30 minutes of chaos

boo!, originally uploaded by Kristy and Eva.

a brief interlude earlier tonight, while larry was at radio shack and picking up food. times are approximate, since who has time to watch the clock?

6:30 -- talking to mom on the phone. eva reports "peepee potty". the batteries in our cordless phones have died, so i'm using an old-fangled phone plugged into the wall, and unbeknownst (well, unrememberest?) to me, larry replaced the 6-foot cord with a longer one. anyway., loathe to get off the phone to parent my child, i tell her to come to me so i can help get her underwear off. underwear are already wet, i make mental note to find the puddle when i get off the phone. eva walks off.

6:31 -- eva stops exploring the front room and now makes her way to the potty. i hear her lift the lid and know she's fine, so stop paying attention. (foreshadow.)

6:35 -- after a few more minutes on the phone, eva asks to nurse for the third time that hour. that is probably because her only lunch was a banana, and she gave half of that to the dog.

6:39 -- eva finishes nursing, i notice a suspicious brown smear on my jeans where she was sitting (still waist-down naked) across my lap. i carefully set her down, and start to tell mom bye to go get wipes for eva. eva hears this, and helpfully pulls a wipe from the container that has mysteriously been moved to the living room.

6:40 -- i wipe eva, and she continues helping: returns to wipes container, pulls out new wipe, wipes, discards onto carpet. repeats a dozen or so times until wipes box is empty. i can't really reach her without stretching the phone cord and knocking stuff off the table, so i let her do this.

6:44 -- i get off the phone, toss the poo-wipe i'm still gingerly holding in my one messy hand, and proceed to the bathroom to inspect the damage. suddenly i remember the dog's new-as-of-yesterday grossness of eating eva's poo. (disgusto doggie managed this while i was chasing down a certain potty escapee to wipe her.) sure enough, potty is (mostly) empty.. find dog, toss her outside in an effort to purge the disgustingness from my head.

6:46 -- decide it's time to feed my child. she's already scrambled up into her chair before i remember she's still not wearing any underwear. remedy that, fasten her in.

6:47 -- eva begins to demand cheese. i explain we have no cheese, but papa will bring some when he gets home from the store. undeterred, she continues her cheese demands while the dog barks at the perceived injustice of being thrown outside for no good reason.

6:48 -- offer eva beans, i know full well she only resists tossing the non-cheese based food onto the floor because it has been placed on the coveted sun plate (the flower plates, of which there are 7, are platae non gratae -- forgive my high school/made-up latin -- in favor of the sun plate, of which there is one, one that always seems to be in the dishwasher). she won't touch the beans, but at least doesn't toss them. yet.

6:49 -- after a thorough search of the fridge, i discover ricotta, which i know is cheese and you know is cheese, but i doubt eva will agree that it's indeed cheese. dog still barking, i hype up the special cheese, and she is predisposed to like it because it's arriving with a bowl and a spoon, which on alternate days is a fabulous or awful thing. she tries and likes it, so i quickly stir the beans into it.

6:52 -- i begin to cook veggies to go with the now-opened ricotta and leftover phyllo dough. eva becomes bored with eating the special cheese, and decides to smear it all over her hands (having "dropped" her fork as well as her first and replacement spoons already). i decide to pick my battles (i.e., not this one) and ignore her as she proceeds to encrust her arms and forehead with ricotta (which becomes cement-like more quickly than you'd think).

6:57 -- eva says "peepee potty" (accidents always come in pairs or trios around here), and before i can wipe my hands on my shirt and get over there (she's taken to stealing all kitchen towels within her reach, and i would have used my pants but they were removed in the earlier poo incident), i hear the pee begin to reach the floor and splatter on the tile.

6:59 -- i have eva standing next to the chair, and from my stash on the table, i've thrown a towel onto the puddle on the floor and the one on the chair. poodog still barking and now also scratching at the door, i peel off her underwear (worn for all of 13 minutes) and make the rookie mistake of reaching to move the towel around in an effort to mop up more of the pee. as i do so, eva reaches down and finds the ricotta covered beans -- the very same ones that were deemed unworthy of consuming minutes ago and tossed aside -- and gets at least one into her mouth. and now not for the squeamish: the beans were located within direct splatter range of her falling pee, not to mention that they're on the floor that's only as "clean" as it is because the dog licks up eva's tossed food, the same dog who, you know, apparently now eats other stuff with that mouth.

7:00 -- trying not to think about it, i scoop her up ignoring the pee and crusty ricotta this transfers to my shirt, and announce we're off to have a bath. good thing i have enough interrupt-driven mamaness under my belt to have had the foresight to turn off the stove before rushing to the peemergency (thus managing not to destroy my veggies). however, it's another hour before i remember that the oven is still preheating. (oh right, what was i doing again?) on my way to the oven, i step in the puddle from the first accident. oh, so that's where that is! still haven't remembered to clean it up, though. i'll go do that now.

some days, similar stings of events leave me demoralized. today i just found it funny. lucky me! :)