Potty Talk

Today was a rough day. First of all, I got new contact lenses, but to clean them one must only use the tres chere Opti Free brand. This really irks me because I have 37-bottles of a store brand in my closet but can't use it because when I do it feels like someone is squeezing hand sanitizer into my eyes. Plus, it is allergy season in SoCal so I can only wear my brand new contacts for 7-hours before I need to take them out and soak them in generous amounts of aforementioned, and over-priced, OptiFree.

And then, on top of that, on Sunday some old fart sneezed on me. Now I'm sick. Because I can't stop sucking on my baby's face she is sick now too. And Annike. Annike is sick. And the thing is, it just feels like some one is poking bristly pipe cleaners into my right ear and out my right nostril then looping back through into my left nostril and out my other ear. Somehow my throat and eyeballs are involved too. Today, at my lunch moment (not hour, but moment) when I finally had the chance to duck outside to meet up with Nanny Hope and my two little girls (big kids at camp) I laid my eyes on Baby Tovey. Oh, oh, oh what a sight! Tova's face was puffy and bright red, snot trickling from her nose, tears from her eyes, boogies all over. A very sad sight indeed. She couldn't nurse through it all so she just blobbed there in my arms all juicy and drippy until 3-seconds later it was time for me to get back into the ultrasound room.

Home again. Tova the Puffy One was able to nurse. We said goodbye to Hope and then went to get the big kids, who were waiting in the parking lot of the Y with Karah. Karah took one look at Tova and said "Allium Cepa."

After the pick-up we rushed off to the orthodontist. Petra had her spacers installed in a jiff. I paid the $500-deposit -- oh s$%^, I really hope there is money in the account but no time for worrying about it cause I gotta get some of that Allium Cepa.

Across the parking lot we went. Inside the whole foods grocer (not to be confused with Whole Foods, sadly) we made our way over to the health aisle. All the while, it should be noted, a strange odor was trailing us. The health aisle lady took one look at Tovey and agreed, Allium Cepa. But just in case, a free sample of Camilia was given to us because Tova also is cutting her first two teeth at the same time! Because we invited the neighbors over for dessert, fruit shortcake, we needed to jet! Jet! Okay, we got in the very long line becaus apparently every other check-out specialist was on break. We got down to two parties in line in front of us, Annike patiently waiting with all our provisions in the kiddie grocery cart, Petra valiantly entertaining Baby SickyPoo, me trying to do a quick accounting of our checking account . . . and there it was again, that very strange odor! The 11-parties in line behind us were staring at us. Oh no. The odor. I suppose the odor is coming from someone in my party.

"Mommy," Soren looks up at me with pleading eyes "I have to go potty."

Of course, this is the way it always works. It's almost my turn in a very long slow line and one of my kids invariably has to take a dump.

"Can't you just wait?" I whisper, not wanting to sound impatient.

"No. I have to go now," he whispers back. "Now!"

We get out of line, it's getting serious. I grab Tova's stroller, running for the back of the store. Soren leads the way, grabbing his swim trunks up around his legs. Annike is in hot pursuit with the kiddy cart, snapping at the heels of all the other shoppers in the store. Soren runs into the men's room. I wait. He comes out smiling, whew he made it.

We head back for the line. We are now at the back of a huge line, people in front smile sweetly like they want me to know that they understand what it's like to have worked all day and come home to 2-sick children, take all of them to the orthodontist, need to catch up on groceries and then have to leave the grocery line because your kid almost had a code brown. I typically can't stand that kind of stuff, especially if it won't get me my spot back in the line. Leave it to Soren to make everyone feel really uncomfortable.

"It's a good thing I didn't poop my pants this time cause I don't have any undies on. It would have gone on the floor!" Then, he makes that cute little laugh that little boys make when they are thoroughly impressed with themselves.