Just the usual

Here's what I really love about my children.  They know how to turn it on for company.  Enter: Parents As Teachers.  My kids perform like the little circus monkey's we all know and love.  Justin is five steps ahead of the game.  He surpasses PAT Jenny's expectations for a child his age.  Writes his name on command, displays his ridiculous vocabulary for a 3 year old, counts, writes, categorizes, follows directions, strings some beads forward/backward/upside down/according to color/shape/size, the list goes on.  Leo meanwhile is working the room too.  Politely hugging on dad and asking nicely for Scooby.  Going downstairs when asked to give Justin his time for PAT.  Then coming back up to tell Jenny all about his "BIG boogie" from his runny nose and then rush off to "go stinky."

But it's all short-lived, my friends.  The little stinkers knew what they were doing.  They were biding their time.  Jenny only stays an hour.  Daddy has to go to work.  They knew they would get me all to themselves in just a few short minutes and stop this charade.  It really must be exhausting for them! 

(as Sofia Petrillo would say) Picture it: Kansas City, MO.  February 7, 2011.  5:00 pm.  All hell breaks loose.  Jenny leaves.  Jeremy starts to put on his boots to leave for work after staying home all day with the sick kids.  Leo starts a coughing fit only to be interrupted by his first of many antibiotic-induced trips to the potty.  I get a call from work about a less than pleasant situation (aren't they all in my line of work??).  Jeremy leaves.  Then a call from my mom who I can't hear over Leo's screams.  I've got Leo pinned down for a breathing treatment for which he is screaming that it is hurting his face... whatever that means.  I have Scooby Doo on TV and turned up to a ridiculous volume so that Leo can hear it over the loud hum of the Nebulizer.  Justin starts flaking out.  He NEEDS juice.  Yes, right this minute.  He MUST have it. 

Leo is done with his treatment and now it's on to Justin.  He does the big 1,2,3 freak out for no apparent reason other than he wants to challenge my authority.  And we all know how much I love that.  It goes over really well. 

Things calm down for a few minutes until Justin wants to play hide and seek....but with a twist.  He has found a new hiding spot (behind the overstuffed chair).  In true oldest child fashion, he bosses me and Leo around.  He tells us...from his hiding spot....to count to 20 and then go look around the whole house...the WHOLE house...and then come look behind the OTHER chair and THEN we can find him and he will say surprise.  Good plan, J.  Too bad Leo is only 2 and can't follow more than 2 commands at once. 

So we count to twenty....well I do.  Leo stops around 14 and just repeats that number until he shouts TWENTY!!  So we look in the dining room.  Spoiler alert: Justin wasn't there.  On to the living room.  We are rounding the couch when Justin pops his head up from his hiding space to demand, once again, that we search the WHOLE house, and THEN behind the other chair, and THEN find him.  I must capitalize those words each time to demonstrate the extreme emphasis that Justin placed on them every time he repeated his instructions. 

So Leo and I venture to the kitchen and the playroom and shockingly Justin is no where to be found.  We make our way back up to the living room where he again begins to talk to us from his hiding spot.  Well whadda ya know?  Leo walks right over to his hiding spot and "finds" him.  This of course causes a complete freak out because......why?  Well, because we didn't look behind the OTHER chair first!  Oh, the drama. 

So every the compliant younger brother.  Leo walks over to look behind the other chain and then back to find Leo.  Whew.  All was resolved. 

But that wasn't the end of this fun night.  Oh, no, no, no it wasn't.  Leo begins about a 30 minute stretch of trips to the potty every 3-4 minutes.  Three days of a steroid and antibiotic have done a number on his system.  A number 2 to be exact.  Each time he insists that his underwear is wet, which it is not, and refuses to put the same pair back on.  He screams in panic when I try to put them back on him which only brings on another coughing fit which brings on more pooping.  And around and around we go. 

So on one of these trips to the bathroom I can see out of the corner of my eye that the living room light is going off and on.  Really?  I don't even have time to chide Justin for playing with the light switch.  But when I get downstairs I find him hiding behind the overstuffed chair pulling the lamp plug in and out of the outlet.  For crying out loud!!!!  I've got one with the runs and one trying to electrocute himself. 

Ahhhhhh motherhood.  I do love it so.  So after dinner, bath, story time, and meds.....all is quiet on the home front.  For now.