The laundry never stops these days. The moment I get it all done, it's as if the two socks I forgot have procreated and given birth to another four piles. The baby must go through five bibs a day, between food, spit-up and copious amounts of drool. He is like the Niagara Falls of drool. I don't know where it all comes from. And once it soaks through his bib, it seeps out onto his onesie and so I have to change onesies four times a day. They should call them Foursies. I do. And then there are the pants. As soon as he starts to eat, his fists find his mouth and then it's onto his pants they go. The socks then get into his mouth because, hey, who doesn't love to suck on their feet, and before you know it, another load of laundry needs to get done.
The dishes. They have become best friends with the laundry.
The other day, just after the kids' dinner, I realized that my clothes were covered in baby food, formula, drool, spit up, and various other by-products of baby and toddler activity. I gave the baby a bath so that at least one of us could be rid of the persistent carrot-scented wet (I don't know how else to put it). And then I pulled him out of the water and wrapped him in a sweet baby blue towel and his soft skin smelled heavenly, like angel's breath and unicorns (they don't just look good) and before I knew it, my stomach was burning hot and wet. The dude peed on me. Which I guess is fine since I wasn't the clean one. Even though it had been a long day, I couldn't help but smile and think it was par for the course. I must have thought it really hard because I didn't bother to change my shirt. Didn't even occur to me. Several minutes and one diaper later, I threw off the shirt not because it was soaked in urine, but just because it was soaked. That's when the other one came running in and said, "Diaper off! Take diaper off!" And then he took it off himself and thought it hilarious to run away from me and into his clubhouse where I just prayed he didn't pee.
I say this not because I want sympathy or to commiserate, but rather to explain why I haven't posted all that often. For this is what my days have become. Some are harder than others and some are easier. I never know what kind of day it will turn out to be until it has already turned itself out. But the point is, I am tired. The little one doesn't really care for long jags of sleep at night and so I don't get a whole lot of it either. The days are full of urine-soaked shirts and diaperless escapades and laundry and dishes and formula-making and food-feeding and negotiating and tear-wiping and on and on. But it's also full of a lot of smiles and new discoveries and of getting to know each other and of the big brother warming up to the little one. And the big one has just started giving what he calls Tight Hugs which are very tight and very fulfilling. So if I have to get peed on every now and then, it's worth it if my two and a half year old decides I'm worthy of a Tight Hug. I could live without the piss but there's no way I could live without the tight hugs.
