A day in the life of Nate's mother.

A couple of days ago I spent at least an hour re-organizing "retired" children's clothing that had been dumped by the boxful all over Nate's bedroom--by one Nate, during one naptime. Jamie Beth, my mini-organizer, sorted baby girl clothes from baby boy clothes, while I simultaneously grouped clothing by age, made a giveaway pile, and pulled out shirts that would fit Dallin next month. The house was surprisingly quiet as we worked: Matthew finished with chores and reading, Dallin working his way through his own chore list, Matt cleaning out the garage, Nate wandering to and fro and stopping to try the potty every 20 minutes (a timer was set just for him). Progress, I thought, actual progress on a big project. I was completely wrapped up in my task.

Cue the foreboding music.

"Oh no! Oh no!" Matt's voice called out from the living room. "Cissy...oh NO!"

I leapt over the piles around me and ran. Yes--leapt and ran, because only one thing in our house elicits such distressed exclamations: Nate. It took just a second to see the problem, and without going into too much detail, I'll tell you it involved Nate's inability to get to that potty. And it wasn't a wet problem.

Matt pointed to a spot on the floor. "It looks like he started there, then moved there," he pointed to another spot, "then he wiped it there, there, and put that baseball bat in it, there. "

My reaction was not calm, sweet, or instructive. I may have talked sternly and somewhat loudly to Nate, telling him (not quite yelling, but obviously upset), "Yuck! That's yucky! Why did you take off your underwear? When you feel p*** coming out, you run to the potty! The potty! Yuck! Aggghh!" He, half-naked and apparently with no olfactory senses, just looked at me and helpfully pointed out all the places I would need to scrub.

Whenever I clean up a bloody nose, a wet spot on the carpet, or midnight vomit, I think to myself, "It could be worse. At least it's not p***. It could always be worse." Well, now those thoughts immediately started to come again, but then swerved right smack into reality: "It could be worse--no, no, it can't! This is the worst that it could be! Ack!" I scrubbed and gagged and scrubbed and told still-half-naked Nate to "Stay right there, stay right there on the hard wood, and don't touch anything!" (I was thinking only in exclamation marks for a while.)

So there's the story of my day-to-day life: I clean up one of Nate's messes while he is making an infinitely worse one. And, I handle all of it with less than motherly grace. Good thing he's otherwise charming and sparkly--and resilient, I hope.

Honestly, that child better turn out to be brilliant.