The Kid Has Arrived

I made it 18 months before I had to google “how to get poop out of upholstery”, which I suppose isn’t too bad.

The boy was in rare form when we got home from my midwife appointment this afternoon. When we were leaving the office, I had bribed him back into the stroller with some raisins, so maybe the sugar really pumped him up. I don’t know, but whatever was going on, it was like being at home with the Tasmanian Devil or something. Each time my eye was off of him, he made mischief.

While I was in his room putting some clothes away, he got into the cardboard recycling and dumped it all out, strewing it down the hallway. While I was fixing him dinner, he reached up onto the table, pulled a bunch of stuff down and apparently got hold of the new EZ Pass box thingy. I didn’t realize he’d gotten it until I dropped my chapstick later and had to reach under the bookshelf to fetch it, where I also found, shoved way in the back, the EZ Pass. After dinner, I went in to start his bath water. He took off like a shot after I undressed him (the child does love to get in his nightly nude run around the apartment). After drawing the bath and dumping in the toys, I went to get him.  He was sitting on the rocking chair in his room, shrieking excitedly. As I picked him up, I saw the small poop smear on the chair. I wiped him off, set him down, went to check the rest of the place. Sure enough, he’d pooped in the hallway too. While I was cleaning that up, he went in to the bathroom and let all the water out of the tub.

After I finally, finally got him bathed and pajama-ed up, I tried to attack the poop-on-upholstery problem. I think I did a pretty good job of it, considering it was my first time and all. While I was otherwise involved in this pleasant activity, Milo had one more trick up his sleeve. He found some crayons I’d stashed away and scribbled on the wall. Judging by the bits of wax clinging to his chin and the lack of tips on the the crayons, it looks like he’d had a little crayon snack while indulging his creative side.

It’s hard to be too aggravated though. As I scooped him up to take him into his room, he looked at me, took my cheeks in his hands and leaned in for a kiss. “Mama,” he said, and put his head on my shoulder. FINE, KID. I will clean up all your messes and cook you food to ignore and watch as you systematically dismantle and/or destroy our nice things and let you wipe your snotty nose on my jeans. I will do all of this because I love you and adore you so much more every day than I ever thought it was possible to love another human being. Even days like this, when I’m exhausted and, let’s be honest, pretty fucking tired of your shenanigans, even days like this are a million times better than any day I ever had before you came into our lives. (Although those couple of days your dad and I spent hiking in the mountains and walking on the glaciers in Patagonia were definitely pretty rad.)