Potty Humor

Last night we had a brand new parenting experience.  One would think that five years and two children in, we might have exhausted the opportunity for poop-based new experiences, but I assure you; No.

The family went for a chiropractic visit that was scheduled for the children's bedtime.  Not ideal, but necessary.  We arrived to a packed waiting room and many families there for family visits so the kid's area was filled with smalls.  And soon, filled with smells.  One of whom came to find us loudly announcing "Imaydapoop!"  Mr. and I looked at each other doing a non-verbal rock-paper-scissors, which he generously let me win.  At the same moment we realized the diaper bag was still on the counter at home.  (Insert fecal expletive.)

The Mr. went off with the odoriferous child to try to salvage the diaper currently in-use.  A LONG time passes and he arrives looking quite red in the face and barely holding back laughter  and/or tears.  I start to ask and he says "Not now.", still barely containing himself.    Little One loudly announces to the entire toy room "Imaydapoop and Daddy fush it day-own."  I sneak a look at my fuschia-faced husband.  He is shaking with silent laughter.  "He 'tuffed toyet paper in ma diaper."

So the back story goes something like this.  Mr., at 6'6", took the Little One to the closet size bathroom and opened the diaper to discover there was no redemption.    In the small space he managed to clean the child, but was left with a toddler who is not "housebroken" and one used diaper.  Using his best MacGyver skills he washed the (disposable) diaper.  It immediately became the size of  Macy's parade balloon.  Upon wringing it out, (many, many times), he reupholstered it with toilet paper and paper towels, strapped it back on and tried to reenter the waiting area with some discretion.  Not so for the toddler with a parade float on her rump.  Everyone heard about it.

You know that laughter you tried to contain in high school when you had in inside joke with a friend?  Throughout the visit I couldn't make eye contact with the Mr. without one of us bursting into red-faced hysteria.  I'm sure the staff thought we were self-medicating, but honestly, it was the best night of the week.  So for those of you who have said at the end of a long, stressful week, "I don't need anymore of this  (fecal expletive)!", you might be wrong.  Maybe it is exactly what you need.  An hour of giggling later, we all felt better. 

Well, except the swampy-pantsed Little One.  But she has a good story for her therapist someday.   Throw some change in the therapy jar!

Easy Peasy

I'm going to confess that I may have more or less, outright but unintentionally, lied to a few close friends. 

Over the last year or so couples with one child have asked "How different is it with two?"  and I had responded in what I thought was truth that it is not that different than one.  If you're making one sandwich, one more is no biggie.  Tying one pair of shoes?  Two is just  a few seconds more work.  1+1=2 , right?  Easy peasy. 

I failed to factor in a few things when answering this question. 

First, kids grow.  it's not that I didn't know this, but more a fact that when I was asked, one child was strong-willed and independent, and the other was still in her "fool you" stage of being calm and laid back.  This morning I had two independent, free-thinking, spirited children that needed to be dressed for a birthday party.    Where last year I could have dressed the youngest and tackled the oldest, this year it was a full contact sport for forty minutes to get two children into pull-over dresses and tights.  (And for those of you who saw me this morning, yeah, I lost the battle of tights in two stages; one before we arrived and one at the party.)

Second, kids sense fear and weakness.  Somewhat like wolves and other pack animals, they have a built-in sense of when you are about to go down for the count.  My children know that if I am barely dressed, with dripping hair and no mascara, I will give them anything to get five minutes of grooming time.  "Can I have cheerios with whipped cream?"  (Whatever.  Just let me dry this nest on my head.)  It is no mystery that my hair has gone from shoulder length, to chin length, to cropped, to about one inch of messy, tousled, spikes.  (It's a style…somewhere.) 

When the lead wolf has you backed into a corner of desperation, the second will circle around and make an announcement like the following "Maaaammmaaa….The dog is eating the cheese out of the fridge and the cat is licking your coffee cup."  "ARGH!"  The voice in my head screams.  "Why is it so (expletive) difficulty to get my (expletive) self out the door in the morning?!  What the (expletive) is wrong with me/ my life/ my kids that this is so hard?"  On the outside, I try to sound calm and in control when I say "Okay.  Let's go shut the door, put the dog outside, and stomach-pump the cat."  Some days go better than others.

Third, when both children are mobile and opinionated, it is much harder to get them both out the door in gear appropriate to function, occasion, season and some level of decorum.  This year I have taken one child to the car wearing only a diaper in the dead of winter.  Okay, we had a exceptionally mild winter and it was probably forty degrees out, but this is not the kind of parenting I had planned. 

I was going to be the mom who dropped her spotless and exceptionally bright children at daycare with shiny, glossy ponytail bouncing before running  ten miles and whipping up a fabulous nutritious breakfast to eat on the go and heading off to work in my relatively spotless car.  I did not plan to be the mom who dropped her kids off partially dressed, with rats-nest hair  and mismatched socks, personally sporting a still-wet, unstyled coif, (and whatever clothes were clean and didn't need ironing),  before returning to my goldfish-encrusted, sippy-cup splattered car and driving like a sweaty, panicky madwoman to work, hoping that my stomach won't growl too loudly before lunchtime because it was a decision between leaving for work fed or dressed and modesty won out.

Fourth, I failed to factor in how many times I would be orchestrating any departure without additional adult help.  Because of the work schedules in our house, weekend events are almost always  a single parent event.  This is neither good or bad, just tremendously more difficult than I expected.    When your youngest is two, and for some reason this was the turning point in our house, they know when you are outnumbered (try reading that last phrase in Vincent Price's voice).  It helped didn't it?    It's times like this when the "good parent" guilt voice kicks into high gear in my brain.  "A good mommy would be able to get two SMALL children out of the house without losing her  mind/temper/shpedoinkles."  I don't know how some parents do it without ever, ever screaming.    I am going to be totally candid that my kids have seen it more than once and I hope that I have made up for it with the remaining 99% of our time together, but holy bovine Batman, I am a reasonably smart, well-educated person and these two little people have had me over a barrel for the last two hours! 

Fifth, sometimes stages and developmental trends overlap.  Some days for all of their differences, they are just the same level of need at different heights.  I don't know if it's easier or harder to have two children close enough in age that one still has accidents and the other is wet frequently.  My children are like camels, taking up massive quantities of fluids during the day and then hitting the sheets like a tidal wave during the night.  The " no drinks after X-o'clock" theory has been massively disproved in this house.    Some mornings I feel like there is no end in sight.  And this if before I've completely woken up or had my coffee.

Finally, because children almost never come in perfectly matched sets, they arrive with their own temperaments.  So in my house I have one very sensitive and anxious, perfectionist, independent soul; and one curious, independent and limit-testing soul.  What this translates into in practice is that both children seem to need me almost constantly lately.  (How did this get written you might ask?  Um, have you noticed my last entry was in DECEMBER?  It's been a work in progress.)  When we go out, one has to be watched for the turning point when over-stimulation turns into crying, and one has to be watched for when inhibition turns into nudity.  Good times people, good times.

So to my friends who asked if two was all that different than one…I don't think I can answer you with a straight face anymore.  The two in my life have evolved into exponentially more than parenting just one.  I'm hoping for a little lull any day now though and so, all I can say is I'll keep you posted as time goes on, and if you see me in public looking disheveled and exhausted, you'll know that for that moment in time 1+1= 10.  (I never was all that good at math…)

Visions of Sugarplums

Christmas.  What a heck of a lot of pressure I put myself under every year.  It has to be "perfect".  The kind of perfect that Martha Stewart and Norman Rockwell would create if they had produced a holiday.  This is whole-heartedly my doing.  I do this to myself.  No one calls me on Thanksgiving night and says "Now get busy making every weekend memorable.  Pack your free time with cookie-making, decorating, kid crafts, and most of all, [drumroll]… MEMORIES YOUR CHILDREN WILL TREASURE FOREVER.

So, we have been on a crazy roller-coaster of Christmas joyfulness of my own making, resulting in this morning's cookie debacle.  Yes, I know that there are pre-made sugar cookies that I could have sliced or placed and baked.  Santa wouldn't know the difference.  Having been raised on black and white Hollywood visions of holiday perfection however, this simply wouldn't do.  Don we now our 50's style aprons, fa-la-la, la, la, la, LA, LA, LA.

Stand mixer at the ready, ingredients for a double batch of sugar cookies ready to roll, I have eggs, sugar and butter whizzing festively 'round the bowl when I say to my elf-y helper "Now we need two whole eggs…"  (Notice my wording…Do you see what's coming?)  With a groan heard at least two streets up, I watched as my four year old threw two WHOLE (i.e. in the shell) eggs into the bowl, right into the maw of the KitchenAid. 

CRACK, slop, crunchety-OH NO!

Round two went slightly more smoothly until Little One got into the mix, pinching up the dough every time I turned my back and gobbling sugar and raw eggs and butter in a ratio that fast out-paced  her body weight. 

This is where perfect came in and bit me.   The memories my children will have of this particular Christmas Eve morning, should they not repress them  fully, are of Mommy sobbing hysterically;  egg shells and butter on two cabinet doors; a few Santa cookies with bizarre two year old fingernail tracks across  the abdomen, looking something like a holiday attack by Wolverine, and finally, if I'm lucky, they'll remember that we did start a second batch and we did spend the morning baking together and we did sing Christmas carols before and after the crying jag.

Time always renders our memories more bright and shiny…right?

Merry Christmas my friends.  Happy Holidays.  Best wishes for a bright and healthy, happy and certainly imperfect New Year.

XO

License and Registration Please...

You know that old quote that goes something like "They make you pass a test to drive a car or adopt a dog, but any old idiot can have a baby..."? 

Well, Miss 4 is definitely the child who makes me think I should have had to prove I was up to the challenge before being allowed to take her home from the hospital.  Lately she is completely fascinated by a children's encyclopedia of the human body.  She refers to it as her "bone book".  She has been known to spend several detailed minutes drawing red blood cells and the oxygen they are absorbing in vivid, primary red and blue.  I don't know whether to be thrilled that she is inquisitive or worried that she's quirky...

Her interest has led her to all sorts of deep questions that require more intellect than I possess on any given day.  Most recently she wants to know where things go when they die.  What happens to their skin and eyeballs?  Having recently explained what the stones in cemeteries were all about, she is more than a little concerned at all of the faux headstones cropping up this last week of October in yards around our house and neighborhood.

This leads to this morning's adventure in parenting.  I found her with an early reader Bible, looking at the page of Jesus drawing the little children into his arms.  She was more than a little perturbed.  The following conversation took place.

Mama:  What's up Boo?
M4:  It's not fair that these kids got to meet Jesus and I wasn't there.
Mama: But this took place a really, really, really long time ago.  None of your family was alive.
M4: But I want to meet him too.  Is he still alive?
Mama:  Remember our conversation about spirits?...
M4:(interrupting) Jesus is dead?!?
Mama:  No! Wait!  Just...remember about spirits and heaven?
M4:  Well who has Jesus' skin and eyeballs and bones?
Mama:(breaking into a panicky sweat and way over my head)  Um...You don't need them in heaven, so his spirit...
M4:  If I'm bigger can I go looking for bones?  I only want to find one little one...Hey!  What happens to eyeballs?  How come you never find eyeballs in the ground?

This went on for several more minutes and never really resolved.  Finally, unsatisfied with my information Miss 4 went off to find something more interesting to focus on and left me feeling like I just am completely unprepared.  I mean, explaining death, spiritual beliefs, decomposition and burial practices is really just above and beyond me at the best of times. 

I remember years ago, in a previous job, fielding a phone call from a parent who was about to have a baby and wanted parenting support and a list of parenting classes.  In talking to her for a bit, she revealed that she had been watching Jeopardy and suddenly came to believe that she didn't personally know enough to teach her children all that they would need to know.  At the time, I didn't understand how daunting it is to be responsible for continually teaching a child and answering their questions. I hear you now Sister.  I get it.   Kaplan Test Prep has nothing out there for this kind of evaluation.

In the meantime, Miss 4 has learned that I often have to go to the computer and get the answer she needs; so yes, my child does occasionally say "Mama?  Can you Google it?"   It's a strange territory I have found myself in. 

I will love you...

A window into my reality…

I have bathed my two children and they are "jammied".  This is no mean feat in and of itself.  (During my recovery phase, one of my brave friends bathed my children, not once but twice.  She knows that washing Little One's  hair is something akin to water-boarding.)  I have brushed their hair and we are settling in with the last sippy cup of the evening. 

Miss 4 has settled behind me on the couch and is asking to brush my hair.  The following conversation/monologue takes place.

"Your hair is pretty. .. I like the gray part…  How come when you get old your hair turns gray?...I will love you even when you are as old as sixty-nine years old.  That's pretty old….  I'll probably be sixty-nine in about two hundred years. … I made a swirly curl in your hair.  I bet you wish it was like Auntie B….  Your hair is like the inside of my new boot.  It's all brown with shiny bits in it.  Like the stuff on the Christmas tree….What's that stuff?  You know,… tinfoil?....It's like that in my boot fur and on your head too…Your hair is having Christmas."

And that, my friends, is why I just can't take life that seriously.    Don't mind me, I'm just having a holiday on my head.

Free Therapy

Thank you for being my free therapy today. 

Admission:  I am at that stage of parenting where there are more challenges than not and more questions than answers.  In my house, we are on both ends of the toddler/preschool span; one turning two in a month and one almost five.  It all feels so terribly big and important; each decision is fraught with uncertainty.  I am stuck in a cycle of not being able to see the forest for the trees.

Parenting is not for the faint of heart.   I am humbled daily.  

I am lucky enough to be surrounded by a cadre of strong parents who are at every different stage of parenting.  I cannot recommend highly enough having a cocktail of parenting ingredients that looks something like the following:

·         A sprinkle of new parents to remind you why you got into this game in the first place and to give you a laugh over where you yourself have been.

·         A dash of parents in the same stage of parenting.  Misery loves company.  They are in the same foxhole and sometimes give you the one piece of advice you haven't yet tried.   And at the very least you can take turns driving each other home from asylum.

·         A handful of parents who are ahead of you.  These are your light at the end of the tunnel friends.  They can give you tried and true advice, tell you which parenting books to abandon and which are worth your precious little reading time, and remind you that it is a phase*.  They are also the friends who will bring their children over to play and entertain your children.  These friends are priceless.  Cultivate this friendship and tend it well.  (Something I am not always as diligent at as I need to be.)  Also, this is where the best  hand-me-downs come from.  The best stroller and the coolest winter jacket came from friends who have a child a year older than our oldest.  Her best party dress came from another friend blessed with two daughters.  Our oldest daughter looks on these bags of treasure as a year-long Christmas event.

·         At least one "airy-fairy" friend who can tell you that the child's behavior is caused by gravitational pull, tides, phase of the moon, barometric pressure, astrological sign, etc.  I'm not saying these things aren't all possible, rather that sometimes you desperately need to feel that the craziness stems from something that well and truly is out of your control.

·         A good dose of parents who have grown children to remind you that this is fleeting.    As aggravating and crazy-making as this stage may be, you will one day look back with nostalgia.  You will actually miss this day that can't end soon enough.  These parents also remind you that even children who resist toilet-training, turn up their nose at dinner, have tantrums and tease their siblings grow up to be productive members of society.   This friend helps to balance you out in moments of sheer desperation that it will ever turn out okay.

*Please note, nobody really knows what a phase is.  It sounds good and it is reassuring, but there is no time frame attached.  Nonetheless, the one thing about phases is that they do eventually end.  This part is true.  I swear.

Thank you to my friends who have been at my back with words of encouragement, liberal doses of humor and patience, and glasses of wine when they are needed. 

Some Friday Wine, er Whine...

When parents of one child ask me "Is it very different with two children?" my answer is usually that it isn't really.  You are usually doing the same things, just in larger volume.   One diaper or two, not really different.  Brushing two sets of teeth, making two sandwiches, bathing two…completely not a big difference.

What I have failed to factor into this discussion is grocery shopping. 

I'm not referring to the cost of grocery shopping, but rather the sheer Herculean effort of managing my two children in the grocery store.  At the end of that hour we don't like each other very much. 

Not only am I a sweating, near-crying, shell of the person who walked into the store, but I have put on a public show of my parenting skills and deficits for a wide cross-section of the local population.  I have hissed under my breath, I have glared; I have raised eyebrows, verbally and physically redirected and bribed.  I have taken away privileges.  I have put my child in timeout in front of the meat case.  (Want to get really disgusted glares?  Try that sometime on a Friday morning.)  I have tried everything short of spanking.

And then when I get home I realize I bought none of item A and three of item B.  I have somehow missed the pint of must-be-gold-plated-based-on-the-price blackberries that my daughter snuck into the cart and all of the meat has finger-sized holes in the cellophane.  The bananas have been squeezed and whatever damages the children didn't do the bread, the bagger has completely finished off.

I miss the days when the girls lay in their bucket infant seat, cooing at passers-by, garnering admiring smiles from the grandparent-types and my groceries were unmolested and unprotested.  I miss putting something into the cart and not having to deflect the set of hands that "doesn't eat THAT!  EW!" and the other set who just wants to grab it and fling it on the floor.  (Hey kids, if you want the biggest bang for your flinging buck, try throwing angel hair pasta and a box of orzo!)

I would still tell any parent considering a second child to go for it, just don't take them to the grocery store.  Ever.