EMBARRASSING

Oh boy. The Bear has managed to seriously embarrass me a handful of times in the last month or two. In the spirit of transparency between Mommy friends, I shall now divulge these embarrassing moments to you. Beginning with:

1) Kinky Jews Yup. Kinky Jews. Went to the pediatrician's office for a check up and they put us in an exam room with walls bedecked in jungle animals. A kinkajou was perched high on a limb next to a large python. "Look," I said "what a cute little kinkajou!" The Bear's eyes grew round with this new animal name and he immediately repeated, "oooooo, a kinky jew." Yes, it was kind of cute. HOWEVER. The Bear has no sense of volume control yet. It wasn't whispered in a sweet voice filled with awe. It was shouted from the top of his lungs. Secondly, this Doctor's office has no policy on vaccine delay and so the majority of his patients are either hippies, green monsters or devout Jews hoping to avoid having their children injected with vaccines that contain chunks of animal protein. I was already aware that the patients in the exam room next door were all wearing yamakas. Chances they didn't hear? Mmmmm ZERO.

Added Bonus: Since he is 2, he feels the need to repeat everything at a machine gun pace for a good 5-10 minutes. Which meant that he stood there yelling, "KINKY JEWS KINKY JEWS KINKY JEWS KINKY JEWS" for a solid 5 minutes while I hissed at him to hush up.

2) Fish Tits~ This gem came out at my midwife's office. We were in the waiting room and the Bear was being very grown up at the moment. Sitting quietly by my side, on a very comfy couch, he gazed around the waiting room and pointed out all the different animals he could find. Most of them were hidden in the shapes of a large Tiffany lamp in the corner of the room. Suddenly his eye caught on the large Japanese silk screen which is framed and hung by the door of the acupuncture room. It depicts a lovely lady in a beautiful kimono, surrounded by floating koi fish. My son stares at it for a few minutes and then decides to yell out "FISH TITS!!!"

Keep in mind now...a medical office. Someone is in the acupuncture room, with an acupuncturist, likely armed with needles, in the process of stabbing a needle into some delicate area when a voice suddenly yells out, "FISH TITS." If this had been a Monty Python movie I probably would have heard an agonizing yelp from the other side of the door and then watched as someone ran from the room with a large needle protruding out of their eyeball. Or maybe a giant cartoon fish tit would have fallen on the office and smashed us to bits. Either scenario would have fit.

And yes, in answer to your mind's question, I died right on the spot.

"Sweetie, shhhhh! What are you talking about?" I begged.

"FISH TITS!!!"

"SHHHHHHHH. That isn't even anatomically possible. Those are just fish, please stop saying..."

"FISH TITS"

I ran the possibilities through my brain, which is rather slow these days as it is severely hindered by a computer virus known as PREGNANTMOMMYOF2TODDLERS.

"Fish tank?" I asked…no, PLEAD.

"Yeah! Fish tits!"

Awesome. We won't be going to Petsmart until that particular word develops correctly.

3) Big Penis~ The boys are in the midst of potty training now. I decided to refer to their tiny junk bits as pizzles because, as a veteran preschool teacher, I knew that one day they would become obsessed with their privates and run around announcing it to the world. And I do not wish to have the word 'penis' shouted in my home all the live long day. Pizzle. Very sweet, very British, I liked it and thats what I was planning on using until their friends mocked them and they suffered enough social ridicule to merit the use of a more sophisticated word. Well someone beat me to it. Thanks to whoever you are.

The Bear was naming things at the grocery store. Scary crocodile, a giant panda, an awesome fish, a wonderful walrus, etc. He comes up with a name for each product. Well that day he decided to name body parts. A cool nose, an amazing arm, you get were this is going. Unfortunately we were standing in front of the meat counter, waiting for the butcher to wrap up some pork chops when the Bear announced, "A BIG PENIS!!!!"

ACK!! What? I looked at him, wondering where he had heard this word and trying to think of a way to reincorporate pizzle before it was too late. He said it again. Three times.

Everyone looks at the mother when something like this happens. It doesn't help that the Bear looks like a cherub, he has the sweetest most innocent little face. So when something like that flies out of his mouth everyone's natural inclination is to look up at the monstrous woman raising him. The potty mouth sailor in maternity jeans who probably runs around shouting the word penis all day long and so it is no wonder her sweet little son picked up on it.

4) Awesome Nipples~ This also happened at the grocery store, thank the Lord it was on a different day. We came to a stop in front of the organic milk. The brand we buy features a cow on the front, utters prominently displayed.

"Look Mama, there's my cow!"

"Yes sweetie, that is your cow."

My youngest son looks at his brother, then at me and then at the carton of milk and says, "moo!" I am in a tizzy of maternal pride. Really, the mommy ego is quite big on this particular morning because the boys are behaving like angels and they match from head to toe which drives me giddy. Then the balloon pops big time.

"Oooo" says the Bear, "it has awesome nipples."

Fan-tastic.

I try to change the conversation but the carton is already in our cart. My son continues to point out its "awesome nipples" for the remainder of the shopping trip. This is acutely horrific when a very old lady with boobs down to her knees walks by just as my son announces to her, "awesome nipples."

5) Who's Making Noises? This last one happened today. I was out with the Bear and he informed me that he had to go potty. "A big fo" he said. We rushed into a public bathroom, the first such trip I have ever made in which I am responsible for holding a squirming pooping toddler over the edge of an adult toilet in a public bathroom. I usually bring a travel potty seat but of course, left it at home today.

We built a turban out of toilet paper for the seat and I plopped the Bear on it. He swung his legs around and started casually singing the ABCs. Then he heard the door to the restroom open. His eyes grew saucer shaped and he looked at me in shock, "Someone is here!" he said.

I nodded a quick confirmation, "Yup. Most of the potty rooms outside of our house are for more than one person."

This did not register with him. He started to get excited.

"I HEAR SOMETHING"

Dear God, I prayed to myself. It's me again. This is going to be about as trivial a request as it gets, but please, please let the call of nature next door be of the #1 kind and not the #2 kind. I really can not handle what will happen if its the #2 kind. I know my mother prayed that I would get a good dose of my own medicine when I made her life impossible some 23 years ago, but please Lord, please...

The woman let herself into the stall and proceeded to have her morning bowl movement.

The Bear immediately starts shouting in this very small, two stall bathroom with a loud echo that is growing louder by the minute...

"SOMEONE IS MAKING NOISES. Mama, do you hear? SOMEONE IS MAKING NOISES! Oh yes, very big noises Mama. WOW! Splashing in the water!!!"

I can't even remember everything I said, I think I was trying to cover up the sounds from the next stall so that the Bear would finish his deuce and allow us the mercy of a quick exit without facing this woman.

Not so.

The lady next door finally finished with a rather large splash which to my absolute mortification, the Bear responded to by saying, "Wow, a big fo splash." ("Fo" being his word for poop).

He also finished at this moment and I rushed to clean him up and get him out of there.

Stupid me. I should have waited in the stall like the coward I am. But I rushed and ended up opening our door at the same time our neighbor opened her door. We waited for her to use the only sink. We did not make eye contact. She was more than likely not amused.

The we went home, locked the doors and did not emerge for 6 years.

The End

The List

I have a list, "Things to Get Done Before #3 Arrives." A few organizational items, a few discipline items for the boys, and the top of the list--potty training both boys well before the birth of #3. The last item is currently under way and they are both doing a great job.

Yesterday, my good friend had her second son at a hospital close to our home. I really wanted to scoot over there to see both her and the baby. We had our last two kids on the same exact day and so I was unable to visit her in the hospital for her first birthing since I was at home having just given birth myself. I put together a little gift basket for her and begged J to come home early and play outside with the boys. As we waited I could feel my patience with the kids wearing thin.

The Bear wouldn't stop crying and whining to go outside. He was tired and hungry, dinner was still 30 minutes away and he wanted to play with his bulldozer in the mud right then and there. Cubs took the top off my water bottle, which was tucked inside my purse, while we were at the grocery store and I failed to notice so by the time we got home my purse and its contents were drenched. Then while I was looking through said purse, trying to salvage a few receipts and makeup that I carry around but never wear I heard an ominous plop in the toilet. I assumed Cubs had thrown in a toy or himself. But he had thrown in the nice camera my parents bought me last christmas. All the while the soundtrack of the Bear crying and whining played in the background. I wanted to scream.

So I did.

I yelled at my two little guys. J got home and I could tell from the way he looked at me that he knew things had gone south very quickly for me that afternoon. I am two weeks away from my third trimester and the exhaustion is getting to me. I also have not one but two toddlers and all I wanted to do was go to the hospital 8 blocks away to see my friend and her new little angel. So I left in an angry huff, marched to the car, climbed inside and slammed the door, cried for a minute, fixed my awful awful mommy hair in the mirror and took off to see my pal.

By the time I got to the hospital I had cooled down considerably. 10 minutes later I was gazing through a pane of glass into a room of baby heavenly deliciousness. A handful of freshly bathed newborns, my pal's sweet little guy included, looked up dreamily from their bassinets at the overhead lights. I wondered about the little goober in my own belly and marveled at how fast this pregnancy is going, before I know it he'll be here too.

I was able to sneak in a few minutes with my girlfriend which I has hoping for but did not expect. She had only given birth an hour and a half before I got there and was still waiting for the effects of the epidural to wear off. She looked radiant. (She'll roll her eyes when she reads this, but its so true). Puffy and sweaty like all of us look after we give birth sure...of course, she just gave birth!! But also radiantly happy and serenely peaceful. She is one of these women who has just always been a mother. Even before her own children came into this world she just had an aura around her that screamed, "I am a mommy and I'll take good care of you." I kissed her goodbye a few minutes later, waved good bye to her ecstatic husband and headed home to my brood of minions. Ha!

Yes, I have a list. In my mind this list of "Things to do before baby #3 arrives" gives me a false sense of control and order. It makes me feel like I have it all taken care of, I have a plan and I am good at executing plans. But this is so far from the truth. Then there is the other lie that attacks when I have days like yesterday where things in my life literally go down the toilet and I feel like a complete failure. I worry that my bout of temper and yelling will be ingrained in my boy's minds forever or that their earliest memory of me will be a vision of a pregnant yelling hysterical woman that hasn't showered in two days. Lies, lies, lies.

The truth is simple. I love my life here in the bungalow with J and my boys and my garden. (I'll even grumble under my breath that Diva Dog makes life pretty great too). But its not like I run around all day singing to my children, working in my rose garden, baking bread and tooting butterflies. I work hard at keeping my house and my kids together. Because I am human, a sinner, and always tired from being pregnant, I very often "fail" to succeed at the standards I set for myself. But that is really ok. I love my boys and all I can do is work hard to do better the next day.

I reread a verse the other day that meant a lot to me. I scrawled it on a piece of paper and placed it on the dining room table for J and I to see. It really helps to have something like that to focus on and look at when we are feeling exhausted and our weaknesses get the better of us. I can feel those lovely fruits of the Spirit that I try to hang on to slip away from me. Then I read the following:

"And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things, at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work." 2 Corinthians 9:8

That one powerful sentence means so much more than a hundred check marks on a long list of perfect life goals. Even when I feel emotionally crazy and exhausted by kids, God is there to fill me with peacefulness, gentleness, faithfulness, etc. He is just waiting for me to let Him fill me with these oh so necessary gifts, things I need so I can abound in the good work of raising my boys and loving my husband. Ultimately, thats what makes our life here together work. Thats how J and I can still love each other well at the end of a hard week. I believe with all my heart that this outpouring of grace is what will keep me sane when three months from now I give birth to our third baby in four years of marriage.

As for the camera....RIP, it was a nice run we had with you. I am trying to scrounge up the old warranty to see if Canon replaces cameras thrown into the potty by sneaky 1 1/2 year olds with adorable smiles and twinkly blue eyes.

Little fart.