“When will I learn my lesson?” Have you ever asked yourself this question? I ask myself this question repeatedly and especially today. As I am thinking about my next sentence, I am watching a sticky pink cheerio slowly make it’s way down the kitchen wall. Hmmm, how should I explain this to you…

Well it started yesterday when my son John John, who is currently nuzzling my arm like a cat, yelled “Mommy,clean it up, clean it up” in a frantic, shrill, deserpate cry for help. John is a kid that wants everything in it’s place and literally has a child sized panic attack when his routine or structure is thwarted. Whe he goes to sleep at night if somthing in his room needs to be elsewhere,he will let me know. If I come back in his room to stroke his blond locks, or to whisper an extra I love you in his ear, His response is “Mommy go and close the door, needs to be dark in here.” Everything is supposed to be just as his mind sees it. I try to comply hoping I am adding to his sense of safety and security and not feeding a monster of OCD that will end up in therapy one day pleading with his shrink “why didn’t my mother help to stop the madness.” I am typing with hand while crossing my fingers with the other. So, when John cried for help I ran into the living room expecting to see a letter or a number out of place or maybe one of his rebel figurines breaking form from the daily line up he orders them into. Never did I think I would be walking into our den to find diarrhea smeared all over our burber carpet seaping into the tiny fibers that consequently I just shampooed last week.

As I started the consoling,scrubbing process, John ran to each new spot crying “clean up my poopy mommy”, as if it was invisible to me. “Sweetie, don’t worry it’s okay mommy will clean it up. I can only get to one spot at a time.” I ushered him into the bathroom where I suggested we try to finish on the potty. As I lifted the lid it reaked of urine (I must have forgoteen to empty it yesterday…okay this week). I proceeded to encourage John to sit, push his little button down (sorry daddy) and aim for the bottum of the bowl. Nothing came out to which he responded, “Sound good…not working now.” He hopped off gleefully, singing as he went, the sesame street theme song as it was coming on PBS. He was over it and now I was in it! As John and Elmo sang their “LaLa’s” and I continued srubbing poop and gagging, I thought back over the morning to figure out how this could have possibly happened. And then it came to me… it was an “Ah-Ha” moment for sure. A lighting bolt of intellect, an epihpany! I had taken off John’s clothes and diaper trusting his unpotty-trained self alone in the living room while I drank my coffee and read the paper in the kitchen (okay so I was facebooking). Oh yeah, did I mention that he currently has hand/foot and mouth disease? This means he is drinking gallons of apple juice to keep from dehydrating (his beverage of choice) and A.J. gives him diarrhea! So, there you have it…I solved the riddle. What a smart little cookie I am. nakedness + sickness + apple juice + left alone= diarrhea on carpet. You would think one would learn from this experience.

Again this morning I was drinking my coffee, reading the paper (blogging) and I hear that familiar, shrill call for rescue coming from the living room. Hmmm, Am I having dejavu? “Cheerios overboard” the captain cried as what seemed like hundreds of tiny multi colored spheres drenched the still damp carpet of the living room floor. As I picked up these mushy reminders of my stupidity I headed back into the kitchen to toss them into the disposal as one missed and landed on the kitchen wall. I thought to myself “WHATEVER” and turned to go back to my life. And then another thought came to me, “What in the heck am I doing?” and “what will my husband say when he comes home to find a pink cheerio stuck to the wall.” As I stood up to go and remove the cereal, it started slowly making it’s descent, one sicky inch at a time and I started laughing…. hard! And so the question formed in my mind, “When will I learn my lesson?” Maybe tomorrow I will take the laptop into the living room and be a present mother as my coffee kicks in and kicks the benedryl hang over out. Or maybe I will be posting another blog called “Burber Bananas Anyone? This is a tired mama who has at least learned the value of laughing at her repetitive maternal mistakes. Anyone relate? Well I’m off… there are a couple of armpits that need to be tickled and a heart that needs to be loved in hope’s that his future shrink will hear about a few good things his mama did as well!