Cody "John" Paul Last

Part of motherhood is coming to terms with...well, disillusionment. It's okay to say that, right? We're among friends. I mean, if you went by the cute commercials, magazine ads, and greeting cards, you'd think that all babies are born with perfect features and then they just sleep peacefully -- that is, when they're not smiling adorably or gurgling happily. Once they are toddlers, they just grin ceaselessly, willingly (and neatly) eat everything you prepare, and stay totally on schedule, sleeping through the night at just a few weeks and never, never interrupting a perfectly good nap with a blowout diaper. Once they can talk they are always interesting, respectful, and entertaining, but like to go play independently and leave you lots of time to plan the next great craft. In your well-tailored, completely food-free designer clothes with your tight abs and unlined eyes, which have gotten tons of sleep. In fact, after having kids, you have fewer lines than before. I mean, who wouldn't want to be a parent?

It turns out that most of this isn't true. Yet there are moments that really are kind of how you imagined them. Saturday morning, Cordelia was pretty sick. (All weekend actually; she had a 105 fever which finally broke on Sunday). We had planned to go on our annual pumpkin patch outing with Violet and Brenna, but Cora could barely move, poor birdie.

So J took care of the girls while Cody and I walked up there for a couple of hours. We had a blast -- ball pits, slides, bounce houses, the whole nine. 

 As we were wrapping up, we passed what looked like a hay maze. But with vehicles. The vehicles being...

Motorized toilets. 

You think I'm kidding? You should know me-of-no-tolerance-for-bathroom-humor better ("Bathroom talk stays in the bathroom!"). I tried valiantly to discourage Cody when he asked if he could do it, explaining that generally any activity which requires hand sanitizer before and after can't be advisable. That I didn't think this kind of porta-potty was really for us Lasts. But I didn't want to be a killjoy, and he really wanted to race... so off they went.

Violet was quite good: slow and steady. (Her coordination and fearlessness have always been kind of awesome to behold.) 

Cody's toilet was a little bit excitable. When you pushed even lightly on the lever, it would surge ahead. The kid has never done any sort of power steering before...not even go-carts...so this was new and hilarious. 

And then, slightly tragic. But more funny than tragic, really. 

So after CJP stormed the hay barricade and then toppled ass over teakettle off his toilet, I ran over and made him laugh about it (didn't want him to be embarrassed) by telling him we could ride the toilet TOGETHER. That I, Shannon Last, would mount the motorized toilet with my son, because I love him that much. There's no video, naturally, but if there were, you'd see Cody and I triumphantly (if hesitantly) driving a toilet around the final leg of the track, toward the industrial-size can of Lysol parked on the finish-line hay bale. 

It's just exactly how I always pictured motherhood.