Whitey Tighty Tidy Bowl

Really?

So I am doing laundry today while Jaxon naps.I like to sort from the giant pile upstairs and then take the dark, light, white, towel loads downstairs separately.(Incidentally, if you buy clothes that don't fit into the afore mentioned piles, you're outta luck in this house. Those are the only cycles I offer). There are still 2 piles of laundry upstairs.
I just sat down to check my email, etc on the computer. Jaxon knows he is in trouble for flopping around in bed instead of napping. He is now up without napping and prepared to do whatever it takes to get on my good side.

He emerges from the bathroom declaring:

"I just washed the toilet, Mommy. Because it was filthy." (Um, yeah, it usually is.....)

I looked at him, not believing him. His hands are wet.

"Did you just put your hands in the toilet water?" (near shrieking)

"Well," he says, "I think I did because I was helping you."

I snatch him and take him into the bathroom, turn on the water, wait 10 minutes for the water to get warm, soap him up and make him scrub. Then I say:

"You don't EVER put your hands in toilet water! That is nasty! Do you want to be nasty?"

"No."

Then I give him a little tiny get-out-of-my-sight nudge out the bathroom door. I dry my hands. HE does not get the privilege of drying his hands. I am just too disgusted that at nearly four, he doesn't know to keep his hands out of the freaking toilet water. I leave the bathroom just in time to catch him drying his own hands.

On dirty little boy underpants from the white pile.

Adventures in Child-rearing

I have fallen on my sword....

My carpet has reached the maximum allowed not only by the manufacterer, but also the great State of Texas. The maximum of pee, that is. Referring to my sub-title: I googled how to sharpen the sword, where to get one, etc. Then I positioned it carefully amongst some ratty old toys and sank onto it. Gruesome? Not really. Considering all the feces and urine I have cleaned out of Lightening McQueen and SpongeBob underpants. I flipped through the Buda yellow pages to try to find an eighteen-wheeler in order to buy paper towels in that quantity to bring home. It's been rough. I knew it would be. What I wasn't really counting on was the total defiance and seeming "screw you" whizzing that my son would be capable of. It's hard after 6 days to not take it personally. I really tried everything people told me and what I read. I praised him up one side and down the other. It's hard to be enthusiastic when your son is technically peeing while on the potty, but he's really just spraying his golden braid of urine all over the bathroom floor. That's a lot of power in his little peanut! And you can't get mad at him or make him feel bad when he stands there and pees for the 11th time that morning (there is a distinct urine discoloration all around my coffee table where he feels compelled to empty his bladder), so you just struggle through cleanched teeth to say: "Next time tell mom BEFORE you go, OK?" and then in a higher, strained crazy-lady soft-ish whisper - "Mommy is dead on the inside, Sweetie!"
Still, though. I do feel sorry for him. I mean, how embarassing to go to grad school still pooping and peeing in a diaper! Because that will be about the time that I will be mentally ready to try again. Oh, and by the way: underpants are supposed to save you money? Don't you believe it! I spent $2.38 cleaning Jaxon's poopy butt by completely blowing through an entire container of Kandoo in one 'incident' that I no longer talk about in great detail. Yeah, it was that gross. Another thing: Kandoo? Um, no. We kan't. Thanks for your crazy subliminal- message-in-title slick advertising. We know better here at 449 Faircrest Drive. And we're spreading the word. One reader at a time.
On the up side, I now get a healthy dose of "You did it, Mommy! I am so proud of you!" or "You went pee pee in the potty! Good job, Mommy! You are a good boy!" whenever I need to pee. Thanks, Jaxon for your encouraging words. After the week I've had with you, I really needed that.