Sunday, August 9, 2015

One of those days...again.

It's been a day. 

I was going to post about it on facebook but it's just too much for one status. Better to write a blog instead. 

So as parents we've all had 'one of those days' and for me, today was definitely one. It's not the first and won't be the last. 

For starters, Michael left by 7am for a company golf tournament, no big deal, he needs a break from the crazy, but it left me alone with the kids until after 4. 

I set my alarm for 9 (don't judge or hate; it's summertime; and the kids and I will be miserable once school starts) so we could get up and ready for church. Getting myself and both kids ready for church is always epic. I have no idea. Getting them ready for anything else never takes nearly as long and never has as much drama. All I can say is the devil must be workin on my kids on Sunday mornings. 

Church is less than ten minutes from our house thank goodness. Morgan loves going to her class but I literally had to shove Jack into the nursey. He loses his mind. He's fine in childcare at the YMCA, he's excited about going to preschool, he's a social butterfly at birthday parties and on playgrounds, but there's something about the church nursery that turns him into a giant wailing man child. At 3 he's one of the older ones anyways but he's also such a big kid (measuring the same height at 3 as Morgan at 5) and so loud. I almost always have to stay with him. I always rock him for about 10-15 minutes and then he slowly starts to mingle with the other kids. And by mingled mean he tries to play with a toy and then another little one touches it so he starts screaming 'no baby!!!! Bad bad baby!' and wails. Today he was working on a puzzle and another little guy came over, took a piece and slobbered over it. Jack was totally over life after that so he pulled a storage tote over himself to escape reality. 


I had told the kids that after church we would go get some lunch to kill time before dance class registration. Jack wanted McDonald's. Morgan wanted pizza. I tried to talk them both into the same thing but they are really friggin stubborn. I pulled into Pizza Hut and Jack started crying. I told Morgan I could take him in to eat like that. I went to McDonald's and Morgan started crying. I totally snapped and started spewing things like how they are both spoiled brats and I should send them to live in  country where they have to sleep on a dirt floor and have no toys and that I was going to pick a place to eat and if they cried I was going to sell them to gypsies and/or never take them swimming again (they love the pool).  So we ended up at Eat N Park and they were angelic...or angelic for them at least. 

Then I had to take them to register Morgan for her 3rd year of dance classes. Jack was uncooperative and demanded to be held the entire time. I hurt my back yesterday jogging (like how does that even happen? You don't need your back to jog...) so it was awesome having to hold a 44 pound child. 

We went home where both kids stripped to their underwear like they always do at our house. We had a little down time before Michael got home. 

As soon as Michael walked in, Jack starts doing his 'my booty hurts.'  He's been having issues with potty training. He's holding it in, fighting his poop urgent. It's so frustrating.  I made him sit on the toilet and told him to just try, and apparently we forgot to 'tuck the junk' because he peed all over me. So I yelled for help and Michael took care of him while I stripped off my peed on clothes and hopped in the tub to rinse off my legs. 

Some of our neighbors have an awesome pool my kids beg to go to almost daily. I had texted our neighbor to see if we could swim and she invited us up at a certain time.   I told Michael I couldn't take Jack while he was fighting poop so Morgan and I got ready to go swim. After about half hour Michael shows up with Jack and explained that he told Jack if he would just poop he could swim. So he did. Michael walked back home, Jack swam a few minutes, then got out of the pool screaming 'my booty hurts!!' while running in place, turned red, then said 'oh I popped.' 

In his swim trunks. 

So I got out and texted Michael to come get Jack.  He walked back over and I told him to just stay with Morgan while I took care of it. I walked Jack to our yard, took his trunks off, flipped the hidden treasure into the yard, grabbed the hose and told Jack to bed over, sprayed him clean, sprayed the trunks clean, left them on porch to wash later, put clean trunks on Jack, took him back to pool. 

I'm sorry to say this isn't the first time I've had to do this. Which means it's also not the first time Michael has had to bag up poo from our yard. 

The rest of the evening was fairly normal, in terms of 'normal with kids.'  Late dinner, baths, bed. 

These type of days make me crazy. But they also make some of the best memories. 

Wednesday, August 5, 2015

I'm THAT parent.

This blog was inspired by a Facebook post today. A very lovely kind sweet friend posted about how horrible parents are for bullying their children. I totally agreed until I read 'the mom got up in the child's face and said 'what is WRONG with YOU?!''

I read it a few more times just to be sure I was reading it correctly. And then I sighed. Because I AM that parent. 

I commented along the lines of 'I have both kids 24/7 with very few breaks and sometimes this just happens; I AM that parent and I'm sorry.'

And then my sweet friend deleted the entire post and I felt bad. 

So then I evaluated my own parenting. 

I realized that yes, I lose my cool way more than I should. I'm the parent that hisses 'you kids are driving me insane!!' while in line at Walmart. I'm the parent that says 'lordy I need a drink after all day with these kids.'  I'm the parent who exclaims 'I just need A BREAK!!  Please stop 'momming' me for 5 minutes!! Yes I see you have arm muscles, I complimented you on them 30 seconds ago the 5th time you demanded I look!'

But I'm also the parent that gave up my career 7 year ago so that I could be at every single doctor's appointment, school function, birthday party, practice, game, every single memory of my children's childhood will involve me. I have spent many nights awake with sick little ones. I have planned out and created theme birthday parties. I have volunteered at school. 

Sometimes we have ice cream sundaes for dinner outside on the deck. Sometimes we have dance parties in the living room. Sometimes we read 20 books in a row. Sometimes we go outside to see the stars after bedtime. 

After watching the movie Inside Out (twice...and both times I cried), my children claimed who was who from the movie. Morgan is Disgust. Jack is Fear. Daddy is Anger (lol!!) and when I asked who mommy was, they both smiled and said 'Joy of course!'

So for my sweet slightly hippy friends and readers; there are many of us who might seem like bullies. We might seem very annoyed to have children. But you're just glancing at a fraction of our lives. I promise you, I might sound horrible when I hiss 'ugh, you kids just go over there and play and leave mommy alone for a minute!' but I promise you my children are both well adjusted happy normal brats, and not victims of bullying. The majority of my friends parent pretty much the same way I do, and we all say God bless you parents with more patience than us! 


Tuesday, August 4, 2015

How to antique your living room

My kids have been crabby today. I needed some peace while I tried to shove some dinner in my mouth so I had the genius idea of dumping small piles of baby powder on the living room carpet and letting the kids jump from one to another. 

Some of you are thinking 'wow that IS brilliant!'

Some of you are thinking 'oh that's a horrible idea.'

Well you're both correct. I had a lovely half hour with my chicken, rice, guacamole, sour cream, and salsa wrap while watching an episode of Glee on my Kindle. I didn't hear 'mooooooom!!' one single time. Kids didn't run to me with urgent imaginary boo boos or legos that 'just won't fit!!'

I cleaned up my dinner mess and went to the living room. 

It was covered in baby powder. Ever watch the show Jackass where they would 'antique' one another by slapping a handful of flour in the face?  That's what I thought of. My living room had been antiqued. 

At that moment my kids were making handprints in the powder that had settled on the coffee table. They both joyfully exclaimed 'oh sorry ma!' then flopped onto the couch. 

I took a deep breath and retrieved my BFF from the closet, my purple Dyson vacuum. I had to vacuum the carpet about five times and the powder is still  deep in the fibers (hey at least it smells good!). I had to use attachments to sweep all baseboards, furniture, wall hangings, curtains. I even vacuumed both kids' hair just for fun and to hear them scream at me. 

Then I walked into the kitchen and slipped and fell because the floor was covered in a fine layer of powder giving it the same surface as a Minnesota pond in January. Both cats also slid across the floor and it was delightful to see the look of horror on their little black faces. 

Moral of the story: I'm not always full of grand ideas. Actually I rarely have grand ideas. So don't ever copy my parenting. 

This message is brought to you by Johnson & Johnson baby powder with aloe, Dyson vacuums, and Not Your Fathers Root Beer.