Category Archives: Parenting

>Bus Language

>Growing up in Dave’s household there were certain words that fell under the category of bus language because the first time you heard them was on the bus to school. I was a walker, so I never took the bus, but I did acquire quite a colorful vocabulary somehow, and I have been silently or not so silently swearing since a tender age. In fact, the only way I got through the stress of Sr. Joan of Arc’s fourth grade class was to open my desktop, stick my head in as far as it would go and let the expletives fly. But I have cleaned up my act and I am happy to say, that Luke has yet to say one actual swear word. (He has certainly never said anything to rival a certain child I know, that said, in front of her grandma, “Get the hell out of here you stupid-ass cat.”)

In fact, when Dave accidentally referred to himself as a dumbass, Luke said, “Daddy, you’re not the dumbess.” Then he looked a little confused and corrected himself, “Daddy, you’re not the dumbest.”

So it was very surprising this past weekend when Luke was playing star wars legos on the wii and he yelled out, “Take that you shin head!”

“What did you say?”

“Take that you shin head!”

“Ahh! That’s not nice! Where did you hear that? Who says that? Never say that again!?” That was Dave’s reaction. I would have tried to get answers to one question at a time, but what was done was done. And we both managed not to laugh at all.

While the first near swear was mildly horrifying, I am happy to have a new phrase for my repertoire!

>15 Month Checkup

>Luke recently had his 15 month check up and the milestone checklist went like this:

Q.How many words does he know?
A.10
Q. Has he put two words together?
A. Yes. (This isn’t really true, it just sounded true to me at the time. Unless “Ruff, Gwirl” counts.)
Q. Can he stack blocks?
A. Yes.
Q. 4 blocks?
A. No
Q. Two blocks?
A. Yes
Q. If you put a crayon in his hand does he scribble?
A. Yes
Q. etc. etc. etc
A. Yes. Yes. Yes
Q. Does he imitate you doing housework?
A. ? (queue crickets chirping.)

OK. of course I said yes. As you can see above, I assume that Jack is a borderline genius, or at least on track, so the answer to all questions must be yes, so I don’t have to think about them very hard. I was obsessed with Luke’s milestones, and I know he was behind on the block stacking, so I was surprised when I saw Jack stack a block and I made a mental note of it for the checkup. But as usual, I answered yes to everything and then came home and ran through the list with Dave and friends to see where I had exaggerated. We agreed that he isn’t really putting two words together. And that, “does he imitate you doing housework?” seems to be a question left over from an earlier era.

He imitates me working on my laptop. He imitates me talking on the phone. He takes knives out of the dishwasher. But that is probably less about imitating and more about augmenting his weapons cache that I can only imagine is somewhere behind some curtains, with his emergency food supplies. Also, when Aunt Suzy said, “Come here kitty” and patted her knees, Jack patted his knees. So clearly, he can imitate people… But hmm, housework?

Now I could go two ways with this:
1.) How sexist! Why ask if he can imitate me doing housework? Why not ask about the million other things I do? Why not just ask if he imitates me?
2.) Ha ha ha, I never do housework, so how could he even know how to imitate me?

But the more I think about it, the more I think that it would be great if Jack was imitating me doing housework. While it’s true that I am not the best housekeeper in the world, and it’s also true that I outsource a lot of the housekeeping, I still do a lot of housekeeping, and so does Dave. But a lot of it happens after kids are in bed, during nap time, and before they wake up in the morning. And maybe if more of that happened when the kids were awake, then there would be more imitating. And by imitating I mean, I can’t believe I have two little indentured servants in the house and I haven’t been making them work for their keep!

>We All Have Our Quirks

>I have been working a lot. It’s very annoying. I have been home 3 days with sick kids and I have been making up the time in the evenings. Also, when I go in to work, I still have more to do in the evenings. It’s really cutting into my blogging time. Also, my life.

And that is how I found myself putting away laundry and cleaning the kitchen at 11:05 p.m. this evening.

Earlier today I picked up all the recycling from the bathroom (toilet paper roll, shampoo bottle, soap box) and carried it some of the way to the recycling bin. Later, I saw Luke standing a toilet paper roll on the counter and he said, “Please don’t move this toilet paper roll unless I say it’s OK.” I said, “OK.”

After his shower, Luke came out of the bathroom holding some towel thread. I said, “What do you have there?” He said, “some thread. It’s very special to me. I am going to put it somewhere special.” I said, “OK.”

So when I was trying to clean off the counter before bed, and I knocked over the toilet paper roll, I wasn’t surprised to find some frayed towel thread and a shell inside it. Amused, but not surprised.

>Doodely Do

>I taught Luke how to Doodely Do this weekend, and it was awesome. I suppose there are different definitions of doodely doing; it’s a method of picking up your house. It may mean shoving things into drawers, or throwing things away just to regain some semblance of surface order. (My brother’s 6th grade photos may have suffered the fate of the doodely do, never to be seen again. On the other hand, 6th grade is an awkward phase, so maybe it was like with Luke’s kindergarten picture, where if they made it into the recycling bin, it would have been accidentally on purpose. I used two of those photos with the summer camp application, and let’s just say he better not go missing because I do not want to see those photos on the news. Among other reasons, of course, lest I jinx myself.) I chose to implement the doodely do thusly: Luke and I ran around putting away toys as fast as possible. They needed to be put in the correct location, and you had to run to do it. It was sort of a good workout, and the living room was picked up in record time. Then we doodely did the laundry, and it turns out that Jack’s pjs ended up in Luke’s drawer, but no other problems have come to light so far.

So maybe Doodely Do is the new method for getting help from the kids. On the other hand, maybe he was just feeling helpful. First thing in the morning, he pretended that I was a king and he was my cook and he made me some muffins. (Delish.) Then later, when Luke was pretending to be a tiger, I convinced him to be a helpful tiger who does my bidding. So there you go, lot’s of ideas from my parenting repertoire, help yourself!

>Slowly, Slowly, Figuring Things Out

>Yesterday was Wednesday, and I had to pry Jack off the bookshelf. From there he moved on to Luke’s duffle bag.

(My thought process: Totally safe! He can drag it around, he can try on Luke’s basketball shoes, he can look at the bottle of water! Minutes of entertainment.)

Minutes later, he was staggering across the living room with a nalgene bottle that was 2/3 full. Very heavy, the kind of thing that would really hurt when you drop it on your foot.

(Thought process: Intervene.)

Jack indicated that he wanted to drink some of the water. I unscrewed the cap. He pretended to drink. Then he screwed the cap back on. Then he unscrewed the cap. Wash, rinse, repeat.

(Thought process: Wow, I am just sitting on the floor with Baby Jack, playing and having a good time. What a sweetheart. I just love him. He could do this for hours. I should probably check my email. If he could do this for hours, could I just get some work done? No, he’ll spill the water eventually. Could I get enough work done to make cleaning up 20 ounces of water and changing all his clothes worth it? He is so cute. Oh, let me hold it Jack. Be careful. Aww, adorable. Seriously, could I work for 5 minutes, or just throw some dishes in the dishwasher while he plays with this water bottle? Could I swoop in and catch it before the bottle spills? LIGHTBULB!!! I could pour the water out!)

I chance it and leave him with the bottle while I grab an empty one, change them out, pour out the water and give him the original bottle back.

(Thought process: Why. Did. It. Take. Me. So. Long. tofigurethisout?)

I used the remaining “Jack is busy playing with a nalgene bottle time” to put two dishes in the dishwasher. If only I had acted sooner, I could have maybe cleared off half the counter!

>The Best Thing Ever

>I don’t want to get into some sort of silly gender stereotyping, where I imply that men can never find anything, because I only know my own experiences. My own experience, is that Dave and Luke can never find anything. Sometimes they just ask me where something is without even looking. And I’ll say, “It’s on the end table next to the red chair in the basement” or “On the middle shelf of the refrigerator, half way back.” And then sometimes that isn’t enough and I have to actually use my finger and point directly to the lost item.

SO! Imagine my surprise the other day, when Jack and I were in the living room and I said, “Jack. Where are your shoes?” And then I walked to Jack’s room, looked for the shoes, didn’t find them, and then walked back to the living room. And what did I see? I am not even sure the world is ready for this. Ready? Jack was holding up his shoes.

I know. It was the best thing ever.

>You Know You Are a Mom of a … When …

>You know you are a mom of a infant/toddler in daycare when: You say, “I am just going to wear this sweater again because it already has boogers on it.”

What? It’s my nice, brand new sweater from Ann Taylor Loft* that I got on sale for $7. If I am going to wash boogers off it, I might as well get two days worth.

It’s also the perfect sweater for those 60+ degree January days where you don’t know what to wear. A short sleeve sweater! It says, “It’s January, but I don’t want to get too hot walking to the grocery store” and “I could probably rock a tank top today, but then I would need too much sun screen for my arms.”

* I’d link to the sweater, but I can’t find it online.

>Free Day

>
I have a nasty cold, and upon my cold I lay the blame for what happened today.

Way back last week when I had the brilliant idea to go to the zoo with the boys on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the forecast was for 49 degrees. That seemed like perfect winter zoo weather. We’d dress warmly and check out the indoor exhibits when we were cold. So I made the announcement: We’re going to the zoo. A few days ago, the forecast was for 60 + and I thought, “Well, the crowds will be worse, but not everyone gets MLK day off.” At that point, I didn’t know it was free day at the zoo. And then someone told me, but Luke already knew the plan, and how bad could free day really be? How bad? I’ll let the google map from the car to the zoo speak for itself. (OK, instead of letting the map speak for itself, I’ll add that it was 9/10 of a mile. We walked for at least 20 minutes from the car to the zoo. We had to stop and get a drink on the way.) Oh, and what I also didn’t know until it was way too late, was that the zoo is right next to the park where the Martin Luther King Jr. rally and parade began.

So I guess only a crazy person would go to the zoo on free day, but I have to say, that even though it was insanely crowded, people were very polite and considerate. I didn’t feel the need to be mean to anyone’s kids and no one felt the need to tell me I was mean. So that was nice. And right when I started to feel the tiniest bit claustrophobic, Luke decided he wanted to leave.

Of course it was at least an hour and a half before we were back at the car, but we had a fun day.

>In Some Ways, Bean is Still With Us: Part 2

>This morning I was groggily preparing breakfast for Jack after quite a night. (I went to bed late, and then was paged at 12:45, and 3:45, and Jack was up to be nursed at 5am and then up for the day at 7:30.) I was starting my work day, and cooking something for Jack and I left the cabinet open, and Jack helped himself to a tube of graham crackers. I didn’t think he could open them, and he was having a great time walking around crinkling. With all the crinkling, I knew where he was without having to watch him, so it seemed like a great way to keep him occupied for 3 minutes. Then for some reason, I walked down the hallway and back. When I got back, Jack had half a graham cracker in each hand and the balance in his mouth. He was smiling and saying, “Nom! Nom nom nom!” Cracker crumbs were tumbling down his pjs and all over the floor.

Cute, funny, not all that harmful. I plopped him into his highchair and gave him the rest of his breakfast. But where were the rest of the graham crackers? Where was the bag? I walked around looking to no avail. Then Luke woke up and asked what I was doing. I said, “I think Jack hid a bag of graham crackers somewhere so he could snack whenever he wanted.” In their short time together, Bean really did some serious knowledge transfer.

Ten minutes later Luke was yelling, “I hear crinkling! Jack is feeding himself a snack!” And Jack was indeed, behind the curtains in the dining room, helping himself to a cracker.

>It Nearly Happened To Me

>Panic Attack Magazine has a section called, “It Happened to Me!” where parents can write in about how their bad or lax parenting led to a near disaster, or more often, how something that would never in a million years occur to you as dangerous, is actually a crisis waiting to happen. Well, I think this weekend I may have come up will a potential submission.

Today was my (8th) annual cookie baking extravaganza, and in years past I have spent the days and weeks and months leading up to this day diligently planning. There are excel spreadsheets to be made with egg, butter, flour tallies, dough to be pre-made and frozen, recipes to be tested, cookies to be pre-made, icing recipes to be pondered over, and so on. This year, I don’t know, I am either getting lazy, or mildly over committed. Or maybe I need to be committed? Instead of doing a lot of ingredient planning, I just went to costco and got 4 pounds of butter, 18 eggs, 7 pounds of sugar and a 20 pound bag of flour. Then I went to king soopers and bought 10 heath bars. Then I went back to king soopers and got 2 pounds of brown sugar. When I was at Target I got 2 pounds of chocolate. Then I went back to King Soopers and got 18 more eggs. And so on.

I did test one recipe last week and it was so delicious that I ate almost all of the cookies and then decided that since I am not going to the gym I should definitely not make those again. Or maybe I should since I still have another 5 heath bars and a pound of chocolate left over. (Those are the two main ingredients.) Short story long, all the pre-making of cookies, pre-making of dough, cleaning the kitchen, planning of the hor-dourves and drinks, and everything else, took place between the hours of 9am (when Jack and I got up for the third and final time of the morning) and 1pm when my cookie baking partners in crime arrived instead of over the last few weeks.

Where is the bad parenting? I am just about to get to that. While I was trying to clean the kitchen, Jack got everything out of the bench and put half of it in the oven warming drawer. And then he took half the stuff out of the lazy susan and scattered it all over the floor. Then he wrapped his arms around my legs and wouldn’t let go. At this point, when I am cooking, I usually put him in the sling.

From Jack’s birthday

But I was so tired…

So I got all the ingredients out, and all the measuring utensils out, and I put the bumbo on the counter (mine is old enough that it can without the warning not to place it on the counter) and I crammed Jack into the bumbo, and I gave him a measuring cup for each hand, and I started mixing sugar cookies. Jack was happy, and not trying to escape, cookie dough was being mixed and I was not getting a pain in my shoulder from the sling. All was right with the world. Until. Until I realized I didn’t have the vanilla. So should I take Jack out of the bumbo, set him on the floor, take two steps back, get the vanilla, pick Jack up, put him back in the bumbo, or somewhere actually safe, and then finish the dough? Yes. Yes, I should, but I didn’t. I just made eye contact with Jack, slowly took one step back, then another, opened the cabinet door, grabbed the vanilla, never taking my eyes off of Jack, took two steps forward and was back in place, right in front of my precious baby. I have made this sugar cookie recipe every year for 8 years. I can do it with my eyes closed. I can do it while staring at my happy baby who is not in anyway attempting to injure himself by falling off the counter.

And then it happened. Well, then it almost happened. It almost happened to me. While still making eye contact with my happy, smiling, safe baby, I started to pour a teaspoon of vanilla into the measuring spoon. Vanilla? Nope, not vanilla. I had grabbed the apple cider vinegar. Thank the Lord for the heightened senses that mothers experience when they put their babies in harms way for the sake of getting some cookie dough made. Because I caught a whiff of that vinegar and managed to stop myself before I poured it into the dough. Crisis averted people! But tragedy almost happened to me!!!

So I took Jack out of the bumbo, put him on my hip, walked two steps to the cabinet, took out the vanilla (exact same size bottle) and walked two steps back to the counter and put Jack back into the bumbo and then continued my cookie dough recipe.

What do you think? Is this a good scary nightmare story, from which Panic Attack Magazine readers can learn a valuable lesson? Never, never store the apple cider vinegar right next to the vanilla. It almost ruined a batch of sugar cookies.

P.S. I have lots of cute pictures from today, but I don’t know where the card reader is. Soon. I promise.