Boys are 90% Mischief and 10% Dirt

 I saw the title of this post on a t-shirt some time ago and thought it was cute.  I guess it still is...sometimes living with a little person made up on 90% mischief doesn't "feel" cute, however.

My son was born and along with his birth came several "boys are different than girls" warnings.  Never have warnings been more true.  My son is different than my daughters and certainly different than me.  Lately, it seems his antics has escalated, making for good stories, but a tired and oft frustrated mama.

Here is our most recent Saga:

Last Friday, my son came in from playing outdoors all afternoon and loudly exclaimed, "I peed my pants when I was outside, but they are dried already, isn't that cool?!"  It took me a minute to process his statement, a)that he peed his pants and b)that he stayed in them long enough for them to dry!  I mean who would do that?!  He's never done something so absurd and hadn't had an accident in a couple months, so I just said, "Buddy, that is gross and it will make your skin itchy; you need to go upstairs, wash you bottom with a washcloth and change your pants.  If you have to go potty, you need to come inside."  I figured that would be the end of it.

Apparently, I was too laid back about it because he peed his pants three more times between Friday and Yesterday.  I handled the first three nonchalantly, but yesterday I'd had it with this nonsense.

I sent him to clean up his room; we've had a problem with him thinking it's fun to dump out his toys and clothes on the floor so the last few times he's done it, he's had to pick it up all by himself (granted, I have to go back later and actually fold the clothes he stuffed back in his drawer).  While being in his room for over an hour, refusing to pick anything up, he peed his pants ON the clean clothing.  Dogs do that, people should not. Mommy, was admittedly angry.  A) he didn't pick anything up and b) he peed AGAIN and this time part of it got on clean clothes?  UNACCEPTABLE to this mommy.  He had to pick up the clothes and put them in the laundry, change into his pj's and go to bed for the night.  I told him he was going to go to bed before Chloe because he was acting like a baby and if he peed his pants again he was going to wear a diaper.  He cried, and I smiled inside because I figured this was great consequence for the little boy who wants to be so grown up.

Then came 6 am this morning....and the smile was erased.  I learned that this was a stupid thing to my son.  While in his room since 6pm, he was afraid to come out and though he had on a pull up, he pooped his pull up.  Then he tried to change it himself, in his room, on the carpet.  When poop got on the carpet, he tried to clean it up with his library book bag.  You can imagine what I walked into this morning.  It smelled to high heaven and was a sight to behold to say the least.

When first potty training, he took a few weeks to get to the potty on time for poop and we had problems with him try to clean it up himself, but we finally reinforced that he could not do it, he had to call mommy or papa to clean him up.  We had MINOR smears on his carpet during this time, but after months of him proving he went in the potty, we professionally cleaned the carpets about a month ago.

This time there was no smear, it was a mess and did I mention we have a social worker coming on Tuesday to do our home study for our adoption.  ARGH!  Did I fail to mention that he had poop dried all over his hands, on his pj shirt.....and even on his CHIN?  I can only imagine the germs he slept in.  SOOOOOO GROSS!

I asked him in complete disbelief, "Why didn't you call down to mommy?  What is the rule when you poop you pants?"  He replied, "I need to tell mommy and not clean it myself."  Okay, so then I asked if he knew the rule, why didn't he call me.  He said in the smallest, saddest voice, "I was too nervous."  Okay- momentarily, I felt badly for him and his humiliation.  We ended up having a really good (I think) conversation about doing the right thing even if we are nervous, even if we are scared, and even if we know we are going to get into trouble.  I told him he'll always be in bigger trouble for hiding the truth because that is lying.  I then made him call Marc (who is away on business) and tell him the truth so he could practice doing the right thing even when it's hard.  He did get a few priviledges taken away- but I reinforced it was not at all for pooping, but for not telling mommy and for trying to hide it.

After an hour of scrubbing and scrubbing with my "heavy duty" carpet cleaning solution- I still had this mess:

so...after dropping off Ava at school we headed to target to buy a machine.  I was standing scanning labels on the machines into my iphone (cuz thru my amazon app, i can then check the reviews on each machine on amazon) trying to figure out the best machine to buy when I notice out of the corner of my eye my son is sucking on a Winnie the Pool water bottle.  SERIOUSLY?!  I had to give a little talk about how we can't put our mouths on things that aren't ours and then I totally had to buy it and one other Mickie bottle he said he had sucked on.  Can I just say I was none too happy inside about having to buy two $8 water bottle we didn't need?  To make it worse, he was so happy we had to buy them, I am really frightened he's going to start putting his mouth on anything he wants to buy....so I had to burst his little bubble by saying, "I know you didn't know you weren't supposed to put you mouth on things, but you cannnot get a reward for doing it, even if it was a mistake, so one of these will be for Chloe and one for Ava.  You will not get one."  I hope it wasn't too harsh- he is devastated, but I just can't afford to have this become a habit like his pants peeing.  He's way to prone to testing the waters to take a chance.

Finally, I fear the poop on the carpet lesson is lost as well because I bought this great little maching called the Bissel Smart Shot that cleans for you, but when I ran down stairs, this is where I find my boy- totally intrigued by this "soooo cool" machine.....AYE

Seriously, Phin is cute as a button and I adore him, but I don't think I will ever understand this mischief maker; thank goodness Marc can help me out because today I kind of feel like knocking my head against the wall.

Yep, completely baffling and yet so adorable: