Me and three

Jocie and I had a ‘daddy daughter’ bonding experience last night as we sat at the top of the stairs and played with some Lego’s that Joey had left in the play room. While I repeatedly put the cubes together into a tall wall, she persisted in removing the blocks one by one and handing them back to me.

We laughed and kept countering each other's productivity until she realized that gravity would help to pull a thrown block down the stairs. Apparently this was much more fun than the interaction we were participating in. She squealed with delight as individual blocks started raining down like bombs of World War II on the city of London towards the unsuspecting populous of dogs and cats below.

The event was short lived as only a finite number of blocks had been absconded from the bin in the main floor’s living room by a nearly five year old.

Returning to cleaning up the house (the wife was at class and it’s my noble duty as a father in need of his wife's respect to prove his ability to juggle three kids, dinner, bedtime, and sanity against cleaning the house up to prove my worth…. Sure, it’s no big deal, right?), a naked from a ‘falling-off the potty incident’ three year old alerts me that her little sister has now attempted to assist her older brother in his quest to relieve himself.

Splash…. “hehehe”… splash… “Weee!!!”

I run in to find my oldest holding the lid up (he hasn’t learned that another fifteen degrees in the lids arc will net it a gravitational hold against the basin that holds the water for the toilet and alleviate the necessity of holding it while he is mid-stream) and a barley one year old figure leaning over the side in a pose reminiscent of a child that’s dropped a precious toy down a wishing well. She’s splashing away in what I’d like to believe is clean unfettered water (well, as clean as toilet water can be…. It seems fine for the dogs…), yet I know it’s anything but that.

During the removal process of separating Jocie from the toilet, somehow an hand wetted with the liquid is placed into her mouth. I’m filled with total disgust at this moment. Her wrongdoings are quickly punished with a brisk rinse of both mouth and hands with water and liquid soap and a placement at the far end of the hallway far away from the bathroom.

I return to try and clean up the mess made all over the side of the bowl, floor, and lid top. My Son had decided that standing on the stool that his next oldest sister had just used, prior to her incident, was an appropriate decision before he did his “duty” yet failed to anticipate the elevated position's affect on his output projection angle in relation to the ring of the seat, and thus coated a clean underside of a toilet lid with requisite spray emanating in an arc-like pattern on surrounding surfaces and neighboring sink cabinet.

Like a bullet, our zoom baby appears from her short marathon and rushes just past my reach to the other side of the bowl where she again darts into the now visibly unclean water with her hands for yet another time.

Arghhh…. I’ve had enough at this point and quickly place the now giggling uncontrollably post-infant protagonist into pajamas.

Not thinking about her bathroom obsession (even though the lid is now closed, she’s still a bad omen when left to her own means in a bathroom…. And I should have rememberd this), I took the older two into their rooms and quickly dressed them for bed.

Silence…. And for several minutes I think nothing of it. Yet, something about being a parent puts you in tune to this sixth sense-like concern over silence. Normally, our house is a constant deafening drone that accompanies children that I can barely think, and my wife is plagued by constant ‘evening headaches’ that result in the common statement of “would you kids settle down, you’re giving me a headache!” But now, there is no sort of sound coming from our baby who sends out an unending squabble of little noises which allow us to track her like some sort of house-born infant radar.

Quiet….

At this point, it’s a bad thing.

And it can only mean one of two things. Either she’s sleeping, which is highly unlikely given the female quotient of our household’s penchant for exuberant energy, or she is getting into big time trouble.

A quick run towards the bathroom rewards me with the view of a standing one year old coated in what appears to be three feet of white snow. Yet on closer inspection this ends up being the entire contents of what was recently a new roll of toilet paper.

My frustration level at wanting to portray the vision of a perfect household ends in an immediate bedtime for the littlest one.

For the next two hours I will be continually reminded by her that she was not ready to go to bed yet. She waits ‘till after 10:00pm before silently giving in to defeat.

And at 7:30am, I’m re-acquainted to the same happy faced presence that she wakes with each and every morning.

It’s times like this when I’m so glad to head to the office.

jp