You've Got to be Kidding Me!

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So glad to have my computer back!!  It was just too annoying to update the blog from our iPad.  But boy oh boy have we had some adventures in the last few weeks.  I think my new favorite phrase has become "You've got to be kidding me!" I can't even tell you how many times I've muttered this in the last week or so.  I'm really not sure why I continue to be surprised by the shenanigans the boys manage to get themselves into, yet somehow each time they up the ante and I find myself with my head in my hands muttering my new catch phrase yet again. 

Rewind a week and a half.  The boys were on the tail end of a miserable cold that deprived us all of a weeks worth of sleep, and me of my sanity.  My sanity was only partially due to the lack of sleep.  The rest was attributed to my dear Matthew's inability to peform a basic and simple human task- the cough.  For four days, he spent the first hour each morning coughing until he puked.  I don't deal well with puke.  Even when I handle it decently well in the moment, my anxiety lingers for days and it just plain wipes me out.  Anyways.  So we're at the tail end of this wonderful week.  It is Friday and the boys desperately need a nap to catch up on some sleep.  Uh-uh.  Not gonna happen.  I tried separating them but it just wasn't in the cards.  Their cards anyways.  It was most certainly in mine!!!  So I ended up letting them both hang out in their bedroom with some books and the lights on.  I begged for a half hour.  After about 20 minutes, the giggling got real quiet.  I desperately wanted to believe they had crashed out of pure exhaustion, that they were quietly snuggled together in one of their beds and it would be so adorable that I would sneak in to snap a few pictures before I enjoyed a gloriously peaceful afternoon to myself to recharge my own batteries.  Uh-uh.  Not gonna happen!  So when I went in there to check, do you know what I found?  Do you even know?!  I found both boys naked.  And pee all over the wall.  And I mean ALL over the wall.  With a giant puddle spreading out from the base molding.  I stood there with my mouth hanging open, speechless.  After a moment, the words started running through my head.  Somehow, I had the mental capacities to filter them.  But nothing coming to mind was appropriate to say.  Finally I uttered an exasperated "What in the hell did you do?!" to which they replied, "We were tryin' to pee in those holes!" while pointing at the electrical outlet.  Honest to God.  I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried!!!  Now I'm really speechless.  Really, truly, completely speechless.  What is one supposed to say when one's children try to pee in an electrical outlet??  Is there a standard protocol for such a situation?  Even if there was a written guide to raising toddlers, I'm fairly certain this wouldn't be in it!!!  So I called Jon.  I called Jon in hope that he could tell me the exact words that I was supposed to say.  Except that he had no words either. I could see his jaw drop- yes, I could see this happening through the phone!  And at the same time, I could see the little devil horns on the boys heads grow another inch.  Since Jon was no help, I was on my own.  So I marched my little devils back into their bedroom and handed them a roll of paper towels and some wet washcloths.  And then, in a stroke of pure genius of which I cannot identify the origins being that I was utterly and completely at my wits end, I went and fetched myself the M&M jar.  The one the boys get to take 3 M&Ms from each night that they have had no accidents during the day.  And I sat there on Caleb's bed, gorging myself on M&Ms while they cleaned up.  After all, I hadn't had any accidents!  They cried.  They begged.  But they cleaned up that whole mess.  And then, after I had eaten enough M&Ms to hopefully get myself through the rest of the afternoon on chocolate power, because lets face it- that's all I had going for me, I put my jar away and on we went with the rest of our day.  Oi vey! 

Fast forward a week.  We're all feeling better.  The boys had a great week and we were enjoying a beautiful fall Saturday.  I was making dinner while the boys were coloring and Jon was outside cleaning his car when all of a sudden I hear the loudest most painful earth shattering scream.  Matthew, who moments earlier had been coloring peacefully at his desk, runs into the kitchen with his hands pressed over his eyes.  He takes a breath and lets out another God awful shriek.  I take a breath and am overcome by the smell of Icy Hot.  You have got to be kidding me.  You have really got to be kidding me.  Over the last few weeks, we have had to remove every tube or bottle of squeezable anything because the boys have come to enjoy squeezing out every toothpaste, lotion, etc. they can get their grubby little hands on.  I thought we had gotten it all out of reach.  Except that the night before I had taken down my Icy Hot arthritis lotion for my knees and I had left it on the night stand next to my bed.  I scoop up Matthew, letting out my own earth shattering scream for Jon to come inside, and on our way to the bathroom, I manage to see Caleb standing in my bedroom and half the bottle of lotion all over the place.  You have GOT to be kidding me!!!  So we got Matthew over my legs on the edge of the bathtub with me holding his eye lids wide open and Jon dumping cups of water in them as he screams bloody murder.  It was awful.  Just awful!!!  Then, as we are doing this, Caleb who is standing next to us in the bathroom starts to scream the same God awful scream.  It hadn't even occurred to me that he had the lotion on his hands too, and he just then decided to touch his eyes.  Now we've got two screaming kids, four little eye peeled and pinned open, and the two of us desperately dumping water onto their screaming childrens exposed eyeballs.  I'm pretty certain the neighbors must have thought we were performing a ritualistic sacrifice.  Of our kids.  I'm truly surprised no one called CPS.

Oh I'm not done.  Fast forward one more time.  Its 24 hours later- Sunday night.  Jon and I are about to fall asleep.  My lips are dry, so I reach over to my nightstand to get some bag balm.  I dip my finger in and rub it on my lips.  My lips are instantly on fire.  You have got to be frickin' kidding me!!!!!  Yup.  My little devils managed to squirt some of the icy hot lotion into my bag balm, which I had just smeared all over my lips.  Seriously.  I'm starting to believe our friends and family when they say we need our own reality show.  I'm not sure why the current reality shows have to make stuff up.  Because this is not fabricated folks.  This is not an alcohol induced made-up reality!!!  This is my life!  My cough-puke-electrocuted with urine-icy hot in the eyes-lips on fire life!  The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth!  We really should be getting paid for this.