Self-portrait w/ daughters(K's camera)
An excerpt from my afternoon yesterday.
Scenario: It's 4-15ish and I'm trying to vacuum and get pesto made for dinner. To that end, I've turned the girls over to 2 episodes of Saddle Club. Yes, I've turned into that parent. K is in underwear, having been in it all day at school. L is in her diaper, but I haven't changed it since picking her up from daycare at 3.20p.
I manage to vacuum the kitchen and the dining room. I decide against the living room because I want to roast pine nuts and garlic before the TV shows are done. I get nuts roasted, garlic roasted, basil washed.....
L (from down in the basement): Daddy!
me (loading the chopper): Yes L?
L (yelling): Pea you come!
me: I'm making dinner.
L: Pea you come Daddy!
me (measuring 7 table spoons of olive oil): You need to wait L.
L: My diaper wet.
my plan was to make the dinner (I've already got the pasta boiling) and then do bath before we eat. Dinner in our house comes around 5-5.30. Now I have to figure out if I can dodge a diaper change until bath (to save on diapers, not that I really mind doing the change itself).
I go downstairs where L & K are both still watching Saddle Club.
me: How wet is your diaper?
L: Pea you sit with me!
me: I'm making dinner. After this is over we're going to do bath.
L: And then jammies and brush teeth.
me: Nope, then dinner. Then brush teeth!
L: Yeah!
Here's where experience comes in! I make a calculation that things are ok, that I can just leave her in the wet diaper. I leave them each with a kiss that I don't think K even notices.
Back upstairs I stir the pasta, put the asparagus into the oven to roast, and grate cheese.
A bit later....
K: Daddy, it over!
L: It ova!
me: Ok, turn off the TV and come on up.
K: I can't!
me (yelling down the stairs while dripping olive oil on the floor -- the dog will get it): Yes you can.
K: I can't turn off the DVD!
me: L knows how to do that.
K (coming upstairs): I turned the TV off.
L (from down in the basement): Daddy, pea you come down hea.
me: Did you turn off the DVD?
L: Oh, no. (pause) I turn it off. Daddy, it off!
me: Thank you!
L: Pick me up!
me (going downstairs): Ok, come on, let's get you upstairs. I'm going to finish dinner and then we'll do bath.
L: And brush teeth!
me: After we eat!
L: Yeah!
The girls mill about while I stir pasta, turn asparagus and gauge the timing and coordination of events.... Things get suspiciously quiet.
me: Where's L?
K (riding her horse in the middle of the kitchen): I don't know.
L (out in the living room): I need pwivacy!
me: Ok. (thinking, damn, can I have her wait in a diaper that's both wet and dirty?)
K (going out into the living room, because, after all, if someone says they need privacy, you ought to go find out whether they need privacy): You need privacy?
L: No see me!
me (trying to instill the notion that people don't necessarily want to share every single little detail of their lives): K, come here. She wants some privacy.
K comes back.
Time passes.
L returns to the kitchen: I have poopy diaper.
Hmm... can I hold off on the change...?
K (yelling from under the kitchen table): Daddy! I having accident!!
me (peering under where she's standing with a wide stance, peeing a river on the kitchen floor): Oh, K!
I run to the bathroom, grab a towel and push it under her. She's obviously not peed for some time, because now she's peeing a lot.
me: Stand on this.
K (very softly): Ok.
L: K having accident.
me: Yes. K, why didn't you sit on the potty?
K: silence
me (more harshly than I intend): I'm going to make a new rule. You have to try peeing before Saddle Club.
K (softly): Ok.
So now I've got asparagus roasting in the oven, pasta not quite done, one girl in a wet poopy diaper, the other girl in wet underwear, tights and skort.... I turn off the oven and leave the asparagus in it, pour the pasta into a sieve, and herd the girls to the bathroom where we strip down (well, they strip down, I help them) and start bath. At one point I run back to the kitchen and pull the asparagus out. Maybe it'll be ok.
K (quietly, while I wash her face): Everyone have accidents.
me (realizing now just how badly she feels): Yes K, everyone does. It's ok.
L (with enthusiasm): K have athident!
me: Yup, everyone has them.
L: Yeah, evyone hath them.
Bottom line (so to speak): dinner wasn't ruined, the towel sopped up all the pee, and things were ok. Oh yeah, K went back under the kitchen table after dinner, after getting washed and into jammies, and had a big poop in her diaper.
Just another Monday evening at our house.
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