It's not Magic, it's Mommy!

Ever eat an Ice Cream Sandwich? Of course you have. You know, with the soft chocolate cookies on the outside and vanilla ice cream in the middle? Sooooo good. My kids have recently discovered Trader Joe's non-dairy alternative, Tofutti Cuties.

I have to say, I actually like them better than the regular kind. You certainly wouldn't guess by tasting one that they're any different from ice cream sandwiches. You even get the sticky chocolate cookie mess on your fingers when you eat them.

I'm going somewhere with this.

This morning, Tito woke up with the most rancid-smelling, greenish, watery diarrhea ever. He was on the potty every five minutes, which of course means that SOMEBODY had to get up and wipe him every five minutes. Somebodywho? Somebodyme.

I don't know how I didn't see it before, but after the fifth or sixth change of underpants this morning, I looked at the bathroom wall and saw a set of smeared brown fingerprints.

Seeing as how we were in the bathroom, and I'd been dealing with poop all morning, my first instinct was that the mess on the wall was somebody expressing their artistic vision through the medium of fecal matter. Hey, at my house, it's not beyond the realm of possibility.

Then I remembered that Pie had partaken of a Tofutti Cutie last night for dessert.

I called him into the bathroom.

Pie, did you wipe something on the wall?

Yes, he said, I had a Cutie and it got on my hands.

Ok, WHY would you wipe it on the wall??? Didn't you ever think of washing your hands?

But it's okay, Mommy. It goes away after a while.

WHAT???

Then I remembered that I had cleaned a similar mess on the wall some time ago, and at the time I didn't stop to ask what the hell it was, I just assumed the worst (as I usually do), took the bleach wipes and cleaned it.

I suddenly realized the deeper meaning of what he had just said. If you leave a mess alone for long enough, eventually it gets cleaned up. By someone else. What is he, a teenager? Thinking I was gonna nip that slacker-ass attitude in the bud, I lifted his chin to look in his eyes and I spoke in my Very Serious Voice.

Pie, I'm gonna let you in on a little secret.
I CLEANED THE WALL.
It's not MAGIC... it's MOMMY.

I think that's going to be the title of my autobiography.


Other than that, I had a very nice weekend. On Friday, we went shopping for a new sofa. We've been married for almost ten years, and we had not one piece of furniture that we had purchased new. Everything is either a hand-me-down from some older sibling who got something nicer or an estate sale/thrift store find.

We chose one, applied for (and got) financing, and our sofa was to be delivered between noon and 3pm on Sunday. This would have been fine, but Tito had to be at a birthday party at 1pm and I had my knitting class (which I'm really enjoying) at 2:30.

Both boys have had that yucky croupy cough and runny noses recently. I kept them home from school on Friday and I thought about keeping him home from the birthday party, but here's why I didn't:

A) I thought he was pretty much better,

B) Who's gonna tell a 4-year-old that he can't go to the party he's been looking forward to all week, which just happens to be at his very favorite place?

C) The birthday party was for the same little boy whose mom called me at the last minute before Tito's party to tell me her son had a cough and he wouldn't be coming. I didn't want her to think I was some passive-aggressive-vindictive bitch (although that phrase kinda sums me up pretty well, doesn't it?) and since she stiffed me, I was gonna stiff her. It's not that I'm above it, it's just that I don't need her to know I'm that childish.

Ironic Update: When I called the school this morning to report my children's absences (I kept Pie home because I'm too lazy to get up and get dressed to drop only one of them off and pick them up three hours later), the woman who answered has a son who was also at the party yesterday.

I explained that Tito had some funky green rank-smellin' butt faucet action going on (only I used more clinical terms, like icky diarrhea), and she told me that her son had that on Saturday. Hmmmm... it seems my son wasn't the only Outbreak monkey at the party.

So Tito and I went to the birthday party at 1pm. And my cool friend Anti-Stella was there, thank God, so I could laugh instead of dying of embarrassment when Tito walked around the room with both hands down the back of his pants, up to his wrists. I took him into the bathroom and we had a discussion about what's good manners and what's not, and I washed his hands and took him back to the party where the gift-opening was already underway.

He shoves his hands right back down his pants again, and when I called his name angrily in a stage whisper, he turned around and I saw that he had a giant rope of green snot hanging from his right nostril. If only I'd brought my camera.

I told Anti-Stella about my blog yesterday and I remembered that she's in it, so I had to explain what Stella Dallas means to me in order that I could then explain how she embodies the total opposite of the bitches who make me feel like Stella Dallas.

Here's why I dig Anti-Stella. She makes me feel almost normal while I still maintain my quirky flyin-by-the-seat-of-my-power-panties parental style. She even laughs when I say "gaaaahdammit" under my breath, as other mothers probably would not. Hell, I crack myself up when I say it. If I can figure out how, I'll record an audioclip for you and post it. R probably knows how.

Anyway, so the plan was that R, Pie and Beeb would come pick Tito up at the party as soon as the sofa arrived, and then I would go to my class. I'm getting a lot out of this class, and I'm glad I signed up. We learned increases and decreases, AND I was complimented by the teacher on the work I'd done on my project.

Meanwhile, the sofa arrived at Chez Karma and I couldn't be happier. Plus, Sunday morning R went to Best Buy and scored us an Insignia™-27" Flat-Tube Standard-Definition Digital TV for $266.65. R even had a gift card for $150, so it was a great buy. I'm quite pleased with it.

The layout of the house was not really designed with entertaining in mind, but I'm finally not mortified to let someone see our living room. Just as long as they don't look down the hall into the kitchen.