Saturday May 1st

HI LinkedIn, how was your weekend?

Today I’d like to share a story that had lessons in humility, preparedness, patience, and resilience. For those of you that know me well, you are aware I have a 3 year old and a 1 year old. Parents out there will immediately know what those challenges are like. While there have been have been challenges, nothing was like Saturday morning for me.

You see Saturday, my wife was out for a few hours managing a garage sale (we made $700 thank you very much,) which meant I was 1 on 2 for a little bit. No worries done it before I tell myself. My 1 year girl usually takes a nap around 8:30 and get up around 9:15 or 9:30. My 3 year old son is into typical toddler things of doing the same things over and over again, but rather simple to manage in that aspect. In addition to being a full-fledged toddler we are also experiencing the joys of potty training. Piece of advice for all expecting parents or newer parents – yes you will get peed on and some other non-pleasant things, but I digress.

Saturday morning nap time rolls around. Take little one to her room, read a quick book and she goes to sleep without much fuss, only a few “mama” calls, but I don’t fall for that guilt trip. Go into other room playing with the toddler and 45 minutes goes by in a flash. Time flies when you’re having fun they say.  Time to get the sleeping baby up and change her diaper and get her into clothes for the day. About this time my wife texts me (why is she always checking up on me I mutter to myself,) “is everything going ok?” Yes everything is fine, I reply.

Folks, it was at that very moment that it was decided I would have all of my parenting and life skills put to the test. You see as I was changing my girl’s dirty diaper, my son decided he didn’t want to use the potty that morning. No less than 5 feet from me and the squirmy baby my son decided he was going to leave some presents on the floor. Okay no problem, go to the bathroom and wait for me there I say. I finish changing the diaper, grab some wipes, do some pickup of previous presents and head to the bathroom, leaving the 1 year old on her own, momentarily and only about 10 feet away and still visible.

In the bathroom, I basically had to give my son a bath with some wet wipes. Next, I have to take him back into front room, and then spray and soak his clothes in the laundry room. I quickly get that done and remember I still have to spray and clean the floor. While cleaning the floor, my daughter decided she wasn’t done going to the bathroom for the morning and I had to repeat step one all over again. As you can imagine the house smelled AMAZING by now. I clean her up, again, and get all the clothes washed, diapers thrown away, carpet cleaned up, candles lit, fan going and windows open. The wildest hour of my life you would think, except all of this happened for about 3 minutes right after I said everything was fine.

It’s often said crap comes from everywhere and sometimes all at once. While that’s true, I think it’s how we persevere in the face of seemingly difficult odds. All I could really do was laugh while it was all happening and do my best to make sure someone didn’t make the mess worse or get hurt. I had never had a moment like that, until I did. Thought I was an expert in parenting, and was more than capable of handling 2 kids for a few hours. And while I was able to, it wasn’t without its challenges. Quite frankly it’s hilarious just how fine everything ended up being, but in the moment it didn’t feel fine at all. Stay the course out there Linkedin!