Week in Review

I have been lazy with my blogness this week. Most of our adventures, however, have had a little too much yuck factor to photograph. Brace yourself, several of them involve poop. And this one's wordy.

On Monday, while we were still at my parents', Aidan disappeared. I checked on him, and he was tinkering with the piano in the den. Not wanting to deter my lil' Mozart from his work, I let him be. About ten minutes later, Dad notices he's still MIA and asks, "Where's Aidan?" (Here's the part that varies depending on who's narrating this story.) I say, "I don't know. He was in the den a little while ago." (When Dad tells it, all I say is, "I don't know," and don't budge from the table. Total lazy mom in his version.) Another five to ten minutes later, Mom and Dad both go upstairs, Mom to take a shower and Dad to get some work done, I think. Dad saw the mess first. Aidan has this uncanny ability to poop in the potty when he needs to, but since he can't wipe himself yet, he manages to smear it all over the place. It was all over his legs and the toilet seat, and he was standing on the toilet brushing his teeth with my mother's toothbrush. Needless to say, that toothbrush (and all the ones sharing living space with it) went in the trash. I told her that at least they didn't have a cat, because he'd have probably been brushing the cat intermittently as well.

Tuesday was the day we returned to Louisiana. I'd like to start by saying if you're ever considering traveling for any distance where you'll have to stop along the way alone with two children and a dog, DON'T DO IT. Or don't do it if you can absolutely help it. It probably wouldn't have gone over too well if I'd opted to skip Jopey's wedding. Anyway, the most eventful part of our day was the part where I wanted to drop-kick the GPS out the window. When I got into Memphis, I was following the thing blindly before I realized it was taking me a different way than usual. We've done this trip about a zillion times. Why would it suddenly want me to go another way? And where was it sending me? It wanted me to go through Jackson instead of Little Rock. I got back to where I wanted to be, and the GPS basically had a does not compute moment. It gave me some error message that basically said, "I can't get you there this way, but I can show you a map of where you are." What?! Come to find out, the settings had been switched from fastest route to shortest distance. When I got it back how it needed to be, it shaved an hour off my projected arrival time. Thank goodness!

Wednesday I cleaned and washed laundry, because I simply cannot manage to pack and leave my house clean at the same time. I'm not sure why. I'm just not one of those special people who's programmed that way. So alas, I always return to a dirty house. It's a bummer.

Also on Wednesday, we had a repeat of the poop smearing incident, only this time it happened while I was in the shower, was not contained to just one toilet, and did not involve a toothbrush. It was so gross that by the time I finished cleaning up after him, I felt like I needed another shower.

Thursday was stressful, and I don't want to recap it, not even in print. So sorry.

Today was pretty awesome, especially when compared with some of the insanity we've encountered this week. And it comes with a funny story. We went to the gym this morning, and this happened when I picked the kids up from the nursery. As you walk into the room, there's a big bookcase straight in front of you where all the toys live. You have to walk right by it to get to anything else in the room. Whenever I go to pick them up, I always do a quick kid-check before signing them out, and at first glance, I didn't see Neely. Most of the time, she's passed out in a swing or a baby chair, and I didn't see her there. As I'm signing them out, I hear Neely squawk, and my friend Ashley tells me I've got to come see something. Neely has climbed into the bookcase and is sitting on the bottom shelf, grinning and laughing. She looked like she belonged there, like a baby doll! It was too funny. Before we left the house this morning, I thought Neely looked so cute that I took a picture, so imagine her in a bookcase instead of on the floor and you've pretty much got the image.