None of you understand. I'm not locked up in here with you. You're locked up in here with me.
This charming gentleman is Rorschach, the bracingly psychotic vigilante from the Watchmen. Eventually the law catches up to him and he is placed in a prison, where every thug he has locked up over the years is anxious to get their hands on him. At least, they are until it becomes apparent that the balance of power is not quite what they thought it was, as made apparent in his quote.
Similarly, every time you start to think you are getting a handle on this parenting thing, something comes along, knocks you on your ass, and makes you realize it is not your kids trapped in the house with you, but YOU who are trapped in the house with them.
WARNING: This post is a little darker than my normal fare. If you just want funny pictures, scroll down a bit. You have been warned.
It started out as a typical Tuesday. I am scrambling around trying to get the girls ready for Daycare. They need breakfast. They need to be cleaned up. They need clothes. They need suntan lotion. I need to get my own sorry self presentable. I need to load up the car. Tuesdays also offer the extra complications of house keeper, who comes once every two weeks, and gardener, who is relevant because I have to make sure not to leave the dog outside to run away or maul a poor dude making minimum wage with a leaf blower. This Tuesday had it all going on. And of course the girls are always taking advantage of my split attention to demolish something.
Finally we are ready to hit the highway (the housekeeper had gotten her weeks mixed up, so cross that one off the list), but we have to hit the potty one more time before the road. We are now into our 2nd month of serious potty training, where we have taken away the diaper safety net and now march boldly around in our underpants. The girls are doing very well, but they are far from foolproof. Sometimes they give you warning, sometimes they just pee on the floor. Thank goodness for hardwood floors is all I can say. However, if you are diligent and get them to the bathroom after meals, before car rides, and more frequently at the end of the day, they can stay 'Clean and Dry' as our personal mantra goes.
So here I am. End of another long morning, doing the last potty break before the road. I got Kayla up first because she had done close to nothing after breakfast and therefore was more likely to have built up a dangerous bladder level. As is almost always the case, they fight tooth and nail to avoid the toilet and then once there they want to stop and have tea and biscuits while discussing the events of the world. They don't want to go because they don't want to interrupt their playing, yet it wouldn't take very long if they just did it and went. For the girls I think this might be fundamental: They will keep playing up to the point that they wet their pants until they understand that they actually get more playing in if they go use the potty fast.
Also I think there is some basic clenching fine motor skills that need to be mastered, but I think I have digressed into childhood development of waste removal functions quite enough, thank you.
So Kayla is there on her special seat with steps when I hear Rylie getting into something in the kitchen. Earlier they had hit this one drawer filled with toddler/baby odds and ends, including a bunch of old pacifiers that they never used as babies but now like to suck on occasionally, mainly so that they can fight over the pink one. Now when they get into these drawers (which they are not supposed to do) they usually make a mess, scattering odds and ends around the kitchen floor, half of which then need to be washed as they were really not intended to be dropped into the dust bunnies under the stove and then placed in anyone's mouth (please recall the house keeper was supposed to be there today, so the dust bunnies are more like dust badgers). Kayla is definitely in no hurry to finish up, so I figure this is the standard twin distract and grab. I don't think they plan these (yet) but they know how to take advantage.
Now I am hearing some rustling like plastic bags and I know I have to go investigate personally, as Rylie has probably gotten into the sandwich bags and when they do that they tend to scatter them everywhere. And once again, a sandwich bag is not so good at holding sandwiches after being stepped on by dirty baby galoshes. I tell Kayla to stay put and go into the den/kitchen.
Since my massive remodel, the tv/den and kitchen have all become one big great room with an island sitting about two thirds of the way across as I enter from the bathroom. I can't see Rylie because she is on the other side of the island, which happens to be where the drawers with tantalizing kid oriented stuff and sandwich bags are kept. More plastic rustling. I make my way around the island and that is when I see Rylie.
With not one, but two plastic bags on top of her head.
I have seen my share of horror movies and murder procedurals, so I know what killing someone by placing a plastic bag over their head looks like. It looks like this.
Absolute terror, like I have not felt in a very long time with adrenaline released into the blood stream in a single giant splash. A wave of awful tingling traveling up and down your spine and curling around your groin. Real, honest to god I am being attacked by sabretooth tigers, primordial terror. The closest I can recall in my personal experience was the time when I got a call from a hospital nurse to tell me my wife had been in an car accident. Candy only had minor whiplash, but the thick-headed nurse not only failed to start the conversation by telling me she was all right, but actually stopped talking after relating only the fact of the accident, forcing me to ask if my wife was all right. When I found out she was my relief was almost matched by my anger. But as scary as that one sentence on the phone was, it contained no visual to match your child with multiple plastic bags completely over her head.
I let out a "Rylie No!" in a voice which did not sound like my own. It sounded like someone from a movie who had just discovered a dead loved one. So, that is what it really sounds like. It is basically involuntary, an almost hindbrain request that the reality presented before you be declared immediately null and void, as if by just stating a firm negative with all your will you can make it be not so.
There was no pause in my motion. The moment I turned the corner marked the moment I reached for that bag over her head. I think I got off the 'Rylie No!' at about the same time as I pulled the top bag off. It came free easily, its plastic sides sliding easily off the plastic below. Then I grabbed the second bag, which was smaller and more snugly gripping her head.
I think at this point (1 second?, 3 seconds?) I had taken in the scene enough to realize that Rylie did not seem to be in immediate peril. She was moving and not in obvious breathing distress. So when it resisted me I did not tear that second bag off her head with all my strength. But I still yanked that fucker off. Yes I did.
So there we are, on the floor. Rylie is balling because she has been completely overwhelmed by the vehemence of my actions. I am hugging her and telling her she must never ever never ever never ever put plastic bags on her head and hugging her and Kayla has now wandered out of the bathroom with pants around her ankles wanting to know what is going on and I am checking Rylie to make sure she is fine and trying to sound calm enough to not put Kayla into tears and she should never ever never ever put plastic bags on her head.
And I still need to potty Rylie and get her into Daycare.
With a little time to reflect I don't think she was in that much danger. Those plastic bags are actually small enough and, more importantly, stiff enough that I think it would be very hard to asphyxiate yourself with one. Also, the system seemed to work. Rylie got into trouble, the parent heard something going on, went to investigate and stopped it before it got too crazy. It has made me consider all the various plastic bags lying around. A really flexible and big one could be quite dangerous, particularly if it were strong enough to resist a thrashing 2-year old. Those dry cleaning ones strike me as Black Mambas of the plastic bag world.
From now on my clothes are either dirty or cotton or one time wear.
OK, I think that is enough of that. I'll put away the flashlight under my chin and we can leave the fire and go back inside somewhere with bright, artificial lighting. Not everything the girls put on their heads is a Johnny Space Commander product. Sometimes it is a simple pull-up diaper that transforms my terrible twos into terrible twojahedins.
The wifey did not want me to post these, her reasoning being that they were just too embarr- assing. That once something is on the internet it is out there for the world to see...forever. I have two things to say to that: #1 Everyone has embarrassing childhood photos and I suspect the next generation is going to be a lot more comfortable with the digital photograph and the ease with which it is transmitted around the world. I listened to a whole NPR episode about the kind of stuff kids are putting on facebook. Believe me, a diaper on the head is tame, tame stuff. #2 THEY PUT DIAPERS ON THEIR HEADS! Come on, that is just too damn funny to keep to myself.
And let me assure you, this was not a one time event. They have been crazy obsessed with putting those pull-ups on their heads for weeks. [So, yes, I suppose the plastic bag incident was a bit forseeable.] A week ago I went to do the final tucking of the girls into bed and had to pull the diaper off the head of a sleeping Kayla. She had fallen asleep with it on. Sigh. And let me also state for the record that at no time did anybody suggest or encourage this, except by laughing our asses off and taking pictures, of course.
Now you are probably thinking to yourself, "That was awesome. Diaper head pictures. Could anything be funnier?!"
The answer is, in fact, yes: Diaper Head Video.
If this ends up the next Dramatic Prairie Dog I am probably going to be in big trouble. Yes, that is a continuation of the Twin Mind Meld from over a month ago. I think mankind may be in danger.
So lets close this blog entry out with some pure, wholesome cousin adorability. Here are the twins and their cousin Claire on Easter. They are sitting on a mat in my dad's exercise room. The fact they are (more or less) sitting still for these shots is a minor miracle. I can only assume they are catching their breaths long enough to gather the energy to spring up into the air, off their father/uncle's cranium, across the room like spider monkeys, and onto the exercise bike from where they will leap without regard for any possible death or dismemberment onto the weight bench... which they will then promptly start licking. Yeah. Too many jelly beans.
And with that I will take your leave this week (month, half-year, whatever). One reason this blog entry took awhile is that my home computer died about three weeks ago. I have been getting by on laptops and the kindness of strangers, but the big post I had planned was basically tossed out the window. I also hope to get back to my previously planned format of old and new baby adorability, but just needed to get this slightly darker episode out of me.
I finally get it. Nothing is more terrifying than your own kids. Sorry mom and dad.
