It seems like, as moms, we are always talking about how to get our kids to sleep more, better, longer, uninterrupted. We hear so many suggestions and try so many things.
"His room should be darker, get blackout curtains."
"He's probably afraid of the dark, get a nightlight (or two, or three)."
"Put him down awake, so he learns to sleep on his own."
"Comfort/rock/nurse him to sleep so he feels that you are close."
"Maybe his bed is too hard, get a softer mattress."
"Babies need firm mattresses, they are safer."
"He's waking up because he's hungry, he needs to eat more during the day."
"Stretch out his feedings so he learns to go longer between eating."
"His room is too quiet, get him a fan/white noise machine/ipod/CD player/radio."
"He probably needs quiet to sleep."
And on and on and on.
And then, when you are just sitting around, chatting with your son at the table, all of a sudden, you look over and...
Right there in his comfy plastic booster seat, carefully clutching his most prized possessions.
(Originally posted 6/8/2012)
Bedtime. Man, it can really suck. Bedtime with little ones can be
tricky, but it’s especially difficult when you’re outnumbered. I
frequently spend 2-3 hours running back and forth between rooms, putting
out fires. It usually sounds something like this…
“Pee pee on the potty!!!”
“Wahhhhhh!”
“I need my bear.”
“Waahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!”
“The other bear”
“Wahhhhhh!”
“Not THAT bear!!!”
“Wahhhhhhhh!”
“Need to do poops”
“Wahhh!”
“I sleep with kitty?”
“Waahhhhhhh!”
“Sing a song please”
“Wahhhhhh!”
“No, an elephant song”
“Wahhhhhhhhhh!!!!”
“I want the kitty story.”
You get the idea. I run back and forth nursing, singing, pottying,
rocking, reading, blowing noses, bear hunting, pulling my hair out, etc.
for what seems like an eternity. Finally, Coco falls asleep. I sing
some more to Tyler. He’s quiet and relaxed. I kick the cat out of his
room and quietly shut the door. I collapse in the hallway. I hear a
noise. I go to check on the baby. Is that poop seeping through his pjs?
Or did I put him to bed in pjs that happen to have a big poop stain on
the back. *sniff, sniff* Ugh.
And I start again. Luckily it only takes another 30 or so minutes to get him changed, nursed, and snuggled in again.
Feeling defeated and exhausted, I walk downstairs. I start to search
the kitchen. What am I looking for? A pat on the back? A high five?
Cookies? A bag of chocolate chips? Some gin? And then, I hear a faint
noise in the distance.
It sounds something like the ice
cream truck, but it’s 9 o’clock at night. Too late for ice cream. It’s
getting closer. It’s getting louder. I can make out the music. “She drinks a whiskey drink, she drinks a vodka drink, she drinks a lager drink, she drinks a cider drink…”
I walk outside. I’m wearing my jammies. I have spit up on my shirt.
My hair smells like Mexican food. We didn’t even have Mexican food
tonight. And what is that crust on my arm? Oh well. There is a truck
slowly driving by the house. “I get knocked down, but I get up again…” The sign on the side of the truck says, "Goodnight Moon (shine)."
Yep. It’s like an ice cream truck, but for mommies. And instead of
ice cream, it’s filled with drinks. And it circles the neighborhoods
after bedtime, providing support and comfort to tired mommies. Oh yeah,
and booze.
Disclaimer:
No, that didn't actually happen. Well, all the crappy stuff at the
beginning did, but there's no booze truck in my neighborhood. Yet.
(Originally posted 5/18/2012)
I have a lot in common with my mom. We can chat on the phone for hours
about a variety of things. There is one thing we don’t have in common
though. She never had boys. Not even one. She had two girls (and they
are awesome, if I do say so myself), but girls are different.
This is something I do have in common with my mother-in-law. She had a
boy. A fabulous boy. He’s so great, I married him. She gave me her boy,
not that she had a whole lot of say in the matter. I kind of just
swooped in and took him away to be my own.
I get it now.
When you are the mother of a little boy, you are his everything. I
realize that this is only temporary. Someday, he will bring a new,
younger woman into your home. He will be so excited to introduce her to
you. In his eyes, she will be amazing. She will think she knows
everything. She will be all cute and perfect. And then, in the blink of
an eye, she will steal your little boy away.
She will be the
one cooking his meals and cleaning his messes (or maybe vice versa… in
our house, I cook the meals, he cleans the messes). She will be the one
planning his holidays. She will be the one caring for him when he’s
sick. She will be the one running her hands through his hair (if he's
lucky enough to still have any). She will be the one snuggling him to
sleep at night. She will be your replacement. She will be his
everything. And you don’t get to say a thing about it.
When
you want to see your boy, you will call, email, or text her (or some
other new technology that hasn’t been invented yet). You will make plans
with her when you want to see your grandkids. You will run your holiday
plans by her, hoping to be included in your son’s life.
When a young woman gets married, her dad (or some other loving family
member) usually gives her away. When a young man gets married, his
parents don’t get a say.
She’s probably already out there,
just waiting to make her move. Just waiting to steal him from me (okay,
she’s likely still in diapers and not all that threatening…yet).
And when he marries her, I will watch with grace as I let go of my
little boy. I will smile, hug, and congratulate them. And then I will
turn to my mother-in-law, silently sobbing. Because she understands what
it’s like to give up her baby.
Disclaimer: This could obviously be applied to either of
my boys. It didn’t sound right when I tried writing it plural. Also, I
realize that watching your daughter get married is also probably
difficult. I don’t have a daughter though, so I’m just focused on boys
right now. And I realize they may not choose to get married. That’s
cool too.
(Originally posted 5/2/2012)
I am an expert. A potty expert. I have only ever attempted to potty
train one child, my son. It has been a success. Therefore, I can say
that I have a 100% potty training success rate. Right?
Okay, so
maybe I’m not an expert, but I will share a little bit about our potty
experience in the hopes that maybe it will help someone. If you don’t
have kids, or if your kids are already potty trained, you will likely
find this post boring and useless. (Unless maybe you can apply some of
this to your dog. Nah, probably not.)
I had heard from a couple
friends who read some potty books (I have such scholarly friends!)
that the ideal window for potty training is between 20ish months and
30ish months. Buddy just turned two, so he’s right near the middle of
that window. About four or five months ago we started putting him on the
potty at diaper changes and he would use it maybe one or two times a
day. He seemed pretty comfortable with it, but not ready to really use
it exclusively (aka, I was terrified that if I let him go diaper free he
would destroy my house, what with all those hardwood floors and that
$20 Walmart rug).
After hearing about this potty training
window, I had an idea. Last Tuesday morning we came home from a play
date and we were standing in the middle of the kitchen. Right then and
there I decided it was time (I live on the edge). I took his diaper off
and told him we were all done with diapers, and that he was a big boy
and he would be using the potty from now on.
Being very
paranoid, I put him on the potty about every 15 minutes for the rest of
the day. I bravely put him down for nap with no diaper on. Big mistake!
When he got up from his nap, there was a waterfall pouring out of the
bed. The afternoon was pretty stressful. That evening, I decided I
needed a plan.
I searched the internet for potty advice. I found a couple of places where you had to PAY
to get such help. Yeah, I’m too cheap (err, frugal?) for that. I
gathered everything I could find for free. I read blogs, articles,
talked to friends, etc. I compiled a few tips.
- Once you go to underwear, don’t go back. Don’t use training pants, even in the car.
- Don’t even use diapers at nap and bedtime.
- It’s okay to use diapers for nap and bedtime.
- Give lots of praise.
- Don’t give too much praise.
- Give rewards.
- Don’t give rewards.
- He must be naked for 3 months.
- He must be naked for 1 day.
- He should never be naked.
Okay,
so there is some conflicting advice there. I decided we would still
use diapers for nap and bed, but no other time, not even in the car or
when we go in public. I don’t have any training pants, so it was pretty
easy to not use them. I’m good with the praise. I didn’t use rewards
because it didn’t seem necessary. He was happy to be rewarded with the
opportunity to flush the toilet (what a treat!), so I didn’t feel it was
necessary for us to go the sticker/candy route. As far as attire goes, I
put him in a t-shirt and underwear (the cutest little boxer briefs!)
with no pants. This is still his at home uniform because it’s easiest to
get on and off for quick potty trips. He wears pants in public. The
boxer briefs aren’t THAT cute.
Nothing will get a mommy to jump
up from her cup of coffee and bag of chocolate chips like her undiapered
two year old shouting “pee pee in potty!!” He learned that fast. Not
that he needed to go, but he just enjoyed seeing me run to him (note to
self, pay attention to him other times too). He very quickly turned this
into a game of bedtime shenanigans. The new rule is, after bedtime, the
potty is available on request, but there will be no stories, songs, or
toys.
Days 2 – 4 brought many tantrums about the potty and a lot
of exhaustion for this mommy. On Saturday night I just about had a
breakdown. I was ready to throw it all out and just go back to diapers
and give up on the whole thing. I was starting to feel like we had made
no progress (he was having about 4 accidents a day). I was feeling like
we would never be able to leave the house again. I thought that maybe we
had started too early and we should try again in a couple of months (or
years?!).
Thanks to the support of my (awesome) husband and
some (fabulous) friends, I stuck with it through Sunday. MAJOR progress!
And it’s all been downhill since then. (Or uphill? Which one means it’s
been good? Well, whatever, it’s been good!) We’ve even had two
successful, accident free trips into public.
On Monday we spent
a few hours at a local playground. It doesn’t even have a bathroom! On
the advice of others, I brought his little potty with us. I set it up on
a towel in the back of my car (love that minivan). He used it twice
while we were there. (Side note – I also brought a plastic bag to wrap
it in, should there be a poop event – there wasn’t. And I put a jug of
water in the car should I need to do any cleaning.) He thought it was
pretty funny to have a potty in the car.
I am still prompting
him on a regular basis to use the potty. Sometimes he asks on his own.
He frequently wakes up from naps/bed dry, but I’m a little bit afraid to
go all in after seeing the waterfall that he can create in his sleep.
Soon enough…
Oh, and I was just kidding about that whole
“expert” thing. I have no clue what I’m doing. As I said, I went into
this (stupidly) with no plan. Glad it worked though! Phew! And while
this post is not written by an expert, it is free, so that's a bonus!
And
on a separate note… I am surprisingly a little bit saddened by all of
this. He is really becoming a big boy now. He’s not a baby. He doesn’t
wear cute cloth diapers anymore (less laundry for me!!). I can’t dress
him and his brother in matching diapers and let them play outside and
take a million pictures (which is exactly how I was picturing my
summer). Oh well, time to move on. It’s all happening so fast.
(originally posted 4/10/2012)
Coco. That's not what I named him, but that's what his brother decided
we would call him. And it stuck. We frequently call him coco baby, or
coco butter, but we never call him by his actual name. Coco was born 6
months ago. He has taught me more in his first few months of life than I
ever imagined a second child could. After all, I already knew
everything long before he was born!
When I had my first son, I
was so smart. I figured out the right way to do everything. He was
always content and smiling. He slept well. He ate well. He grew well.
He was perfect. Obviously, it was because I knew exactly what I was
doing. When he was 18 months old (still an infant!), Coco was born. The
first couple of weeks were great. I was easily able to handle life
chasing a toddler with my newborn tucked in a carrier. Then he woke up.
And screamed. And screamed. And screamed. For months. Four months. And I
quickly realized that I had been incredibly lucky to have had such an
easygoing first child. I realized it had almost nothing to do with my
awesome parenting, because now, my awesome parenting appeared to be a
total failure. Thankfully, with the help of understanding friends and
supportive family, we made it through those months, he stopped
screaming, and we have adjusted to life as a family of four.
I
never believed in colic, teething pain, amber necklaces, and sleepless
nights six months ago. I do now. But in the meantime, I have learned a
lot. I understand that every mom is doing her best to raise her kids in
the best way possible. What works for one kid may not work for another.
When I am having an easy day and see a mom struggling to
handle her kids, it's not because she's not a great mom. It's because,
for whatever reason, today is a hard day for her. I truly believe that
each person is doing her best to be the best person she can. It might
not always look that way from the outside, but that's where we stand
when we judge. It's a lot harder to judge from the inside.
When I look into Coco's eyes, I can't thank him enough for the lessons he has already taught me.
