She makes me laugh. Every day.

I'm being accused of being obsessed with poo. And puke. And bodily fluids. I'm not obsessed. That's just my life. Body fluids.
So tonight--to prove I'm not obsessed--I bring you a story about air. Air from the bumb, but still air.
Because it made me laugh. Hard. Jaida is truly hilarious.
Tonight, I was laying next to Jaida at bedtime. The room was quiet and I heard a high squealy sound. I looked at Jaida and she had her trademark smirk on her face. And here's the conversation that insued:
Me: "Did you just toot?"
J: (with a huge smile). Yes
Me: Big laugh (because admit it, farting is and always will be funny)
J: "And it cried"
Almost peed my pants when she said that. The sound of the fart really did sound like a cry. Classic, classic moment.
Seriously. LOVE HER. "And it cried." Who says stuff like that? Jaida does. Because she's unique, she's witty, she's painfully funny, and best of all SHE'S MINE!!!!

Stuff

We just got back from a weekend in Vegas. It's odd that after a weekend away, I feel like I need a vacation.

Yesterday I washed 6 loads of laundry, folded, AND put them all away in the same day. It's a christmas miracle.

By the time 9:30 rolled around, I was ready for bed. So I took a unisom. It is now 9:30 am the next day and I still feel drunk with sleep medicine. Sometimes I forget that my body absorbs medicine far too well. And I'm struggling to keep my eyes open. So I'm typing in an effort to stay awake. Maybe someone should call in a while to make sure I'm not curled up in my bed while the girls tie me up and burn down the house.

The post for today is dedicated to our family home evening last night. Here's how it went:

We sang "I Am a Child of God." The girls knew all the words, but we were very, very off key.

Jaida said she "signed up for the scripture". She insisted she could read it on her own. So we let her try for 5 minutes while we listened to her mumble "God" "behold" "Jesus" "and" "and" "and" . . . . then Mike helped her.

And then for the lesson. Jaida also said she signed up for that too. Here's how it proceeded.

J: "Today's lesson is on the priesthood."

Me: "How old do you have to be to get the priesthood?"

J: shrugs her shoulders

Me: "You have to be 12." "What can people with the priesthood do?"

J: "HOLY GHOST."

Me: "Yes. Do you know what the Holy Ghost is?"

J: "The priesthood." Hmmm....

I then started to give Jaida an explanation of what the Holy Ghost is. And then Mya started in.

Mya: "Holy Ghost. Holy Ghost. Holy Ghost. Holy Ghost. HOLY GHOST."

Me: talking louder trying to explain what the Holy Ghost does

Mya: "MOM. The Holy Ghost is in the toy room."

Me: "Oh really. What's he doing in there?"

Mya: "He's biting the toys."

Lesson over. But Mya proceeded to tell us about all the things the Holy Ghost was biting including my sisters dog Chester.

Oh. And during the whole thing, Mya was sporting this outfit. Putting "underwears" over her diaper temporarily seems to help her keep it on. And she's anti-clothes even when it's 20 degrees outside.

On Blogs.

I love blogs. And anyone who knows me probably knows this. You could say I have a testimony of blogs. :) And I love my blog. Because I write things down I otherwise never would. And one day, it will be great to go back through it. And laugh. And cry.
But there's definitely a VERY big downside to blogs. It allows my friends and the people I care about most the ability to read about my life and what's going on without ever actually having to talk to or communicate with me. Which blows. Because I'm kind of big on friends. And think they're awfully important. But seem to be losing contact with many of mine because they think that reading my blog counts as keeping in touch. Um. It doesn't. And you all know who you are. You. The ones I've e-mailed and you never e-mail back. The ones I call and you never call back. You are no longer allowed to read my blog until you DO call and resume contact. Seriously. I've got people monitoring it. And they know where you live. Boo to the people who think that just reading the blog (without ever leaving a comment) think that is perfectly okay. It's just not.

On a more positive note. I ran today. 3 miles. Which unfortunately is an accomplishment considering I haven't exercised for over a year. Disgusting, I know. But I ran. On the treadmill. And though I ran 5 minutes, walked 5 minutes at a measly 5.0 (hard to believe that 6 years ago I actually ran and completed a marathon) and by the end my heart was about to burst out of my chest, my calves were on fire, and I was light-headed, I did it. I started. And starting is the hardest part.
I have discovered that exercising, and more particularly running, isn't quite as therapeutic with children around. Because the entire time Jaida kept saying "mom, why aren't you running?" or "mom, run faster" or my personal favorite was when she started chanting like she was a cheerleader "You. You have a big belly. And you. need. to. exercise." I almost fell off the treadmill. Not to mention the entire time I was doing my best to keep Mya off the back of the treadmill which would have certainly resulted in serious, season-ending injuries for both of us as we shot off the treadmill onto the concrete basement floor.
But still. It felt good. A good hurt I like to say.

Right now at my house. . .

Currently, Mya is sitting on the toilet, stark naked claiming she has to poop. I just went in to check on her (because she thinks she needs to sit on there for a half hour and I'm not staying in there the whole time). She looked at me and said "Go out. Close the door. Yock (lock) the door." Hmmmm... Nothing but trouble behind closed locked doors with that girl. And Jaida's in there "cheering" her on.
This is all 10 minutes after Mya just threw up in the sink from coughing. I know the look, the sound, the body-language by now so I was able to get her to the sink before it came out. The puke buckets are upstairs by the beds.
Time to get out of the house. So grateful for a sister who's house I can crash anytime. Here we come.

My "To Do" List

**Get Jaida to sleep in her own bed, ALL night. She likes to snuggle with someone when she sleeps.

**Put away the 6 loads of laundry I did yesterday (Mike folded them all for me last night--yes, he's that cool).

**Hide anything liquid or anything that squirts that has potential to damage carpet, furniture, bed spreads, clothes, etc. so Mya can't find them.

**Do the same with markers, pens, etc. to prevent writing on walls, couches, doors, and the most frequent "art pad", the tile in the kitchen (she colored about 15 of the tile squares with a marker).

**Sort the thousands of pictures I've taken of my girls so I can print them and get them into a book (not a scrapbook--I don't have the patience for those).

**Finish the first-edition of my blog-book. It's taking far too long.

**Mop the kitchen floor. Boo. Such a waste of time.

**Get the "foreign body" out of Mya's ear. She was complaining of ear pain last Friday so I took her up to my dad's to have him look at it. She had an ear-infection, but then he paused and said "Something's in there." Um. what? At first I thought he was kidding because that's how he is, but he sure wasn't. Then he said "It doesn't look like an insect." I'm not sure if that was supposed to comfort me or not. We have to wait for the infection to go away and then we'll explore what it is and try to get it out. I'm sure it's going to be a lot of fun for all of us.

**Edit the 5 sessions I'm behind on while I have a 2 year old saying "mom, mom, mom " every two seconds.

**Run. Because I'm grossly out of shape. Our treadmills been broken (until about 30 minutes ago when we had a guy come fix it).

**Teach Mya to NOT stick her hand in her poop. Not sure where to even begin on this one.

**Figure out how to entertain my two girls all day, with no preschool, and no outings, while it's freezing outside. It's going to be a long day.

Appetizers.

It was 5 o'clock. It had been a long day (and what day isn't these days). And I needed to cook dinner by myself this night. So I popped some popcorn and turned on Curious George. Yes. Popcorn right before dinner. And I don't regret it for a second. It's practically air anyway.

And then I obviously quit making dinner to take pictures.

Poly-pockets.

These small little things with too many clothes and shoes that manage to scatter around the house are a very big part of our life. And I am grateful for them. Despite the time I spend dressing and un-dressing them. Because my girls love them. Love them.

That didn't just happen.

Every so often I go to McDonald's with one of my friends and her girls (holla Brittany). It's fun because usually her oldest does something that makes me laugh. Like going in to the boys bathroom, taking her pants off, and coming back out without them (we had to find a man to go in and retrieve the clothes for us). Or dropping a bottle of chocolate milk on the floor that exploded and landed all over the man next to us who then wiped it off his shirt, pants, face. So every time we go to McDonalds, I'm just waiting for what her daughter might do next.
Well. Today was payback day. For all my laughter.
Today I met a friend who is in town from Jerusalem (yes, she lives in Jerusalem) so we met in Bountiful (because she was coming from Morgan--I know you care). We chose McDonald's so the girls could run while we talked.
5 minutes after we got there, Jaida appeared at the top of one of the tubes in tears, horrified, and then the dreaded words "Mom. I peed."
Um. What?! You peed? Like, in the playplace you peed?
You betcha. And she was wearing a skirt which means NO absorption.
There was no way I was going to make someone from McDonalds climb up into the playplace and clean up my kids urine, so I coaxed Jaida down in tears near hysteria. She was embarrassed. Can't blame her. So I tried to downplay the whole thing. No big deal. You peed. In the playplace. No big deal.
Thankfully I had extra clothes, so I got her cleaned up and changed. Then filled my arms with mounds of paper towels, grabbed my diaper bag wipes, and headed up.
My friend (thanks again Apes) who is barely pushin' 5 feet, volunteered to go up for me. Um, yea, not sending my friend up to clean the pee either.
Unfortunately, J hadn't peed since the night before (no idea why she didn't go before we left the house) so the volume was ridiculous. And I had to send a little boy down the playplace to retrieve me more paper towels.
All the while, I had a little audience of boys who kept saying "Sick, there's pee all over" and a few boys who were actually trying to climb over me and through the pee.
It was all the way down one of the tubes.
After severals runs of paper towels, a whole bundle of wipes, and a TON of sanitizer spray, I got it cleaned up.
I won't share what was going through my head the entire time.
Hands washed.
No big deal.

Miss Jaida

Turns out I really, really like her.

She wanted to take these in her new dress. I gave no direction. Just snapped the pictures.

The newest things at our house.

Big-wheel racing through the house. We're ready for summer. Or even spring. We'll take spring. Just get us out of the house. Please.

And lots of escape attempts. Mya finally figured out how to unlock the deadbolt. Boo. I've found her over at the neighbors more than once.

And she has decided she needs to carry around a pack of gum with her during the day. She hands it out to all the neighbor kids. Not sure their moms dig that, but whatever.

Things I heard in the night.

"Mom. I'm cold. I need a long sleeve shirt on."
"Mom. I'm hot. I'm sweating. I need to take my clothes off." (these two phrases were within 10 minutes of each other)
"Mom. I need some water."
"Mom. I need some apple juice." (?)
Cough. Cough. Cough.
Cry.
"Mom. I need my binkie."
"I don't want a blanket."
"I'm wet."
"I don't want to. I want the pink one." (this is Mya crying and talking in her sleep. No idea what she was dreaming.)
"Mom. I need a drink."
"Mom. I need to puke."

And this morning I awoke to the sounds of a chair scooting across the tile downstairs. Came to find Mya trying to get some candy out of the cupboard.

Notice there were no "Dad's" in there. :) All-in-all a pretty uneventful night at our house.

Mya, Mya, Mya. . .

First of all let me emphasize how awesome I think Mya is. The girl is hilarious. And her personality--priceless. She's going places. Both my girls are. Going places. Hopefully I can channel them to good places. :)

First item of business. Does anyone know how to get bright blue toothpaste out of the carpet? Courtesy of Mya.

Second. Today Mya took a big swig of diet coke (so I'm not as strong as I thought I was. Back off), held it in her cheeks for a second, checked to make sure I was watching and then sprayed it from her mouth all over the kitchen counter. I'll admit, I turned my head and laughed. That is why I never should have been allowed to be a mother. It was funny. I then turned around and put my "angry" face on and made her help me clean it up. She didn't buy it.

Third. Jaida, Mya, and two of Jaida's friends were playing in the toy room yesterday(I apologize to their parents if they happen to read this blog). Their laughter got progressively louder and then I could hear the "something naughty is going on" laugh. Then one of Jaida's friends shrieks "She's eating the poo." Normally I don't pay much attention to the comments coming out of the toy room, but when the word "poo" and Mya are in the same sentence, I pay attention. So I ran (yep, ran) to the toyroom and Mya was holding what looked like a chocolate covered raisin in her hand (which we happen to have in the house from time-to-time). Whatever it was, she had just taken it out of her mouth. I took it from her and gave it the sniff test. Definitely poo. Old poo. Nothing fresh straight from the diaper.

Not sure where to proceed at this point, I asked her where she got it. She pointed to the mailbox in her "door" toy (you know, the fisher-price door that has the mailbox and window, etc.).

Apparently, it had been removed from a previous diaper, and stored in the mailbox. Um. Pretty sure there's not a word for how disgusting that is. I threw the poo in the toilet and dragged her to the bathroom and washed her down (my sister later asked if I put something nasty in her mouth so she'd realize she'd done something bad. my response--she had POO in her mouth. What could I possibly have put in her mouth WORSE than that). I then sanitized the door toy mailbox. And then had to go on a hunt through the rest of the toys to make sure there weren't more treasures.

Seriously. Does this stuff really happen? To me it does. No one can prepare you for the surprises kids can bring.

And why, WHY do they put everything in their mouth? There's no logic to that. Freud and the Oral stage--BOO on you.

And now I'm really getting the pressure to potty train her. Anyone want to come hunker down for a week and do it for me? :)

Check it out.

For those of you who don't follow the photo blog, I just put up a super sweet post. So check it out. www.lindsayrossphotography.blogspot.com

And I have another post to add about Mya, but it's time to fix dinner so you'll just have to wait. It's even better (and more disgusting) than the last post. Didn't think that could happen, but it did.

Why?

And then to top it all off (if you haven't read previous post, read it now), the girl took a man-sized dump in the tub Monday night. Man-sized. Not exaggerating. She earned herself an early ticket to bed. Without dinner. (Okay. Without dinner is a lie. But it sounded good. Like I'm crackin' down.) Sure love my girls. Tears, poo, and all.

Not a story for pregnant women or people who gag easily.

After 4 parties squeezed in to 2 days, I thought it would be nice to spend a quiet Sunday evening at home (quiet being relative). We usually have Sunday dinner with my parents and siblings every week (which Mike loves) but my Mom is on a much needed getaway and we didn't ever get anything planned. So I heated up some leftovers (best way to "make" dinner) and we sat down to eat. I called for Mya but got no response. We ate for a few minutes and I called again. Still no response. So Mike went on a hunt. 5 minutes later, he came back down still calling for her.
"Check the closet" I told him. that's her favorite place to hide. Usually in our closet tucked behind my clothes where we can't see her. She wasn't there. So he went to the toyroom closet and at first glance didn't see her there either. then he looked in the "v" of the closet door and she was tucked inside, in squatting position. She was taking a dump. And instinctively didn't want an audience. So he let her be.
We ate for a few more minutes (because sometimes completing her business can take a while) and Jaida decided to go check on her progress. Jaida, for some odd reason, is oddly fascinated by poo. I think she gets it from her Uncles Shane and Jeremy.
The next thing I hear is Jaida's laughter and then "Mom. MOM. You gotta come up here. There's poo everywhere." I looked at Mike (secretly hoping he'd respond first) and then got up to assess the damage.
Here's the problem. After Mya poops, she sticks her hand down her diaper and squishes whatever is in there. I guess just to make sure something really came out. Usually I catch her before she touches anything else (and yes, this has happened multiple times--some of you may remember the story where she painted her body with the poo). This time, she decided to paint the closet doors. Super awesome. I pulled her out of the closet before she could contaminate any of the toys inside, washed (scrubbed until they were almost bloody) her hands, changed the offending diaper, and sent her down to her dad while I cleaned up the war zone. Jaida, unfortunately, had decided she would start the clean-up on her own. (Seriously--obsessed with poo. Who willingly cleans up someone else's poo?) On her way back to the bathroom with some of the poo (I'm just seeing how many times I can type poo in this story) she dropped the kleenex and then smeared the poo into the floor and the grooved stool on the floor.
So I sent Jaida down to Mike as well. On her way down the stairs I hear "Oooh. There's poo all over the stairs." Are you freaking kidding me? I came to look, and sure enough, a little trail all the way down. So I holler to Mike "Will you check Mya's flip-flops. Is there poo all over them?" A pause. "Yep." No idea how it got on to the bottom of her flip-flops. I didn't see anything that had dropped out of the diaper. So my only guess is that she was trying to get it off her hand and the bottom of her shoes was the next best option after the closet doors. And yes, she was wearing flip-flops in the winter. That's how we roll over here at the Ross house, much to Mike's dismay.
Needless to say, my quiet Sunday evening turned into an irritating length of time scrubbing and sanitizing my entire house and children.
I supposed it's time to potty train. But knowing Mya, she'll dump in the toilet and then just pull it out and do her damage.
Oh, the joys of kids.