Meridy's Tirade Corner: A Conspiracy Theory

It's that time again....time for a tirade!

So sometimes I think my kids conspire against me. Like the time I had to change yet another disgusting Ellie diaper (she won't potty train). At that exact moment, William decides that it would be really fun to start playing with the contents of it. In the meantime, I am wrestling with Ellie to keep her legs up so that I can clean her up. So, here I am wrestling with two children at once over a nasty diaper. Then suddenly I only have to wrestle Ellie because William has happily found some wetwipes to play with, by this I mean eat. I tactfully decide to keep this information from Ellie, but somehow from her vantage point she discovers the truth and proceeds to try to save William from himself as she often does when he is trying to eat things, such as crayons. She's suddenly yelling "No Wiwum!" and tyring to pull the wetwipes away from him. At this point I am thinking to myself, "What is wrong with him eating wetwipes?!? They're non toxic!" Then it was really difficult to keep Ellie's legs up while keeping the kids from fighting. So somehow I managed to pull the wetwipes out of Ellie's reach and into William's so that he could continue with his business. (However, after I changed Ellie's diaper I came to my senses and took the wetwipes away from William.) Do you see what I mean by conspiracy? They somehow communicate with each other to hit me with a timed double front attack! And when do they attack? When Nathan is unavailable to help. He is either ALMOST home from school, or has mountains of homework due the next day, or he is taking a much needed nap.

Take last night. Both kids decided that it was time for a bedtime snack. Nate was working on his dreaded LP paper. I decided to let Ellie eat her yogurt at the "little table" (aka the coffee table, if you ask Nate it is the hot chocolate table, but that is another story) against my better judgement. This was the Trix kind of yogurt, it is very BLUE. I then proceeded to feed William at the "big table" (aka the dining room table). While she was eating the yogurt, Ellie periodically wandered around the house with yorgurt stained hands. I kept asking her, "Are you done yet??" "No.", she would answer. Finally, when she was done, I went over to assess and clean the damage. She said something to the effect of, "Look at what I did!" She had made a beautiful painting of yogurt all over my table. She loves to paint. Fortunately, I caught it in time, so that admittedly, it wasn't too difficult to clean (and none of it was on the carpet, thank Heaven). I was glad that she didn't mind me cleaning it up because the ants that seem to infultrate our house somehow every Spring would have loved it! While I was cleaning up this mess, the kids had already planned a new one for me while my back was turned. William then decided to spill all the water from his water cup on to the floor. As I was cleaning this newly formed mess Ellie asked, "What's going on?"(she uses this phrase very OFTEN now). As if she didn't know! William looked at me with his little smile as if to say, "Aren't I cute and clever mommy!"

But the worst of it is how they conspire in their sleep! I put Ellie to bed rather easily. She is a good sleeper now adays (knock on wood), but I think I deserve it after what she put me through for the first year of her sleeping life. I have offered her the Taj Mahal on numerous occasions, for the mere request of her being reasonable and going to bed. Somehow, right under my nose, she has passed this non-sleeping torch to William. He used to be such a good baby. He would sleep quite well, until recently. I fed William again at around 10:45. He fell asleep. I tried to put him down several times and he would wake up, eat more, fall asleep, but then wake up when I would put him down. How does he know that he is in his bed?? It's like they have this little signal inside of them, that goes off in their sleep, "Mommy has the nerve to put you in your bed, WAKE UP!" Finally, I got him down at about 11:30, and I thought he was asleep for good. But no. He woke up. At this point (after being supremely frustrated with Nathan's work overload, and being very sleepy myself), I thought to myself, "I don't care if he gets a big fat F on his paper! Nate is taking this child and putting him to bed, NOW." Fortunately, I decided to take the more dignified approach of merely looking incredibly annoyed and playing with William until he decided to fall asleep. So yes, Will took a nap at 10:45-11:30pm. When William did finally decide to eat and go to sleep for good at 1am, I decided to let Nathan pick him up and put him in his bed. Unfortunately, Nate couldn't hear me call him, and there wasn't anything to throw at him except a toy spoon. Which missed and hit the wall. The funny thing was that Nate heard that and turned to the side, but didn't come to assist me. Thankfully, he heard my whistle afterward and came and put William to bed. And I got some much needed sleep.