Two Little Butts

I put Eli and Jude down for an earlier nap again today - they just can't seem to decide if they want to nap early or late - and after lots of yelling and laughing and banging, they finally quieted down and fell asleep.  I wanted to go and check to make sure they were in bed or at least not on top of each other and this is what I found...

Poop-tastrophe

I have to say, until I became a mom I was very grossed out by all kinds of bodily fluids.  Vomit, urine, excrement, what have you.  I have had to get over this since the boys have arrived but days like today really test my resolve.  A little back story - Eli has been getting very good at controlling his bowel muscles.  This is exciting because it means we're getting that much closer to potty training but not exciting because he's decided he never wants to poop again.  I have tried everything to get this boy to poop but it won't work.  Suppositories, prunes, lots and lots of juice... you name it, I've tried it.  He is very stubborn about it and refuses.  I know it must be very painful for him by this point and he won't let me anywhere near his behind so I've stopped pushing the issue.  He will poop when he's good and ready.  Okay, on with the story.

Things were all running smoothly, generally speaking.  Travis was at work and the boys and I were at home, hanging out.  We're experiencing a bit of nap rescheduling (it seems to be shifting from a morning nap to an afternoon nap) so I didn't put Eli and Jude down for their naps until about 1:30 pm today.  They seemed unfazed by staying up a little longer and actually went to sleep at about 1:50.  I went about my afternoon not knowing what I would discover a couple of short hours later.

Eli and Jude awoke from their naps at about 3:45 and started to play.  It started to get a little loud and rowdy so I went in their room with the intention of changing diapers and then feeding them a snack.  Oh man, was I shocked.  I'm still not sure what exactly happened.  When I entered the room, I found Jude completely naked, Eli with his diaper half off, and the room and my children covered in poop.  It was such a mess and so completely disgusting that I wasn't even sure where to begin.  So I started with Eli and Jude and figured I'd clean the room when Travis got home.

I put Eli and Jude into our shower with the sprayer-like shower head and literally hosed them down (thank you Savannah for that amazing wedding present!).  Eli thought it was super cool but Jude kept trying to hide in the corner of the shower and yelled at me any time I went near him with the water.  And he was the most dirty too.  He had rubbed the poop into his eczema so he had little rough nasty patches all over his shoulders, arms, and back.  It was gross.  Also during the scrubbing, Eli peed for the first time without a diaper on (that I can remember, at least) and looked at me with a horrified "Oh my god Mom, what is happening to me???" face.  It was so adorable that I almost forgot why I was so cranky and grossed out.  Almost.  We had a quick chat about what pee-pee is and he was soon back to stomping around the shower.

Travis arrived home shortly after drying and re-diapering the boys and he volunteered to clean the boys' room - much to my excitement - before looking at the daunting task.  Apparently, the boys had gotten poop on the bottoms of their feet and walked around, so there were little brown splotches all over their carpet.  All of the sheets and blankets had to be washed because someone peed on them.  And it was quite smelly.  Travis did a fantastic job and you can barely tell what grossness had been there earlier today.  We will need to steam clean the carpet now though, there's no way around that.  But we'd known that for a while since Eli and Jude have a great talent for spilling things EVERYWHERE.

In short, it was a very draining afternoon.  If you have children, I hope this never happens to you.  If you don't have children, I hope I haven't terrified you into never having any.

Enter Sandman

Since we switched Eli and Jude to toddler beds a few weeks ago, things have been relatively smooth.  They usually run around the room for 15 minutes to a half hour and then settle down into their respective beds and go to sleep.  The last couple of times though, Jude has been sneaking out of his bed and falling asleep in odd places.

Today when I went to wake up the boys from their nap, I carefully opened the door (like I've been doing lately for fear of squishing someone hiding behind the door) and it suddenly stopped opening.  I looked down to see a passed out Jude in the middle of the floor, blocking the door.  That in itself was cute, but then Travis showed me this picture when I returned home from my Moms of Multiples meeting.

He went into the boys' room to check on them after they'd quieted down since apparently bedtime was very difficult tonight.  He found Jude and Eli sleeping next to each other in Eli's bed.  He's unsure if Jude was in Eli's bed before they both went to sleep or if he snuck into bed after Eli had fallen asleep.  Hard to say, but cute nonetheless.  He certainly is sneaky though!

Jude Is a Monkey

Literally. When Travis went to get Eli and Jude out of their cribs for the day, he (and I, in the other room) was surprised to find Jude on the floor, playing. Neither one of us heard him climb out so we have no idea when he did it and he seems to have not hurt himself. Travis put him back in the crib, thinking it was a fluke, but he climbed right out again. I'd be more impressed if I was less worried. We haven't completely baby-proofed their bedroom yet because they aren't allowed to play in there... that will not be the case after today. I'm just glad that nothing serious happened since he could have done all kinds of things.

As far as long term solutions, we're still considering our options. Travis just ordered the toddler bed conversion kits for our cribs but I feel like they're too young for them at only 17 months. But, the other option is a crib tent which I'm pretty sure won't fit correctly on our cribs - aside from the fact that I'm not sure I even like THAT idea. I think I'd feel like I was putting my poor little babies in prison every night. I don't know, we're thinking about every situation and trying to decide what's best for Eli and Jude. Their safety is our biggest concern.

The whole family is going to my follow up appointment from my surgery today, hopefully everything is healing correctly! : )

Kitchen Gate Gaiden

Just a quick note regarding the kitchen gate as well. We have our laundry room opposite to the kitchen and it is closed off by a wooden slate bi-fold door that the boys have always been interested in. When we set up the second gate and opened the long hallway to our bedroom, Alex was certain that the boys wouldn't figure out how the door worked. I, being a baby mind-reader (at least for the baby exploration desires since I had the same thing as a kid), knew that the boys wouldn't stop until they figured out how to get it open.

When I brought the first baby out from his nap, I let him run around on the floor, exploring all the changes we made to the living room. This baby was Eli, and immediately upon getting to the floor and noticing the toy box was gone, he walked through the newly minted hallway and made a B line over to the bi-fold doors. Being the ever curious little sneak he is, he started to play with the wooden slats of the door and noticed they made a sound very pleasing, at least I thought pleasing as he giggled and repeated the motion over and over again until his brother joined him. They took a short jaunt down the hallway and explored the new space, running around in circles down the hallway. It was very cute, but they returned to that bi-fold door, determined to open 'er up. Alex and I were sitting on the couch passively watching them and watching the news when suddenly they started to bang on the door. What do you know- one side of the bi-fold slightly caved in. Huh, I thought. I didn't see that coming, as I honestly thought they'd be able to reach the knob and yank at it (they could end up reaching it, but not have the leverage to yank at it). Alas, this caving of the door created a slight crack in the joint between them, and Eli and Jude started to tug at the opposite door until it opened up. Alex saw this and jumped up, but by the time she got the boys, they already had made it into the laundry room and were on the carpet, trying to pull at the brooms. "No, no!" Alex remarked, and I slowly got up with a smug look on my face: I knew they'd figure it out. I didn't expect it to be within 30 minutes, I'll admit, but the day wasn't done until the boys figured out some sort of trouble to play on our best laid plans. I can't wait to see what sort of engineers we have.