So Um, This is the Bible…

Posted on August 7, 2013 by Amy

I have started trying to incorporate some religion into our homeschool lessons.

I have to laugh a bit at myself as I think about it, because it’s been a little awkward so far.

I end up saying things like, “So while we’re talking about the letter Z, let’s learn about St. Zita! Okay, soooo she was a saint. And um, a saint is someone who’s, well uh, really holy, and, um dead. And so, you can ask a saint to pray for you. So yeah, St. Zita!” And then I read something to them from a book or our new curriculum supplement from Catholic Icing that allows me to actually sound as though I know what I’m talking about for a minute. But I pretty much don’t.

I am totally learning all of this stuff with my kids as I teach them. But I’m cool with that. I kind of like learning through teaching. I’ve been doing it all along anyway. I learned a ton of stuff about groundhogs when we did letter G, and about horses when we did letter H.

Our new curriculum helps me to add some religious teaching to what we’ve already been doing, keeping with the letter we’re working on and adding some other things.

We just did our first Catholic craft. Presenting, St Zita:

I am so proud (the idea for this also came from Catholic Icing, I just used some different materials).

I’ve been having a lot of fun with this new aspect of our school. Even when I know I’m stuttering and fumbling awkwardly to describe something that I don’t fully understand myself, I’m enjoying the process. And the girls don’t seem to notice my stumbles, or care. I’ve even discussed with them how I’m learning lots of these things right along with them. Miss was very understanding. She said, “That’s okay Mama. I’m just a kid and I really have a lot to learn, so you know more than me.” At least she thinks so.

The Bible is another topic I’m kind of faltering through with them. Each lesson from the curriculum has a Bible verse that goes with the letter we’re doing. So today I even took my Bible (which I just bought a week ago) into our school room and read and “discussed” a verse with them.

It went something like this:

Me: “So this is the Bible. It’s the book that, uh, tells us lots of important stuff that God wants us to know.”

Them: Blinking.

Me: “And so the Bible is full of um, well look at all these words in here (fanning pages). This is a really big book!”

Them: Leaning in to look at pages. They seemed interested!

Me: “And this, um, tells us how God wants us to act and lots of other things. And there are different books in here, see this is the book of Wisdom… Huh. There’s a book of Wisdom? I didn’t know that. Okay so then here’s Proverbs, and here’s Psalms. Yeah. And the verse we’re reading today is from Psalms… Let’s see Psalm 97:8, ‘Zion,’ oh, what letter does that start with?”

Them: “Z!”

Me: “Yes! Okay, ‘Zion hears and is glad, and the daughters of Judah rejoice because of your judgements, O Lord.'” (In my head, “crap, what does that mean?”)

Them: Blinking. Smiling. Waiting.

Me: “Right, so um, that means that, uh, the people in Zion were happy. Uh huh. Because of what God said.”

They were content with that. Thankfully, though they actually did seem to be listening (which usually means 1000 inquiries), they didn’t ask me any questions about my oh-so-vague first Bible lesson. Thanks God.

What was learned:

For them: 1. Zita starts with Z; 2. That Bible is a big book!

For me: 1. I have a lot to learn; 2. Read Bible verse and figure out what the heck it means ahead of time.

So there you have it. The baby-steps implementation of religion into our homeschool.

I’ve also been talking with the girls to try to help them understand the idea of Baptism, since theirs is coming up (one month from today!). I was botching that one too, so I got a few books to help me out and I have a few craft ideas as well. My husband and I have a class to attend tomorrow night about their Baptism, so hopefully I’ll be better equipped to discuss it with them after that.

So much to learn…

Can I Get a Do-Over?

Posted on August 5, 2013August 4, 2013 by Amy

Yesterday was a Day. A day from somewhere not nice and not pleasant. A day I’d really like to send back to wherever it came from and maybe pretend it never happened.

It started out with being awakened at 6:30 am by Miss coming up to my bed, “Mama? I have to ask you something. I want to save my allowance for… .” I don’t even know the rest of it, because I cut her off with a semi-growl that that was not a reason to wake me up. (Someone please, please tell me this allowance thing is just a phase.) Then, because she was mad at me, she went into her room and proceeded to bang on her door. Repeatedly. Loudly.

I’m not much of a morning person. Let’s just say it wasn’t the nicest way to start the day for either of us.

Then Sis was just, um, crazy in church. I don’t know how else to describe it. Whining and climbing and pulling and climbing and twisting and climbing and screaming, making for one full hour of misery trying to keep her from coloring on the floor/climbing over the back of the pew/throwing crayons all over the floor/tearing our books to shreds/and generally disrupting the Mass for everyone within a ten row radius. After the Mass was over I felt like I had been in a sumo wrestling match. And lost.

And the day seemed to just go downhill from there. Every time I would pull myself together, tell myself to get a grip, take some deep breaths, regroup and put on my happy face, another trivial, stupid thing would send me into a fit.

Days like yesterday are the days when I have to literally bite my tongue to keep from yelling. The days when I walk away and count to ten multiple times over really silly crap. The days when I’m swallowing hard to keep from bursting into tears because I’m just not doing it right. The days when, despite these efforts, seemingly no matter how hard I try, I still get snappy and ugly and act like a total jerk with a capital B.

These are the days when I just don’t much feel like being The Mom.

Now, don’t read that wrong, please.

I have never, not for one minute, wished that I wasn’t a mom. I love my kids beyond reason. I have wanted to be a mom for my whole life, and I know how insanely blessed I am. I’m grateful for my kids and my husband and my health and I could go on and on because I’ve really got some amazing things to be thankful for here. I get that, so please don’t go all, “What a big whiner. She has so much to be thankful for and yet she’s complaining over a bad day??” on me. I know.

But still. Sometimes being The Mom is just hard. Sometimes I just don’t feel up to doing my job very well, and at those times I pretty much suck at it. Sometimes I’m just not feelin’ it.

For the sake of illustration, let’s return to how I made a comparison to the hummingbird in my last post.

These amazing creatures are constantly in motion, always graceful and perky, never getting tired.

I really wish I could be like that.

But on days like yesterday I’m more like a drunk hummingbird, trying hard to keep myself in the air, moving all the time but not quite in the right way, so half of the time I can’t manage to hit the center of the flower, and the rest of the time I’m flopping to the ground with only one wing working, trying in vain to get myself back into the air before finally just giving up and putting on Veggie Tales.

It doesn’t happen very often that I have a whole day like this. Mostly it’s a moment here and there: Something I could have responded to better. A tone of voice that should have been kinder. A moment I might have paid a bit more attention.

Yesterday seemed to be full of those moments, and every effort I made to change the course of the day just, well failed. Yesterday was a big fat Mommy Fail Day. I kept trying. I did. Over and over and over again, I stopped, took a deep breath, and tried to do it better. And I just didn’t get there.

But that’s okay (now that it’s over). I know I’m not a bad mom, and I know today will be better (please let it be better). Sometimes I just have days like yesterday. I don’t know if there’s a particular reason for it. Probably there are a lot of them. Not enough sleep, not enough exercise, trying to control too much, etc.

I do know that it’s not my kids’ fault.

If Miss bangs loudly on her door at 6:30 am, it’s because I was rude to her when she wanted to tell me something important to her (but Oh. My. Goodness. Puh-lease let the allowance thing go to the land of “Remember-when-she-used-to-always-say-that?-That-was-so-cute/sweet/funny” really soon).

If Lass looks at me and screams, “I am not going to do what you say!” it’s probably because I didn’t ask her very nicely (and because she’s almost 3).

If they are ornery, it’s a reflection of me most of the time.

Except Sis. She’s 16 months old and that’s all there is to that. I just have to chill when it comes to her.

I just have to chill.

Today I will find my inner Cool and Calm Mommy. I will hunt her down, and I will drag her, kicking and screaming if need be, to the forefront of my Self today. Because if I have another day like yesterday I just might lose my ever-loving mind.

Chill. Happy Place.

Today will be better.

Deep breath.

Happy Monday.

The Rest of the Week

Posted on July 5, 2013August 2, 2013 by Amy

I’m linking up with Conversion Diary again today.

My seven quick takes are pretty much all about what we’ve been doing this week with Grandma and Grandpa, in addition to the horseback riding and scavenger hunt that I’ve already posted about this week. That’s because I’m in the middle of nowhere and I have nothing else to talk about. But I do have a fabulous recipe for you that I’ve been meaning to share. So I’ll start with that.

1. Cauliflower crust pizza. Dee. Lish. Us. It is a great way to eat pizza if you don’t eat gluten or grains. You start by making cauli-rice (which itself is a good substitute for rice):

Then add a few ingredients to make it into a crust (recipe here).

Before baking the crust:

After:

It’s surprisingly easy, and my kids LOVE it. Get the recipe here. It really is good. You can even pick up a slice and eat it like regular pizza.

One tip – Don’t skimp on the step that stresses that you must get as much water out of the cauli-rice as possible before mixing in the other ingredients. I wrap it in a towel and squeeze the heck out of that stuff and still end up pressing a paper towel on it after shaping it into a crust (but before baking) to get out as much moisture as possible.

Try it. You’ll like it.

2. Okay, here’s where I’ll get into telling you all about what else we’ve been doing with G&G.

Swimming:

This pool sits on a hill in my parents’ yard. One corner of it has no water. The opposite one, the “deep end,” has only about 8 inches. Still, you’d think it was the best thing ever.

3. Another visit to the local nature center. This time we got to see all the animals.

The snakes were still the favorite though.

My big girls both chose $2 rubber snakes as their souvenirs. They have been sleeping with them. Are my kids the only ones who like to sleep with fake rubbery snake toys?

Lass has even named a new snake species for hers – “Jumping, Flying, Camouflage Snake.”

4. The beach:

Chasing butterflies:

The beach was awesome until a work crew of half a dozen adolescent boys showed up on their lunch break and decided to go for a swim. In their underwear.

We got out of the water at that point, but we had already had a great morning.

5. I was just informing my husband that we are going out to dinner tonight with my parents and the girls. The conversation went like this:

Me: “We’re going out to dinner again tonight”

Him: “Okay.”

Me: “We’re going to try to get there at about 5, because it’s a sit down place where they bring food.”

Him: “You mean a restaurant?”

Ah motherhood, where every conversation is affected by thoughts of your kids and you feel the need to clarify that the eating establishment you will be attending has wait staff who will bring the food to you instead of a buffet or order-at-the-counter arrangement.

6. Because you know you were dying to see pics of our parade yesterday:

7. And the grand finale:

My parents have some friends who were kind enough to invite us to watch the fireworks at their great lakefront house, which just happens to be right across the bay from the spot where they launch the show.

No battling traffic. No porta potties. No crowds. Nice.

They even had some pre-show home fireworks in the yard.

We tried to catch some fireflies, but it was too windy. We could only see them in the woods, and it was too freaking dark for me to go very far into the woods, even for fireflies for my kids. Plus Lass heard a boom from some fireworks and she turned around and took off running willy nilly into the dark and toward the water, so we had to abandon Operation Firefly promptly.

But the girls forgot all about the fireflies when the big fireworks started.

Have a great holiday weekend.

I Think It’s Interesting!

Posted on May 18, 2013 by Amy

I went to the library yesterday and grabbed a bunch of stories by one of our new favorite children’s authors, Robert Munsch.

We just discovered this prolific author. His stories are cute, funny, and often feature clever protagonists. Some of our favorites are “The Paper Bag Princess,” “Mud Puddle,” and “We Share Everything!”

We read a new one yesterday called “Stephanie’s Ponytail.” It’s a witty tale of a little girl who wears a ponytail in different ways and gets copied by others in her class at school. The moral of the story is “don’t blindly follow people.” It’s a good book, and we all enjoyed it and laughed at her funny ponytails.

Today, Miss said she wanted one ponytail “coming right out the back” and two more on the sides. I gently suggested that perhaps she would like to have either a ponytail in the back or two on the sides. Her response?

“But Mo-om! I think it’s interesting!”

Well. Yes it is.

Interesting.

I love her independence.

Speaking of Awkward… A Word About Tattoos

Posted on May 13, 2013May 14, 2013 by Amy

You might have noticed when I posted the following photo in last Friday’s post that I have a tattoo.

I actually have two.

The one pictured above was done in the summer of 1995 (I was 19). The other was the summer of 2000.

In choosing the places to get tattooed, both times I selected spots on my body where I could easily cover the tattoo if necessary in pretty much any type of outfit (shorts, tank top, etc), but where it might be shown occasionally, like when wearing a bathing suit. Seemed like a good way to do it.

The second tattoo fits these criteria also. It’s on my lower back.

Might I make note of the fact that the second tattoo was done five years before the movie “Wedding Crashers” was released, in which the term “tramp stamp” was coined to refer to a tattoo appearing on a woman’s lower back? (at least I think that’s where the term comes from, I never heard it before seeing that movie).

Now that I’m in my, uh, late 30s, my tattoos seem less awesome than they did when I first got them.

I still kind of like the one on my leg. At least I don’t hate it. It’s just three little footprints. I’m sort of indifferent to it.

But the one on my back has got. to. go. I have some serious tattoo regret about that one. Two yellow roses with stems twisted together. Gag. What was I thinking? And the “tramp stamp” joke? While it isn’t the reason I regret the tat, it certainly doesn’t help matters.

Someday I will have the back tattoo removed. Possibly the leg tat too.

Now, on to the awkward part.

My kids, naturally have seen my tattoos.

Naturally they ask me what they are. I tell them. Then, naturally they ask why I got those tattoos. Good question kids.

My response thus far has been, “Well, Mommy made a bad choice to get those tattoos.” And then of course they ask why it was a bad choice, and I explain because I was much younger when I chose to get them, and now I no longer want the tattoos but they don’t come off, so I have to go to the doctor someday to get them off. Thus, bad choice.

I always thought that was a pretty good response. I like to teach my kids about making choices and dealing with the results. I try not to shy away from allowing them to see examples of choices I have made, good and bad. So, explaining it the way I have done seemed appropriate. I might even say it seemed quite clever.

But then. Oh, the thing I did not foresee. The consequence I didn’t plan on. My kids sometimes see other people with tattoos!!!

I’ll give you one guess what they say.

“Mommy, why did that lady and you make a bad choice?” In front of the other mom at the local coffee shop/play area, who fortunately didn’t seem to notice my child was staring and pointing at her.

“Mommy, why did Miss B and you make a bad choice?” In front of the staff member at the YMCA’s drop-in childcare, who did notice and asked me what the question meant, at which point I mumbled something about not liking the tattoo on my back as I dragged my kids away.

Now that the weather is warming up and people are baring their skin, and their ink, more and more, this is becoming a bit of a problem.

Guess I’m not as clever as I thought.

How Do You Talk About Death With a Three Year Old?

Posted on October 3, 2012 by Amy

Today my big girl asked me some heavy questions.

She always knows how to keep me on my toes. She challenges me, this one does. She likes to think and figure things out. She asks lots of questions.

Today her questions were about death. Gulp.

We’ve had some discussion about death before. One of our dogs died last June and we talked about it then. My husband’s grandmother passed away this past June, and we talked about it more.

Today for some reason she got really curious about death and asked some very difficult questions for a mother of a three year old to answer.

Questions like, “Mama, are you gonna die some day?”

My heart broke a little bit as I made a split second decision to be honest instead of glossing over or not really answering her question (she doesn’t fall for it when I do that anyway). So I answered her calmly (as my heart was pounding and my brain was silently screaming at me, “Don’t screw this up!”), “Yes, Honey, someday. Everyone dies someday, and that’s okay. It’s just part of life.”

And then her little lip started to quiver. Tears formed in her eyes. I started to feel panicky. How could I answer her questions so she wouldn’t be fearful? How could I be honest and yet let her know that she didn’t have to worry about death? How did I get into this conversation?

Her next question was like a sledgehammer to my chest. With shaky voice, “But Mama, if you die, who will be my mommy?”

I tried to explain very calmly that I would always be her mommy and that hopefully I would not die for a very, very long time, and that she didn’t need to worry about me dying.

She was still worried. The next question?

“Mama, am I gonna die some day?”

Oh no. Well, I was going for honesty. So I told her that yes she would, someday. But not for a long, long time. She was upset and said that if she died she would be sad to not be able to play with her toys. I don’t know how I managed to keep from dissolving into tears at this point, but I didn’t.

Through all of this, I was so worried that I was screwing it all up and that she was going to have nightmares and be fearful from now on that everyone around her was going to die any moment. She asked me if her Grandma would die, and our remaining dog (who is quite ill), and my Grandpa (who is 94 and on her mind because we just sent him a care package).

I think she was trying to figure out people’s level of oldness with all these questions. See, to this point we have discussed death as something that happens when people or pets get very old. When our dog died, she was very old but she also had cancer. I didn’t want Miss to be worried every time she got sick, so I explained that our dog died because she was old. Same for my husband’s grandmother, who was 92 when she passed away. I’m not ready to get into the subjects of sicknesses and accidents that can cause death before old age. I don’t think she’s ready for that either. So today I stuck with death happens when you’re old.

Not completely honest, but enough for a three year old on a topic like this.

Honestly, I don’t know if I handled this conversation correctly. I tried to answer her matter-of-factly and give lots of hugs and tell her she does not need to worry about dying right now. During the entire conversation I was trying to change the diaper of a squirmy baby and navigate errant dance moves and ninja kicks from Lass, so I might not have been as focused and eloquent as I would have liked to be for a conversation of this magnitude.

But I think it turned out okay. After asking lots of questions, my precious, spunky, oldest daughter abruptly picked up on something her sister was pretending regarding being Rapunzel and did an about-face to start pretending to be Mother Gothel (I was Flynn Rider). I was a bit shocked and had a brief urge to ask, “Is that it? Are we done with all that death talk for now? You’re not scarred for life or anything, right?”

Instead I jumped into character and began playing Flynn Rider with gusto. My girl seems fine. Phew.

The Tantrum

Posted on May 23, 2012 by Amy

Last week my husband worked nights and Miss didn’t nap. That wasn’t the best combination, and we had a few rough points during the week. It reminded me of another time my husband was working nights and Miss had her first super crazy meltdown tantrum. Aaaah, memories…

*******

Okay, so I am floundering a bit with this “Terrible Twos” thing. I hate even saying that. “Terrible Twos.” Having a nearly-two-year-old is not terrible. Most of the time, it’s pretty great. But I have found myself in this place recently where sometimes, just sometimes, it is totally. crazy. psycho. During Miss’s toddlerhood thus far we’ve had our share of “moments.” Brief little fits. Minor tantrums. They were usually short and they’d blow over quickly. Miss could be distracted pretty easily, and if not she’d pull herself together without too much drama. The one area where we sometimes would have a big meltdown would be after nap when Miss would sometimes wake up in a terrible mood and just have a screaming fit for what seemed like an age.

And then we had today. This morning. My girl woke up like a little ray of sunshine, as always. We had fun playing and coloring and watching a little bit of Sesame Street. We pretended to be dinosaurs. She pretended to make lemonade. Then she said she was hungry so I took her in the kitchen to get a snack. I asked her what she wanted. “Bunny crackers.” “Yogurt.” Okay, no problem. I got out the yogurt, got a spoon, opened the yogurt and started to put it in front of her. Strawberry yogurt. Yum. Then she asked for a sandwich. I simply said something like, “Well honey, let’s have a little snack now and then I’ll get you a sandwich at lunchtime.” Hello. Commence screaming. Seriously. She started howling like a banshee and did not stop. I tried all my usual tricks. I tried to get her to laugh. I said something like, “I’m sorry you’re upset. Please use your words to tell me what you want and I’ll be happy to help you.” Ha!! After a while of more shrieking I thought I heard her say, “bunnies,” so to try to positively reinforce her “using her words” I got the bunny crackers out and put some on her placemat. She screamed harder. I ate her yogurt and tried to wait her out. She said “down” so I got her down from her chair, at which point she fell to the floor and continued howling. My husband, who was upstairs trying to sleep came downstairs and asked her why she was crying. She stopped for a second, said “Daddy” and then went right back to yelling. He looked at me, I shrugged, he went back upstairs with a comment to the effect of, “Well, I just wanted to make sure that you weren’t knocked out down here or something . . .” The rest of what he said was lost in the noise of our daughter. I’m pretty sure that was his no-so-subtle way of saying, “Okay, since you’re conscious, can you please do something about our child’s insane wailing?” It didn’t help that he happened to come downstairs during the part where I was eating her yogurt and trying to wait her out, so it probably looked like I was just chillin’, having a snack, not realizing that our child had turned into a little puddle of insanity on the floor.

Anyway, it went on. I could describe the whole painful morning in detail, I’m sure, as it feels as though the scene is scorched into my brain, never to be forgotten. The First Big One. But I’ll spare you the details. Okay, I probably already gave way too many details. So, we can leave it at, It Was Bad, and move on. I probably could have ended it rather quickly by turning on the TV or letting her watch Yo Gabba Gabba on the computer or something like that. But I could not bring myself to do that. It just felt like that would have been reinforcing a behavior I’m not anxious to have repeated. Okay, don’t laugh, I know it will be repeated in some form quite a few times and probably agonizingly in public on at least a few occasions too. I’m just saying, I don’t want to increase the frequency of the Tantrum From Hell by reinforcing it. I’m a psychologist. I’m all into my behavioral principles. I know them forwards and backwards. I guess I automatically get Skinnerian in my head when dealing with this discipline stuff. But I gotta say, this morning, I felt L.O.S.T. I wasn’t mad. I wasn’t really even upset. I just had no idea how to make it stop. I knew I didn’t want to reinforce the behavior, but I also wasn’t trying to punish her. She’s almost two. She doesn’t have good control of her emotions and still has trouble expressing herself. She’s learning to deal with this stuff just like I am. But wow. I felt like I had been dropped into the deep end and had forgotten how to swim. I suppose, to stick with this simile, I managed to tread. And you know what eventually worked? I sat down on the floor where we had been coloring earlier, picked up a crayon, and started coloring. Within a minute she had stopped crying and was sitting next to me coloring away. Who knew?

So, I don’t really know where I’m going with this post, except to say that I am finding more and more Mommy-moments when I really feel like I’m not sure what the heck I’m doing. I always end up just going with what feels right to me, and things turn out okay. But then I look back and analyze everything and wonder if I did it right and am I going to screw my kid up forever or is she going to turn into a raging brat because I didn’t discipline her enough or did I do it too much and now she’s going to be insecure or rebellious??? Maybe that’s a little bit of an exaggeration. I’m not quite that neurotic. But I do tend to look back on what I did and see if there’s something I should do better or differently the next time. I guess I’m just making a mental note to myself that, even with all my principles of reinforcement swirling in my head, I still need to learn how to make it work with this girl. And maybe it will be different every time. And then I’ll have to learn it all over again with Lass. And so on. So, I’ve come to realize that there is no greater in vivo learning experience than motherhood. This is my classroom.

After Miss’s fit resolved, I got Lass (poor thing was just hanging out playing during the whole drawn out drama) down for a nap and asked Miss if she wanted to do some finger painting. This was a first for her so she had no idea what I was talking about, but she sure thought it sounded cool. So we got messy as our way to “make-up” (not quite the right word, but I liked the alliteration of the title) after the meltdown.

She liked squishing the paint between her fingers.

Masterpiece #1.

A bit of a lighter touch with this one.

After a while she got freaked out that her hands were so messy.

So she cleaned them off and got right back to it.

She decided to try tasting the paint and didn’t much care for it.

For the record, Crayola’s “washable” finger paints are indeed washable.

Gallery.

She seemed to like this set up better.

Aaand, we’re done.

What better way to finish a messy craft time than with a bubble bath?

Hanging out with Lass at lunch time. We had no more eating-related meltdowns. She had forgotten entirely about the sandwich. For lunch she wanted strawberry yogurt and Cheerios. Unfortunately I had eaten the last strawberry yogurt while she was howling face down on the floor, but she was content with apple. And I wasn’t gonna fuss about the lunch menu today. Apple yogurt and dry Cheerios? Sure.

And here she is proudly showing off her artwork to her Daddy when he woke up.

Before I click “Publish Post,” I feel like I should say that I know this is my second post in less than a week that might seem like it has a bit of a “complain-y” feel to it regarding mothering a toddler. I am not complaining. I realize all the time how lucky I am to have these two little people to bring up in the best way I can. Sometimes I screw up, and sometimes I nail it, and always I hope that I will learn and get better. And this blog is my way of chronicling this journey, and sharing it, and helping myself to figure it out by getting the words out of my head. So that’s it. Going to Arizona tomorrow. Wish us luck on the plane! Good night.

*******

Things are back to normal around here this week and much improved, though Miss still isn’t napping, which means she’s a bit of a mess by bedtime. But nothing like she was that day^^^

Reload

Posted on May 4, 2012 by Amy

As I’m adjusting to life as a mommy of three, I am finding I have not been blogging as much as I’d like. I intend to get better about this. But in the meantime, I might “reload” a old favorite post here and there just to keep from going too long without posting. Here’s an oldie but a goodie from the first days of Miss’s potty training. I still cringe a bit when I read this one…

*******

When I started as a prison psychologist, I had to go to the same two-week training that the federal government makes all correctional workers go through. Among other things, I learned self defense, spent a lot of time on the firing range, had physical fitness tests, and learned lots about how to prevent and handle a “major disturbance,” which is prison staff lingo for a riot. I remember one instructor saying something like, “We have the control in our institutions because the inmates let us have control. There are way more of them than us, and they could take control at any time. We will always get it back, but don’t forget that they could take it.” I heard this idea several times in various trainings I went to over the years. I think the purpose of saying this was to stress to us that our control was fragile and we needed to exert it with respect, lest our residents decide they weren’t gonna take it anymore.

Fast forward seven-ish years to a day in the life of me, The Mom, the one with the “control,” and Miss, The Toddler, the one who generally goes along and lets me have control because life flows better that way. The one who decided yesterday that she wasn’t gonna take it anymore and went into all out riot mode. Yes folks. My 2’7″, 26-pound 2 year old brought me to my knees yesterday.

Remember my post from the other day when I said potty training was going so well? Remember how I said I firmly believe you can’t force a child to go to the bathroom? Well. My daughter firmly proved me right yesterday. And I never even tried to force her to go to the bathroom. I just tried to get her to not go on the floor. Or on her little chair in her room. Or on the couch. Yesterday was not my best day as Mommy, and Miss decided to seize control of things by controlling what she could – her bladder. Yes, potty training worked very well. Miss does know when she has to go and she is able to tell me. She had been doing this very well all week. One thing she had not been doing at all was napping. So after five days without a nap, we were both tired and a bit frayed. She had an accident yesterday because she did not tell me she had to go. Throughout the entire training process up to that point I had been super positive and upbeat, even with accidents. “Next time just make sure you tell Mommy when you have to go so we can keep those underwear dry, okay?” Well, yesterday I had a not-so-wonderful Mommy Moment and I scolded her for her accident. Nothing too awful, but I definitely used a stern voice and told her that she was supposed to tell me when she had to go and not pee-pee on the floor. I think I gave an exasperated sigh or two. I did manage to regroup fairly quickly and then in my more upbeat voice repeat the usual reminder to tell me when she has to go the next time. But apparently she was not all that forgiving of my moment of testiness. From that point forward, she was in control and letting me know it. She refused to go to the bathroom when I took her in to let her try. I never pushed the issue, but did try to get her to go a few times in an attempt to stop the madness that had begun. She wouldn’t even sit when I’d take her into the bathroom, but then would go moments later in a less favorable spot. She wasn’t giving an inch. Suffice it to say, she had many accidents throughout the afternoon. I was trying so hard not to get into a power struggle with her, which was ironic, given that I had absolutely no power with this issue at all.

Things did improve somewhat right before bed, but by that time I was a wreck. I was berating myself for being the most horrible mother ever, and thinking I had ruined all the hard work we had done on the potty training by scolding her and that I had perhaps scarred her for life as all sorts of Freudian theories came to mind. And yes, this is a bit of an exaggeration, but not much. Just ask my mom, who I called near tears while chugging a glass of wine within minutes of putting Miss to bed. Or my husband who wasn’t able to get home until late last night and came in to find me grumpy and tearful and asking him to go get me ice cream (he did).

Of course, at the end of the day, when your toddler takes you down, you just have to get back up. By the time I went to bed, with the help of my husband, my mom, some wine, and some ice cream, I was feeling much better. I went to bed hopeful that yesterday would just be a bump in the road and that today would be a huge improvement. And of course it was. Miss had only one accident. She was happy to go on her potty and glowed at the praise she received. I was going to leave her with our babysitter so I could go grocery shopping this afternoon. I desperately needed to get some groceries and had wanted to go yesterday after her non-nap, but she refused to go to the bathroom, and I wasn’t willing to take her out in public with a full bladder with the way things were going yesterday. So today I thought I’d just avoid any problems and let her stay with our babysitter, whom she loves. But as I was getting ready to go she said, “I want to go store too. Pwease Mommy. I not get my pants all wet.” Well, that just melted my heart and so of course I let her come along. We had a great time. And when we got back, wonder of wonders, Miss finally took a nap! Oh halle-freaking-lujiah!!! All the world looks so much brighter on this side of a nap.

There are days when being a Mom just kicks the crap out of you. I really believe that there isn’t any more important job. Therefore, when things don’t go right, when I screw up, my feelings of inadequacy and guilt are greatly magnified. I question myself and feel like a failure. No one can make a mother of a two-year-old feel more impotent than that two-year-old. But amazingly, even when she is being a stinker and I’m at the end of my rope, the girl is sweet and loving and brightens my world. Just when I feel like I want to go crawl under my covers and stay there, she will say something like this comment from yesterday, “Lass so sweet, Lass so cute,” and then when I ask her if she’s cute say, “No, I not cute. I pwetty.” My girls make me laugh. They make me smile. They make my heart swell until it feels like it’s going to burst. Sometimes they make me want to pull my hair out. Always they make me want to be a better Mom. Even yesterday. Hell, especially yesterday! I’m not perfect, and sometimes I totally suck at this Mom thing, but in the words of that instructor, I “always get it back.” I guess that’s just what moms do. We do our best for our kids and sometimes we totally lose it. But we always get it back.

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I hope to be back soon with a fresh post and some new photos!

What is Valentine’s Day?

Posted on February 15, 2012 by Amy

When I was much, much younger, I thought Valentine’s Day was a sweet, romantic day for flowers and gifts and professions of undying love. Then I grew up a little bit, and I decided that Valentine’s Day was kind of a silly, overly-commercialized “holiday” that was nothing more than a way for card companies and jewelers to make lots of money, and that one should really try to show love every day, not just on Valentine’s. Then I grew up a little bit more, and I revised my opinion of this holiday a bit. I now think of Valentine’s Day as a nice enough day. There’s nothing wrong with a day that encourages people to show their love for one another. I don’t think it’s necessary to show that love through expensive gifts, but showing love? That’s cool. I still think it’s much more important to show how much the special people in your life mean to you every day. An “I love you” and a kiss before leaving for work, or the store, or the basement. A kiss before bed every night. “I love you” and holding hands or giving a kiss for no reason at all but to remind someone they are essential to your world. That’s the good stuff.

Now that I have kids, Valentines Day has become something even more. It has become yet another way to have some fun with my girls.

I like home made gifts for days like Valentine’s Day. I make stuff with my girls for this holiday. To me it’s a great way to have fun together and it helps to neutralize the messages out there that your man must buy you big diamonds or a trip to Aruba to show that he really loves you on Valentine’s Day. Not that my girls see or hear these messages now, but someday I’m sure they will. So we’re starting early to make a point of showing love through special gestures and thoughtful, simple gifts, rather than flashy stuff.

We made little heart-shaped crayons for Miss to give to her friends at school, like the ones shown on my friend’s blog here, but smaller. They were inexpensive and pretty easy to do. The hardest part was getting the paper off the crayons (even soaking them in warm water didn’t work for many of them). The girls loved breaking the crayons up and putting them into the molds. Miss specially chose which crayon each of her friends would receive and she was very excited to go to school yesterday and give these special gifts to the other kids. Mission accomplished.

Miss had a great time at her school party, as did I.

She made another craft at her party, a potpourri ball. She also gave me another school-made gift that is made with paper hearts, her thumb prints, glitter, and her attempt to write her name, all laminated into one big beautiful work of art that currently hangs in a place of honor on our sliding glass door. She was so proud and excited to give these gifts to me that she had made.

When we got home, she and Lass had fun going through her box of Valentines from the other kids in her class.

Then we made special Valentines to give to Daddy, which they excitedly ran to give him when he got home from work last night. And as we do every day, we gave lots of hugs and kisses and “I love yous” and “You’re my wonderful girls,” etc. Just because that’s what we do. I always want my girls to know that, on Valentine’s or any other day, showing your love for someone, and thus the genuineness of their expressions of love for you, is always about what you do, day to day, not how much you spend or how grand your gestures on one day of the year. A happy life is made up of lots of small moments, not just the few big ones that tend to get lots of attention.

And speaking of showing your love through the things you do, last night I attempted to make paleo-friendly brownies for Miss to take to school today. Since her birthday is on Saturday and she won’t be back to school before then, I wanted to send her with a special birthday treat to share with her friends at school today. She requested brownies. I wanted to make them myself and make them relatively healthy, though still a “treat.” I had the best of intentions. Unfortunately, last night I had a bit of a mom failure, because the brownies just didn’t taste that good. They turned out how I think they’re supposed to. They’re edible, and not horrible. But they don’t taste like brownies. And if I’m going to send my child to school with a treat to share with her friends for her birthday, I’m going to make sure it’s yummy, for pete’s sake. So, I made a run to the grocery store last night, when I otherwise would have been composing this Valentine’s Day blog post, and grabbed some grocery-store-bakery-made mini cupcakes. They’re good, and I think they were a hit with the kids. So even though I totally flopped in my Mother-of-the-Year-all-natural-gluten-free-super-delicious-brownie attempt, the late night trip to the grocery store saved the day. I feel like a dolt and it sucked to make a run to the grocery store at 9pm, but that’s okay. And that’s why my Valentine’s Day post is a day late. Hope you had a Happy Valentine’s Day. We did.

Simple

Posted on January 27, 2012 by Amy

I have a drawer in my kitchen that contains lids for various plastic containers (many of which are no longer anywhere to be found), some swirly straws, and some popsicle molds. This drawer is located right next to the girls’ Learning Tower, and the other day they discovered it. Since then it has provided endless entertainment both for them, and for me. Oh how my girls crack me up.

Miss calls the things in this drawer the stuff for her party. She alternates between having the items in the drawer be for a dance party and for a tea party. But it’s always a party.

She turns some of the lids into pretend cakes and sings Happy Birthday to each member of the family in sequence. She pretends to feed various items to Lass, who returns the favor happily.

Sometimes they just marvel at “Mama, everything’s blue!” (or green, or purple, depending on the lid) and then they crack up.

I love the simplicity and innocence of what they find entertaining. Hilarious even. They feed off each other and it’s so fun to watch. You just can’t beat these moments of motherhood.

Motherhood and Miscellany

Mommy Moments

So Um, This is the Bible…

Can I Get a Do-Over?

The Rest of the Week

I Think It’s Interesting!

Speaking of Awkward… A Word About Tattoos

How Do You Talk About Death With a Three Year Old?

The Tantrum

Reload

What is Valentine’s Day?

Simple