Birth Control

Several weeks ago I received a phone call from my cousin-in-law regarding my aunt, who had been recently hospitalized. My cousin-in-law and her husband were coming to see her and they had a favor they wanted to ask of me: can I watch their kids while they go to the hospital (as kids are not allowed in the ICU).

Let's pause for a moment. Now, this is a fairly normal, civil question to ask of a close relative. Kids are not a big deal for me. Sometimes (on rare occasions) I even like other people's kids. But I don't think you fully understand yet...

So before she even finished asking me the question, I said, "Absolutely I will watch them." She said that I would be left with the three older ones, and she would hopefully be able to take the baby with her as she was still nursing. No problem. We have plenty of toys and plenty of things to do. Then we began discussing the baby. She thought a little more about it and determined that maybe I should keep the baby as well, just to avoid ultimately arguing with the hospital people. I had earlier offered to keep the baby so this was also not a problem for me. I really had nothing to do all day and could spend some time playing with the kids for a change.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Let's first talk demographics. Paige and Mia are 3 1/2 year old twins. Cece is just 2. Lexi is 3 months old. Then I had Sarah (3) and Benjamin (6) when he got home from school. Sounds cute, right? Five adorable little girls? Well "cuteness" is just one aspect I had to keep in mind. The other ones were things like the "5 against 1 mentality", you can't be in five places at once, and 5 kids eat more (and spill more) than 1 or 2.

Michele had a few informational things for me, including disciplinary methods, what the kids would eat, and the fact that Cece was potty-trained for the most part (she didn't like to poop in the potty chair, but pee-pee was no problem). Good. Then she began the warnings. The only one that really sticks out in my head was "Cece likes to poop in her pants but she has been better the past few days". Good, again. She tossed a bag of snack food items on the table (to include mostly organic items) and left.

Let the games begin.

The girls were dropped off at 1. The intial "fear factor" was evident, but we have lots of little girl toys so they soon adapted to playing with everything. Things went rather smoothly until Lexi decided she was hungry.

OMG.

The four older girls were fine, but Lexi screamed her bloody head off from about 1:15 until Michele's reappearance at 5:30ish. Seriously -- the girl did not stop crying/whimpering/whining the entire time -- EXCEPT for when she mericifully passed out for a short time. I ate "stone soup" that the girls had made, I drank chocolate milk and root beer from play baby bottles, I put barrettes in hair, put more barrettes in hair, wiped little girl hinders, read books, and basically just supervised while walking around with Miss High Maintenance. Now keep in mind that this is naptime -- and not just for me! I figured there was no way I would get four little girls to take a nap so I settled for a little "downtime" instead. I had set the older girls up in the living room watching a movie. I sat in the recliner with Lexi and she finally dozed off. Well, so did I. I vaguely recall Benjamin coming home from school at about 4. He played with the girls for a while, then everyone got settled back on the couch in front of the movie. Benjamin eventually asked me for a snack and I told him he could have some "colored cereal" (generic Froot Loops). Back to sleep for me.

I was vaguely aware of what was going on around me, not really waking up unless there was a fight breaking out or some sort of crying-type noise. Benjamin seemed to relish the role of being the "older brother" to four girls who apparently idiolized him, so he had things pretty much under control. I heard something crinkling at some point, assumed it to be the cereal bag, and decided I should see where this bag was ending up (you know, all that cereal "dust" at the bottom of the bag? ARGH.). And this is what I saw upon opening my eyes.

There in the middle of the living room was the little Dora table with matching chairs. Some sort of animated movie was playing. The five kids were surrounding the table, blocking from my view what they had on the table. Then, one little face turned toward me and I saw it: two SIZEABLE bowls overflowing with cereal and ten little hands SHOVELING it in the five faces as FAST as they possibly could. Seriously -- I have never seen such dedicated eaters. The cereal was packed in their cheeks and falling out all over the floor. Then, in the desperate attempt to shovel MORE into their faces, they were fighting for the best grabbing position at the table and grinding the cereal into the carpeting. It was sort of like watching some movie on Africa and seeing the zebras, warthogs, lions, or whatever fighting over the waterhole. There was climbing. There was shrieking. There was violence. Eerily similar.

I jumped up from the chair (of course waking up that darn baby again) and broke it up. The kids started grabbing their last fistfuls and spread out through the house. The cereal bag was actually still in the kitchen (albeit split all the way down one side -- I HATE that) but it now contained about 1 1/2 cups of cereal, down from about 8 cups earlier in the day. I was amazed.

So, let's summarize: cereal mashed into the living room carpeting, cereal scattered throughout the house, a screaming baby, five little kids hiding in one closet, and the phone was probably ringing too. I rounded up the kids and got them all on the couch. I then proceeded to lecture Benjamin on why you don't feed four little girls mounds of sugar just before supper.

They all nodded in understanding and got back to their movie. About a half hour later the movie was over the kids were all playing together in Sarah's room. I heard a little voice say, "You smell poopy." And another, "Cece you smell like poopy." And another, "Cece, do you have a poopy butt?" Then the announcer, "MOM! CECE POOPED IN HER PANTS!" I went to scope out the situation. Five little pairs of cute baby eyes looking up at me. "Cece," I said. "Did you poop in your pants?" She shook her head "no". I turned her around and noticed a sizeable bulge near her poop-producing region. Excellent.

Off to the bathroom. Michele had told me that if Cece pooped in her pants (which she was sure she wouldn't do -- hahahahaha) I should make her clean it up herself. While this might be a great idea for long-term discouragment of the pants-pooping behavior, I really didn't want poop all over my bathroom or all over the little girl who produced the poop. But I tried to honor the poop-wiping request, thankful that it was dry poop and not wet poop. I took off her pants (only minorly poopy) and socks (potty only) and put the little girl into the bathtub. She got a little panicked and began shaking her head and saying, "Me no need bath! Me no need bath! Me no need bath!" Assuming this was somehow a traumatic thing for her, I took advantage of the fear and told her that if she didn't poop in her pants anymore then she wouldn't have to take a bath. She nodded her understanding and looked pretty close to tears. I gave her a wipe and she began wiping at the poop. I don't know how this works at Michele's house, but Cece was getting poop EVERYWHERE. The wipe merely served as a spreading tool. Poop on the bathtub. Poop on her legs. Poop on the shower curtain. Poop on the bathroom rug. Poop on her stomach. Poop on her hands. No poop on the wipe. Enough of that. I cleaner her up and we had a long discussion about why pooping in your pants is a bad thing. She nodded her thorough understanding and I got her dressed in new clothes and off with the rest of them. I joyfully scrubbed the poopy clothes and tossed them in a Pig bag.

Michele called. They were getting ready to start leaving the hospital (about 20 minutes away) and should she pick up pizza on the way here? Absolutely, that would be great. I will turn the oven on. She tentatively asked me how everything was going. I strained a little laugh and simply said, "Well, I haven't been able to put Lexi down this entire time." She turned from the phone to report that to everyone in the room (yeah, they laughed). Then I told her that Cece has blessed me with a little surprise as well. Ha ha ha. Anyway, I didn't realize that Michele, Zander, AND four other people were coming. Everyone arrived at basically the same time, and Michele walks in with ONE pizza. (I still don't understand how she thought one pizza would feed 6 adults and 6 kids.) I figured I could use the weight loss anyway so I just let it go. Pizza done, kids ate, and we began the cleaning up process.

Now I am a pretty anal picker-upper. Everything has a place and should end up in at least ROUGHLY the place it belongs. There would be none of that on this day, however. Michele and my cousin Suzie came to the rescue and just started throwing things into bins until everything was out of sight. I popped a Xanax or two and tried to remember that everything was at least picked up and could be sorted later.

The rest of the story doesn't get very exciting. Everyone packed up and left at around 7. I sat there in a daze. We had ice cream and went to bed by about 8.

I truly did not have a problem with watching the kids. Really, I didn't. It just made me realize that I didn't want five kids under the age of 4 at any one point in my life. I also told her that I would do it again at any time! What can I say? I love my cousin!