Mommy Moments

Did I Say I Thought Pink Eye Was Yucky?

Posted on by Amy
Yes, I did.  When Miss first started school I typed this post, which I stupidly titled, “Bring on the Ickies” (why would I ever type such a statement?).  At the time I was grossed out because I thought she had pink eye, which she actually didn’t have, by the way.  I was writing about how I knew she would bring home lots of germs now that she had started school and blah, blah, blah.  Yesterday I got a much better sense of the truly icky.  Picture it.  I wake up at 4 AM to Lass’s crying.  It was a “something’s wrong” kind of cry, so I went in to get her thinking maybe she’d had a bad dream or something, and I’d just rock her for a bit.  Instead I found that Lass had puked all over herself, her bed, her floor, and then me as soon as I picked her up.  Okay.  I got it all cleaned up, put both of us in clean jammies, and began rocking her to try to get her back to sleep.  Naturally, she puked all over both of us again before I managed to run her to the bathroom and get her over the sink.  Again, I get it cleaned up and go back to rocking her.  And that’s not even the really icky part…
Rewind about 8 hours to Wednesday night.  I had received a text message from a babysitter telling me that her roommate had just found out she has scabies.  Oh yes.  I thought pink eye was gross?  No.  No, scabies is gross.  Gross as in make-my-skin-crawl-give-me-the-crazy-heebie-jeebies kind of gross.  Unfortunately this babysitter had been to my house three times in three days, including Wednesday afternoon for a little while while I took Miss to gymnastics.  At first I wasn’t too worried about it, since this babysitter didn’t even know if she actually had it, and I hadn’t seen any signs that my girls did, but still.  I did vacuum every room where this babysitter would have been, rugs and furniture.  And then as I was sitting there at 4-something AM, rocking Lass again after changing both of our clothes for the second time, I couldn’t help but imagine a little bit what yesterday might have had in store for me.  I pictured two puking girls, perhaps being sick myself, and needing to scour and sanitize my house and medicate my girls to get rid of little tiny mites that had burrowed under their skin and gotten into all of our clothing, bedding, furniture, carpets…  Perhaps this was a bit melodramatic, but I was sleepy and my mind was wandering on it’s own.  And really it wasn’t really too far fetched to imagine that could have been my day.
Amazingly, Lass went back to sleep (though I never did – see thoughts running through my head, above) for a little while and when she woke up she had no additional symptoms of a stomach bug.  She kept down everything I gave her to drink and eat and was her cheerful happy self all day long.  Miss never got sick, nor did I.  Score 1 for Mama!
Unfortunately, I did get a text later in the morning that my babysitter does in fact have scabies.  Even more unfortunately, I couldn’t get a doctor’s appointment until 4:30 in the afternoon to find out if my girls or I had it.  So, though I tried not to worry about it, I was kind of freaking out that we were infested.  There were no real signs that any of us had it, but I started imagining that every little red spot on my girls or any itch I felt myself was a little mite trying to find a home.  I started stripping sheets and doing laundry.  And then I did the most appropriate and merciful thing yesterday afternoon.  I let my girls watch a rare bit of afternoon TV and I called my mom to whine.
 TV Glaze

It was quite therapeutic.  My mom did what all good moms do.  She listened.  She sympathized.  She made me laugh.  What more could a girl ask for (other than having said mom living nearby so she could have come over to help with the laundry, which my mom would have happily done, of course…).

And to make a very long story short, the girls napped, we went to the doctor, and we found out that we do not have scabies.  And I learned a lot about scabies that made me feel better all around, like that scabies can’t live long at all in clothing, furniture, etc.  That washing every article of clothing and bedding in our house wasn’t really necessary, though I did it anyway.  That scabies show up fast and move fast and itch like crazy.  In other words, if you have scabies, you know it.  Since we didn’t have it and our poor babysitter had not been around for a while, the likelihood that we would get it was nil.  Score 2 for Mama!

And, since we did not have scabies, our other babysitter, whom we had scheduled to come over so my hubby and I could get out for dinner, was still happy to come.  So we had a nice dinner out and relaxed away the craziness of the day.  Score 3!!  I am still a little bit shocked when I think about how crummy yesterday could have been and then about how relatively not-so-bad it really was.  I feel like I dodged a major bullet!

And to top it all off, since we don’t have scabies and my testimony for this morning got postponed (thankfully, because I wouldn’t have had a babysitter!), we got to go to a much-looked-forward-to play date with some great friends.  My friend had a Christmas cookie decorating play date at her house this morning, and it was a blast.  Lass mostly just ate a cookie and played in the frosting.

Miss had lots of fun decorating the cookies and eating them.  She had a little bit of a hard time though with the idea that she could only eat one of the cookies she decorated and the rest we had to just decorate and save to take home.

Miss made a special cookie for her Daddy.

A good time was had by all.  Hooray for no scabies!

Tomorrow we go to my parent’s house for a week.  I am so thrilled to spend the week with my Mom and Dad.  But, that likely means there will be very little blogging from this girl until we get back, as my parents live in an internet black hole.  I’ll be back in about a week!

A Few Thoughts On Raising Daughters

Posted on by Amy
I often think about how to teach my daughters to be assertive.  In our culture, girls and women are often given the message that they should always be agreeable  and nice rather than speaking their mind.  I want to raise daughters who will be strong, independent, and confident, as well as being nice people.  Daughters who will not afraid to voice an opinion, go against the grain, and stick up for themselves when necessary.
 After school today she insisted on getting back into her Halloween costume so she could be “a beautiful ballerina.”  I love it.
So far this little one seems to have no trouble expressing her feelings about things.

Yesterday at her school Halloween party, I saw a boy push Miss a few times.  She came over to me after it happened the first time and seemed quite intimidated.  I admit, my immediate instinct when I first saw it was to go and tell the boy to please not push.  Instead, I talked to her about how shecould tell the boy to please not push her.

This morning, after a week of no tears and great school experiences, she was a bit upset about going to school again.  I thought it might have something to do with that boy, so I reminded her of what we had talked about yesterday and how to handle it if another kid pushed or hit her.  She then mentioned that the boy had pulled her hair yesterday as well.  When I dropped her off at school I informed her teacher of my concerns about what had happened.  She was very responsive and reassured me about the issue.

When I picked Miss up, I experienced a major proud mommy moment.  Miss’s teacher told me that Miss had turned to the boy who had pushed her and pulled her hair yesterday and said, completely on her own, “I didn’t like it when you pulled my hair.”  Simple and direct. The boy apologized.  I am so incredibly proud of her!

As a mother of daughters, it is so important to me that they learn to stick up for themselves.  To not be afraid to voice disagreement with something they think is wrong or to tell someone to stop it if they are being treated badly.  Right now it’s pushing and hair pulling.  Later on they might have to be assertive if faced with bullying, “mean girl” behaviors, or overly zealous attentions from hormone-crazed boys.  When they are older, I will teach them some good ways to knock down the hormone-crazed boys (literally and figuratively) if necessary.  Their dad can teach them some good wrestling moves.

But for today, I’m pretty darn proud of “I didn’t like it when you pulled my hair.”  That’s my girl.

Finally! Giraffes

Posted on by Amy
Yesterday, I lost my Mommy Mojo.  I was adrift on a sea of preschooler tantrums and disobedience and toddler crabbiness.  I couldn’t seem to do anything right from nap time to bed time. Miss wouldn’t listen to a thing I said.  She didn’t take a nap, so she was cranky and whiney.  My attempts to redirect and/or to discipline her left both of us frustrated and frayed.  I could not seem to find my usual groove with my big girl, and to top it off, my normally sunny, cheerful Lass was a crabby mess.  By the time I took Lass up for her bath, I was in tears.  I managed to rally and get Miss bathed and in bed happily and without struggle, but I ended the day exhausted and unhappy with myself.  I vowed to get it right today.
Today, Mama got her groove back.  Today, we went to the zoo with some friends and had a blast.  Both girls were wonderful.  Lass even sat in her stroller the whole time with minimal protest!

Miss was fantastic.  She listened well, helped with her sister, and was my usual happy, if sometimes slightly mischievous, girl.  She had so much fun.  Of course, there was plenty of goat feeding.

Lots of excitement over the big llamas.  These were thankfully fairly well groomed and free from matted, poo-crusted fur (click hereif you missed the post about matted, poo-crusted fur).

Lass made a new friend.

Miss played chase with her friend all over the zoo.

She was really interested in this tortoise.  The poor thing kept trying in vain to fit through these posts, and Miss was calling to it, “Come here big turtle. Come here so I can hold you.”  It was kind of pitiful.

And then.  After months of asking for them.  Three “zoos” and many animal encounters later, we finally saw the giraffes.

Initially Miss was timid about feeding them.  She wouldn’t do it herself, until she saw Baby Sister do it.  My little fearless girl.

After she saw her Sis do it, Miss gave it a try too.

The tall guys were definitely the highlight of the zoo.  It was a great day with friends.  And to top it off, both girls stayed awake for the entire hour-plus drive home (right at their usual nap time) and took fantastic naps after we got here.  That never happens.  It must have been some cosmic freebie to make up for yesterday.

But really, yesterday probably wouldn’t have been so bad if I had just managed to pick my battles a little more wisely and maybe count to ten a few times.  Yesterday I was not my best Mommy self.  Okay, let’s be honest.  Yesterday I was an ugly mess.  Today, I got myself a little perspective, took a deep breath, and got my Mojo back.

The First Week of Preschool

Posted on by Amy

Yesterday was Miss’s first day of preschool.  She was excited, though a bit apprehensive.

When she got to school she did a great job of getting into playing with other kids at first.  Her teacher told me she had a bit of a hard time a few times during the day, and Miss told me herself again, “I cwied because my want you.”  Overall it was a pretty good first day though, I think.

Lass and I spent some fun time together.  Rather than drive the almost 30 minutes back home, we went to a local cafe where there are lots of toys and kids to play with.

They also had a little free music class that we got into a bit.  She seemed to enjoy her one on one time with Mom.

We were both happy to go get big sis though.  Miss was pretty quiet about her day at school, but I tried to make a big deal out of what a big girl she was and how special her first day was.  Here she’s holding up her back pack before we got in the car.  She’s also holding a Wish Bear Care Bear that my Auntie got her. She takes that thing everywhere with her.  Fortunately I convinced her to leave it in her back pack during her school time.

We went back to the cafe where Lass and I had spent the morning for a special “First Day of School Lunch,” complete with a special “First Day of School Chocolate Chip Cookie Treat.”  

After lunch I watched Miss interact with some older kids in a new way.  She walked up to them and said, “Hi.  What are you doing?”  Then she proceeded to play with them, and even asked them to play catch with her.  Her teacher had mentioned when I picked her up that day that one of the things Miss had a little bit of trouble with at school was initiating play with the other kids, so I wondered if this new behavior was a result of something her teacher had taught her just that day (her teacher confirmed this when I took her to school this morning, and I was really excited to be seeing new skills already).

Today was the second day of school, and the last of her school “week.”  It was both better and worse.  It started out worse.  When Miss woke up and I told her we had to get going to get ready for school, she said, “I don’t wike it Mommy.  Can you come to school with me?”

We managed to get ready and head out to school, only for her to tell me again and again (in the parking lot as soon as she realized where she was, right inside to door, at her designated coat area, etc.) that she didn’t like it.  She grabbed on to my legs and buried her face in my knees.  It was not fun. Then she said, “I don’t want that girl to grab me,” in response to which her teacher explained that another one of the really young students had been trying to hug Miss and play with her the day before and Miss had gotten upset.  So her teacher and I talked to her about this and how to handle it, and then her teacher mentioned that they were going to play with a water table that day.  She perked up at that.  My girl loves to play with water.  However, she was still super clingy and wouldn’t let go of my legs, so I asked the teacher what I should do.  She suggested I take Miss over to choose her “job” for that day.  They have a job board with lots of different classroom chores on it, and each child gets to choose their job for the day and clip a clothespin with their name on it to the job of their choice.  Keeping with the water theme and something I know she loves to do at home, I asked Miss if she’d like to help water the plants that day as her job.  She smiled and agreed and clipped her clothespin on the board.  She loves water.  She loves plants.  Bingo.

Photos from today after school.  She’s wearing the new tutu I made for her last night.
As we were putting her clothespin on the board, she saw the other kids playing and got excited to go play with them.  She barely remembered to give me a kiss goodbye.  But I did tell her I was leaving and gave her a kiss and off she went to play.  So far, so good.
Then I kind of screwed it up.  I saw another mom I know as I was walking out the door and stopped to chat with her for a minute, in view of the door.  Miss saw me and I heard her start crying.  It was all I could do to not run back into the classroom.  I got a panicky feeling and felt my body lean towards the door, as if, independently from my mind, it almost had to go to her.  But I didn’t.  I knew it would be better if I just left.  I trust her teachers.  And it all turned out okay.  
When I went to pick her up today, she was smiling and telling me about the fun things she had done that day.  She loved the water table and her snack and doing their daily yoga pose.  And the best thing? Several times since leaving school today she has said, “I wike it Mommy.”  Next week will be easier.

They Listen

Posted on by Amy
Ever have those moments (or days) when you swear your child doesn’t hear a word you say? When it seems like your little ones are intentionally ignoring you? When you feel like you have to repeat yourself ten times before your darling acknowledges you’ve spoken, and then half the time you get a response of “I don’t want to”?

 

Hello? Hello?


I told her at least three times to stop jumping on this ball before she stepped down.

Such is life with a toddler, I suppose. And of course, I know Miss hears me. She knows the things I’ve taught her. She can say her ABCs and sings all sort of songs I’ve sung to her. She can sort of count to 20 (the 14, 15, 16, 17 gets a little muddled) and she knows the sounds that all of her letters make. She can recite all or most of many of the books we have read over and over (one of my favorites is when she “reads” Brown Bear, Brown Bear and instead of saying “Teacher, Teacher, what do you see?” she says “T-shirt, T-shirt…” Perhaps I need to enunciate a little more). She typically uses her manners nicely. I hear her using phrases we have said to her many times, like “Keep trying” and “That’s not a toy,” or even “No Ma’am!” (said firmly to her sister). She recently started saying “Damn it!” after I said that in front of her once. Of course, much to my chagrin, she spent several moments in front of my in-laws last week saying over and over, “Damn-it-Damn-it-Damn-it!” while walking around their room frowning and pointing her finger emphatically. Lovely.

 

The point is. The kid hears what I say, even when she is studiously ignoring it. Both of my girls hear what I say all day long.

 

Yesterday Miss showed me something different about her capacity to hear me. She showed me that she really listens and internalizes the positive things that I say to her. Of course I’ve always known that she does, and this isn’t really a grand epiphany. Obviously a toddler/preschooler internalizes what she hears and sees from her parents all the time. But yesterday I had a moment when I saw just how important it is to tell my girls I love them a hundred times a day. To tell them how beautiful and smart and good and kind and strong they are. I tell them these things constantly, and now I have been reinforced. Yesterday Miss repeatedly stated, “My Mommy wubs me” and did this adorable patting of her chest with both hands. She did the same with “My Daddy wubs me.” I know, I’ve already posted here about the little love fest we’ve been having around here lately, but this is different. As amazing and swoon-worthy as it is to hear my two-year-old repeatedly saying “I wub you Momma” and many other variations on that statement, it was even more rewarding to hear her saying in such a heartfelt way in her tiny little voice, “My Mommy, she wubs me.” And just as good, when we were singing a song about her eyes she said, “My eyes are pwetty.” Yes. Cha-ching!

 

Hearing this from my older girl just thrills me and I hope to hear lots more of it from her and similar things from her sister. I know there will be days when the “I love you Moms” won’t be so forthcoming, but as long as my girls know how much their Old Mom “wubs” them, we’ll be okay. They might curse me someday for any number of imagined tortures. But deep down they’ll know, if I say something like “You-are-not-going-out-of-the-house-wearing-that-studded-leather-biker-jacket-I-don’t-care-if-you-bought-it-with-your-own-money,” I’m saying it out of love and a desire to not have my darling daughter look like a Hell’s Angels groupie (and in case you’re curious, yes, my Mom said something almost exactly like that to me 20-ish years ago). Hopefully somehow they’ll remember that things like curfews, and sleepovers not permitted because the other kid’s parents are sketchy, and “don’t forget to floss” nagging are all coming from the place within a Momma where every hope and dream for nothing but the very best for her children resides.


 

And if my girls remember that their Momma and Daddy told them every day that they are beautiful and smart and funny and good and kind and strong, maybe it won’t sting so much if other kids sometimes tease or tell them otherwise. Maybe (please oh please) they won’t really care if the boy they kind of like doesn’t return the sentiment. Hopefully, when they make mistakes or experience failures, they will not be defined by them. Hopefully they will be confident and kind and strong. Maybe it all starts with “My eyes are pwetty.” Yes. They listen.




Lots of Love and Lobsters

Posted on by Amy
Miss has been overflowing with love these past few days. She’s always a pretty loving girl, but these past few days she has been extra affectionate. Example: A couple of days ago we spent 10-15 minutes sitting on her bed, during which time she said over and over again, “Momma, I wub you Momma!” and “I wub you so much Momma” and “Momma, I so pwoud of you!” and “Awww, I wub my Mommy!” She gave hugs and kisses and patted my back and snuggled up to me. I was soaking it up.
These days she’s giving extra love to me, to her baby doll “Big Baby,” and all her other special toys that she sleeps with (Elmo, Bear, and Teddy Bear). She does this funny little wiggle and scrunches her face up when she is saying how much she “wubs” something or someone. It is enough to make me turn to mush.

Of course Miss doles out the love to her sister too. “I wub my Lass” (she uses Lass’s real name though), “Weew (we’re) best fweinds.”

Sometimes she gives love to her sister a little too much. . .

She’s also giving extra love to our dogs. “I wub my Tessa,” she says. We recently found out our older dog has liver cancer and I have explained to Miss that she’s sick. Yesterday Miss took one of her play pots and put some toy food in it and kept trying to give it to the poor dog. I asked her what she had made for Tessa and she said “I made chicken soup for Tessa to feew betteh!”
I don’t know what has prompted this outpouring of extra love from my big girl, but I’ll take it. I am trying to burn into my brain the feel of her little squeezes and the sound of her voice saying, “I wub you Momma.” I never want to forget her little wiggle as she nestles up to me and coos “Ooo-hoo-hoo, you so pwetty Momma.” The love from my girls. It’s like a drug and I can’t get enough of it. It’s a salve for the moments when I am tired and crabby and snap at Miss more than I’d like to admit. Today has been a day with too many of those not-so-lovely moments, which is probably why I’ve chosen to write about these, my little loving girls. This is the stuff I need to think about when I’m feeling frayed, worn out, frazzled, from the stuff of being stay-at-home Mommy. I need to think about it because it lifts my spirits instantly, but also because I need to remind myself that if I wasn’t stay-at-home Mommy, I might not get these moments, or maybe not as many of them. And I wouldn’t miss them for anything.
And now on to my “Chopped” adventure and recipes for the week. This was my third week of our home version of Chopped. The ingredient this week was lobster. I have never cooked lobster before, and only rarely ever eaten it, so yesterday I splurged at the grocery store and bought five lobster tails. My idea was to use the lobster in two ways. I wanted to make it into a salad and use it as a kind of stuffing for an open-face halved avocado, and then make a stuffing to put into a split lobster tail. I used mostly the same flavors in the two stuffings. It went very well and the finished meal was delicious, if I do say so myself.
Here’s the recipe:
I used 5 lobster tails (though you could probably use 6, or even 7; see below). Three of them I boiled for 8 minutes, as instructed, and the other two I took out after about 6 minutes, since I was going to use them as the stuffed lobsters and didn’t want them to get overcooked when putting them into the oven with the stuffing. However, in retrospect, I would cook all of the lobster tails for the full 8 minutes. See my comments at the end of the recipe for how and why I would do this part differently.
Lobster Salad
3 boiled lobster tails, broken into small pieces (I’m sure you could also use lump crab meat)
1 stick melted butter
1 Tbsp minced capers (rinse capers before chopping them)
1/2 tsp dried dill
1 Tbsp lemon juice
Mix all ingredients together and put in the refrigerator for about 10-15 minutes, just to let it thicken up a little. Don’t chill too long or the butter will solidify and the salad with be very thick and dense (if it does get too cold, you can just mix it well to break it up again and it will be fine). Cut 3 avocados in half (I used 2, but there was enough salad to do 3, I think), remove the pit, and spoon the lobster salad on top. You could also serve this salad on a bed of spinach, or maybe in a wrap or sandwich or with crackers.
Stuffed Lobster Tail
3 Lobster tails, cooked and split down middle (I used 2, but there was enough stuffing for 3, maybe even 4)
3 pieces white bread
2 scallions, minced
1/2 Tbsp minced capers
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1 stick melted butter
1/2 tsp dried dill
Combine all ingredients but lobster to make stuffing. When I made this, I took two lobster tails out of the boiling water a little early for this part of the meal. As mentioned above, in retrospect, I would do this differently and go ahead and cook all the lobster tails for the full 8 minutes. I took the two tails out early to try to prevent over cooking the lobster, since I planned to stuff the tails and then put them in the oven. However, one of the tails I took out early was not cooked enough to even be able to get it out of the shell (it was still mushy). So I put it in the microwave to finish cooking the meat and used it as one of the three lobster tails in the lobster salad. I used the other tail that I took out early (not sure why this one wasn’t as undercooked and came out of the shell easily) and one that I cooked the full 8 minutes to do the stuffed lobster tails, and they both ended up being a little bit overcooked after baking them with the stuffing inside. So, bake the stuffing separately at 350 degrees for about 15-20 minutes. Then stuff it in the split lobster tails, as shown below.

While you’re stuffing the tails, preheat the broiler. Put the stuffed lobster tails under the broiler for a few minutes to crisp up the top of the stuffing and warm the lobster a bit. Plate it with a stuffed avocado and serve. I probably should have prepared another vegetable to complete the meal a bit better, and I know the way I served it makes it look kind of like a goofy face. I couldn’t resist.

I’m really proud of how these recipes turned out. I got a little bit of inspiration for the stuffed avocados from a novel I was reading (the main characters ate crab-stuffed avocados that were steamed), but other than the beginnings of an idea, I came up with these recipes on my own, using an ingredient that I was not familiar with cooking at all. And other than changing the process of cooking a little, I would not change the recipe at all. This week was really fun, as my husband was very impressed. I think pretty soon we’ll be switching to two ingredients each week (to be used in the same meal). Happy eating!

I’m Getting Up Now

Posted on by Amy

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.

Celebrating Love

Posted on by Amy
In the past few weeks, we’ve been Valentine-ing a lot. It’s amazing how much I could get into the Valentine-Love because of having a (very-nearly) two-year-old to do it with. We have been crafting.
We made these heart-shaped sun catchers. I got this idea from Mama V at Six and Still Sane. We used wax paper heart cutouts, put crayon shavings between, and ironed to melt the layers together. I should have read Mama V’s directions more carefully though, because the way she described setting up the craft involves having the crayons already grated and ready to go. I had the hearts already cut, but some insane part of my mind thought that maybe it would be fun for Miss to watch me grate the crayons. Probably the same part that thought grating crayons would be just like grating cheese. This is the dumb part of my brain. Of course crayons are much harder than cheese, thus much harder to grate, especially when trying to do it quickly. NOTE: A two-year-old does not have the attention span to wait for something exciting to happen while Mommy struggles to get the wrappers off some crayons (seriously, this was the longest part, they were really stuck), then bites her lip to keep from cursing while grinding crayons and knuckles against a cheese grater. But, the sun catchers did turn out sort of pretty and Miss thought it was fun to see what happened when I ironed them.

We made a couple of Valentine’s Day cards. Here’s the one she did for Daddy.


We made a few batches of cookies. With red frosting of course.


We did lots and lots of snuggling. But we do that all the time anyway.

Today I made Miss french toast for lunch, with a heart-shaped cutout. It turned out not very nicely heart-shaped. This was my first-ever attempt at making french toast, and it was kind of ugly actually. But it tasted good! Though Miss preferred the strawberries.
Lass was snuggly. She’s always snuggly.
Miss loved her Valentine’s Day dress and shoes.

Really loved them!

Lass loved on her Daddy (and her monkey).


My hubby sent some beautiful flowers to me and the girls, and Miss and Lass both had a great time looking at, smelling, and feeling them. We celebrate love every day in our family, but we had a lot of fun with Valentine’s Day this year too.

Morning Meltdown and a Messy Make-up

Posted on by Amy
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 not-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.

Movie Therapy

Posted on by Amy

Today was one of those days. The kind of day that leaves me begging for naptime, and cursing the fact that of all days, today my two girls did not nap at the same time. Lass has not been sleeping well, so I’m more tired than usual. Miss is being ornery. And being tired certainly has me bit less tolerant of typical toddler behaviors, like her looking right at me with a mischievous grin and doing, very deliberately, the exact thing I just instructed her not to do, or something she knows very well she is not allowed to do, like putting her feet on the table during a meal or climbing up onto the kitchen counter. I forgot to get out the venison to thaw for meatloaf, so I made omelets for dinner that tasted horrid because they got burned while I was preventing Miss from breaking more eggs (she thought this was great fun in “helping” me to make dinner) or climbing up the front of the stove to see what we were cooking. And I couldn’t even go out somewhere today to help maintain my sanity because my husband is working nights this week and he went to bed before I managed to take a shower and get dressed, so I sat around with greasy hair in my PJs all day. For the record, as I’m typing out this pity-party post, I’m beginning to laugh at myself and at how, well pitifulI am sounding. My mom is probably making a “sup-supping” sound at me right now.

Anyway, I always find that the best therapy for days like today is to remember the good moments. The bring-a-tear-to-your-eye-wow-I-have-the-best-job-in-the-world moments. Because of course these greatly outweigh the crappy moments, both in number and in magnitude. So even on days like today there are plenty of these happy moments to reflect on. Like when Miss climbed up on Lass’s crib while I was getting her up from her morning nap and said, “I yuv you sissur.” Like the belly laughs from Lass when I tickled her chubby thighs during her diaper change before bed. Like the funny wave and “Hi Momma, hi Sweetie!” from Miss this afternoon when I went to get her from her nap. Like the fact that Lass finally took a whole bottle from her daddy this evening (hooray!). Like when Miss unexpectedly grabbed tightly around my neck as I was getting her in her seat for her snack and said, “I yuv you Momma.” And just in case thinking about these and other great mommy moments from today weren’t enough to brighten my mood (they were), I made a few fun video clips from the past few days that make me smile and occasionally laugh out loud.
Here is the sisterly love video that goes along with the photos I posted yesterday. Miss starts out singing to Lass and then gasps, and I love how she says, “She spit a little bit!”
Here is video documentation of my sweet, non-sleeping girl rolling over.
And here is my favorite video of Miss singing. She has really gotten into singing songs from her favorite show, Yo Gabba Gabba. The first one here is “I’m so, I’m so sorry. I’m so, I’m so sorry. I can fix it, I can make it better.” When she doesn’t know the words, she just wings it. And you can’t really tell from the video, but she is looking at her reflection in the glass doors of our fireplace while she’s singing this one. The second song I prompt her to sing, because I love the accent she sings it with, “Keep troying. . .”
And that’s my movie therapy for tonight. Lass has already woken up twice (and only been in bed for an hour and a half), so this could be a long night. I’m going to go wash my greasy hair and try to get some sleep.