Archives for March 2006

I’m used to the anti-climactic nature birthdays and Christmases tend to have for kids – all the hype of the short 24-hour span building up for weeks, a brief burst of gift opening, and then, poof! It’s over. I know in a few short weeks, I’ll be pulling Easter Bunny duty, trying to come up with cute and clever basket ideas (that don’t involve that obnoxious plastic grass that inevitably ends up all over the house). I didn’t realize that I should be feeling the pressure for St Patricks Day.

Yes. St Patricks Day. Pressure.

Those freakin’ leprechauns.

And those freakin’ preschool teachers who set these kids up to believe in these freakin’ leprechauns.

I knew that The Princess knew that St Patricks Day was approaching. I had told her last night, “You’ll have to wear green tomorrow so that you don’t get pinched.” She looked at me like I was insane and said, “You won’t pinch me!” And I looked right back at her and jokingly said, “Oh, I won’t?”

“Nooooooooo, you’re my mommy, and you love me so I know you won’t pinch me!”

Okay, can’t fault that logic.

This morning, The Princess got out of bed about 5:45 (about 5 minutes after Pumpkin – so I was awake, if barely). We all traipsed downstairs and I noticed The Princess peeking through the curtains to look in the yard. She went upstairs to fetch some clothes to wear today and when she came back down she said, “I heard a noise! I looked out my window – I think it might have been…the leprechauns!” What? “Miss D says that on St Patricks Day, the leprechauns come around and hide silly stuff and they are in our yards!” Thanks Miss D (and thank you, preschool… is that what we’re teaching the kiddos these days?).

Several times this morning, The Princess was peering out the curtains looking for leprechauns. By this afternoon, she was pouting. “I thought St Patricks Day would be SO great! I thought the leprechauns would come.”

It was so sad that I called Hubby at work and told him to bring home leprechaun treats and hide them before he came into the house this evening. We are so suckered. He came in the house this evening and said to The Princess, “I pulled into the driveway and saw a leprechaun in our yard! He ran away when he saw me, but it looks like he left something there!” I have never see The Princess get her coat on so fast. Of course, the leprechaun brought her an awesome LazyTown coloring book (with scented crayons, no less). So now, she is no longer soured on St Patricks Day.

We’re not even Irish!

Hubby (correct picks): 12
Me (correct picks): 10

Okay, so I’m probably not going to win this thing… but, y’know, not bad for someone who doesn’t know doody about basketball and the teams playing!

I feel that I’m a good mom – though, maybe not necessarily a smart one, sometimes. We have quite possibly turned the corner in some of our sleep struggles and I’m coming to the realization that Pumpkin not sleeping was largely MY FAULT. I have basically, for the past 7.5 months, been missing her sleep cues. She has been doing all those cute little baby things to “tell” me she’s tired, and by and large, I’ve apparently been ignoring them.

Whoops.

After heading to the doc last week and getting a clean bill of health, the doc started in with the: “You’re gonna have to let her cry” stuff. Because letting her cry keeps me awake longer than just picking her up and rocking her or feeding her, I basically blew it off to a degree.

Instead, I started paying attention. What a novel concept. I feel like the world’s biggest idiot for not doing this sooner. When she starts rubbing her eyes with her hand, or on my shoulder (if I’m holding her), I’ve simply been wrapping her up in her blanket, snuggling her for a few minutes, singing a song, and placing her gently in her crib. At that point, she’s usually asleep with little to no fussing within minutes. Sheesh. All this crying when I could have just been PAYING ATTENTION?!

It’s not fool proof, but I will say that the past few days, she’s taken several naps daily (still tending towards “crap naps” – several 30-40 minute naps), and her night wakings are less frequent, when she wakes up in the middle of the night at all.

Sigh. Sometimes these babies have to train their mommies.

The March Madness brackets came out Sunday and Hubby and I both went through last night and made our picks for the winners and Final Four and all that stuff. Let me say this: I hate basketball. I just went through the brackets willy-nilly and picked the teams that struck me – in other words: gut instinct. Hubby, of course, looked at their records and what see they are, blah blah blah.

At one point, he looked at one of my picks and said, “You picked a fourteenth seed to upset the number three seed – that’s really quite the upset” or some such. Huh? I don’t even know what that means! If you know, please don’t explain it to me – I don’t even want to know… I was just having fun. Joke’s on him if any of my picks actually win!

We’re going to keep track of who gets the most right in the next few weeks – I have a lot riding on my win: Hubby does night wakings with Pumpkin for a FULL week, plus I get to go out on a nice date with my Hubby. Hubby hasn’t said what is in store for him if he wins, but I’ve told him to keep it clean – it’s only basketball, afterall.

What a grand weekend – sunshine (not all day, everyday, but sunshine nonetheless), and temps in the 50s. I got out for walks yesterday and today – jamming with the tunes on the MP3 player and got some fresh air and exercise. Able to spend some time on Family Walks as well – with both girls and Hubby. Slow, yes, but so nice to be together.

Hubby took over and I got a nap this afternoon (whoo hoo!), and later The Princess and I baked cookies (Brownie cookies with M&Ms) for Hubby to take to work tomorrow… we bake treats every Sunday for his office. Our little mini-remedy to the tax season chaos.

Settling in for a quiet night at home, after one of the most enjoyable weekends I’ve had in awhile. Five weeks until tax season is O-V-E-R!!!!

This morning, I took the girls to a co-worker’s house to meet up with two gals I worked with before all the stuff hit the fan (restructuring) and before all our babies were born. You see, our Marketing department was a group of fertile-mertles. The joke was, “Want to get pregnant? Go drink their water.” Last year, I was due early-August, T was due in October, and C was due mid-December. Three of us pregnant at the same time, and once we started having the babies, we all somehow found ourselves without full time jobs.

No matter.

Today, for the first time, the three of us got together with our girls (I also brought The Princess, and C has an almost-2-year-old as well) at C’s house. While C and I get together occasionally, I hadn’t seen T since the birth of her cutie-patootie back in October. Of course, T was immaculately put together and styled and looking great. C and I were in the sweatshirts and jeans mode. Styled hair? What’s that! Makeup? Really?

Being in C’s house was as comfort to me as well. When The Princess was born, I was able to stay on top of cleaning, as well as take good care of her (while I was on maternity leave anyway!). With two kids (one rapidly becoming mobile and getting into everything), my housecleaning method has become less “make-the-floor-so-one-can-eat-off-it” and more “put-things-where-the-baby-can’t-reach”. This means that while there isn’t much on my floor that can be construed as a choking hazard, it means there is now so much crap on the couch, the chairs, the tables, counters and shelves. Everything is still there making clutter – it’s just… Up.

C gets that. I found comfort in the syrup on her dining table and the rolled up dirty diaper on the changing table (it wasn’t that bad – it was just pee!). The toy clutter in her son’s play area was ideal for he and The Princess to have a blast coloring and playing. The living room was strewn with baby paraphanelia – swing, saucer, floor gym, you name it. It just felt like the kind of place where you didn’t feel like you had to pretend to be the Martha Stewart mommy, and you didn’t have to worry about “Oh no, what if Pumpkin spits up on the sofa?” Definitely not “messy”. It was lived in.

Sometimes, as parents we have to make priorities and sacrifices. Sometimes you need to hold a baby, or reassure the big kids. Get dinner on the table and change diapers (and bless C, with her two kids in diapers – she’s always having to change someone’s pants!). And by golly, if you don’t get to make your furniture sparkle, or your floors hospital-clean, well, that’s a choice you make. It’s the choice I’ve made anyway. And apparently C as well.

I’ve had to console myself that for the time being, I have to have priorities, and my house can’t always be top of that list. Actually, my house may not even fall in the top 5 on that list. And I have to learn to make that okay. No one is ever gonna walk in my house and feel like they need to spray themselves with Lysol when they leave… but I’m sure they won’t feel intimidated by my prowess with a duster (don’t own one) either.

And that has to be okay.

Last night, I slept nearly uninterrupted from about 11:30 p.m. to 5:30 this morning. No, Pumpkin didn’t revert back to her sleeping-through-the-night ways (oh, I wish!). However, since Thursday mornings are the day where Hubby takes The Princess to preschool and has to get Stepson on the schoolbus, he goes in to work three hours later than usual – and so he so wonderfully offered to let me catch up on sleep last night.

And I sure took him up on it!

The thing is, Pumpkin was up like clockwork around 11:30-ish. That waking seemed to go pretty smooth. I was hoping that with Hubby getting up with her, since she doesn’t associate him with food, she’d go back to sleep faster… and that seemed to be the case with the earlier waking. That doesn’t sound like the case for her next waking. Hubby told me this a.m. that she woke up again at 2:30 (again, like clockwork) and then again at 3:45, and from there, she only fell asleep minutes before I came downstairs at 5:30 (which is debatable to me, because though she was snoozing on Hubby’s chest, she had indentations on her face from his sweatshirt that would have taken more than ten minutes, but hey, whatever).

So essentially – the wakings that I can usually get through in twenty minutes had Hubby awake for two plus hours. I feel sort of bad, but I look at his methods for doing things, and I know that was a factor. But, I KEPT MY MOUTH SHUT.

Keeping my mouth shut is a difficult thing – but if there is one surefire way to ensure that Hubby never again offers to help, criticizing his methods would be that way. Though the living room was darkened, the adjoining dining room and kitchen lights were on – so it was essentially daylight downstairs. I never do that. I turn on a small nightlight in the bathroom nearby – enough light so I don’t trip over stuff, not too much light that she gets excited and thinks it’s playtime. I had told Hubby last night before bed (my one “instruction”) that what I’ve found works is holding her close to me and wrapping her blanket around her and cuddling her up. That blanket? It was in a ball in the corner of her crib! Her Exersaucer was out, so I could tell she’d been in it (I had dumped a bunch of stuff on it last night while I was “cleaning”). I certainly don’t do playtime in the middle of the night. Stepson’s Bionicle toys were tossed on a chair, because, as Hubby said, “I didn’t want her to get into them while she was on the floor…” The television was on, but not muted.

I’m not saying my way is the right way, or the only way, or that Hubby’s way WON’T work, though it obviously didn’t work for him. I guess there is no way he’d know all of this stuff instinctively. It’s really hard to let go and not discourage him from doing things and doing them his way, and learning what will and won’t work for him and for them. It’s hard to be a mom. It’s even harder to be a mom who is a control freak.

(Side note: I’ll be taking her to the doc this a.m. to rule out any physical causes for the night wakings before we have to hunker down and sleep train… AGAIN).

Things I’ve learned since becoming a mom…

1. Even the most closed-off person who doesn’t like to talk about bodily functions will now find it socially acceptable to not only talk about a baby’s gaseous issues (how much they fart!), but poop. And not just in a passing sense – but in detail… including consistency, frequency and color. (I’ve noticed that it’s no longer “taboo” to me, and I’ve been known to forget that to some people it’s still quite gross, and bring it up at really bad times… like during dinner!)

2. A compliment about my children can bring a smile to my face and is more meaningful to me than a compliment about myself. Actually, a compliment about my kids is a compliment to myself.

3. That hearing stories of bad things happening to kids can rip your heart to shreds even more so now than B.C. (before children) because now you think of how horrible it would be if anything happened to your children and how you would maim or kill anyone who dare harm a hair on your babies’ heads.

4. Your job description now includes: wiping butts, picking noses, and making chocolate chip heart-shaped pancakes (the last of the three happens to be the most tolerable, by the way!).

5. You can get away with watching cartoons and claim it’s just to spend time with the kids (Backyardigans, anyone?!).

6. Dr Seuss can fix a picky eater (The book Green Eggs & Ham has worked wonders when The Princess starts to get picky).

7. You can try, but 8 times out of 10, you will have company in the bathroom when you have to go pee.

8. You will also find yourself saying that you “have to go potty” – even when there are no children around (and I’m mortified that I’ve said it, because I always laughed at people before for doing that).

9. You will see the purpose of minivans and time-outs.

10. You will learn what the saying truly means: Having children is like having your heart walking around outside your body.

11. You will be blessed in more ways than you ever dared dream was possible.

My inlaws called Hubby Sunday, asking if he could come over this week to chat. They said they had “some things” they wanted to talk to him about. Of course, Hubby’s first thought was that this is the annual “Why Don’t You Bring the Kids Over to See Us” vent that they do, almost like clockwork. These “meetings” inevitably end up with my mother-in-law yelling at my husband, and then my mother-in-law bursting into tears, and nothing ever getting resolved, because if these people REALLY wanted to see the kids, they would come over and see them, by golly.

They said, “Do you have the time to come over?” Hubby laughed at them and said, “It’s tax season – I’m working about 60 hours per week – and I would like to spend some time with my children each day, so no, I don’t really have the time.” They asked if he could please come over because they wanted his thoughts on “some things”. Finally, he said he would though he had no idea what they were talking about. They hinted that they were thinking of moving out of state and wanted to discuss it.

Moving out of state? Why didn’t you say so in the first place?! Hubby ended up going the very next day, which was last night after a twelve hour day.

Basically, they are moving “somewhere it’s warm” though they don’t know where. They are moving “next week or next year”, though they don’t know when. They will be selling much of their belongings and replacing it when they get there, though I don’t see the point in that. Just get a UHaul – it can’t be cheaper to buy all new stuff.

Whatever. It was a happy day in our neck of the woods…. There will peace in our little valley after all.

Tonight is the big night – the Academy Awards are on. This means all my favorite tv shows will be pre-empted for several hours of festivities (Boo hoo! I’ll be going through “Grey’s Anatomy” withdrawal). And, I’ll have to find something productive to do with my time because, sadly, I won’t be watching.

I used to watch the awards shows yearly. I watched them all: Grammys, Billboard Music Awards, Golden Globes, Oscars… you name it. Of course, that was in my life B.C. – Before Children, when I had time to follow the endeavors of Hollywood and the music industry, and had actually seen any of the nominated movies, or heard any of the songs or artists up for awards.

As it is now, the last flick I saw in a theater was “Curious George” and I don’t listen to much for me in the car, instead getting to listen to “The Yeti Stomp” on repeat (who doesn’t love that?). Likely neither one of those will be nominated for anything besides Nickelodeon awards.

I’m so out of the loop. Maybe I’ll just go to bed at 8 o’clock.