so, ummm, phone calls

I just want to put it out there. If we don't get to the phone and it goes to voicemail, please don't think it's personal. It's not. We're just either busy with the kids, because they are small and need a lot of hands on time when it comes to bathing them, or putting them to bed and let's not forget diaper changes. Lord knows, that darn phone decides to ring every time I do a diaper change. It's like it's got a sensor which alerts it to the fact I am up to my elbows in poop and wiggly baby.

Case in point, last night's phone dilemma occurred with S. He was on solo duty as I was at my sewing class. When he's keeping the boys, well, our bath time and bedtime routine slightly goes out the window. Anyway, S has just finished giving baby G a bath and put him bed when chaos ensues. S discovers that W has gotten into a tube of toothpaste when the phone starts ringing. Obviously, S has to deal with our toothpaste bandit since W doesn't get the whole spitting it out and Scott has no idea how much W has ingested. (See below for the rest of the story regarding W and the toothpaste.) So obviously, the phone call right in the middle of this gets lost and we don't call that person back.

Today, we woke up to an e-mail from that person commenting on how we always seem to not to answer his calls, followed with a "don't you check your answering machine?" Since this is seems to happen to this one person in particular, I would like to explain to this person with all love and respect:

1. The reason this keeps happening is that you tend to call on Tuesday nights and Tuesday nights aren't a good night for phone calls. S gets bogged down with the boys and I'm not here.

2. The time you call ends up being around the time S or I (if I'm home by then) are putting the boys to bed. Usually we do put them to bed earlier so that time would be good, but with me being in class, S gets a little off track with the boys' schedule.

3. Yes, we do check our answering machine, but it's normally checked the next morning. I don't do it late in the evening, because by the point in the night, it's normally the first opportunity S & I have had to have alone time so we are trying to catch up on each other's day. Plus, we tend to believe that if it's an emergency then the person will call back or try our cell phones.

With all this said, I'm sorry. I hope we didn't hurt your feelings, because we love you and we do want your phone calls. I asking for a little patience and understanding. After all, you did have small children at one point so maybe you remember what it was like.

So, what happened with W and the toothpaste? I arrive home 15 or so minutes afterward to S completely panicked and reading horror stories of fluoride poisoning and telling me that we need to take W to the hospital. Thankfully, I think a little more rationally in crisis and have S call poison control instead while I go inspect the tube of toothpaste to see how much I think he has eaten. The good news is that it isn't much. We give milk as instructed by poison control and stay up with W to make sure he's okay. They call back and all is well so to bed he goes and we pretty much are exhausted and head to bed with the toothpaste put away up high where little hands can not reach it.