Motherhood is an ongoing learning experience, and one thing I’ve learned in the last year or so is that the only way I can survive is to see the hilarity in the moments that would otherwise make me lose it.  That’s why certain parenting tools are so successful for me, like the BMD (Behavior Modification Device, aka spray bottle), the Vodka Mist (aka Rescue Remedy), and the newest weapon in my arsenal…the fuzzy duster that I use to poke whichever bear is up on their bunk bed screeching and trying to stay out of my reach.  All of my favorite tools crack me up, and therefore, I don’t kill anyone.

Bedtime was a little trying tonight.  Adlani was mad at Aliya for calling him a crybaby, so he put her toothbrush in the drain hole of the sink.  If it was Helga’s drain hole it would have been fine, but my drain hole has all kinds of black slimy stuff in it.  So I pretended to put Adlani’s toothbrush in the drain hole and he freaked.  Then he kept insisting that he wanted to sleep with Ben (aka watch movies all night) since it’s not a school night.  When I said “no,” he started crying at top volume and wouldn’t stop.

Adlani: “I WANNNAAAA SLEEP WITH DAAAADDDDYYYYYY!!!!  WAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!”
Me:  “Well, I wanna sleep with Taye Diggs, but that ain’t happenin either.  So get into bed.”

He just kept going on and on and everyone else was trying to get to sleep, so I got out the fuzzy duster and started poking him in all the ticklish spots.  He got pissed and started doing karate kicks, which cracked me up because of the sound effects (hi-YAH!).  So I kept giggling and poking, and he kept crying, kicking, and making Miss Piggy noises.  The more I giggled and poked, the madder he got.  Then he told me that he likes Daddy better, I’m not allowed in his room any more, he’s not going to snuggle with me any more, etc., etc.  Then the big finish…”SO GET OUT OF HERE YOU HOPELESS FROOT LOOP!”

I lost it.  I was laughing SO HARD I think I peed a little.  That made him even madder so he yelled, “BEAT IT, YOU HOPELESS FLY!!!!!”  That did it.  I COULD NOT stop laughing, and it was the laugh that you can barely hear due to lack of oxygen…kinda like that cartoon dog except on uppers.  I dissolved into completely hysteria, and we all lived to see another day.
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It feels like much longer but I guess it was about a week ago, I had just finished running a load of laundry, and I found poop(?!) in the utility sink in the basement.  Since the washer drains into the utility sink, I assumed that there had somehow been poop in the dirty laundry.  I asked the kids who had pooped in their pants and Norah said that she had pooped during naptime at school.  I thought they had sent the poopie pants home and Ben had thrown them in the wash without emptying the poop out.  Mystery solved.

Then I mentioned the incident to Norah’s teacher, Maria, and she said Norah hadn’t had an accident.  Hmmm.  That night, Ben went to the basement and there was water on the floor in the front of the basement (the washer’s in the back).  While he was splashing around down there, I noticed that there was soap in the water and I surmised that the utility tub had overflowed when I ran a load of laundry, the water ran to the lowest point in the basement, and then the floor in the area of the washer had dried.  Some additional evidence was the fact that a couple of weeks before I had noticed that the utility sink was draining slower than usual and I had mentioned it to Ben.  He had used his “you’re over-reacting” tone and said that it was always like that.  I’ve learned that it does no good to argue with him, so I let it go.  When we found the water in the basement, he cleaned it up and again said not to worry about it.  WHATEVER!

The next night, after washing no more laundry, guess what?  More water in the basement!  Same exact situation…an inch of water in the lowest point of the basement, none around the washer, but it was wet under the laundry baskets.  We had all taken showers and baths that morning, and THAT water overflowed out of the utility sink.  NOW it’s getting serious because that means it’s not the sink drain that’s clogged, it’s the sewer line.  After making my case using a straw to demonstrate the fact that there was a clog somewhere down the line, Ben shunned my suggestion of calling Roto-Rooter and headed for Lowes.  He came back with a flimsy little 20′ pipe snake (pictured above), and a bottle of magic drain cleaner.  WHATEVER!

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At this point I think it was Sunday morning.  Our handy-guy (Orialis) was supposed to come that day and he knows everything about everything, so we decided we’d wait for him.  When he came at 5 p.m., I had escaped to the office, so Orialis, Ben, and the kids all piled into the Camry to go to Home Depot and rent a heavy-duty snake.  By the time I got home they had been at it for a couple of hours and determined that the 50′ snake wasn’t long enough.

Orialis came back at 5 p.m. today, they went to Home Depot again to get the 100′ snake, and finally reached the clog which was apparently some tree roots.  I will give Ben a lot of credit for spending 2 nights in the basement with Orialis, cleaning up all the water, and washing everything with bleach.  Now we have to figure out how to keep the tree roots out of our sewer line.  What’s next?

Actually, I can answer that.  What’s next is 4 dishwasher loads of dirty dishes (#3 is running right now), at least 12 loads of dirty laundry, and 3 filthy kids who will need baths before school tomorrow.  It should be a fun morning.
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As you may have learned from the road trip post with Norah screaming and throwing her shoe, I have a secret weapon for when the kids get unruly in the car.  I call it my BMD or Behavior Modification Device.  People with no imagination might call it a spray bottle.  Lana loved the tool so much that she stocked up on personal-sized BMDs that fit into the cup holder, and she gave me a pink one of my very own. 

This morning I was dropping Norah off at school and she was talking about getting her driver’s license someday.  Here’s the conversation that followed (I did not give her the idea.): 

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4yQr-foI8I&hl=en&fs=1&]

Update: Chuck (and anyone else who gets upset when I call men stupid in this post), don’t get your panties in a bunch. I’m not a man-hater. There are plenty of men I like or even love. It’s a good thing you’re not a fly on the wall at Mommies’ Night Out. Your ego would never be the same. 😉

Some of you will take this the wrong way, but it has to be said. When God was handing out brains, Adam thought he said “stains” and said, “No thanks, I’ve got plenty on my sheets and underwear already.” I’ve chronicled the proof in my email series called “Men are Stupid”. Like the time when I was pregnant and I sent Ben to Target to buy Preparation H and he came home with Ben-Gay. Hey – They both come in a tube, right? I could probably have been less general in the title of my email series, but given the evidence from my gal-pals, Ben’s not the only one.

I know there are men who aren’t stupid, and most men aren’t stupid all the time. There are even some stupid women. I’ve done plenty of stupid things. I work with lots of men who are intelligent contributing members of society. But now that I have a son who I feel is old enough to know the difference between a fun experiment and a really stupid idea, I realize that men can’t help it. They started life as stupid boys. My brothers used to shoot arrows up in the air and try to run out of the way before they came down and impaled them. A couple of weeks ago Adlani was in the tub, and I noticed that his weewee looked a little funny. He had a few infections under his foreskin when he was a baby, so I moved in for a closer look. While I was holding his weewee and we were both looking at it, he started peeing – right in his own face! Just before that we went to one of Aliya’s soccer games and Adlani got his head caught in the net. Yes, just like a fish. No, I didn’t get a picture, but I have witnesses.

As further proof, I offer up the following video evidence:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2_s7f5tPOI&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0]

Here are a few entries from my email series (Note that these all took place when I was pregnant with Norah and may contain TMI for some of you.):

6/26/06
Here’s a funny one in the “proof that men are stupid” category.
On Saturday afternoon I asked Aliya why Adlani’s hair was all wet. She said, “Because he stuck his head in the toilet. I told Daddy about it and he put some water on it. He put sanitizer on it too.” So Adlani’s hair was all stiff and full of Purell. At least it’s probably germ-free. Maybe we’re the stupid ones…they were born this way but we chose to bind ourselves to them for life.

8/15/06
Ben kissed me last week and I was like, “uhh…what’s on your lip?” He said, “My pimple medicine.” I said, “I don’t think so…what’s the name of your pimple medicine?” Ben: “Orajel.” I knew that’s what it was since my lip started going numb. One of my friends got really mad at her husband and she put Orajel on his toothbrush so when he brushed his teeth his mouth went numb and he thought he was having a stroke. I’m saving that one for a big fight. I shouldn’t be surprised by Ben’s use of Orajel to fight pimples…he was using Shout the other day to clean the kiddie pool, and…one for the TMI category…he couldn’t find the “personal lubricant” and was looking for an alternative…he yells out from the bathroom, “What’s this Balmex stuff?” At least it might have helped with the diaper rash I’m bound to get from the pee-pee pads I have to wear 24 hours a day. Apparently his philosophy is that anything in a spray bottle is all-purpose cleaner, anything in a small tube is zit cream, and anything in a large tube is lubricant. One time I caught him just before he put Blue Emu (like Ben-Gay or Icy-Hot) on Adlani’s bum, so I guess anything in a tub is diaper cream.

8/31/06
Ben somewhat redeemed himself by making the 1/2 mile drive to Target to buy the treatment for my new friend Hemmy Rhoid but when he couldn’t find Tucks, he came home with Tums. At least Tucks and Tums both start with T-U and end with S. And they’re both in the health and beauty aids section. He could have come back with turnovers, or tulips, or tubas, turkeys, tutus, turnips, tunas, turtles, tumbleweeds, or even turds. Actually, several of those would be preferable over Tums. Maybe I should put a Tums between my butt-cheeks. I’ll be so busy trying to hold it there, I might forget that someone new has moved into the neighborhood.
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