Moments

I've had a few "moments" in the past week.  You know the kind of moment...where you realize in a nanosecond that things are changing, kids are growing, time is slipping away, you're getting older and you don't want to forget things.  Things that you promised yourself were so memorable, how could you possibly forget?  And then the following week when you try to recall the adorable or outrageous "moment" it is nowhere to be found.  It has been shoved to the dusty part of your brain by the more mundane moments of everyday life.  

I write about my moments now because I don't want these gems replaced by anything mundane.

It was the middle of the night and I was awake.  I was lying in bed waiting for Kai to wake up.  Waiting! Waiting for the familiar moonlight wailing in which he has become so proficient!  

Instead of hearing the familiar wail I heard the door open.  I listen closer and I hear little feet shuffling down the hallway.  (No, I'm not crazy!  It isn't Kai doing the shuffling.  Drew and Kai share a room!)  

The little feet turn the corner to the bathroom.  I'm waiting for the light to turn on but the house remains dark.  Not even a nightlight.  Next, I hear the very distinct sound of a little boy going potty.  Again, I hear the shuffling, the door close, and then silence.  

Did Drew just get up in the middle of the night to go potty? He didn't even ask for me.  He didn't need my help.  He could do it all by himself.  He did not need his Mama.

In that moment I realized that before I know it he'll be doing so many things by himself...he won't need or even want my help.  All at once it is a liberating and frightening thought.  With Drew's independence comes bigger consequences and greater heartache that I won't be able to control or shield him from.  

Maybe it was the late hour, but I lay there feeling somewhat sentimental about my oldest boy going potty in the middle of the night unassisted!  And so it goes....

Why is there a dark picture of a tee-pee, you ask?  Well, this is the scene of the crime.  My other "moment."  This can only be described as a quintessential "Owen Moment."

The boys and I visited a local nursery where they had pumpkins, bounce houses and the fateful tee-pee.  As little boys are apt to do, Drew and Owen were running around fully intent on releasing all the pent up energy they had accumulated.  I was happy to see them run around from activity to activity with such excitement.  

As I was tending to Kai I noticed Owen was nowhere to be seen.  The area was secure so I wasn't concerned that he had gone missing, more that he was getting into trouble.  As I look around the corner I am greeted with the vision of my 2 year old standing in the tee-pee with his pants around his ankles!  

I panic.  I run to the scene of the crime searching for the offending wet spot in the straw.  What I find is something far more tragic.  

Apparently my little boy was so excited that he forgot to tell me he had to go to the bathroom....the poopy kind!!!  

Survival mode set in and I had to work quickly.  An unsuspecting boy and his mother were rounding the corner, about to enter our now defiled tee-pee.  I gather the "you-know-what" in the surrounding hay, place it in a burp cloth, toss it in an outdoor trash can, and leave the scene of the crime as fast as I can!

Clearly, this story shows that I have failed somewhere; however, this is not the reason I share it.  I share it only so that someday (maybe when Owen is 16), one of you might bring this incident up at the most inappropriate time so as to embarrass him just as much as he embarrassed me!!!