What Must He Think of Me?

My husband came home from work the other day, and saw this: What do you think was the first thing he said?  Did he comment that she must have been really tired?  Maybe ask as to how long she had been sleeping, or perhaps if she might be a bit under the weather since she was taking a late afternoon nap.

But, no.  No, those are not the first things that came to his mind.

The first thing out of his mouth was, “What did you do to her?”

Really?  REALLY? What does he think, that I added Ambien to her afternoon milk sippy so I could eat the Oreos by myself?  That I knocked her unconscious so I could take a bubble bath?

I told him he should probably check her pulse, and he laughed.  But I think he actually might have when I left the room.

Thanks for thinking the best of me, honey.  Love ya!

Running Out

We had to leave the house today.  It doesn’t happen that often because it’s always such an ordeal.  And as always there were baths to be taken, noses to be de-gunked, outfits to be chosen, spit-up to be removed and bird’s nest hair to be tamed.  And of course I had to get the children ready as well.

You see, Brutus had his one-year-old check up today and it has hit me that my “just had a baby” excuse for carrying around extra weight has been stretched about as far as I can stretch it.  So, I had to find an outfit that camouflaged the muffin top and mommy pooch and made it look as though I’d been running marathons since he was born in order to get in shape.  It was a vain attempt.

I finally decided to aim for bag-lady chic.

Now, I’m looking for a new excuse.  I never had this problem after my daughter was born.  No, not because I actually lost those last 15 pounds, but because I got pregnant again, and that is basically the quintessential defense for not losing weight.  Unfortunately I’m not ready to go that far again to excuse away the baby weight.

I guess instead of an excuse, I should look for a solution.

Oh, alright.  I’ll brainstorm for answers, just let me finish eating this last Twix from my daughter’s Halloween stash.

 

To My Daughter

You lie asleep.
Eyes closed with lacy lashes pressed to pale skin.
Blond curls matted in the sweat of sleep.
Lips parted, fingers curled, nose upturned.

You once snuck in under cover of dark,
But now slip into bed shamelessly,
Pulling blankets to your pillow.
Your pillow in my bed.
It's permanent home.

I should take you back.
But your feet pressed gently into my knee,
Your head inches from mine smelling of sweet sweat
Your dreamily breathed “I Love You”
Keep you in place.
On your pillow.

In our bed.

Happy Halloween

 

Mostly.

If The Twos are Terrible, What Are the Threes?

I thought I was headed for a much needed break as my daughter is rounding out the last few months of her "terrible twos."

And then, she took a turn for the worse. Time-out mean nothing. The little girl who would sob for two minutes then give hugs and kisses and apologies, is gone. She has been replaced by a defiant teenager-like nightmare who cares nothing if she has to stay on the kitchen rug for 15 minutes. She refuses to apologize, she refuses to discuss her behavior, and she has the most infuriating way of cocking her little head to the side as if to say that she is so completely bored with me. We've resorted to losing toy privileges which is working for now, knock on wood. But someone please tell me what happened!

Why wasn't I prepared for this by a cute title like "Terrible Twos." Why wasn't there a pamphlet at the pediatricians? Why doesn't the government send out postcards warning of this domestic security threat? Is it something parents don't want to talk about, can't talk about, because they are sure to quake in fear and start crying? It's like "The Age Who Must Not Be Named." Parents are afraid to mention if for fear that it might give it more power.

Well, the misinformation stops here! No longer will parents be caught of guard by this unnamed behemoth. I shall call it . . . I'm sorry. I can't. My trembling knees are causing my laptop to shake and I can't see the keyboard through the tears.

Is there any hope?

Great Expectations

I've been doing a bit of soul searching lately. It was bound to happen. You see my son turns one in a couple of days so it's the perfectly cliché time to think about the past year. . .

. . . And giving birth. I suppose I was one of those silly girls who dreamt about getting married and becoming a mother from the moment I first laid eyes on an unsuspecting dolly. I was taught that becoming a mother was one of the greatest things I could do with my life. I know to many that seems rather old fashioned or even a anti-feminist, but I believe with all my heart I am meant to be a mother.

I just didn't realize that a lot of motherhood wouldn't live up to my great expectations. You see, I figured I'd become a mother with a lot of contractions, a lot of pushing, and probably a few too many primitive screams, but none of that would matter because I would be staring into the beautiful blue eyes of my tiny baby. I never really expected to become a mother without feeling an ounce of physical pain (I know, don't hate me! Trust me, it's not as blissful as it seems.) You see, I had a C-Section. Little did we know, when I went into the hospital on a jittery, euphoric high after my water broke, that my daughter was surprisingly breech. I never thought for a moment that my excitement of becoming a mother would be so overshadowed by tears and fear as I was all too abruptly whisked into the OR.

And it's bothered me for a while that my great moment of becoming a mother became so lost in my fear and anxiety of having surgery. It's really bothered me. My husband would probably say that I just can't get over it.

Now, thinking back on my son's less than euphoric birth (I attempted a Vaginal Birth After Cesarean , but he just wasn't having it, so I had C-Section number 2), I realized that it's not their method of coming into the world that bothers me, it's the rather unimportant emphasis I put on my great moment of becoming a mother. I forgot to look past that singular hospital stay toward those events in their lives that would truly define me as a mother.

I hate to say it, but many women can give birth to babies without becoming a mother. A mother is something far more than a woman who is able to push a child into the world. A mother spends nights walking the floors with her baby, or days wiping applesauce from the walls, or entire weeks feeding her 2 year old as if she were a puppy. A mother is far more than that one moment I placed too much emphasis on.

I get now that my little girl dreams of dressing a baby in frilly clothes and pushing her around in a lace covered pram didn't quite capture the true spirit of motherhood. I didn't realize that being a mother might involve an endlessly messy house, grocery store tantrums, and far more hot dogs than I ever wanted to see.

But on the other hand, I never could have realized the overwhelming joy I could feel staring into the faces of two earthly angels.

So, moms, lets get past some of our unimportant expectations and enjoy what truly defines us. I know I need to, for me and for my kids.

Real Mom Qualifications

Yes, you become a mom when you have a baby. But I'm not so sure that automatically qualifies you as a real mom. I've known all to many who never really have much success past that point in raising well-adjusted children.

However, as I was standing in the Target parking lot starring at my 9 month old son, I came to realize that I was a real mom. Why? You ask. Because I didn't turn and run.

It all started innocently enough. BOTH kids slept during the hour ride to the store and once we finished up at Target, we were going to enjoy a beautiful, sunny day at the pool. Pulling into the store parking lot, my daughter made an interesting statement.

"Mom, it's all over his hands," she said.

"What is?" I asked.

"Dirty hands, dirty hands!" She shrieked.

Okay, so I wasn't going to get too much information out of the 2 year old, and then it hit me. No, not an idea or clue as to the mysterious dirty hands. But a smell. A smell that all moms know. The messy diaper.

Being a mathematical genius I put 2 and 2 together, and then screamed. I knew exactly what was all over his hands.

I dashed to his door and sure enough he and his car seat were covered in baby poop. I tried to wipe as much away as I could with the last few diaper wipes in the diaper bag (I never remember to refill it!) and ended up wrapping him in a pool towel and dashing into the store.

I cleaned him up, apologized to the lady giving me the stink-eye, and tossed out the towel. Wasteful? Sure, but I couldn't fathom carrying that thing around with me (Just don't tell my husband.) And then it was time to clean the car seat. I busied the kids with a box of tissues that they immediately began to dismantle and I started to clean. Why is it that certain baby items have more nooks and crannies than could possibly be needed? My high chair, something that by nature is going to get covered in food, has bits and bobbles, and holes, and hooks that all attract food. Yuck!

Apparently an infant carrier is no different. And did you know that a substance spilled into an infant seat easily meanders its way down through the strap slots and all over the base? That was not a pleasant surprise.

I panicked. I called my mom, who wasn't close enough to bring help. I called my husband who works 10 minutes away, but he was in a meeting. My sister (who works with my husband-- but that's a whole other story. Suffice it to say, my dad works there too.) was also in a meeting but said she could be there in an hour.

I moaned, I tried not to cry, I wiped at the poop with the one single solitary sanitizing wipe I found stashed somewhere, and realized that I was a real mom. It was just something that real moms have to do. My mom has done it, you've probably done it. Cleaning out poop is just part of the job. And in the end, the poop got cleaned up, we had a great day at the pool, and everyone now gets a great laugh at my expense, and moms get to breathe a sigh of relief that this time, it wasn't them.

Germaphobia

As a new parent, many of us are worried about germs. Having had two winter babies, I've spent my fair share of time cooped up indoors to avoid going out with a newborn. And we've all heard the progression of binky cleaning from first child to last--starting with heat sanitizing with the first tot, to a brief swipe on the jeans for baby three.

With my first baby, however, I quickly came to realize that kids are resilient. I mean REALLY resilient. You see, my daughter is a licker. Yep, a licker. She has a propensity for sticking her tongue on anything that seems interesting. I'm not sure what she first started licking. Toys, I'm sure. And probably her crib. Eventually I'd find her licking the dining room window or leaving drippy tongue marks on the hardwood in the living room. Of course, I worried at first about the cleanliness off it all. I knew for a fact how long it had been since my floors had been mopped, and I don't think I'd washed the windows since we'd moved in. I started trying to keep things clean enough for licking--but then we'd have to leave the house to run errands, or go on vacation, and there was no way I could wipe every surface within her reach.

To date, she's licked a laundry list of horrible scary, germy things. She's licked the soles of her father's shoes, she's licked bowling balls at the bowling alley, and she's gotten her tongue on the handrails of the Berlin subway. And yet, she doesn't get sick. She must have the immune system of the bionic man.

Now I'm left wondering which came first, the immune system, or the propensity for licking things. Was she born with a strong defense against germs, or has her (almost constant) closeness with the germier things in life boosted her immunity? I'm beginning to think its the later. My son isn't a licker like his sister, but like all babies everything ends up in his mouth and the germs never seem to bother him. I still try (try being the operative word) to keep the floors clean, and the carpets vacuumed, but I've given up worrying about keeping things antiseptic (assuming I ever actually did worry about that--I'm not exactly a neat freak.) Now when I take a quick nap instead of mopping the floors, I just tell myself its all in the name of strengthening my son's defenses against germs and I can sleep with a smile knowing that I go to great lengths for my kids.

Now, to end, I have to share my all time favorite licking story that is sure to send your stomach heaving. My daughter was about 2 and she'd been trained to keep her hand on the car while mommy was loading groceries. I was tossing bags into the trunk of the car at the grocery store and could see her adorable little pigtails bobbing up and down at the side of the car. I wondered exactly what she was doing and stood up to get a better view.

What did I see? I saw my daughter, mouth wide open, hands firmly planted on the vehicle, licking a two foot swath of slobber along the door panel. I screamed, I'm sure. This wasn't just a quick taste. It was a full on tongue wash for my car. I don't know how long it takes to lick that much of a car clean, but there's no doubt she'd been licking for a while. I ordered her to "stop licking the car," eliciting some strange looks from others, and returned to grocery loading. She seemed to oblige me, and I could see her squatting down looking at the tires. She liked tires, nothing new with that.

I finished with the groceries, slammed the trunk and moved for a closer view of her, when to my horror I saw that there was far more than looking going on. Oh no, there was licking! She had successfully licked all along the top of the black rubber tire. I'm not sure if I screamed this time, or just gagged down the bile building in the back of my throat. I'm sure I waited for her to get sick, for her brain to realize what she had just done, but she just smiled and said. "Look, tire."

Panic Room

Yesterday I took the most stressful test I think I've ever taken. Forget the ACT during high school, don't even think about the 4 hour final for my college capstone class. Those were nothing in comparison.

Yep, I took a pregnancy test.

I was that lady in the checkout lane holding the cranky 9 month old, consoling the screaming 2.5 year old who slammed her fingers in the glass case that holds the pregnancy tests, and trying to smile at the cashier who told me congratulations and casually mentioned that is was probably about time. And she wasn't joking. She was serious.

Right, because I'm completely in control of the two I have now.

But that's neither here nor there, because the test came back negative. Huge sigh of relief, right? Yes, of course. I'm not a baby person, I have a 9 month old, we're waiting longer in between this time, so of course I wanted it to be negative.

But part of me sighed for another reason. Some small, small, minuscule part of me wanted it to be positive. Really? REALLY? What about the PPD, the sleepless nights, the crying, the dirty diapers, my mind screamed. And yet, I was sure that if it had been positive, I would have been just as happy.

And then I sit here listening to my 9 month old cry in the middle of the night, and I'm trying to judge if this is an I'm-awake-and-you-better-get-here-ASAP cry, or more of a give-me-time-and-I'll-go-back-to-sleep cry. And I'm realizing that it was a good thing it was negative. Now is just not the time for us.

Kudos to those of you with kids close together. You're supermoms and I don't know how you do it.

PS. Don't you think by nine months old I should know what his cries mean? So much for mother's intuition.

Potty Training

I think I may need to change the tag line to this blog. I just might have to admit I don't know everything. I can tell you a million ways to soothe a baby, every method of sleep training since the dawn of time, the perfect schedule for introducing solids, and the ins and outs of extended carseat rearfacing--but I can't potty train. Actually I'm sure I'm capable, but I'm not so sure about the darling blondie sitting next to me. She's only 2.5 years old, so no big deal, but I don't even know where to start. I bought the big girl panties, the Elmo video, and the sticker chart. I talked it up for days. And then she tried on the training panties, drank gallons of water, and sat on the toilet every fifteen minutes.

Our training lasted about 2 hours during which times she peed through all 6 pairs of training panties. She seemed to religiously pee exactly 3.7 minutes after having attempted to pee on the toilet, and she didn't even seem to mind the wet panties. She laughed about it. Not promising.

I'm now looking for bulk distributors of training pants and perhaps an in-home potty training professional, so we can give it another go. We've still got two and a half years before kindergarten, so no rush.