OK, so everybody can relax now, Poison Control tells me that compact fluorescent light bulbs do not contain toxic levels of mercury. And how might I have come into this information, you may well ask? Sit down, this is going to take a little while.

It’s July, in Oklahoma, and it is hot. The kind of hot I call “Killing Hot,” really too hot to take the kiddos to the playground very often. Unless we could manage to get out there by 8 am, but we can’t. Because this is me we’re talking about, here. The unrepentant night owl, the irascible morning grouch. So, the entire House has become a playground.

Last week Monkey’s bestest friend from school, Z., came over so his mama could go on a job interview. The kids needed perfectly clean, organized and clutter-free play-spaces, because half the fun of playing is making a mess. And we all know that the cleaner the room before, the more fun it is to mess it up!

But I digress. The day before Z. came over, I had my mother-in-law come over to watch the kids while I cleaned (mostly Pumpkin’s room, she’s destructo-girl!). Monkey is 5, Pumpkin is 3, I should be able to just go off into another part of the House and clean, without adult back-up, right? HA!!!! You don’t know my kids. I don’t dare leave these two unsupervised for longer than the time it takes to start a load of laundry or dishes. My daughter eats crayons, for Pete’s sake! And my son can field-strip every stick of furniture in the House (including the wall-mounted bookcases) in under ten minutes!

My request was simple: keep the kids in the living room while I pick up the bedrooms. Simple, yes. Easy, not by a long shot. My daughter is a world-class escape artist; she has defeated every single child-proofing product I have ever tried. She can even worm her way out of a snug five-point harness. She’s Houdini-toddler. So, yes it is disappointing that she managed to give Nana the slip, but it’s not surprising.

About 20 minutes into my cleaning, I walked out into the hall to see my pants-free toddler throwing her poopy diaper into my kitchen! It was like one of those slow-motion movie moments: I yelled, “Nooooooo!” while diving head-first, like some bizarro-world baseball player, for the noxious missile. I missed. It landed with a disheartening “splat!”, it was the sound of my failure as a parent. Please, somebody, anybody, tell me how to keep a diaper on a potty-training toddler.

After cleaning up that little unpleasantness, I had to sit down for a minute. Seemed like a good time to check my email, so I sat down with my laptop. And that’s as far as I got with that idea. I glanced over at my side table and saw the light bulb from my lamp, on the table.

We have had lamp troubles for years, 5 years to be exact. We used to have the cutest wooden-based lamps from IKEA. They lasted until my son started pulling himself up on the furniture. It never occurred to us that wooden lamps would be breakable, but he quickly showed us the error of our ways. Bye-bye cute table-top lamps!

What to do, what to do? Should we take the chance and get more table lamps? No way! We’re way too smart for that! Yeah right. So we did the most logical thing, we bought wall-mounted lamps. They are cute and simple and silvery. And no where near as child-resistant as I had hoped. My daredevil daughter just climbs the table or stands on the back of the couch to reach them. And she takes out the light bulbs. Every. Time.

With a roll of the eyes and a frustrated-mom huff, I dragged my tired self up to put that light bulb right back from whence it came. Until I touched a sharp edge. The tube was broken, it looked like a little slice had been removed. I knew exactly where to lay the blame–on my diaper-throwing daughter. Imagining glass shards embedded in tiny fingers, I checked and cleaned her hands. Then I looked for any stray bulb pieces on the table, couch, and carpet. Satisfied that bare hands or feet would be safe for the immediate future, I tried to pry some information out of Nana. She still swears that Pumpkin was with her the entire time.

I replaced the bulb and didn’t think a thing about it, until the next time she removed my light bulb. Then, on Sunday evening Nana called just to tell me about the scary-light-bulb story in the paper. I read the article when things finally settled down, the next day.

When a light bulb breaks, and this wasn’t the first one, I pick up the pieces and just put them in the trash. Silly me. According to the rather alarmist newspaper article, a broken CF light bulb is an environmental catastrophe second only to the Exxon Valdez. When that light bulb (often pronounced “light bub” here) broke, I should have evacuated the House, turned off the A/C, and called out the Hazmat squad.

Understandably concerned about the massive amount of mercury and who-knows-what-else Pumpkin may have come in contact with, I called the doctor’s office. The nurse suggested I call Poison Control, and maybe the EPA! Poison Control and I are old friends, I’m that mom who calls them when she gives the baby a tenth of a mil too much baby Tylenol. Then there was the time Monkey tasted diaper rash cream, they actually giggled about that one, where I could hear them. And once I called because Monkey found a stray carpet cleaning granule and put it in his mouth. The Poison Control Guy said, “Ma’am, that stuff is made of cellulose.” Yep, I called Poison Control because the baby ate paper.

Anyway, the long-suffering Poison Control man reassured me that the amount of mercury in a CF bulb is less than is found in a thermometer. He said that the minuscule amount of mercury is nowhere near enough to be toxic to her, “no matter what the internet says.” He was more concerned about cuts from the broken glass.

One lesson I took away from all this: if a toddler wants your light bulbs, she’s gonna get them. So to reduce the risk of injury, and to keep from having to replace ridiculously expensive CF bulbs all the time, I now remove the bulbs from the fixtures in the morning, before Pumpkin gets out of bed. So nobody needs to panic, everything’s under control.

I have always had a love/hate relationship with undergarments. Bras are fine, I tend to find ones I like and wear them until they fall apart. Underpants always have been, and ever shall remain, the bane of my existence. Don’t get me wrong, I always wear underpants, I wouldn’t dream of going around without them. It’s like they know that I can’t live without them, so they take advantage of my naked vulnerability so to speak, engaging me in a near constant wrestling match just to keep them in place.

You may find this difficult to believe, but there have been times when I have been reduced to tears out of sheer loathing for my underpants. OK, it was just that one time and I was pregnant. You do not know clothing hell until you have worn maternity underpants. Pregnancy is the one time in my life when I have even considered going commando because all maternity underpants were apparently designed by sadists.

There is even one brand of ladies’ underpants that claims to have a no-ride-up guarantee. Ride-up, how deceptively charming. I refer to the phenomenon as Black-Hole Butt. As long as I can remember, my behind has acted as a kind of gravity well, pulling in every garment that gets close. So I have perfected some techniques for dealing with the problem. There is the Rise-and-Tug, useful for getting out of chairs and cars. There is the Discreet-Turn-and-Tug, perfect for dealing with the problem while in enclosed public venues, like department stores and grocery stores. But recently I have stopped caring so much, if the issue doesn’t involve more than a little elastic-snapping, I just do it. Since having children I have come to the realization that other people rarely care about, or even notice, what is going on around them. And even if someone notices, I am not the first person, nor will I be the last, who has to make adjustments in public. Fear not, if the problem is serious enough, I excuse myself and head to the ladies’ room.

For the record, I have tried department store underpants, mass-retailer underpants, fancy schmancy lingerie store underpants, and not one of them are better than the others. It has gotten to the point where I am considering men’s underpants. I never hear of men having to go through these gyrations just to keep their undergarments in place. My most recent purchases have been the ones with the charmingly deceptive “guarantee.” Oh, and Major Underpants Manufacturer, they still ride up, you owe me nine dollars.

Today I had occasion to purchase underpants for my both my children, you know, to pass down the misery to a new generation. Don’t blame me, kids, I just bought them. My son, who is growing up faster than I like, decided that he no longer wants picture underpants. He wants underpants just like Daddy’s, so today I got him his first “tighty whities.” Those things are cuter than I thought possible; who knew miniature underpants were that adorable.

I also bought my 3-year old daughter her first big-girl underpants. Not that she gets to wear them right now or anything. I also got her a little tin lunch-box/purse thing for her “money box.” Monkey has a shoe box full of coins because he filled up his piggy bank and had to have a place for all the extra money. How does a five-year old get so much money, you might ask. Easy, extortion. He got into a bad habit of asking anyone who came to the door if they had any coins for him. It’s Nana’s fault. She started giving him the coins to put in that piggy bank, then Uncle D. got in on the act. Enablers, the lot of them. Luckily, he’s no longer asking plumbers and electricians to empty their pockets. But I digress.

Pumpkin decided she need a money box, too. One that would go up in her closet so Monkey couldn’t get it. Only one problem, she has no money, and she wants some. I have decided to turn this to my advantage and I told her that I will give her coins for peeing and pooping in the potty. That’s right, I am resorting to bribery. I hope that the lure of cold, hard cash will convince her to start using the potty. Heaven knows nothing else is working. So I am going to pay her. To use the potty. If I could outsource one parenting task this would be the one.

I hope that the big girl underpants will also be an incentive to use the potty, but I really think I’ll get more traction with the cash. But it’s like I’m paying her to stop using diapers and start wearing underpants. Come to think of it, if somebody paid me to wear underpants I might not mind that whole Black-Hole Butt problem.

Caution: The following post is about potty-training and the word “poop” will be mentioned. You have been warned.

I am in the belly of the beast, my friends. My 2-year old has entered the terrible phase that resides between a baby being blissfully unaware of what’s going on in her pants and a toddler being ready to begin the potty-training process. She has developed a keen interest in her bodily functions, including an unholy fascination with poop. While she likes to follow me into the bathroom and conduct her very scientific observations about the whole process, she is not really exhibiting a desire to conduct her own personal business in there. She is also, unfortunately, very hands-on about her observations. My 5-year old is fully trained so it’s not like I’m some kind of amateur at this potty-training business. He did his share of pooping on the floor and occasionally hosing the place down, but this kid makes him look like a piker.

She does NOT like the feel of poop in her pants so she takes them off, wherever she happens to be. Unfortunately she doesn’t always do so when on a hard-surface floor, in fact carpeting is her favorite place to leave her gruesome little deposits. By the way, I cannot recommend Resolve Triple Action(tm) spray highly enough, the stuff is amazing! Anyway, her favorite time to, ick, play with poop is right before we have to go someplace. Pick Hubby up from work, take Mama to school, pick brother up at his school-all perfect times to completely mess oneself with one’s own poo, according to the Pumpkin anyway. Last Tuesday, I had to give that child two baths! And the very next day, right before Nana was set to arrive so Mama could go to class, not only did I have to bath her again, I had to strip and clean the inside of her bed. I have heard that some monkeys smear the insides of their cages with their own feces; and I am here to tell you that some toddlers do the very same thing. What started as an attempt at a much-needed nap turned into a disgusting, smelly mess that Mama had to race the clock to clean before Night School.

Luckily I got most of the mess cleaned before class and left instructions for Hubby to finish laundering her bedding while I was gone. Five hours later when I got home, I finished inspecting, and cleaning, her room for random poop pieces. The good news-she has not played with poop since; the bad news-one, it’s only a matter of time and two, now I’m afraid to put her down for a nap.