Stain? What Stain?

  For MONTHS I have been trying everything to get two cat puke stains out of my carpet.  My carpet is very light beige, and the stains were red that faded to a lovely shade of hot pink after a dozen or so attempts to remove them.  Awesome.  I figured they were never coming out and I'd made plans to replace all of the carpet in my house.  Then I found a "miracle carpet stain remover" of pinterest.com today and figured I'd give it a shot. Why not? Right?

  After Greg and Noah were asleep I headed off to Kroger to stock up on my ammo of ammonia, a spray bottle, and Bud Light.  Okay, so Bud Light wasn't part of the stain remover, but I was hopeful that I'd have a reason to celebrate with a beer or two.

  Armed with a spray bottle, an iron, and a cloth diaper I attacked the enemy. 

  I won. 

Source: onegoodthingbyjillee.com via Heidi on Pinterest

Noah's Orange Bowl

No, this has nothing to do with the Mountaineers incredible, record-setting victory over Clemson in Miami.  Sorry to those who clicked the link thinking it may be... This is a story about what can happen when you combine a sick, sleep-deprived mommy with a toddler armed with an orange.  Especially when the Army steals Daddy for the weekend.

Noah usually sleeps until 10 or so every morning. (Yep! I'm one of those lucky SAHMs.)  So imagine my surprise when he was wide awake well before the sun came up this morning.  He had a virus the day before, so I guess he was rested enough to start his day 5-6hrs early.  I was not.  In fact, I now had the virus.  We went downstairs to the living room and he began to play.  I was exhausted before I even got to the bottom of the stars.

Halfway through the second episode of "Little Einsteins" Noah became very, very quiet.  Any parent of a toddler knows that this is never a good thing.  He was sitting in the dog bed under the end table, and he was eating an orange.  Yes, an orange.  Not peeled, parted, or even rinsed off.  In fact, I have no clue where he found it.  Awesome parenting, Heidi...  He'd bitten through the peel so I took it from him and took the rest off.  I figured no one else would want his slobbery orange, so he might as well enjoy it!  I had every intention of keeping a close eye on him while he ate the sticky, juicy, sticky, deliciousness.  But then it happened.  I blinked.  The next thing I knew, Noah was laughing.  I opened my eyes, quickly realizing that they'd been closed longer than I thought.  The lack of sleep and the virus had simply caught up with me. Ohhhh crap... 

I immediately jumped up to make sure Noah hadn't gotten into anything that might hurt him, although our living room is pretty well toddler-proofed, aside from the ooccasional citrus fruit rolling around.  He was fine.  As I thanked my lucky stars I began to survey the room.  It looked like the orange had exploded all over my white carpet, his toys, the ottoman, his blanket... I'm sure I'll keep finding orange for weeks to come. 

I learned a few lessons today.
1- When Daddy is away, double-check the Red Bull supply
2- When Daddy is away, avoid cold medicine
3- Keep plenty of cleaner for the carpet scrubber on hand
4- Never, EVER give a 10-month-old an orange and leave him unsupervised, even if it's just for a couple of minutes.

not for the faint of heart...

Seriously... this is not for the faint of heart.  Unless you are a parent or work in healthcare, you may want to think twice before reading on.

So Noah enjoyed his dinner of oatmeal, lasagna, and a piece of cheesebread this evening before fussing in his highchair.  He was sleepy and sticky so we figured a quick bath and pjs would be an easy task.  Boy, were we wrong!  On our way up the stairs I noticed that Noah's bottom was wet.  He had fed himself much of his meal so this wasn't a surprise.  Then I smelled it...  I knew it was another explosion.  Thanks for that, btw, Pampers.  When I started undressing him I noticed that there was poop all the way down his leg.  I figured it wasn't too much and we could just rinse the clothes under the faucet in the bathtub before tossing them in the wash.  This worked fairly well with the onesie, but when I shook his pants out, well, let's just say I knew there couldn't be much in his actual diaper.  This was NOT going to go down the bathtub drain.  So now what?  Just as I was resigned to the fact that I'd have to grab it out by hand, Greg (who scored HUGE bf points for this) ran and grabbed the wipes.  Wipes or not, it was a task I do not want to repeat.  Ever.  This bath was more challenging than any we've given my cat, Fermata, who is not only exceptionally terrified of the water but also has a double coat.  Bring it on, Kitty.  You can't do anything that would compare to tonight's experience.  As I grabbed the largest "clump" that had come from his jeans, I dropped half of it.  This exposed the true contents.  McDonald's french fries.  Noah won't be having those again until he has a few more teeth.  We finally got him cleaned up and into bed.  As we kissed him goodnight and turned out his lights I was overcome by one thought... "I love this life." <3

taking back my living room... kind of.

This may come as a shock to those who know me well but I can't WAIT to take down our Christmas tree tomorrow.  Why?  Because this thing has taken over our home in so many ways.  In an effort to keep Noah out of the tree we decided to move our couch away from the window and put the tree between them.  This way it was viewable from outside and Noah couldn't get to it.  Or so we thought.  Within 24 hours of it's grand entrance into our home, Noah learned to climb the couch.  Perhaps this was due to the fact that he had much less space to play and needed to expand his territory.  Or maybe it was because the beauty was far too much for him to resist.  Either way, there were several heart-stopping moments where I thought he might topple right over the back of the couch into the mass of lights and ornaments.  So tomorrow while Noah naps, his beloved "tee" will disappear.  Hopefully all the new toys in its place will help heal his heartbreak.  It will be so nice to have the space back in our living room.  Although that space will quick,ly be filled with things like a giant stuffed caterpiller, play table, pop-up tent, and numerous other treasures left by Santa.  Who am I kidding?  This isn't my living room.  This is Noah's playroom.  Maybe I should just sell the house, leave the damn tree, and move into a larger home.