Cake Runs, an Unhappy Indian, and the Death of the Minivan

There are some days in this motherhood adventure that make me think of running away and opening up a titty bar in Bangkok. Oh, they'd never find me there. Never. I'd blend right in with the muck and debauchery so well that the kids would be in college before anyone would even have the slightest inkling on which continent I was hiding. It'd be Hide and Go Seek on a grand scale. Of course, now that I've put that in writing and sent it out into the cyber world, I'll have to come up with another hiding place for my fantasy game.

Anyway, last Monday was one of those days.

I was so tired the evening of Roman's birthday (after having thrown the biggest birthday party of my parenthood) that I collapsed into the soft cushion of my king's bed and slept the sleep of the dead (or an overworked mama). I didn't even move an inch throughout the night.

I awoke at dawn to a warm wetness on my back and the unmistakable, acrid stench of urine. At first I thought I had been so deep in sleep that my poor, weakened by childbearing bladder succumbed to the pressure of two pre-bed glasses of wine and a large glass of water. As I raised myself out of the puddle I found the real culprit: Reilly Kate had at some point in the night crawled into our bed, found a comfortable spot between Mike and I, and relieved herself in her sleep. She now slept peacefully bearing that sweet angelic mask children plaster on their faces while slumbering in their own messes. How could one be angry at a child so innocent looking?

As soon as we were all awake and out of bed, we changed into drier and less ofactively offensive clothing and I stripped the bed. I then dragged the bedding down the stairs while balancing my yearling big boy plus nuk in one arm and the Bed Wetting Princess in the other. I figured I would throw the bedding into the wash after we ate breakfast and then into the dryer before we left for Roman's baby gym class. We had a big day ahead of us with Reilly Kate's Thanksgiving Feast at her preschool after the baby gym and then souvenir shopping and dinner with Roman's godparents who were visiting from Chicago. It was one of those days that wouldn't stop until dusk.

We breakfasted on bananas, cheerios, and left over birthday party fare washed down with sippy cups of milk for them and half a gallon of black coffee for me. As I do every day post breakfast, I stripped Roman of his food smeared pajamas and nighttime diaper. I reached to put a fresh diaper on, but alas, I hadn't washed diapers in a week and there were none in the diapering basket I keep downstairs. Instead of running upstairs for a disposable right away, I decided to put the peed bedding into the wash first as the smell was starting to permeate our small, Hawaiian shack of a house.

I was in the garage, waiting for the hot water to fill the washer so I could add a dash of bleach to the soapy concoction when I heard Reilly Kate screaming from within the living room.

"Mama! Mama! Roman's pooping all over the house! Mama! He's POOOOOOOOOOOOOPING!!!"

I ran into the house to find Roman standing square in the middle of the living room, wickedly flashing a toothless grin as my two foul canines enthusiastically lapped up the mess emerging from his arse. Yes, dogs are disgustingly fond of baby poop. I actually talked to the vet about this because even Alyx, my usually normal dog who eschews any kind of bodily excretion, will risk life and limb in search of a diaper filled with the fecal matter of anyone under the age of two. Now, Truman is another matter. That dog treats even his own excrement as haute cuisine. But when Alyx started doing this, I got concerned.

Apparently, infants and small children do not digest their food thoroughly. So what we see as stinky ass, gag-oh baby caca, they see as chicken McNuggets, french fries, chocolate chip cookies, and breastmilk (another doggie fave). The vet said that he's never met a dog that didn't go nuts over baby poop for this very reason. Table scraps to them. I'm almost faint at the thought. It made me consider, for one fleeting moment, to banish the dogs to the glue factory.

And that's exactly what I wished I had done as I looked in horror at my sweet and otherwise sensible dog Alyx excitedly slurping up the brown liquid smeared all over Roman's butt cheeks. Fighting an urge to vomit right then and there, I let out a booming growl at the dogs, who scampered away, tails between their legs. I then scooped up my giggling baby and dashed up the stairs to the bathroom. As I was washing the sludge from his body, I again heard Reilly Kate wail.

"Mama! The dogs are eating his poop again! They're eating Roman's POOOOOOOOOOOOOP!"

I grabbed a towel and whisked Roman out of the tub. "Come up here and watch your brother," I commanded of Reilly.

I must have been grumbling profanity as I ran down the stairs because I passed by Alyx running up the stairs to her usual hide out under our bed. By the time I arrived on the scene of the fecal revelry, the runny poop was all but a stench wafting through the room. Truman, the canine embodiment of the Freudian principle of Id, was too immersed in the remnants of his own epicurean delight to notice that I was red hot mad and raging right toward him.

"Get into your crate!" I bellowed.

He stopped for a moment, looked up at me, then bent his snout right back down into the carpet, ignorantly licking away at the brown stain. I picked up his long torso with one hand and practically tossed him into the crate. The only thing that stopped me from actually throwing him was the thought that dachshunds have notoriously delicate backs and I didn't want to spend a couple hundred bucks on the momentary pleasure I would have gotten from manhandling a 15 pound dog. Plus, I really do love my dogs despite their preference for being baby waste treatment plants.

I grabbed a towel and before I could even begin scrubbing the spot with a mixture of Oxyclean and water, I heard from above the distinct cries of Reilly Kate once more.

"Mama! He's doing it again! Mama! He's POOOOOOOOOOPING! And Alyx is eating it. Agaiiiiiiiiiiiiiin!"

I tossed the towel on the poop stain and ran back up the stairs. There, again, stood my beautiful baby boy, fiendish little smirk on his lips and cackling like a maniacal chemist with a beaker full of magic potion. Except his potion was poop and his eager guinea pig was my german Shepard. This time Alyx was so delighted with her poopy snacks that she didn't even run and hide. She just stood there, snout to baby bum, in some kind of feces induced ecstasy. I swallowed hard, wishing I'd had a vomitorium installed in the hallway instead of a bookcase. It would have been more useful, for the moment at least.

I hooked my finger around Alyx's collar and dragged her down the stairs. As I pushed her into the crate with Truman, he jumped up and start licking her mouth in search of any drop of poop she might have carelessly left on her whiskers. The morning was seriously turning into the Canis Familiaris Fete and Toddler Poop Jamboree. I walked away shaking my head, sweat dripping down my neck, and grabbed another towel.

I reached for the bowl of Oxyclean and water and heard, "Now he's peeing, Mama! He's PEEEEEEEEING on the stairs!" I looked up the stairwell and there at the top of the stairs is bambino clapping his hands as his little tallywacker sprays down towards me. Yep. Quite proud of himself, he was. Clapping away as he peed all over the carpeted stairs.

"Ahhhh... brilliant," I mutter to myself. I still hadn't diapered him. I hadn't had time with the poop and the dogs and more of the poop and the dogs. And now the pee. The pee. Hadn't I just awoken an hour earlier in a puddle of pee? Wasn't that enough for one day? I mean, really. Wouldn't you think if you woke up in a puddle of pee, someone else's pee for that matter, that you have done your bit for bodily functions for that day? Wouldn't you think that that hole had been punched and you'd be given a pass for Human Extrections 101?

He'd stopped by the time I got up the stairs and through the baby gate. For the second time that morning, I gathered him up and took him into the bathroom to rinse him off in the tub. At this point, I also realized that my second pair of pajamas for the morning were no longer clean but were instead smeared with runny, smelly poop. I stripped naked and proceeded with rinsing a now screaming Roman.

I called to Reilly Kate to again come watch her brother. I'm not sure why I think having a not quite three year old watch a one year old is preferable to just leaving the one year old alone. When I think about it, intellectually I know that there is very little Miss Reilly Kate could do even if she thought to do it. She's only three afterall. But many times throughout the day, on any given day, you can hear me yell, "Watch your brother." I'm sure she thinks me quite mad. I'm sure child protective services would also think me quite mad. Perhaps it's all the soiling and messing that has driven me to madness. It is quite a lot to deal with, ya know.

I left Roman in the tub screaming and carrying on like it's the end of the world. I thought about taking him out, drying him off, and diapering him but I really wanted to get to those stains before they had a chance to set. Roman is infamous for poop stain. His poop could be used to dye whole lots of cloth, so strong is his stain. And really, he couldn't have any poop left in him. The dogs were both full, the carpet all soaked. He just had to be empty. So naked, wet, pissed off, and in the tub I left him in the care of his sister.

Oxyclean and water soaked towel in hand, I began stain treating the poop stain upstairs. I was actually getting the stain out, scrubbing with all my might and the puny little muscles I got lifting weights a few months ago. And then... just when I was sure it couldn't happen again... just when you were sure this toilet tale had come to an end... Reilly called out, an exasperated tone in her voice, "Mom. He's pooping. He's pooping everywhere." I think she was actually more irritated with me than with him.

I stopped scrubbing and went into the bathroom. Roman was in a full blown crying fit, complete with tight clenched fists rubbing his eyes and pulling his ears. Only, his fists were covered in poop. He was covered in poop. Head to tail. Poop smeared on the tub, on the walls, the shower curtain. It. Was. Everywhere. And I, so close to the blissful abyss of child induced insanity, could do nothing but laugh. I laughed as I scrubbed his scowling, screaming face. I laughed as I lathered up his poopy hair. I laughed as I disinfected the tub. I laughed as I caught a glimpse of my still naked self, sagging breasts and fleshy belly jiggling about as I ran back to the linen closet to get more towels. I laughed and laughed and laughed.

Really, what else could I do?

I did slap a diaper on him immediately after finishing his final rinse. I didn't even bother to towel him off. I just slapped a diaper right on his dripping wet hiney. Ya wanna know the cruel irony of it? He didn't poop again all day. It did, however, dawn on me at some point during all this why he had the runs so badly and why the dogs were going so freaking ape shit for his diarrhea dessert: He'd eaten almost an entire birthday cake at his birthday party the day before.

Great American tradition. Set a one year old in front of a whole cake with their name on it and let them have at it. Most kids will play in it, smudging butter cream on their cheeks and squishing cake through their fingers. Not my boy. Oh no. He proceeds to grab a spoon and eat. Sure, he got cake and frosting in all his little crevices, but he also got a good portion of that cake in his tum. I never, ever thought that it would come out the other end with such a vengeance, though.

You live. You learn. I am wise to the cake now. A little late. But I'm wise. Hell, by the time I die, I'll know exactly what to do and what not to do with babies and children. It won't do me or anyone else a damn bit of good. I'll take all my wisdom to the grave with me and have an eternal chuckle at all the stumbling mothers I see from my afterlife perch.

At this point none of us were washed (well, except Roman), brushed, or dressed and we had about 35 minutes till the start of Roman's baby gym class. The gym, by the way, is about a half hour away. I flew into action, showering, shaving, brushing, dressing, and yes, even spackeling make up on, in no more than 10 minutes. I had Reilly Kate all dolled up in a Gymboree special and Roman complete with shirt and tie. We looked so put together, no one would have any clue the kind of morning we'd just endured. Plus, if I pushed the speed limits just a wee bit, we could make it to his gym class on time.

We were out the door, in the minivan and stuck in midmorning construction gridlock when I realized I had left both dogs in the one, small crate. I had to turn back and let Alyx out. We ended up 25 minutes late to a 45 minute long class. Good thing attendance doesn't count, eh?

Our second stop of that morning was Reilly Kate's preschool's Thanksgiving Feast. It is arguably the event of the preschool year. Miss Maureen, the teacher, goes to great lengths for this feast. She has all the three and four year olds prepare the food ahead of time. For weeks prior the kids knead dough, stir marshmallows into the yams (which Reilly calls "jams"), mix up stuffing, and place sliced apples into pies. She freezes it all and then reheats it on the day of the feast along with chicken nuggets instead of turkey. In addition, the kids dress up as pilgrims and Indians and reenact the first Thanksgiving. It is, in the mind of a preschooler, dinner theater on Broadway.

I had contemplated skipping Roman's class to ensure we would arrive on time to the feast. I was worried that given my luck (which, as you all know, is either bad, really bad, or catastrophic), something would happen that would prevent us from getting there on time. With the morning's events already ringing up the day to total shite, I prayed that the van would start and there would be no traffic on the road. And much to my shear delight, my prayers were answered. We not only arrived on time, we were there early, looking for all the world like a completely put together, not a stray hair out of place, family. Mike, who had promised us he'd be there, had yet to show, but I was sure he wouldn't forget.

Within minutes of our arrival, however, Reilly Kate's excitement and anticipation turned as sour as buttermilk left out in the tropical heat. She was in a snit to end all snits.

"Where's Daddy?" she whined.

"He'll be here," I assured her as I frantically dialed his work number, hanging up when my call was tossed into his voicemail.

"I don't want to be here. I want to go home. I want Daddy," she persisted.

"We're not going home. We're meeting Daddy here." I tried his cell phone and again was sent into voicemail.

"I don't want to be an Indian. I don't want to wear my costume. I want to go home. HOOOOOOOOME. Mama! Please. Let's go home."

And on and on and on she whined. Until finally, without a drop of patience left in my tired, old soul, I snapped, "We are not going home. We are staying here. You are going in there, putting on your Indian costume and playing the part as well as you can. Then we are going to eat the food that you made and we are going to like it. We are going to have fun or I'm going to change your name to Chablis because you whine so much. Then you'll go to a special school where the kids don't play or do crafts, they just sit around and whine while drooling on themselves and staring at blank white walls. Got it, Chablis?"

She looked up at me, wells of tears pooling in her sad little eyes, stuck out her bottom lip and asked, "Where's Daddy? I don't like you."

I called Mike's cell phone again and left this message on his voicemail:

"We are here at Reilly's preschool waiting for you. If you are not here in the next five minutes, I promise you this -- yours will be a slow and painful death. I am a creative woman filled with fury and seeking vengeance. Be afraid. Be very afraid." Then softening my voice I added, "But if you are on your way, we will see you soon."

He walked in the door not 2 minutes later. Somehow, he managed to convince Reilly Kate of her desire to wear her costume and to be an Indian. She went off with the other kids and we didn't see her again until they returned in their costumes for the reenactment.

She was the first out, leading the pack of three year old Indians. She had her drum and was doing a mock Indian chant. She was really into it until she spied us and then she lost it. She came running up to our table screaming, "I don't want to be an Indian, Daddy. I don't want to be an Indian." The rest of the kids following behind her didn't know what to do or where to go. Miss Maureen tried desperately to regroup and redirect, but it was almost hopeless.

I grabbed Reilly and stuck her in her designated place behind a cardboard tree. Then the pilgrims came in, carrying their makeshift cardboard Mayflower. It was really adorable. Except for my darling Sarah Bernhard, bottom lip jutting out and quivering as she whined, "I don't want to be an Indian. I want to go home." There was a little skirmish between the pilgrims and the Indians which was supposed to be them greeting one another but actually turned into a pushing match between the two groups. Not much different than the real history, huh? Anyway, they did the pledge of allegiance and then they began singing "This land is your land. This land is my land." Not, of course, Reilly Kate who had her own little chorus, but the rest of the kids. It was their big finale.

As they were singing, Mike and I, like the other parents, feverishly took pictures and recorded with our new DVD camera. We weren't really paying much attention to Roman, his whereabouts, his direction or intentions. Until. It happened. Roman went straight up to the cardboard Mayflower which was resting on two folding chairs, and shoved it down. It fell with a loud bang, folding chairs and all. He stood there clapping, obviously thrilled with his accomplishment as everyone else just watched in an uncomfortable, stunned silence. A silence broken by my dear soldier husband who said, "Yeah! Army beats Navy! Wooo Hoooo!!!"

Have I mentioned that Reilly goes to preschool on a Navy base?

So we dined alone during the feast that followed. Really, what respectable sailor would seat his family with the kid who sunk the Mayflower and the Indian who wailed during the pledge? It was asking a bit too much in the name of patriotic cohesion sans peace pipe, ya know?

When Mike left to go back to work, Reilly Kate suffered a childhood melt down, complete with stomping, laying prostrate on the floor, and screeching like a monkey on crack. I left the school with Roman, gripping the handle of Reilly's Indian drum in his mouth, under one arm and Reilly Kate kicking and fighting me under the other. I was utterly disheveled and had a nice cranberry sauce stain down the middle of my shirt. I was a living poster for birth control. They should have invited me to the high school's health class.

To me the solution was obvious. We would go home and take a nice afternoon nap on the king's bed. That way the three of us would awake refreshed and ready to go souvenir shopping with Terrie and Bill later in the afternoon. But when we got home and I pulled into the garage, I spotted the large pile of bedding still sitting on the floor by the washer. My bed had no clothes. In the chaos of the morning cake runs, I had completely forgotten to wash my peed upon linens.

I had to settle for putting Roman in his crib and lying on the floor of Reilly's room with her next to me announcing every five minutes, "I am not sleeping. I am not tired. I am not taking a nap. Are you, Mama?" After 20 minutes of that, I got up, took two tylenol and guzzled my second half gallon of black coffee.

There are times when nothing a mother does makes their children happy. The children just cry and complain and throw tantrums despite every trick the mother pulls out of her ass. The two hours in which I thought we'd be napping were made up of my lame attempts to appease my two cranky offspring. I gave them juice boxes and lollipops. I put in DVDs and danced goofy jigs. I tried bribing them with money, but Roman just put it his mouth and Reilly told me she didn't need money, just Daddy. I would have stripped down and jello wrestled Truman if I thought it would have made them happy. But nothing I did satisfied my two tormenters.

It is precisely at times like these, any mother will tell you, you buckle the beasties up in their carseats and take them for a drive. I don't know what it is about the car that soothes the savage toddler, but it works. Try it sometime and tell me if it doesn't work. It's like methodone to the heroine fiend.

Terrie and Bill had called and said they were running late and wouldn't be at my house before 5pm. I figured I would just drive them around our subdivision until then. I tossed the demon seeds into the van, buckled them in, and put the key in the ignition. I turned the key. Nothing. I turned again. Nothing. I looked to see if there were any lights left on or the back gate ajar. Nope. The damn van just took this time, this very time when I needed it the most, to up and die on me. Dead.

Of course, this prompted Reilly Kate to bring forth memories of my bad habit of killing the battery while shopping. "Is our car dead, Mama? Did you leave the lights on? Did you leave the door open again? Is it dead? Will the nice men come and jump the car?"

I grabbed the cell phone and dialed Mike. As usual, my call went straight to voice mail. I cryptically whispered into the receiver, "The van is dead and so am I." I took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. "Should I call triple A? Call me back."

Within minutes, Terrie and Bill pulled up. I explained the situation and Bill pushed the van out of the garage to line it up with their rental car (a snazzy PT Cruiser convertible). He rummaged around the back looking for jumper cables but turned up nothing but fossilized fruity snacks and moldy sippy cups. Then the phone rang. It was Mike.

"The van's dead. The kids are buckled into their seats. We're all ready to go. Bill thinks it's the battery. Where are the jumper cables?" I asked.

"Ummm... they... are... ummmm... they're here with me at work," he stammered.

"Excellent. I'm off to go borrow some from our neighbors. Whoever they are. I'll call you when we have the thing running." And with that I hung up.

Now, let me explain to you about our neighbors. We don't know who they are. We have never really seen anyone on our block. We know that people live here as we have seen cars parked outside, for sale signs displayed, and garbage cans moved. But we have never actually seen people on our block. Out of ten houses, I can honestly say we have seen only glimpses of two people. And then only late at night. I'm not sure what is up with that and I'm fairly certain I do not want to know. If you drive around our subdivision, you'll find all the other blocks have children playing in the street while parents happily exchange friendly words. Some even have block parties and cook outs. But not our block. On our block we are the only people you see. And you only see us because our garage is open and our dead ass van is being pushed out next to a rental PT Cruiser.

So off I went, Reilly Kate and Terrie trailing behind, to knock on doors, introduce myself to people I have been living mere feet away from for two years and ask if I can borrow their jumper cables. I tried one door. No answer. Then the next. No answer. Then the third. A shirtless boy of about 18 came to the door. I did indeed introduce myself, motioning towards my dead van blocking the street, and then asked if he had any jumper cables I could borrow. He yelled back into the living room to ask another shirtless teenage boy watching tv. They mumbled something back and forth intelligible to me and then he said, "I'll look in the garage and see."

We stood out front as he opened the garage door. Everything inside was completely organized in plastic bins. No cars in the garage, however, which struck me as a bit odd. There was a monster sized truck parked beside the house, but not a vehicle in the garage. He rummaged around from bin to bin, in search of the cables, insisting there must be some somewhere in there. It was obvious he hadn't a clue what was in any of those bins. And that's when I started to think that perhaps he didn't even live there. Maybe he was a burglar or something. I decided to move on to the next house.

"Ya know, I'll just go and try another house. Thanks anyway," I said.

"Yeah, okay," he nodded as he continued his foraging into bins.

I tried all the remaining houses on our block and not another person answered the door. I walked down to an adjacent street, one with children frolicking happily and neighbors washing each others cars. I asked one of the washers for cables and they directed me further down the street. "Try George. He's good with cars. He's gotta have 'em."

A man walking his little black puppy interrupted. "I've got jumper cables. You need a jump?" Just a few short minutes later, I had the cables in my hot, grubby hands.

Now, I ask you, why can't we live on a street like that? Why can't we have kids riding bikes and friendly guys with little black puppies? Instead, I've got shirtless MTV junkies living on a ghost town street. Just my luck.

I returned victorious, cables in hand, and Bill hooked up the van to the Cruiser. I wasn't sure, but I thought I saw sparks fly and moved the kids and Terrie further back. I figured if he shocked himself, I would be the one to tackle him, not Terrie as she's pregnant. I stood on the ready and up walked shirtless boy with his own set of cables.

"Uhhhh... I... uhhhhh... I found some cables in a box. I knew we had some. I just didn't know where to look. You still need 'em?"

"No. No thanks. But thank you anyway. And it was nice to finally meet you."

"Huh? Oh, yeah," he said and scratched at the not yet grown in hair on his chest. "Okay, well, if you need 'em, I've got 'em."

Bill had me get behind the wheel and turn the key to the ignition. Nothing. Still nothing. The van was really, very truly dead. I started hearing Taps in the background. The grim reaper of automobiles was drawing near. It was the end of my van. It was also 6:30pm. It was dark. The kids were hungry. So were the mosquitoes. I cracked out the peanut butter crackers and juice boxes from the birthday party the day before and there we all sat, swatted at mosquitoes, and waited for Mike to get home.

At about 7 o'clock, Mike came home. He took a quick look at the van, hooking up a battery tester that read 90% charged, and then announced, "We are buying a new god damn van." The Great Oz has spoken. He then offered to feed our starving children dinner and put them to bed so I could go with Terrie and Bill in their rented convertible to the military exchange store for souvenirs. It was too late to go to the Officers' Club for dinner. After shopping around, we ate pizza at the food court. It gave me indigestion.

As this very long, torturous day came to a final close, Mike and I climbed the stair case to our room and it dawned on me that I still had not washed our peed upon bedding. We spread old, queen sized flat sheets on our bed and I sprayed the comforter with Fabreeze. Let me tell ya, Fabreeze does very little to negate toddler pee in a down comforter. All night long I dreamt I was swirling in a flushing toilet with Alyx and Truman happily coming along for the ride.

It was a very long, long day.

As a post script, we did indeed buy a new van. An Inferno Red, Grand Caravan with Stow and Go seats, dual doors with remote opening capabilities, and a 6 disk CD and DVD player. Our original van, the van we deemed dead as Andy Warhol, was actually just the victim of a bad battery and even worse armchair mechanics. It seems that Bill hooked up the jumpers incorrectly and then Mike hooked up the tester incorrectly. It cost only 120 bucks to replace the battery. It cost 30,000 to replace the whole van. Costly error. You live. You learn. As I said, by the time I die, I'm gonna know fucking everything.