Elijah and the Bank

Usually I like to post about the cute moments in motherhood--the ones that melt your heart. The moments that make it all worth it. But motherhood isn't just a series of cute moments. There are hard moments, too. I don't like to dwell on the hard moments, but they're as real as the cute and fuzzy moments, and just as important. So today I'm going to write about a hard moment.

Elijah and the Bank

You know what went wrong with today? It's the last day of Spring Break. That's what went wrong with today. The rest of Spring Break went relatively smoothly. I know this, because I was telling that to my brother yesterday in a letter. So it must be true. I said that it was Thursday night and I thought it was pretty safe to assume that Spring Break had been a success. And then today happened.

The kids and I were playing at a friend's house. This particular friend often thinks, like most of us tend to from time to time, "Everyone ELSE has it all together, so what's wrong with me?" I always try to reassure her that everyone else does NOT have it all together, and that even if they did, it wouldn't matter. Having it all together is overrated. Anyways, this friend's son was having a bad day and there were several frustrating moments. I told her that I've been there, quite often, and that it just as easily could've been my son. She said she wasn't sure she could imagine my son having a bad day. I could tell she was serious, and I wished that I could give her a snapshot of a bad day with my sons. Perhaps I should not have wished that, though. Cause you know what happens with wishes? Yep. They can come true. Anyways, moving on.

The play date was over, and I was putting the kids in the van when I looked over at Elijah who was holding himself very suspiciously and crossing his legs ever so slightly. Elijah is 5 years old and has the potty thing down, but he's been having issues with telling us he has to go WAY too late. Like, when he has to go RIGHT NOW. Umm, son, that's a little late. So for the last few weeks we've been trying to help him recognize the early signs of needing to go potty. Like holding yourself and crossing your legs. "Elijah," I said, "Do you need to go potty?" His too-quick response: "No." I didn't believe him. "Are you SURE? Cause you look like you need to go potty." "No," he responded. "I just like holding myself." Uh huh.

We took off and headed to the bank. I only had one errand to run, and it was to deposit some money at the bank. Quick, easy, and the kids get suckers. How could it go wrong? The bank was, I kid you not, 2 minutes from our friend's house. We got there and the kids were excited to go in and terrorize the bank. Elijah and Teancom typically like to play tag, which makes the tellers and managers very happy, of course. Which is why I don't say much about it. I know they love it.

After I finished filling out the forms for a deposit I glanced at Elijah who was speeding past me. "ELIJAH!" I shouted in my Serious Mom voice. "GET YOUR SHOES ON. NOW!" Elijah responded to the voice very well and gathered his flip flops from the corners of the lobby where he'd stashed them. In that same Serious Mom voice I called him over to me, though I was sure to make it a little nicer sounding, since he had obeyed me very promptly and all. I then further explained to him what would happen if I saw his flip flops off again: I would throw them away. And I don't make idle threats. And he knows it.

I walked up to the teller and gave her my deposit with a half-exasperated, half-amused type of look. "It's Friday," I said. I don't know if she thought that was explanation enough, but I did. I had just given her my check when Elijah said, "Mom, I need to go potty!" Ugh!

Usually I have a little patience with my children. But not on the Last Day of Spring Break. I think I rolled my eyes and then said, "Elijah! We have talked about this over and over. I just asked you if you needed to go and you said no." He said something like, "But I need to go now!" Again, I was unmoved. "You'll have to wait until we're done. The bank doesn't have a potty. We'll have to go to a store and use their potty. But you'll have to wait." How do I know the bank doesn't have a potty? Yeah, we've done this before. More than once. Elijah whined a little and bounced up and down a little to show his displeasure at my response. But he was silent.

I turned back to the teller and took a deep breath. She was half-giggling at my situation, but I was not in an amused mood. I usually try to be, but I wasn't feeling it today. The teller was just getting the cash I'd asked for when I heard a noise that didn't sound quite right. I turned around and saw Elijah's feet making the noise. A "squeaky, squeaky, squeaky" as he scrunched his toes against his flip flops. Against flip flops that shouldn't be able to make a "squeaky, sqeaky" noise like that. Why were they doing that? Oh, they're wet. Wait. They're wet. "Did you just pee in your pants, Elijah?" I asked, full well knowing what the answer would be. He looked at me, bottom lip sticking out, and nodded his head. "Aargh!" I said and swung back around to the teller.

She counted out my money as I thought about how I wanted to beat my son. I have never beat my son, or either of my other two children. But right then, right there, it seemed to "make sense". It seemed the logical, right thing to do. I was no longer trying to take a deep breath and laugh about the situation. I was mad!

We walked out of the bank and I spanked his butt. Hard. I hardly ever spank my children, but the sudden peeing is NOT behavior that can continue. Elijah started crying really hard and I told him that we were going to go home and he was going to be in BIG trouble.

The entire drive home I listened to the music and just tried to tune out the world, especially Elijah crying. Right then, I did not want to think about the fact that I have 3 children. I thought about how it would go down, once we got home. It was 4:00 p.m. and Rob wouldn't be home until 5:30. I therefore took the only acceptable course of action: I called Rob and said, "Is there any way you can come home earlier?" He knows that when I ask, there's a reason. "Sure. I could leave right now," he said, like a good husband should. "What happened?" With obvious anger in my voice I said, "Elijah peed in the bank." "WHHAT?" Rob said. "Yeah. ... Yeah," I said, and my tone said, "I don't EVEN want to talk about it."

Rob saying he would come home relieved a lot of the tension. Suddenly, I could make it until 4:30. It might sound silly to call him home for such a little thing, but my sanity when I'm with my kids is not something trivial. Sure, I should be a braver, stronger person, and some days I AM a braver, stronger person. But not today.

We got home and I sent Elijah to his room, not to come out until Daddy got home. I made him strip his pants and underwear and left him crying in his room. I didn't even care if he put on new pants and underwear. I threw his nasty clothes in the washer and went about my life, pretending that I was calm. Thankfully it wasn't long until Rob actually arrived. I told him where Elijah was and noted that since he was quiet, he'd probably fallen asleep. I then yelled at Rob. "It SHOULDN'T be so HARD to NOT PEE IN YOUR PANTS!!!" and "Why can't he just GET IT?!" and then I sort of collapsed my head onto his chest as he hugged me. I thought about how Rob was sort of laughing about this, but I wasn't laughing! It's hard, though, to keep being SO upset when someone else is laughing about it. I instantly calmed and put all thoughts of abandoning my children to hungry wolves out of my head.

After a minute or two of calming, I opened the door to Elijah's room and sure enough, he was sleeping. Not just sleeping, though, sleeping naked from the waist down. So, of course, I had to take a picture.

There's aftermath to this story. Like the fact that he woke up in a pool of pee. And that he was still in the shower when his friend came over for the evening. But that's the After Story story.

So there you go. That's my Still Can't Find the Humor In It story.