Oliver has a runny nose. Today he wanted to give me a kiss. So, out of politeness, I guess, he snorted in all the snot running down his nose (kind of) and then gave me a big sloppy kiss on the mouth. Ick. It was lovely that he wanted to give me a kiss, but I tried not to gag. Was he offended that I wiped my mouth immediately afterwards? I don’t think he noticed. I was grateful for that.

Today was Oliver’s 3rd birthday. It was pretty low key. His treat was that he got to spend the day with Jimmy, our next door neighbor and Oliver’s very best friend in the whole world. Looking after 4 boys all day puts all of my patience and good parenting skills to the test. The house is destroyed. I was drinking champagne at 4:30pm this afternoon. It was left over from our book release party. My friend Theresa came over and it was Oliver’s birthday and I had been looking after 4 boys aged 5, 4, 3 and 1 all day and, well, it seemed like a good time to say, “Hey, Theresa, let’s celebrate Oliver’s birthday right now before I start screaming or crying or carting myself off to the loony bin.” She was very accommodating, bless her.

It’s past midnight now. All the children are sleeping. Oliver had a night terror – he cries and is completely inconsolable and you can’t wake him up. It makes so much noise that then the baby wakes up. Aarrrgh…. James stepped in and helped hold the baby so I could try and calm Oliver down. Thankfully everyone settled back down. Then I lay down to sleep when I suddenly realized I had thrown away in the recycle bin the envelope with my tickets to the NW Women’s show next weekend. Up, out of bed, down to kitchen, pick up recycling basket, take it down to office where I can turn on the light and dig through the basket, trip over a laundry basket and about 10 toys along the way. Made it. Hear coughing from upstairs. “Please, go back to sleep. PLEASE.” Ok. In office. Turn on light. Dig through recycling. Find tickets….blog.

What did I learn today?

That God always provides one more opportunity to learn how to be more patient.

That this too shall pass…

That you can still sit down and watch a movie with your 5 year old even though there are toys on the floor (a lot of toys on the floor!).

So, I was in the office checking emails and I hear JJ crying upstairs. When I left him he was playing happily in his room and I ran downstairs to see if an important email had come in yet. He’s pretty mobile these days. What he had done is crawl into the upstairs bathroom (to play in the toilet bowl, no doubt). Then he had accidentally shut the door and trapped himself in the bathroom. As I was leaving the office to go rescue him my phone rang and I answered it. Well, guess who it was? The subject line rather gives if away!

“Hello,” I said.

“Hello, Leta. This is Joe Vitale.”

At this point, I am thinking, “You have got to be kidding me! Here my baby is crying trapped in the bathroom and I have JOE VITALE on the other end of my phone. So, I did what any logically thinking parent (or person) would do. I sat on the stairs. In my defense, I was slightly in shock and I told Joe so.

We had a very pleasant conversation. He congratulated me on my book, told me how great it looked and like I had done this “author” thing a thousand times. I said that maybe I had in a past lifetime, but not in this one. He responded that he knew that feeling. I thanked him for being such an inspiration to me and for all the work he does. He complimented me on being someone that actually DID the work and made things happen.

It was all very pleasant. He never even knew that the whole time my baby was trapped in the bathroom. Well, honestly, we really only spoke for about 5 minutes. JJ was fine. I went and retrieved him from the bathroom and put him on my boob. All was right in his world again.

I spoke to Joe Vitale today. Watch out world! Who knows what’s next.

That is the title for one of the chapters of my book The Way of the Toddler: The Craziness of Modern Motherhood and the Spiritual Lessons I Learned from My Zen Masters in Diapers.

Yesterday we had an experience that I wish I could have added!!

We went to meet a friend of James’. He lives in London and was over in Seattle for a wedding of a friend (whom we don’t know). We met him yesterday for lunch before he headed back to London. The restaurant was nice. We sat at a booth and tried to corral the children as best we could. Oliver headed straight for under the table.

For anyone who has read my book knows that I am usually not that fussed if my children want to spend the time at a restaurant under the table. As long as they are happy and quiet, I am happy to be able to have a conversation with the other adults at the table. A lot of parents spend the time at a restaurant telling their children to come out from UNDER the table. I am the kind of parent that says, “Ok, go under the table now.”

This tactic usually works ok, but yesterday I poked my head under the table to see how it all was going and noticed Oliver was chewing on something (and this was before our meal came). I said, “Oliver, what is that in your mouth?” To which he replied, “MMMM, minty.” Yep, you guessed it. He had peeled off a chewed piece of gum from under the table and was eating it.

I then proceeded to look under the table and discover about 297 pieces of chewed gum stuck under the table. And this was a “nice” restaurant!  Between the gum, the plate of ketchup and the juice Oliver spilled all over the floor, we pulled the kids out from under the table and made them stay above ground from there on out. That, of course, had its own consequences.

JJ, at just under 1, is a budding drummer and likes to bang whatever implement he can get his little fingers around on the table. William and Oliver decided to join in this and were playing their silverware on the side plate drum sets along with JJ. JJ is also at a very vocal age. He wasn’t crying, just screaming at the top of his lungs for fun.

Our friend has one baby, 6 months old. I think we did a good job of convincing him that one was perfectly sufficient for the continuance of the species and the maintaining of sanity. We tried to have a conversation with him between the screaming, the gum from under the table chewing, the juice spilling all over the floor, the banging of anything on anything, the constant interuptions from William who always has something to say that is completely off topic from the grownup conversation.

Of course, as this was a “nice” restaurant, it took the food AGES to come, by which time I was laughing hysterically. I had ordered a mimosa. Maybe it was the champagne that was numbing my senses. What the hell? If you can’t cry, you might as well laugh. It was too surreal and absurd NOT to. I think our friend was genuinely taken aback by the amount of chaos 3 children at a restaurant can create. I tried to placate JJ with boob as much as I could, but this was only semi-successful. The rest of the time he just wriggled and tried to climb all over the table. When Oliver wasn’t under the table, he was trying to crawl along the window sill to the other tables in the restaurant. The tables had metal legs and the kids had fun banging silverware against them. William found new and interesting ways to torment Oliver.

We did eventually finish our meal. I took the kids outside while James and his friend settled the bill and had 2 minutes to actually have a conversation. Oliver pooped at some point during lunch, or when I took them outside and we had left all of our diapers in the car. We walked back to the car and I changed Oliver in the front seat, then walked the poopy diaper to a nearby garbage can.

It was an adventure, to be sure.

This morning I was cutting a frozen bagle for Oliver. I had already made him one, but then William grabbed it out of his hand and took a bite and Oliver no longer wanted it. God forbid he should eat a bagle out of which William has taken a bite. Of course, cutting frozen bagles is not so easy. Of course, I sliced my finger and blood was everywhere.

I didn’t want to take a shower with my cut finger. Instead I snuck into the bath and kept my finger out of the water. James wanted to go jogging so he brought JJ into the bathroom. JJ wanted in the bath. James took off JJ’s clothes and put him in the bath, then went for his jog.

JJ wanted booby. We were having a lovely rest. I was half asleep. JJ was on my boob on my tummy. It was a beautiful serene scene. Then JJ pooped on me. Big poop.  All over me. Think runny poo full of raisens stuck in my pubic hair. I screamed. JJ was jolted out of booby heaven and started screaming. I tried to put JJ out of the bath so I could get up and DO something about the poop all over me, but he was screaming so hard I picked him up again and put him back on my booby. It wasn’t his fault. He didn’t know what he had done wrong or to deserve such a sudden yanking from my breast.

James was jogging. I yelled out to William to come help me, but of course those cries were ignored. In the end, I put JJ back on my boob and waited with runny poop all over my tummy and crotch for James to come home. I tried not to move. I didn’t want the poop to run into the bath. So far, it was relogated to above water regions.

James came home. I heard the front door. I yelled out. James came to my rescue. I stood up in the bath. Runny poop fell around my ankles. We drained the bath and James had to keep smooshing junks of poo down the drain. He picked up the larger chunks for the toilet. We put on the shower and washed JJ off. Then I showered myself while still holding my finger in the air.

James kept going on and on about how environmentally friendly it was that JJ didn’t poo in a diaper.

That’s been my morning so far.

Any other gross poop stories. I want to hear about them!

So, I am happy to report that this did NOT happen to me. It happened to a friend of mine, who will remain anonymous. She was on the phone with a colleague (from her house) when she looked over at her baby and saw that she was eating the poo that her dog had just deposited. She screamed, “Oh, SH…! I have to go. My dog just crapped and my baby’s eating it!”

See. This is why we need this blog. To share stories just such as this one.

Motherhood. Surreal, it is. You can’t make stuff like that up. Life is truly stranger than fiction. And we need each other. We need eachother to laugh at the absurdity of it all. We don’t need to judge or to endlessly compare. What we need is to laugh. So much of what we encounter on any given day with our children is truly hilarious. My friend’s baby is fine. She didn’t eat eat the dog poo. Just was going in that direction and then my friend screamed, dropped the phone, picked her up and washed her off. The mutual friend to whom she was talking on the phone does not have children. Between my friend and me, we are definitely NOT convincing her that children are an essential part of her future.

We don’t have a dog anymore. THANK GOODNESS! No, we tried that one. Wow, was that a lot of work! After a year, we finally gave up and found a new home for the dog. I have a lot of energy, but there are limits.

William peed his pants twice today. He just does not want to stop what he is doing to go to the bathroom. So, that’s what I’m dealing with. More laundry. It’s frustrating. When I’m here, my “mommy radar” knows when to say, “William, go to the bathroom NOW.” And he goes. When the babysitter is here, she doesn’t have as good a radar as I do. Then, tonight, James was babysitting while I was at a lecture. William was asleep on the couch when I came home. I don’t know what happened. I just know when I put him in bed, I could tell he peed himself again.

He’s 5. No matter what, I love him. I just love him, love him, love him. He is so wonderful and precious and my boy and we’ll work it out somehow. It will be ok. I just love him so much it hurts.

Today I went to a networking meeting. I’ve been doing a lot of that lately. After my meeting, my publicist was going to do an interview on video for me to post on my website and YouTube. I dressed nice this morning. I put on make up. I thought I looked good. Everything went fine in the meeting. When it ended and my publicist and I were getting ready to go to another room to do the interview, I felt the telltale sensation in my boobs that the milk was a comin’. I looked down at my lovely shirt to see two big wet patches. Now, let me just say that my third child is almost 1 year old and he eats solid foods and drinks from a sippy cup. He has a lot of babysitters these days with all that is going on with my book. Yesterday I was out of the house for 8 hours and my boobs didnt’ leak. So why today? OF ALL DAYS? My publicist, who does not have any children, thought it was the funniest thing she’d ever seen when I showed her my wet chest. She laughed her head off. Admittedly, it was pretty funny.

What is the lesson in all this? Things happen. Leaks happen. But do we cry over spilt milk? Only if you want to. I chose instead to laugh. So what if I had two wet patches while I was doing the interview. It only added to the whole point of my message. I cannot pretend that I am not a mom – especially when what I am trying to promote is a book about the realities of motherhood and the spiritual lessons our children can teach us. It didn’t embarrass me. Nothing does anymore. After all, I am the mom who has peed in her child’s diaper!

I love my life. I love that my boobs leak. I love that this crazy thing called motherhood gives me so many things about which to laugh. It’s fun when you can focus on the things that are funny and are worth laughing over. That’s what I want to put my attention on. Then, when I am tired and frustrated and I find myself yelling, I also have the leaky boob story when I was about to go into an interview on video. Who couldn’t smile at that?

Thank you God for my children and my leaky boobs!

I meant to add this post last night, you know, after I put the kids to bed. But, guess what happened? You guessed it. I fell asleep with the kids. How many times have I done this? Sometimes I do manage to wake up and do work after everyone is asleep. The rest of the time I lie down and that’s it for the night.

I’m a piler. I have a pile here next to my computer of things to do/people to write. AAARRRGGHHH! I just want to get through this pile. And I wonder when? When will I be able to sit down long enough to do this work?

Oliver calls out to me from upstairs. Motherhood is a series of interuptions. So many interuptions in one day, in one hour, in one minute. And is motherhood just an “interuption” of our lives? We are born and as we grow we develop dreams and desires for our fulfillment. We have ideas about what we want to “do” with these lives we have been given. Then we become mothers. Motherhood, especially when they are very young, demands that we focus our attentions outside of ourselves and on these small persons. In a way, it can be an “interuption” to the much bigger picture of what we thought we wanted to accomplish and do in our lives.

How do I recontextualize it all to see the interuptions, no matter what form they come in, as simply part of the process of living and not as interuptions at all?

As long as I am looking at my life as a linear timeline with goals and milestones along the way, then it is easy to fall into frustration at the multitude of interuptions I encounter on any given day, in any given minute. Instead, what if I viewed my life as a circle, a wide all-encompassing whole. Filling this circle are many points of experience, filling it up and making a rich tapestry. What will the picture be when it is all said and done?

Life is indeed a process of weaving a tapestry. The “interuptions” are part of that whole picture.

I guess what I am trying to get at is that they shouldn’t be resented. They just need to be accepted as one part of a much larger WHOLE. Patience is required. Perserverance is required. Love is required. Unconditional love is all the better.

My kids don’t set out to make me frustrated by calling out to me from the other room. They’re kids living at the center of their own little universe. They have a need. Who is the first person they think of to meet that need? Mom, of course. They are just doing what they do. There is no malicious intent. How I react to the interuption of what I was doing is my choice.

They are worth loving despite the fact that I have to stop what I am doing.

I am worth loving too. On that note, I hear JJ crying. Gotta go.

My mom is here. She watched the boys all day Sunday and today and again tomorrow. I am out at networking events and talking as much about my book as possible. We are all tired. James is working late on some project at work. My boobs leaked all over my shirt twice today. I thought I would never get home to my baby. My boobs were so sore. I finally made it home and thought about all the emails that are probably awaiting me…I still haven’t opened them. William is asleep now, but Oliver and JJ are still up. I am dreading checking my emails. Of course, Oliver and JJ are playing sweetly. Of course, they were so happy when I arrived home. William was sick today and apparently threw up all over the family room and again in the bathroom. I missed that. My poor mother I think is totally exhausted. She leaves tomorrow night and I have babysitters all day Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. This book about how to be at peace with being a stay at home mom is making me NOT a stay at home mom. Oh, the irony. Life is in constant flow, constant flux. I feel driven to fulfill my potential. One day at a time. One moment at a time. Tonight I got stuck at my friend Theresa’s house. I went over there after the Women of Wisdom conference because she asked me to go to her new house’s blessing. I had no idea it would take 4 hours. I thought of my children. I thought of my baby and my sore boobs. I thought of my husband and the ride home I was supposed to give him. When I finally left and was able to turn on my phone again, it turns out James needed to stay late, so I didn’t have to pick him up afterall. I finally returned home. I finally got that baby on the boob. What did I learn today? I learned to let go just a little bit more. I learned to surrender just a little bit more. I learned a little bit more how to make peace with the situation in which I find myself. My kids had a happy day with grandma. I love them even though I seem to be so absent this week. They love me even though I seem to be so absent this week. I will try to get to bed soon. Good night.

Last night we had the launch party for The Way of the Toddler. I’m a little worse for ware today. William and Oliver went next door, but JJ stayed here. All he wanted was mommy. My mom took him and rocked him to sleep. Then my mom sat in the chair in the hallway in the dark with JJ in her arms. She would interject comments like a voice coming out of nowhere during the party. So, I got to enjoy me party and my mom got to enjoy it too, only in an eaves dropping kind of a way. Even at 37, I still need my mom. She was so helpful in getting ready for the party. I would not have been able to do it with out her. Cleaning the house yesterday wtih all three children home all day was in itself a exercise in letting go. It brought up all the issues that led me to write the book in the first place. It’s amazing that moms get anything accomplished with small people in tow. And most of the time the only way they do get something like housecleaing accomplished when the kids are at home is by turning into mommy monster and doing a lot of yelling. We do the best that we can. Hopefully my kids still love me.

We went to Costco to buy party food and booze for tonight’s launch party. Oliver and William were running around looking for free samples. Twice a Costco employee had to bring Oliver back around the corner to us. Oliver does this. At the movie theater the other week he kept leaving the movie theater to play in the lobby. The booster seats were piled up along a wall and they were much more fun to climb than watching Alvin and the Chipmunks, the Squeakwal.

This independence, this going out of mommy’s line of site, does not seem to bother him. Last night at Costco, he wasn’t scared. He knew he wasn’t lost.

I know that to a lot of parents (and to the employees at Costco and the movie theater) that not knowing where your child is at any given moment is a source of alarm. We need to physically see where they are at all times, especially when they are little toddlers, because, well, we are all paranoid about bad things happening.

Still, I could not help but feel that I was doing something right for Oliver to be so confident, so sure of himself that everything was ok with the world even if his mommy was out of site vision for a few moments. He know that I would be there. He wasn’t scared.

I am not always going to be there for him. I do not want him to be scared of the world. I WILL have to let him go someday. He is my responsibility for a little while, but not forever. He has his own life to live, his own destiny to fulfill. I was the vessel that brought him into the world and gave him food and shelter when he was young and learning about the world, but he is not mine. I do not own him. We do not own our children.

So, the fact that he went around the corner at Costco and was brought back to me by an emplyee might freak out hte employee, but it doesn’t really freak me out. It would have been different if he was scared or in any way distressed, but he wasn’t.

I want my children to grow up confident. I want them to grow up to NOT need me. We are equals upon this earth.