Just taking a break from blogging. Actually, I’ve been taking a break from everything. Childcare, dishes, cleaning, cooking, etc. (Thanks Mom!) Soon I’ll be back to my real life, and I’ll be sure to, once again, share every boring detail. See you in 2010!
Snow White and the newest member of our family, “Ava”
Who could get this excited about Barney?
Ghost pirates were a hit.
I have a problem. It’s very real, and I could possibly benefit from some sort of medication and/or therapy, but truth be told part of the problem is that I like having it. I’m confessing here and now that I cannot, repeat, CANNOT rest if something is missing. I must go to extreme measures to find the lost item or replace it as soon as humanly possible.
I’ve always been like this. One time in fourth grade Kristy(?) gave me a best friends forever ring, and tragically, I misplaced it. I could not move on. I looked and looked and looked and could not focus on anything else until it was found. I’m pretty sure my parents ended up joining in the search fearing that I was sustaining permanent psychological damage with my repetitive thought process. “Must find ring, must find ring, must find ring. . . .”
The problem had become somewhat manageable during my teens and early twenties. I was organized and occasionally misplaced a trinket here and there, but for the most part, I did not spend countless wasted hours searching for mundane, replaceable things. And then, I had children.
The first child wasn’t so bad. I was able to micromanage his playtime in a way that ensured no Little People would go missing and a Duplo blocks would not disappear. His books were alphabetized, which helped me immediately realize when and what was missing. However, his Pixar Cars obsession coincided with the birth of our second child, and wow, the timing could not have been worse.
He had a case for his beloved cars, and no matter what my level of sleep deprivation, or maybe because of it, I could not go to bed until all the cars were in their proper place. Eventually, as his collection grew, I could not keep up. I gave up on that specific collection and just in time. I gave birth to yet another child and now had absolutely no time to do anything other than feed my children. I’m pretty confident, once again, that nothing was permanently lost in that time period.
And now? Well, with three kids, multiple beloved collections of toys (Bitty Baby clothes and accessories, doll house people, Playmobil, Legos, kitchen accessories), I continue to obsess and search and dig and make ridiculous phone calls to rectify situations that don’t actually need rectified.
I WASTED an hour of my day today looking for Playmobil hair. That’s right. Hair. Tiny pieces of plastic that go on the heads of tiny plastic men. How asinine. How pathetic. Convinced it had been thrown away in one of my hasty reorganizations and gone forever, I contacted customer service, secured their last four pieces of hair, and immediately turned to Ebay to secure sixteen other pieces. Why? Because I have a problem and the best part of having a problem is the satisfaction in fixing it. Now, I must go. There’s an Ebay auction that’s calling my name.
(This condition is hereditary. My dad is even worse than I am. He once obsessed about an ink pen for an entire week, which he ended up replacing and later finding under a couch cushion. I should also note that if you do not suffer from this particular obsession, you will not and cannot understand it. Just ask my mom; she rolls her eyes anytime we lose something.)
We did not convince our children that last Saturday was Christmas so that Santa could come to our house instead of Grammy and Pop’s.
We were not up until 2am on “Christmas eve” assembling and wrapping even though I swore last year that we would have everything done early.
I did not use watercolors and a boot to make Santa’s footprint near the fireplace. I do not go out of my way to ensure the children really, really believe in Santa.
I did not send my husband out an hour early to our children’s school so that he could secure front row seats for the Christmas program. That’s over the top, even for me.
I did not bribe my children to sing loudly and smile at their program. I would never give them an early Christmas present to do something like that. Bribing is wrong.
I did not watch my husband shovel snow that was two feet deep for an hour knowing full well he was doing it so that I could get Starbucks. There is no way my addiction to lattes is that bad, and I would never subject my husband to that kind of back-breaking labor for a stupid cup of coffee.
On the way home from our coffee run, we did not get stuck in the ice. My husband and I did not argue in front of the kids, the police, or the Geico agent. We are always calm and collected in a crisis.
I did not let #3 wear his Christmas pajamas for 48 straight hours. That would be gross.
First things first. Yesterday was my husband’s birthday. In honor of his special day and because I neglected to purchase an adequate amount of gifts, I decided to give him a name on my blog. A present, of sorts. From this moment on, my husband and the father of my children will be known as Mr. Incredible. Am I serious? Absolutely. It fits him 99.9% of the time. Observe.
Mr. Incredible just took the kids for a walk and then came home and cleaned the garage.
Mr. Incredible spent the week in Miami while I was home with sick kids.
See, it works.
Now, onto bigger and better things something else. If this makes no sense to you, I apologize. We’re out of chocolate, and I think my blood sugar has reached a dangerous level. Proceed with caution. . . the rant of a crazy, slightly hormonal, hungry woman follows.
I was reading through a few blogs today and stumbled upon one that documented a lovely winter wedding. There were beautiful pictures of the bride in front of sparkly Christmas trees, towers of glasses that looked like they were frosted with snow, and cakes.
If you know me at all, you know my affinity for cake, specifically wedding cake. Seriously, I don’t think I’ll every get my fill of the stuff. So, naturally, I spent a little too much time starring at this newlywed couple’s cake, and before I knew it, I was mad, no seething. You see, while the wedding cake was lovely and traditional, the groom’s cake was fun and chocolatey, and it was just for the groom, or so the name implied.
Every feeling I had about the unfairness of the marriage/parenting partnership hit me at the moment I saw the groom’s chocolate-ridden baseball cake. (Is he five?) Of course he got his own cake. I mean, never mind that the bride probably planned every detail of the whole big day, he should get something special just for showing up. Let’s give him his own cake. This, people, is where it begins.
Sure, it could be argued that the wife gets the big cake, but let’s be realistic for a second. She’s not trying to please herself with that monstrosity of a pastry. She’s creating a center piece for the dessert table. A backdrop for photos. A treat for her guests. It really has nothing to do with her interests or culinary preferences. It’s all about the theme.
From this point on, everything the wife does, be it clean the house, do the laundry, birth the children, cook the meals, etc., will be selfless. She does not assume she is doing anyone a favor by throwing a load of laundry in. It needs done, and she does it. No thank you necessary. She carries a baby for nine agonizing months, endures hours of horrifying labor, but lo and behold, when the baby pops out, it was a team effort. Good job, Dad!
The baby is born. If the mother can even open her eyes, she catches a quick glimpse of that sweet newborn face before the baby is whisked away, dad following behind to witness the first moments while mom lays there getting her insides sewn back together. He poses for pictures, high fives the nurses, and announces the birth to the world. He passes out cigars and gets congratulated everywhere he goes while mom lays in a hospital bed doped up on Percocet trying to get a baby to latch on to breasts the size and density of a bowling ball. That’s her congratulations.
Oh, and it doesn’t end there. Wives/mothers, get ready to give up your entire identity. Name, career, credit score, you name it- gone. You signed that away the day you agreed to give him his own stupid cake. Forget the day he promised to share his entire life with you. He couldn’t even manage to share a cake. He must maintain his independence, and that cake was his first opportunity to prove it.
Maybe I’m exaggerating all this, but it feels real, and that’s all that matters to me at the moment. Perhaps I’m just really craving cake. That has been known to make me cranky in the past, but this time it’s more what that cake stands for. A continued independence, an extra pat on the back for something someone else did, and the ability to have whatever he wants. Eat your heart out, jerk.
I rarely get excited enough about a product or service to talk about it on here. However, a friend sent me a link yesterday that is an absolute necessity if you have children who believe in Santa. In a mere five minutes or so, you can create a personalized video email from Santa to your child.
The program requires you to fill out information about your child and his/her behavior, as well as upload a photo. My kids watched theirs this morning and were in a complete trance. Unfortunately, my daughter’s name was not recognized by Santa, so we had to use her middle name, but she seemed fine with it. (We occasionally call her by her middle name or a combination of the two, so it wasn’t too big of a deal.)
I hope you find this site as intriguing as we did! My husband personalized a video for me commending me for cutting down on internet usage and trying to be nicer to my MIL. The possibilities are endless! Enjoy!
I like to pat myself on the back sometimes. I’m a master potty trainer. #1 was potty trained at 22 months, and #2 mastered the task at 16 months. Even the pediatrician confirmed that 16 months was the youngest kid she had ever seen potty trained in all her years practicing. I was positively beaming when she mentioned that, by the way. After all, my children have plenty of other unresolved issues, but by golly, I succeeded at something.
Now before you start begging for my secrets, let this be said. It really had little to do with me. My children just sort of “got it.” Some kids read at an early age, go to sleep at normal hours, or have amazing social skills. Mine can crap in a bowl, and it’s fantastic.
The success also has something to do with my personality. I do not give up on things easily, I must prevail, and I am grossed out by dirty diapers by the time the kids are 18 months old. I have no tolerance for decipherable diaper contents. Once I can identify beans, raisins, or mandarin oranges, in a diaper, I’m done.
Enter #3. I thought I had gotten lucky once again. A few weeks ago, after hearing his brother and sister discussing how disgusting it is that babies poop in their pants, he came to me and asked to go potty. I took him to the bathroom, and he went. I cheered, I clapped, and I gave him chocolate chips, expecting it never to happen again, but it did, over and over again for days.
I counted my lucky stars, and stopped buying diapers in bulk. I marveled at his new-found ability and melted every time I saw him in “unnies.” All was going well until the day I removed him from the potty a little too soon. I thought he had to “peep,” but there was more, which unfortunately ended up on the bottom step as he ran to find me.
I heard screams from downstairs and had a pretty good idea what had happened. Sure enough, there on the bottom step was a good size loaf. #3 looked horrified. He stood there starring, as I nonchalantly scooped it up and began cleaning the area. And then it hit me. He had no idea, until that moment, what specifically was coming out of his body. He had come face to well, um, you know, with his production, and the site of his creation was more than he could take.
From that moment on, pooping on the potty turned into a daily battle. I stood strong. I spent hours running him to the potty, singing, dancing, bribing, doing whatever it took to keep him happy in the bathroom. He listened to music, watched movies, read books, but nothing helped. He was scarred, possibly for life.
Days passed. He began holding “it” as long as he could and got to the point where he was afraid a poop would slip out while he was peepin. I could take no more. The crying, the 300 trips a day to the potty only to listen to him cry, and dodging his punches became more than I was willing to endure. Plus, at a certain point, I actually felt bad for him.
So here we are. He has complete control over his bladder and bowels, continues to ask to use the restroom, screams when I put him on the potty, peeps/poops in his pull-up the minute he gets down, and then wants changed immediately because he doesn’t want to be dirty or wet. And where does this leave me? I am eating humble pie, scratching my head and trying to figure where to go from here. Maybe I’ll just give up on the potty training . . . perhaps he was destined to be an early reader.
I did not buy Zhu Zhu pets for my children, even though they have no idea what they are, because I got caught up in the craze.
I also did not bid on something on Ebay just to get a reaction from my husband. Looks like #2’s Christmas just got a little merrier, but I don’t know if I’ll be getting anything now.
I did not go to the Starbuck’s drive-through every morning last week.
I/we did not make more than 60 pretzel kisses and eat them in all in less than 24 hours.
I did not spend the entire week cooped up inside the house and most certainly did not indulge in a little retail therapy on Friday night to make up for my week lost in the house.
My husband and I did not get into a heated argument over wrapping presents. I did not insist that we use a specific “theme” of paper and did not criticize the way he folded the edges. We love preparing for Santa’s arrival together, and he is the most talented wrapper ever.
I did not tell my newly potty trained child to poop in his pull-up because I was tired of taking him to the bathroom. No way am I that lazy the third time around.
Speaking of pull-ups, my son never wears princess pull-ups or girl’s underwear. We make sure that everything he wears is manly.
I did not laugh so hard I nearly hyperventilated when my husband fell from the attic steps into the car with a large box in his hands. That would make me deranged.
I did not start laughing again just thinking about him falling.
I did not look down in the middle of church and realize that my sweater was on inside out. (No wonder the pockets looked weird, the cuffs wouldn’t turn the right direction and the collar was sticking up.) I take pride in my appearance and always make sure I look my best before walking out the door.
My kids never drink soda, especially before bed.
We go through an insane number of flushable wipes at our house. With three kids who have healthy, if not overactive, digestive systems, it is not uncommon to empty a box within a day or two.
We’ve tried every different brand. I always buy “Kandoo Sensitive,” but my husband likes to mix it up a little. He’s adventurous like that. Sometimes he buys store brand, sometime scented, and most recently, he sprung for Disney princess wipes. That’s right. Disney is officially everywhere!
Always looking for entertainment while sitting in the bathroom with #3, we have resorted to looking at the wipe box. Yesterday, he was sitting on the throne looking at the princesses. Pointing to the dark-haired maiden, he said, “Snow Wipe.”
Sorry, Snow White. When you endorsed a personal hygiene product, you should have seen that coming. At least it gave me a good laugh and pushed #1 right over the edge. After all, nothing is funnier than a little bathroom humor if you’re a five-year-old boy, or me, for that matter.
When I was a kid, Christmas was magical. Santa would come, and my sister and I would run into the family room and look at the pile of presents beneath the tree, and I would have one clear thought.
“I must open faster than she does.”
I would watch her out of the corner of my eye, and when I saw her grab the twelve inch rectangular shaped box, I would look for its twin among the other neatly wrapped gifts and tear into it and quickly announce, “Oooohhhhhh!!!! It’s a Gem doll!!! ”
I would see my sister’s shoulders slump, and she would tear the paper off her box a little more slowly because she knew that in her box was the exact same doll. The surprise was ruined for her, I suppose, since I insisted on blurting out the package’s contents before she was finished unwrapping. She still hates me for this.
Sometimes, actually frequently, we would receive the same item, but in different colors. I got the green scooter, she got the pink. I got the purple Hello Kitty notebook, she got the pink. I got the Cabbage Patch sleeping bag and she got the Care Bear one. So, occasionally, I guess she did have some opportunity to experience the wonderment when she had to guess what color her identical item would be.
All this being said, despite years of ruined moments for my sister, one fact remains. Christmas at my house was fair, for better or for worse. Maybe I should mention at this point that I also have a brother who is six years younger than I am. He never factored into the equation because my sister and I were so wrapped up in our own little world that we didn’t really pay attention to what he got, if anything.
Luckily, for my sister, as the years passed, our interests changed and so did our gifts. She gets artsy stuff and electronic things, and I am thrilled by pajamas and cookware. The Christmases spent unwrapping identical gifts are over, but I can tell you with certainty that even this Christmas, I will be the first one finished unwrapping the gifts.
She sure loved Care Bears, but don’t worry, so did I. We both got Sunshine Bear.
This Isn't Getting Any Easier 