Caroline is sprouting her canines, was missing a nap, and extremely overstimulated by all of the people, noise and excitement. As a result she spent the entire walk oscillating between extreme happiness and inconsolable crying. By the time the walk and following festivities were over, she was a tired and crabby little Bug.

As I put Caroline into her car seat she made a grab for Thomas’ special blanket. Both Thomas and Caroline have special “blankies” which are identical with the exception of color and age. Like everything else that is his, Caroline covets Thomas’ blanket. Under usual circumstances I like to prevent this sort of co-opting for various reasons, not the least of which is that it reduces conflict. But considering the day Caroline was having up to that point, I ignored it and let her snuggle with Golden Boy’s blankie.

I then moved around to other side of the car and buckled in Thomas as Liz loaded the stroller into the back. Thomas, of course, immediately saw Caroline molesting his blanket.

“Hey!” he shouted.

I was prepared to meet the loud and indignant complaints with a strong show of parental authority, but before doing so I made a simple request, “bud, Bug has a had tough time and she really wants to snuggle with your blankie. Do you think you could let her do it just this once? You can borrow her blankie while she has yours.”

Thomas took Caroline’s blanket into his hand and let it hang down to the floor of the car and looked into his lap. I finished buckling him in. It took me a moment to realize that rather than the angry fit I had expected, Thomas was on the verge of tears.

Aw, crap. Ok, it is his blanket after all. And I am allowing something that is usually not allowed. Plus the Bug is already cranky, I don’t need to upset the other one with crazy inconsistent parental behavior.

So, “hey bud, if it’s going to bother you that much you can have your blankie, you don’t have to let her have it. We’ll find another way to make her happy.”

“N-no,” Thomas whimpered. “Sh-sh-she can have it.”

And there it was, out of nowhere, another genuine Golden Boy moment. Luckily Liz came swooping in just at that moment offering Caroline a trade she could not turn down. So Thomas got his blankie back and Caroline has a new hero.

(Everyone except my father-in-law that is. He and I get along swimmingly, but I don’t think either of us is ready to take it to the next level.)

Of course I knew my lazy morning was over the moment the kids entered the room; I resigned myself to jostling, poking and prodding until they forced me out of bed.

Then Thomas snatched my iPhone off of my nightstand and fired up Kung Fu Panda.  He and Caroline huddled up around the small screen and watched in silence while Liz and I dozed. For an hour. It was like a television commercial: American Family on a Lazy Saturday Morning (brought to you by Apple and Dreamworks).

Once it was all over I remarked to Liz about the miracle we had just experienced.  She smiled looked me in the eye and said, “must be time for another one.”

Liz, meanwhile, came down with full blown symptoms on Friday.  She heaved her fireworks into her sink in the master bath.  Once she went down, the weekend was lost; hardly anyone noticed when I was felled on Saturday.  That is how our weekend became awash in vomit and feces.

In truth it has been more than a weekend.  In the past ten days I have had to strip my clothing twice because they were soaked in one bodily fluid or another.  Friday night I pulled, as she was screaming, The Bug from her crib, without turning on the light, only to discover that she had been literally rolling around in her own shit.

In truth it has been more than ten days.  In the past three and a half years I have been peed on, puked on and crapped on.  I have been handed handfuls of snot as if it were an empty food wrapper.  (“Here, daddy.”)  I have found a bottle of expressed breast milk in a diaper bag two weeks after it was put there.  I have cursed the female anatomy as I have had to change a blow out diaper around it.  I HAVE BEEN THROUGH POTTY TRAINING!

God help me, I have to go through it again.

Dear reader, if you are childless, know this: If and when you have children it will be one of the most disgusting endeavors of your lifetime.  It begins with morning sickness and never stops.  Forever and ever.

Amen.

We did the usual things.  We ate too much bad food for too much money.  (By bad I mean gooood.)  We rode on rides of questionable repair.  We moooed at cows, we bleated at goats, we baaaaed at sheep.  Then after all of that we settled down to enjoy a fireworks show.

The show started late, which was annoying.  Especially with a three-year-old pondering the sanity of sitting on a tarp on top of asphalt in the complete dark in 95 degree weather.  I don’t like arguing with Golden Boy (because he usually wins), particularly when he’s right.  However, the show did eventually start and Golden Boy and The Bug were all coos and ahs.  In fact The Bug loved it.  She was bouncing with excitement, enthusiastically grabbing the hair of any nearby head and jerking it back and forth.

Yes, it was quite wonderful.  That is until Golden Boy popped up and declared “I have to go potty.”  Now, I don’t know about you, but when I’m presented with the choice of watching fireworks or holding another guy’s penis while he pees in a toilet, I generally choose the former.  Can’t you just go in your pants, I thought.  But of course he couldn’t.  Oh no, not Golden Boy.

So off he and I trudged, more than a quarter of a mile, to the closest bathroom.  There Golden Boy learned about trough urinals and I learned to loathe potty training just a little bit more.

How my hand came to be wrapped around her leg is not clear.  Apparently The Woman Who Shall Not Be Disparaged had already deposited The Bug with me on the bed.  My brain decided that only my right hand need be awake to supervise.  I am comfortable with that decision.

As The Bug’s efforts came to fruition, her food-chuckers clasping onto some random treasure, Golden Boy went all squeally.  The noise caused me to raise my head to see if there was in fact a genuine crisis.  Of course, there was not.  As my head fell back onto my pillow my brain registered that among that pile of Golden Boy’s treasures was my mouse pad.  The one that says “Golden Boy’s Daddy” on it.  (Not “Golden Boy”!)

Now as I write this post, instead of playing my game, which requires the mouse pad, I have no idea where that mouse pad is and I’m about ready to get all squeally about it.