Silly Mom Thoughts

Today was one of those days when I realized Turk and I are good parents raising sweet children. I bask in these days because, especially around the toddler/preschool years, they seem to be few and far between.

Today, Bug didn’t nap. No biggie, he played pretty well by himself and let me finish cleaning and have some quiet time. When Bean woke up, he came running in to the room where I was.

“Mom! Whas dat noise in my ears?”

Bean made a noise from the other room. I waited a little longer, because I wanted to hear the cuteness that was coming from his mouth. Sure enough, there was more.

“Hear dat? It’s in my ears! Yee yee’s awake! Hurry!”

I lifted Bean from her Pack ‘n Play nap spot and Bug leaned in to hug her.

“I missed you, Yee yee!” he exclaimed, his arm around her. He then kissed her on the head.

She leaned into him and gave him a kiss back, and that was when my heart melted into a gooey puddle on the floor.

Later, after a good play outside, they were standing in the kitchen with me and Bean wrapped her arms around her brother’s waist. He reciprocated and kissed her on the head again. “I wuv you, Yee yee!”

I couldn’t stand it. I knelt down and wrapped them both in a gigantic hug. There was a whole lot of kissin’ and huggin’ going on in that little love circle.

Then, as if this all weren’t sweet and ooey gooey enough, Bean did another cute thing. It was her turn to get out of the bath and I asked her to stand up so I could wrap her in the towel.

“Bye bye!” she said to the bathtub and I smiled.

Then, she leaned down and kissed the water and left with a final, “Bye bye!”

Cute, right?

Dang, I love these days. It is an amazing break from the usual hitting, biting, screaming, tantruming, and lack of sharing that goes on around these parts most days of the week.

March has not been a very good month for me, and it all came to a head just a few minutes ago when my kids woke up from their naps.

Bug climbed down from his new bunk bed, opened the door, and heard Bean making noises in the room across from him where she had been napping. He opened the door and then came running to find me.

“Mommy, Yee yee stinks,” he informed me.

“She does? Did she poop?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he replied.

“Do you want to change her?”

“No! I not a baby diaper!”

(Which I took to mean, “No! That’s your job, nutso!”)

I walked down the hall and sure enough, the scent of poo came wafting into my nostrils. Not just any poo, either, the really messy kind.

I enter the room and there’s Bean, a serious look on her face, and no diaper on her butt. She is pointing at the diaper on the floor of the playpen.

“Mmboodisp!” she vehemently exclaims.

I interpret this as “You took too long to get here, so I took matters into my own hands, lady!”

Caked all over Bean’s butt, hands, face, clothes, blankets… everything is poop. Nasty, nasty poop.

I wiped her down, plopped her in the tub, and chucked everything she and I were wearing into the wash. Ew. Ew. Ew!

Still, I had to chuckle. March has not been friendly to me. (For instance, my Pregnancy Nightmares, Springing Forward, having to overhaul an entire short story, being sicker than sick for a large chunk of the month, and falling on my ass yesterday)  So, I figure this was the perfect send off to a slightly frustrating month.

On that note… April is going to rock!

When Bug first started potty training last year, I vowed to never ever offer extrinsic rewards for going on the potty. No sticker charts, no toys, and especially no candy. I wanted him to go on the potty and feel intrinsically rewarded, I wanted him to do it for himself because he felt good about it. That all sounded well and good, and it worked for a little while, but then the poo accidents started. And continued. They were gross.

Since January, Bug hasn’t gone #2 on the potty more than once or twice per week. The rest of the time, often more than once per day, he was droppin’ dukes in his pants like “Woops, did I do that?” It was frustrating, disgusting, and incredibly disheartening. Last week, I reached my breaking point, when Bug caught a… well, bug, and had some really great surprises for me in his pants. I’ll spare you the gruesome details, but lets just say they often involved an impromptu shower to clean him off.

Saturday, Turk and I were talking about this little issue and he suggested we try a different tactic. Obviously, nothing we were doing was working, no matter how patient we were with his accidents. And frankly, I cannot take the mess anymore.

“The YMCA daycare gives the kids a Gummi Bear if they poop on the potty,” Turk said.

“No, I don’t want to reward him with candy,” I replied flatly.

“Well, nothing else is working,” he reasoned.

Good point.

“Alright, we’ll give it a try,” I conceded.

Sunday, I picked up a ginormous pack at Target. I brought it home and Bug’s eyes boggled.

“What’s dat?!” he asked.

“Gummi Bears ,” I replied. “You get one when you poop on the potty.”

Bug ran straight for the bathroom, sat on the toilet and grunted like a caveman.

“I can’t do it, Mama!” he groaned.

“That’s okay, buddy, they’ll still be here when you do have to go.”

He didn’t have to go all night and I thought maybe the novelty of the treat idea had worn off on him. Then, this morning I heard him pad to the bathroom and do his business.

Yessss! Finally!

I patted his back, told him how proud I was, wiped him up and led him back to his room.

Maybe he forgot about the Gummi Bears after all, I thought.

He looked up at me with those huge blue eyes, still droopy from sleep, and said, “Mommy, I get a Gummi Bear now?”

“Yes, buddy, you get a Gummi Bear,” I said, and handed him his potty reward.

Once upon a time, I said never. I should know better by now than to say “never” to anything. Apparently, he is a reward-driven kind of kid, and for right now, I’ll do whatever it takes if it means not having to clean up poo messes all day long.

This is slightly off-topic, but it does have to do with Gummi Bears. Do you remember the Gummi Bear show? “Gummi Bears, bouncing here and there and everywhere…” Turk and I were just talking about that show last night. Too funny.

My three-year-old is a sponge, soaking up anything and everything that piques his interest. Sometimes I am caught of guard by his sponginess. He will repeat something that I said, or an action that he saw, when I thought he wasn’t even paying attention. The other day, for instance, he said out of nowhere, “It’s the night before Kissmas and all tru da house, not a criture was stuw-ing, not eben a mouse!” Needless to say, I was impressed.

Sometimes, though, he soaks up things I’d rather he didn’t. Like the other morning, when I was having my 5:25am tantrum I muttered the  “S” word under my breath when I was lifting up a child safety gate. The next morning, Bug walked up to the gate, grumbled, “Sit!” and stomped off.

Bug has a little friend who loves to add words to “head.” His favorite is “poophead.” Yesterday, this friend was over and soon after he left, Bug looked at me smiling and said, “Poophead!” I realized that he was testing this new cool word out and didn’t quite understand the meaning behind it, so I told him sternly to never say that word again, or he would be in trouble. I explained that it wasn’t a nice word to call someone at all.

Later that evening, the kids were in the tub and Bug looked at Bean and yelled, “Poophead!” Honestly, I think he thought it was a funny word, something that was more silly than insulting. But, I don’t want him going around saying that, so I plucked him out of the bath, wrapped him in a towel, and sent him off to time out.

He was crushed! Bath time is the happy hour of toddlers, something they look forward to after a long day of tantrums and being waited on hand and foot. When Mama takes away bath time, she means business.

After his time out sentence was served, he came back in to the bathroom and apologized to Bean and me. I put him in PJs and we watched Bean splash around in the bath for a while and he laughed at his silly little sister. That’s when he said it.

“You’re a-” he paused, thinking, and I prayed that he was not going to say the word he just got in trouble for saying, “Silly head!”

I was so proud. He sat and thought about the words before he said them. My punishment worked. I hugged him, kissed him, praised him for thinking before he spoke. I told him “silly head” is just fine, especially since our family is full of silly heads. The rest of the night, he giggled and called his sister a “Silly head” every time she was acting like a nut.

The only problem?

With Bug’s unique speech, “Silly head” actually sounds like, “Sh!t head.”

Oh well, it’s the true meaning that counts, right?

…is the time I was rudely awakened from a delicious dream. There I was standing in line at McDonald’s , eating Cup ‘O Noodles, trying to decide if I wanted a McDouble Cheeseburger, fries, or Chicken McNuggets. I was about to order all of the above, when my bedroom door swung open, sending me abruptly from dreamland to Mommyland.

Bug was awake.

At 5:25 am?!

We have been working with him on night training and apparently his little body woke him up to go pee. I helped him to the potty and then sent him back to his room.

“I want moke,”  he whined

“You can have milk later, buddy, it’s waaay too early right now,” I whispered, trying not to wake Bean up, who was sleeping just feet away.

I left the room and peeked into the bathroom. Turk was up getting ready for work.

“I hate tax season!” I hissed at him through the crack in the door. “You getting ready this early wakes the kids up!”

(In his defense, that wasn’t the case today, but it is usually the case.)

I plopped down onto the bed and closed my eyes. Bean started whimpering. Then crying. Bug came back into our room.

There is something you should know about me. Unless you are sick, teething, an infant, or have a damn good reason, you do not mess with my sleep. I need my sleep. Especially when I have twins cooking in my uterus.

Bean quieted down and I assumed she put herself back to sleep. Turk got Bug some milk and cereal and set him up in the next room to watch cartoons.

It was 5:41am. There are no cartoons on TV and I was so not dealing with Bug’s whiny tantrums all day because he didn’t get enough sleep. I went into the next room and turned off the TV. Bug flipped out and I lost my temper a bit, not my finest Mommy Moment. I told him to calm down (not in a calm voice myself, like that’s ever going to work), he freaked out more and woke up Bean who started screaming.

I stomped into the kitchen, warmed up some milk to put in a sippy cup for Bean, while Bug whined and freaked out next to me. Turk slipped out the front door with an “I love you. Hope you have a good day.” I will bet he ran down the steps as fast as his legs would take him. I would have.

Soon, I calmed down. Bug and Bean calmed down. I put him back in his room and plopped back into my bed.

My clock read 6:11 am and after all the adrenaline and getting upset, I was wide awake. Man!

Despite the rocky start to the morning, I was able to doze until 7:45, an unheard of feat. At one point, Bug crawled back into bed with me, but was good and quiet and snuggled. What could have been a bad morning, actually turned out okay.

Except that I haven’t been able to shake this insane craving for McDonald’s food…

It’s funny, the number of things that go through your mind the second you find out you’re having twins. Having been through pregnancy twice now, I was prepared for the overwhelming number of questions, thoughts, and what ifs that would run through my mind initially. I wasn’t prepared about how many more I would have with the thought of twins. The first week or so after we found out seemed to drag on for eternity. Every day seemed to span an entire week, making the idea of being pregnant for 31 more weeks seem unbearable.

It occurred to me that the reason why time seemed to have stood still was because I was filled with questions, thoughts, and worries that are supposed to last me the entire pregnancy, not get resolved in a week. So, I decided to mentally pace myself and only think about something twin related once every few days.

First huge question: To find out the sex, or not to find out the sex of the twins.

We found out with Bug at about 20 weeks, and it was a little overwhelming calling everyone up and saying, “It’s a boy!” Plus, it seemed to make the rest of the pregnancy drag on forever and ever. (It didn’t help that Mr. Bug was apparently nice and cozy inside because he was almost 2 weeks late.)

We didn’t find out with Bean, and hearing “It’s a girl!” as she was being lifted from me was seriously one of the coolest moments of my life.

I really wanted to hold out this time too, even though most people find out with twins. But, the more we’re thinking about it, the more Turk and I are leaning toward finding out this time. Honestly, we do need to know if the babies are the same sex, because although I have some clothes for boys and girls, I definitely don’t have enough for two of the same sex. Plus, to prepare Bug and Bean, it would be nice to be able to say, “Your brother and sister,” or “Your brothers,” or “Your sisters” when we’re talking about the babies.

Even if we do find out, I absolutely flat out refuse to call them by their names until they’re born. Don’t ask me why, but that is such a weird pet peeve of mine. Actually, I think I do know why… Turk and I are so indecisive with names up to the very last minute, that I’d be afraid of calling the babies one thing during the pregnancy and change it to something entirely different after they’re born. I’m not prepared to commit to names until I see their little faces.

So, at this juncture, it appears as though we will be finding out. For the record, I seriously believe it’s either two girls or a boy and a girl (leaning more toward boy and a girl).

Second huge question: How am I going to breastfeed twins with two other small children who need me?

I know this one won’t be answered until I have the twins home and just figure it out, but I have started doing some research on my own. It looks like it will actually be easier to tandem nurse the twins, as opposed to putting them on separate schedules. I know that will probably be easier on my sanity too, so I’m not a milk factory all day long. I think I’m going to set up a special basket of goodies or movies that Bug and Bean can take out only when I’m nursing, so it’s their special treat while Mommy’s spending time with the twins. I’m hoping and praying that it works out, because I certainly don’t want to have to buy double the formula when I have already successfully breastfed two children. I know the girls work perfectly well, I want to put them to good use.

Other questions are stewing around in my brain like:

How can I wear twins? (Actually, I saw that the Ellaroo Wrap holds twins when they’re still pretty little. Unfortunately, that wrap runs around $75-100, so I’m going to have to save up my pennies.)

How will Bean adjust to the new babies? (I’m less worried about Bug, because he is older and understands more. The other day, he leaned down to talk to my belly and said, “Hi babies, we miss you!” Seriously, how lucky are these kids to have such a great big brother?)

Will I ever leave the house again? (Probably not.)

There are many, many more questions going through my mind, but I’m refusing to let them overwhelm me. I’m only ten weeks tomorrow, I have so much more time to worry. No sense in doing it all right now!

On Friday, January 30th, The Early Show on CBS interviewed Kate Gosselin of Jon & Kate + 8. At the beginning of the interview, one of her daughters (Alexis) can be seen pushing her brother and otherwise acting naughty. In response, Kate politely asked the interviewer to hold on for a second while she leaned over, took hold of Alexis’ shoulder, and sternly told her to stop misbehaving. (To see the video of this interview, click here .)

There is some controversy surrounding Kate Gosselin’s little parenting tactic. Many will argue that Kate grabbing her daughter’s shoulder was too harsh and therefore bad parenting. They also look down on Maggie Rodriguez’s response to the action, where she applauded Kate Gosselin for her seemingly effective shoulder grab. (I say “seemingly effective” because at the end of the interview, Kate scolds Alexis again and gives her the mother of all “Mommy death looks.”)

Was Kate too harsh on Alexis during the interview? Personally, I don’t think so. Now, I’m not for abusing your kids at all, but if you watch how Kate grabs her shoulder, it isn’t with a death grip, but strong enough to make a point. She doesn’t hold on and squeeze her daughter, she lets go with a warning to behave. By all appearances, Alexis deserved the discipline she received. She was tormenting her brother and simply being a stinker. Maybe to some people this wouldn’t warrant such a response from Kate, but there’s something else to consider in this situation: We have no idea what Alexis was doing or saying before the interview. For all we know, she was a holy terror all morning long and this was simply the last straw for Kate.

As for Maggie Rodriguez’s response to Kate grabbing her daughter’s shoulder? What else was she supposed to say? Even if she disagreed with the action, she can’t say so during a live interview! It is my personal opinion that Maggie Rodriguez did an excellent job of pulling off an otherwise distracting and difficult interview.

Although I think Kate Gosselin can be a bit of a you-kn0w-what, especially to Jon, I find her to be extremely inspirational. On days when I feel as though I cannot handle my two children, I think of Kate chasing after eight children. Whose life is more crazy? Uhm, hers. I can guarantee I would be a bit bitchy too, if I were in her shoes.

There’s something you should know about me: I possess a tremendously sick gutter brain. Say anything that could even remotely be construed as sexual and my brain will go there. Fortunately, I married my gutter brain equal, Turk. The other night, while we were lying in bed, we started talking about kid’s songs that could be really dirty if you think about the lyrics. Seriously! Check it out:

Handy Manny

“Hop up jump in, don’t move to slow!”

“Bend and twist, just like that. We work together, we work together now!”

The Little People Movie (a.k.a. the dumbest video ever created and I hate hate hate it)

“Discovering morning, discovering sun, discovering there’s room for everyone.”

Or, my favorite:

“Discovering horses, and giraffes too. Discovering me, and discovering you.”

I told you I had a gutter brain!

As if The Little People Movie wasn’t bad enough, Bug has a Little People toy that sings when you push on the driver. Of course, to me, that sounds sick too:

“Up and down down and up… up and down and round and round!”

I don’t know if it’s my mind’s own defense mechanism for having to hear this annoying crap all day long, or if I really need to seek mental help.

It doesn’t stop at lyrics. Oh no. Check out this hammer that goes with the Playskool Poundin’ Bedbugs toy (and I will ignore the “poundin’” part of the name of the toy for now):

Tell me this does not look like a man’s, ahem, “hammer” and “bolts”:

It’s even circumcised!

I may be a sicko, but come on. That has to look like a penis to everyone else.

So, there you have it. The cat’s outta the bag. Lindsay is a dirty-brained girl. I’m okay with it though. Keeps me sane.

*For those who don’t know, Diego is a cartoon character that Bug is a big fan of. Diego helps animals, speaks English and Spanish, and has ridiculously huge eyes and an adorable face. He and his female counterpart, Dora the Explorer, both like to yell a whole lot. It drives me nuts, but Bug adores it.

Bug is still as stubborn as ever about eating. I kid you not, this child would rather starve than try anything new. He practically lives off of bananas, sausage, hot dogs, chicken nuggets, and macaroni and cheese. He refuses to eat peanut butter, hates string cheese, or cheese at all unless it’s on pizza (even then he usually peels it off). He will occasionally eat corn or carrots, but that is only occasionally. And of course you remember what happens when we try to get Bug to eat oranges, right? Ugh.

We have done everything from making him eat foods to sending him to bed hungry if he doesn’t eat his dinner. None of it seems to work. We limit the number of snacks during the day and make sure he doesn’t eat a couple hours before dinner so he’s hungry. Very few of our tactics work. I mentioned one method that worked in this blog entry , but that has since lost its effect.

Last night I made steak for Turk and I and nuggets for the kids. (I was definitely not about to waste a perfectly good steak on Mr. Pickypants.) I offered a bite of my steak to Bug, who (surprise, surprise) refused. We have found in the past that if he smells the food first, he’s more inclined to try it, so we both made a big deal about how delicious this steak was.

(Meanwhile, Bean’s freaking out in her seat like “I want some! Gimme, gimme!”)

He takes a whiff, says, “Mmm, dat’s a-yish-ish.”

“Do you want to try a bite, buddy? It tastes even better than it smells!”

“Hmm. No.”

I don’t know where it came from, some tiny genius in the back of my brain, I suppose, but these words spilled from my lips:

“Bug, it’s Diego steak! Diego loves this kind of steak. Here, I’ll put a little piece on your plate if you want to try it.”

Do you know what he did?! He ate the steak.

“Do you like it, buddy?”

“Mmffgh,” was his full-mouthed reply.

He took two more pieces of Diego steak and a couple of pieces of Diego carrot too.

We didn’t want to push our luck and over play our hand by calling everything on our plates “Diego” though. We can’t let him see through our little trick. We’ll save that handy one in the back of our pockets for a later date.

Is it manipulative? Maybe a little. But seriously, this kid won’t try anything. The funny thing, is that when he does, he absolutely loves it! It’s getting him to take that first bite that’s the problem.

So for now, we’re going to use it. Diego steak truly is delicious. (Except for the fact that it sounds like we’re eating Diego.)

Darn those country songs that make me cry. They’re predictable, but I fall for it every time. I always know there’s going to be one line that the singer repeats in each stanza that evolves as the song progresses. For instance in There Goes My Life, Kenny Chesney sings about a boy who gets his girlfriend pregnant and thinks his life is over, “There goes my life,” he complains. The song evolves until, in the end, he’s watching his little girl drive away to college and thinks, “There goes my life” as she is driving away. Song after sappy country song does this. I Love You this Much by Jimmy Wayne. Don’t Take the Girl by Tim McGraw. Butterfly Kisses by Bob Carlisle. The list could go on and on.

Saturday morning, I had escaped the house while Turk stayed home with the kids. I turned the radio to country since all of the Christmas stations were on a radio break. I caught one of these country tear-jerkers mid-song. I knew it was one of those predictable one-liner sob numbers when I heard Trace Adkins sing, “You’re gonna miss this, you’re gonna want this back.” He sang about a young bride in a small apartment, wishing her newlywed days away by telling her dad that one day she’ll have a house and babies. He reminded her that she would miss these days, and not to wish them away. But it was the next verse that had me sobbing. It was the next verse that I was meant to hear:

Five years later there’s a plumber workin’ on the water heater
Dogs barkin,’ phone’s ringin’

One kid’s cryin’, one kid’s screamin’

And she keeps apologizin’

He says “They don’t bother me.

I’ve got 2 babies of my own.

One’s 36, one’s 23.

Huh, it’s hard to believe, but…

You’re gonna miss this

You’re gonna want this back

You’re gonna wish these days hadn’t gone by so fast

These are some good times

So take a good look around

You may not know it now

But you’re gonna miss this”

Seeing the words written down does not give justice to the way the song floated into my ears and landed heavily on my heart. One day, I will look back on all of these frustrating times and miss this.
I believe I was meant to hear this song at this particular time, because things have been really tough with Bug in the past several months. One minute he is a wonderfully sweet child who is kissing his sister or telling me, “I wuvs you, Mommy.” The next, he’s a raging lunatic, his head all but spinning around, simply because I told him he couldn’t have any more milk. It’s draining, it’s frustrating, and it’s crushingly depressing when it feels like all the parenting we’re doing isn’t working at all. (Deep down, I know it is, but in the heat of the moment it feels like we’re failing.) I love my Bug to death, but sometimes I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how else to get through this stage of tantrums and asserting his independence other than the consistent ways we already have been parenting him. I am simply thankful that God sent him to Turk and I, as we are strong willed and won’t let him get away with everything that a less strong-willed parent would.

These years with our high-spirited Bug are difficult, there is no doubt. But I know they are only making me stronger as an individual. I also know that, through our unfailing love and consistent discipline, Turk and I are shaping Bug to be a wonderful, selfless individual who knows when to put his foot down, and when to let it slide. One day, I will look back on these times and think, “I miss those days,” but for now, that simple thought is enough to help me appreciate the here and now.