Today at lunch, Lucy had a small fit and knocked her cup onto the floor. It was lidded, but upon impact the lid popped off and about six ounces of water spilled onto the floor. I was pretty peeved, both because we've been working really hard with La Lucy about not throwing thing/knocking this over in frustration, and also because I had to clean up her mess.
If I had only known then that this small sip of water splashed onto my dining room floor was but the tip of the incredible large iceberg of messes, well, I might have just made a run for Canada and called it a day.
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I put all three kids down for a nap between 12:30 and 1:30pm, so I thought I would get to wrapping some of my Christmas presents. In my bedroom, I enjoyed last night's episode of Survivor whilst I wrapped many a plastic superhero and mermaid. I didn't think Sam was actually sleeping, but we're ok with that as long as he "rests his body" for a little while. I heard him get out of bed once, but he usually hits the potty a time or two during his rest period, so I wasn't concerned.
I should have been.
Fifteen minutes later I hear him running down the steps. Clad in only his underwear, he starts babbling at me through the crack in my door (I can't let him see what I'm doing!) about the sink and water and paper and a bunch of mumbo-jumbo I can barely make any sense of. I can tell by the tears in his eyes, though, that it's serious.
We bound up the stairs only to be greeted with a puddle. A big, huge puddle. Calm and cool, I send him to his bedroom while I assess the situation. The toilet bowl is filled to the brim, and the water on the floor is dotted with little specks of toilet paper. After a little third degree, Sam admits to using toilet paper to wipe up a some pee. After he flushed that down, he decided he wanted to see precisely how much toilet paper he could flush down. And a roll and a half later, he found himself standing ankle deep in toilet water.
I can only thank the heavens he hadn't just made one of his giant poops in that same toilet.
--
A few hours went by, and aside from a TV ban as punishment the evening was going well. Dinner was without incident, and even bedtime was met with little struggle. Going without a nap will do that to a kid. Once Sam and Lucy were in bed I started with Maggie, the world's most patient baby. I swear, that kid will stare at her mobile forever while I get the big ones taken care of, and she's still all smiles when I come for her. While I was nursing her, I heard Sam leave his room. Gently I called to him, and he informed me that he had to go potty. Since he hadn't had his world famous poop yet today, I figured that's where he was headed. And when he was still in the bathroom when I got Maggs down ten minutes later, I headed up to help with the aftermath and wiping.
Except that he wasn't pooping.
The boy was shut inside the bathroom dispensing the remains of a two-thirds full bottle of surface cleanser. On the floors, on the walls, on the tub, on the sink, on the toilet, on the outlets. I don't even usually keep cleaning stuff up there, but I had just been cleaning the toilet water off the floor not even five hours ago! It was like Sam and the universe were out to see just how much I could handle in one day.
I wasn't as cool and collected this time around, and there was a fair amount of yelling, which resulted in a fair amount of crying. And after I cleaned and calmed Sammy down and got him off to sleep, I began consuming a fair amount of tequila.
The End.
(It effing better be!)
