Thank God they're cute!

Earlier this week I was ready to give up on parenting and run away to join a band of chimpanzees in Uganda. I would have rather taken on the running bulls in Pamplona that deal with my troublesome almost two year old who has decided that she's in charge.

Monday was "that" day. The day that definitely needs to be blogged about.

Emma is potty trained.

Well potty trained for the most part.

For the past few weeks she's been using her nap time to do #2. People say children aren't manipulative, and I totally disagree. She's realized that if she poops in her pull-up then she gets more mom time because I will come back, clean her up, and and change her. More mom time equals more awake time and less nap time.

Okay this is fine. I can deal with this. I've been telling myself that this is a phase and this too shall pass.

Well Monday, the shit hit the fan. . literally.

Em used her nap to relieve herself and when she yelled, "Mamma, diaper change," I expected our usual quick change and back to bed.

What I saw I was totally unprepared for. . . .

It appeared that Emma decided "not to bother me" and after she pooped she took off her dirty diaper. She then lovingly tossed the turds out of the crib and onto the floor and in the process got some on her hands. Em hates dirty hands so she wiped her hands on her sides to "clean" them off which ended in smearing. I think she then realized that wiping didn't work so she grabbed one of her blankets to wipe herself off. By the time I got there she had reached the point of no return. . . . .

I think my head almost exploded.

Thankfully the dog wash is functional because I grabbed my stinky child and plopped her in the dog tub and gave her a good spray down. I changed her bedding, cleaned up her crib, changed her sheets, put on new clothes, kissed her good night and put her back down for a nap, all the while trying to keep my composure.

Thirty minutes later I hear, "Emma, diaper change!" and imagine my surprise when I see my diaper less child curled up on a poo covered pillow trying not to make eye contact.

Yes, you guessed it . .. she pooped AGAIN . .and took her diaper off AGAIN.

Back to the tub she went. As I washed her down I thought to myself, "Anything was better than this". . and then. . . I spotted the packing tape.

After cleaning her up I put on a nice clean pull-up supported with a nice piece of packing tape around the waist. She had dirtied her back-up bedding so I sanitized her crib, plopped her into a barren crib, shut the curtain and let her scream.

I spent the rest of the day pissed off, angry, and wanting the day to be over. I couldn't wait to get home to hand Emma over to Brian and be done with parenting for the day. Well I forgot Brian had class on Monday night so I was on my own. I fed her, bathed her, put her in her crib 45 minutes early, turned off the light and walked away. Now for that glass of wine . . . .

As I sat down on the couch trying to decompress I hear, "Mamma! Mamma!"

I went back to check on her and she looked up at me and said, "Mamma sing Mockingbird" and at that very second my heart melted.

I picked her up, gave her a big kiss, held her like a baby and sang her "mockingbird" two or three times. I put her back to bed and she said, "Night, night mamma. I love you."

Monday will go down in the books as one of the hardest days I've had to date as a parent. I definitely learned something that day. . . one child could make you feel so many different emotions in one day.

I love you too, Emmie Lemmie!