Crap

About an hour ago, I was sitting here on the couch thinking I may as well go to bed.  Man-child is out at a party (I didn’t feel like getting a baby sitter so I stayed in for an early night) and the kids have been in bed for hours.  Other than clean the house or spend endless more hours online it made sense to go to bed.  I was slowly peeling myself from the couch, looking around for the TV remote and though I heard a voice yelling.  I wasn’t sure but I kept listening.  I thought I heard it again but I wasn’t sure.  I found the remote and turned off the TV.  Yep, I did hear a voice, the voice of boy-child calling out for me or for dad.

Now it isn’t common that either kid wakes during the night these days, and if they do it is usually because of a bad dream.  As I ran up the stairs I was cursing myself for reading Roald Dahl’s The BFG to the kids before bed.  I had forgotten just how scary a story it is and had spent time talking to the kids before they went to sleep about how much fun it would be to have our very own Giant to have an adventure with.  I was thinking that I obviously hadn’t stressed that giants aren’t real, that even Hagrid isn’t real.

As I neared the top of the stair I could hear boy-child crying and I noticed a strange smell, a really bad smell.  (Any reader who is squeemish or has a delicate stomach, turn away now!)

Boy-child was standing on his bed, naked.  He had, to put it politely, had an explosive bowel motion in his sleep.  

Prior to going to bed he had made a few successfully smelly trips to the bathroom but was still complaining of a sore tummy.  In my world of digestive issues, stomach cramps are par for the course and rarely lead to anything but an uncomfortable night of sleep.  Being my son, I figured it would be the same for him.  I wish that were the case.

He had tried, very unsuccessfully, to clean up the mess by taking off his clothes and throwing them to the floor before trying to take of he bed covers too.As I helped him from his bed, he noticed that he still had socks on and somehow they were coated too.  He freaked out and managed to spread shit even further to the far end of his bed.  I managed to carry him into his bathroom and straight into the shower where he washed the mess off himself (including out of his hair).

How could so much mess possibly come from one tiny little body?  I had the pleasurable task of cleaning ALL the mess and changing the entire bed.  Did I mention that boy-child sleeps on top bunk?  That means that when he threw his clothes to the floor, they splattered.  There were shit splatters metres away from the bed!  I also had to attempt to clean the carpet as well as the bed rails, the dolls house and the chair besides the bed.

Eventually the bed was remade and I dragged boy-child from the shower (my apologies to other Aussies in water restrictions – some times a long shower is really necessary). He jumped back into bed wondering what the smell was!  

And all through the smelly dramas, girl-child remained asleep, blissfully unaware of the shit around her.

After bidding boy-child goodnight again, he calls to me, ‘Are planes symmetrical, mama?’  before rolling over and going back to sleep.  Good night my beautiful boy, I hope you are feeling better in the morning.  

Me, I had to go downstairs and hose off shitty bedding (again, sorry about the water wastage) and throw it in to wash before the entire house stinks!  I don’t think my early night is quite going to plan, the smell still lingers and I still need to have a shower to remove any possibility of residual mess.  

Reading

As usual, the school letter came home on Thursday.  As usual it took me until today to get around to reading it.  My excuse is that I like a little light reading to do of a Saturday morning, realistically it is because I can’t really be bothered getting rid of the mess that covers the kitchen bench.  Anyway, that is besides the point, the point being that there was a reminder for all students involved in the Premiers Reading Challenge to get their lists signed off as soon as possible, the Challenge finishes at the end of the month.  

Now I had a vague recollection of seeing something with Reading Challenge floating around a while ago, but I didn’t sign boy-child up for it so I didn’t take any notice of it and I am sure that it was subsequently ‘filed’ appropriately.  For some reason I mentioned the Reading Challenge to man-child and he said that he signed boy-child up months ago, ‘What did he have to do?’  Hmmm, let’s see.  Read 30 books by the end of the month.  OK, so that is only 2 extra books a day, on top of the home reader, home writing and the everyday books before bed.  Man-child is all, ‘So that’s no problem then?’  Well it really shouldn’t be a problem, boy-child is loving reading and often takes 3 or  extra books to bed with him every night, but they are books of his choice.  The books for the Challenge have to be from a specified list and boy-child has always been very selective about what he reads and when he reads it.  

So along with sorting pencils, my exciting afternoon consisted of seeing how many books from the list we owned. I did manage to find 45 books that we own that are on the Challenge book list.  Surely of those 45 books he should be able to find 2 a day to read without it becoming a chore.  We got off to a good start, with 2 selected to read before going up to bed tonight, as an excuse to stay up a few minutes later, whatever works!

On another unrelated but reading related topic, I found this clip via Adventures of a Miscellaneous Aussie Mum and thought we should all take part in this.  

For me, reading when I am waiting is a part of everyday life.  In fact I miss having to catch the train to work – I loved having time dedicated to reading every day.  I still manage to find time to read, but it does take a long time to walk to work if I read as I walk.  Nevertheless, it should be fun to encourage others to join in the Reading While Waiting Project.

My boy could be the next Sean Connery, learning to read at 5 and at some stage receiving an AFI Lifetime Achievement Award!  OK, so maybe not, but at least he can read and will hopefully continue to enjoy reading, and writing too.