P is for Perfect Storm

P is for Perfect Storm.  Mobile County schools are out for Spring Break - 9 glorious days of all 3 kids, all day, every day, screaming, crying...  They are SO over each other and everyone's patience is wearing thin, including mine.  There are only so many activities to keep these raving, rabid little rascals busy and I am running out of ideas.  The weather has been dismal at best, cancelling at least two events I had planned outdoors to get a break from the doom and gloom of being crammed indoors with each other.  Apollo's boundary-pushing would put Manifest Destiny-era Americans to shame.  He and I have played enough tug-o-war to last a second grade class an entire year!  And it has been over everything - meals, naps, bathroom, going outside, putting on shoes, sitting down, sitting still, not back-talking, listening when being spoken to... you name it, we've fought over it. Furthermore, there's been no soccer games or practice all week, so the boys have energy to spare and they are literally bouncing off the walls (no, really!  But that's another story for another day...).  When we've been able to, we've been running some drills in the backyard, but those times have been few and far between. We are on day 8 right now, but as I've taken a couple of days to gain some perspective on the events I am going to share with you, we are talking about days 5, 6 and 7- Exploreum Day, Recovery Day and World War 3 Day, respectively. 

P is for Play Date.  From the beginning of Spring Break, I had planned to take the boys downtown to the Exploreum to check out their 'Little Discoveries' series of science experiments for preschoolers.  It is technically open to ages 3-6, but Orion would normally miss it due to school.  Being Spring Break, it seemed a perfect opportunity to see if it would be something my boys would enjoy - and if it was something Apollo could tolerate.  We got there and headed straight for the Wharf of Wonder, the preschool area that includes a ball pit, a pirate ship and fish market and lots of little kid friendly toys like puzzles, letters blocks and a dress-up station.  As the experiment started, Apollo and Orion both found a seat and stared with their mouths open.  They barely even noticed when J&K showed up.  (This is the brother/sister pair that became Apollo's first friends.)  I hung back with Phoenix who was glued to a shape puzzle, happily proclaiming each shape and color.  Orion and Apollo watched the teacher mix colors, do an experiment with food color and milk and make ice cream!  And Apollo paid attention and sat in his original seat the WHOLE time.  When the 'Color Chemistry' lesson was over, Apollo came up to me and told me he had to go potty, so I told him okay and to give me a minute to get my friend to watch Orion and Phoenix while we ducked out to the bathroom.  It took me about 5 minutes to get the other two settled and I gathered up Apollo to go to the bathroom for him to declare, "I don't want to go."  I tried to gently pull him out of the Wharf of Wonder to go on to the bathroom because he was wearing suspenders and I knew it would take a couple extra minutes to get him out of his clothes and I was trying to avoid an accident.  Apollo started to cry, so I let go and let him go back to what he was doing. I walked back over to Phoenix to see what he was up to (again with the puzzles - I think the kid is trying to tell me something.) and not 5 minutes later, Apollo wandered up to me - with an ever-growing wet spot on his shorts.  He had peed his pants.  That essentially ended our trip and triggered a nuclear meltdown on Apollo's part.  Perhaps I reacted rashly by ending our outing immediately and by grumbling at Apollo publicly in front of his friends but there is more to this story, my friends.  This wasn't the first, second or even third time... this has become a regular thing...

P is for Pee... and Poop.  Two of Apollo's favorite new weapons.  The incident at the Exploreum was the 5th episode this week, including one on Easter.  I may have mentioned it in the E is for Easter blog, but if not, it happened that day too before we ever left the house.  He had wet pants that day until they dried.  Once we got home from the Exploreum, I allowed him to change his clothes into a dry set and it was nap time.  Two hours later, I heard Apollo cry out from his room and I went back there to find he had peed his clothes... again.  Now, this child has been potty trained for almost two years now, including nighttime trained.  When he was training, we had very few accidents, but since the beginning of this year, he has had more and more of them.  I know that sometimes children with special needs have trouble communicating their personal needs, but Apollo has NEVER had that problem, until now.  In fact, he has used it as an excuse to come out of his room during naptime and at night numerous times - as in twice a night for the last six months.  It's hard to tell when he really needs to go, but more often than not, we let him go.  Unless we are in the middle of something and cannot slip away to let him go "RIGHT NOW."  He always has to go "RIGHT NOW" in an insane, urgent emergency.  Then, half the time, he squirts a couple drops, smirks, and goes back to what he was doing before.  I will admit, I griped at him and told him that his behavior was unacceptable and sent him to bed early.  

P is for Preperation.  The next day, instead of a "recovery day", my mother took Apollo over to visit with my grandmother.  He used to visit with her fairly often and is very attached to her.  They are both hermits at heart, so I think it helps him to spend the day with a kindred spirit who (somehow) doesn't tire of his shenanigans.  At least she doesn't show it.  If you asked Apollo what his favorite place is, he would tell you "Grandmama (my grandmother, his great-grandmother)'s house."  So my mom took him over there with his bathing suit so he could spend some time with her while my mom shopped and I stayed home and cleaned up after Easter, rearranging some things as I went.  Things were fairly uneventful - he ate peanut butter & jelly (and I'm sure loads more, kid pigs out at Grandmama's house and she lets him) and went "swimming" in the bathtub for an hour.  In the three hours he was gone, I managed to get the whole front of the house reorganized, cleaned and de-Eastered.   It seems that when Apollo is outside of the house, whether it be going to the store with my mom or off on a visit, I get so much more done than when he is here.  Even when he is on a recovery day, I find myself constantly expecting him to decide he needs to do something and having to fight his impulses for the next 2 hours or until I can either get him refocused on something else - or he finds a way to do it.  So I end up never starting projects because I fear I won't finish them and I will have to start over anyway.  So I got a week's worth of cleaning done in a few hours and snagged a nap to prepare for the incoming storm cloud. From the moment he got back, I could tell he had a burr in his butt.  Apparently, he didn't want to leave Grandmama's house - and he was going to make everyone suffer.  I put him down for a nap and was startled from a nap by the loud squeal of the start of World War 3.

P is for Pullup.  Without going into extreme detail, the next 24 hours were a battle of wills - his versus mine.  Over the course of those 24 hours, he peed his pants twice more, pooped in a brand new pair of underwear and went into a diaper, went to bed early and then promptly pooped the diaper in the morning.   Not only did he poop in the diaper (the punishment is because I get tired of cleaning out underwear and he does this often lately - but if he can keep the diaper clean, he can have his underwear back - and he hates diapers), he took it off and was slinging it like a slingshot, slinging off bits of poop.   All without ever notifying me that he needed to go to the bathroom.  Unfortunately, what followed was not one of my finer moments - with any of the children.  Between not feeling well, being stressed out from the last several days with all of the kids cooped up together and going stir-crazy and the "last straw" button being firmly mashed by Apollo and his test of my strength as a parent, I snapped.  I yelled at Apollo, something I try not to do because it stresses everyone out and typically makes his behavior even more defiant.  Then Orion picked that exact moment to whine about life not being fair because he couldn't play a video game and I snapped at him too.  Even Phoenix decided to get mouthy and got his fair share of wrath.  Before it was said and done, all four of us were crying, my vision was blurring from the intense migraine that had overcome me and my patience was history.  A long nap did us all well and many apologies and hugs were shared once we all woke up.

P is for Perseverance.  I love my boys to the moon and back, but a momma can only take so much before her resolve dissolves into a puddle of failure. And this week, I failed everyone. I failed Apollo by not being strong enough to handle his defiance.  I failed Orion by letting Apollo's defiance wipe out my patience and losing my cool with him.  I failed Phoenix by yelling at him for absolutely no good reason, other than my head was pounding and he was pitching a toddler tantrum, which is nothing new.  I failed myself by being human enough to let the battle rattle me.  Supermom did not show up this week and it's showing.  This morning, Apollo woke up with a dry diaper and a better attitude, but I'm not ready to pack up the Pullups yet because when he sets his mind to something, he fights to win at any cost and this time - he's chosen to fight with the one thing I absolutely cannot handle.  If you think baby poop is bad, kid poop is a thousand times worse - it reeks to high heaven and the stench sticks to EVERYTHING.  It's one thing to smell it wafting out of the bathroom.  It is quite another thing entirely to be slapped in the face by a cloud of it. No matter how many baths or hand washings you endure, everything it touches retains an eau de poo. He has chosen to fight with a weapon of mass destruction and only time will tell who will win this battle - and what the fallout will be...