You ever have one of those days? I did, and Brenda isn’t going to like this story about life with a one-year-old…

Sammy rarely sleeps past 5:30AM anymore. This morning I hear him babbling over the monitor, but I’m too tired to get up yet. Ah, he’s not crying and besides, he brought a book to bed with him so he can look at the pictures until I’m ready to get up. At 6 my alarm goes off, and I drag my sleepy butt into his room.

As I put him on the changing table, I notice that his back feels wet. Hmm, I think. I take a look, and see the great big mustardy brown spot in the middle of his back. I yell for Mark.

He comes in and we peel Sammy’s footie pajamas off of him. When I take off his diaper, there’s poop everywhere. Everywhere. Mark suggested something, I forget what it was, and instead we plopped him into the bathtub. I had to fill the tub, drain all the poopy water out, and fill it back up again to rinse him off. In the meantime, he splashes the poopy water all over my nightgown. And it’s not even 6:30 yet.

So we get a clean diaper on him, and I put on new pajamas. I take Sam downstairs and give him his bottle while I mix up his breakfast. While I’m doing that, he’s getting milk from his bottle on his mat and slips on it. Every time he tries to stand up, he slips again and starts crying. I get him off the mat and chuck it outside. Mark comes down, gets his breakfast and I get mine.

But the fun doesn’t stop there. He gets cereal all over his hair, his arm, his chest and of course his face. So after breakfast we all head upstairs for a shower. I take Sammy into the bathroom and take off his diaper. While I’m waiting for the water in the shower to heat up, he pees on the floor next to it. And of course, slips on it. Since he’s already getting his pee-covered hands on my pajama-pants legs, I pick him up until Mark comes and helps me. After I get my now-dirty pajamas off, I take Sammy into the shower and give him a good rinse while I get washed myself. Then I wrap us both in towels and take him back to his room to get yet another diaper on him and put on his pants. Then I finally get dressed myself. It’s been a long day already, and it’s not even 7:30.

I spend the next hour running around the house getting stuff together for the rest of our day. We go over to get the car’s oil changed and while we’re waiting, I take Sammy to a toddler playground in King Farm. He’s obsessed with steps, and so he climbs to the top of steps for a slide. Then he uses the bars on the rails to help himself down, stumbling a little bit and not quite knowing where to put his feet. Of course I’m there the whole time, keeping him from falling and killing himself. At one point he discovers some bird poop and starts playing with it. He tries to hand me some which I just bat away. This, he finds hilarious. I cringe, but thank G-d he doesn’t try to put any in his mouth. When we’re ready to leave I douse his hands in hand sanitizer.

After that, we head over to the mall for Sammy’s first hair cut. The cut itself goes fine, until Sam gets a little fussy. I suggest to the woman cutting his hair that she let him hold a blue comb (because Sammy has this obsession with anything blue; heaven help me if he ever finds a set of blue steps, I’d never get him off!). He handles getting his hair cut just fine, but of course he started screaming and crying when we tried to take the blue comb away. sigh

Finally, we had lunch, and on the way home from the mall he alternated between falling asleep and throwing a tantrum. I sure hope this afternoon goes better.