The Day it All Fell Apart

Just need to record this conversation in case I ever wonder, "Where did I go wrong?"

I am working, and I am burned out, and Jack is home with me, and he doesn't want to nap. An hour after I put him down, I heard the garage door open, and I though it was Dave. Then I heard the sound of little feet running from room to room. Contrary to the to implications of the High School Varsity Cross Country Jacket that I can see from where I am sitting right now, Dave is not a runner, so I got up to investigate.

It was Jack, and we had the following conversation:

Jack: I don't want to nap.
Me: You have to
Jack: I promise I won't be grouchy
Me: You said that last time.
Jack: If I am grouchy, you can just get me a class of water and I will not be grouchy.
Me: OK, You don't have to nap, but you have to go to your room for quiet time.
Jack: OK.
Jack: Can I be loud?
Me: Sure.

And scene.

File Under: Neglectful Parenting

This is one of those stories I shouldn't share because it makes me look like a bad parent, but here goes.

Today, Jack decided to go to the bathroom all on his own and told us about it afterwords. I was so proud (and surprised)! And when I asked for details about how he did it, he said, "Oh, I just left the door open and just listened to the TV for a minute."

What a problem solver!

Self Esteem, Check!

Today Jack pooped on the potty. I don't know why but I just said, "Great!" instead of singing the song and doing the dance. I was running around with the dog in the back yard yesterday and I tripped over the sprinkler line, flew through the air and landed far away on my side. That might explain my forgetfulness regarding the poop song, and my lack of desire to do the death defying poop dance celebration. No worries, Jack had his own congratulatory session.

"I pooped on the potty and that's impressive. It's incredible. And awesome. It's incredibly awesome."

This is going to sound sort of petty and mean, but I couldn't help but think, "He sure has an impressive vocabulary for someone who frequently craps in his pants."

Lessons, Learned

When you come home from daycare with a plastic bagged filled with a pair of underwear filled with a big turd, your first instinct might be to deal with it immediately, have a drink and forget it ever happened for 24 hours until the same thing happens again.

Word to the wise: Take off your coat and scarf first. Never lean over the toilet to deal with turd filled underwear (henceforth referred to as The Situation) while wearing a beautiful scarf. I can't stress this enough people. While you are taking off your hat and scarf, pour yourself a drink and savor it for 15 minutes and then deal with The Situation. Just don't wait so long that your spouse says, "Did you leave The Situation in the bathroom for me to deal with?" Relax everyone, there will be enough to go around.

Today, In Potty Training

The other day, Jack sat on the potty before nap, and then I put a diaper on him and pulled up his pants. I am trying to keep him in pants that are easy-on/easy-off on the off chance he decides to try to go on his own. We had gone through a few pairs, so the ones he had on were too big and had to be rolled at the waist.

He immediately commenced pre-nap procrastination/fit-throwing.

"Eeeeeh. My PANTS. They aren't UP!"

"Yes they are, honey. Here, I'll straighten them."

"THEY AREN'T UP."

"It probably just feels funny to wear a diaper after having underwear on all day."

"NO!!!! MY PANTS aren't UP. I can't WALK."

"Yes, you can, come on downstairs."

And so on, for the five minutes it took him to walk down to his bedroom. He even stopped once to lean way over to try to figure out what the problem was and almost toppled down the stairs. I grabbed him by the shirt and carried him the rest of the way.

I almost lost my temper, but I am reading a book about happiness and I had a vague memory of some piece of advice and I thought, why lose your temper? So I took a deep breath and said, "OK, maybe I got your diaper on crooked, let me take a look."

And what did I see? Diaper was fine, pants were fine, but I hadn't taken off his underwear and they were around his knees.

I burst into hysterical laughter, and fortunately, he did too.

After nap he said, "Remember before nap, how we were giggling? That was funny."

Here is How It's Done

I was reading stories at bedtime tonight and I was on auto pilot so when Jack said, "Dat what you training me to do?", I said, "Uh? Potty training, what?" But he was pointing to this picture and saying, "When people are bothering me, you are training me to just walk away."

And yes, that was my brilliant parenting advice. Instead of hitting or yelling, just walk away! Please feel free to use this advice.

Name the book for bonus points!

Oh Lucy, Oh Girl

Jack and Lucy are basically litter mates, and they have a very special relationship. Jack likes to pet her, and say, "Oh Lucy, Oh girl." It's nice when the two of them are being adorable at the same time, because at the other end of the spectrum, I am cleaning up poop and trying to determine whose it is through forensic analysis. But that's a story for another day.

The other day when Jack delayed using the potty until it was too late, I said, "Didn't Daddy and I both tell you you needed to try?" And he said, "Well, Lucy told me just to go in my underwear." I said, "Well, who are you supposed to listen to? Daddy and I? Or Lucy?" He said, "Daddy." Ok, close enough. Because Lucy is far from an authority on potty training.

There are obvious benefits to Jack being potty trained, but those won't be realized for a few weeks, at the very minimum. So I am trying to see bright sides on a daily basis. So far, all I have come up with is that if I am doing so much laundry, then I might as well start my New Year's resolution of using cloth napkins all the time. But... that makes it sound like I am washing the cloth napkins with the dirty underwear, and I swear I am not doing that. I am just in the laundry room a lot more often. Seriously.

So, while I am deep in the trenches of this last rite of babyhood, at least we can have a little sophistication at the dinner table. And we are saving the environment too. Yup, potty training is the best thing ever.

Little Hippie at the Liquor Store

Friday night, Jack and I were wondering the liquor store on our way out for the evening. The boys had an offer of free tickets to a CU Basketball game, and I was going to send them on their merry way and have a glass of wine with the moms.

We were wandering up and down the aisles trying to pick out a bottle of wine, after Jack had unsuccessfully lobbied to be left in the car. I suppose I was taking too much time, muttering to myself, "Hmmm. What do I want, what do I want, what do I want?"

Jack decided to be helpful and said, "Well, what is your body telling you?"

I said, "Oh, I don't know, what is your body telling you?" because I wasn't sure what he was even talking about. He decided to give me an example, "My body is saying I WANT BEER."

Oh, OK. Thanks! I decided my body was telling me I wanted red wine. It never got any more specific, so I let my wallet make the rest of the decision.

Play D'oh! The Full Sensory Experience

The other day, Dave came to find me with Jack under his arm and said, "We have a situation. He stuck play doh up his nose."

My first thought was, "Thank GOD I put the search option on my blog!" Because I knew this had happened before, and I had some crazy idea that the worst case scenario was to suck the stuff out with your mouth, but that maybe my friend Mare had corrected that in the comments, and I should check before I did anything crazy like that, and I could search on "stuck in your nose" and the answer would be right there, but Dave would probably prefer if I just got it out instead of firing up my laptop, and before I was finished with this crazy thought rampage I had gotten most of it out with my beautifully manicured nail and the bulb sucker.

Dave didn't think the bulb sucker was working, so I resorted to the nail, while informing him that the bulb sucker was mostly just to torture Jack for putting something in his nose (exactly my same thought process as last time, and obviously not a real deterrent)

In the end, the bulb sucker did work to get it all out, once Dave was holding Jack down and I could really cram it in there.

I should also mention that as soon as Jack started playing with the play doh, (the day before) I saw him holding a mold very close to his face. He caught my eye and said, "You don't eat it?" I said, "No. You don't eat it." He said, "Just lick it?" I said, "No, you don't lick it." So he finally sighed and said, "Oh. You just smell it?" I said, "Yes, just smell it."

I had no idea how closely he planned to smell it.

Rootin' And Tootin'

As promised (by Dave), I took Jack to Chuck E Cheese this morning to celebrate his lone poop on the potty. While we were out, we made visits to the bathrooms at both Chuck E Cheese and Costco. He peed and CEC, but just sat there at Costco. Well, he sat there cheering. Loudly. Jack was wearing a retro Broncos tee-shirt (with the old school blue and orange colors), which he happened to notice while he was sitting on the pot gazing downwards. This caused him to cheer, "Go BRONCOS!" And once he gets in a cheering mood, there is no stopping him.

"BUFFALO! BUFFALO! GO C!U! "
"BUFFALO! BUFFALO! GO C!U! "

AND so on.

Props to Grandad for the title of this post, which evolved over dinner as I shared the story.

Must Be Bath Night Because Some Ears Need to be Cleaned Out!

Luke: I am rooting for The Netherlands.
Me: Don't be offended, but I think I am going to root for Spain.
Dave: Oooh - in house rivalry. Do you to want to place bets?
Luke: NO! I took a bath last night!

???

Me: Jack, can you finish your yogurt or is that now impossible?
Jack: I can't. It's a popsicle.

???

In other news, we went to The Library today, and because it only takes 100 times for me to learn my lesson, I took Jack into the bathroom as soon as we got there. No dice. He just slowly backed out, somberly shaking his head "no". It paid off though, because after dinner, I brought a big stack of reading material into the bathroom with Jack and... He POOPED on the POTTY! Big news. We now owe him a trip to Chuck E Cheese. Or Chuckie Cheese, as Luke would say.

Then, I heard Dave scheming with Luke and they planned a trip to Casa Bonita to celebrate a full week of pooping on the potty, when and if that ever happens. Not sure how I feel about it, because that place sounds like it could scare the poop out of anyone. Luke went there on a camp field trip, and in my research, I found this description, "it's like Disney had sex with Tijuana and left the goofy-looking bastard to fend for itself in a random strip mall on Colfax. "

In other poop related news, my new favorite line from a book is, "Mr. B is making it happen."

Potty Training

Jack likes to use the bathroom at The Med, Murphy's, The Rio, Coors Stadium, and other places that are not our house. (Well, our bathroom is an exciting destination at 2:00 am, or just after Jack has been put to bed.) I have a new theory on this: When we are out, it's obvious when a family member is going to use the bathroom because they excuse themselves and leave to go to the bathroom. Jack wants to go too. At home, it's not such a big deal, and not something Jack would notice and it isn't so exciting that he would want to join you. This is just a theory. But I am going to suggest to the rest of my family that everyone start making a big deal out of announcing that they are going to use the bathroom. We'll see how that goes.

But I wanted to share this: The second time I took Jack to the bathroom at Coor's field during the Rockies game on Saturday, I covered the seat with toilet paper, took of his shorts and diaper, sat him on the pot, etc etc. Then once he was dressed I quickly went to the bathroom. This time, instead of trying to open the door and escape, Jack just hung out and waited until I was finished. And then he loudly said, "Good Job Mommy! GOOD JOB!"

Bookin' All Over Town

You can thank me later about the many times I started this blog post only to realize that the extremely long intro about the thousand things that were stressing me out yesterday and the many different plans I came up with to deal with them were actually quite boring and made me look crazy.

Suffice it to say, I felt stressed, and instead of taking the dumb, complicated, stressful path through my evening, I decided to take the easy, simple, stress free way. This is pretty much a first for me. In fact, I was recently reading Glamour magazines tips on not being a stressed out working mother and one of them was to embrace the chaos. So I was trying to embrace chaos while simultaneously not creating more chaos when things got chaotic yesterday.

Baseball season is upon us, and Dave picked up Luke for practice and the game. I figured I had time to pick up Jack, go to the library, pick up a few things at the grocery store and make it in time for the first pitch. (And yes, this was the simple version of my evening.)

Jack was adorable at the library. A mom to a teenager was just looking at Jack and I with fond memories spilling out of her smile and all over the books. We picked up my two books, and Jack picked out two books for himself. We checked out, got in the car, I handed Jack one of the books, then headed to the grocery store on the other side of the divided road. There was a loud noise, and Jack said, "What dat noise?" He doesn't like loud noises. I said, "It's just that water bottle rolling around in the back of the car."

Jack: Nope. Dem books.
Me: No, water bottle.
Jack: Books
Me: Did you drop your book honey?
Jack: Nope.
Me: THE BOOKS WERE ON TOP OF THE CAR! Did you see them fall off?
Jack: Yes.

Then I tried to figure out what to do. Make a u-turn, then another u-turn to get back to where it happened? How long will that take? Pull over right here? Nowhere to park! Pull over on this side street? Too late I am about to make a u-turn! The books! Pull over, and park! Go back! MY god! U-turn!

I finally decided my best option was to just part at the next side street and walk back. This was dumb, because if I had driven back via the 2 u-turns, I could have parked at the library, and the books would have been in the street right in front of the parking lot. Instead I had to walk/run two frantic blocks with Jack on my hip. As we got closer, I could see the books repeatedly getting run over. But they seemed fine when the traffic cleared and we picked them up. Both of them. Of course, there were three missing books. So on the walk back, there was a lot of, "We lost one book? It gone? It on toppa car still? It gone?"

The third book was still on top of the car. I guess all the frantic swerving I did while trying to decide which way to go kept it sort of centered.

We got in the car and headed to the grocery and I took some cleansing breaths. Jack didn't like the sound of that. He said, "You scared to me." Which either means I was scaring him, or I am scared of him, or I sounded scared to him."

We finally made it to baseball about half an hour into an hour game, and I got to see Luke play catcher and make a nice hit before Jack and I needed to head to the playground. I also got to enjoy a delicious glass of wine from a plastic cup, which I then stashed in my purse pocket. While I socialized with the other moms I tried to share the Glamour tidbit about embracing the chaos. This question was asked: HOW? I'll need to go back to the article, but I don't think it said how.

Jack and I were "driving" at the top of the playground structure when the cup fell out of my purse and all the way to the ground. Jack said, "Momma! Why you pourin' your wine out on the ground?" Maybe you heard him, he said it really loudly.

I may have made a lot of mistakes yesterday, but spilling wine was not one of them. Maybe that's how it's done. Embracing chaos: One plastic cup of wine at a time.

Maybe We Should Have Gotten A Pure Bred?

The Subject came up and I choked. For real.

Luke and I were riding the lift at Eldora on Sunday and talking about Lucy. He said something about how she's a Cocker Spaniel, and I said I wasn't so sure about that any more, but that she was some sort of Spaniel mix.

Luke: I don't get it. What's a mix?
Me: Well, you know, like if someone had a Chinese mom and an African dad, they'd be half
Luke: (interrupting) Why wouldn't they just be like THE MOM. What does the DAD have TO DO WITH IT?
Me: (choke, cough, cough, choke) Do you mind stopping at the top to get some water? I can't stop coughing.


Take note, that's a good parenting maneuver right there. Fake coughing fit.

Words I Hoped to Never Type

I had to remove food from a child's nose today. This has always been one of my big parenting fears. A child that puts something in his nose, gets upset, inhales it into his sinus cavity, trip to the emergency room, trauma, etc. Or worse, I have to do what I once read: get them to close their mouth and then suck whatever is stuck in their nose out with your own mouth. Sick, I know. But I needed a backup plan in case we were camping and the terrible situation occurred. I did a lot of planning and worrying about this eventuality as you can tell. Actually, it's sort of weird that I have always been so worried about this sort of thing because Luke would never, ever put something in his nose. Jack. That sums it up.

But this evening's experience was actually easy to deal with because it was just noodles, and they were still sort of hanging out. So first I had a minor heart attack when I saw the dangling noodles, then I yanked them out, then I ran and got the bulb sucker and pinned him down to make sure I got everything. I mean, I was pretty sure I got everything, but I sort of thought a little suffering at the hands of the bulb sucker would get the point across.

One parenting fear: Handled.

Things That Backfire

I do not recommend the following:

Discussing potential chocolate for potty training bribes in front of your 2 year old...

... Unless you want to see a 2 year old clutch his stomach, and yell, "I hungry! Chocolate!" while he rolls around on the floor.

Even considering potty training your 2 year old...

.... Unless you want to hear, "Mommy! I poo poo potty!" in the middle of the night.

Trying to distract your starving 2 year old while you cook dinner, by putting him in his high chair and telling him to play with play doh...

... Unless you want to hear, "Mmm. Gum." and "I hungry! Play doh!" for days.

We'll Take Great Care of Your Kids, I Promise!

But we might draw eyes on their necks and take silly pictures.

Yes, this could happen to your kids if you go out of town and your kids spend the night at Casa de MetaMegan.


But I promise to scrub your kid's neck with a brillo pad, if that's what it takes, so they don't show up at school with lipstick and marker everywhere. Because I take my job as a surrogate parent very seriously.

Speaking of Cold Turkey...

With all the crying, and fever, and vomiting, and needing to be held by Mommy or Daddy Jack did not use or mention his pacifier for 30 hours straight over Thanksgiving. This morning, when he woke up as his happy, but still slightly congested self, he said, "Blanket! Stuffie! Boppy???" I pretending I didn't hear that last part and whisked him out of his room.

So far so good.

Until nap time.

Interestingly, he didn't ask for it, but I had the most difficult time getting him down for a nap. I tried to use the bulb sucker, which set of a crying jag, which required a book and singing to calm down, which made him ready for sleep, which made me lay him down, which made him suffer from his stuffy nose, which set of a crying jag, which required a book and singing to calm down, which made him actually fall asleep, which made me lay him down, which made him suffer from his stuffy nose,which set of a crying jag, which required a book and singing to calm down, which made him ready for sleep, which made me lay him down, which made him suffer from his stuffy nose, which made me almost consider digging out the hidden pacifier, which would have made all that for nothing.

So I did the next best thing. I gave up and decided to nap with him. We fell asleep in my bed, and all was well until his snoring woke me up. Yes, I did attempt to bulb suck his nose at that time, but after one nostril yielded such unsatisfactory results, I gave up.

Nap without the pacifier though... that is big!

And by bedtime, Dave will be home so I am not even going to worry about that.

Tackle Soccer

I just finished playing tackle soccer with the bossiest tackle soccer player that you will ever meet. It was mostly kicking the ball from one end of the basement to the other and tackling the other player when you got there. You'd think that would be pretty simple, but a certain 2 year old seemed to think I needed a lot of direction.

"Momma! Kick it. Now run. Go go go Momma! Yea Momma! Good job. Now tackle me. Fall down, I tackle you. Get up now please. Run! Kick it!"

Wash, rinse, repeat.

Did I mention that he made me wear a fire fighter helmet the whole time? Every time I tried to chuck it somewhere, he noticed and made me put it back on. "Put on fire fighter helmet, Momma! Helmet on!"

And yes, I predict certain anonymous commenters will say I had this coming.

Parenting Tips: Learning to Read

Here is a little story for you about little preschool aged MetaMegan and little MetaMegan's mom on a walk one day.

Little MetaMegan looking at graffiti: Mom, what does that say?
Little MegaMegan's Mom: Oh, that? That says TRUCK.
... pause... pause... pause...
Little MetaMegan: Mommy? That word started with an F. So it must have said, "FRUCK".