed the door to their bedroom, after all, there was still poop all over the floor, and put him in the living room to play. He started crying as soon as I set him down. I walked back to the bathroom. And of course he followed me almost immediately.

I started running the water for Samantha's shower and she started screaming that she didn't want to take a shower or a bath. When I told her that she would have to anyway, she started screaming that she had to go potty, so I let her sit on the potty while the water got warm. She again started having a tantrum once the water was warm and I told her that it was time for her shower. I finally had to carry her into the shower and hold her in there while I tried to wash her off.

By this time Jacob had come into the bathroom and was trying to climb into the shower as well. I truly needed about 4 more arms at this point. After all, I was trying to hold Samantha in the shower while washing her hair and body and at the same time was attempting to keep Jacob from being able to climb into the shower. Oh how I would love to have a bathtub again!!! I'm sure anyone watching would have been laughing, though, because it probably looked like I was doing some weird kind of dance as I kept moving my lower body back and forth to stay between Jacob and the shower, and tried to keep my upper body in one place enough to wash Samantha.

The drama wasn't even over when I finished washing Samantha. I turned off the water and she kept on screaming no matter what I did. She was cold so I wrapped her in a towel. She had to go potty so I set her on the potty. She didn't want to go on the potty, she wanted a diaper, so I put a diaper on her. And still the screaming continued. I finally just tried to ignore the screaming and sat with her on the stool attempting to dry her hair while Jacob tried to climb my leg, crying because I wasn't holding him.

Finally, at 4:30, they were both clean and in their PJs. (yes it was very early, but I just didn't want to bother with changing their clothes again in a couple more hours.) I still needed to clean the carpet, but I knew that couldn't happen with them in the house, so I peeked over at Aunt Ginger's house, and thank goodness she was there! I decided to see if she would watch the kids long enough for me to clean the carpet. The only problem was that, for the first time ever, Samantha did not want to go see Aunt Ginger. So I had to carry both children, one on each hip, up the hill to Aunt Ginger's house. Thank goodness it isn't any farther than it is, or I might never have made it. My arms were very tired as it was!

Once we got there, I explained the situation to Ginger and she said that of course she would watch the kids while I cleaned the carpet. She even gave me some carpet cleaner since it occurred to me that mine was in a box somewhere, or possibly still in the house in Dallas.

I was really looking forward to Brent coming home soon, but it was at this point that I realized that today was Tuesday. That meant Brent was on his way to Waco already...he would NOT be home in a few minutes and I was still on my own. Sigh...

I went back home, rinsed out Jacob's bedding and stuffed animals in the sink, then scrubbed the sink, started a load of laundry, and cleaned the carpet. As I was cleaning, I realized that the fumes from the carpet cleaner were AWFUL! SO I turned off the air conditioner, opened the windows and set up a fan in the kids room to try to dry the carpet and air everything out.

I quickly realized that there was absolutely no way that I could bring the kids back to the house with the fumes so bad, so I made a sandwich for Samantha and gathered yogurt and applesauce for her and baby food for Jacob, then took everything to Ginger's house to feed them there.

We finished up with dinner and came back to our house at about 6:20. The fumes were still terrible in the kids room, but had mostly cleared out of the rest of the house. I realized that the kids were going to have to sleep in our room for the night. Yes, this was definitely going to be fun. Especially since neither kid had a nap that afternoon. Oh boy, oh boy!

I set up the pack-n-play for Jacob, and it was just in time, because he fell asleep at 6:45. I put him in the pack-n-play and he stayed asleep. For a while. Then he woke up, just as I was starting to get Samantha laying down on the couch. (I don't remember why I had her laying on the couch rather than on my bed, but I know there was actually a reason.) So Samantha was being wiggly and not wanting to lay still to sleep and Jacob was crying because he wanted to play now. After all, he had been sleeping for more than an hour before he woke up.

Once again, I had both kids protesting, quite vocally, my treatment of them. I was just about ready to pull my hair out when Brent made it home. Both kids were happy to see him, so the crying subsided...for a little while. Then we put Jacob back in the pack-n-play, put Samantha in the middle of our bed and Brent and I both laid down to try to go to sleep. It was pure craziness. It was after 10pm before we were finally all asleep and no one slept well that night.

It makes me wonder how families who have a family bed ever manage to get any sleep at all. It makes me grateful that my children have their own beds and usually sleep in their own beds. And I am also grateful that days like this don't happen very often.