Awww Sheet

If you asked me two months ago I'd have said Bear was potty trained.  But lately I'm not so sure - between repeated bouts of preschool plague, changing schools and having house guests for a week at Thanksgiving we are deep back into pull-ups territory.  (Can't wait to see how badly he regresses when the baby arrives in a couple of weeks.)

These days, "Mommy, it looks like I need to go potty" really means "Mommy, I just peed all over the couch. Again."

Coupled with his increasing tendency to soak through the nighttime pull-up, we've been doing a lot of extra laundry - the kind where you're wrestling with mattresses and wet blankets.

Perfect for a girl in the last weeks of a high risk pregnancy on partial bed rest, right?

So, yesterday morning Bear wanders into my room to wake me up with his typical "I think I'm kind of soaked" announcement.  (I'm actually grateful this happens so often he's calm about it now - he used to wake up screaming if he was wet.)

He moseyed into the bathroom to start the Woke Up Wet Shower Ritual, wherein he:

- solemnly informs me he got a little bit of pee on his neck
- resists all my attempts to clean the areas actually affected
- stands there pointing the shower directly at his neck for as long as I'll let him get away with it (left to his own devices, this would be until we run out of hot water or die of old age, whichever comes first)

I pop back and forth the few steps between his bathroom and bedroom, trying to always be in arm's reach while stripping his bed and doing a quick check for collateral damage (wet snuggle blankies and the like).

Then I noticed some dark spots on his top sheet. Which means at some point he must have had an undetected nighttime leak and it grew mildew. On the only sheets he'll accept. AWESOME.

I mentioned it to (thank goodness he happened to be working from home) husband and we decided to try the color safe bleach that's been in the back of the cleaning closet forever.  A little while later I walk by the washer and noted a giant suds monster attempting to escape.  Caught husband before I left for afternoon of appointments to ask how much detergent he put in.

He said the regular amount... before he noticed that the bottle of color safe bleach is actually labeled "bleach and detergent."  So, probably triple.   The washer finally choked on the suds, he convinced it to run an extra rinse and we were back in business.

And I know what you're thinking. "No mother of a potty training child is dumb enough to only have one set of sheets." You're right. I do have a set of nice, neutral organic cotton sheets I picked up on clearance just for spare. But that was way before I knew sheets were going to be one of Bear's things.

And the handy dandy spare set?  Don't match his main set. Gawd help the poor soul who thinks they can just swap out the wet one for a mismatched dry one. That's a mistake you only make once.

Cut to bedtime. Bear's lying on the floor mid-meltdown, sobbing pathetically.  His bed still isn't made because those indispensable waterproof mattress pads? Take forevah to dry. 

We decided to let him sleep with us.  I head over to arrange his pillow and blankies the "right" way... to discover the cat puked in my bed. He got both sheets, the blanket and soaked the (worth its weight in gold) waterproof mattress pad. Deep green faux pine needles were sprinkled throughout in silent testimony to the source of his gastrointestional distress.

The cherry on this shit sundae is the whole reason I haven't put the tree skirt out yet is to avoid this annual holiday scenario under the tree. But turns out? I'd rather wash the tree skirt.

So. At this point...

1) Bear's bedding is finally clean and dry, but bed's not made and he's in a full blown meltdown (i.e. if we try to change something in his room at that point I'd be picking his poor exploded brains off the ceiling)

2) Our bedding had just started the 2 hour sanitary wash cycle, and it was already past Bear's bedtime.  A mysterious issue with our washer shredded part of our other sheet set a while back.  And even if we did have those other sheets, we don't have a spare waterproof mattress pad.

Oh, and when that sheet got ruined a couple months ago? And I had to buy a new set? Bear was trau. ma. tized. I thought I was doing well to get the same kind of sheets so they would feel the same. Had no idea a different color would be an issue.  Yeah.  It took him nearly 3 months to get over it.  Last thing I wanted right then was to remind him of the old sheets. (And these are MY sheets. Not his.)

3) I thought briefly of the guest bed.  Thanks to my amazing husband the bedding was already washed from the holiday house guests. But it was piled in a wrinkled heap at the foot of the bed. Also? No mattress pad for that bed.

Husband and I looked at each other over the barren mattress and screaming child and shared a light bulb moment. 

An eternity ago - definitely pre-kids - we got one of those waterproof throw blankets. The kind that protect your couch or good comforter or whatever from, ya know... marital relations.  We figured it should work as a substitute mattress pad for one night. And, well, it couldn't be any more mortifying than that time he was really sick as a baby and we were reduced to using sex lube to get a rectal temp.

Husband goes off in search of said blanket while I working on calming the Bear.  He finally found it in a box... in a closet... in the basement... in the original packaging.  Because we are apparently much better at planning to have wild and crazy marital relations than at actually having them.

We threw the bed together, risking the partial old sheet set. (Yeah, he noticed, but thankfully was still to distracted by another imaginary transgression to do more than tell me they were wrong.)  We finally got him settled and by 10 all three of us had passed out from exhaustion.

I was awakened at 2 am by my amazingly calm husband's voice explaining to a fussing Bear that he had soaked through the bed.  I don't know how, but somewhere in there he managed to make Bear's bed, get him changed into a fresh pull-up and dry jammas and settled to sleep in his own room without ever waking him up.

For my part, I staggered out of bed long enough to strip the wet sheet and throw blanket and add them to the growing pile of bedding in line for the wash.  Defeated, we went back to bed on the bare mattress.

That was about 24 hours ago and we've worked our way through most of the laundry. If I hurry, I might get everything put back together in time for him to pee on it again tonight.