Category Archives: Parenting

>Bookin’ All Over Town

>You can thank me later about the many times I started this blog post only to realize that the extremely long intro about the thousand things that were stressing me out yesterday and the many different plans I came up with to deal with them were actually quite boring and made me look crazy.

Suffice it to say, I felt stressed, and instead of taking the dumb, complicated, stressful path through my evening, I decided to take the easy, simple, stress free way. This is pretty much a first for me. In fact, I was recently reading Glamour magazines tips on not being a stressed out working mother and one of them was to embrace the chaos. So I was trying to embrace chaos while simultaneously not creating more chaos when things got chaotic yesterday.

Baseball season is upon us, and Dave picked up Luke for practice and the game. I figured I had time to pick up Jack, go to the library, pick up a few things at the grocery store and make it in time for the first pitch. (And yes, this was the simple version of my evening.)

Jack was adorable at the library. A mom to a teenager was just looking at Jack and I with fond memories spilling out of her smile and all over the books. We picked up my two books, and Jack picked out two books for himself. We checked out, got in the car, I handed Jack one of the books, then headed to the grocery store on the other side of the divided road. There was a loud noise, and Jack said, “What dat noise?” He doesn’t like loud noises. I said, “It’s just that water bottle rolling around in the back of the car.”

Jack: Nope. Dem books.
Me: No, water bottle.
Jack: Books
Me: Did you drop your book honey?
Jack: Nope.
Me: THE BOOKS WERE ON TOP OF THE CAR! Did you see them fall off?
Jack: Yes.

Then I tried to figure out what to do. Make a u-turn, then another u-turn to get back to where it happened? How long will that take? Pull over right here? Nowhere to park! Pull over on this side street? Too late I am about to make a u-turn! The books! Pull over, and park! Go back! MY god! U-turn!

I finally decided my best option was to just part at the next side street and walk back. This was dumb, because if I had driven back via the 2 u-turns, I could have parked at the library, and the books would have been in the street right in front of the parking lot. Instead I had to walk/run two frantic blocks with Jack on my hip. As we got closer, I could see the books repeatedly getting run over. But they seemed fine when the traffic cleared and we picked them up. Both of them. Of course, there were three missing books. So on the walk back, there was a lot of, “We lost one book? It gone? It on toppa car still? It gone?”

The third book was still on top of the car. I guess all the frantic swerving I did while trying to decide which way to go kept it sort of centered.

We got in the car and headed to the grocery and I took some cleansing breaths. Jack didn’t like the sound of that. He said, “You scared to me.” Which either means I was scaring him, or I am scared of him, or I sounded scared to him.”

We finally made it to baseball about half an hour into an hour game, and I got to see Luke play catcher and make a nice hit before Jack and I needed to head to the playground. I also got to enjoy a delicious glass of wine from a plastic cup, which I then stashed in my purse pocket. While I socialized with the other moms I tried to share the Glamour tidbit about embracing the chaos. This question was asked: HOW? I’ll need to go back to the article, but I don’t think it said how.

Jack and I were “driving” at the top of the playground structure when the cup fell out of my purse and all the way to the ground. Jack said, “Momma! Why you pourin’ your wine out on the ground?” Maybe you heard him, he said it really loudly.

I may have made a lot of mistakes yesterday, but spilling wine was not one of them. Maybe that’s how it’s done. Embracing chaos: One plastic cup of wine at a time.

>Maybe We Should Have Gotten A Pure Bred?

>The Subject came up and I choked. For real.

Luke and I were riding the lift at Eldora on Sunday and talking about Lucy. He said something about how she’s a Cocker Spaniel, and I said I wasn’t so sure about that any more, but that she was some sort of Spaniel mix.

Luke: I don’t get it. What’s a mix?
Me: Well, you know, like if someone had a Chinese mom and an African dad, they’d be half
Luke: (interrupting) Why wouldn’t they just be like THE MOM. What does the DAD have TO DO WITH IT?
Me: (choke, cough, cough, choke) Do you mind stopping at the top to get some water? I can’t stop coughing.

Take note, that’s a good parenting maneuver right there. Fake coughing fit.

>Words I Hoped to Never Type

>I had to remove food from a child’s nose today. This has always been one of my big parenting fears. A child that puts something in his nose, gets upset, inhales it into his sinus cavity, trip to the emergency room, trauma, etc. Or worse, I have to do what I once read: get them to close their mouth and then suck whatever is stuck in their nose out with your own mouth. Sick, I know. But I needed a backup plan in case we were camping and the terrible situation occurred. I did a lot of planning and worrying about this eventuality as you can tell. Actually, it’s sort of weird that I have always been so worried about this sort of thing because Luke would never, ever put something in his nose. Jack. That sums it up.

But this evening’s experience was actually easy to deal with because it was just noodles, and they were still sort of hanging out. So first I had a minor heart attack when I saw the dangling noodles, then I yanked them out, then I ran and got the bulb sucker and pinned him down to make sure I got everything. I mean, I was pretty sure I got everything, but I sort of thought a little suffering at the hands of the bulb sucker would get the point across.

One parenting fear: Handled.

>Things That Backfire

>I do not recommend the following:

Discussing potential chocolate for potty training bribes in front of your 2 year old…

… Unless you want to see a 2 year old clutch his stomach, and yell, “I hungry! Chocolate!” while he rolls around on the floor.

Even considering potty training your 2 year old…

…. Unless you want to hear, “Mommy! I poo poo potty!” in the middle of the night.

Trying to distract your starving 2 year old while you cook dinner, by putting him in his high chair and telling him to play with play doh…

… Unless you want to hear, “Mmm. Gum.” and “I hungry! Play doh!” for days.

>We’ll Take Great Care of Your Kids, I Promise!

>But we might draw eyes on their necks and take silly pictures.

Yes, this could happen to your kids if you go out of town and your kids spend the night at Casa de MetaMegan.


But I promise to scrub your kid’s neck with a brillo pad, if that’s what it takes, so they don’t show up at school with lipstick and marker everywhere. Because I take my job as a surrogate parent very seriously.

>Speaking of Cold Turkey…

>With all the crying, and fever, and vomiting, and needing to be held by Mommy or Daddy Jack did not use or mention his pacifier for 30 hours straight over Thanksgiving. This morning, when he woke up as his happy, but still slightly congested self, he said, “Blanket! Stuffie! Boppy???” I pretending I didn’t hear that last part and whisked him out of his room.

So far so good.

Until nap time.

Interestingly, he didn’t ask for it, but I had the most difficult time getting him down for a nap. I tried to use the bulb sucker, which set of a crying jag, which required a book and singing to calm down, which made him ready for sleep, which made me lay him down, which made him suffer from his stuffy nose, which set of a crying jag, which required a book and singing to calm down, which made him actually fall asleep, which made me lay him down, which made him suffer from his stuffy nose,which set of a crying jag, which required a book and singing to calm down, which made him ready for sleep, which made me lay him down, which made him suffer from his stuffy nose, which made me almost consider digging out the hidden pacifier, which would have made all that for nothing.

So I did the next best thing. I gave up and decided to nap with him. We fell asleep in my bed, and all was well until his snoring woke me up. Yes, I did attempt to bulb suck his nose at that time, but after one nostril yielded such unsatisfactory results, I gave up.

Nap without the pacifier though… that is big!

And by bedtime, Dave will be home so I am not even going to worry about that.

>Tackle Soccer

>I just finished playing tackle soccer with the bossiest tackle soccer player that you will ever meet. It was mostly kicking the ball from one end of the basement to the other and tackling the other player when you got there. You’d think that would be pretty simple, but a certain 2 year old seemed to think I needed a lot of direction.

“Momma! Kick it. Now run. Go go go Momma! Yea Momma! Good job. Now tackle me. Fall down, I tackle you. Get up now please. Run! Kick it!”

Wash, rinse, repeat.

Did I mention that he made me wear a fire fighter helmet the whole time? Every time I tried to chuck it somewhere, he noticed and made me put it back on. “Put on fire fighter helmet, Momma! Helmet on!”

And yes, I predict certain anonymous commenters will say I had this coming.

>Parenting Tips: Learning to Read

>Here is a little story for you about little preschool aged MetaMegan and little MetaMegan’s mom on a walk one day.

Little MetaMegan looking at graffiti: Mom, what does that say?
Little MegaMegan’s Mom: Oh, that? That says TRUCK.
… pause… pause… pause…
Little MetaMegan: Mommy? That word started with an F. So it must have said, “FRUCK”.

>First: The Cake

>
I was changing Jack’s diaper the other day and discussing, sort of over his head, that he may be susceptible to bribery in exchange for some potty training.  Possible M&M’s.  Possibly.  As Dave ad I discussed it a light-bulb went off over Jack’s head.  He grabbed his stomach and started writhing around and shouting, “I hungry!  Choklat!  I hungry, choklat!”  

And hence, the idea to make a chocolate cake for Jack’s birthday was born.  I went to my fave food blog and looked up chocolate cake, and I came up with two contenders.  One was too complicated and the other had coffee in it.  I went complicated.   Mmmm.  Complicated:  Chocolate cake with peanut butter icing underneath another layer of chocolate and peanut butter.
Due to the snow, I knew my favorite peanut-o-phile wasn’t going to brave highway 93 to join us so I sent her pictures of the cake throughout the day to torture her.  Good thing, because I can’t find the card reader today so we have to rely on the phone picture. My phone takes some good pictures! 
OK, I know everyone wants the recipe.  So here you go.  High altitude readers:  I subtracted one tablespoon of flour, and  I used one 1.75 teaspoons baking soda.  However, I have also made another cake from Sky High before, and I didn’t adjust it at all.  
For the record, blogging about the recipes I make from a food blog that I read, is sort of meta.

>Parental Proclamations

>You know how every parent ends up saying something without thinking and then being totally surprised about what came out of their mouth? Like, you swear you are never going to say, “Because I said so, that’s why!” and then when you do, it’s sort of startling, but also really satisfying. You’ve finally accepted your role as a real parent, and joined that elite group of half the population that needs to finally just say something and have it be the end of the conversation.

Or sometimes you end up saying something and suddenly you realize that you have turned into your mother or your father? Well today I said something that I have no doubt has been said by countless parents, but it is certainly something I never heard growing up, and I have never said before. It went a little something like this,

“Hey! No fighting by the top of the stairs!”

What? I mean, it’s good advice, but not something I imagined myself saying when I envisioned myself as a parent.