He's Lucky He's Cute

Rory will be 3 years old on March 3rd.  He's just a little guy - barely able to wear 24 month clothes and still wearing t-shirts that he got when he was an infant.  However, his personality is HUGE.  He is a feisty little guy and at times can be really difficult. 

My kids almost always behave in public and that leads people to believe that my kids behave the same way at home.  Any parent knows that isn't the case and unless my kids know you extremely well, they don't tend to show their true colors. 

The last few days have been especially trying when it comes to Rory.  He's still potty training and although he's doing a pretty good job, when he does have an accident, it's not really an accident.  For example, he peed in his carseat the other day.  I know he could have held it until we got home, but he peed and then laughed as he told me.  He kept saying "That's funny, Mama."  Other times he has stood right in front of me and peed.  Just like Regan in The Exorcist except he doesn't tell me I'm going to die up there and he's not possessed, at least I don't think he is...

We are also cutting out Rory's naps.  I know he still needs a little one everyday and I let him sleep, but I don't actually put him down for a real nap like I used to.  He would easily sleep for 3 hours and then be up for just as many hours that night.  So now I just let him crash wherever he lands and let him sleep for at most, an hour. 

And finally, once Rory turns 3, he no longer is getting his binky.  I won't let him have one during the day at all, but he does still have it at night.  That has probably been the biggest obstacle as of late.  Usually he would get upset about something, go find his binky and his "B" (his blanket) and settle himself down.  Now that he doesn't get binky, he just gets more pissed off. 

All of these things have resulted in a lot of crying, tantrums and screaming in our house.  Some coming from Rory and some coming from me.  Kamryn has been trying to keep Rory in check and I usually don't stop her because she speaks the truth.  It's kind of funny to listen to her say "Rory, if you don't stop crying, I won't let you play with any toys and mommy is going to put you in your room."  She says it in a really sweet, sing-songy voice and he listens to her.

After a few particular frustrating conversations about snacks and when they would be administered, Rory climbed up on my lap and fell asleep.  I love holding sleeping babies.  They are just so peaceful and it was a nice reminder that my Little Buddy is just that...my little buddy.

Sorry for the boob shot - just focus on the cute little boy.

Barbie Is Psycho!

Kamryn is rarely scared of things.  Sometimes she claims to be afraid of something only because she thinks she should be, but in reality, she isn't at all.  For example, if we are watching a movie and there is a monster, ghost, mummy, vampire, etc, she'll grab on to me, shutter and say in a trembling voice "I'm scaaaaaared!"  Then, the minute I look at her she starts laughing.  She asked me to put a nightlight in her room recently, but only because I put one in Rory's room.  I had to put something in front of it so it wasn't so bright.  There is no doubt that if I took it out of her room she wouldn't even notice.

She used to be my spider killer up until a few months ago.  Now, she won't kill them, she insists that I catch them and set them free (unless they are daddy long legs - those I can kill).  As a child, I was terrified of spiders and truth be told, I am not much more comfortable around them as an adult.  I had to catch and release a spider that looked exactly like this:

It was about the size of a quarter with it's legs.  The odd thing about this situation wasn't that I had to catch it and release it, it was only after Kamryn played with it that she wanted me to throw it outside.  She wasn't touching it, she was watching it and tapping on the window that it was crawling on.  She didn't call me to retrieve it until it crawled up on her stuffed animals and she couldn't reach it.  Eeeeeewwwwww!

Today while we were eating lunch, Kamryn told me she had the worst nightmare in her whole life.  I like hearing about her dreams - they are usually about her playing with her friends or talking to princesses.  The only other nightmare that she has ever told me about was around 3 months ago.  In her dream, she got out of school and I wasn't there to pick her up.  Obviously, a pretty scary situation for a 5 year old, but she did say that I showed up - I was just late.  And let it be noted that I have never been late to pick her up.

The nightmare she had last night totally trumps the previous dream. 
I was in my room playing and my Barbie head starting talking to me.  It said I could only have one Barbie so I ran out to find you and you were doing your things so I went back in my room.  When I got back in there, it started saying I could only play with one Barbie again.  I didn't like it!

I don't know about you, but that sounds absolutely horrifying.  It's a little Poltergeist-y and a little Woody in Toy Story telling Sid that he has to be nice to his toys.

As a precaution, I have put this...

Psycho Barbie Head

  out of sight. 

Dirty Turtles

Today I took the kids to the zoo.  We love the zoo.  Each time we go we take our time and only see the animals we feel like seeing that day.  We're zoo members so we don't feel the pressure to see every animal each time we go.  On our way there, I ask the kids what animals they wanted to see.  Rory wanted to see the zebras and the tigers.  Kamryn wanted to see the polar bears, turtles (really the tortoises), gorillas and flamingos.

This was supposed to be a video but I was giggling too hard to shoot a video.

 

What you can't see are the 3 tortoises in this enclosure.  There was one guy hanging out in the back and right below Kamryn were two other ones.

My friends Kelley and Ted have tortoises.  They have had them for years and they live in their backyard.  They live in Arizona - perfect tortoise weather.  Or so I have heard.  I really know nothing about tortoises other than what Kelley told me on our last visit to their house.  One thing that seems to stand out was that tortoises like to copulate...a lot.

So if you haven't figured it out, we were intruding on a couple of tortoises having relations.  Obviously, my 5 year old had no idea what was going on so it became a lot of fun for me.

Me:  Kamryn, what are those tortoises doing?
Kamryn:  Well, that one is riding the other like a horse!
Kamryn:  Listen to them!  I think he's trying to talk.  *lots of tortoise grunts*
Me:  What do you think he's trying to say?
Kamryn:  Probably, "Go faster, horsey!"
Rory:  Me no like those turtles.

Just at that moment, Mr. Tortoise had a successful dismount and was on his way.  There was a family approaching and I could tell they were somewhat in a hurry to see what was going on around us.  They kept looking at me, then looking at the enclosure and then back at me.  I know they wanted to know why I was laughing so hard, but they didn't seem the type of family that would appreciate my tortoise affair.

It's The Most Wonderful Sale Of The Year!

Kamryn doesn't know the real words to the song - only the ones featured on the car commercial.  She actually laughs at me when I tell her what the lyrics are.  Like it's absurd that an entire "time" would be wonderful or better than this sale that they sing about.  One more funny anecdote from the mouth of Kamryn...we were watching the news a few days ago and the forecast called for rain.  She yelled out "That's P.S.!"  Yes, she said "P" instead of "B".  I realize that I am 100% at fault for her failed attempt at swearing, but she has given me one more thing to giggle about.

And just so you know that Rory is equally crazy, we were at the post office yesterday and as I was placing stamps on my letters, he was getting into an altercation with the garbage can and yelling "Do you want a piece of me?!" and then punching it.  Much to the amusement of the huge line standing behind us.  Rory is a very small 2 year old...he's still comfortably wearing 18-24 month clothes so it's really funny to watch people's reactions to his aggressive behavior.  I do often wonder if some of those onlookers are judging me and my parenting, but I could really care less.  Rory's a pretty good kid - just a little hyper at times.

In addition to my super awesome parenting that I have been displaying all over San Diego, I have also completed Kamryn's teacher's gift.  She has her party today so I was hoping I would get it done in time.  I sent an email to all of the parents in Kamryn's class asking them to have their child complete the following 3 statements:

1.  Mrs. M is_______
2.  Mrs. M has taught me______
3.  Mrs. M is my favorite teacher because_____

I put all the responses into a word cloud.  I asked that the parents not edit or coach their children's responses so it would reflect the kids as well as their age.  It turned out so cute!  I really like it and I hope Mrs. Moffat does too!

I almost forgot to take a picture - which is the reason for it sitting in the wrapping paper.

If you would like to make your own word cloud, here is the website:  www.wordle.net  In addition to the word cloud, I also made that teal colored mat!  It's just fabric over another mat, but I needed some contrast between the mat and the picture.  I found the tutorial at Delightful Distractions.  It was really easy and turned out nearly perfect for my first attempt.

Modern Day Mix Tape

Now that my kids are getting to the age (Kamryn in particular) where I have actual memories of myself at that age, I think it's interesting to compare our likes, dislikes, toys, habits, etc.  In a lot of ways, Kamryn and Rory have pretty much the same things I did.  The biggest exception is of course, technology, but even with all the tablets, smart phones, video games and the like, we still mostly rely on the basics at our house.  Kamryn loves workbooks, coloring books, dressing up, and playing games like Candyland and Hungry Hungry Hippos. 

However, there are two major technological advances that my kids have benefited from.  The first, without question, is the DVR.  As most people know, young kids are creatures of habit.  There was a show on PBS when Kamryn was about 18 mos called Big Comfy Couch.  It was a dumb show, but there was one episode that she absolutely loved.  The comfy couch girl would smell some shoes and make an overly dramatic gesture while yelling "stinky feet!".  Kamryn would fall into huge fits of laughter.  It would have made it worth going through the torture of watching the show just to see her laugh like that for a few seconds.  Enter the DVR and I'm fast forwarding to that part, stopping and rewinding just to see that reaction again and again. 

Yeah, we had the VCR, which really wasn't all bad, just a bit cumbersome, not to mention all the rewinding.  My God!  The rewinding!  The biggest disadvantage to the VCR was relying on someone else to record a show for your or trying to set it up to record automatically.  No matter how many times I set the timer up myself with success, there was always a level of uncertainty until I was actually watching what I intended to record.  Did I have the tv on channel 3?  Was the VCR on channel 3 or the channel I needed to record?  Did I change the time to PM?  Was it on LP or SLP?  Did I hit the tv/video button?

I had asked my mom to record Young Guns for me in 8th grade.  It was a free HBO weekend and this was my only shot at getting it recorded.  It was a Sunday night and I started the recording, but it was ending at about 11:00 so I would be in bed when it was over.  The next day when I got home from school, I found my tape, threw it in the VCR and started watching my most favorite movie.  Then at 1 hour and 40 minutes in - right at the scene where Charlie solicits a hooker to "just hold him", the screen went blank.  I fast forwarded, rewound, fast forwarded again to nothing but static.  Later, when my mom came home, she told me she got tired and turned it off when she went to bed.  Like it was acceptable to not record the last 20 minutes of a movie.  It didn't really matter - I still watched it over and over.

Now that this is turning into the longest post ever, I haven't even gotten to the real purpose behind it.  The Almighty Mix Tape.  Remember recording songs off the radio?  You would sit at the ready, one finger on play one on record waiting for the damn DJ to shut his/her trap so you could get at least a little of the intro of your song recorded.  One of my not proudest moments was of me recording myself singing an Elvis song.  All I had was the record and I wanted it on a cassette.  That seemed like the most logical way to achieve my goal. 

I was telling Kamryn how lucky she was that she can listen to any song at any time she wants.  Since that has always been the case for her, she can't imagine a world where that didn't exist...and because she's 5.  In honor of my rendition of Any Way You Want Me by Elvis that I recorded almost 30 years ago, here is Rory and his version of the chorus of Adele's, Someone Like You.

I'm thinking of making an entire montage of Rory singing.  The other song he sings a lot is LMFAO's Party Rock.  He's also been known to throw out some Pitbull every once and awhile.  And as he likes to say, "That's awesome sauce!"

I Can Be Annoying Too

Sometimes I do stuff to my kids just because I can.  I know that both of my little blessings know how to push my buttons so sometimes I like to return the favor.  Kamryn will ask me if it's time to do something and I'll respond with "Not yet."  She will then excessively ask, "How 'bout now?"  with a sh*t-eating grin on her face until I tell her she's going to go to her room if she asks again.  Then she laughs and runs away.  Rory was in a knock-knock joke phase which seems to have passed, but he still likes to ask, "Me?" whenever I say anything.  For example, I'll say "I'm going to make lunch."  He'll say "Me?"  To which I'll assure him, "Yes, you are eating lunch too."  He knows he's going to eat - he has never been denied lunch, but yet, he will continue saying "Me?" anyway.  This annoys Kamryn as well and she always breaks before me, but since she is at school right now, I decided to annoy Rory on my own.  He didn't want his picture taken.

 I'm surprised at how steady my hand was - I was laughing pretty hard.  Now all Rory wants to do is watch the video of him crying about getting his picture taken.  FAIL!

Because I'm the Mom

I have a memory from my early childhood of watching home movies at my grandparent's house.  There was one movie of me getting a bath in the sink (I was probably about 6 months old).  I remember being completely horrified that my naked infant body was on film, for all to see.  My grandpa, seeing how upset I was, spliced that part of the film out of the reel, never to be seen again.  I was forever grateful for that, but also now know that there wasn't anything for me to be so upset about.  I'll guess that vast majority of people have some of those same pictures of themselves or their own children, just as I do of mine.

So, with my disclaimer in place, I give you, Rory.

 

We are kind of potty training.  I'm a firm believer in not forcing the potty training and waiting until they are completely ready so Rory is probably about 50% potty trained.  My little guy is what we call vertically challenged and can't reach the toilet when he is standing.  Yes, he used to sit on the toilet, but once he realized that boys stand up to pee, he had to do it.  I normally have a little step stool in the bathroom that he can stand on, but it got moved so this was Rory's solution.  He not only stands on the toilet, but he strikes poses - as seen in the photos above.  It's hilarious and taking these pictures of him are actually benefiting me.  Each time he sees them, he runs off to go pee. 

So in few years when Rory hopefully learns humility, I can at least tell him that I censored the photos and that without the pictures, he may still be wearing diapers.

This won't go down in history...

The last 24 hours have not been the best.  Yesterday, the children were doing their absolute best to break me by seeing how much they could whine before I completely lost it.  I know they were just messing with me because any child that whines nonstop for over an hour certainly can't be serious, right?  It started on our way home from Kamryn's orientation.  We walked the 1/2 mile to school and thus had to walk the 1/2 mile back home.  It was a little warm yesterday, but if you could have heard Kamryn, you would have thought we were forcing her to trek through the Sahara with only her own urine to drink.

Once we were home and Kamryn had some "cold water with ice" (Kamryn's favorite drink), she bounced back was excited about school the next day - even making her new teacher a picture.  She called her Mrs. Puff, which I found absolutely hilarious because 1) That is Spongebob's teacher's name and 2) I'm sure she is going to make that mistake in school.  Don't worry, I corrected her and told her that her teacher is Mrs. Moffat, but I wish I could see the look on her teacher's face when Kamryn calls her Mrs. Puff - it will happen.

The rest of the night was fairly uneventful, but I couldn't sleep.  I wasn't worried, anxious or scared about anything...I just couldn't sleep.  I finally fell asleep at 12:30 after watching Life As We Know It.  I have decided that Katherine Heigl is atrocious.  I liked her in Knocked Up, but I find her bitchy and boring and no, I have never watched "Greys", nor will I ever.

I lost my focus, which is understandable because my lovely little buddy, Rory, thought 4:45 is a perfect wake up time.  I fought with him until 6:00 before I finally gave up and let him stay up.  However, the commotion we were making woke up Kamryn.  Luckily, she was so excited to go to school, that she wasn't crabby.  The one positive is that we had more than enough time to get to school without having to rush.

After a couple of criticisms from Kamryn about what I was wearing to drop her off (today is my run day so I had on my work out gear and hadn't showered), we were in the car and off to school.  We had to park about 2 blocks away and walk, but that was expected so we were prepared.  However, once we were about to walk through the gates of school, I realized Kamryn didn't grab her snack from the car.  And when I brought that to her attention, she realized that she also forgot the picture for her teacher.  This was also after I had been snapping some pictures and was getting a 14 year old attitude from my 4 year old about taking the pictures.  She also wouldn't hold my hand.  These may be the last 1st day of school pictures for Kamryn ever!

Note the picture for her teacher in her hand on the way to the car.

Kamryn asked after this one: "Why are you taking my picture already?"

Kamryn was a bit put out by this picture, but it was necessary.

Not walking with me, not holding my hand, she actually didn't even want me to walk her to her classroom.

Taking just a peak inside before heading in for the day.

We booked it back to the car after dropping Kamryn off in her classroom, ran her snack and picture into her and then headed home.  Rory, naturally fell asleep on the way home, but Ryan is staying home from work with a back issues (another obstacle in our house) so he took him home and I got my run in without interruption.  That always perks me up, but I pushed myself a little harder than usual and now that my runners high has dissipated, I am exhausted.  No time to rest, though - it's time to go pick Kamryn up from school!

School Daze

Tomorrow is Kamryn's first day of "real" school.  I call it "real" school because I don't have to pay for it anymore.  We have been anticipating the first day of school for months.  Kamryn is technically old enough to go to kindergarten this year since the cutoff in CA right now is in December.  However, instead of sending a 17 year old off to college in 13 years (yes, this was ultimately the deciding factor), we are opting to enroll her in a pre-K program specifically designed for kids born between the dates of June 1 and December 1.  It's basically 1/2 day kindergarten.

The purpose of this post, however, is not to tell you how great this program is, but to share how amazingly unprepared I am for tomorrow despite our eagerness for this day to come.

Yesterday, we spent the entire day with friends at a splash park.  The weather was great, the kids were having a blast and I thought playing on our final days of summer was more important than gathering our school supplies.

Last night I got a recorded message from Kamryn's teacher, Mrs. Moffat.  This is the first communication we have had with her teacher and also how we found out who her teacher actually is.  I don't know how knowing this information any sooner would have benefited me or Kamryn, but it just seemed odd not knowing until 2 days before I was expected to leave my child with her.  Regardless, I absolutely love her name.  Kamryn heard the message and she thinks she sounds "nice".  I agree and then I thought how funny it would be to be a teacher and leave a message in a really gruff voice.  I guess it's good I didn't get into the College of Education when I applied.

I have also been a bit negligent in getting my 12 hour a night sleeper to accept the fact that she needs to get up early.  We did go out and buy a brand new Hello Kitty alarm clock but it's the old school kind that actually rings and guess who got the sh*t scared out of her when it went off the following morning?  I'm not surprised, I heard it go off, clear as a bell (pun intended) in the kitchen with Kamryn's door closed.  Kamryn proceeded to tell me that she didn't think she was going to turn the alarm on anymore.  Kamryn needs to be in line to go in the school at 7:55.  Right now, it's 9:08 and this is what she looks like:

Clothes on?  No
Hair brushed?  No
Teeth brushed?  No
Nevermind the fact that she was still sleeping soundly when we probably should be walking out the door for school.  Mrs. Moffat said we should plan on walking to school because the parking lot will be full.  WHAT?!  It's only about 1/2 mile away, but this would imply that I will have my ducks in a row and be able to wake my child, feed, dress, and brush her in a reasonable amount of time.  Not to mention Rory - I think Kamryn's classmates will get a good look at Rory's pajama wardrobe over the next few months.  This is where being a stay at home mom is going to bite me in the ass.  If I worked and had to take the kids to a daycare, getting my child to school on time wouldn't evoke such anxiety.

Tomorrow will come soon enough and I'm just hoping that I have enough time to take a couple of pictures of my little school girl because I have a super cool craft in mind!!

Didn't ask for a dime. Two dollars.

I got the crafting bug and I got it bad!  It all started with those Hershey Kiss Roses.  I am so damn proud of them that I keep upping my ante.  Consequently, I have been spending a lot of time on crafting websites.  First off, there are a lot of really talented and creative people out there.  I am not one of them, but I can steal an idea like nobody’s business.  I don’t really steal it, though.  I’ll give credit where credit is due.  Another reason I’m not actually stealing ideas is because I could never replicate the original so I have to improvise in accordance with my skill level.

Here is the latest in my creations:

There isn’t anything difficult about this.  If you have Excel and know how to copy and paste, you can do it.  And actually, the whole issue of crafting has nothing to do with this post other than finding printable money on Tip Junkie today and it giving me the idea to do it.

Yesterday Ryan and I were discussing buying Kamryn a new bike.  I don’t like to just go out and buy toys for the kids.  I think every kid should have a bike, but I feel that it’s too big of an item to go out and buy on a whim so I’m making Kamryn buy it herself with the above chart.

I printed out the money and made up some things that I would like Kamryn to work on.  Those are listed in the “Rewards” column.  The “Consequences” column contains all the things that annoy me on a daily basis. 

I sat her down and we reviewed both columns and how much she could earn or lose if she did them.  Before I was even half way through the Rewards column, I could see the gears starting to turn.  Kamryn, my darling daughter, has been a manipulator since she was about 18 months.  She would stand at the top of the stairs and yell “Me, hug!”  She used to call me, “Me” as in Mommy.  Anyway, that meant she wanted me to go back up to the top of the stairs and give her a hug so she could latch on to my neck like a spider monkey and I would inevitably carry her down the steps so she wouldn’t have to walk.  Of course I wasn’t going to deny my only child a hug and she knew that. 

Kamryn thought that cleaning her room was going to be “really hard”, that “being sassy was in her brain” and she “really was tired a lot”.  I told her that is why we were doing the chart so we could work on them together.  She more or less agreed to my plan and actually earned $2.00 by picking up her puzzle.  Within the hour, she not only lost her $2.00, but now owes me an additional $2.00 for excessive whining about the turkey burgers I made for dinner.

The challenge is on to see who will break first.  Will it be Kamryn who gets so far in the red that she doesn’t see the point of even trying to dig herself out?  Or will it be me who gets sick of trying to keep track of what she actually owes me?  The actual cost of the bike is about $70, but I was going to make her earn $100 to make it a little more challenging.  I thought if she worked for something for a month, it would give her enough appreciation.  However, at this rate, she'll be asking for a car instead of a bike.

Do Want to Step Outside Little Girl?

There is something that happens when you have children, at least for me.  You want to protect every little fiber of their being from absolutely everything and anything that could harm or hurt them.  I swore I would not be one of those helicopter moms that wouldn't let their child out of arm's reach and I think I have held true to that - at least since my kids have gotten older.  Kamryn does pretty well when it comes to other kids acting out or playing rough.  If she really doesn't like a situation, she just walks away and does something else.  However, if another kid hurts her feelings, she loses it.  And not just a little, but really loses it; hysterical crying with continuing sobs that last far longer than the actual incident.

Today we went to the park and Kamryn took one of her stuffed dogs that she named Snow White.  This little dog isn't particularly special and she doesn't really play with it all that much, but today, Snow White was going to the park.  Once we got there, Kamryn and Rory took turns throwing Snow White down the slide and off the side of the play structure.  All was good.  I was quietly watching How To Mod Podge videos on my phone because I am now a crazy-ass crafter.  About half way through the instruction of how to avoid bubbles on your Mod Podge projects, I hear a little girl, not my own, scream, "THAT'S NOT HIS NAME!"

I immediately hit pause and walked towards the ruckus.  Then I saw Kamryn standing next to the slide with a glare on her face that gave even me a slight chill.  A split second later that glare gave way to a quivering lower lip and tears welling up in her eyes.  Trying to maintain my mantra of "Thou shall not overbear", I stood and let her come to me.  By the time she got to me she was in full blown freak out mode.  I knew she hadn't been hurt, at least physically, because then Kamryn would have been the one screaming "WE DON'T HIT!"  She doesn't put up with that shit, but she was clearly very upset.

I asked her what happened and she wailed "That girl said my puppy isn't named Snow White!"  I know that it wasn't what the little girl said to Kamryn that got her so upset, it was how she said it.  I now understood what the previous yelling was all about and I was pissed.  First of all, the little girl's mom was sitting right next to the play structure.  She had to have heard her little demon seed yelling because I heard it and I was a good 50 feet further away and engrossed in Mod Podge videos!  But yet, she did nothing to find out why her daughter was yelling at the top of her lungs at another little girl.  Second, when Kamryn walked over to me in hysterics, she walked right past the mother of Tiny Terror and that still didn't get Mom to get off her ass and see what was up.

This is when I turn my bitch dial to 10.  All it would have taken is for the mother to ask if Kamryn was OK to which I would have replied, "Yes, she's fine." and given a nice smile for the consideration.  She didn't even look my way.  So now I have to be the bad one.  I told Kamryn that it didn't matter what that little girl said and that she was probably only 3 so she didn't know anything.  Kamryn was undeterred in her fit and screamed "She hurt my feelings!"  And my heart broke.  I knew her feelings were hurt before, but when she said it, I wanted to go over and punch that little girl in the face!  Not really - I mean, I would never actually punch a kid, but I'm trying to make a point.  I stooped one more level and said, loud enough to ensure I was in Oblivious Mommy's earshot, "I know she hurt your feelings, but she isn't your friend and she'll never be your friend because you only have nice, caring, cute friends."  Ugh...what is wrong with me????

What made this a little bit worse was that I thought I would get a little smile out of Kamryn when I said it.  Instead, she just sniffed and nodded her head in agreement.  FAIL!  I am really trying to work on this, but truth be known, I don't think I'll ever be able to sit idly by when I see one of my children so visibly upset.  This is where I wish Kamryn was more like me.  For those that know me well, you know I really don't care what other people think of me.  I don't aim to be disliked, but if you don't like me, c'est la vie.  I took Spanish in high school and I'm pretty sure c'est la vie means "F*ck You!"

Snow White

Who Needs Sleep?

Apparently not Rory.  We are on day 2 of “I need less sleep than anyone else in the family.”  I used to only be able to listen to other parents sigh warily when they talked about their children and their nighttime struggles.  This was a club I wanted nothing to do with and was happy to be excluded.  

Now, it seems, my darling little boy thinks I need to be more socially involved because he has unwillingly signed me up for the dreaded club.  For roughly the last 4 months Rory has been getting up in the middle of the night.  It was hit or miss for awhile, but now it’s gotten to be not only a nightly event, but also happening multiple times a night.  The most frustrating thing about these late night wake up calls is that Rory doesn’t need anything.  He’s 2 ½ years old so the late night feedings have been over for nearly 2 years.  In fact, all I have to do is walk him back to his room and put him back in bed.  I don’t talk to him, cuddle him or do anything special to get him back to sleep.  He does that on his own sometime after I leave.

Last night Rory’s first wake up was at 12:30am.  The second, 1:40am.  The third through about 100 was during the 3:00 hour.  I finally put up a gate so he couldn’t get out of his room, which he knocked down, waking up Kamryn.  Can you imagine my delight when I heard her yell “Mommy!”  Luckily, she loves to sleep and all it took was me telling her that Rory was being naughty and she went right back to bed.

Just when I thought all was well and Rory would sleep until 9:00am, I heard him yelling “Mommy, OUT!” at 5:45am.  I still had the gate up so I told him he needed to go back to bed and sleep for a little while.  Amazingly, he said, “Okay.” And went back to his bed and laid down.  I went back to bed too and 5 minutes later, I hear him crying.  I told him he couldn’t get out of bed, so he didn’t.  Instead, he just laid there and wailed. 

I always prided myself on my sleeping kids.  We were never interested in co-sleeping.  I have yet to hear of a successful co-sleeping story in which the child was transitioned into their own bed at a reasonable age without incident.  I did use the cry-it-out method with Kamryn, which some think is cruel.  And it sucked…for me.  I paced back and forth for 45 minutes while she screamed from her crib.  But, just like they said in all the literature, the next night was 20 min, and then 5 and then a peaceful sleeping baby.  And if you ask Kamryn how traumatized she is from that, she’ll ask you what “traumatized” means.  Rory somehow learned how to sleep through the night on his own and now, seems to have forgotten.

I’m not looking forward to sleep training a 2 year old, but rest assured, (pun intended) the boy will sleep.  One thing I do not waiver on is sleep.  My bed is not your bed and neither of our wake up times should be before 7:00am.

Or course I'm posting a picture of him in his sister's pink sweatshirt.  That's payback for waking me up

Things my kids have taught me

My true colors come out in this post a bit.  If you are offended by some creative language, you may want to pass on this one.

-Never buy day of the week underwear.  Oh sure it’s cute to see a little “Wednesday” printed all over your kid’s butt, but what isn’t cute is when it’s really Sunday.  And contrary to When Harry Met Sally, they do make Sunday.  Not only is it a glaring reality of the last time your child was bathed, but you also have to search for the correct day when they actually do change their drawers.  It’s a pain in the Wednesday, if you know what I mean.

- Most children will be able to say son-of-a-bitch, clear as a bell, by 2 years old.  No real explanation necessary.  Kids will repeat just about anything that you can throw out there.  I actually think it’s hilarious, but it’s only hilarious up until the point when your child really knows what they are saying.  So I say enjoy it for a few months, have them say stuff that makes you blush and then never say it again.  By some miracle, my daughter never swears.  I never told her not to, she just figured it out.  And for the record, I didn’t follow my own rule of never speaking the words again.  I guess she just has a little more couth than her mom.  On the flip side, I’m pretty sure Rory is saying “Oh Shit” a lot, but it’s not clear enough for me or anyone else to be sure.

- Cleaning is an unbelievable waste of time.  Subtext, there is no point to having anything nice for at least 10 years.  You may have trained your children to be really clean, but I didn’t.  My kids will be your kids’ friends and my kids will spill shit all over your couch. 

- Crayola Crayons are the best.  Rose Art can suck it.  If it looks like a Crayola, smells like a Crayola, but says Rose Art, then your mom got the shitty crayons. 

   

- Introduce new foods to your kids early and often.  I have a 4 year old that asks for and eats sushi!  This is awesome for a few reasons.  For one, I don’t have to fix extra dinners when we eat something that most would consider “not kid friendly”.  Two, there aren’t huge melt downs if there are no chicken nuggets.  Three, we aren’t limited to eating in chain restaurants all the time.  T.O.G. is great, but I have to cap the soup, salad and breadstick meal at 2 a year.

- If you want an honest answer to the question “Does my butt look big in these jeans?”  Don’t ask a friend or spouse, ask a kid.  They are undeniably honest.  Actually, you don’t even need to ask, they’ll just tell you. 

Not my butt.

- Conversely, answer all of your children’s questions honestly.  There is one real reason I say this.  If you take the time to thoroughly answer a child’s question, I almost 100% guarantee the number of follow ups will be much fewer, if any at all if you bore them before they can irritate you.

- You really can tell if your child is ugly.  There is an assumption that if you have an ugly baby, you won’t know it because you are too blinded by the overwhelming love you have for the little tot.  This just isn’t true.  Now, I haven’t experienced this because my kids are absolutely adorable, but I have heard other people acknowledge their ugly baby.

So there you have it.  I’m not offering up any parenting advice, suggesting you do or even acknowledge any of the above, ie if you are a parent of an ugly baby, I’m just saying it would be really cool if you did.

Schadenfreude

This is my favorite word. Pronounced, [ shaad'n fròydə ], it is defined as enjoyment obtained from the troubles of others. Believe it or not, this is the kindest definition I could find. There were a lot of other definitions that included words like malicious, smug and gloating, but I felt those to be a bit harsh.

I have a habit of laughing at something on impulse before I know exactly what is going on. For example, sometimes when people fall, it looks really funny. I’m not talking about a little humorous, but a really hilarious tumble. What I find funny is the actual fall. I’m not laughing at the pain that person may be in, the embarrassment they probably feel or the humiliation of trying to regain their composure. It’s just that complete out of control look of a person that gets to me. It may be why it always puts a smile on my face when I see Woody from the Toy Story movies run. His limbs are all crazy and seemingly uncontrollable, but his head and body are fairly stationary. It's unnatural and subsequently, I find it funny.

My schadenfreude sickness does not discriminate. Nor race, nor sex, nor age will save you from my laughter. Case in point, please enjoy the following:

That is my son. My flesh and blood. He face planted himself right into the sand and all you hear from me is laughter. Was I concerned that he was hurt? Sure, but I couldn't help myself. It just comes out of me! And for the record, Rory was fine. He didn't even cry. Having tough kids only encourages me to laugh first and ask questions later.

Another frequent victim of my inappropriateness is my husband. He's going to be mad about this, but he trips on occasion. The house we used to live in had a lot of steps and every once and awhile, I would hear a loud thump, some scrambling and then a continuation up the stairs. I usually didn't get to witness these stumbles, but the sound alone was enough to send me into some uncontrollable hysterics. I also laugh when he steps on the kids' toys. He is somewhat dramatic when it comes to hurting himself. A little too much Peter Griffin, if you know what I mean.

Now, I'm not saying I'm the most graceful, far from it. In fact, I have fallen, tripped and injured myself more times than I care to admit, but I try to laugh at myself or at the very least, blame someone else for tripping me. The fact of the matter is, I try to find humor as often as I can and unfortunately, it may come in the form of your misfortune. I guess you can take this as a warning and maybe you can also look at it as a preemptive apology because as hard as I have tried to contain my gut reactions, it just seems to be getting worse. Shows like Tosh.0 and my new favorite, An Idiot Abroad, only fuel the schadenfreude flame. I can at least say that I'm not profiting from it.

May = Milestones

Today is a pretty big day for our family. Both kids have achieved milestones in the past 24 hours that are evoking newfound freedoms. Kamryn has accomplished something that some adults never learn how to do. My baby girl has learned to swim. In 2 short weeks, she has gone from floaties to breast stroke. I couldn’t be more proud of her and I don’t think she could be more proud of herself. In celebration, our friends have offered to throw her a little pool party. The party has been the looming motivation that kept Kamryn working towards her swimming goal…that and the $4.00 Tangled lip gloss she was promised upon completion of the lessons.

Rory, on the other hand, has pulled off a feat in his own right. The boy has learned to open a door. Now, I know some of you may not think this is a big deal. It’s just a natural progression of increasing motor control, strength and I guess, height. I remember I couldn’t wait for Kamryn to figure out how to turn a doorknob. I even considered changing the knob on her bedroom door to the lever type to make it easier for her to open. This never crossed my mind with Rory. Rory likes to explore. One of his favorite things is to play with water. It doesn’t matter where this water is or, *cough* what color. The indoor waterpark was easily controlled by simply closing doors. Childproofing doors or even the toilet isn’t an option since Kamryn needs to be able to get in there to do her business.

The timing couldn’t be more perfect, but as I was feverishly typing away, the following ensued:

Ryan (Looking towards the hall): “What is on your head!?”

Me (thinking): Please be a hat, please be a hat, please be a hat…

I didn’t even know what child he was talking to, but slowly emerging from the hall, I saw my Little Buddy.

Me: Time for a tubby.

Rory: Yay!!!