There are many, many great things about having my sisters in town, not the least of which is having four extra hands to help with Henry. However, sometimes knowing that there are other mature, responsible, supervising helpers in my life, I get a little laxed about things like diaper changes and my knowledge of Henry’s whereabouts, trusting that he’s probably safe and squared away with either Kate or Halley. The manifestations of my heedless mothering are pitiable. Like a few evenings ago, we were all ready to leave on our evening walk and it suddenly occured to me that I hadn’t changed Henry’s diaper all day. I was pretty sure that someone else had, but just to be sure, I asked everyone as we were strolling away from the house, and was mortified to discover that we were all making the same errant assumption that someone else had done it, when in fact, no one had! Poor soggy, stinky, totally saturated little Henry had been sitting in the same soggy, stinky, totally saturated little diaper all. day. long. And the most heart warming/wrenching part of it all was that as I was changing him, he kept apologizing, “I’m sow-wy,” in a barely audible little moan. No! No! No, Mr. Soggy Britches, there’ll be none of that; I am sorry!

I am also sorry to relay this next example of my derelict mothering. Please don’t report me to child services, I’ve got enough to sift through on my legal plate with the YouRanARedLight!Here’sASeventyFiveDollarFine! notice that came in the mail yesterday. Red light cameras bedanged! Anyhow, there were like 47 things going on at our house yesterday evening: Nate was just getting home from work, changing out of his dress clothes, he and Kate getting ready to run in the pouring, pouring rain, Halley was praddling around in her usual cheerful manner, Henry was making rotations from one person to the next and trying to sneak into the bags of b-day goodies which we were trying to keep secret until the celebration. I was making pizza for dinner (with homemade crust which means I was monitoring the progress of yeast, which is something that I enjoy about as much as I enjoy a papercut,) and was also trying to whip up a batch of birthday cup cakes for Mr. Wonderful, who is now officially 2 (and has a little gold button to prove it. It says,”I’m 2.” And now that I think of it, I’m going to have him wear that out in public so I don’t have to answer that oft-repeated “how old is he?” question to every store clerk, gas pump attendant, and librarian in Plano–I’ll just direct their attention to the button. Thanks to Grandma Nan for sending it!) Getting back to the house of chaos, which, after Kate and Nate left for their run, suddenly became atypically quiet. In case you didn’t know, quiet means trouble when there’s a toddler around. I asked Halley where Henry was and she said that she thought I had him. Moment of panic. Mental slideshow of anticipated messes I might find upon ascertaining Henry’s whereabouts: unrolled toilet paper, a half eaten tube of chapstik, mascara smeared all over the bathroom walls, all of the pages torn out of my Bible, or maybe it would be as harmless as a mouthful of chewing gum–yes, let’s hope for that, I thought, as we searched the premises. It took Halley and I several fretful minutes to locate him. We looked in every room and closet in the house before Halley suddenly caught a blurry glimpse of him through the front window. It was reassuring to know where he was, but his exit strategy remained enigmatic. Front door–locked. Back door–locked. Garage door–locked! How did he get out of the house, I puzzled? And then we saw this:

Suddenly Henry’s escape route was very clear and we renamed him Houdini on the spot. Apparently amidst all of the chaos, he managed to slip away, completely unnoticed, push the screen out of his bedroom window, (which I had opened to try diffuse the wiffy chain-smoker’s-motel-room stench that vaguely lingers in his quarters,) and headed straight for the pond-sized puddle at the end of our culdesac. By the time we found him, he was soaked from head to toe. Soaked–like he couldn’t have been wetter if he’d been submerged in the bathtub, which caused me to wonder how long my child had been playing, completely unsupervised, in the middle of the street, in the pouring rain. This just seemed so unlike Henry. He’s never been a really physical child, except for the fact that he has learned to climb up into his crib this week. But he still can’t climb out of it. He doesn’t usually climb up into precarious places. He’s an awfully clumsy runner. He gets nervous about sitting up on the counter if he’s not holding on to me. He doesn’t take toys from other children aggressively. So climbing out of a bedroom window seemed wholly uncharacteristic of the child I’ve lived with for the past year and three hundred and sixty four days. Just then, a little voice came into my head that said, “Welcome to the twos!” and I realized that maybe I’ll be living with a whole new Henry this year.

Clever Parents Children: Ah, the joys of toddlers. See how a train destroyed our master bedroom. Also, we’ve discovered a fabulous Spanish / English for children program with Boca Beth and Clever Parents introduces the online boutique of the week. Watch the vidcast on Clever Parents TV.

Yep, you read that right, a train destroyed our master bedroom. Although, not in the “CNN is outside filming the wreckage now”, kind of a way. The offending train wasn’t from Amtrak, it was from Thomas and it didn’t derail, it flushed. Or almost flushed. Which is exactly the problem.

For those of you reading at home, one toilet, two little boys, a Thomas the Train wooden train figure and a bunch of toilet paper equal disaster. You see, Thomas the Train wooden train figures don’t flush down the toilet well. And once they’re jammed, adding a roll of toilet paper and repeatedly flushing makes things worse, not better. (see picture of what’s left of our ceiling – above right)

While I was at the gym one morning, Kris awoke to water pouring through our ceiling and the boys upstairs yelling “I want the water to stop!” Turns out the boys had played flush the train and before they knew it, they were standing in several inches of water. The water made its way under the baseboards and tile and straight through our plaster ceiling to our bedroom below…

So today, several rooms are being ripped apart to deal with water damage and we’re sleeping at The Embassy Suites. Which would be fine… except for the 2 and 3 year olds sharing a mattress on the ‘living room’ floor. Your newsletter will be a day late.

Make us feel better, tell us your kids destroyed the house story.

Bathroom Before Thomas; Bathroom After Thomas; Guilty As Charged.

Why yes, yes it is.

After putting both boys down for their naps (well, Henry is more into talking to himself upstairs, but I’m hoping I can stretch naptime for as long as humanly possible), I started to tackle an overflowing stack of laundry. Our basement is unfinished and that’s where our washer and dryer are. So after sorting the clothes, moving the clean stuff to the laundry table, the wet stuff to the dryer and the dirty stuff to the washer, I added my OxyClean and started to fill up the cup with liquid laundry detergent. The cup was about 3/4 full when I noticed a little tickle on my left pinkie toe. Looking down, I saw that a cockroach was trying to climb up my foot via said pinkie toe. AAAAAAAAACCCCCHHHHHHH! I simultaneously screamed and employing a brilliant defensive strategy, threw the liquid soap into my hair, onto my shirt and all over my hands, scattering many a bottle of detergent, soap and dryer sheets while the roach tried his best to crawl away. Ugh. Thinking about it still gives me the shivers. At least I smell good.

Well one of many of my not-so-clever moment would have to be when I was driving down the road with my son strapped into his car seat so safe n snug, when as I was going down a big hill, I applied the breaks only to see the entire car seat shuffle forward into the back of the front passenger’s seat…Apparently the night before when my husband borrowed the car seat to use in his car, he did not strap it back into my car, but rather just placed it back in it’s proper spot…so being the not-so-clever parent I strapped my son in the car seat never checking to see that the car seat was strapped into the car! I am grateful we were still on our private road and that I didn’t really have a reason to break harder which would have resulted in him flinging into the front seat rather then doing the car seat shuffle. Now I jiggle that car seat every time I put him in it, just to make sure. I hope my car seat snafu helps others feel better about theirs.

- Lindsey, Clever Parent to Weston.

The silence should have been my warning cry.

Henry and Will had been playing together nicely all morning with the exception of the occasional screech or territorial struggle over a tower of blocks.

So I really should have noticed the silence.
The first time I had an inkling that something was up, I asked: “Henry, are you OK?” His cheery (perhaps guilty?) response “We OK, Mommy” gave me a false sense of hope. After a couple more “We OKs,” my two boys came into the room to show off their handiwork.

In toddled Will, his face plastered with a combination of pride and joy. Also plastered across his entire face and caked in his hair was what appeared to be the majority of a new extra large tub of Vaseline. Behind him a sheepishly smiling Henry showed off the gobs of Vaseline that hadn’t made it to his brother.

Retreat to the scene of the crime. Vaseline bedspread? Check. Vaseline rug? Check. Many pictures taken? Check. Check. Check.

Six shampoos later – including one with Dawn dish soap as recommended by a friend as a ‘degreaser,’ Will’s head still looked like he hadn’t had a bath in six months. Internet research suggested cornstarch and a clarifying shampoo combination. That worked fine for Henry, who had minimal amounts in his hair. Will was still a grease monkey. The final trick? Baking soda and baby shampoo. One more time and his blond hair may see the light of day.

Maybe you can make me feel better. Do you have a not-so-clever story to share with us? Email info@cleverparents.com with your story and picture. We’d love to share the joy.