No, I AM Grateful, Dammit

Today my daughter told me that she doesn’t want to have kids because she doesn’t want to work that hard. In case you didn’t know, my daughter is four.

I feel like such an asshole.

I mean, she’s not supposed to know how much work kids are yet, right?

And though I hope she remembers this fact when she starts having sex in fifteen years, I somehow doubt it. Clearly the bigger problem is that my four year old thinks knows she and her brothers are a lot of work.

I feel like I should fix it, but I don’t know how.

I do feel overworked right now. We’re broke, so I’m constantly trying to write articles from home while managing three kids under five, the youngest of whom screams whenever I’m not next to him and the two oldest of whom are extremely hyper. My dishwasher is dead, my toaster oven is dead and my fridge has stopped making ice. I can’t find a place to put everything so the house never looks clean, even when it is. Which it usually isn’t, but that’s beside the point.

Right here is where I usually check myself, remind myself that I’m blessed to have three beautiful children, a husband who puts up with me, my home, running water, a fridge that keeps food cold, enough stuff to be overwhelmed by it, civil rights, access to healthcare, a president I actually like . . .

But clearly this grateful attitude is not being conveyed to my children.

Also, I am little concerned that my four year old already has an aversion to working hard.

Any suggestions?

Sell Out

I never had sympathy for those parents who blamed “the school” or “the other kids” for their children’s behavior. Surely parents had more control over their children than their peers did, at least until adolescence began. And when a parent would assert that little Johnny had never kicked anyone before entering my first grade classroom, I would grind my teeth together, secretly blaming Johnny’s kicking on his father’s rumored drug use. Sure my classroom was purely a force for good, I was thrilled to find a preschool with a similar philosophy.

And then Ironflower actually went to preschool.

It’s not that she became aggressive. If anything, her behavior got better. But my smugness lessened when she began talking about the Disney princesses. Up until then, she had played princess like she had played other imaginary games. “Princess” was a character like “doctor” or “paleontologist”. Then she learned about Cinderella. And Ariel. And Sleeping Beauty. And Belle. And. . . . .now it’s become an obsession. Just like it is for every other girl in her class. A not very imaginative obsession, at that.

And it’s not like the Princesses send out a great message. In fact, I despise the whole idea of The Little Mermaid (think about it, she gives up her VOICE for a cute boy. If that ain’t a metaphor for a tragic female adolescence. . .). But they’re all over my house anyway. Because I didn’t want her to be an outcast.

At least Lovebug discovered Thomas before he discovered school. At least I know it’s his passion. Because I’m not so sure about Ironflower and her princesses sometimes. Of course, that could be wishful thinking.

(During this writing, ChunkyMonkey managed to army crawl all the way across the family room to get to his brother’s Lego train. I see more Thomas crap in my future.)

Anyway, I feel like such a sell out. I never intended to purchase all this character crap. Of course, we also weren’t going to watch TV and we were only going to eat organic.

Note to self: Stop making parenting pledges ahead of time.

Totally Hypothetical. Really.

Is it bad to think about slipping your children Benadryl so that they’ll sleep at night? Is it bad to actually do it? Or is it worse to tell your three old that he’s ruining the family’s well-being because he won’t go to sleep until 10pm, he wakes up at 2am to play with his trains and then wakes again at 5am, each time waking his baby brother and mother in the process?

Uh, this is all hypothetical, of course.

Two boys have been sharing a room for a while now. The three year old used to at least go to sleep on time. Now he stays up. . .disturbing his six month old brother. He gets up all the time. . .disturbing his brother. He plays with his trains .. .waking his brother. Then his brother wakes up close enough to three year old’s version of morning that they’re both up by 6am.

And, uh, the mother is starting to lose her shit become concerned. She knows their horrible behavior is coming from lack of sleep. She keeps the room dark. She has a bedtime routine with relaxation techniques. She’s been reluctant to take away the trains, as they are security for the three year old. But he also has a stuffed animal that he loves and doesn’t play with. And he thrives on any kind of attention, being three. So when his mother yells in frustration discusses the situation, he doesn’t care. He also doesn’t seem to relate consequences from behavior the night before to punishments the next day.

Does anyone PLEASE have suggestions for this poor woman? She is actually losing short term memory skills from lack of sleep. Really. Between this and her red eyes from crying in frustration, people are starting to think she’s a stoner.

I Hate School

When I picked Ironflower up from preschool this morning, another mother noted that she had her shoes on the wrong feet.

I can only hope her teachers didn’t notice either.

I’d be more embarrassed, but let me discuss last night first:

7:23pm – Discover that Ironflower has used bath paints all over the bath – not while she was actually bathing. Hot Guy discovers that bath paints are definitely meant to be used while the bath is on. We now have some pink grout.

10:45pm – Go up to bed and realize that I have dumped laundry all over the bed so that I will fold it before bed. Should have come up earlier, especially since I only got five hours of sleep the night before.

11:32pm – Ah, sleep.

11:53pm – Massive coughing fit.

12:48am – ChunkyMonkey crying. Go feed him in room he shares with Lovebug.

12:58am – Lovebug whines when I leave.

1:03 am – Snore.

1:20am – Lovebug whining loudly.

1:33am – Lovebug wakes ChunkyMonkey.

1:34am – Go to boys’ room. Ascertain that Lovebug wants to go to the bathroom. Wonder why he had to wake me up for this. Comfort baby.

1:36am – Try to tuck Lovebug back in. He tells me no and kicks the covers off. I leave.

1:37am – Lovebug begins whining.

1:41am – Ah, sleep.

1:47am – Lovebug crying hysterically. Baby crying.

1:48am – Lovebug upset that he hadn’t been tucked in. Baby upset about loud Lovebug.

1:50am – Go in to comfort baby. Lovebug throws bigger fit.

1:53am – Fall asleep while holding baby, despite Lovebug’s tantrum.

1:54am – Tell Lovebug to be quiet, for the of God and all that is holy including the opportunity to watch TV tomorrow.

1:58am – Back to my room. Can’t sleep. When did Ironflower get so sneaky? What’s up with Lovebug STILL having all these temper tantrums?

2:34am – Why am I STILL AWAKE??????????????

2:49am – Ahhh, sleep.

3:37am – Why am I – COUGH. COUGH. COUGH. COUGH. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat until . . .

4:18am – Ah, sleep.

5:50am – ChunkyMonkey crying. Lovebug awake. Feed baby. Convince Lovebug to sleep more.

7:01am – Alarm. But everyone else is quiet. Hit snooze.

7:09am – Wow, everyone is still asleep and it’s a school day. Dammit.

So I’m pretty thrilled with the fact that I got her to school in the first place. Besides, she puts on her own shoes. If she was unhappy, she could have fixed them – right?

Oops, I’ve Failed It Again

So Ironflower is taking a dance class this year. Yesterday was parent observation day, which I forgot about completely. Forgetting meant that I brought the baby with me, even though the rules said “No Siblings”. If this had been the only issue, I would not be blogging about it – I’m so used to forgetting things these days.

But because it was observation day, there was another bit of humiliation. You see, I have these clogs. I love them, but I can only wear trouser socks with them. And my trouser socks keep getting holes in them. But because my clothing needs are low on my priority list, I keep wearing said socks. Or sometimes I pair two socks that don’t exactly match to maximize their lack of holes. Yesterday I happened to be wearing such a pair because I assumed no one would see them. One sock was black and one sock was navy. And the black one had developed a hole by the time of dance class. . . where I had to remove my clogs to enter the studio.

So in I walked with my mismatched holey socks and my uninvited baby, trying to hold my head up and slide the hole to the bottom of my sock. And take pictures of hyper Ironflower. Finally the class started and I sat down so as to hide my socks. I even managed to quiet the baby. I was started to feel better about myself when one of the school’s owners walked in. And headed straight for me.

Apparently I am the only parent who has not purchased recital tickets yet.

They went on sale on Saturday.

I saw all the moms – who are all normally quite sweet – look at me oddly as I promised that I would purchase tickets ASAP.

The recital, by the way, is in May.

I can’t believe I’m THAT mom, with the holey socks and bad hair. With the slacking on buying tickets. With the forgetting about observation day. I wonder how long before my issues scar my children?

I Don’t Judge. But If I Did. . .

Far be it for me to criticize other parents. Really, I don’t like to judge.

But.

I just don’t GET parents who hire a baby planner, aka “baby concierge”.

While I’m a fan of parents making informed decisions and reading expert opinions, I think parenting outsourcing has gotten out of control. Not only can you hire someone to toilet train or sleep train your child, you can now have someone teach you how to sign up for your baby registry and choose a childcare provider. Seriously.

Is it really that hard to read a few magazines or websites and pick the best products? Is it too much to ask friends and acquaintances with kids? Is it too selfish to just pick what appeals to you?

What’s the point of having a kid if the baby planner chooses the registry and the nanny, the nanny spends 80 hours a week with the kid, the toilet trainer potty trains your kid, the sleep trainer teaches your kid to sleep on its own, the speech therapist teaches your kid to communicate (and I don’t mean the kids with speech problems, either) the tutor teaches your kid to read and the personal shopper picks out of all your kid’s clothes?

Oh, how I wish I was kidding.

Isn’t it sad that so many parents are so terrified of doing something wrong that they don’t actually parent their kids at all?

There might also be some laziness involved. Because all that stuff is HARD. (Except the baby registry. That’s just fun.) But isn’t that the point? I mean, if you want something easy you get a cat.

And speaking of cats, happy birthday to my fantastic mom, cat owner, writer, editor, gardener, super cook, doting Grammy, dancer and family rock. I don’t know what we’d do without her.

The Weaning Stops The Whining From Waning

Lovebug never took a pacifier. I can count on one hand the times he put up with a bottle. And after a few exploratory bites on his fingers, he decided that thumb sucking was awful too. To be honest, I was disappointed that he didn’t want to suck his thumb – I was convinced that Ironflower’s thumb sucking had made her an easy baby (And in the subsequent years, I can tell you that as she’s sucked her thumb less and less, she’s also become more and more challenging. Coincidence? I think not.). Lovebug was not an easy baby.

But life did get better when he embraced the sippy cup. I had assumed he would hate that too. The only thing he liked to drink from (besides my boobs) was a straw, but only if the straw was in my can of Diet Pepsi. I envisioned a life of pouring out Diet Pepsi can contents, replacing them with apple juice and pretending they were mine. But for whatever reason Lovebug embraced the sippy cup.

We moved to the “sports cup” style with the straw last spring, after the speech therapist told me how much regular sippy cups had ruined his tongue placement (though, oddly, they never affected Ironflower’s at all), but otherwise things remain the same: Lovebug loves him some sippy cup.

With juice.

In our defense I must say that the juice is always cut with water and it’s always a healthy juice and he never has it at nap time or bed time and he needs the calcium because he won’t drink milk. But still, the child drinks more than the recommended amount.

And I’ve kind of ignored it, because he does eat.

And because Lovebug is very, very, passionate. His motto is: “Why talk when a scream would do? Why cry when a full blown temper tantrum can get my point across? Why ask when I could whine repetitively?” So I didn’t want another battle, back when they were two and one and we were moving and I was just overwhelmed all the time. So Lovebug turned into a juicehead because we were more concerned about other issues.

Sometimes I feel like one of those parents who spends years bugging her kid about his grades only to find out that he’s a meth addict.

Anyway, Lovebug’s solution to the once cup of juice per meal – and only water in between – was to scream every time I offered the water bottle. He started asking whining for lunch at 10:30 am, mentioning the juice first. Then he tried drinking his sister’s juice, but since she uses a regular cup that didn’t work (he refuses to learn how to drink from a regular cup. I haven’t started that battle yet either). Then he just refused to drink all morning.

I swear to God I’m never even going to give Chunkymonkey juice.

But since it’s too late for that option with Lovebug, I guess I’ll just have to deal with the extra tantrums.

Oh well, at least they usually mean extra hugs, too.

Stream of Semi-Consciousness

Ironflower threw up at school this morning. (Yes, she had school. Long story.) Anyway, I feel SO guilty. She said her tummy was upset, but I attributed it to her usual morning complaining (we are not a morning family) and her runny nose. Hot Guy took her to school, but he forgot her bag. And I forgot to remind him, because it’s not like she really NEEDS the bag, right? She’s never touched the spare outfit.

So not only did the poor kid puke, she had to wear too big borrowed clothes while Hot Guy went to pick her up.

Once again, we are totally the white trash family at the preschool. Feeling sorry for Ironflower led Hot Guy to stop by the movie store while getting stuff for dinner. (The way we’re going, we should probably just give up and let them watch Nascar and wrestling and horror movies every night during dinner. But I digress.) And even though we normally eat dinner while watching a kid’s movie only on a Friday night, we’re doing it now. And we’re watching Barbie and the Diamond Castle.

I’m actually kind of liking these Barbie movies. They have surprisingly good messages and music. Even Lovebug likes the music.

But, well, I’m liking this one for another reason. As it started, Hot Guy mentioned that the guitar playing friends reminded him of the Indigo Girls. Suddenly we started (in code the kids couldn’t understand, of course) pointing out all the ways that Barbie and the Diamond Castle could, in fact, be a nice lesbian love story. Begcause whenever we talk in code around the children we totally regress, this has been amusing us greatly.

Try to keep that in mind if you’re ever forced to watch the movie.Because it TOTALLY works.

And if you want a real lesbian love story, watch the movie Go Fish.

Yet More Suckage (Drainage?) From The Wound

Oh no, it’s not enough that I had to be in the hospital, have another surgery and spend hours of my life cleaning out a huge wound. It’s not even enough that the stitches my doctor kindly put in yesterday to speed the healing hurt like a motherfucker. Nope.

I’ve apparently warped my daughter into the bargain.

Today at lunch Ironflower mentioned that she would never get married. Not that I’m in any rush for four year old to elope, but I was a little concerned that she was writing the whole process off at such a young age. I asked her why. She told me that it hurts. I was confused, until Hot Guy was able to explain.

She’s told him that she doesn’t want to have babies and “hurt like Mommy.”

I feel like such an asshole. A whiny, cranky, horrible asshole. Clearly I’ve complained too much. I’ve warped my kid. She’s going to wind up in therapy and it really will be all my fault.

How do I fix this?

And I really have to fix this, because Ironflower has enough issues on her own. Last night she was very curious about whether you go to the bathroom after you die.

Probably TMI

I had a nice chat with ChunkyMonkey last night (honestly, is there anyone better to talk to than a small baby? No arguments and you can pretend they agree with everything you say).  I’d like to share it with you.

Me: You know kiddo, it’s not that you’re not worth every minute of pain and suffering I’ve endured. You totally are. But the fact that the pain is now continuing and is in fact WORSE, well, I think that means something. Like possibly you’ll discover the cure for cancer? Or at least work for Doctors Without Borders?

CM: Ahhhhhhh.

Me: Okay, glad we sorted that out. Also, if you could work on sleeping for longer periods, that would be great. Because I am freaking WORN OUT, honey. This whole lump turning out to be an infected abscess? The PAIN? The GROSS DRAINING? THE FACT THAT IT IS GOING TO BE OPEN FOR A WHILE? Not only disgusting but exhausting.

CM: uuuuuuuuuuut.

Me: You know, I wish someone – like maybe Dr.Bitch when she checked my scar three weeks ago? Or a nurse? Or the literature? – had told me that a lump could be bad news. But everything said “fever” or “drainage” and I didn’t have a fever until this weekend – and it was so low they said it didn’t really matter -  nor did I have any drainage until the Doc yesterday started draining the lump that I honestly didn’t think I could have an infection. But I do. And it’s nasty and painful and I’m pretty pissed off. Especially since Dr. Bitch said last week that I “couldn’t” have an infection. Can I sue her?

CM: Ahhhhh.

Me: No, seriously. Or maybe I could sue everybody for not noticing the lump? I mean, even THREE Tylenol don’t help the pain and I actually hurt more today. I pop Percocet so I can sleep and I’m not holding you as much because it hurts more. I’ve been a psychotically crabby bitch to the rest of the family and I’ve hardly even apologized because I’ve never been in this kind of pain for more than a day. Every time I leave the house or talk on the phone I feel like I am barely holding it together.

CM: Uuuuuuut.

Me: I hope you never feel pain like this. Of course, if you or one of your siblings did I would have fought with the doctor a lot more than I did last week. In fact, I think part of the reason I’m so crabby is that I’m pissed at myself. I should have argued with Dr.Bitch. Not that I wanted anything to be wrong, but I knew there was. I should have listened to my body instead of assuming everyone would follow the same checklist for infections.

CM: Ahhh.

Me: You’re right, I should put this info in my blog. I mean, Top Ten Signs You’re Pregnant is the most popular post on the site. And God knows I couldn’t find anything useful online about this. So here it goes:

If you have a hard lump on your abdomen after a c-section, make the doctors pay attention. And if it hurts? It’s already infected. You may not have fever or drainage yet, but you will. Make your doctor help you immediately.