Recent happenings

My father-in-law, Pat came over last week to visit for a couple days. The second night (Mark was working) was mildly chaotic.

First I was going to make spaghetti -- one of Alex's favorite dinners. Andrew was in the kitchen and said he didn't want spaghetti. "OK, what do you want? I can make spaghetti or beef stroganoff." I figured he'd go for spaghetti.

"I want bif strongenough."
Break to setting the table. Alex asks, "What's for dinner?""Andrew chose beef stroganoff. Why did he get to choose? I don't like that. I want spaghetti." All this was whined out.

"He was in the kitchen when I started dinner and that's what he chose."

Break to sitting down. Andrew says, "I don't like this."

Alex says, "I don't think I'll like it, but I'll try it." "Um, its good. Can I have some milk please?"

I get up to get his milk. Andrew gets up and whines about not liking dinner. As I'm up, I hear Pat say, "What are you doing?"Alex answers, "Andrew said he doesn't like it, so I'm going to have his."

Andrew immediately starts crying and I dish him some more, which he quietly eats.

Break to bath time. During cold months we only bath them once a week Saturday or Sunday plus they days they actually get dirty. It’s just too hard on their skin.

I put Sean and Ryan in the water. I see something mildly icky floating. Then Ryan starts crying and he's pooped in the tub. I ask Pat to come up. I then clean and sanitize the tub. I put the twix back in the tub. Ryan cries some more and immediately poops again. Back out of the water they go again. I ask Pat to wash Sean off in the other tub. Ryan is standing frozen solid wrapped in a towel, fussing. I clean and sanitize the tub again. I put him back in the water again and this time. We managed to get him clean without further incident.

By the way, this whole bath time poop thing was reenacted last night during bath time without the benefit of an extra adult around.