#1: Time. Time just flies by. Especially when you're busy ;) Last week I said to my husband, "I can't believe tomorrow is going to be Thursday already!" He replied "Uh, tomorrow is Friday." Crazy!
Lazy Baby turned 1 yesterday!! It's hard to believe it's been a year already! Funny how you are with your 3rd baby vs your first and even second... My first two didn't eat cake until their first birthdays. Lazy Baby has been eating cake about since he started solids. He just could not wait for that cake!! Grabbed the whole piece and shoved it right in his mouth! :)
It seems like just yesterday I was bringing him home from the hospital. Now he's running around with the other two and constantly trying to do everything they do. He pushes his big boy stuff all over :) He does not want to be babied anymore :( He wants a cup like the other two, wants regular milk and juice, wants to eat what everyone else is eating! And he's been that way for months now. So bittersweet.
#2 Little Man. Little Man has a thing with flying. It's killing me. ;) Yesterday at the Dr's office, while I was at the counter trying to fill out a form - yep, he was flying the whole time. His way of flying is jumping up and down and flapping his hands. When Lazy Baby cries, Little Man flies. When anyone else is getting attention - Little Man is flying around the room.
Super sidetrack: have you seen the website shitmykidruined.com? Hilarious!!!! Go look at some of the pics. I was wading my way through pics of things kids had destroyed when I came upon a pic of a mom with a black eye. I thought, Oh No got punched! Nope - the text explained that her kid jumped up while she was getting him dressed. When I read that I had a major sympathy laugh going on. I know just what that one is like. Of course I've not had my eye blackened, but I can't tell you how many times I've been helping Little Man get dressed and he starts his flying bit and catches me in the chin. So many times. I keep thinking he's over it...then bam! I'm hit again! It's crazy. I don't know where he comes up with this stuff. I just hope he forgets about flying really soon! ;) Until then, I guess I better just make him put his own pants on!
I have a teenager in the house folks. 13 was a much anticipated happy, happy milestone for tweenie! Who now I must refer to as Teenie. Or maybe something more clever and telling? Maybe tween-dult. She thinks she is an adult around here. Which is what leads to most of our issues. She tries to take charge of everything around here like she's the parent. And it is driving me completely bonkers!!!
I suppose I have let the situation go on for too long. I'm not that take charge kind of person, so a lot of times I just sit back and let her go and only say something when she goes too far. But it's irritating. And frustrating.
She's been really awful at the dinner table. Constantly nagging Little Man to eat. His dinner eating antics are almost out of control. And the big thing is that she insists on doing the whole nagging thing while the husband and I are sitting right there. The thing is - one day last week she had some event which kept her from eating dinner with the family. Little Man ate like an angel.
Since then, the husband and I have told her that WE are the parents and that it is our job to reprimand him if necessary. And that she's to mind her own business and tend to her own eating at the table.
We've had to remind her every single night. And she has complete attitude about it! But seriously, it's not her business. She's one of the kids!! She needs to understand her place and understand that her authority has limits and boundaries. And that she has NO authority when dad and I are in the room. She usually "watches" the little ones while I make dinner, but even then she takes what little authority she has to the extreme. And I constantly have to watch her watching them! It's insane. I keep talking to her about it, but it seems to do no good.
The really messed up thing was that after we have been working on Teenie for the past week or so on this issue - last night at the dinner table I was busy with Lazy Baby and Baby Sister was smearing her peach juice all over herself and the table - to which my husband looked to Teenie and said something to the effect that she should have been all on top of that!! Which totally goes against everything we've done and told her for the past week! UGH!!
Any suggestions?? Of course I will be saying something to the hus about this...
with the complaining about talking and the complaining about everything else ;)
My biggest pet peeve ever. My husband. His calling me constantly from work. It's not so bad that he calls me all the time (OK, yes it is soooo annoying!!!) but it's that he actually expects me to give him my undivided attention.
What about taking care of three children ages 4 and under leads him to believe I can give anyone my undivided attention??
When I talk to my mom on the phone it goes like this Ok, so I'm making...GET DOWN FROM THERE!...cheesy potatoes again and...I SAID GET DOWN NOW!! NO YOU CAN'T HAVE OREOS RIGHT NOW...I know I call every time, I can't ever remember how much...LEAVE YOUR SISTER ALONE!!...sour cream to put in... And it seems that I'm always holding the baby and have Little Man on the potty needing a wipe, as the dogs are barking madly at a big truck that just went by...
Whenever anything else is going on when I'm on the phone with the huz, it ticks him off. And I just don't understand how he can't understand that I have to take care of what's going on when it's going on!!
The stupid thing is that he calls all the time and wants to talk for a half an hour and has got nothing to say. It's so aggravating! I wish he had a job that occupied all his time.
The other day, he was filling me in on all the drama that's been going on at work, so I had to listen and respond attentively... so I leave the kids in the living room (the 2 and 4 year old pushing each other off a stool and the baby having a screaming fit in the playpen)...2 minutes later Baby Sister fell onto the stool nose first. Of course I had to let him go, and he was pissed. WTF?? If I didn't go take care of her what would he have said? What does he expect?
Sometimes I wonder if men have any brains at all ;)
I have a problem. Yep, you guessed it. Oh, the title gave it away? I have a complete and total addiction to wanting to have babies.
Lazy Baby got the label of my last baby. And I really meant it. For many reasons.
~~I just turned 40!! I know, people are having babies later in life, but seriously, I will be 60!! when Lazy Baby is 20!! My husband will be one year from retiring. He thought 40 was old to be having a baby (he turned 40 one month before our first Little Man was born).
~~I will most likely have gestational diabetes again. From the start. And that totally sucked!! That alone should be enough to make me be done!
~~My hands are overly full these days. Truth be told, I was overwhelmed with 2 little ones. And now here I am overly overwhelmed with 3. It wouldn't be so bad if I had friends or family or lived in an actual city with actual neighbors. And if I didn't have to drive at least 25 miles to get diapers and milk.
But in theory I would love to have another. I always wanted lots of kids. Of course the reality is: no way should I even be seriously considering having another. Really, I would be too embarrassed to even tell anyone if I was pregnant again. Everyone thought I was a tad on the crazy side last time. There would be no question in their minds if I did this whole thing one more time.
I was 2 days late this month (ordinarily it wouldn't be a big deal, but I had been starting 3 and 4 days early). I had 2 whole days to sit around and worry and think about it. I was terrified. But the thing was that when I finally started I was both relieved and disappointed. I was really taken aback by the whole disappointment thing. What the hell is my brain and body up to?? ;) I mean really, disappointed?? Hello ovaries, I know that you are so glad to finally be able to work and all...but lets not overdo it here.
I have spent most of my adult life trying to get pregnant. I started wanting babies when I was somewhere between 18-20. I started seriously trying to get pregnant around the age of 23. I guess a habit like that doesn't just die easy. It was more than a habit. It was a way of life. It was the guiding force in my life for all those years I was unable to conceive.
And now? I don't know how to quit. I don't know how to let my brain and body know that I'm done having babies. I'm done trying to get pregnant.
But the other day I was going through some baby clothes. Putting away the ones Lazy Baby has outgrown, going through Little Man's baby clothes, and going back through Baby Girl's clothes to pull out the unisex and Christmas stuff... It seems like such a waste. I had so many baby girl clothes. So many cute things. I found a few things that still had tags on them. I found some adorable outfits that she only wore once or twice. I found stuff I never put on her. For a few minutes I thought it would be nice to have another girl. And really, my OCD is all about evenness. In a way things are all even at home now, we have 2 girls and 2 boys full time. When step-tweenie comes it's uneven because we have 3 girls and 2 boys. So if anything we are short a boy sometimes. But on the other hand: I've given birth to an uneven number. 2 boys and 1 girl. Oh well. Some things are just meant to be uneven. And I'll just have to get over it. Because there is just no way I could possibly handle another. I have to recognize my limits and stick to them.
But the reality is: no matter how crazy and hectic my days are, no matter how much I complain, no matter how little time I have for myself, at the end of the day, when I kiss my little ones good night and crawl into bed with Lazy Baby to nurse him to sleep I feel blessed. I feel like I could do it a million times over. There just aren't words enough to convey the beauty and joy and wonder and amazement. There are so many moments in each day that I just look at one of my children and feel overwhelmed with emotional bliss. Is it any wonder I'm addicted?
Nor in Mom. But there is one in Mother if you look hard enough. And it takes a little work. Some people are pretty successful at finding the "me" in Mother. Some aren't.
**If you are here for the award scroll down to yesterday's post (I know, 2 posts in 2 days is so unlike me!)
**digression here: my son insists that my name is "mommy," not "mom," not "mother," it's "mommy." He will correct people in the store. "No she's not my mom, she's my mommy." He asked me what I was going to be for Halloween, I told him I was going to be a "mom." The day after Halloween he asked if I was "mommy" again since he was no longer an Astronaut, or whether I was still wearing my "mom" costume. Cute kid.
Anyway, back to the point. Anymommy had this post yesterday that really made me think (OK, she usually comes up with thought provoking posts, so that part is nothing new). She was talking about the fact that she doesn't cook. And she doesn't do scrapbooking, or crafty homemade stuff either and she's fine with that. She realizes, that as a mother of 4 small children, you simply can't do everything. Even if you're a stay at home mom who doesn't work outside the home. And she is so right on about that. Some mothers will think those kinds of things are expected from them, especially if they are a stay at home mom ('cause those mom's have all the time in the world don't they?). But it is one of the most unrealistic expectations.
My mom was one of those moms who had to do it all. We never had a store bought cake for our birthdays. Each of us had a specially baked (probably even from scratch!) and extraordinarily decorated cake. Whatever we were into at the moment was reflected on our birthday cakes. I wish I had some of those pictures! She made cookie monster, big bird, trains, care bears...you name it. She was such an artist. She sent us with home baked goods to share with our classes for our birthdays or for holiday parties. In my Halloween post I talked about how every year we had homemade costumes. She also sewed costumes for school plays and concerts.
She was in PTA, she was a homeroom mom for at least a couple of us at a time (there were 5 of us!). She was a den mother, cub scout leader, brownie/girl scout leader, soccer/softball coach... the list goes on. We were involved in absolutely everything and she was usually in charge of it.
Sounds perfect doesn't it? She knocked herself out. She stayed up late at night doing things, sometimes she was up all night finishing whatever her latest project was. There was always too much on her agenda. She never said "no" to anything. She aimed to please. And it was all for us kids. Or was it? Seems pretty selfless. She never did anything just for herself. She rarely even bought herself new clothes.
Once, when I was in high school and messing up royally (staying up late and not making it to school in the mornings), my step-father gave me this huge lecture on how much my mom had done for us kids and how much she sacrificed for us.
And I bought into it. Until many years later when, as an adult, I witnessed my sister being that mom with her children. I say with instead of for, because it's really not for the kids. Mothers may kid themselves into believing that, but it's false. My sister followed in the footsteps of my mother to a "t." She is involved in everything at the school. Her kids are involved in everything at the school. She is so busy doing everything that who gets left out? Yep, the kids. Who's losing out on this one? The kids.
When she's not busy planning and organizing for something at school or all of those athletic activities or brownies/girl scouts/boy scouts, she's busy gossiping with other mothers. Whenever I talk to her it's all about other families, the kids' friends etc... it's like her kids have taken a backseat to all the other things they are involved in and the families that are involved along with them.
I have never seen her just spend time with her kids. They never relax. They are always doing something. The time she spends with her children is when they are playing a soccer or softball game, when they are in brownies/girl scouts, when they are doing some school activity.
I can sit back and judge because I'm not that mom ;) and it's so much easier to judge someone else now isn't it? Honestly, I don't feel bad judging my sister like this. I know that she and my mother judge me for not letting my daughter do everything that she wants. They judge me for the type of parent I am all the time. Because I am not them. I'm not their type of ultra-involved do everything homemade mom.
I'm not saying that involvement is bad. As a matter of fact, I wish I could be more involved at the school. But really it's because I need a social life ;) No, seriously, I think some parental involvement is good. But too much is the opposite of good.
I limit my school age daughter to one extracurricular activity a school year. One year she played soccer, the next year she played softball, this year she wants to try basketball. I will do the same with all my children when they get to school. Children need down time. Why pressure them to be busy all the time? Maybe I just value relaxing too much ;) But why teach them to spread themselves too thin right from the start?
If my child doesn't have a homemade birthday cake on their birthday, I feel guilty, but then realize that I just can't do everything, and in the end it won't make that much of a difference. I really wanted to make their Halloween costumes this year, but in the end I realized that it would mean spending a couple of days working on their costumes instead of spending any time with them. And really, the $10 costumes we got them were so much more cost effective (my sister spent $50 on the materials for ONE of her kids' costumes).
I do what I can and try not to sweat the stuff I can't and pray that they will turn out the better for it ;)
I just watched "Marley and Me" for the first time the other night. I know, it's been out forever. And I really avoided it for several reasons: rumor of a sad ending, the whole feel-good holiday popular movie bit, I don't really care too much for Jennifer Aniston (gasp! but she always seems to be the same character), and I didn't think it would be all that good so I wanted to wait for it to go down in price (there are no movie rental places around here)...
Anyway, my husband caught it on cable this week while he was in a motel out of town. He said that it was really good, he might have actually cried - but it may have been the fact that his eyes were watering because he was sick (or so that's what he told him roomie)... But he also said that the couple really reminded him of us and our relationship and situation. His rundown of it was that the couple got married, got a dog, then she wanted a baby, they ended up with 3 and she had postpartum depression and got all mad when the husband mentioned it.
But that was just the tip of the iceberg. There were so many things in the movie that reminded me of us. And of our life. I really wanted to point out how clean their house was until she had the kids ;)
But, yeah, tons of similarities aside from the ones he mentioned: the colic, the fighting, ppd, the chaos and exhaustion, the whole issue of parenting and being a stay at home mom w/no breaks...(I swear we've had the same fights!). It was almost like someone took my life and made it into a movie! I don't think I've ever identified so much with a movie. It had a certain amount of raw realism that a lot of movies gloss over. I would be willing to bet that a lot of stay at home moms with more than one child identified with the movie.
The issue of miscarriage in the movie was pretty unexpected and hit a spot in my heart. Not that I thought I was over it or anything, but it seems that when you least expect it, something will bring it out and unwind all those memories and feelings that you try to keep tied up. I am fairly certain it's something that I will never get over. I doubt anyone does.
We did have a dog somewhat similar to Marley. But we ended up taking her to a farm. She was a wonderful and beautiful Border Collie. She was awesome with the two older girls (tweenie and step-tweenie - when they were 6 and 7). She really kept track of them (when she wasn't eating the floor!) and would check on them all the time and did a lot of things really similar to Marley. Unfortunately when Little Man was maybe 5 or 6 mos old, she barked at him and almost bit him. So we found her a great home with a family that bred and trained Border Collies. And now we have a stinky wiener dog with attitude and an insane, but fairly well behaved black lab.
I was also quite impressed with Jennifer Aniston in this movie, she did a really great job and wasn't her usual same old Rachel from Friends character ;)
Something important that I came away from this movie with was having to do with the relationship... I realized that I am probably never nice to my husband. While the couple fought quite a bit, they always ended up being sweet with each other in the next scene, or the wife would be all nice and forgiving and back into the partnership. They always made up and came out stronger, more of a team. I complain a lot about my husband and his lack of engaging in our "partnership," but I am equally, if not more, at fault. I'm almost certain that my indifferent behavior (due to exhaustion at this point!) and lack of time for really engaging with him continues to keep a wall up between us and inhibits our ability to become more of a team. In that way the movie was quite the eye-opener. I'm so rarely sweet or forgiving or even nice to my husband these days. By the time he gets home every day I am so completely drained. And then within an hour or less of him getting home is when the colic clock strikes... I really need to make some efforts to rebuild our relationship. Or at least get it started in the right direction. It's just really hard to spend any energy there, when I barely have the energy I need for the kids. But honestly, the tone of our interactions permeates the house. If we were more together the rest of the house would surely sense it.
A little deep for what I thought was going to be some fluff movie ;)
It's been a while since I have done Mama Kat's Writer's Workshop... I've been checking her prompts every week, but then not having the energy to write anything that would fit. This week #4 really struck me. I've been thinking about "How Motherhood Has Changed [Me]" since I became a mother.
I'd be lying if I didn't say it has changed me to the very core of my being.
I don't know what most women expect going into motherhood, but I'm guessing most believe what I did about becoming a mother: my life will continue exactly as it is now, but there will be the addition of a baby. I'll do the same things, be the same person, except I'll be changing a few diapers. And I'll have this wonderful bundle of joy and sunshine that I will carry around with me while I do all the stuff I normally do, and everyone will comment on how adorable and well behaved she is and pinch her cheeks. And I will be so overwhelmed with joy once my dream of motherhood has been fulfilled.
I started my journey towards motherhood with small steps. I first became a step-mother every other weekend and on holidays. Minimal changes. Pretty much led the same life I did without children, so hello motherhood, this isn't so bad. And I had a child for all the important and festive holidays. It was perfect.
Our next step was adoption. We adopted our 6 year old niece. I was so completely thrilled. I could jump right in and be that PTA super involved Mom. She was at that age where we could do all sorts of fun things together like crafts, baking cookies and playing games. We started out spending time with her while she was in foster care. We would have her every other weekend and on holidays. As soon as we finished with all the classes and preliminary paperwork we got to have her move in until the adoption was finalized. By that time I was about 6mos pregnant with our first baby. It was also the end of the school year, so I wasn't able to get as involved as I would have liked.
Having my first baby hit me like a ton of bricks. He ended up having colic, so basically he spent hours upon hours a day having screaming fits. I spent pretty much his first 8mos of life holding him and trying to keep him from screaming his head off all the time. We couldn't go anywhere, if we did he would scream the entire time we were in the car and wherever it was we were going.
It was then that I really understood the full scope of motherhood. Once you become a mother, you are a mother 24/7. It's so much more than a job. You don't get any breaks, and there is no quitting time. You are on the job all day and all night. I had never imagined myself a stay-at-home mother, but circumstances led to that being the only logical choice. I was, and still am happy with that choice. I wouldn't have it any other way. Motherhood is an enormous responsibility, and I wouldn't trust anyone else with the care of my precious children.
I never imagined how much of myself and what I did to be me I would choose to put aside when I became a mother. I didn't expect that motherhood would change me all that much.
But now I look at myself, my life and the mother I have become, and realize that I have pretty much completely lost touch with the person I used to be. At the moment I'm not sure whether it is a good thing or a bad thing. I am leaning towards the good, and trying to see the positive changes in myself that have occurred.
I used to be somewhat irresponsible and a little self-absorbed (internally speaking that is). Motherhood forces you to become a responsible person, or at least it should. It is no longer just your life that concerns you, there are the lives of your children that are of the utmost importance. And you really can't be too self-absorbed. You can't get hung up on yourself when you have to spend most of your time caring for others. So in that way motherhood has forced me to become a better person.
I am realizing now what a large and involved topic this is, and how little time I have to really do it justice... especially since at the moment, while I am trying really hard to use what little brain I have left to compose something articulate and worthwhile, I have a 4 year old who just will not leave me alone and has been nonstop talking and demanding the entire time I've been sitting here drafting... and a colicky infant who decided that now would be the best time to start a full blown screaming fit.
So I will continue on this topic in some future posts...
I'm just amazed at what comes out of Little Man's mouth these days! I know where he gets most of it, but he clearly has an absolute understanding of what he's talking about.
For example, after lunch he tells me that I'm not to talk to him ever again. I started laughing. Oh you should have seen the way he looked at me! He was so serious! Then he told me that I'm not supposed to be laughing because he's not joking.
A little while later he said, "The star is purple (he's coloring) but you can't talk to me right now. I'm never talking to you again. And you can't laugh at that anymore."
A little while ago he was talking loudly and nonstop. I told him to quit talking because I was trying to put his baby brother to sleep. He replied "Just do what you have to do mom!" LOL!!!!
His latest kick is when he says something to Dad and I answer him, he will tell me "but I was talking to Dad." Or he'll say "But I wasn't talking to you." This happens about 20 times a day because he's always talking and I'm always just automatically responding out of habit ;) And when I keep doing it when he's talking to someone else, he will tell me that I'm driving him insane! ;) I have no idea where he's heard that one before!
And it really amazes me how damn specific 4 year olds can be! My God. This morning he would not eat his banana because he said it was full of yellow stuff and he does not like the yellow stuff. He usually eats bananas... We've been battling for weeks because Wal-Mart changed their store brand colors. His crunchy granola bars now come in a white package instead of a green one. He wouldn't eat them because they weren't in the green package.
So many times a day now I catch myself looking at him and thinking about how fast he is growing up. How quickly he is catching on to the world. How perceptive he is, and how well he is understanding things. It's all been in the blink of an eye. He seems to be growing leaps and bounds by the day. It's really hitting me these days that he's not my little baby anymore. And he really reinforces that when he insists on doing absolutely everything by himself!
I've lost my extra set of hands. Tweenie started school today. If it weren't for the fact that I know she really loves school, I would swear she was counting the days until she was off diaper duty ;) Really, she has been such a big help to me for the past couple of months. The one day I was by myself before she got back from summer camp I felt like I was changing diapers all day.
That is one of the many reasons I've been stepping up the potty training with Little Man. With 3 in diapers I am changing diapers all day.
Time is a precious commodity for mothers. And there just never seems to be enough of it to go around.
Before I had children, I was having a discussion with one of my co-workers who had two small children. She was confiding in me what a tough job parenting was. She felt it was really hard to resist that urge to baby your children and do everything for them, because really your job as a parent is to help them become independent. There's a fine line there. That discussion has always stuck with me because I knew it was the truth.
But I had no real concept of how hard it would really be.
My biggest issue is time. It takes a lot of time and patience to help your little ones become able to do things for themselves. For me, it is just so much faster to do everything for them. But it is also doing them a disservice.
The other issue that plays a minor role is the idea that in your mind they are still babies. Your image of them is that they are too small and too young to do things for themselves. Which is probably just your mind making excuses for all the time you will save picking their toys up yourself (taking 5 minutes) instead of asking them repeatedly to do it and helping them do it (maybe taking more like 15-20 minutes).
What really made me think of this was watching Tweenie help them do things over the past couple of weeks. Especially while we have been working on potty training Little Man.
Time is not an issue for Tweenie. She has all the time in the world. Her motivations are not to save time. Her motivations are to do as little as possible. Her motivations are having them do things for themselves because she doesn't want to do them. And it's worth it to her for the task to take 30 mintues instead of 5 if it means that SHE doesn't have to do it.
The amazing thing in all this is that SHE is the one that is on the right track.
Last night I heard her in the bathroom telling Little Man to wipe his own butt. My first instinct was to tell her that she needed to wipe his butt. He's just too young and incapable. But yet, a couple of weeks ago when I was thinking about sending him to pre-school I was thinking that he was going to have to learn how to wipe himself. Instead of telling her to do it, I listened while she patiently instructed him on how to do it himself. I was impressed, and also feeling a little guilty. Of course he's capable, of course he NEEDS to learn to do that on his own. But I haven't taken the time with him. It always seems that when he has to go potty I am in a hurry. I pull his pants down quick, set him on the potty and then quickly wipe him and get his pants back on because the baby is crying or because I was in the middle of something else...
A week or so ago I did realize the value of having him pull down his own pants and get himself on the potty as well as getting his pants back on. Probably because I was holding a crying baby at the time :) But also because when he goes to pre-school he is going to have to do all that by himself.
Time. Isn't it sad how sometimes everything boils down to time. The thing is, in the long run, by teaching him to do things on his own, I WILL be saving time! While it will take time and patience now to show him and teach him how to do things for himself... the more he can do for himself, the less time I have to spend doing those things for him.
And I just need to suck it up and claim him no longer a baby! How I hate to let that go :( My first baby boy is getting all grown up on me. He is going to be 4 in 2 days! He IS a big boy!
Just when I thought I had more than enough to worry about and more than enough going on... Tweenie decides its time to start acting up... big time.
Well, I've been busy with the two little ones being horribly sick for the past 2 weeks now. And then last weekend the rest of us starting getting sick... me first, then hubby, and then tweenie. Of course she's didn't want that to interfere with her going to school and I didn't keep her home from the beginning as I should have... she didn't seem to have it as bad as the rest of us, but then again it started out pretty mild and after a few days got lots worse...
Anyway, so for starters, on Wednesday she came home wearing pajama pants. Now I realize its not that big of a deal, kids are wearing them to school... but she has asked several times before and I have told her that she is not allowed to wear pajama pants to school. It just looks trashy, and I won't have her going to school looking trashy!
I always check her clothes out in the morning to make sure what she is wearing is appropriate. She had on jeans when she left for school on Wednesday. When she came home in pajamas I said "did you wear those to school?" "Oh no," she says "I had them on under my jeans and I got hot, so I had to take my jeans off"
Apparently, she had forgotten to put her jeans back on before getting off the bus. Yes, she's sneaky, but hasn't yet got the complete smarts to stick it out and not get caught...
Boy did I want to ream her, but I sent her to her room and waited until I calmed down to talk to her. And then I just told her how disappointed I was in her because she knows the rules. She's been told before that she cannot wear pjs to school... we had been trusting her with more responsibilities and priviledges, and now I was going to have to start checking under her clothes to make sure she's not sneaking stuff she's not supposed to be wearing to school. Grrrr.... I just grounded her from the computer for a week.
She was fine about it, didn't even start crying as usual...
Then with this whole Swine flu thing going on and her being sick with the flu, we decided that we should really be keeping her home. Especially since her congestion and cough seemed to be getting worse. While, it is most likely not the swine flu, there were students from the community college where I (and hubby) teach that went to Mexico for Spring Break. One of them actually being in my class. The two little ones were the first to get sick, but still... you really just don't know for sure. So when we told her that we were going to keep her home since she was sick she got upset and started crying. She said she *had* to go to school on Friday because they were doing rehearsal for the band concert on Tuesday. We told her that if she was still sick she couldn't go. And when I called her school on Friday, they told me that if she has any flu symptoms that we need to keep her out for 7 days.
Anyway, so what does Tweenie do to "show" us? She got up in the middle of the night on Thursday and flushed her glasses down the toilet!!!
Friday morning when I woke her up she took forever to come down. She came down to go to the bathroom and started going back upstairs - I asked if she was feeling OK and she said that she just had to go find her glasses... she put them on her dresser when she went to bed and couldn't find them... she was up there "looking" for about 30 minutes when we went up to help her look for them. They were nowhere.
My husband immediately said that he thought she flushed them because the toilet was flushing funny. I said, "No, she wouldn't have done that"
After scouring her room, we told her that she had 10 minutes to think about what happened to her glasses and if she didn't come clean about it that she wasn't going to summer camp.
10 minutes later she came down and said that "they must've falled down the toilet" when she got up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night.
I just can't imagine why she would think of doing such a thing!?!?!? What did she think was going to happen? When I asked her that she said she thought she would just be grounded for a long time. Apparently, grounding doesn't work.
I asked her how she thought she was going to be able to read her sheet music to play in the band concert. She said she hadn't thought about it. I guess she showed us! The soonest I could get her in for an eye appointment is next Friday.
Of course if we are able to recover her glasses we'll clean them up good and she'll have to wear them. But my husband has been too sick to go through the hassle of taking the toilet off... We made her reach down to see if she could feel them. (which she no doubt did not think would happen!)
Lucky for her she fessed up and still gets to go to summer camp. So we did the next worse thing in her book as punishment - we deleted her myspace account. Through the whole ordeal that was the only thing she cried about. Maybe next time she thinks about doing something like that she will think it through a little better.
I just still can't believe she did something like that. I never would have imagined doing something like that!
I hate to admit it, but today I have gone beyond losing my cool.
I spent the whole morning trying to figure out why I keep getting a connection interruption error message while trying to upload photos to blogger or to facebook (and I suspect it would happen on any site at this point).
I finally broke down and fired up the desktop to see if I would have luck there. Nope. Same damn error message. But the thing about using the desktop is that its in the office. Which is right off the living room, but of course I can't keep the kids out while I'm in there. I can't close the door because then I couldn't keep an eye on them. So of course the whole time I'm messing around in there trying to look up info on the problem etc... they are getting into everything. And within 10 minutes little man freaking unplugged the whole thing. Of course then I decided that I just need to put the baby in the playpen and close the door... open it 2 minutes later and little man has demolished a VHS tape... and I cannot get him to stay away from the Christmas tree or the TV... and by that time my laptop was just completely failing to connect to the internet at all. And I was over the edge with frustration.
The really messed up thing is that I told my husband about my photo upload problem a couple of weeks ago. He ran a virus scan and it came up with nothing. So he just said that it was something with my computer and that was it. I know for damn sure that if it was a problem he was having it would have been fixed day one. He would have spent the entire day (uninterrupted) finding the solution for it. But since it had something to do with my blogging, it falls well below his realm of helping. And that really ticks me off. He absolutely hates the fact that I blog. It has to be a jealousy issue or something. Somehow I think that if I had any real life friends he'd have an issue with that too. It just makes me mad (and a little sad) that he can't be supportive of anything I do apart from him.
Anyway, little man has been especially difficult and out of sorts for the past couple of weeks. So everyday my patience has been worked to the bone. I just don't know how to get him to listen and understand. I think he must be acting up for attention. But when I stop and give him some attention it doesn't seem to help. I think he is out of sorts because we have been without our car for a little over 2 weeks now. The kid hates change. And he is acting out a lot like he did when we moved last March. He no longer wants to watch any of his favorite movies, he whines and cries until I take them out. He's been downright obnoxious at the kitchen table for breakfast, lunch and dinner. He has been totally refusing to take naps. And I've had no sanity breaks. So I feel like a complete and total failure at this whole parenting thing - It seems like I've been yelling at him nonstop.
And I totally lost my cool with tweenie last night. I think I'm going to apologize to her when she gets home from school. We were watching a movie and it wasn't going to get over until 10pm. There have been times that we've let her stay up past her bedtime (9pm) to watch a movie, but that's usually only when its a new movie... the one we were watching last night we'd seen a million times. I told her she had to go to bed at 9 - she asked if she could just stay up until 9:10 or 9:15 and I said no. And of course she didn't leave it at that she kept trying to negotiate and argue until finally I lost it and really yelled at her. I felt horrible. But I still made her go to bed at 9. I almost sent her to bed right then (it was maybe quarter till 9) because I saw her say something after I yelled at her and I assumed she was talking back - she said that she had just said she was sorry - which she probably did. It was overkill, I shouldn't have lost my cool and yelled at her like that. But I was completely exhausted, ready for bed myself and was feeling like I was going to barf, and already had my patience run into the ground with the two little ones not wanting to go to sleep.
So anyway, my husband and I had a nice little arguement about that this morning. He said (which I know is true) that I need to work on my relationship with tweenie right now because it will only get worse. She will end up hating me and yelling back at me and maybe getting physical, and she will realize at some point that she doesn't have to listen to me. I just don't know how to start. Its not that we really have a bad relationship - I just end up yelling at her a lot - and mainly because she already doesn't listen to me and at times acts disrespectful. There have been times where I have relaxed with her and what ends up happening is that she takes advantage of it - she starts acting like we're friends and thinking that she can get away with stuff. I need to find a good balance there and I just haven't been able to find it. I know that the whole friend/parent thing does not work. But neither does the opposite end of that spectrum. My husband said that I should give her more responsibilities around the house. But she can barely handle the responsibilties that she already has.
She asks if she can vacuum. I let her vacuum. I ask her to vacuum. She doesn't want to and gives me attitude about it.
She begs to be allowed to change a diaper. I finally let her. She tries to take control of all the diaper changing. A week later says she doesn't want to change anymore diapers...
Sometimes I feel like things would be much better between us if we had adopted her when she was a baby. I feel that she was already kind of programmed in a certain way, and while some things have changed for her, there are others that will never change. She still has eating/food issues that will probably never go away. And she has independence and control issues that really sometimes get in the way of our relationship. One of the things that drives me nuts is that she still has some very infantile behaviors, but yet wants adult responsibilities. She can barely take care of herself, but wants to take care of everybody else.
Today, I am just at a loss all around. I think I'm just going to try to relax. Try letting her do a few more things around the house - like maybe help setting the table, helping load the dishwasher... and see how that goes.
I suppose there's a line there somewhere between a parent and a "peerent" I just need to start looking for it and hopefully I will find it.
I really wanted to post something today. But my mind is drawing such a blank. Ever been so tired your brain just doesn't want to function? I so hate that. I think that's what "pregnant brain" is all about. Its not about your brain misfiring and getting stupid for no reason (or because of hormones or something) - its because you are so damn tired that you can't think straight! And the nausea. I feel like telling everyone "could you please just not talk to me while I'm concentrating on not throwing up!" ;)
And by the way, you all had great ideas for things to munch on that may help with the nausea! Thank you all sooo much. Of course I won't be trying any of the medication suggestions - I am a total freak about medication. I just don't like taking any. I will only take a tylenol if my head is on the brink of a major explosion. Now that I think about it, I have been popping tums a few times a day - but that hardly counts right? And of course I take my prenatal vitamins everyday (have been almost consistently since 2005 since I've been either pregnant, nursing or trying to get pregnant).
Anyway, my house has been sorely neglected lately. Between doing double bloggy duty, double diaper duty (I will get the little man potty trained someday! Hopefully before this baby comes), and having to go to the store and dr's appointments etc... Days like this: where my counter is overwhelmed with dishes and my dirty clothes hamper is spilling out all over the bathroom floor and I've had clothes soaking for a few days that really need to get washed, and my carpet is starting to get hairy, and my kitchen floor is starting to look a different color... Oh I really wish we could afford a housekeeper. Do I love to dream or what? We are so far away from ever being able to afford that luxury. But if we had the money I would so do it in a heartbeat.
A while ago, on the community notice board at the gas station, I saw a advertisement for 2 girls looking for work - they would come help you clean or do yardwork or whatever you needed help with for a mere $8 an hour! I'm sure it was teenagers who have no idea how valuable such work would be ;) I wrote down the number... but never called it. I just need to get off my lazy ass and do the work. It would be so much easier if I could just keep it up and keep it under control. But of course that is so much easier to say than to do. And one of the things that prevents that from happening? My husband. He thinks that I should be able to do everything during the day while he is gone. He has no tolerance for me doing the dishes and such in the evenings. Which to me is completely ridiculious! It would be the best time for me to get those things done, when I have 2 other people around who can help keep an eye on the two little ones. But just try to reason with insanity... ;)
Especially since my two little ones are still at the ages where they need constant supervision. Its hard enough to leave the room to go to the bathroom... let alone do the dishes or laundry. I should just do all the housework while they are napping, but that's when I get all selfish. Naptime is my time. That's when I get to shower and do bloggy stuff and other stuff for myself uninterrupted. I so hate to give up any of that time for dishes and other awful household chores ;)
I suppose that's enough brain melt for today ;) Now I'm off to do those horrid dishes so I have a pot for dinner! And some forks to eat it with... :(
I have decided to go ahead and let my daughter start shaving. I know that she will be thrilled!! I'm going to go out and buy her an electric shaver, so she doesn't end up living with band-aids all over her legs! :)
Out of 16 people who voted, 11 of them said I should go ahead and let her shave. And most of the responders said they/their daughters started shaving at 12 years old. 11 years old came in at a close second place. So I guess its not too terribly early.
For the past week I have been trying to remember how old I was when I started shaving, and I just can't remember.
What I do remember about it? Well, I don't remember my mother telling me anything about it beforehand. And maybe I just took up shaving without asking? But the first time I shaved, not only did I shave my legs, but I also shaved my forearms!! So I do remember my mother telling me that you weren't supposed to shave your arms :) I guess maybe I got confused and thought arms instead of armpits??
Anyway, thank you all for voting and thanks for all the advice!!
And I keep meaning to give a shout out to April at The Life of Me Plus Three! She just started her blog this month and flatteringly stated that I helped her make the decision :) Dig around in her archives 'cause she's got some really good posts there!
My tweenie is getting all too growed up, all too fast. She has been bugging me since March to let her shave her legs. I just don't think I'm ready for that yet. But then again, she is going to grow up whether I want her to or not. And if I don't help her out and explain things to her and show her how to do things? I just don't want to think about what kinds of wrong ideas that will give her. Or that her friends will give her.
Last weekend, after her halloween stay-over party... she asked me if she was going to get the Gardisil vaccine. Because her friend V was talking to her about it and had gotten it. V is at least 2 years older than tweenie. We had actually talked to our family physician about it and she suggested around the age of 13 (which is how old V is). So, thanks to V, I had to explain a few things to tweenie.
Then on Wednesday, during the debate, tweenie asked what abortion was. Thank God she asked during the debate and my husband wasn't too shocked to say anything and he told her we would talk about it later because we wanted to hear the debate. Now I have to come up with how to explain that one to her. Thank you presidential debate.
Back in March when she first started asking me if she could shave her legs, I put her off by saying that she needed to show me that she was responsible enough to do the "necessary" things like taking a shower, brushing her teeth and hair, clipping her nails and remembering to put deodorant on without being told before she could move on to the more optional things. She remembered to do some of those things for a couple of days after each conversation... I don't know what it is with the girls her age, but they do *not* like taking baths or showers. My step daughter is 9 mos older than tweenie and is the same way. Neither of them will do any self-maintenance things unless and until you specifically tell them to.
And sometimes, I hate to admit, I am not completely on top of it all and may forget to remind them to do these things. They will not say anything. They will run around unshowered for as long as it takes me to remember to tell them to go shower.
When I was that age? I'll be damned if I didn't take a shower every other day if not daily. And the first time I smelled my own armpits? That's when I totally started showering daily come hell or highwater! And I never would have left the house without putting on deodorant. I mean there were cute boys at school! And tweenie and the step-daughter? They are totally into boys too! Don't they want to smell good for those boys?
But back to the shaving thing. The other day Tweenie tells me that her leg hair is embarrassing and can't she puhlease start shaving? If she remembers to shower for the rest of the month without being told can't she puhlease start shaving? Everyone else in her class does! I tell her that its almost winter and there's no point in starting now because she'll be wearing pants until spring. But no! There's gym class and she'll be wearing shorts for gym class. Well, she's got a point there. But the embarrassing part? I told her that what would embarrass me more than unshaven legs was smelling bad. She looked at me like I was joking around with her. I told her I was serious. I would so rather be caught with hairy legs than with horrid BO! I would go out in public with stubbly or fully hairy legs way before I would ever leave the house without showering and lathering on the deodorant.
I told her I would think about it.
I asked my step-daughter's mother if the step-daughter had start shaving yet. She is a year older. And she said that just last week she'd helped her shave her legs and armpits with an electric shaver. And I think that when I do let tweenie shave it will totally be with an electric shaver. Part of the reason I've been so hesitant is thinking of the mess that tweenie will invariably leave behind in the bathroom...and all the knicks she will end up with on her leg because she will be trying to do it so fast...and the potential of her using my razors... Electric shaver seems like the way to go. Now for the when part... Can't they just stay 5 forever???
Please help me out by voting in my poll on the sidebar! :)
Or how my boy is learning to use his adjectives!! ;)
I was going to write another heavy post today, but then decided that it's time to lighten up a little... plenty of time for heavy posts... besides, I have to prepare myself for teaching my class tonight... and would I have gone for the heavy, I would have sat here all day tweaking words and sentences and filling up this editing box and thinking way too much ;)
My little man just turned 3 a few weeks ago. Ever since he began talking, my husband and I have told ourselves and each other that we need to start watching our mouths. We both have monstrous potty mouths. I'm not proud or anything, and there's no real good excuse for it (although I have lots).
But seriously, when you have spent all day with a whiner and a fussy sick baby and the husband comes home and instead of providing a little relief: he is whinier, fussier and needier than the two little ones... the foul language flies aplenty. It's hard to censor yourself when you are on the edge. And I'm there a little more often than I'd like to admit.
When my little man went through his big-time repeating everything phase, again we kept telling ourselves that we needed to watch our language. Luckily, his repeating of our flavorful comments were limited and short-lived, while other annoying, but clean phrases were repeated for hours/weeks on end.
So here we are: he's not repeating quite as much these days. But last night at dinner?
Little man: something about the "f*ing leaves falling" "f*ing leaves falling" "f*ing leaves falling"
Us: trying really hard not to laugh - don't want to encourage him. Don't want him to think it's funny or OK to say such things.
Little man: "f*ing marshmeews are good" "f*ing marshmeews are good"
After the kids went to bed: (laughing about what he said at the dinner table) "I've never used the f word about the leaves. And I've never used the f word about his marshmallows!" "I haven't either" He's learning how/when/where to use his adjectives! Another milestone reached!
Now we just need to give him some better adjectives to use. And try to avoid those that would be absolutely embarrassing in public!
I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who commented on my last post. You guys really helped me to put things in perspective.
To be totally honest, after my first two comments from Lola and Saundra, I felt like shit. Here I am starting a new blog, trying to gain readers, and find a new community, and I come up with a post about my daughter that makes me look like a huge schmuck. I fretted about it all weekend (I do not do bloggy stuff on the weekends). I considered deleting the post. But then, the deal with this blog is all about honesty. Whether it makes me look crazy or not ;) Whether it makes me look like a schmuck or not. I don't want to censor myself here.
Lola and Saundra definitely had valid comments/suggestions. And that's what I'm looking for. But of course I felt so much better about my post when I read the additional comments. I had a great mix of ideas and suggestions and thoughts about the situation. And that's what I needed. I need all of your opinions! Whether you think I'm being crazy or you somewhat/partially/totally agree. So thank you all very much! All of your opinions meant a lot.
Sometimes I feel like such a failure at parenting. Especially with Tweenie. I feel like I really need to relax about stuff with her and try to have more patience. I used to pride myself on how much patience I had with children. Until I had some of my own! I had lots of patience for Tweenie when she first came to live with us. But then I got pregnant with little man. Somehow, pregnancy is a huge patience killer. And then little man ended up with colic. If you've had a baby with colic, you know how much patience is necessary. It was all I could do to muster up patience for him. There was no leftover patience. I feel as if I've never quite regained my patience.
Aside from that, we are just coming off/settling down from some huge stresses and transitions. And stress does very little for patience. I need to learn how to relax and relinquish some control. I've been historically awful at that. And when I'm stressed, things just bother me so much more.
You want to know the crazy thing? One of the best nights we've had as a family in the past few months was the night after I had my miscarriage. Why? Because the nurse told me that I was not supposed to do anything for two days. And I was too damn tired and emotionally drained to be in control of everything - I had to relinquish control. Tweenie stepped in and was happy to have her first diaper changing experience. I let her really help out with the two little ones. The nurturer in her came out and she did an excellent job. She was in her element. But then after I was able to do things again, she didn't want to step back. And I'm sure this is when our recent troubles started.
Anyway, after reading through all of your comments, my plan is to figure out those times when she is genuinely trying to be helpful and just let it go. Let her help. It is wonderful to have someone who is eager to help out. I should welcome the help. Especially since kids her age aren't always so willing to do such things. I shouldn't squash that. I also need to set up some boundaries and discuss them with her. Let her know when it is and isn't OK to do something without asking.
I am a somewhat stay at home mama to five(6 on holidays and summers) children, two of which are in diapers and one in trainers (we're working on potty training!). I'm a lazy mother and housewife. Not that I'm proud or anything - just trying to be brutally honest. I am also a tad on the crazy side.
I am a writer. Not published, not famous. Just a writer.
I love my children, and my husband. But sometimes I just really really need to vent!
I'm a lonely mommy who needs a little company.
New Baby: I know, creative ;) Born April 2011. Chunky little chompy monkey :)
Lazy Baby: Is not so much a baby anymore! He's a rambunctious 2 year old!
Baby girl: My 4-year old drama queen! She loves spouting off monologues from movies ;)
Little man: Is a very talkative and inquisitive little fellow who is 6 years old. He's completely OCD... coming up with new tics daily!
Teenie: She is a teen with attitude! 14 years old, going on 40.
Step-Teenie: She is with us for most holidays and for a month or two during the summer. She's a mere 9mos older than Teenie, and they do not get along at all!
