Tag Archives: Parenting

How to take the Baby out to Dinner

Posted on January 19, 2013 | 8 comments

Taking your kids out to eat in a restaurant can be daunting.  It is a crapshoot.  Will they behave?  Will they get restless? Will my food come out in less than seven minutes? There are a lot of questions.  Questions that do not ever include “should we order an after-dinner drink or dessert?” because if you make it through dinner unscathed, without tears or dirty looks from the wait staff or other diners you just want to pack up your crap and your kids and get the hell out of there before your good juju runs out.

Last night we had one of those once in a Blue Moon dinners.  (Perhaps it was augmented by the three Blue Moons Mom slurped down during dinner!) It was perfect.  We could have stayed for hours chatting it up at the table.   How did we do it? Easy.

Step 1. Slide in to the booth in a manner that puts Mom far away from all of the kids.  Mom is quick to jump to “Well, you knew this was going to happen!” when Baby squeals or Big Kid spills a drink.  Or at least this Mom is.  Yanno, before she has a couple of beers, anyway.

Step 2.  Put a grandparent between Baby and Big Kid.  Just do it if you can.  Grandparents love to play tic-tac-toe and pick up toys off of the floor.  Over and over and over again.

Step 3.  Have a waitress that is over 27 but does not have her own kids.  She is old enough to have the uterine twinge of “Damn, those are some cute kids” and not yet keen to the fact that it is the cute ones that wreak the most havoc.  She will give you way too many straws.  Key to step 4.

Step 4.  Give your baby a straw.  They will not poke their eyes out.  Or choke.  They will love it.  When they throw it on the floor just give them another.  Straws will not get ground in to the carpet like a Cheerio.

Step 5.  Someone, anyone, preferably someone at your table but it could be a diner nearby, order the pork shank.  Give the baby ALL the bones.  Not one or two.  Three.  Three bones.  She will be (you know I am going to go there) in hog heaven, I promise.

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That’s it.  It is that easy. Five simple steps to taking Baby out to dinner.  You’re welcome.

 

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The Book of Truth?

Posted on January 17, 2013 | 9 comments

Emily brings home a book every day.

On Tuesday afternoon I was fit to be tied midway through homework time. I was in a mood.  Stomping.  A little light swearing.  She handed me the book she had chosen from her “Book in a Bag” selection and I grimaced.  “Did you pick this book for me?  It is NOT funny.”20130117-162252.jpg

 

On Wednesday she selected another book.  We were in a hurry to get homework finished because I had an appointment.  To get my hair cut.

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Last night we joked that we should look at the books she had selected for the rest of the week so we could take a look in to the future.

Now it is Thursday.  It has been raining since about 6 o’clock this morning.  She handed me her book as we sat down to read this afternoon.  To my credit I did not say “You have got to be kidding me?  Get away from me with your crazy voodoo future predicting book picking skills?!”

I hope it stops raining soon.  I really do.  While I was typing this just now Lucy dumped the dog’s bowl of water on the floor in the kitchen.  I hope that is flood enough to satisfy the “Book in a Bag” Gods.

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In Flight Meal

Posted on January 16, 2013 | 46 comments

We are sitting at the airport. Em is eating some fruit salad. She is licking the fork. Lucy is nursing in my lap at the Starbucks inside the terminal.

“Mom, does that ever embarrass you?”

“What?”

“You know. Having your boob out.”

“Nope. Lucy has to eat. Are you embarrassed that you have your tongue out? Everyone can see you eating.”

She smirks at me, the way you smirk at your mother.

“It’s only weird to see a woman feeding a baby because you don’t see it very often. The more people see a baby eating the less weird it will be.”

“Yeah. That’s good, Mom. That will be good.”

Yep. It sure will.

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I gotta be cleeeean!!

Posted on January 7, 2013 | 7 comments

I have jars all over my kitchen with gross stuff in them.  Three jars of kefir right now are growing on top of my fridge.  Two large jars of kombucha scobys are sleeping peacefully in my cabinets.  I like the process of watching something sort of disgusting become something else sort of disgusting.  If that something disgusting means that something good is happening, too, even better. If that something good is even possibly contributing to the health of my family in a positive way than I enjoy it even more.

Oddly, I can not muster up any excitement while watching the snot roll out of Lucy’s face.  I can’t feel awe for the gloopy crust that accumulates in her eyes by morning.  I know that it is her little body pushing out the funk.  Intellectually, I know this.  Maternally, I just want it to stop.

We aren’t sleeping.  Instead we are sitting up in bed at night trying to keep the snot from sitting in her chest.  We are running the humidifier and using saline spray.  I am shooting breast milk up her nose and in her eyes.  I am pushing rest and fluids.

And we are showering.  Like as a hobby.

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Lucy used to be really jazzed in the shower. She loved it. It’s losing the appeal now that we are in there all of the time.  Now I have to spit water at her to get a smile.

In this morning’s shower I had to resort to wowing her with my lyrical stylings. To the tune of Suzanne Vega’s “Left of Center” I sang to her this little number –

If you want me, you can find me, With my baby in the shower!! No more crying, no more whining,We’ve been giving Snot too much POWER!

It’s a first draft.  And I am running on empty.  Stick around for more nudity and a snazzy rendition of Sammy Davis, Jr’s “I’ve Gotta Be Me!”

Whether it’s a cold, or even the flu! Makes no difference to me, the end result is the same, I gotta be clean, I’ve gotta be cleeeean!!!

 

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Holidaze

Posted on December 29, 2012 | 18 comments

20121229-213909.jpgIt started last Sunday at church. We had a cookie and a glass of wine as part of the Winter Solstice ceremony. The cookie was a gingerbread person. But when you held it upside down it looked like an alien. I snapped a picture. But I didn’t come home and write up a post. Or put it up on my Facebook page. Or tweet it. I just took the picture and ate the cookie.

Christmas Eve I took a picture before we went to bed. I didn’t want to get busted by my big girl. I was careful. So, I didn’t do anything with it. I uploaded it to my picasa account quickly and deleted it from everything.

Christmas day was a blur of food and laughter and champagne and naps and turkey and stuffing and wine and coffee and cookies and family. My little family. We had a toast at breakfast. Only twelve months earlier we didn’t even know that Lucy would be a Lucy and now here we are, our family of four. We cheers’ed. We cried. Emily asked me if you could only have one toast. I said “Of course not” and we all chimed in with our thoughts. Our hearts were full.

20121229-215601.jpgIt has been only four days since Christmas. The tree is down. I have put it all away. Christmas clutter on the 26th feels like the walk of shame, dark eyeliner in the morning or beer cans all over the kitchen at 10 am. It has to go. This moment seems like a lifetime ago already.

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Sometimes I write everything down so I won’t forget.  But Christmas is too fast.  How can you capture all of those moments? Emily’s face when she saw the bell that Santa left her from his sleigh.  She believes, with her whole heart she believes.  Lucy has started making a crazy face, a kid face.  She ripped up paper and ate the tags on every new toy.  When the toy frenzy was over and every gift had been opened the only one that Mom remembered that she never wrapped (and still can not find) was a pair of gloves.  There is always one “Wait!  There’s a something!” or at least there was in my house,

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This morning I decided I wasn’t getting dressed. Both kids woke up warm, low grade fevers and nasty coughs.  We napped. We ate leftovers.  We napped some more.  We watched Mrs Doubtfire and I cried when Robin Williams and Sally Field decided to separate and again when he walks back in the door at the end to pick up his kids.  I spent four hours on the floor in my living room while my kids crawled all over me.

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Late this afternoon I showered. We went in to town for dinner.  Mexican food.  It feels like Christmas was ages ago.  It is January cold outside already.

What started last week with a picture I never posted has led to a week of radio silence for me.  I might be quiet here for a bit.  I have been more unplugged in the last week than I have been in the last year.  I have been present. In my home, my little family has made me laugh and cry and giggle.  We have eaten cookies and made big meals and loaded and unloaded our dishwasher.  We have been together.  Just the four of us.

Santa Claus gave me everything I have ever dreamed of for Christmas this year.  I hope he gave you the same.  2012 has forever changed me.  I have two more days to soak it up.  Catch y’all on the flip side.

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Bruiser

Posted on December 21, 2012 | 22 comments

Little bitty kids have little bitty problems. It stands to reason that the bigger a kid gets the bigger their problems get.

The cooties a kid catches in elementary school become broken hearts. The tricycle wrecks become fender benders. The lunches eaten at the silent table in the cafeteria become detention if you don’t watch your smart mouth.

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Em was fearless as a little girl. She would walk across the back of the couch and race her trike as fast as its teeny wheels would go. There were scrapes and bumps and bruises along the way. But she was never one to cry for terribly long. Her big blue eyes were steely when she was hurt. She was a tough little kid.

She still is.

I rounded the corner of the hallway near the Nurse’s office in school and my heart sank when I heard her crying. Minutes earlier MQD had called and said “Didn’t you see the missed call? Em is hurt. They want you to come and get her. She hit her head on the playground.” I started to fire questions at him and stopped myself. I knew better. He had told me everything he knew.

We live close to the elementary school. It had been fourteen minutes since my missed call. Two minutes to park and walk inside. My baby girl had been crying for sixteen minutes.

I was expecting them to say “It’s protocol that we call a parent when there has been a head injury, we need you to sign this form.” I’d be back at school with Lucy in tow in less than an hour for the Holiday Party.

But she was crying.

I saw her and I dropped to my knees and wiped her hair from her face. She put her arms around my neck like a child of preschool age. I stood and she clung to me, her long legs wrapping around me like they did when she was young. I was lucky that a friend had popped by when I got the call that I needed to go to school. I had run out the door without Lucy. So, for the first time in a long time my big girl was my baby and it was just the two of us. With her head on my shoulder she wept.

A lot of bandaids and ice packs and tears later we were home. A little bit of nausea later we were at the pediatrician. And not long after that we were at the Emergency Room. Somewhere between the doctor’s office and the triage room of the hospital my sleepy, weepy, nauseous big girl turned back in to the stone cold little bruiser she had been as a little, bitty girl.

Big Girl

She hadn’t said much of anything to me in hours. Suddenly she was chatting away to the nurse and the doctor at the ER. She was tired. Rattled. But she was smiling. She looked from left to right, she followed the doc’s finger. She walked up and down the hall and might have even rolled her eyes when they asked her what year it was.

We aren’t out of the woods. I will continue to watch her for worrisome signs. Incidentally if you have never monitored a child for “strange behavior,” it is rather maddening. Small people are weird. They do strange things.

Kids get bigger and their thumps and bumps get bigger, too. I knew this before today. Intellectually, anyway. I can’t yet say I am grateful for the object lesson, Universe. Fingers crossed for an uneventful tomorrow.

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Do you believe in Magic?

Posted on December 21, 2012 | 13 comments

We had tickets for the 7 o’clock train at the museum.  Through the woods we would ride, woods filled with magical twinkling lights.   We would drink hot cocoa and use candy canes as swizzle sticks. We would make a Christmas ornament while we waited.  We were going to see Santa.

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Emily was rolling her eyes and giving me attitude.  Lucy was screaming bloody murder because she was going to be forced to wear a hat.  Dad was grumbling and trying to get us out the door.  I was stifling the desire to shout out “Ho ho ho! Merry Christmas” every few minutes.  It was pouring down rain.

Dad and Lucy

But at least we would get a picture with Santa. Right? Through the lens of the camera we woud forget all about the rolled eyes and the tears.  Baby’s First Christmas would be perfect.

The trainWe were boarding the train when the Conductor said “Santa is on the right, m’aam” and he winked.  Oh.  Okay.  I’ll put Emily on the right side of our bench seat so that she would get a better look.

When we rounded the corner and I saw Santa standing near his sleigh with an oversized elf and an umbrella I realized we weren’t getting off of the train.  Santa would stop at each bench and ask each child a thing or two, they would chat.  “Is there anything special you’d like this year? How about something for your little sister? I’ll see you next year, dear!”

There would be no picture.

The Mom in me started to panic. Well, I will take the kids to the mall.  Tomorrow.  I’d get a picture.  It will be fine.  I frantically tried to snap family pictures with my phone in the dark.  With flash.  Without flash.  It didn’t seem to matter.  We were blurry.  There would be no picture with Santa.

And then I saw him.  He had ornate brocade around his coat.  His beard was soft and long.  His glasses were bifocals. I don’t think he had his suit stuffed with a pillow. I couldn’t tell if his boots were real or those pleather boot shaped shoe coverings popular with mall Santas.    I don’t know. I didn’t get a chance to look him over carefully for an hour as we waited in line.  He was there right next to us for a moment. And then he was gone.  “Well, hello, there,” he said.  “Merry Christmas.”

He talked to the kids for a minute and then he moved to the next row.  True to form, I was misty eyed.  Ever my mini-me Emily looked to me and said “This might be my first Christmas crying when I see Santa!” I laughed and decided not to tell her right then that it most certainly was not.

As the train pulled away from Santa and headed through the tunnel we were all smiles.  The tunnel shone, the christmas lights that adorned the train reflecting on the tunnel’s interior.  We looped back around and drove by Santa once more on our way back to the station.  The children waved and I reached for my phone.  Maybe I could get a picture of just Santa.  That would suffice.

Santa

 

I showed the picture to MQD as soon as I snapped it.  I was laughing.  “It’s the best picture of the night!” he said.  And in unison we both shouted “He’s like Bigfoot!”

I love our blurry picture of Santa.  I love that we did not get a posed picture at the mall.  I love that Em can’t scrutinize the picture later, examining the image, searching for any indication that maybe it wasn’t really Santa after all.

Because for one more year, at least one, my big girl believes in Magic.  I hope you all have a groovy holiday.

 

Do you believe in magic in a young girl’s heart
How the music can free her, whenever it starts
And it’s magic, if the music is groovy
It makes you feel happy like an old-time movie
I’ll tell you about the magic, and it’ll free your soul
But it’s like trying to tell a stranger ’bout rock and roll… ~ The Lovin’ Spoonful

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The Point

Posted on December 20, 2012 | 4 comments

There are milestones in a child’s life.  If you are not careful they slip right by and you don’t even notice them.  Yesterday in the car Em was making Lucy giggle and she suddenly shrieked “Mom!!!  Lucy has another tooth!!” I expected to see a little tooth showing, that almost imperceptible whiteness of a tooth that has barely popped through.  But, nope.  Up top, to the right of center we have our fifth tooth.  It isn’t just kind of there. It’s a Tooth and I missed it. The kid grins from ear to ear all day I don’t know how I missed it.

20121220-085205.jpgThis week Lucy started pointing.  She doesn’t point at things she wants exactly.  And she doesn’t point if you say “Lucy, where is your puppy dog?” or “Lucy, where is your mama?” She just points.  She walks around and points.  Remember Larry Dallas, the womanizing sleazebag that lived downstairs from Jack and Janet and Chrissy Snow?  He would just point and grin.  Lucy doesn’t wink, but she doesn’t have to.  It’s fabulously ridiculous and I am glad I didn’t miss it.

This morning she was pointing and laughing.  Technically she was pointing and laughing at me (which if you have ever spent ten minutes in my presence you know that is like the Life Jackpot for me.)  Laugh at me, please.  Nothing makes me laugh harder.

So.  Lucy does this now.

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And since she does that.  It means that from time to time she does this, too.

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And if you have ever lived with me or taken a long ride in the car with me or watched a movie with me or hung out with me when the air is dry than you know that I pretty much do that, too.  This kid, Lucy, in her Boston Red Sox sweater looking just like her father… maybe she looks a little like her mama, after all.  Just a little.

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Christmas in the Cackalackey

Posted on December 2, 2012 | 17 comments

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Sometimes the spirit moves you slowly.  In years past the Christmas spirit has crept in on little cat feet like Carl Sandburg’s Fog. Christmas usually comes in slowly.

This weekend it was unseasonably warm.  I didn’t expect the spirit to grab me. I was in the produce section at the grocery store.  I cruised right by the poinsettias.  I didn’t bat an eye at the paperwhites.  It was almost 65 degrees outside.  I was wearing flip flops.  Christmas was coming.  But it wasn’t coming today.

Christmas candy

And then I saw them.  All at once two things happened. The Christmas Spirit seized me.  And I was an old, old woman.

I don’t think these Christmas candies have ever looked good to me before.  But I wanted them.  I am blaming it on Sudden Onset Christmas Spirit Disorder and not some kind of rapid aging.

I resisted the candies.

But it was a close call.  As I walked through the grocery store I had the fully formed thought “I should really keep my eyes open for some kind of a crystal dish.” A crystal candy dish?  I have small children.  I am in my mid thirties, I am in my sexual prime, dammit!!  A crystal candy dish??!! The Christmas Spirit works in mysterious ways.

Hours later the spirit had grabbed hold of me. The tree was up. The mantle is half decorated.  Rudolf is hanging on the wall.    I had the girls take naps so we could decorate the tree in the evening and not stress bedtime.     It was shaping up to be a good day.  The tree would go up in a corner I could gate off. It is possible that Lucy will not crush herself or ruin 36 years of ornaments.  I was wearing a velour sweat suit.  MQD was out with his father to watch football.  The windows were open.  Chili in the crock pot.  I didn’t dare ask the Universe for another thing.

Lucy was running like a drunken linebacker with her hands up.  It is a text book bum rush.  I glanced at her and back to what I was doing, I had a few seconds before she would slam in to my legs. “Mamamamamaaaa….” I wasn’t sure I’d heard it until I looked to Emily.  Her mother’s girl, her eyes were wet and already leaking “Mom!!! She said Mama!”

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I dropped to the floor and tried to hold her in my arms, to drink in this baby that is growing before my eyes.  She was in a hurry.  She had things to do. I let her go.  My baby had called for me.  I was Mama.

The day carried on.  We took showers.

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We put on Christmas pajamas and we decorated the tree.

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The Christmas Spirit has grabbed hold of Mama by her ankles and it is pulling me under.  I might not come up for air for the entire month.  This evening when MQD and his father walked in to the house I was peace.  I was love.  I was goodwill.  

There is only one spirit stronger than the Christmas Spirit.  

And damn if they didn’t stroll in the house with some. Now excuse me, I need to kick back and watch a Christmas movie and sip a little shine. Christmas spirit is swell.  But the white lightning is the spirit that warms me head to toe.

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An Attitude of Gratitude

Posted on November 20, 2012 | 43 comments

I learned my life lessons from 80’s television.  If you tapped a cane on the floor right now I would stand up straight.  I would grab the back of a chair and lift my chin.  In my mind I would hear Debbie Allen saying  “You want fame? … Well, fame costs. And right here is where you start paying. With sweat.”

Some time in the early 1990s I decided that sweatshirts with the neck cut out were maybe not the very best look for me.  And I abandoned my dreams for Fame.  I hung up my legwarmers and decided Fame wasn’t for me.

A couple of days ago I contributed a picture to The Feminist Breeder’s Normalize Breastfeeding Campaign on Facebook.  I chose to send a picture of myself sitting down after an excellent day. Lucy was nursing and I was having a glass of wine.  It was the perfect image to reject the idea that nursing mothers have to spend their lives cooped up in a nursery, missing out.  Gina’s “offensive” picture featured a piece of bacon and a nursing baby.  I thought it was amusing to feature a glass of wine and a nursing baby because Facebook is clearly pro-pictures of people with a drink in their hand.

I have been blogging in my little corner of the Internet for almost three years. It has been a great way for me to hash out my feelings as my life progressed from single parent to a married mother of two.  It served as a record of my pregnancy and Emily growing from a teeny little thing to the 7 year old going on 17 that she is today.  I have been honest.  I have talked openly about my insecurities and my struggles with being a woman and received a lot of “Good for you!” and “Thanks for sharing” and pats on the back.

And then yesterday the picture posted of me having a glass of wine while nursing my baby and within an hour I had that icky “what have I done?” feeling.  Comments racked up and the great majority were negative it seemed.  These weren’t people that read here and support me.  These were strangers sharing misinformation (that breastfeeding and a glass of wine don’t mix) and saying that I was a lousy mother.  (My favorite being the woman that pointed out that I was ignoring my baby when I looked at the camera!)

Every day I aim to choose happiness.  I choose to see the good and the joy in the smallest moments.  It is part of who I am.  Yesterday was a test.  I kept waiting to feel my stomach flip flop and a tear escape my eyes as I read another comment from a stranger about how I was classless.  But it didn’t happen.  Because I didn’t need to look very hard to see that there were really only a handful of people shaming me.  And they were doing so from a place of lack of knowledge.  They really believed that you can’t nurse a baby and have a glass of wine.  Shame on them for judging me? Maybe.  But don’t we all just do the best we can with the information we’ve got?  And for every criticism there were more than a dozen women that said “this picture is great!” or that I looked so relaxed and happy.  Or that I had great eyeglasses.  (Special thanks to them because amidst a persecution of your character it is important to remind yourself that you are fashionable!)

This morning I am taking the opportunity not to speak to the judgement and the misinformation (largely because the inimitable Amy West has already done so.)  Instead I choose to thank my friends and the many strangers that responded on the Facebook thread or on Twitter.  So many of you spoke up to say “Hey, you are doing a great job, keep on keeping on.” And really? If I am honest – thank you to the folks that said you can’t have an alcoholic beverage and nurse a baby because it was an excellent platform for dispelling that widely believed myth.

My last thank you goes out to the women and men that spewed the kind of garbage that can only be done from behind the protection of your computer screen.  You probably didn’t mean to.  But you made this girl with her tiny little blog feel famous!  Because you aren’t Internet Famous unless somebody hates you.  I am going to have to wear a clean velour sweatsuit every time I leave the house if y’all keep this up.  I might even need to bust out that sweatshirt with the neck cut out and some legwarmers.  Rumor has it – Fame costs, but I can take it.

Even as a child I knew I had to suffer for my art!

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