not for those with a weak stomach...

I haven't posted a blog in a few weeks. Any free-time that I've managed to have lately has been spent doing activities requiring little to no thought processing whatsoever. But, today something happened that is so completely blog worthy, I had to make time to post! First of all, let me preface this story with my reasoning for sharing such disgusting, somewhat embarrassing, tidbits from the lives of my children. Although it may sound cliche, my kids are absolutely the pride and joy of my life! I try to limit my conversations with other people about them because I'm sure they don't like talking about my kids as much as I do... but Felipe and I could talk about them non-stop, 24/7 if time aloud. They bring out all things in me to their fullest capacity... I laugh the loudest and hardest with them, I love the most unconditionally with them, and at times they bring out more frustration in me than anything else! I just know that one day, when Teo is older, we will tell him this story (hopefully in front of his pretty girlfriend) and we will all laugh histarically at the antics of his 2.5 year old self.
SO! Teo, unlike his mom and dad, is the definition of a "morning person". I seriously do not understand his chipper-ness at 7AM, but that does not stop him from trying to get me to join in with his excitement over the new day ahead. In all of my cleverness, last night I taught him how to work our portable DVD player and left it in his room, hoping that it would provide Felipe, Eva and I with a little bit more sleep this morning. By about 7:30 this morning, I could hear "Caillou" whining from his room, and I smiled through my sleepiness and thought to myself, "you are so smart!" By about 8AM Eva was ready to get up herself, and Felipe was the one to get up with her and he proceeded to check on Teo in his room. Well, just as we suspected, he was laid out on his floor, chin propped up in his hands watching his favorite cartoon, Caillou. But, what we didn't expect to find was gum wrappers galore all around him.

We keep our gum on the TOP shelf of our pantry. Which means that Teo climbed up the shelves to get it. Also, it was a brand new 3 pack of gum! We hadn't even opened the wrappers yet. That didn't stop him either. After further assessment of the "crime scene" we discovered that he ate 2 whole packs of gum!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What?!?!?!!?!?!?!?! After a few minutes of emotional bi-polar-ism (was I worried, was I mad, was I relieved it was only gum - you would not have known)~I was on the phone with poison control, who (apparently annoyed with me) responded by stating the obvious... "gum isn't poisonous". Within about 20 minutes we know that he's not his chipper self. He is completely laid out on the stairs complaining about his tummy. And I'm making a list, in my head, of all the things I could feed him to make him poop faster. I even made him eat some of Eva's baby food that was prunes. Which he didn't like at all, but I had to do something! So, we are getting ready for church and Teo is in the bathroom watching me brush my teeth when it happens. His tummy made a big rumble and he said "Mommy! Did you hear that?! Did you hear my tummy?!" Then, his face goes blank, there is about 8 seconds of silence (which is a long time for Teo to be silent), and then it happens! With a cry from Teo of "ut oh!", the white rug in my bathroom is suddenly brown with the disgusting substance pouring from the bottom of Teo's pant leg! Straight from the bathroom sink to the tub he went for a spray down. Thanks to Felipe who handled that part for me! We ended up being 30 minutes late for church, but were glad we went anyway, because the message was WONDERFUL! And since Teo didn't have anymore "accidents" while we were there, we thought we were in the clear. Apparently though, when you eat 15+ pieces of gum, it takes more than just one disgusting poop to clear the clog! He's had several more of the most disgusting poops I've seen in his entire 2.5 years this afternoon, and I'm just going to assume there will be more throughout the remainder of the day, and possibly into tomorrow.

So, take a lesson in toddler gum chewing from me... first of all - they don't really chew it, they only swallow. And they'll pop it like m&m's if you aren't paying attention.

My clever DVD idea backfired on me. I'm not as smart as I thought I was. Hopefully, this is the first and last gum story you'll ever hear from me!

The pics in this post were from some fun in the (much anticipated) beautiful Spring weather that we had this past week. :)