I wish this post could even begin to do it justice...

So last night I had the great privilege of doing childcare for our church's Tuesday night prayer meeting. Childcare is always fun, but some nights are bump-your-head-I want-my-mom kind of nights and other nights are I-love-playing-with-legos-mom-who kind of nights.

Last night I got to hang with the three-year-olds which is about as much fun as it gets. Most of them have at least a basic system of verbal communication and in some cases, even the most basic of systems can be downright hilarious. I walked into the room and one of the little boys Caleb was in the middle of a three-year-old lego masterpiece. He had a couple of scratches on his face and I said, quite rhetorically, "Caleb, what happened to your face?" I fully expected him to just look at me and move on with his day like the two-year-olds that I watched last week would have. Instead he said, very matter of factly, "I don't know." I said, "You don't know?" And he responded, "Well, I don't remember." And then gave me a look that said, "Now get out of my face."

Since we're talking about Caleb, I'll stick with the rest of his stories for now. By the way, it's okay for me to post these stories about other people's kids right? I'll assume yes. If anyone runs across a description of your own child and you want their hilarious story removed, let me know. Okay, so as the night goes on, I see Caleb sitting on the floor with a very large wet spot on the front of his pants. I said, "Caleb, what happened buddy?" He said, "Oh, I peed my pants." And then I laughed. I went looking for a bag for him and he said, "I don't think my mom brought any extra pants." So, I told one of the children's ministers and she came back with a pair of underwear and shorts and said, "These will be too big, but it'll work for now." I went and grabbed Caleb and said, "Hey friend, let's go in the bathroom and change your clothes okay?" He immediately saw what was in my hand, got a panicked look on his face and this is how the conversation continued:

Caleb: "Those aren't my pants."
Me: "I know buddy but these pants are dry and yours aren't."
Caleb: "But those aren't my pants."
Me: "Yes, we've established that. But you're just going to wear them for a little bit until you go home."
Caleb: "But those aren't my pants."
Me: "Right, yes, okay..."

So we go in the restroom and I manage to get him to take off his pants and he starts putting the new ones on and says, "These aren't my pants." Again, yes, right, I know that. I said, "These are going to feel much better though. Just go ahead and wear them for a little bit." At which point he looks up at me and says very hesitantly, "I don't know about this." And then I laughed. So we leave and a little later he runs up to me and says, "These pants are falling off." And I laugh and tell him he only has to wear them a little longer. Later he comes up and says, "I have to go potty." So we go in the bathroom where the toilet seat has a little padded cushion that sits on the toilet seat to make the hole a little smaller so kids don't fall in. He promptly picks the cushion up and throws it across the bathroom, looks at me and says, "I don't need that. I'm a big boy." And then I laughed. After he goes potty we have this conversation:
Caleb: "These aren't my pants."
Me: "Yes, I know that. We've discussed this."
Caleb (basically to himself): "My mom is not going to like this."
And then I laughed and told him to go flush the toilet. He walks over to the handle which comes up to about eye level for him, swings his foot up in the air, and flushes the toilet with his foot. I was like, what? Where do kids learn this stuff? And then I laughed to the point of tears.

We also had Ella, a beautiful little girly girl with cute brown hair and long dark eyelashes. Toward the end of the evening I see her walking around the room with her legs spread as far apart as humanly possible. I started laughing and said, "Ella, why are you walking like that," thinking she must be pretending to be walking over something or through something...or something. At which point she looks up at me, with an incredibly distraught look and says, "I pooped my pants!" And then I laughed to the point of tears, took her hand and said, "Let's go to the bathroom." And she walked with me, spread-legged to the bathroom.

And probably the highlight of the night were Gracie and Dee, the three-year-old Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen (when they were precious and innocent) of our church. They are beautiful, little, blond-haired, blue-eyed balls of identical twin adorableness. At one point (prior to Ella's incident) I definitely smelled some three-year-old poo. So I'm walking kid to kid, checking diapers and coming up empty handed, er, empty diapered. All of a sudden Gracie and Dee turn around at the exact same time and say very cheerfully, "We pooped!" And...I laughed. I said, "Both of you?" And at the exact same time they said, "Yes!" Amazing. So, I pick up Dee and I'm changing her diaper and I said, "Oh man, girl..." To which she says, "I pooped a lot of poop. So did Grace!" I said, "Wow, you know how much Grace pooped?" She smiled very big and said, "Yep!"

And there it is my friends...a night with a bunch of three-year-olds and their poo. Best night of my life.