Laugh or drive yourself to the loony bin. AKA: Motherhood

Today, my mother and I took my two children (ages 3 & 5 )  and my daughters friend, age 6 , to see The Muppets Most Wanted. It was a rollicking tale, one that emitted guffaws and slap stick humor. But it paled in comparison to the humor of my day with my children. Because when it gets this crazy, you have to laugh or drive yourself to the loony bin.

Lets start out by saying this: the weather is wacky here. It was 80 degrees and gorgeous two days ago. Today, it was 65 degrees and pouring rain at 9 am and it has been raining all day. And the temperature is dropping. It is now 5:30 pm and 40 degrees. I tell you this because maybe it is a possible reason for the insanity of my world today.

My three year old, D, has been horribly oppositional and stubborn lately. He is three, after all.  Last night he asked for cheese and bread for dinner. (My kids are less culinary than an ant). After asking him three times if he was sure that is what he wanted to eat and him replying yes each time, I made him a plate with bread, and circle (provolone) cheese. He promptly didn't touch either.

Guess what he got for breakfast? Cheese and bread. Guess what he ate? Bread. The cheese went in the refrigerator. No snacks, including popcorn later at the movies, until the cheese was eaten. He waited until 12:30pm, when we were in line to get the popcorn, to gobble it up. Can we say stubborn? It took him 18 hours to eat a piece of cheese.

On our way out the door to go to the movies, D had to bring toys with him.  This is because every time he goes anywhere, he has to bring a bucket of toys with him. (Including when he goes upstairs) I told him he could bring two toys. Two small toys. He chose a digger and a Batmobile. He could barely carry the Batmobile and digger. But I refused to carry them.

 Just prior to getting snacks at the movies, we all go into the bathroom. As we are entering,  there are three children playing with the hand dryers. These are SUPER hand dryers. They are louder than a 747 plane taking off and they were continuously setting them off. My kids were all covering their ears and I, with complete judgement,  looked at the children and their mom who was coming out of the stall with the stink eye.

Ironically, as I am helping my son go potty (newly potty trained), I hear the squeals of two little girls and the hand dryer being set off repeatedly. And I notice those squeals immediately and begin to yell, "STEP AWAY FROM THE DRYER!" Which is futile because these dryers are so loud, I can't even hear myself yelling.

We go into the movies and find a seat. We have successfully wrangled three kid trays of overflowing popcorn, fruit snacks and gallon sized kidde drinks of fruit punch, two small popcorns and two small drinks, tickets, and three small kids into seats.

Let me go back to the kiddie drinks for a minute. WHY are they so huge? I get the adult drink sizes (not the cost) but the size of the kids fountain drink is about 32 oz. (I don't actually know but that is what it looks like).  How does 32 oz of red dyed liquid fit into a child's bladder without having to go to the bathroom 20 times during the movie? HOW?

For a while, everything was great. We didn't have a lot of time before the movie started. Everyone was happily stuffing their mouths with popcorn. Then my son slugged half the drink. I thought it would a good idea to take him to the potty. We go and he doesn't have to go. Ok. Sure you don't, kid.

We go back to our seats. He wants to sit on me and cuddle. Cute. 20 minutes later. Girl 1 has to go potty. My mom takes her. Girl 2 decides she has to go too and runs after her. Then my son decides he has to go too. I meet my mom in the hallway and send her back into the theatre. Girls do their business, D goes drip drip (he has now had 24 Ozs of liquid) and pronounces he is done.
 "Are you sure?" I say. "Yes!" He says, annoyed I asked the question.

We return to the theatre. 20 min later. It is now the end of the movie. D: "I have to go potty now!" We rush off to the bathroom. He gets on. And......

It shoots out so fast it sprays everywhere. On me, the floor, his clothes and because he bends over to "aim", it went right into his mouth. (I am not gonna lie, I felt mild justice with that.) Now this how I know I am a mom: first, I wipe his mouth, then i wipe the floor, then I change his clothes. I still have pee on my leg, mind you. The extra pair of pants in his backpack are wet because they were against the open wipe container. The only other pair of pants were shorts and pull ups. Because for some reason, I forgot underwear. The whole time I am changing him, I am yelling at him to not walk to the wet area where I wiped the pee. After changing him I look at the drops of pee on my jeans. There are no paper towels. Only the insane hand dryer.

I get water on my hand try to wipe my jeans and pray it doesn't smell.

Time to meet the girls and my mom outside of the movie theatre. Movie is over.  Girls have to go potty. My mom takes them into the potty. D sees a picture opportunity with The Muppets stand up advertisement and wants to go to it immediately. There are other people taking a picture with it and I tell him to wait until the girls come out. He drops to the ground in protest. I am carrying two backpacks and trying to pick him up. I decide to leave him on the floor. I bribe him and tell him he won't get a lollipop from my mom's house. He shapes up quickly. Girls come out. Picture is taken. We go back to my mom's house. After playing quietly for a bit, we leave. It's now 46 degrees, my son is in shorts, and it is pouring outside.

We get home and he decides he is going to take forever to get out of the car and walk to the house. He decided to jump in the puddles in his shorts. Therefore, I get soaking wet. Which didn't really matter because I had to change my pants anyhow. And then when I was putting long pants on him, he hugged me and kissed my neck with his previously pee stained lips.


I love him, but man he exhausts me.