Memoirs of a Mommy

Patsy has been thinking of writing down some of the funny things that happen to her as a mom and sharing them somehow with others. I am encouraging her to do her own blog on motherhood journeys. She wrote this today. What do you think?

These short anecdotes are not for ladies who have chosen a hectic career instead of the tranquility of becoming a mother and spending long blissful hours rocking your babies to sleep, or softly brushing a curl back from their forehead as they rest their little heads on your knee. Mostly these are just to remind me of the gifts that God has given us when He chose to bless us with children. I have been blessed 5 times with boys and have yet to decide whether this is God’s sense of humor at work, or whether He thought I was especially suited for the role of mothering sons. However, I do have 5 boys to whom I am known simply as Mommy. Their ages are now 10; 8; 3; 2 ½ and 2. (Needless to say, they are not all my biological children.)

Last night was one of the nights that make you proud to be a Mommy. My husband was away at a conference and I had taken over all the household chores rather well in his absence. The boys had all been fed a nutritious supper, the three little ones were in the bathtub and had been scrubbed to a squeaky clean brilliance. My adoring older sons were standing by the tub busy blowing bubbles for the little ones to try to catch with their little wrinkled fingers. I was reflecting on the joys of motherhood as I laid out pajamas and diapers for the end of bath time. It was one of those moments when everything is working like a well-oiled machine and I should have known it wouldn’t last.
Suddenly, I heard sounds of water splashing, choking and confusion from the bathroom. Fearing the worse, I rushed toward the bathroom door, only to be met by my two oldest sons rushing to get out of said doorway. As we collided, I heard one of them say, “That’s ssoooo gross!” In that instant I had a terrible premonition of what I would find when I entered the bathroom, and it wouldn’t be a drowning child. Standing up in the middle of the tub was my 2 ½ year old proclaiming, loud and proud, “That’s my pooh-pooh!” over and over again. Our three year old had the good sense to realize that this was not a situation in which he wanted to be involved. He simply looked at the offending article and pronounced, “I didn’t do it, Mommy. I didn’t do it.” As I grabbed towels and pulled children from the tub with more speed than care, I realized our youngest was in the dark as to the nature of this turmoil. He was watching me wrench his brothers from the tub when suddenly “IT” floated by him. He promptly pointed and started yelling (in his high squeaky voice), “Ucky-ucky” until I was able to remove him. He continued his squeals alternating between “ucky” and “pooh-pooh” while I attempted to clean the boys once again and get them into their pajamas. Still our 3 year old shook his head and softly chanted to himself, “I didn’t do it.” In the meantime, our little showman has to be barred from the bathroom as he kept wanting to “see my pooh-pooh again”.Later that night, as I lay in bed reading and waiting for my husband to come home, I am struck by the quiet of the house. It seems that no matter what gets thrown at us during a “normal” day, there is always a time when everything settles back down and we can laugh at the “unlaughable”. To me, the quiet at the end of each day is kind of like God’s little good night kiss. Just letting me know that He is still in control and He loves me even during the “bathtub pooh-pooh” incidences in life.