Dear Connor - 28 Months

Dear Connor,
You are like a little boy explosion. I’ve got to tell you over the past month we’ve had some issues. All at once, we were stunned by your complete disregard for any rule or anything that we had to say. You were totally and completely out of control. And so was I. Turns out you have a sixth sense. It lets you know when Mommy is sleep deprived. You take advantage of this special power by getting into anything and everything that you aren’t supposed to, because you know that Mommy is probably too tired to deal. Because for a while, Mommy was. Nothing was working. Not spanking, not time out, not the naughty spot, not taking away toys, not having a talk with Mommy or Daddy. Nothing. I began to think that maybe for the next few years we were doomed to live in the wake of your tsunami like tantrums, trapped by the flood of your two year old emotions. But after reading a couple of different, How The Hell To Do This Parenting Thing books, I came to several conclusions.

One, I had to calm. down. Speak softly and carry a big stick. Two, when you have your talk with Mommy because you’ve done something wrong you have to make eye contact. You absolutely hate this. I hold you in my lap until you are ready to look at me, (we’ve had marathon sessions of this) and then we have a little chat. That’s all.

The problem is we have to stay very, very consistent. Because you are a both determined and smart, you are constantly testing the perimeters and letting you slide on an offense could cause our new manifest to come crashing down around us. It’s the same reason that people play the slots. Because once out of 20 times… you are going to hit the jackpot.So there isn’t much relaxing around here. Although there is nothing more that your Dad and I would like better than to just lay on the sofa and watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer re-runs while your brother coos in our arms and you quietly play with blocks at our feet. For the WHOLE ENTIRE EPISODE. But since that, nor anything close to that has ever happened… we just have to settle for watching in 5 minute increments, (Thank you DVR!) while we pull you off of the top shelf of the linen closet.
Because oh how you love to climb. I recently finished the mural in your room and the first time you saw it completely, you tried to climb up onto the rock that the wolf is standing on and kept saying, “Mommy? Want to climb up it. Want up.” I guess it says something for my skill at realism, but also that you truly would, climb a flat wall.

OhMyGod are you obsessed with the toilet. And putting things into it. And flushing them. Thing like plastic alphabet letters and Daddy’s toothbrush. Things like wads of toilet paper. You will poo and pee on the potty, but get so obsessed with the toilet paper that I have to take it off of the holder so you can’t reach it and move away items like magazines and the hairdryer. Everything must go into the toilet. I’m so glad that you don’t have access to the cat.
You are so sweet to your brother. You bring him toys and try to share your goldfish crackers with him. You offer your sippy cup and don’t understand why you aren’t praised for sharing your V8 juice with the baby. That’s right. You drink V8 juice. But only because Daddy told you it was coffee and since you see what a big deal coffee is in the mornings, you figure it MUST be all that. Even if it tastes like spaghetti sauce over ice.

You sing everything you say. We love it. It’s not intentional… but even if you say, Mommy is folding laundry; you say it in the cutest little sing song voice. It sounds like mo-MEEE is fo-DING Laun-DREEEE!

You are starting to drawn conclusions on your own. The other day you asked what a sound was and I told you it was a police car. You said, “Must be zoomin!” which totally cracked me up because actually it was driving very quickly… you could tell by the sound. Although you never saw the car. You’ve got such amazing listening skills. If we could just get you to hear us when we ask you to please stop jumping on the sofa.

Love,

Mom-MEEE!

The Hotdog of the Potato Chip World

When we had our parent teacher conference at Connor’s preschool, I asked how his behavior was at lunch. Did he try to grab food from someone else’s plate, (like he does at home)? She told us that sometimes he does if another child has fruit snacks or Pringles. We had no idea. I never bought fruit snacks for him, because they are neither fruit nor snack, but candy and because I’m completely paranoid about choking hazards and we seldom buy Pringles just because. So the next time that he had school we saw to it that his lunch contained both fruit snacks AND Pringles with the obligatory pimento cheese sandwich. His teacher said when he opened his lunch, his eyes lit up when he saw what awaited him. He ate all his lunch that day.Since then, we’ve had Pringles on hand. Today when I was enjoying a stack of them I started thinking about the texture. Pressed, molded chips how tasty. And then I had an epiphany. The Pringle is the hotdog of the potato chip world. Where do all of those little pieces of chips come from? I can answer that for you. Most likely from the rejects and broken chips. From the potatoes that don’t make the “cut”. Just like a hotdog. Extra parts. Ew. Tonight when I was eating a couple of Pringles with our Philly Cheese Steak wrapped in whole wheat flat bread I was thinking about this again and they just didn’t taste the same. As a result, I think I just don’t like Pringles anymore.If I could just have a similar epiphany with ice cream, my diet would be a whole lot easier.

A Little TLC at the DMV

How to enjoy the DMV.
Have your husband take both kids and put on your comfiest sweatpants and shoes and then grab the latest copy of O magazine. Drive to the DMV at a leisurely pace preparing to enjoy some quality child free time with yourself and your cup of coffee. Of course this will be the day that it only takes you 20 minutes to renew your license.

Cause I Like Rock and Stuff

We purchased a GE Adora Washer/Dryer when we bought the house. I like to call them my 4.2 cubic feet of heaven. You wouldn’t believe how much laundry you can cram into the washer at once, which for me that’s a good thing, because, well, if you’ve never heard me bitch about it before… I do A LOT of laundry. But the washing machine stopped draining. And my clothes were left sitting in a murky mess of water. It was happening every now and again, just often enough for me to start to panic and then calm back down again, but when I washed the last load of sheets the other day, I couldn’t get the water to drain. I didn’t want to call a repair man, mostly because I washed my screen cleaner shammie mouse in it and it exploded filling the washing machine and our clothes with thousands of little white plastic beads… (Because we don’t have enough other crazy stuff lying around on the floors). I knew that it wouldn’t be covered under warranty because there is no way that the repair man wouldn’t see any beads, since they seem to multiply like Gremlins when exposed to water. So I ran the rinse and spin cycle 5 different times and rewashed twice with hot water, hoping that something would free up. It didn’t. So… I Googled it. I read several reviews of people having the same problem and then found one guy that had called a repair man, only to have the repair man, open the front cover and dump the trap. Although when I pulled out the trap, it was so clogged that I had to put a trashcan under it to catch the gallon of water it released, it wasn’t clogged with the 5 million plastic beads I found inside. Instead it was clogged with three baby socks, two bolts, a washer and a drill bit and now, it works like a champ again. The guy that wrote the post mentioned that the trap cleaning isn’t listed in the owners manual, (it’s not) which means there could be thousands of people having this problem because GE didn’t add this to the manual. I hope those people find this post.

So if you have one of these washers and you want to save yourself a hundred bucks or so here’s how you do it.

Remove front panel > Unscrew the large white plastic core on the front to pull out the trap. Clean out trap > Go spend the $100.00 that you saved on not calling a repair man at the mall on Starbucks, Cinnabon and new shoes, (I skipped this step and it’s still working just fine, so it can be optional).
And those sheets that got rinse and spun and then washed two other times in an attempt to drain?
Man, those are some clean sheets.

 

Because We All Know Valentine's Day is Really About the Sugar

Dear Tristan - 5 Months

Dear Tristan,
We are all so in love with you. If I could save a memory to play over and over during times of despair it would be the little nose wrinkle thing that you do before you smile. It’s beautiful… and most amusing. I also might include a clip of the excitement you seem to feel when your feet are released from your footie pj’s and you grab them to bring to your mouth. “These THINGS! They are SO SOFT! They taste a little bit like BOOB!” Today I sat on the bed and folded two loads of laundry as I watched Ice Age II as you lay next to me wriggling with delight, playing with your new toys. I will be sad when you are like, “These old things? No, let me destroy the living room instead”. That day is coming.

I say this because you are starting the motions of crawling. You push up with your elbows locked and look around the living room at your new perspective. Sometimes when you are in the bassinet, you pop up with your eyes and forehead showing over the rim like a little prairie dog all, “Why did you guys put me in here again? What’s going on out there?!”

You really want to be able to get from one place to another, but you can’t quite figure out how. You know instinctively that it involves moving your feet, so you teeter-totter on your little belly back and forth, kicking your feet and flapping. I’ve seen you put your feet under you and push a few times, but I don’t think you quite have the coordination to pull it off yet. Never fear child, its coming. Leave the fear to me.

You’ve also been delighting in your rice cereal in the evenings. At first when I would feed you, you would start flapping and wiggling so that I had to pin your arms to get a bite into your mouth. You’re getting better at eating it now, actually swallowing instead of pushing it around with your tongue, reveling in the feel of something that isn’t milk. Don’t worry, we got the entire 15 minutes of your first cereal feeding on film… it’s riveting. I have to take a minute here to tell you that your brother pretty much wants anything that you have… even if it’s rice cereal. He wants anything that I have too, so don’t take it personally. Yesterday after demanding a bite of your cereal over and over again, (although he knows that he doesn’t like it) I fed him a spoonful. His face turned beet red and he started gagging. Now, your brother will eat anything. Even salad. But apparently the taste of rice cereal is too much for him. In between gags he was trying to make out a sentence. That sentence was, “Mommy, maybe Connor sick?” I really tried not to laugh. Really.

You brother is still having some issues with your arrival. Sometimes he’s cute about it, “Mommy! Put Tristan down... hold Connor”. When I say, “No, I want to hold Tristan, Come sit with us.” he responds with, “Connor go get the bouncy seat” and brings over the bouncy seat insisting that I put you down. I don’t. I can’t, simply because it’s not fair to you. You are only 5 months old and I’m already trying to balance the fairness between siblings. One thing that I feel may be a lifelong trait in your brother is determination. He’s sometimes so relentless in his tantrum that I consider putting your down just to make it all stop. But I can’t. I fight for you. For my right to keep you in my lap as long as possible, because you are just growing so damn fast.
I fight for you.
I will always fight for you.
Love,
Mommy

Stage One

I’m on week 2 of the Oprah, (Bob Greene) Best Life Diet and so far it’s not that difficult. The first month, you drink water with every meal, take a vitamin supplement and don’t eat anything 2 hours before bedtime. You are also supposed to up your activity just a bit and eliminate pasta and alcohol. You weigh yourself at the beginning and then don’t weigh yourself again until the month is up. After that you move one to stage two, adding more eliminations and increasing exercise again. The premise is if you get the mind-set right the first month, the remaining stages shouldn’t be so difficult. We’ll see. I’m bound and determined to lose this dang baby weight. I feel awful. And because I don’t fit into any of my old clothes sweatpants have become my standard uniform. If you’ve seen me in the past five months, you’ll be nodding at that last line. That’s not to say when I lose the baby weight I’m back to stilettos and mini-skirts. Although that’s mostly because I haven’t worn either since my clubbing daze back in high school… but I might be tempted to pull out the overalls again.

 

Letting Go

Two Zen monks walked along a muddy, rain-drenched road. They came upon a lovely woman attempting to cross a large mud puddle. The elder monk stopped beside the woman, lifted her in his arms, and carried her across the puddle. He set her gently down on the dry ridge of the road as the younger monk discreetly admired her charms.
After bowing politely to the woman, the two monks continued down the muddy road. The younger monk was sullen and silent as they walked along. They traveled over the hills, down around the valleys, through a town, and under forest trees. At last, after many hours had passed, the younger monk scolded the elder. "You are aware that we monks do not touch women!" he said, "Why did you carry that girl?"
The elder monk slowly turned and smiled. He said, "My dear young brother, you have such heavy thoughts! I left the woman alongside the road hours ago. Why are you still carrying her?"

Dear "All Pediatric Offices"

Just a quick rant tonight. Why in the hell do they even bother taking your kids temp at the Dr’s office when they are going to use one of the digital underarm devices with a rubber sleeve on it?! It NEVER reads right. It always displays a normal temperature. Connor’s temperature was 103.7 at 11:00 and we gave him Motrin and went to the Dr. The nurse checked his temp, and declared it normal. I said, “There is NO WAY that thing is reading accurately. His temp was 103 when I left the house. So she replied, “Well you said you gave him Motrin so that probably brought it down.” I said, “FEEL HIM, he’s burning up.” “I dunno” she said and walked out of the room. So when we got home from the Dr, his temp was 104.8. So his temp went from 103.7 to normal and then back up to 104.8?!

All Pedia Doc’s read the temp this way. It’s ridiculous. If it doesn’t show a super high temp like that, what does it take to register a temperature? I mean… WTF?! I understand that they don’t want to do a rectal each time, so fine, don’t… but why even waste my time and energy holding a child who states, “All DONE!” and tries to climb down from my lap as soon as she touches him with it. THIS IS SO STUPID. You people went to MEDICAL SCHOOL!?!? God help us all.

 

Mother Knows Best

When my mother-in-law came to visit in August, during the tour of the house, she asked if we used the dining room each night. I told her that we’d been living in the house for three months and hadn’t used it yet, but would probably use it over the holidays. She gasped, “You mean this is just wasted space?!”. I told her that it wasn’t really wasted that we intended to use it we just hadn’t yet. It was just easier with the kid to eat in the kitchen where if spaghetti was thrown you didn’t have to wipe it off of an antique china cabinet. She was aghast and suggested that we remove all furniture and turn it into a painting studio for me. While the thought of having a space all my own made my toes tingle, I explained how that would be wasted space for sure since by the time the kids are in bed, I’m too tired to do much painting.
But in the way that a mother-in-law’s comments can, it began to chip away at my resolve. It kept popping into my head. I started seeing that it WAS wasted space. She was 100% right. So, on Monday while Connor was wrecking havoc at preschool, (that’s a whole other entry) we moved the china cabinet to the attic which involved packing up all of the china and Jorma and I carrying it upstairs, breaking down the dining room table and chairs, and moving down the sofa from Connor’s room.
We moved all of the toys and kids crap from the living room into the dining room and do you know… I absolutely LOVE it. Our living room is so unbelievable clean that it makes me happy just looking at it. I mean, spotless. And for our house… that’s quite a feat.

This means if you come over for dinner, you might have to eat in the living room, but at least it will feel like you are eating in a living room and not a daycare center.

Mommy Magic

To Connor after kissing the finger that he hurt running through the kitchen after being ejected from the pantry… yet again.

“You know, Mommy’s kiss always works. Sometimes it takes a little longer, but it always works. Broken arm, Mommy’s kiss might take about six weeks but it still will work. It’s true. We only go to the Dr. as a secondary precaution.”

How we roll

With two pack and plays, a grocery bag filled with snacks, a portable DVD player and two duffle bags full of clothes, diapers and anything else we could possibly need, we left for the beach on Tuesday. Both of the boys did surprisingly well in the car, which is nothing short of miraculous since it took us 7 hours to arrive at our destination. We missed our turn by about 50 miles and when we checked the map, “Oh Look! We are way over here!” we ended up taking a detour.

There isn’t any furniture in Pawpaw’s beach house yet, only a bed, a few chairs and a couple of air mattresses, which I thought was good since Connor wouldn’t be able to hurt himself on anything in the house, but he ended up breaking an electrical outlet with his head, cutting his ear in two places from spinning and falling into a table, and puncturing his knee on a magazine rack. I guess if that stuff wouldn’t have been around, he might have tripped on say, air and fallen down anyways.

We had a good time, took a tour of the area and visited the local aquarium, where Connor was allowed to run free, his light up shoes, acting as a tracking device in the dark and Tristan, was held up to see the fish, fascinated by the blue lights of the jellyfish tank. After Connor's temper tantrum in the gift shop, (an actual laying on the floor and screaming tantrum) over the 500 magnets that I wouldn’t allow him to pull off of the display we went back to the house for lunch and naps.

The nap never happened, although it was desperately needed, later resulting in the hyperactive spinning that caused the ear injury later that night. We learned Wednesday night that it was going to snow so we opted to leave Friday instead of Thursday due to icy roads. The boys missing their chance to play in the snow broke my heart, but when I remembered that Connor had outgrown last years mittens I figured it was just as well. We made it back safe and sound on Friday, with not a speck of snow left on the ground, but due to the magic of digital photography, email and the most awesome neighbors in the universe, we were able to see our new house covered with snow.