The new things I learned as a parent this week.

End of summer, VBS, back to school prep, sick kids, cleaning projects.... All equals busy busy.

I had a couple nights of up and down and up and down the stairs, on the hunt for drinks, thermometers, medicine, blah blah blah. No barf buckets, though. (YAY!) Throw in some fever-induced, delirious, crazy dreams and a freaked out child who wanted her mama to sleep with her, and you have one sleep deprived lady.

I was so tired.

After 2 nights of this, following one late night at WallyWorld where children should never be at 10:45 pm even if the reason is to attempt to finish school shopping to avoid another trip to town (Lesson #1), I was so... so.... t i r e d.

So I didn't pick up the living room before I went to bed. Lesson #2.

These toys are evil. Not as bad as Lego's, but almost.

The reason, however, why I came downstairs at 4:37 am, and walked across a landmine of a living room in the pitch black of night, was to obtain a diaper for a super-soaked baby. I could have sworn I changed his diaper before I put him to bed, but with being so tired, it's possible I just imagined it. (Not sure if this was a lesson or an oversight)

Diapers can only hold so much pee.

Really. It's true.

Given the time, and the fact that my eyeballs were protesting light, I decided to change this diaper by the light of the moon. Lesson #3. Or is that #4.

You may not know that super-soaked diapers do one thing... explode. Yep. They explode these little balls of gel. Pee-soaked jelly balls. Thing is, there's no warning sound to alert you this has happened. So imagine my surprise as I am trying to change this diaper in the dark and there's.... stuff... sort of slippery stuff by my knee. Did I mention I'm changing this diaper in my bed? Where I was sleeping? sigh.

Now

I

am

forced

to

turn

on

the

light.

s i g h

By turning on the light, I have discovered large quantities of pee soaked jelly stuff all over my bed where I was sleeping, and this stuff is impossible to clean up. It just r-o-o-o-lls right around when you try to pick it, swipe it, whatever.

Captain Huggyface was none too happy about the light, and since he's at that uber-mobility age of constant motion, diaper changing could qualify as an acrobatic circus feat. Throw in some pee-soaked gel balls and whamo-chango! Midnight madness. All in all this was not a pleasant experience.

But that's not all. (Cuz you didn't really think that was the end of the story did you?)

Diaper changed, baby back in bed on his way to slumber, me madly swiping jelly balls out of my bed (and at this point I "didn't care" where they landed - on the floor was just fine with me as long as they were out of my bed). I layed down. There is clearly still stuff in my bed. #tootiredtocare

I roll over, but there's something in my mouth.

What's that?

Oh no. ugh.

Oh, yes. You guessed it.

A pee-soaked jelly ball in. my. mouth.

I often see people online use an acronym that I'm not quite sure what it means. Find Me Liquor? Or something else. In this moment, either one would have been appropriate.

(Post data: those gel balls, once dried, become crunchy. How fun is that to wake up to?)