Mom Interrupted

Here's one of the big challenges of having two kids: it's hard to be sneaky. Maybe you're wondering why a parent needs to be sneaky. If you wonder that, then you must not have kids. My sneakiness isn't about big things like Santa Claus and birthday presents or anything that grandiose. Most of my sneakiness revolves around very lowly tasks, such as going to the bathroom and eating something. But the problem is that right when you sneak off from the clingy one-year-old, the hyper-aware three-year-old calls you on your sneak.

I can't tell you how many times I've tried to sneak off to do something simple, only to have attention called to my actions, thus foiling my plans.

This is how it typically goes down. I have to pee. (Not now, in the scenario. On second thought... yeah now.) Anyway, so the girls and I are playing on the middle level of our house (where there is no bathroom) and I realize that I need to pee. Now I'm faced with a decision. I can inform Lily of my plan, thus drawing attention to myself and my intentions. This will probably result in a Group Trip to the Potty. If Grace sees me leave the room, she must accompany me. So by announcing my leave, I'm inviting anyone in the vicinity to join me in the potty.

A Group Trip to the Potty entails hauling (or coaxing) two girls to come up the stairs with me, and then closing the door to my bedroom. If I don't close the door, I risk Grace making a break for it and either falling headlong down the stairs, or playing in the toilet of the hall bathroom. Or various other mischievous endeavors. So I close the door. Then I go into the master bathroom and close the door. This is the door that causes all the problems. If I don't close the door, Grace joins me in the bathroom, and does one of five things: she'll either knock all the shampoo off the edge of the tub, play in the dog's water bowl, take all of the (ahem) feminine hygiene items out of the drawer, attempt to pull off all the toilet paper, or mess withe the bathroom scale. All the while she'll be super interested in what's going on in the potty. So I close the door. But again, the separation anxiety kicks in and I have to hurry and do my business while she bangs at the door and cries, OR Lily opens the door to tell me that Grace is fussing, thus letting Grace into the bathroom. Now I have an agitated Grace knocking off shampoo and pulling off the toilet paper roll and whatnot. While I pee.

So, rather than announce that I'm taking my leave of play time to use the restroom, I wait until two little girls are looking the other direction, and I make a break for it. I leap the 8 stairs to our bedroom two at a time and sprint into the bathroom before they can notice I've gone. Then I can pee in peace. Glorious peace. I might even do a square or two of my Sudoku puzzle. You never know. I'm unpredictable like that.

BUT

Inevitably, just when I think the girls are distracted and there's no chance that my absence will be noticed, I'll be halfway through my dash up the stairs when my sweet, adorable, all-too-observant Lilypie will say, "Hey mom, where are you going?"

Heads turn!

Babies fuss!

...and crawl toward me...

...and follow me...

...and, well you know, the whole shampoo bottle, feminine hygiene, bathroom scale thing.

My escape has been foiled.

Or it's like this.

(Don't think I have an eating disorder. I don't. I'm pregnant and I have toddlers. 'Nuff said.)

Anyway, so sometimes I want to eat something, and I really don't want to share it with anyone, so my only option is to eat alone.

For example, today at around 10:00 I was super hungry. It wasn't even nearly lunch time, so I was scouring the kitchen for a snack when I came upon personal pizzas in the freezer. We keep these pizzas on hand mainly for emergency lunches for Jim, and I rarely touch them. But today a personal sized pizza looked so yummy, and I could cook it in the oven and in 20 minutes, I could have a hot and fresh pizza! Oh glory!

So I discretely got the pizza into the oven, and brought the girls downstairs to play. They were playing happily when the timer dinged, so I told Lily, "I have to run upstairs real quick," and I made my escape.

Well, just as I was starting to dig into my second quarter of pizza, I heard the door downstairs open.

I leaped out of my seat and ran to the top of the stairs before Lily could come up. If she saw the pizza, everything would be ruined and I'd have to share, thus spoiling my snack and probably their lunch as well.

I made it just in time to see Lily poking her head out of the door, saying, "Look Mom, I made you something!" The "something" that she made me was some plastic food. A potato. I thanked her and "ate" it, and she told me I could take it with me, so I did. I then shooed her back into the room and told her to stay down there and that I'd be down in just a few minutes.

It was a close one, but I was able to finish my pizza in peace.

In closing, I'd like to share a funny banner I saw on Pinterest the other day, that I thought was oh-so-appropriate for this blog. I also thought I'd mention that I actually wrote most of this blog about 13 days ago but was (you guessed it) interrupted...