I'm Counting On You

Listening to: Dance of the Cucumber – Veggie Tales
Mood: Tweaking out – guests coming tomorrow.

So I was sitting in the car at a stop light today when my eldest daughter brought forth one of those gems that make you shake your head and thank god you had that 4th martini that resulted in the conception of your child. Erm, Not that I would know anything about these type of things....... Ahem.

I had invited my sister in law over for the weekend with her kids. My eldest daughter (herein referred to as Mrs. Nosy) knew this. In fact, she was informed that unless she was a good girl and helped clean the house – especially her mess – her cousins could not come over. Now obviously, I wouldn’t tell them they couldn’t come if she was bad, but hey, kids don’t figure this out for quite some time. Anyhow, the cable man had come on Monday and needed access to every single freakin closet in my apartment. Living in an apartment, we are at a lack of storage space and all our extra crap is shoved in the closet. We have had all that crap out ever since I had to drag it all out of the closets. Mrs. Nosy’s room also included.

So while we were sitting in the car, Mrs. Nosy informed me, “Mommy, I am really counting on you to clean my room.” I paused for a second and the responded, “Since when do I clean your room?” “No Mommy. All the stuff you took out of the closets. I’m really counting on you. To clean my room up. So my cousins can come over.” I just had to laugh because I have no idea where she learned that phrase.

Losing Yourself

Listening to: Hermie’s Christmas Movie (A kid’s movie)
Mood: Frazzled

I’m in the middle of one of those days. The kind where all you really want to do is run away and join the circus just to get some sanity back. My 2 month old is practicing her Velcro abilities and exercising her lungs. My 4 year old is her usual psychotic, manic self and wants me to discuss the details of everything we look at. We had to stop at Target today after I got my 4 year old from Preschool . I’m sure you can imagine how taking an hour to obtain paper towels and sinus medication was not my idea of entertainment. I got to thinking in the car, as I was desperately trying to mentally block out the banshee, “I’m hungry. Right. This. Minute.” wail of Peanut in the back seat. I finally determined that I have lost any and all mental powers of concentration and have temporarily lost any sense of self. I remember having this happen with my eldest daughter when she was an infant. I thought it was just because I was 22 and hadn’t really found myself anyhow. It got better as she got a little older and entertained herself by crawling as fast as possible towards anything remotely fun. (read dangerous.) However, Peanut is one of the most difficult babies that I have ever come across. She has taken much more time and energy than her sister ever did. I think it’s a little harder for me this time because I have things I know I want to do. Grown up things, like planning the day, blogging, and learning excel. Trying to do anything but the basics (read breathing) requires some concentration, which between the 2 of my kiddos, I cannot seem to find any of. Eating, getting dressed, and even sleeping has its challenges these days. It has really been hard this time around to lose any sense of self and adult intelligence in favor of wishing my ear drums were stuffed with mashed potatoes so I would not have to listen to screaming and nonstop preschooler chatter. Don’t get me wrong here. I absolutely adore having kids. I love it. I love having a baby in the house. However, I still crave for adult type thought processes and interactions. It keeps you sane. I never planned on being a housewife, not to mention a stay at home mom for as long as I have. In a way, I’ve been blessed. I’ve been able to enjoy both my kids, well, being kids. In another way, it makes you a little crazy. Working on my blogs has been a bit depressing for me lately. I have lost some of my wonderful sense of humor. I lack the concentration to be funny. It just comes out forced and a little desperate. I know that as Peanut gets a little older, my posts will get better. In the mean time, I will subject you to mediocre humor. Hey – at least it won’t make you wish for those mashed potatoes.

Have a great week,
Becky

Parenting: It's Personal

Listening to: Big Poppa – Biggy Smalls
Mood: Relaxed

I feel that we’ve generally landed up in a crazy time to be raising kids. The world is an extremely nutty place and helicopter parents reign supreme as a result. God forbid you give unsolicited advice to anyone, about anything remotely to do with raising kids. I’ve never been a fan of unsolicited advice. As I mentioned in my last blog, it’s a product of how I was raised.

Some of the most heated arguments I’ve ever seen have been between people who are talking about how they raise their kid(s) and how the correct way is to do something. There are lots of different styles of parenting along with the individual flavor every parent brings to the equation. People tend to either follow or go the opposite way of their parents’ child raising philosophy. And let me tell you, when people decide (consciously or not) on their philosophy, they stick to it come hell or high water. In my opinion it’s hard enough for 2 married (or committed) people to agree on how to parent a child. Throw in the parents’ advice, the in laws advice, and a random stranger at the parks advice, and it’s a recipe for trouble.

I guess as parents, we feel that because we know our child best and what we want them to turn out to be, that we know the best way to raise them. As the mother of a very head strong child, I’ve often wondered if what I was doing was the right thing. Don’t get me wrong, I’m as guilty of the next guy to swearing by my child philosophy, but on the more frustrating days, I would secretly (and as my spouse can attest – not so secretly) wonder what I was doing wrong. I’m a stay at home mom. I am doing most of the discipline leg work for my kids. As a result, I felt I knew my eldest daughter a little better than my husband and would get extremely frustrated with him when he suggested things I had already tried and deemed not useful or things that I plain knew wouldn’t work on her. It’s almost an emasculating feeling when you think others feel they can care for your child better than you.

Parenting is such a demanding and difficult job. Why do we insist on not listening to others trying to be helpful? Better yet, why can we not be open to different ideas without becoming combative about our methods? So what if Suzie’s mom only uses time outs when you spank your kid? I’m sure they both have merits, why not let it be? If you know Suzie has a similar disposition as your kid, why not discuss with Suzie’s mom what works for her? Other parents should be a resource, not competition.
Becky

Your Mother and You

Listening to: Alice – Smokie
Mood: Tired, but happy

I live in White Plains NY. My mom lives in Kankakee IL, and I hate it. I really wish she lived closer than an airplane flight away. (Hello free babysitting!) However, there are moments when I’m really glad she doesn’t live any closer. Now I really love my mom, but like any parent child relationship, there are moments when she drives me absolutely batty. One of these instances is the way that she can make me feel like a horrible mom for a little, unimportant thing. Like not feeding my eldest child ice cream for every meal. Now usually, it takes a feat of nature to make me question how I do things. I just have a pretty thick skin and don’t much care what other people think. I also usually listen to advice my mom gives. She isn’t the type (and indeed, this runs in the family) to give advice or encouragement very often or unsolicited. However, as happens too often, the minute my mom cut my eldest daughter’s cord and became a grandma, she suffered from amnesia and a loss of parenting common sense. For some reason, when I was younger, it would have made perfect sense to her to make me pick up my own room at 4 years old (or at least do most of it). For some reason, this logic seems to have escaped her. I was raised in a strict household. Perhaps too strict at times, but I like who I am as a result. My family wasn’t well off when I was younger either. I intend to raise my children strictly and to be respectful and thankful for what they have. My mother would never have thought to buy me even half of the ridiculous things that she sends my eldest daughter. Nor would she have let my grandparents get away with such spoilery. I know I shouldn’t compare how I was raised and how my daughters are being raised, but it’s hard for me sometimes to understand how my mom has changed so much. And why she can possibly get me to feel guilty for not buying my daughter everything she could possibly want. I’m going to tell her it’s a result of me never getting that pony that I wanted when I was 7.
Becky

The Bed Space Game

Mood: Edgy/Cranky
Listening To: More than a Feeling – Boston

So as you’ve probably figured out by now, I have 2 little girls, aged 4 and 2 months. As of recent, I noticed we seem to be having a crisis of bed space at our house. Now, this really is not for a lack of beds. We have 2 queen sized beds, one for my husband and I and one for our four year old. We also have a pack and play for the peanut sized daughter. The problem comes when I am nursing my youngest at night or my 4 year old inevitably wanders into my room about 3 in the morning wanting to sleep in our bed. My husband could sleep while a hurricane brought down the apartment around his bed – he couldn’t care less. I, on the other hand, am a much lighter sleeper. I simply cannot sleep with 3 inches on the edge of the bed. I’m just not a 3 inch sized person.

Peanut usually ends up back in her bed (and really could care less) as soon as she’s done eating for fear that one of us will roll over and squish her in the night. (Insert some corny joke about peanut butter here….) The exception to this is if the heater in our room decides to randomly not function and we have to leave her in our bed for fear that we will wake up and find a peanut Popsicle. As a result, I don’t sleep more than 5 minutes at a time because I have to wake up and assure myself that she has not been squished or managed to wedge her face into a pillow.

My older one is somewhat more challenging. She’s a ninja bed space stealer. Since my husband cannot manage to sleep on his side of the bed, he usually doesn’t hear/feel her sneak into the bed because he’s too busy stealing all of my body heat and the covers. Of course she learned long ago that a stealth attack was much more productive than actually asking to sleep with us, because my husband or I would escort her back into her own room with a firm goodnight and a promise to see her in the morning. So around 5 am, when my husband is in a comatose sleep that doesn’t require laying on top of me, he tries to roll back over to his side of the bed, which is now impossible due to the four year old sprawled out spread eagle on his side of the bed. This leads my husband to just shrug in his sleep and continue to use me as a body pillow. Being in the sleep deprived/newborn baby stage that I am in, I don’t even hear her walk in the room. Seriously, someone could walk in my room, rifle through my underwear drawer looking for loot and I’d probably never even figure it out. I’m just too tired to notice if my undies are in order or not.

I’ve considered a few things to help me avoid being left with the 3 inches of bed space, but nothing too practical. If we have to have peanut in bed, there’s really not much to be done about it. I can’t let the poor little adorable thing freeze. I’ve thought of a baby gate too to keep ninja sleeper out, but with her ninja powers, she’d probably just try to jump over it, crash to the floor, scare the crap out of hubby and I and wake peanut. At 3 am. Locking the door is also out of the question because any time ninja sleeper is denied access to either of us, it leads to a meltdown of nuclear proportions, i.e. when I try to use the bathroom by myself. I just don’t have the energy to deal with that at 3 am. Ah well, all the more motivation to lose weight. I’ll never be small enough to only require 3 inches of space, but perhaps I can reach a point where if my ass is hanging off the bed it doesn’t drag the rest of my body with it.
Becky

Noise Level vs Sanity Level

Listening to: Beatles - Penny Lane
Mood: Happy

I have this theory. Well, I have lots of theories, but we’re gonna tackle this one tonight. I have been thinking about how much noise affects your sanity. My theory is that they are inversely proportionate. The noisier it is, the less sane you become. Some types of noise are more harmful than others. Cars honking outside your window is mildly annoying. A four year old with a cowbell in her hand and a song in her heart – induces mild insanity in 3.4 seconds. I have noticed this phenomenon much more as of late because I have 2 vociferous noise makers in my house now. One four year old because, well, she likes being noisy and life is more fun that way. One 2 month old, because, well, she was born with a super set of lungs and an uber fussy temperament and getting her way is just so much easier when she’s screaming. I’ve noticed that the more noise they are producing (i.e. the cowbell and song previously mentioned + a screaming, hungry baby) the more frazzled and insane I feel.

I have never, ever valued absolute silence like I do now. I feel absolutely zen-ish when I have a few minutes of quiet. I can understand now (even though I don’t condone it) why they export noise abuse for terrorists in Iraq. If I was from Iraq and was exposed to ultra loud rap music for hours on end, I would want to gouge my eyes out with rusty nails too.

This becomes especially annoying when I’m trying to work on something that remotely requires an iota of concentration. Both of my daughters (as well as every kid in general) have radar. If I’m working on blogging, talking on the phone, paying bills, etc, that is the exact moment when noise is crucial. It’s some kind of cosmic payback for parents’ ability to know kids are doing something naughty without actually seeing it. The eyes on the back of the head thing. In fact, that is just about the only time when my 4 year old is quiet. She’s either sleeping, or being naughty. It’s a dead giveaway at 3 in the afternoon.

So next time your kid is playing Mozart on the cowbell with a made up song, your baby is screaming, the phone is ringing, the television is on, your spouse is talking to you, and the radio is on for some mysterious reason, go lock yourself in the bathroom for 5 minutes. I promise it will do a world of good for your sanity. Just try your best to ignore the pounding on the door and the screams for mercy from your spouse as your kids take him hostage.

Becky

I'm Bored

Listening to: Dilbera
Mood: Calm

Those two words have been the bane of parents since, well, since we stopped using children as free labor on farms. I remember driving my mother nuts with these two words and now the sins of the father (or rather the mother in this case) have returned to the son (er, daughter). I always cringe when I hear this. It means that I get to be either a detective and guess what she wants to do or a circus ring master and actually entertain her. Usually, I groan internally when I hear this chant because it means that my daughter wants entertainment of the glowing electronic variety. A parent can only take so many candy colored characters on Noggin. Especially Moose A Moose and Z. I can remember being bored as a kid, but it still baffles me how a 4 year old with tons of stuff in her room can be at a loss for something interesting to do. At least only one of my children can complain of boredom, at least for 2 more years. Right now she tends to just scream. I try to help her find things to do, like go to the park or library, but I’m not a ringmaster. I’m a juggler.

Becky