"Can You Keep Me Alive?"

I read something in the lightbulb-going-on category today.  Shawn Bean is probably my absolute favorite magazine writer in the history of magazine writers.  He is a collumnist for a few popular parenting magazines.  Now I don't always agree with what he says, but I read something in one of his articles today that made me laugh out loud when I was in a bad mood.  He was talking about how when his son, Jackson, was a baby he freaked out over everything.  "Pulling a little arm through a blanket sleeper felt like cutting the green wire on a ticking explosive. Over time, I learned that not only would my son Jackson stay in one piece, he was a sturdy stunt baby who often turned our childproofing efforts into an impromptu game titled Can You Keep Me Alive?"

I can see it now: a board game with the same title sold to parents while they're expecting their first child.  Maybe Ben and I will make it.  We'll be millionaires and I can buy my year supply of Toblerones.  Imagine with me: you go around a board figuring out ways to react when your child swallows a needle.  Then you have to smile as you listen to your billionth offering of unwanted advice just because it worked for them.  Then you have to figure out how to force nutrients into your kid when they decide that eating is so overrated.  Then you have to ignore your child when you make an important phone call and they scream so loud you're sure that your neighbors are checking on you with binoculars to make sure you're not hurting them. 

The list goes on and on and on.... really, with kids, the possibilities are endless. 

Saturday was a day that could have ended up in that game.  It wasn't a good day.  Ben wasn't home at the time and I was in the bathroom doing my hair and makeup.  The kiddos were "watching a movie."  Then there was banging on the steps and giggling (are they carrying the toy bus downstairs again?) and after being in the bathroom for 10 minutes Lily started banging on my bedroom door.  "Mommy!  I dirty!"  Ummm... what?!  How are you dirty?  You weren't dirty when I left you.  I fling the door open and I shouldn't have been surprised.  Her hands were covered with the most wicked, abominable, wretched invention there ever was.  In fact, I'd consider it my nemesis in many ways.  Vaseline.  How.  Many.  Times.  Do.  I. Have. To.  Go.  Through.  This?!?!?!  Those little toddlers had carried a kitchen chair all the way upstairs so that they could reach the vaseline which was way out of their reach before.  Carpet.  Walls.  Handles.  Clothes.  More walls.  I can get it out of carpet in less than a minute... but walls??? 

I wanted a Mommy vacation.

Then today when I turned off the water when I finished showering, I heard the bang of the linen closet door.  Oh no.  Not good.  I run out to find blankets, towels, and wash cloths scattered everywhere.  Then even worse, they had climbed the shelves and taken down all of our board and card games.  Every possible moving piece to a bunch of games, every card in 3 sets of phase 10, Monopoly property cards, Boggle and Scrabble letters, Taboo and Pictionary cards, all of it mixed into one ugly concoction.  For FHE we spent an hour -- HOUR! -- cleaning up their mess. 

So when Ben and I start selling copies of "Can You Keep Me Alive?" it may have just as much to do with controlling your own frustrations as it has to do with child-proofing.  And once we own it, I had better not see it scattered all over the floor with Monopoly money. 

Wingless Buzz.

They're lucky they're cute.
But don't let those sweet faces fool you.