While Mama Was In The Bathroom (Episode 4)

(The previous episodes can be read here.) 

It is summer and we are outside in the backyard.

I just finished rinsing out the hard plastic kiddie pool from the previous day.

Yesterday, they dumped a bunch of sand in it which sunk to the bottom like brown sludge. Kids love brown sludge. They have the ability to create it from almost nothing. Like MacGyver except that he created useful things so not really like him at all.

I turn the hose on and start filling up the pool. This makes me need to pee.

Before I dash inside, I tell them:

sand in pool1

Then I run inside to pee.

sand in pool2

It takes me 43.7 seconds. I timed it. (No really, while I was drawing the pictures for this post I had to pee so I started the stopwatch on my phone and went. 43.7 seconds. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t exaggerating about the short amount of time I was gone.) 

And when I return, did they put sand in the pool?

Nope.

sand in pool3 

They put the pool in the sand. 

——–

Also, when my site was down for the last few days you may have missed my last post about getting the kids out the door. It was actually a good one (unlike this one which I’m tossing in here since I don’t even know if the site is working) so you can check it out now.

If everything is still broken I’m going to go hide in a closet. 

PS – If anyone has emailed me in the last 4-5 days I did not get it so please resend. But only if it is nice or at least full of rainbows or ice cream or baby hedgehogs.   

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97 Responses to While Mama Was In The Bathroom (Episode 4)

  1. Esther says:

    i too, filled up my hard plastic kiddie pool today. and i just wanted to let you know, i am there with you

  2. Mom In Two Cultures says:

    At least they’re inventive!

    So much can happen in such a short time. I’m surprised you left them with a hose for that long.

    http://www.momintwocultures.com/2011/08/before-6-am.html
    http://www.momintwocultures.com/2011/11/day-in-life.html

    • wilma fingerdoo says:

      But nothing did. Way to think worst-first momintwocultures and pass judgement.

      Love this story.
      My kids also prefered flooding the sandbox. They would make sand krabby patties all the live long day. The sandbox years are some of the happiest, enjoy!

    • annie says:

      43.7 seconds? I don’t think she should need a disclaimer for that.

  3. Bรฉnรฉdicte says:

    Muahaha. Classic.

  4. Mama Meerkat says:

    Ah, it is never safe to pee!

  5. Angela says:

    LOL nope not even 47 seconds is safe!

  6. That’s why it rocks to be a DAD. The yard is my bathroom. I swear it’s why the people who built this house left a gap between the garage and the back fence. Genius!

    • Lacey S says:

      The mom in me is horrified… the woman in me is jealous ๐Ÿ˜›

    • neal says:

      thumbs up! Love being a man! Except for how when someone kicks you between the legs it hurts a heck of a lot more. Then I’m not glad to be a man.

    • neal says:

      QUICKSAND! What started out a fun way to spend about 45 minutes on a Thursday afternoon becomes a terrifying ordeal in which Crappy Mama has to grab hold of a nearby vine and dive headfirst into the pit after her Crappy kids (no insult intended) while Rodents of Unusual size mill about above-ground…

      And yet, you’re still here to tell the tale, so it must have turned out heroically. You’re amazeballs, Crappy Mama!

  7. Desiree says:

    And this is when they get rinsed by the freezing COLD hose so they may or may not learn to do it again. I must admit I do enjoy a little bit of torture training. Like when I told my son the jalapeno’s I am growing are very spicy….he insisted on finding out the hard way, so I let him. And now have picture proof that japapenos hurt.

    • Pami says:

      Ha! I can so relate to the jalapenos! I wish I had a photo of the first time my daughter insisted the jalapenos I was picking off my quesadilla were actually olives. We tried to warn her. We warned the table next to us that it was about to get really loud since at a year old her reaction to anything not-good was to scream. She’s 3 now, so she knows what we mean when we say something is spicy. ๐Ÿ™‚

      Amber – Awesome post (again)!

      • Jennifer Bee says:

        My brother did the same thing to the jalapeno in my dad’s soup while at a restaurant. He insisted it was a pickle. After that he called jalapenos “spicy pickles”. :o)

      • Cynthia says:

        Love that you warned the table next to you. : )

  8. Desiree says:

    And this is when they get rinsed by the freezing COLD hose so they may or may not learn to do it again. I must admit I do enjoy a little bit of torture training. Like when I told my son the jalapeno’s I am growing are very spicy….he insisted on finding out the hard way, so I let him. And now have picture proof that jalapenos hurt.

  9. Kara says:

    It works! Yay! And now there is lots more brown sludge! >.< Oh how terrible it must have been to clean them up from that!

  10. Hope says:

    Aww, now that is thinking outside the…circle. ๐Ÿ˜‰

  11. Stacie says:

    We don’t have a sandbox but we do have an inflatable pool, and my 2-year-old son puts just about everything in it. Rakes, rocks, chairs…OK, so it’s basically a formerly inflatable pool that holds about an inch of water.

    A few weeks ago he put his ride-on, pedal-less plastic “bicycle” in the pool, and I asked him how he was going to ride. He looked at me earnestly, shrugged his shoulders, and said, “boat?”

  12. JoAnne says:

    My boys (just slightly younger than yours) love playing outside and swimming in the pool because it means that they get to “pee on the scorpion rocks,” rather than in the potty. I do so wish at times that I could do the same…without scandalizing the neighbors.

  13. Jen says:

    I would have loved to seen the conversation/events that happened while you were gone for 43.7 seconds… ‘well mom said not to put sand in there…. so let’s put the water here’ ‘great idea’, haha

  14. Jessica says:

    My daughter just did this to me today! She said “mommy, I made a pool” and I knew I was in trouble because the pool was in the shed!

  15. Fuchsia says:

    At least it washes the sand. My daughter does this all the time. I let her because it is easier than preventing it, she gets wet sand for her sandcastles (that I have to build for her), and it distracts her for 10x more time than the dry sand. I swear we have the cleanest sand ever.

  16. Brooke says:

    ha ha so true. where there is a will there is a way.

  17. sarah says:

    So relate-able! I love reading these.

  18. I love your “mom had to pee” stories because it makes me not feel so bad about the antics my son gets in to the ONE MOMENT I’m not looking. Clever boys.

  19. KC says:

    That made me belly laugh. I don’t know why I didn’t expect them to put the water in the sand box. Any time I go to pee without the girls some how it always ends with one on my lap and me having to read a book to them…

  20. Stacy says:

    Your kids are genius. And obedient. Which is more than I can say for my rock heads.

  21. Nicole says:

    I LOVE baby hedgehogs!

  22. My boys do that to out sandbox constantly. It’s huge- 4’x11 and they turn it into a mud pit. Even better, they have removed all the dang so thru can dig in the dirt at the very bottom… Which makes VERY muddy mud. Ughhh.

  23. Jen says:

    My boys only mix sandbox and pool and Grandma and Grandpa’s. At our house it is ALWAYS mud and pool. Because then EVERYTHING (patio, table, chairs, house, chirldren) becomes covered in brown sludge.

  24. Ellen says:

    My stinking kids filled our sandbox up with water too. The sand never dried out completely and it was a huge mess. Luckily it was the week before we were moving 2000 miles, so we were going to have to dump it out anyway!

  25. Cara says:

    Your boys are very clever and clearly good listeners! Watch out, they are going to be creative geniuses as they get older. ๐Ÿ˜‰

  26. bethany eskro says:

    Oh! Baby hedgehogs!!

  27. bethany eskro says:

    Also, my parents use pea gravel for their sandbox instead of sand. Neighborhood cats don’t use it as a litter box and it doesn’t make mud!

  28. Kate says:

    My son loves to dump pea gravel in our inflatable pool and call it “treasure”. He also likes to dump it in our newly sodded lawn and in our beautiful vegetable garden. I feel your pain. ๐Ÿ™‚

    Kate
    http://www.justdelivered.net

  29. Kari Anne Starling says:

    omg. I LOVE baby hedgehogs! DH put this video on my fb page the other day.

    http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Ffeature%3Dplayer_embedded%26v%3DIC3yCbUV19s&h=qAQF6tjqX

    Geez, i feel like a spammer!

    • amber says:

      There is no such thing as hedgehog spam. (Gross, did anyone else think about the Spam in a can when I wrote that? Or did I spend too many formative years in Spamtown USA?)

  30. sherry says:

    don’t understand why the HELL they can’t make those things with plugs to drain it? come on! it can’t be that hard!

  31. Woolies says:

    You have to learn to pee while outside. I got quite good at this. So did Max, as he potty trained himself in our backyard one summer.

  32. I LOVE MACGYVER except I actually write McGyver (I’ve always tilted at windmills). Once, I played Trivial Pursuit and I toggled between answering Ronald Reagan or McGyver (but nothing else) and wouldn’t you know it but the question was something like “Show filmed in Vancouver about a guy that can make a bomb out of a piece of chewing gum and a paperclip”. SERIOUSLY (I feel that I must shout in case you don’t truly understand that I GOT ONE QUESTION RIGHT)! There’s a first and a last time for everything. By the way, great blog.

    Besos, Sarah
    Zookeeper at Journeys of The Zoo

  33. AnnaPK says:

    hahahahahaha I hope you complimented their good listening skills! ๐Ÿ˜‰

  34. A baby hedgehog wants to know.... says:

    I know it’s a stupid question but I am wondering how you manage to pee with your dress down. Hmm maybe you have a flap that unbuttons in the back of your dress (if so, did it come like that or did you do it yourself? And is it your idea?). Or I suppose you could have a zipper that goes up on the back so that you can keep the front covered. Just sayin, the picture of you sitting on the toilet with your full dress looks weird. A disclaimer or explanation is needed! ๐Ÿ™‚

    • Julie says:

      It’s a CRAPPY picture! Duh! ๐Ÿ˜‰ Anyway, I prefer the drawings like that then a more detailed alternative, personally.

  35. kelly kelly says:

    Why cant moms pee outside? I do it everywhere! My three yr old twin boys love it! Especially great in public parks Princeton nj…snobs

  36. Kim says:

    “Like MacGyver except that he created useful things so not really like him at all” LOL

    • Jennifer J says:

      My father in law peed in his own barnyard, in front of a boy he was in the process of adopting. Social worker found out, and he did one year of weekends in jail, and five years of weekly probation.

  37. Dawn says:

    My kids ALWAYS make sludge in the kiddie pool. I’m hoping the sandbox will be empty soon.

  38. Christina says:

    I love reading your posts! They are so funny and so true. Luckily our hose is no where near our sandbox!

  39. Chrissy says:

    YES! I am always trying to tell people how my boys manage to make brown sludge ANYWHERE! At our old house, in the country, I had finally taught them at least to strip down to their skivvies before rolling around in it and dirtying like 8 sets of clothes daily. We now live on a cul-de-sac so its harder to feel good enforcing that rule. . .but putting the hose in the sandbox is my 5 yr olds favorite activity.

  40. Jennifer says:

    I, personally, have been questioning whether having a smart child is a good thing or not for about 3 years. I’ve come to the conclusion that it is not. But at least they didn’t directly disobey you!

  41. Roberta Pitts says:

    I don’t have any kids… yet, but I LOVE reading your blog! I love, in a thank-God-its-not-just-like-this-for-me kind of way, that my husband does now pretty much all of the things that crappy papa and crappy kids do! I’m hoping reading these entries now will help me to laugh through the tears and just keep on swimming/chuging/trucking when my future kiddos (along with the hubby) are doing these things in our house! Thank you!

  42. Sara says:

    You are brilliant!
    I giggle to myself now everytime my girl starts screaming through the bathroom door. So healthier than trying to tell her she’s fine (cuz obviously she thinks I’ve abandoned her and she’s missing a wonderful opportunity to flush!)

  43. Starle says:

    My kids are almost seven and nine and i still cannot pee by myself. I am beginning to wonder if I ever will again.

  44. Ella says:

    OMG my kids used to fill the sandbox with everything.. including turning on the hose and filling it up to the rim! That brought back some “good” memories…. including the time they added the entire content of the coloured chalk-box, which sort of dissolved on top of the goo, and then they jumped in the coloured sand/mud/goo pile. Good thing the hose was still on for the rinse-off… The sand stayed tinted for quite a few weeks after that…

    • Jespren says:

      Oh my, I actually love this idea! Colored sand from sidewalk chalk, I very well may have to try this if/when we get a sandbox. I’m a country kid, I think putting water in the sandbox sounds great, easy cleanup, just spray them down with the hose before letting them inside! My main issue with sandboxes is my little girl eats sand like it’s candy!

  45. pippi says:

    OK..I’m inspired to confess, that more than once I’ve found myself urgently using my toddler’s “potty”, right there in the kitchen rather than take that calculated risk…while he stares at me, utterly amused. We have an old charmer of a house, but with only one bathroom – upstairs! You get it. And grossed out as you may be, I’ve even jumped up on the edge of the kitchen sink….. ๐Ÿ™‚ (giving it a thorough clean afterwards…). guess I shoulda done more keegels?

  46. Kristi says:

    Of course they did. All it takes is 42.8 seconds. You left them too long.

  47. Lauren says:

    I enjoyed this post almost as much as the fact that you timed yourself peeing. That’s hilarious! Thank you for putting forth that extra effort for authenticity!

  48. Lori Langone says:

    I’ve finished reading all of your archived Crappy posts. Now I’m sad. I hope your book is released soon. I need more Crappy laughs.

  49. jsavoy says:

    http://duckyblessings.blogspot.com/2012/05/waiting-patiently.html

    do baby groundhogs count as baby hedgehogs. I guess not, but this was the closest I had ๐Ÿ™‚
    I remember those days! Like the day I told my two year old son he couldn’t go outside because he was in his pajamas.So he took them off and went out while my back was turned. Yep. He was buck naked. He hates when I tell that story…

  50. Katy says:

    Haha my nephew did this the other day. My sister came outside to find him totally nakies in a sludgified sandbox. It looked like he was even rubbing it in his hair… Made for one hilarious photo ๐Ÿ™‚

  51. Alison says:

    You filled a pool and then left your young children alone?

    47 secs is 47 too long. A child can drown in 20 secs.

    You are lucky hosing the sand is all that happened.

    • Alison says:

      Sorry, 43.7 secs. Point still stands.

      • Cara says:

        The poor woman needed to pee. It’s not like she left them with a deep in ground pool or something. It’s a just a little kiddie pool. Yes, anything can happen, but something so shallow in such a short span of time is not highly likely, and I would have done the same. Especially if I felt the kids were old enough and responsible to handle the pool.

        • Billie says:

          Sorry, Cara but I have to agree with Alison, kids do and have drowned in “kiddie pools” as you call them, doesn’t matter how deep they are, they only need to be deep enough to cover their face for them to drown. As adults we assume that it is easy to push our head out of the water or just stand up but kids don”t have our life experience and often panic.

          • Cynthia2 says:

            I have kids Amber’s age, and at this point I would trust them by a kiddie pool long enough to run to the bathroom. Of course, my kids rarely get IN the pool, they usually play in it from the side.

    • Maegan says:

      I have to agree with Allison. I was wondering when someone would bring up the obvious safety issue here. I KNOW Mom’s have to pee, lol. I’m a mom of 3 (ages 5, 3 and 8 months) and I’ve been in the same situation of filling up a pool when suddenly I HAVE to pee. I herd all 3 kids into the house to wait for me while I do my business. Call me overly protective but I would rather be safe then sorry!! Love this blog but this just isn’t safe. :-/

  52. Nicole says:

    I just found your blog and this is hilarious! I totally relate. I tell my now 7 year old to hold on for everything will fall. He doesn’t and he is SOL and knows it.

  53. Cynthia2 says:

    My kids dumped a Sam’s Club sized bottle of hand soap in the pool and all over the back porch a couple of years ago. That stuff is more slippery than an ice rink.

  54. Marie Brasseit says:

    I so wish I had had a blog like this when I was raising kids! In fact, I just wish The internet had been invented while I was raising kids! My life (& especially, theirs) would have been unbelievable!

    Enjoying your escapades!

  55. Kelly says:

    I agree with Alison and Billie about the danger of leaving kids in the backyard while mom goes into the house to pee. I am amazed that not more of your followers have brought up this point. In Arizona, there are sad reports on the news all the time about little kids drowning in as little as 1 inch of water. If a child is still wearing a diaper, he/she should not be left alone near water. I know we moms have all done it at some time or other, but it’s really dumb to take the risk.

  56. Sharla says:

    Honestly, I read through all these comments just to see how long it took before you were told how dangerous it is to leave kids alone with a pool. Over a day!

  57. Rachel says:

    Oh man, water in the sandbox is way worse than sand in the pool!

  58. kate says:

    I filled up our pool today. As I was explaining to my 3yr old daughter why it was NOT ok for her to pee in the pool (which she had just done and was giggling about), my attention was not on my nearly 2yr old son. So he drank a large pot of pee-flavoured paddling pool water. Lovely.

  59. Ginger says:

    Leave Amber alone. The whole point of this blog is to show humor in the imperfections. Recall our childhoods, and what we lived through.

    • Jackie says:

      I agree! This blog is to show the humorous and imperfect life as a mom, not to question her every parental move! Love your blog, and I laugh at my friend who cannot look at your blog because the “crappy” pictures creep her out.

    • Lisa says:

      Couldnt have said it better myself!

  60. Jackie says:

    oh, yes. Thank you for leaving your dress on in your loo drawing. If I need to see more, I will use my imagination ;0)

  61. MACNJOEYSMOM says:

    Last summer when my daughter wasn’t quite 2 we went to the beach a lot and one night the lid to her turtle sandbox blew off in a bad rain storm. I thought oh crap but not her she was estatic she jumped right in and told me “Mommy I at my beach!” Ever since then sandboxes and pools both have sand and water it is a never winning battle.

  62. Jessica says:

    That is probably the main reason that we get a pool pass for the community pool. They have never used the “kiddie Pool” for its real purpose. Ever.

  63. Hazel says:

    Oh noes!
    I have two boys (4 and 1.5). Luckily it is winter here in Australia and we live in an appartment, so sand in pool dramas won’t be happening. Gotta be SOME good points to living in an appartment.