Potty Mishaps & Permanent Markers

The joys of motherhood. Wow, that was an oxymoron if I've ever heard one. My children are the hardest thing I have ever done, but they do give me the best stories for my blog so we'll keep them around. About a week after we moved into our new home Todd and I were watching TV, unwinding after another long day of trying to get settled. As I mentioned before my kids were still adjusting to new surroundings and what not. So, as we're watching TV we hear this loud bang from the kids' room and Todd runs up there thinking someone has fallen out of bed. He finds Raquel standing right by her closet door and he watches as she pulls down her underthings and squats down preparing to go to the potty!! Holy Crap!! He totally freaks out and yells, "Raquel, what are you doing?" So, I run upstairs as he is guiding her to the bathroom and I take her in to go to the potty. Unbeknownst to me she is actually still asleep and she goes into the bathroom and sits on the toilet and starts to go pee. Only problem is the toilet seat lid is down and she is peeing on top of it. So, I freak out and yell, "Raquel, what are you doing?" I pull her off and open the toilet and no joke the kid finishes going pee in the toilet. This whole time I am talking to her, but getting no response. I put her back to bed and in the morning I ask her if she remembers almost peeing in her closet last night and she has NO recollection of the entire incident. Wow, this girl has some sleeping issues. Not only does she snore like a trucker, talk constantly in her sleep and have night terrors (you know, scream at the top of her lungs like someone is killing her and I run to her totally freaked out and she is still sleeping) but now she is a peeing sleepwalker as well. Super.

Now, onto my darling son. As you can probably figure out by the name of this post it has something to do with a permanent marker. A black permanent marker to be exact. You could say that I have been distracted trying to get everything put away and make our home feel like home. Normally my children aren't allowed anywhere near a permanent marker but my son somehow finds one in all the moving mess and decides, oh, I don't know - to color! Not on a coloring book or piece of paper as you might be thinking. No, he decides to color all over the top of the DVD player and a whole shelf on my bookcase in my office. I just want to clarify that no Marcus was hurt during the telling of this story or when this story was happening. The worst part mind you, the WORST part was that he decided that one of mommy's books was a great place to color too. He colored on my treasured FRIENDS book - a compilation of their ten years on TV. Now to most of you this might be no big deal, but to those of you who are true FRIENDS fans, let us all gasp in shock and horror at this crime against all fans of FRIENDS. And the reason my son isn't simply living out his life in time out is the most magical cleaning tool ever made. The magic eraser!! Bless the woman who invented that thing because it took everything off and I don't ever need to know what's in the dang thing, just that it takes it all off!! Super.

The Move

Okay, I think I can now breathe again. I know, I know, I haven't been on in awhile, but hey I was moving!! And oh, what a joy that has been! I won't bore all of you with all the gritty details, but I will pass on a few tidbits of fun that have happened over the past week or so.

• Our new home was repainted before we moved in. They literally just finished painting the morning we moved in. Then, they closed everything up and left it like that. I now know that the overwhelming smell of paint fumes in 90+ weather will cause my entire family to get scratchy throats and cough for a few days. Super.


• When you move into a rental even though they have repainted and recarpeted it still smells funny. No, I mean it really smells funny. Help me. Please let that smell go away and be replaced with the smell of chocolate chip cookies baking since we do that like every day now in the hopes that it will annihilate that smell. Super.


• When they put a brand new AC unit in your rental they should check to make sure the breaker can handle it. Because they didn't do this, my breaker kept tripping and we kept losing power in 90+ weather and I kept flipping the breaker back until I was putting my kids to bed on our second night here and a fan plugged into an outlet overloaded something and sparks flew out of the outlet, hitting Raquel in the leg, burning the outlet black and causing us to lose power once again. Super.


• My kids were in the room with me when this all happened and it totally freaked them out. As a result, I was pissed, I called the maintenance man at like 10:30 at night and then checked myself and my kids into a hotel and left my husband there to deal with our "electrical issues". Super.


• Each member of my family, except for me, has gotten sick in the last week. I mean, throwing up all over the brand new carpet, spewing chunks, vomit out the nose and even diarrhea - sick! Not mommy though, no mommy is the strong one while I try to unpack, clean up vomit and comfort my little ones. Super.

While the last week or so has been quite eventful as we try to settle into our new home and adjust to life without Grandma and Papa, we are happy to be here and off on our new adventure. Through this whole crazy transition, my sweet baby boy Marcus got himself attached to his big sister's hot pink bike helmet. I think there was just so much going on that he needed something to comfort himself with. I mean, he didn't take that thing off for three days straight. He would wear it to bed, in the bath and everywhere we went. Todd was a bit embarrassed to have his son wearing a hot pink bike helmet, but I told him to just leave him alone and he would take it off when he was ready. Well, I am happy to report that the helmet is finally off and we must have found our happy place. Bless you sweet boy! Now, where is that bike helmet and can mommy borrow it for a few days?