mess, snow, and poop

sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo...
yeah.
I haven't allowed myself much time to write lately. I've had time to complete homework (barely) and time to change diapers, and even time to take a few pictures (but not upload them). When I have a moment to either write or curl up in a ball on the couch and watch Ghost Whisperer, I've been choosing the latter.
My bedroom is on the main level of the house so when guest visit, guests who cannot go up and down stairs, guests like my grandmother, I have to move down stairs and give my room up as the guest bedroom. It's one thing to clean a room so that someone can peek into it or crash one night in it, it's a whole other thing to clean it up so someone can stay in it for a week...I'm in trouble. I am not neat. My grandmother arrives this afternoon.
I'm not dirty, some people are dirty, I'm not one of them. I don't have dishes or food wrappers laying around, I wash my clothes regularly etc. I don't unpack (stuff, I unpack dirty clothes right away) when I get home or put all my clean clothes in the closet right away though. I have piles of papers and half finished projects on every surface. I know where everything is of course, but it looks like a mess to anyone else...
I'm picking out colors to paint the walls in what will eventually be Josephine's room. Orange. I'll probably do most of the painting and decorating over winter break and it's going to be AWESOME!
It's snowing right now. It's snowed a little already this fall, but nothing worth talking about. This is looking like it'll stay for a while.
Josephine's birthday is 2 months...then I will have a 2 year old.
a few nights ago I was getting her ready for bed and she was fighting getting a new diaper on so I let her have a bare ass for a bit while I put some things away (I was putting things away, clothes even!). She came up to me and pointed to her butt and said her word for poop. Oh, crap, where is it?! There are clothes all over my floor and she's telling me she just pooped someone in here! I scooped her up and asked her where is it a few times while tip-toeing around. I checked her out, no "evidence" on her that she pooped and then it came to me. I leaped for the toilet and as I put her on the seat I asked her if she had to go poop. "Yes", or more like "Yesh" and as soon as her skin hit the porcelain it happened... my 22 month old pooped in the potty!!!!!!!
She was a little nervous but soon figured out that I was excited for her and she got excited too. We skipped to the living room to tell every one and stopped to get a sucker out of the Halloween basket on the way. We jumped and pumped our fists in the air, we sang Whoo Hoo with big smiles, I turned to see her slip and land hard on her bare bum and then crack her head on a wooden stool.
She's put in a good effort to go on the potty again a few times but so far nothing, also she is not interested in peeing on there. I hadn't even planned on actively potty training for a few more months anyway. She's getting a potty for her birthday (shh) but she hasn't quite mastered pulling her own pants down.
There is a lady in two of my classes that is just nuts. At first I thought she was just sarcastic and a little dramatic. She made every one laugh as she got worked up over different assignments and predicted her fantastic failures...then the drama kept increasing and the sarcasm faded out. She seems to genuinely believe that every professor should bend over for her every desire, like accept late work with out penalty and maybe get a new text book because she doesn't like this one and that assignment is too difficult it should be extra credit instead. At first I thought I was the only one who saw the crazy because everyone else still seemed charmed by her but then I got an eye roll last night. Yes! someone on my side! It's awkward to be the only one who doesn't like someone in the room, you start to think you are going crazy.
Apparently I've chosen to blog instead of shower before my class this morning...

read while eating pea soup, or chocolate sauce, or butterscotch pudding

Several times as an infant she surprised me by peeing all over as soon as I pulled the old diaper off. Everyone in the house who is not a mother has been thoroughly grossed out by stray streams. That seemed mostly in the past now that she no longer has to relieve herself every 20 minutes.
There have been a handful of times that she's walked out of the bathroom, sans diaper, and created a puddle on my bedroom floor while I started a bath. That's not a big deal, her urine doesn't smell bad and it isn't difficult to clean up.
Once, when she was still small enough to lay in her baby tub, she pooped and had to take a bath after her bath.
Then there was this morning. Everyone was running late getting ready for church which is unusual as my mother is typically dressed and reading the paper before I get out of the shower. Normally I can dress Josephine and toss her in the living room with grandma while I finish fixing my hair and face, but this morning I didn't have that option.
I started the shower, pulled off her pajamas and night time diaper and set her down while I undressed. She walked into my bedroom and back. She held up her arms, asking to be picked up. As I bent down to scoop her up I noticed something didn't smell right. I looked into my room and because it'd only been a few seconds I only looked a few feet into the room. No puddle. In that same moment I had pulled her up nearly to my chest and then I saw it. Her legs, back side, and one hand were covered in that tell-tale mustard brown slime. Poop.
I quickly tossed her into the shower and walked further into my bedroom. She had made it further in than I thought, she had rounded the corner and when I did as well I saw it. She must have been holding it in a while.
I scooped as much as I could up with a wash clothe and jumped in the shower. When I got out I tried to clean it up some more but I had only a few minutes to get ready. I was having a hard time keeping Josephine occupied and out of the mess while trying to clip the hair out of my face and put on a little mascara.
My room smells like pet stain remover.

wanna see something gross?

There's something wrong with my eye isn't there. I knew it. Gah! it hurts, it's swollen and I don't know what it is! I just woke up to this...could I have gotten into a fist fight in my sleep? Did I win? Man, I hope so.

I know what you're thinking, maybe it's a sty. Maybe, but I looked up the symptoms and I don't have any bumps or scratchy feelings, no tearing or light sensitivity, just a red swollen eye that kinda hurts.

So I don't know...I might lose an eye, I might be exaggerating, we'll see how it goes.

Moving on to something less yucky: Josephine has walked across the living room a couple of times. She still usually crashes after a four or five steps but she's moving along quite well for having such little legs. I'll have a video up soon but right now I don't have the external hard drive that I keep all my pictures and videos on handy.

(Someone is standing next to me right now making weird faces and noises as the smell of poopy diaper fills the room...that's my cue to move on from this blogging dealeo and go wipe some butt)

till we meet again--

sidetrack/trip

Josephine is sicky

she had a slight fever last night and it's a little higher this morning...so I'll see what i can do while she's napping but I'm not promising anything too entertaining.

The first flight out to Denver was a little of what I was dreading, Josephine started off happy and got fussy when I couldn't walk around with her to help her fall asleep. She did finally fall asleep and no one seemed too pissed that they were sitting by a baby. On the second flight she fell asleep almost immediately and since I was able to bring her car seat on the plane, I stuck her in there and was able to take a short nap myself.

*If you show your cute baby to the guy behind the counter, throw in a look of slight desperation, the ticket guy will make sure you are sitting next to an empty seat, even if it's the only one on the plane.

Josephine was great for most of the time in MN. She really only fussed when I put her in the car. Also, her hair was super curly in the MN humidity, very cute.

It didn't take very long for her to warm up to my friend Kelly, maybe because she and I don't look entirely dissimilar, and Josephine just LOVED Kelly's 4 year old daughter. For a 4 y/o only child, she did spectacular with Josephine around. She played peek-a-boo for as long as Jose would pay attention, she layed out a blanket with baby safe toys on it and was super excited to show us the display, she was quiet when Josephine napped and only casually suggested that maybe we can walk someplace instead of drive, because the baby always cries in the car.

We went swimming almost everyday and Josephine loved it. One afternoon we spent some time in a bridal shop that had gone out of business. The bank was selling everything 1/2 off and so the four of us, along with another girlfriend that was visiting that day, tore around the shop looking at some potential bridesmaids dresses for Kelly's upcoming wedding, as well as the gawdy and silly dresses that we would've bought just for dress up purposes if they were a little cheaper.

The reason I picked this particular week to visit MN was because a very dear friend of mine was getting married. I could go on and on about how great she is but I won't, you'll just have to trust me that she's pretty awesome. Josephine conveniently took a break from being an anxious clingy little monkey and wanted to say hi to everyone there. It was so great to see her make googly eyes back at all the people I haven't seen since I was in my first trimester. It was a good night.

I guess I was a little cocky about how easy it was to travel out with Josephine and I didn't prepare as well for the trip home. First I forgot to pack our swim suits and a few little things that Kelly had given us because I just set them down instead of putting them in my suitcase immediately. Because I'm a mom and babies suck your brains out.

Anyway, my return flight was super early and while getting us dressed and ready I didn't get a blanket back into the diaper bag. The blanket I use to cover up while nursing. I didn't notice until I was in my seat and she was grabbing at my shirt. Luckily I had a bandanna that I hadn't removed from the diaper bag that I could use.

Let me back up, on the ride to the airport Josephine pooped. Not a big deal except that I couldn't change her right away because we were tight for time and there was a serious line ahead of me to check in. She was sitting in the Bjorn and seemed happy so I didn't worry about the diaper situation. We got through security and I booked it to a bathroom, took her out of the Bjorn and saw that poop had seeped out of the diaper and was all up her back...so much for the cute outfit...The lady sharing the changing station with me was all Oh my, mah baby peeeeeeeeed through all her clothes! Now I have to change her whole outfit! Do you have any spare wipes? Hey look, it's just pee, look at my baby, half her body is smeared in mustard yellow poop, and no I think I'm going to need all of these wipes just to clean up her back before I even attempt to clean her butt, and look at her poopy feet! it's everywhere!

*she ignored me and my poopy situation, and I did give her a butt wipe.

Then Josephine slept through both flights even though I couldn't bring the car seat on board.

The end.

(I'll put pictures up on Flickr soon.)