Another Gray Hair

Dum Dum Dilemma

At a recent Bunco game I listened to a Mom talk about her only daughter. She spoke of her struggles with her daughter's drive-thru confusion. Because she got a lollipop every time she went through the bank, she assumed she would get one when she went through the pharmacy drive-thru and any other drive-thru window. This Mom, a funny and relatable woman, came up with a solution: she'd keep a stash of suckers in her glove box so whenever they went through the drive-thru her daughter wouldn't be plagued with disappointment. She started it a couple months ago and now is frustrated because she doesn't feel like she can stop. I smiled. I couldn't help myself. This is something I would never do, at least not now: 7 years into parenting and on child number 3.

I'm not sure if it's because I'm a hard ass or that I'm simply out of energy but disappointment is a lesson my kids learn at least once a day. I pride myself on it. I'm so pro-disappointment, in fact, that my kids don't get suckers at the bank unless the teller offers them. I refuse to ask for them and my van has tinted back windows so whether or not they get a Dum Dum after I complete a transaction is a crap shoot.

The whole conversation made me appreciate the benefit of hindsight and multiple children. Sure, we contribute to the population problem but we only have one guinea pig: the first child. The lessons we learn through trial and error with that child shape our entire parenting experience. I'm sure Truman would be delighted to learn that he taught me a most important lesson: Disappointment is a dish best served hot. And often.

Cagey

 

Today is a very sad day indeed. My husband is back from his business trip, my kids are healthy at the moment, and my baby girl is exploding with adorableness but I'm still in mourning. Last night, after the kids went to bed, I asked the huz to bring the "cage" into the living room. The cage is a six paneled gate that I've had since Truman became mobile. It's much larger than a Pack N Play so it holds lots of toys and the kids can move around in it but it keeps them contained safely so I can get a few things done. My living room has been cage-free for nearly three years now and I have enjoyed it a great deal. There's nothing quite like having a living room free of eye-sores. You see, our house is quite small. There's no playroom or den. As far as living space goes, we just have a living room and a kitchen. All told, the cage takes up about 8 square feet of precious living room space. Where once you could see our bare hardwood floor, now you see baby toys through the holes of a plastic fence. Rich.

I have no choice in the matter. Harper is on the move. I put her down in a seated position yesterday on the living room floor, went into the kitchen to wash my hands, and came back a minute or two later and she had rolled to the TV cabinet (about 5 feet away) where she sat chewing on the chord for the Wii remote. Not good. Now my living room looks like a poorly run home day care center and my daughter's time spent unattached to my hip will be in a homemade prison. I'm not ready for the upcoming phase of babydom. It just might do me in.

Freak Flags

 

We just hopped off the Disney World express on Saturday and are slowly getting adjusted to life in the non-magical world. Our trip was great. It was hotter than any week in October should ever be but we managed to enjoy ourselves in spite of it. On the Monday evening of our week long adventure, we partook in Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party, an overpriced spooky celebration at the Magic Kingdom. Thanks to a certain Disney connection, we were able to get discounted tickets and it turned out to be money well-spent because the kids had a great time.

Dressed in Star Wars garments from head to toe, we strolled through the park hitting all of the Trick or Treat spots to rake in the candy and tried to take advantage of the minimal crowd. My cousin, her husband, and their two kids (also Star Wars junkies) were along for the ride. We split -up along gender lines and the boys hit the thrill rides while the girls went in search of Princesses, candy, and some Fantasyland entertainment. We scored with a trip to the Princess and Tinkerbelle tents. If you've ever been to Disney World you know that the lines for these rides tend to get out of control. It's not uncommon to find little girls with defeated looking parents standing at the tail-end of an hour-and-a-half line just for a handshake and a photo-op with a princess. We waited for ten minutes for Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty and fifteen for Tinkerbelle and her Fairy Friends. Don't get me wrong, watching my little girl interact with Tinkerbelle was a thrill, especially at age four when the magic is about as real as it gets, but the real entertainment took place in line to meet Tink and her pals.

Harper, decked out in her Yoda hat, got some intense reactions from two dads in the crowd. They were great sports, waiting patiently so that their little girls could shake hands with a fairy. As soon as we got in line, one of the dads caught a glimpse of Harper and his eyes sparkled. He elbowed his buddy and whispered something to the effect of, "Look at that baby Yoda. Awesome!" They both giggled and gave me props for my sheer awesomeness for dressing my baby girl up as Yoda. Then the dialogue started. I'm going to print it here but you must read it to yourself in Yoda's voice. Otherwise it just doesn't work.

Here goes:

Dirty, my diaper is.

Drink out of a bottle, I do.

Ready for my diaper change, I am.

Judge me by my size, do you?

Wear a onesie, I do.

Enjoy baby food, I do.

In between each of these genius snippets of comedy were uncontrollable giggles. This little back and forth went on for the duration of our wait to see Tinkerbelle. After the first five minutes, the two of them got so lost in their own hilarity that they forgot about us altogether. I have a deep affinity for Star Wars nerds so I enjoyed watching the two dads revert back to adolescence. I'm so glad I was able to provide them with a few moments when they could fly their freak flags with reckless abandon.

Tamiflu-Induced Ramblings

Nothing like a little late night Tamiflu-induced insomnia to motivate a mama to get her blog on! That's me. I'm coated from head to toe in Lysol, I periodically wear a face mask (no, I'm not kidding), and I live in the upstairs portion of my house only, a plentiful space that I share with my nearly 7-month-old daughter. We're in voluntary confinement while the other three family members suffer in the lower regions of our house from H1N1. With all of the coughing, the fever, the vomiting, the constant refusal to take the medicine down there, it's not the happiest place on earth for my poor sick husband. I feel sorry for him having to miss work and spend his days convalescing while simultaneously caring for and attempting to entertain two sick children but our number one priority is keeping Harper (the baby) well and we will do anything in our power to do that, even if it means severing all ties with each other until this thing is over. Plus, I seem to recall multiple incidences in which I was sick and forced to entertain well children while I semi-convalesced. That's just the way it is for the stay-at-home-mom: when she gets sick there are no days off.

Moving on, my point, and I assure you I have one, is simple: Right now my life sucks. I'm forced to cover my house in chemicals that I usually avoid completely (yes, I'm one of those annoying mamas who uses green cleaners), I'm plagued with worry about my sweet baby girl catching this nasty bug, and I obsessively run to the bedsides of my two sleeping children downstairs to feel their head as if this will provide me some type of epiphany about their condition. I do this with my mask on in my nightgown, rockin' my glasses which fog up with every breath. I'm right out of a horror film. If these poor kids have the misfortune of waking up during one of these head-feeling incidents, they may never be the same again. Must. Gain. Control. Of my compulsive need to feel their foreheads. Besides, it tells me nothing. If I think they feel excessively hot, I make my husband take their temperature so that I can obsess about the number. I'm pretty sure Pink was thinking of me when she wrote these lyrics:

"This used to be a fun house. But now it's full of evil clowns"

Kinda sucks that I'm the evil clown.

 

Buffy the Overscheduled Stay-At-Home Mom

You know that stereotypical stay-at-home-mom, the one we all love to hate? Her name is Buffy and she's got her paws in the PTO, the Junior League, and every bake sale known to man. Her presence is felt at her children's school on a weekly basis and she's constantly driving someone somewhere. Yeah, that's me, except for the Junior League part. I get points for that, right?

Right now I'm in the bitten-off-more-than-I-can-chew phase of my rock star stay-at-home-mom stint. I'm in charge of food at my son's school's Fall Festival and 1^st grade parents just don't seem to want to volunteer, I've got assignments coming out of my ears, I've got a 6-month-old-baby, my minivan (could I be more of a cliché?) is in the shop, and the departure time for my long-awaited Disney World trip just happens to fall on the same date as my son's Fall Festival. I could list all of the other things I'm up to my knees in but I think I've played my martyr card enough today and, let's face it, nobody likes a martyr, especially the stay-at-home-mom variety. Right now I'm contemplating coping mechanisms. I'm torn between a 45 minute stint on the treadmill and some aggressive phone calls or a large glass of cabernet and a nap. Right now the latter is winning. Help!

Baby Food Part 1

F

I'm not a fan of feeding babies, my own or otherwise. Don't get me wrong, I treasure every second that I nurse my baby. She's my last and I know this time is fleeting so I gaze at her, enjoying the bonding and relishing every moment. But baby food? That is another story. My relationship with baby food is similar to my relationship with my gynecologist. It's a necessary evil. I don't like the smell of it, the consistency of it, or the sound the jar makes when you open it. And the actual feeding part, well that's just painful. She can't wait for the spoon to reach her mouth but, the second it does, she spits 80% of it right back out. When each microscopic, plastic-lined spoonful takes five tries to reach her belly, the process of finishing off a baby food jar is slow, messy, and frustrating. Not exactly my idea of a good time.

My older two kids react the way I am supposed to. They want to be notified when I feed the baby so that they can have a front row seat. They laugh when she spits out every bite and giggle uncontrollably when she tries to grab the spoon and feed herself. They each request a turn to spoon some in her mouth, wanting desperately to participate in this process. I let them, cringing when they miss her mouth and graze her cheek with the spoon or when they tilt it ever-so-slightly and a big chunk of vegetable medley plops on the baby's lap. They think this is hilarious. I smile through clinched teeth, doing my best to look like I am enjoying the madness. I know I'm supposed to but I simply don't. My husband enjoys it too. I'm convinced it's not real joy but his way of making up for the fact that he hasn't been able to participate in her feeding at all up until this point. He always jumps in when he sees me struggling and I'm OK with that. I try to feed her in the evenings when he's around.

I plan on making the baby food phase as short as possible. As soon as she gets a tooth or two, I'll start chopping up our meals into teeny, tiny pieces and giving her that so she can pick it up herself. I figure I've got three months tops of baby-food-o-rama to go. I can handle that, right? Until then, I'll feed her through clinched teeth, feigning enjoyment for the sake of my kids and the rest of the moms out there who can't wait to crack open that first jar of mashed peas.

The Times They Are A Changin’

When I was a kid I would wave good-bye to my mother after breakfast in the summer and run out the door. I'd ride my bike all over the place, return for lunch mid-day or call her from a friend's house to tell her I was eating lunch there, go exploring in the woods and return home in time for dinner. I rarely watched TV and I managed to keep myself occupied without a Wii or a DS. My, how times have changed.

I decided this weekend that I was going to require my children to play outside a couple hours a day, provided that the weather holds. I have work to do both in my home and writing deadlines so I must have some free time. It's either stick them in front of the TV for a few hours or force them to play outside. I choose the latter. Today was my first day testing this new requirement out. My kids have been outside for a total of 22 minutes and I have had to take disciplinary action 3 times with my son to keep him outside and once with my daughter. I've had to break up three fights and turn the hose on and off four times. I have gotten a staggering amount of work done. Staggering.

I decided, just minutes ago, to try another strategy out. I sent the two older kids and the dog out the door and I locked it. I locked them out. They are confined to a fenced-in suburban outdoor prison that contains such torturous devices as a swing set, a tree house, a waterslide, a sand and water table, and a never ending supply of flora and fauna to keep them occupied. Yep, just call me the warden. It seems to be working. For the first couple of minutes they both just stood right outside the door, turning the doorknob over and over in disbelief. Is it really locked?

Yes, yes it is.

I'm happy to report that, a mere 15 minutes later, they both knocked on the backdoor not to whine and ask me to come in but to show me a big bucket full of magnolia leaves they'd collected. I admired it from the other side of the door and encouraged them to collect as many as possible. I'm hoping that will keep them occupied for a long time. It's a really big tree.

Sweet Nothings

Every morning, as we're getting ready to go to school, camp, the pool, etc…, I get Harper dressed for the day and strap her in her carseat. I leave her there while I get myself ready to head out the door. This process usually takes between 10-20 minutes. Harper has no problem with this as she is the most laid-back child on earth. When I'm finally ready to begin the painstaking process of getting all four of us in the car and strapped in, I herd the older two kids out the door and into the car with strict instructions: Kids. Focus. No dillydallying. Just get in your seats and buckle your belts. Get in seat. Buckle belt. Simple, right? No. Just ask any parent. No matter what I say, one or both of them is still not buckled by the time I return to the car, Harper's seat slung over my arm and ready to be clicked into her chair.

Why? Why? Why? Why can't they just focus on one task for the 10 seconds it takes to get strapped in? Have I failed them in some way? Are they both suffering from ADD? Why?

This is usually the streaming audio in my head during times such as these when, despite the fact that I'm on time and really don't need to hurry, I feel the intense urge to rush. Rush. Rush. Rush. Sometimes I think this is the plague of the modern mother. No matter where we are or what we're doing, we're in a hurry. It's a tragedy that our kids are paying for. We might as well go ahead and prescribe the anti-anxiety medication for them now.

In the midst of all of this self-inflicted stress, I notice a small white index card placed across Harper's legs that says, in red marker, "I Love You." There's one just about every morning, carefully placed in Harper's car seat along with her stuffed monkey. Its Truman's little love note to his sister. I see this and I tell myself: Breathe. Savor this moment. It's life at its best. And I remember that while my kids may be painfully slow at buckling their seatbelts, they are also overflowing with sweetness and light, humor and joy. How did I get so lucky?

Viewing Window

Ugly Dawg, our beloved pop-up is billed as a camper that sleeps 7. This is not so. Four is about the max that she will hold comfortably. Toss in a dog and a baby and, well, you’ve got yourself a crowded house. But we’ll do just that as often as we can this summer and fall. Right now, the set up isn’t too bad. Harper (the baby) is so small that she sleeps in an under-the-bed storage container in our bed. It’s a King sized bed so we have no problem making room for her. The container she sleeps in is cloth. I bought it a couple years ago to store the kids’ artwork and craft projects in. We throw a blanket in there and she has no problem sleeping in it. It has a convenient viewing window on the side so that I can gaze at her sweet face while I drift off to sleep. I love it. I begged the Huz to let me use it at home, in our bed, but he’s not having it. He thinks the crib is a more appropriate place for the baby to sleep in. What’s wrong with him?

I want nothing more than to drift off to sleep each night, gazing at her sweet face. She’s my last baby. Every first with her is bittersweet because it is also a last. Her first smile was my last first smile and it filled up my bliss tank enough to keep me humming show tunes for days. Every time she nestles up against my chest and drifts off to sleep, I close my eyes and try to glue the sensation to my memory. I want to remember the way she smells, the sounds she makes, the warmth of her against me, the way it calms me to have her there, where she should be, warm in my arms.

So, you can be darn sure we’ll be camping a lot this season. If that’s what it takes to sleep next to my sweet Harper in her under-the-bed storage container, that’s what I’ll do.

 

**It should be noted, for the alarmist readers among you, that there is NO LID on the storage container.**

Almost Perfect

My oldest daughter is beautiful. I know I'm biased but she's not just beautiful by her adoring mother's standards. She's beautiful by society's standards. She has tons of brown hair, giant brown eyes and a gorgeous round face. She's the reason Brown-Eyed Girl was written. When she was born I looked her over and admired the sheer perfection that was her tiny body with one exception. There was a large patch of dark hair on her lower back. Her doctor noticed it too at the 2-month check-up. He said something like, "Oh she's just beautiful," then turned her over and said, "And I see she has a little patch of hair on her back. Don't worry Mama. That will fall out. It's not uncommon in babies born a little early." I tried to hide my relief.

She turned four last week and the patch is still there. It's even expanded a bit to take up a sizable area on her little backside. I guess my princess has a touch of werewolf in her. As long as hair doesn't start showing up on her upper lip, I'm ok with that.

I brought my newest little girl to the doctor yesterday for her 2-month check-up. It was déjà vu. "She's perfect Mama. I see she has a little hair on her back but that will fall out. It's not uncommon." Yeah right. I can say, in all honesty, that my back is hair-free. Both girls have inherited this trait from their Father's side of the family. Thanks Hales! Much appreciated.

Which of my lucky children inherited my non-hairy back? My son. Figures.

**I was initially going to title this Blog, "A Hairy Pair" but thought better of it. It's pretty funny in retrospect.**