In fact, Brian is only aware of about 10% of the antics that go on during any given week. (Read: He only has to clean up 10% of them) For example, here's a story from this week: I usually store our pool bag in Aiden's room since that is where I keep the swim diapers & baby sunblock. It wasn't a big deal until I went to check on him while I thought he was napping and found him sitting in his crib pulling the plastic bristles out of a hairbrush with his teeth. The hairbrush had been in the bottom of the pool bag I'd left several feet away from his crib. Strewn and forcefully thrown about his ENTIRE ROOM were Nemo swim diapers, pool toys, hundreds of bits of shredded wet wipes, our hideous community pool photo ID cards and a half-dozen spit-out hairbrush bristles. I had all evidence of the hairbrush-ruining incident cleaned up and the pool bag put back together and stored in our room before Brian ever saw it. Not a big deal - the hairbrush had been a freebie any ways!
Brian, however, finds it incredibly difficult to believe that Aiden can get into so much trouble in such a short period of time and surely I'm not watching him. This is sometimes true. Sometimes I am on the phone, sending an e-mail, getting an aspirin for my Aiden-induced headache, scrubbing down the high chair tray for the fourth time, searching for blanket, removing Chuck E. Cheese tokens from the printer's SD card slots, picking up freshly-strewn DVDs, removing Yogos from Aiden's nostrils with tweezers, mopping up newly-spilled mystery sticky stuff, coaxing Aiden that he can color as much as he wants with orange crayons on paper and not on the walls, stain treating his third? fourth? t-shirt that day, wrestling to keep Mater, Thomas the Train and a sippy cup out of the filling washer long enough for me to get his sheets in, plucking him off the top of the table/counter/toilet for at least the tenth time that hour or - heaven forbid - going to the bathroom or letting Brian's stupid doberman outside so it can go to the bathroom. Most of the time I'm well aware of the mess Aiden is making and I pause, make a decision about whether I want to fight this battle or not, and if it's not too distructive I let him continue. Pulling tires off Hot Wheels cars using his Guido forklift character? Fine. Throwing them in the sink where they roll down the drain so fast I barely have the time to identify them as tires and not raisins? Not okay but we'll give Brian the heads up that his liquid Drano isn't going to to the trick. ;)
And that's what got me in trouble: Three tires and a few "pirate treasure" beads town his drain. PLEASE. You should have seen what he did with the orange silly putty on Friday...after he bopped your dog with your Xbox controller, rearranged several of your do-not-touch-daddy's-books on the bookshelf, pressed the buttons on your alarm clock, threw froot loops in your hamper, pulled out all your boyscout troop books to find the one with the fish in it (he's earned that merit badge by they way, if for no other reason than I've had to read it twice) and threw several pieces of your dry-clean-only clothing on the ground to dance on top of. Aiden you owe me. I cleaned up all the other evidence (while you had moved on to make the next mess) and I'm sorry I missed the tires in the sink. Brian, congrats on making the blog.
In case you were wondering why there are so freaking many syrafoam peanuts shoved behind every piece of living room furniture, here's the photographic evidence:
(I got a delivery, opened the box to check the order, pulled the items out and got all of seventeen seconds to myself before there was yet another mess to clean up! I insisted Aiden get his little green OXO dust pan to help with these ridiculous packing peanuts that were literally running down the hall and behind the TV stand on the tiniest AC air current. )
Clean up, clean up, everybody everywhere....
Clean up, Clea- aw, forget it. This is boring!
If I spent my entire day on the computer, Aiden would have accidentally killed himself ten times over. And that would have been in just his first six months of life! :) Instead I am watching him - with the camera ready - and we have hundreds of funny pictures of the delightfully endearing things he does in these fast-fleeting years to enjoy for the rest of our years together. In the end, it really is worth living with the extra messes. I love you both so much! Sink tire wars and all. ;)
