I'm on a roll...

We move in 4 weeks and somehow I keep breaking things! Last week I broke a kitchen drawer. I managed to break a toe in the process and later the same evening spilled red wine in the nursery. Admittedly, I'm a little sidetracked lately by everything going on. Packing our things, going back to work, preparing to move... It's a bit much. I think everyone in this house is getting a little anxious about all of the changes taking place. The kids are more emotional than usual, I'm freakishly accident-prone, and even our Weimaraner is a whole new level of neurotic. Last night, for example...

Emily refuses to eat her chicken.
Jason and I promise M&M's and a bath for little girls who eat chicken.
No chicken. She'd rather scream and throw food.
Early bedtime.
Hungry baby.
Tired baby.
Wine, please.
Blue wants outside.
Blue wants inside.
Blue wants water.
Emily has rubbed her tears and runny nose all over her face.
Now we have to put a dirty, snotty kid to bed without a bath. Yuck.
Crying baby.
Blue is pacing, whining. Attention hungry?
"Take a number, Blue!"
More wine, please.

Blue takes a backseat to kid chaos most nights. This morning he found his revenge by peeing while walking ALL OVER upstairs. He left a squiggly trail around furniture and into every room upstairs as if he was trying to write something (swear words?) I was worried about whether my hands smelled like Resolve while driving to a psych meeting today. Then I saw the dried spit-up on my day planner. Things seemed to go downhill from there... I cleaned off my day planner and called Jason on the way to my meeting.

"So... Hypothetically speaking... If one were to clog a toilet this morning and could NOT get it unclogged.... What then?"

Go ahead and snicker AS IF YOU'VE NEVER CLOGGED A TOILET IN YOUR LIFE! I had to run to the store after my meeting anyway, so I picked up a new plunger while I was there (ours was about a decade old and getting a little funky). I came home to find that the toilet was brimming with water and had OVERFLOWED! I bagged the rugs and 8 dripping bath towels, plunged the Hell out of the toilet (success!) then laughed at how ridiculous my day had become. Em asked what I was doing. "Mommy just showed that toilet who's in charge!" Looking back, it's possible my aggressive plunging caused the next problem. There's water dripping from the ceiling downstairs as I type. A slow, steady puddle is seeping from the base of the toilet.

Maybe I should just not... touch... anything for a while.

Inquiring Toddler Mind Wants to Know

How long does the "Why?" phase last???

I love my daughter, but I could do without having to explain every little thing I say and do... repeatedly. Jason has figured out that he can stop the why train if he gives her a long, technical answer she's too young to understand. Tonight I overheard him explaining in great detail why it was raining outside. My problem is (a) I don't remember 6th grade science facts as accurately as he does and (b) I don't have that kind of patience.

I try to answer all of her questions, but there have been a few times when I've had to shut the whole thing down. She asked me the other day, "Why are bad guys bad?" I smugly thought to myself, I've got this...

"They don't have something called empathy. Empathy is understanding and caring about how other people feel. They don't have that."

"But why?"
"Um... Because God made them that way... I guess."

"Why did God make them that way?"
"I changed my mind... I don't think God made them that way. I think maybe life made them that way. Can we talk about something else now?"

"Why do you want to talk about something else?"
"Because you're 3 and this is getting a little weird."

"Why?"

At this point I went with a response designed to foster the development of her inquisitive nature. Wait... No, I didn't.

"Oh! I see an airplane! Where do you think that airplane is going?"

Confession: There was no airplane.