Rough Night

Warning: The last half of this post is about a whole lot of grossness exiting my son's sweet patooty. If you are at all squeamish, thanks for stopping by and I'll see you tomorrow.

Seriously.

You've been warned.


Man, I need to catch my breath after the evening we had around her today. It was brutal. Things started going south when I was outside with the kids. Z was driving the little motorized Jeep. She's still a bit of a spaz behind the wheel, but she's shown a lot of improvement from her first time or two driving around the yard. We had been up and down the (looooong) driveway a couple of times when I got the bright idea to go around our neighbors' house, through their backyard and through the gap in the trees that is a shortcut across our lawns.

All was well for the first two legs of the journey. But things went horribly awry when cutting through the trees. The undergrowth hadn't been cut back since last summer, so there were a couple of small branches in the way. I went ahead and was holding back the worst of them. Z kind of lost her mind when she saw the branches. Instead of going through the gap I had made for her, she panicked: she put the accelerator to the floor, cranked the wheel to the left, and tucked her head under the dashboard. Running directly into me.

Now normally, I would have just jumped out of the way, but we were on a small incline and the bumper of the Jeep and me pinned by the knee - doing its best to make it bend in ways knees were never meant to bend. Also, I had stepped into the brush - a sticker bush, no less - and had no where to go. I am hollering for Z to take her foot off the pedals and in her panic she totally didn't hear me. I finally had to give her a whack to get her to listen to me. Kind of like in the movies where you slap the hysterical person to get them to calm down. Same thing.

I blew this particular knee out one frosty March afternoon in high school. I dislocated my kneecap and was in a cast for months. I have re-injured it multiple times since. Suffice it to say this knee is a sore spot (pun entirely intended). All I needed to complete my ensemble this evening was the eye patch to go with my gimpy pirate leg.

Then, to add insult to injury, as I was limping around the (poorly arranged) kitchen making dinner(!) - thanks, T, for stepping up! (Oh, yeah. He didn't) - Q yanked open an ankle height drawer and totally creamed my shin. I let out a yelp like a dying yak and scared Q half to death. Yet another example of my stellar parenting skills!

Q was super crabby all through dinner. I finally got him out of his seat, only to have him cry for the food he'd left on his plate. I gave in and handed him a carrot stick. I guess it went down the wrong way, because he started coughing and choking. He turned an alarming shade of red. At the time I was strangely detached. My inner Red Cross volunteer was whispering that if his airway was blocked, he wouldn't be able to cry or cough, so I didn't need to worry that much.

Finally, he hacked up a carrot, but continued to cry inconsolably. I draped him on my chest and patted and soothed for probably half an hour. Then I noticed that he was gasping for breath. A phone call to Dr.-Dad-in-Law later, I was assured that it probably wasn't anything to worry about, but nebulizing him wouldn't hurt.

In the throes of his crying I had felt a series of poots, so when he calmed down I put him on the ottoman to change his diaper. He'd been having, erm, liquid poops all day and this one was no exception. I got him all cleaned up and was doing the final wipe down when his butt opened fire. It was the mother of all poojinks. He got me, the couch, the carpet, the decorative throw, and the ottoman. Thank goodness I had put the changing pad down. Then, as if that weren't bad enough, he started leaking from every southern orifice. Now there was poop and tinkle on the ottoman. Yay! Bring on the Nature's Miracle!

At this point, the little guy is laying in a disgusting puddle of goo that needed cleaning. After the first gush, my hysterical screeches brought T running with paper towels. As I roll him on his side to mop under him, I see a penny. From in his diaper. WTF? That certainly would explain a lot, but it did not show signs of having passed through his digestive tract. It just slipped in his diaper. Whew! Oh, and his tiny little butthole was bleeding.

Another phone call to Dr.-Dad-in-Law, who assured me that it was nothing to be alarmed about, and we got him cleaned up and into jammies. He was still struggling for breath, so T brought me the nubulizer and I gave him a treatment. The hum of the compressor put him right to sleep. Thank goodness.

Oh, did I mention that Z kept trying to get into the middle of the proceedings? She was practically in the splash zone before her father banished her to the guest room. Or that as Q's crying escalated, she retaliated by singing just as loudly? And that she became compulsively affectionate to me when T told her not to touch me or Q might wake up? Good times.

I am so glad that they are both in bed asleep. I am going to take a cue from them and head up to my nice soft bed as well. You know, after I burn my clothes and boil my skin to get rid of the poop cooties. Blech. Motherhood is so glamorous.