THE LONG AND SHORT OF IT

"i need a drink," "i want to play video games," and "i need go poopy" were all i heard the last two days. (ya, that's a good attention-grabbing intro) you see, on sunday afternoon i got a call from my mother informing me that she, along with my two younger (teenage) brothers were coming down from seattle. its only a 14-15 hour drive, so why not, right? but before they make it to my house they are picking up my older brother's kids. some of you may recall my description of christmas break as this:



my brother's four children, between the ages of 2 and 8, were part of the reason for that description.

dont get me wrong, they are great kids and they are tons of fun to play with (dont worry, we didnt play pass with lil charlie this time). but holy crap im tired. the purpose of the trip was for my younger brother's audition into byu's music program (he is a trumpet player, and yes he is better than me...). so guess who got to take care of the kids while grandma was driving around town ===> ME!

i have baby-sat kids before, it has just been a while. a very long while. a "not since 9th grade" long while. and i was the sort of baby sitter that would just morph into a jungle gym until the kids were too tired to continue running amuck. i didnt mind then, and i really dont mind it now. im just getting old and out of shape, so continuously throwing children over my shoulder onto a pile of couch cushions for three and a half hours just isnt an option anymore.

so what did i do? guitar hero, half-life, world of warcraft, moydie's motorcycle, and pretending to take a nap while standing up. but that only works for so long. i did have to cook up some bbq chicken and hot dogs too. not to mention constantly filling cups with water and pink lemonade, which consequently opened a whole new can of worms: potty training!

let me paint the picture. i finally get the kids interested in a game on my computer (half-life) and adrian (4 years old) is playing while his sister rebecca (8 years old) watches when lil charlie (2 years old) walks in a says "uncle! uncle! i need go peepee! uncle!" to which i reply, "umm, ok." having never done this before, lil charlie describes the process to me. "you hold me! its a big seat! you hold me!" so that's exactly what i did. after washing his hands with soap (which he insisted was actually lotion) we went back to my computer and the other kids were still captivated by the dune buggy armed with a 5omm.

it is at this point that lil charlie notices my bag of pretzels. i give him a handful. not his size handful, my size handful. i figure this will keep him occupied for a while. after eating about three pretzels lil charlie announces "uncle! i need go poopy!" to which i reply "umm, ok." so i grab a paper towel and put the pretzels on it. as we walk to the bathroom lil charlie then says "dont worry! we wont leave you, pretzels!" the 'poopy procedure' and 'peepee procedure' were very similar until the very end. apparently lil charlie is learning the fine art of wiping. fantastic. but the hands of a two year old are only so precise. guess who gets to go in for round two ===> me! afterward he decided to use the 'big soap' instead of the 'lotion soap.'

in related news, this afternoon i am driving up to idaho falls for a family wedding. im hoping the ratio between adults and potty-training toddlers is higher.