Actions Cause Reactions

A definite plus side to the holidays is that long-lost friends return home from far away, which means that I get to see them without ever having to pack a bag or step on a plane. Yesterday, I was lucky enough to spend some time with my all-time favorite babysitter who is in town visiting her family. Well, technically she has her own family now, but you know what I mean.

Anyway, after having three of my own, I can officially say that I am not a baby person anymore. Give me gross motor skills, the ability to hold down a meal for more than ten minutes and some bowel control. But having said that, her kids are so, so cute! The baby wouldn't stop smiling - even when he was spitting up - and Zoe was ecstatic about the fact that she found another little kid in the form of two-year-old Abe that liked to crawl around on all fours and bark like a rabid dog. Mandi is a great mom who has already displayed amazing potty training skills, handles hurl with the best of them and - because she's nursing - is willing to drink her cranberry and tonic without vodka. Obviously, the qualities that made her a kick ass babysitter are also making her a kick ass mom.

While I was sitting there sucking down booze with her mom and ripping on the neighbors, the baby made "the face" and "the noise" and that's when Mandi's mom said "Oh Joel, are you filling your pants? I thought I heard something!" I kind of started to laugh, but in my head I was thinking...no way in hell am I offering to change that kid's diaper. I know! I'm a horrible friend! I mean, how much shit has this poor girl scraped off of my kids in the past!? And here she is, visiting from out of town, and I don't step in for one crap-filled diaper?

Luckily, I don't think Mandi was overly disappointed that I didn't leap into the air and jump at the opportunity to change a butt. But just in case, as she was leaning down to grab the wipes off of the floor with one hand and her slightly fragrant child with the other hand, I said "I'd do it for you, but I'm pretty sure I've forgotten how to change diapers. Sorry." She just laughed a little before reminding me that I hadn't forgotten because I'd recently changed my niece's diaper. I was shocked! How did she know about that? And then she reminded me again...I wrote about it.

(originally posted on June 4, 2010)

My new niece, Bianca, is adorable. Seriously guys, she is so cute. And the most amazing thing to me is that when I'm around her, I actually offer to change her diapers. You'd think that after spending hundreds of hours wiping poop off of someone else's ass I would have allowed myself to drop that skill from my repertoire, but no, I can still change a butt in record speed.

One thing I did forget, though, is that sometimes when the diaper comes off and you pull the kid's feet up to stick the new diaper under their butt, the kid sometimes takes that as an opportunity to do an impression of a bottle of French's mustard. You know, the mustard that is half-clogged so you squeeze really hard to get it to come out, and then the clog dislodges mid-squeeze.

I recently read an article outlining how my life can be happier and more positive if I practiced acceptance of certain situations rather than judgmental observation. Apparently the way a person typically processes daily life experiences, which in this case was shit being squirted across a room, can be broken down into five steps, and it's how a person reacts to these five steps that determines the resulting emotions.

1. Movement: First, something happens in our lives - a tiny incident, a big event, someone's passing comment, or a nearly imperceptible change in the environment. I have to be honest and say that a stream of shit is not exactly a tiny incident and is a fairly big event. Zoe's passing comment was "Oh my gosh, mom! What is all over your shorts? Is that poop? GROSS! HAHAHAHAHA!" And that imperceptible change in the environment was odor, and it was actually pretty perceptible.

2. Sensation: In response to that movement, we feel something physically - a twinge of pain, a flood of heat or cold, a clenching or emptiness in our body, a vibration or fluctuation we can't name. I felt a twinge of nausea, a trickle of poop running down my leg, and a light sweaty film forming on my forehead as I quickly surveyed the damage on the changing table. As far as the feelings of emptiness, I'm sure that was Bianca's bowels.

3. Thought: Then we consciously or unconsciously identify the sensation and assign some kind of reason or meaning or value to it. I very consciously identified the sensation as "disgusting" and I guess the only meaning I could come up with was that Bianca somehow knew I was a seasoned veteran when it came to diaper changing so she figured it was a good time to open the gates on her large intestine because I wouldn't panic, unlike my brother who has only been dealing with fecal matter for a couple weeks. I don't think there was any value to assign, except maybe the value of the dozens of wipes I ended up using.

4. Emotional Reaction: Next we experience a flash of a certain feeling or a combination of them - grief, fear, anger, irritation, shame, nervousness, hurt, desire, relief and so on. In addition to a little bit of panic (I really didn't want poop stains on my white shorts), I actually experienced laughter, because throughout this whole ordeal all Zoe was worried about was whether she could drag the Sit 'N Spin out of Bianca's closet. I don't know if you remember, but I tried to get rid of that space hog at Goodwill a few months ago and they wouldn't take it, so I pawned it off on my brother. So while I was wiping up his kid's splattered crap, I couldn't help but envision my brother in a couple years, constantly tripping over that thing and eventually trying to drop it off at Goodwill.

5. Behavior: Finally, we take some kind of action or reaction, verbally, physically or attitudinally - either to stop the feeling, escape it, or to do something else about it. I told Bianca that it was okay she sprayed her Auntie with poop, carried her cleaned-up and newly-outfitted self downstairs, handed her to my brother, changed my shorts, made a drink and realized that being an aunt kicks ass.

Clean 'Em Up!

Even before the economy started tanking, my kids were aware of the fact that not everyone in the world is financially content and fortunate enough to have a warm home with fresh fruit in the refrigerator and cookies in the pantry. More specifically, they know that there are certain intersections in the Minneapolis area that seem to be occupied 24-hours-a-day by someone holding a poorly made cardboard sign that often includes words like "homeless, out of work, needs money, hungry" and "broke."

Nowadays, it seems that more and more corners are being occupied and some of these intersections are located in places where it's not exactly convenient to throw cash out the window. Besides, if I said goodbye to $10 every time I saw a cardboard sign, pretty soon I'd need a cardboard sign of my own.

When Zach was little, he suggested that since these people seemed so hungry maybe we should give them a turkey sandwich and a bag of chips instead of cash. That way they would have something to eat without having to take a trip to the grocery store. I tried to explain to him that these guys just preferred the cash because they might not want a turkey sandwich for lunch. He said oh yeah, they might want ham.

Since everyone in our family uses a Sonicare toothbrush, all of the toothbrushes that are sent home from the dentist or school end up in a designated guest toothbrush drawer (please, don't laugh at me). When Zoe brought one home from school a couple days ago, I noticed that we had accumulated way more toothbrushes in this drawer than we would ever have guests, but it seemed pretty wasteful to just throw them away. That's when I got a brilliant idea: I should put together a few personal hygiene bags, keep them in the car and give them to the homeless! The kit would include a toothbrush, a travel size tube of toothpaste, a small bar of soap, and maybe a comb. After all, I always feel better after I brush my teeth, everyone loves a new toothbrush and I'll bet these guys would really appreciate a bar of soap.

I was pretty excited about my creative idea and thought that everyone else in my family would be too. When I mentioned it to them, though, they didn't think it was a very good idea. In fact, they thought it was pretty stupid and I think the boys were kind of afraid of what would happen if we were to pull up to a stoplight, open the window, and watch as a penniless guy opened up a bag and instead of finding cash discovered a bar of Ivory and a tube of Crest. I think their actual words were: "Holy crap is that ever dumb. Our car will be pelted with toothbrushes."

Suddenly those turkey sandwiches don't sound like that bad of an idea, especially if I start wrapping those sandwiches in $5 bills. And I know that Goodwill won't accept fun things like a Sit & Spin, but does anyone know if they will accept new toothbrushes, still in their original packaging?

Excitement Is Not Contagious

Yesterday, I spent most of the day emptying, rearranging, and then reorganizing the playroom. Even though I now have to make another trip to Goodwill, the results are worth it. When I go to bed, knowing that there is a clean, organized, functional playroom two floors beneath me is the equivalent of taking a double dose of Ambien.

When Charlie got home from school, I was kind of excited to show him the results, because not only was everything hyper-organized, but the furniture had been rearranged so that there was now a ton of room to play Wii without hitting anyone in the face.

As he walked into the playroom with his eyes closed, he had a smile on his face and was obviously excited. When he opened them, the smile disappeared and he said: "Oh. Man, I was hoping that maybe we had a new ping pong table or something. This is what you're showing me?"

Yes, it is. But that's not all! In addition to this clean playroom, you get a smack on the head!

* * * * * * * * * * * *

While reorganizing the playroom, my analness got out of hand and I'm getting rid of every single crayon in our house that doesn't have a sharp point, resulting in a shoe box full of colored wax. Since throwing them away didn't seem very "green," I tried to find a way to recycle them. I heard somewhere that if you have a small mountain of broken, worn-down, sad looking crayons, you can:

1. Peel the papers off all of the crayons.
2. Break the crayons into small chunks.
3. Put 5-10 chunks in each space of a muffin tin.
4. Put the muffin tin in a 250 degree oven until the crayons melt.
5. Let the crayons cool overnight.
6. Remove them the next day and enjoy!

If you have even more time to kill and plenty of Band-Aids, you can let the kids use a cheese grater or vegetable peeler to make crayon shavings to put into the muffin tin, which will end up melted into a giant hunk. Or, if you have serious issues, you can use sucker molds in the shape of your child's favorite character and, using a fine brush, you can "paint" facial details onto the chunk of wax that will eventually end up rubbed down to the shape of a chicken nugget.

Since spending time in the kitchen making something that isn't even edible (or drinkable) is pretty much my idea of hell, I will not be making homemade crayons. I will, however, find time to head to the post office to ship the box o' wax to this crayon recycler:

Coloring Fun With Crazy Crayons...a National Crayon Recycle Program

Just Take The Damn Thing!

I have spent the last few days attacking every closet, drawer and storage room in our house. My OCD/anal/manic personality traits are in overdrive and, judging by the fact that the kids are afraid to put down their most prized possessions, I'm pretty sure my family is scared. It's safe to say that I will never end up being featured on "Hoarders" or "Clean House," and unless they make a reality show about control freaks that need to keep things lined up at 90-degree angles, I'll be able to continue to live my life in well organized, labeled privacy, surrounded by color-coded bins.

As a result of all this cleaning and purging, and because I refuse to hold onto the unwanted crap while I wait for the perfect weekend to waste several hours of my time hosting a garage sale, I have made a couple trips to Goodwill. Since I don't want to drop off random, unorganized items, I have grouped the donations into categories: Tuesday was housewares, Wednesday was clothing and books, and yesterday was toys.

Included in the toy drop-off was a Sit & Spin and a small ride on car that can also be pushed. Yes, I was excited to get these two space hogs out of our playroom, but I also knew that some other little kid was going to be happy when these toys arrived in his house.

I pulled into the Goodwill drop-off area, and as soon I opened the back of my van I heard the Donation Dictator say: "Nope. We can't take those big junky plastic items. No large kid toys are accepted because they're just too dangerous."

"It's a non-junky Sit & Spin and a car. There aren't any knives or rabid animals included." Was this guy for real? He just accepted the horrible throw pillows and dusty floral arrangement from the lady in front of me, so why would he turn down perfectly clean, fun, never-thrown-up-on toys?

"I see that, miss. But those things are just too darn dangerous. What if a kid falls off and hits his head? We can't be exposing kids to those kinds of risks." He was serious, and was looking at me like I was the most irresponsible parent in the world for not only owning such a hazard, but for trying to pawn it off at Goodwill.

I was ticked. First of all, now what was I supposed to do with this shit? It was already out of my organized house, so there was no way in hell it was coming back in. Second, aren't kids putting themselves at risk of falling and hitting their heads when they're walking? And excuse me, Mr. Contradiction, but Charlie's old Hulk Hands are in the box that you just accepted for donation. You'll take the toy that yells out "HULK SMASH!" when it punches another kid in the face, but you won't take a ride on car?

Rather than pick a fight with someone that probably lives in a house lined with foam and makes his children wear protective headwear whenever they leave the safety of the foam house, I shut the car door and went to Target.

While I was leaving the store, I noticed a woman walking through the parking lot with a two-year-old kid. Remembering that the Sit & Spin and car were still in the back of my van, I was tempted to ask her if she wanted a couple danger-free, super fun toys for her little girl. That's when it occurred to me that my bat shit crazy motivation to get rid of the crap was clouding my judgment, so I quickly got in the car and left.

Now there's a Sit & Spin and a plastic car in my garage. Any takers?