My Poop Is Sleeping

As I arrived home yesterday evening after work and after picking up Presley at daycare, I was met by my husband, a person carpeting our basement stairs, and a DishNetwork associate who was installing the new satellite that Adam decided he couldn’t live without. A few minutes later, Ben and his fur-brother, Mason were dropped off by my sister-in-law after spending the whole nap-less day with their cousins. As you can imagine, things were a little hectic as soon as I stepped out of my car.  Evenings in our home are sometimes rushed anyway with me getting home from work at 5:35pm and trying to have dinner ready by 6pm, then getting baths and bedtime routine started and kids in bed by 8.  Yesterday though, was another story.

            My wonderful, laid back, easy-going Ben is definitely Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_Case_of_Dr_Jekyll_and_Mr_Hyde) when a two hour nap isn’t implemented at some point during the day. He was dropped off after having a melt-down about a piece of candy, or something else that means the world to a three year old and means absolutely nothing to the rest of the world. After almost calming down following that melt-down, he inquired about the dishnetwork van in our driveway and wanted to see “the man.” Meanwhile, Presley is crying because her little 8 month old belly is telling her that she’s STARVING. I hand her off to Adam and take Ben to the basement where “the man” is working on the tv and satellite. After a few minutes of Ben staring at “the man” I felt a little awkward just watching him so I tried to convince Ben that we needed to go upstairs and go potty and have dinner (pizza and hot dogs..high-class!). We walked upstairs to the main floor and you would think that I was torturing my child by asking him to go potty, but he finally agreed and climbed onto the potty…where he proceeded to scream, “MY POOP IS SLEEPING, MY POOP IS SLEEPING, I CAN’T POOP. MY POOP IS SLEEPING. IT HURTS. IT WON’T COME OUT. I DON’T WANT TO PEE.”

I’m not sure what was going on in his head, but I was in no way forcing him to stay on the toilet, or even stay in the bathroom, and asked him if he wanted to get down, but he continued, “I DON’T WANT TO POOP, I DON’T WANT TO GET DOWN, I CAN’T PEE, MY POOP IS SLEEPING!” By now, I’m only slightly embarrassed as the dishnetwork man walks by. I refused to make any eye contact, I knew he was judging me! Adam tries to reassure “the man” that Ben hadn’t had a nap and that he’s had a busy few days, not that “the man” cared much because I’m sure he thought that I was in the bathroom torturing my kid. Presley still continues to cry through all of his because she wants her food. The oven timer goes off, pizza is ready! Adam places Presley in her seat to eat her meal of fruit, snack puffs, water, and little pieces of hot dogs, she is satisfied. Ben is now screaming, “I HATE PIZZA, I DON’T WANT HOT DOGS, MY POOP IS SLEEPING!” I like to think that I put on an excellent performance of “Super Xanax Mom” who was able to not raise my voice and stay completely calm throughout all of this, keep in mind that it was just that...a performance, inside I was screaming, "WAKE YOUR DAMN POOP UP AND EAT YOUR PIZZA!" We finally got Ben to the table, his poop never did “wake up”, and he ate some Spongebob shaped macaroni. Most nights I don’t give my kiddos the option to eat whatever they want, but tonight was an exception. The food in his system helped minimally, but it did help and after dinner was bath time, then bed. Bedtime tonight couldn’t come soon enough. After struggling to get him to his bedroom quietly, which didn’t happen, I was sure that he’d be asleep within minutes. I was absolutely WRONG. He remained awake for over an hour, kicking the side of his “bunk house” (this is what he calls his new bunk beds). He finally fell asleep about an hour and a half after we put him to bed…and then all I can think about is having a bottle (yes bottle!) of my favorite wine  (http://www.stjulian.com/Concord%20Wine), but we were all out. Really? This was definitely not the night to be out of wine.