Joyful pain: Watching my baby grow up

This evening Jonah fell asleep in the van on our way home from Grandma’s. He’d had a weekend with his cousins, which I imagine was full of trampoline-jumping, Minecraft-playing, late night giggles and mischief. In other words: the kid was exhausted, and thus he was passed out before the sun made its nightly departure.

Even when the van came to a stop in our driveway, which usually wakes him, he didn’t stir. Jeb carried him into the house: still nothing. Jonah’s arms were wrapped around Jeb’s neck, his head lolled on his daddy’s shoulder, and for the first time in a long time he reminded me of his baby self. I said this out loud, and Jeb was thoughtful enough to ask if I wanted to hold Jonah for awhile.

Jeb handed me our boy, limp with sleep and much, much heavier than when we would pass him between us just a few years ago. Jonah snuggled his head into the crook of my arm, and I remembered how he would drowse there, milk-drunk and content, after nursing. Tonight he didn’t lay as comfortably as he had in those infant days. His solid six-year-old body proved difficult to settle into my arms and lap, his legs so long they overflowed onto the couch beside me. How can my child, my baby, be too big for my lap?

Finally, he settled and his breathing deepened. I dipped my neck so that I could lay my head next to his, close enough to breathe in the smell of him. He smelled like vanilla ice cream and outside air and unwashed clothes. Even though I cradled him like a baby, he smelled of little boy. 

It occurred to me that this time could be the last time I’ll ever get to hold him like this. I held him closer. I noticed how the curve of his dark thick eyelashes across his cheeks is the same as it’s always been, though now one cheek has a scar he will carry for the rest of his life. He’s the same as he ever was, yet he’s different today than he was yesterday or last year or five years ago. And, God willing, he’ll keep growing and learning and smiling and laughing and, day by day, year by year, changing, and I will watch all of this with bittersweet eyes.

But at the end of this day and every day, he’s my Jonah. Always my Jonah. 

The era of secret poop

Flushing the toilet is easy, right? I mean, I’ve never, ever heard anyone say that it’s hard. Can you imagine?  “Jeez, dude, that toilet flushing I had to do today was just brutal.”  “Ugh, pushing that little lever down was tiring. I’m gonna need a rest and a beer after that fiasco.” Um, no.  

And then I had kids, and all bets were off. According to Evie (7) and Jonah (5), toilet flushing is an exceptionally difficult life task.

Our family attended an out-of-town wedding this weekend. It was fun, but even the best of events is kind of exhausting with kids in tow. After the hours-long "let's pack up our stuff and go" process, followed by the hour-long ride in the minivan, the sight of home was more than welcome. Home! My safe place, my refuge. I couldn't get in the door fast enough. Usually I’m greeted by the still-new-house scents of cut wood, paint, and something vague gluey…but not this time. This time, I was hit with a wave of stank that I’d consider to be a Nostril Assault. My haven smelled like a damn outhouse.

And I knew it wasn’t our kitty's fault. Willy ain't got time for that. He's all about that litter box.

No, I knew right away what the problemo was. And the problemo, as it so often is when something unexpectedly stinks, was the kids' doing. A poop was left in the kids’ bathroom toilet all weekend. So I got to return from a long weekend to a festering, stinking pile of poop.

This happens at our house sort of a lot. In fact, often enough that my husband and I have coined our own expression for it-- “secret poop”—because some kid poops and runs, we don’t know who did it, and we find it way later than we’d like.

Evie claims that she is scared of the sound of toilet flushing, yet she admits that she flushes at school. Jonah's excuse is that he is scared he will clog the toilet. He just started wiping his own ass, and so he goes through a lot of toilet paper in trying to get his rear clean. Understandable. It really is gratifying that he’s finally wiping on his own— it’s a victory, in and of itself. When it started happening, I thought it meant that I was going to get to have less contact with human excrement—always a bonus. Turns out that now I still get the esteemed privilege of being responsible for the care and keeping of everyone's poop, it's just that now I get to look at it, smell it, and maneuver it when it's not fresh.

 Sometimes (many times) the toilet is clogged, proving Jonah's point, but still, does he have to let it linger? (Yes, if you’re from my generation, you now have the Cranberries song in your head. I did that on purpose). Could he tell us about the problem right away so we don't have festering poop? Festering poop and TP leads to plunging, basically a poop post-mortem, and that's no fun on so many levels. Tonight my husband tried to teach Jonah about courtesy flushing, in an attempt to both salvage Jonah’s clean butt/pride yet prevent flush avoidance/poop festering/smell lingering/poop post-mortem. We'll see how that goes.

We've just been bribing Evie. Ten cents for every unprompted flush. Seems to take the edge off that whole “fear” thing.

After my third poop post-mortem this week, and hence my third time this week scrubbing out the bowl, I started making (possibly empty) threats. You know, like, you can't see your friends tomorrow if this happens again, I will take away your Beanie Boos, the legos are temporarily going to a secret place where only Mommy gets to play with them. I told them I’d punish both of them if I found any secret poop, since there’s no way to tell who did it. The kids were unfazed. I think they've got my number, and knew that this was just tired Mommy blowing smoke up their asses. I mean, am I really going to actually periodically check the toilet for flush adherence? Obviously not, or the whole evening poop post-mortem and threatening ritual would probably not occur.

But seriously, I swear to Pete if I have to clean the toilet one ore time this week, I'm gonna blow a gasket.