Up Close and Personal with Bodily Fluids

that aren't my own.

In the last 7 days, I have:

- Wiped gooey eye gunk from a child's eyes.
- Scraped crusty eye gunk from a child's eyelashes.
- Cleaned up liquid-y vomit from the front hall.
- Washed vomit and poop off of two outfits.
- Cleaned up chunky vomit from a pillowcase.
- Cleaned up chunky vomit from a changing pad cover.
- Thrown away a pillow covered in vomit.
- Given a child a bath to clean off.. yup, vomit.
- Given a child a bath to clean off diarrhea.
- Changed several diarrhea-filled diapers.
- Washed diarrhea from two chair covers and a blanket.
- Poked my finger in a (thankfully clean) diaper to check for more diarrhea.
- Cleaned a puddle of pee on the bathroom floor.

Isn't parenthood glamorous?

All of the above bodily fluids came from Lucy. The poor thing came down with pink eye late last week. We avoided eye drops because she was also fortunate enough (?) to get diagnosed with an ear infection at the same time. Oral antibiotics it was! She was home most of Thursday and all of Friday with me. This Tuesday, she came down with a stomach bug. Which (likely in part thanks to the antibiotics) quickly turned into a puking-and-pooping variety stomach bug. M. stayed home with her yesterday and changed many of those diarrhea diapers. I say this to show you that he is no stranger to dealing with his children's bodily fluids. However, he could not get over the idea that I stuck my finger in Lucy's diaper to see if it needed to be changed. I ask you - how else was I supposed to do it? Lucy was asleep in her crib in a dark room. I couldn't see, couldn't smell anything, didn't want to wake her, and couldn't reach far enough into the crib to pull her pants down and check through the sides of her diaper (dude, I am short!). So I stuck my finger in to feel around. What was the worst that could happen? I'd get a fingerful of poop? Ha! Not a problem for this chick. A little poop on the finger is NOTHING when you've been puked on the number of times I have been puked on. All in a day's work. Oh, and thank god for Oxy Clean!

So, in between illnesses, I did my best to take some pictures of the kids for your viewing enjoyment. I must preface the photos with this background:

Lately we've been bringing Finn's backpack to and from school every day to make it easier to cart home the boatloads of artwork he produces every day, and the occasional sheet of homework that needs to be prevented from being crushed or lost, and subsequently completed and returned. Naturally, this has sparked Lucy's interest in backpacks, and last week she conned me in to buying one for her. She's had it for less than a week, and is completely obsessed with it:

As you can see, it is a Dog backpack. Such is the extent of Lucy's obsession, she actually woke up crying at around 4 o'clock in the morning a few days ago, calling for "Woof woof." We don't have a dog. I'm pretty sure she was asking for her backpack. As you can see in the pictures below, she wears it whenever she can, and when she can't wear it (for example, in the car), she cries and clutches it to her chest.







Currently the backpack is hiding in a closet so that we can abate the obsession a bit. We're hoping for the "out of sight, out of mind" phenomenon to kick in.

A pink-eyed, goofy Lucy

Last week Dr. Seuss's birthday was celebrated in daycares across the nation. Finn and Lucy ate green eggs and ham and created several Seussian works of art, including "Thing 1".

Random cute picture

Lucy modeling my hairband - looks much better on her!

Trying on her dad's shoes (with the ever present backpack, of course)

Finn posing with his masterpiece, an airbus made of every block from one of the sets we have.

Nice weather over the weekend meant we got outside to do some yardwork, while Finn and Lucy dusted off the neglected sandbox. They thrilled me by playing very well together, teaming up to fill and dump this dump truck repeatedly.

It was sandy, but rewarding.

Dessert, anyone?