poop, piercings and painting

Hee heee....so here I sit on a Friday night, and these are the things on my mind: poop, painting and piercings. Let me explain...

Poop. My poor little lady was struck with one of the narliest viruses ever seen. It first hit while grocery shopping in Meijer. She always gets to walk in the produce section (aka the final stretch) and she ALWAYS has to go to the bathroom. Now, there is a bathroom near the produce section and we normally stop what we are doing, walk through the huge crowd of coffee-sipping old timers and do our business. However, the past few trips have had this area under construction (rejoice - they are putting in a Bigby Coffee...there is a God!) Being the great and attentive mother that I am, I have been asking her to wait until we pay so we can use the bathroom near the checkout (it is usually a quick wait and I swear she doesn't mind). This particular day had her doing a mad MC Hammer version of the potty dance while she was grabbing innocent produce and doing the touchdown spike...my girl meant business. So I grabbed the cart picked her up and ran. Now, picture this...I have a one year old strapped to my back, an almost three year old (in tears) strattling my hip and a cart FULL of groceries and we are RUNNING full speed through the store. The whole time I am thinking "I can't take unpaid merchandise out the door..." You have to commend my priorities. We grabbed an innocent employee and told her to watch our cart (like she cared...and yes, we told her - we had an emergency here, people!) And we ran, and we ran and ran. Bless my little sweaty - she held until we got to the bathroom, sat herself down and literally exploded on the pot. I felt horrible for making her wait. You know what my little angel said right after the explosion heard through the Meijer...she said, "why do ya think they painted it red in here?". I don't know. But I wondered if the incident even phased her? She really seemed to be fine. So we went and retrieved our abandoned cart...employee nowhere to be found. Really? So much for helping a momma out. Two days later and my baby was pretty sick. A call to the doctor had me believing that she had picked up a rotovirus (despite being vaccinated). Apparently this is some pretty nasty stuff that likes to hang on for a really long time. I felt so bad for her (and me!) as we stayed up all night several nights and had some chats about how people get sick and why she has the belly aches. As is turns out, three year olds are pretty with it. We are now on day 11 of this mean ass little virus and she is still up in the night with belly aches and business on the "john". Part of me wonders if she just conditioned herself to poop in the night? I hope it ends soon...we are both very tired. The most disturbing detail of this little story is that she ate 4 pieces of pizza tonight. This either means that her appetite is back or I/we are doomed for a very long night. I know what you are thinking, "what kind of mother lets her child have 4 pieces of pizza after being that sick"...well, I hate to go on the defense....but we have "pizza party" whenever Dane is gone. Dane is hunting with his stepdad this weekend so we naturally planned our pizza party. By the way, not to make the situation worse, but "pizza party" is a $5 hot -n-ready pizza from Little Ceasar’s. Ok, so I am a horrible mother. I did only expect her to eat the typical one piece but she loaded her plate. When I tried to take some back she wrestled me for them saying "but momma, my belly is talking to me...and it say I hungy" What's a mom to do? (Besides offer healthier choices)...she was HUNGY - and who can argue with that. Especially when it has been tough to feed her....so the first topic for this post is poop. Am I doomed? Will four pieces of pizza on a little sicky belly be too much? Or (and I pray) is this the return of the monster appetite that put Oakley on top of the growth charts??? We will see.

The second topic is paint. I decided that while Dane is away, this mouse will play...and playing for me means PAINT! The laundry room has been begging me to paint it for a long time.

It is red. Nothing against the color red...I actually love it, especially for walls. But for walls in a tiny room with no windows...I now think, maybe not. Yes, I did choose this color myself a few years back, but whoever said I make great choices? Besides, the idiot in me chose flat paint. In a laundry room. Five years of dust later and I say we need to do it right! I have been prepping walls and priming for a few days just so I could spend my quality alone time with color. I got myself to the point where all I had to do is paint. One of the most exciting things in my life is making a room come alive with color (how sad am I??) So I chose a color in my brain and decided to pack up the kiddos and head down to the paint store to get all the supplies necessary. While perusing colors, Oakley declared “belly ache, I have to poop” no fewer than 5 times. You see where this is going. The color I brought home is in no way, shape or form the color in my brain. I was after a celery color or perhaps a green apple shade. I ended up with something that looked like the sunshine literally came out of the sky and puked in my laundry room. CRY. I bought premium stuff…paid top dollar. The lady who told me that the paint with primer would definitely cover the red…and maybe in one coat…mixed the premium can and then told me that a colleague told her that I better prime first. So she went over to the shelf and picked a “premium” primer guaranteed to cover the darkest of colors. I guess the long and short of it is, I left with an $80 purchase (for a tiny laundry room) and a color that I can’t stand. So I decided to get thrifty. I would take the kids out today and we would go shopping for a cool laundry basket at the new Home Goods store in Lansing. On the way home we would stop at the local Walmart and pick up a cheap can of paint in the right color…which we did. We nailed the color. Perfection. Except that painting with cheap paint is like painting with the kid’s watercolor set. Kinda runny. So here I am typing, at a time that I thought the project would be done, waiting for coat one to dry and praying that coat two is enough (and seriously praying that no one has to poop tonight).

Eventually I am going to paint a mural in this room. I have quick story…Dane and I were dating and decided it was time to move in together (long story, maybe another post on another day). I moved up to Weidman and we both found we were driving crazy distances for work every day. We decided to move to a more neutral location, bought a piece of property and thought we would build. Overwhelmed with the whole prospect we decided to put off building, keep the property for hunting and find a house nearby. In the meantime, we planted a tree on the property in honor of us! It was while watering our precious tree one day that Dane proposed…this tree will mean the world to us forever. So, I want to paint the tree on the wall in the laundry room. One day. When the base coat is right. It. Might. Be. A. While…

So about the piercings…I have always thought that nose piercing were so, like, super cool. I couldn’t indulge in my younger years because my brain thought that would be “unprofessional” in my corporate career. Whatever. So, I gave it little thought, until I became a stay at home momma/artist. Now, it fits! So I have been debating. Am I too old? (38) Would it be weird? Do I have a good answer for all Oakley’s questions? What will I tell my parents? I have been doing home improvement projects while Dane is gone. I am going for the WOW factor…wow, that’s a great color, wow you finally touched up the living room (that has been in need for four years), wow you updated the picture frames…how bout wow, your nose! I just don’t know. Would it be cool to drag my kids into a piercing place? Are they all what I am picturing with tattooed and pierced people sitting around in their mystery and darkness, or can you just get it done at the mall? I don’t even know why I added this to the post…except, this really is what is on my mind…poop, paint and piercings…

I am off to finish the paint. Let me know what you think about the rest. Pictures of the finished project will be following shortly. Please pray for no poop.

Happy Weekend!

td