Monkey Butt & Flying Poop

I started the day out in a bad mood. I won't go into why. Maybe another time. Anyway, when I arrived to start my day with Grace(5) and Bella(4), I was praying they would make my day easy, not hard. Grace immediately started asking if we could go to the mall after preschool today. The last time I watched them, I avoided going to the mall by saying that we didn't have money to buy lunch there. This time, Grace had a fistful of change - lunch money, if you will. "I have money for lunch, Miss Jen!" (These things always come back to bite me in the ass!) I chose to change the subject - "redirect" being the technical term.

Meanwhile, Bella disappeared upstairs, and returned wearing lipstick, not just on her lips, but on her cheeks and nose! "O-Kay!" We were on the fast track to that hard day I spoke of. As we were leaving the house, Bella was carrying a backpack full of toys. "Where do you think you are taking all those toys?" "Uh...to school?" "Uh...No. You are only allowed to take toys to school on trick or treat day, err, uh, uh, what's that day called?" (It's hard to win an argument with a four year old when you can't use your words). "Show & Tell day! That's it! You can only take toys on Show & Tell days". She was already on her way to the car with the backpack, by that point. I restated my position, saying "You can have them in the car, but that is where they are staying". Didn't matter. By then, she was crying because Grace was sitting in the carseat that she wanted. "Grace will sit in it on the way to school, and Bella will sit in it on the way home! That's it!". She fired back, "Your not my best friend, and you're not watching us anymore!" Oh, great. Fired by a four year old. That will look great on my resume.

When I picked them up from school, Grace immediately stated, "Now, we are going to the mall!", as we walked up the stairs, parents in front of us, and behind us. "No, we aren't Grace. We're going home". "But, I wanna go to the mall!", she whined. "I want lots of things, but we don't always get what we want", was my philosophical reply. The parents were chuckling around us. "But, sometimes we DO get what we want", she retorted. "But, NOT TODAY", I stated. Now the parents were stifling laughter. She was quiet until we were almost at the playground. "Miss Jen, if we can't go to the mall, can we go to the playground?" "Sure!", I agreed. (I'm not horrible, you know).

I am convinced that they hold all their bodily functions in throughout the 2 1/2 hrs they are at school, because they are ready to explode when I pick them up. Since finding this out the hard way another day, I have started keeping a potty chair in the trunk of my car. Sure enough, as soon as we stepped onto the playground Grace announced she had to poop. I got the chair and she sat there for quite a while, while I gave her plenty of space. I looked over after a bit, and saw her wiping her butt with a pile of leaves! Quite resourceful! Then she shouted, "Miss Jen! I pooped!" As I started walking over to her, I told her "Okay, Grace. I'll empty it". "I pooped a lot, Miss Jen". "Oh, goody.", I exclaimed to a giggling Grace. "How much poop can come out of a 5 year old?", I thought, as I looked inside. She watched as I flung the poop over the fence into the woods, and she laughed at the image of the flying poop. A big gust of wind sent the smell straight back to my nose like a right hook! "OOOHHH!", I shouted, making a face and shaking my head. "Thanks, Miss Jen". "You're welcome", I whimpered.

My stomach was hurting, (probably from being hungry), and I just didn't have the energy to push them on the swings, push them on the merry go round, or go on the see-saw. I just wanted to sit. Grace was on this bouncy thing, jumping up and down, and I told Bella, "Doesn't she look like a monkey?" Then, I called out to Grace, from my seat, "Hey, monkey, want a banana?" I pretended to throw her a banana, and she pretended to catch it. That bought me 20 whole minutes of sitting! Bella and I pretended to throw her different foods, she pretended to eat or reject them. Then, Bella was the monkey. Then, Grace was the monkey and she escaped from the zoo. I called the zookeeper (Bella), "HELP! A monkey is on the loose! Come quick!" The zookeeper chased the monkey and put him back in the cage, and on and on. At one point, Grace bent over to pick up something, and I said "Ew, I don't want to see monkey butt!" That resulted in hilarious fits of laughter. Follow any word with "butt" and the result will be the same.

The day wasn't half bad, and my bad mood lifted, and hey, I had some blog material with a great title.