Not As Impressive As It Looks

When I said that I read a lot, or mention that I blog, or say something about writing some web content, people seem impressed. Not, you know, because they’ve read my brilliant writing but because they note that I have three small kids. And no nanny, cleaning lady or daycare. (I realize that this is perfectly normal in most parts of the world. But not so much around here.) They wonder where I find the time.

I’ve recently made room in my world for exercise again. And I do read a lot. And blog (though not as much lately). And write. And sometimes I play with my children. And I feed them. And I make sure they don’t kill each other. I realized, as I incorporated exercise into my life again, that it’s possible to fit in the things I really want to do.

What I don’t really do is clean. I mean, there are clean dishes (a trick since our current dishwasher seems to have died recently), clean clothes and clean sheets. There’s usually not any mold growing in the toilet. I try to sweep after every meal, if only to prevent ChunkyMonkey eating food from the floor. But I’m not a cleaner. I have to be inspired to mop, or to dust or to clean under the couches.

I LIKE it when things are clean, but given a choice between reading and vacuuming, the book is going to win.

But I never know how to answer people when they seem to be impressed with what I can do in a day. Do I admit that my house is messy and cluttered? That my kids ask me what I’m doing every time I mop? That my kids watch too much TV? Or do I just give them a smug smile?

Pishew You!

Even though Hot Guy grew up around guns and hunting, we’ve avoided the gun issue as parents of young children. Why teach them about guns before they were ready to learn gun safety? In fact, my kids didn’t know what guns were until they went to preschool.

Then Lovebug came home shooting things.

He points his arm out and says, “Pishew! Pishew!” to indicate that he’s gotten us. He doesn’t call it shooting, he calls it , “Pishewing”. He calls the things he makes out of Legos his “Pishewers”. And we avoid the “g” word, because I don’t think guns should be thought of as toys. But I also don’t want to stop what appears to be some sort of instinctive male tendency.

Then we met the boys with guns.

Not much older than Lovebug’s 3, the boys carried water guns as tall as they were. They carried them into my parents’ town pool after the following directions from their mothers, “Shoot away from people, boys.” One boy found that boring and put the gun by his mother’s chair. The other also found that boring, but his solution was to shoot at people. People like my Lovebug.

Lovebug, being a lover and not a fighter – as well as no fan of the water, came running to me in tears. I said the boy was mean and to stay away from him. Lovebug, Ironflower and my mom built a sandcastle. The boy came over to shoot it with his water gun. Why? I don’t know. I loudly told him to stop and go away. I had to stand up and loom over him for it to work.

His mother did not notice. She did not notice a strange woman practically yelling at her son. She did not notice when he shot other kids in the face. She did not notice when he tripped over the large gun. She did not notice anything until he blasted her with water. Then she told him to stop. Twenty times.

And I stood there wondering, do toy guns make kids aggressive? Or do aggressive kids want toy guns? And what kind of IDIOT lets her son loose with a giant water gun at the crowded kiddie pool? And should I go say something to her?

What are your thoughts about toy guns?

Is There A Difference Between Mommy and Servant?

It’s not that I claim to be a parenting expert or anything. I suppose I’ve got some basics figured out – don’t smack them upside the head even when they deserve it, keep them clean and fed, don’t let them watch R-rated movies, always have extra diapers. I also thought that encouraging them to learn the basic life skills was a good idea. And it appears that I’m in the minority on this.

Yesterday at Ironflower’s dance class, I observed another four year old come in, plop down on the dressing room floor and hold her feet up. Her mother then removed her shoes for her. I nearly fell off the bench. This mom has always seemed perfectly sane to me. I subtly checked out the other girls and moms and it was all the same. Seemingly loving and normal moms removing shoes and clothes for their able-bodied kids. After class it was the same thing – Ironflower is the only one expected to dress herself and ask if she needs help. All the other moms dress their four year olds.

And yet I’m really bothered that almost three year old Lovebug can’t/won’t put on his own shoes. He also needs help removing shirts because he has such a big head. (No, seriously, it’s that big. I’m going to be helping him in that department until he’s like 8 or so, I swear.) But even he’s been taking off his own shoes forever. And he takes off everything else and we’re working on dressing himself.

At first I was all proud of my kids and their skills. But then I realized that maybe these kids CAN do all of these things, they just don’t have to. And I started to wonder if I should be doing these things for my kids too. Am I forcing them to be too independent? Should they just expect me to take their shoes off for them?

Fortunately I then remembered that martyrdom does not become me, so this is all really moot. Independent kids make a much less stressed Jerseygirl. In fact, I’ve even got Ironflower helping Lovebug with his shoes now, so frustrated have I become trying to teach him (or will him, rather) to put on his slip-on shoes. And we’re all a little happier in the morning.

But still, is this forced independence going to make them feel unloved? Or are those other kids being taught that they’re incapable? What are your thoughts?

PS – Leslie over at My Mommy’s Place is having another one of her haiku contests. Check it out!

On The Road, part 2

South Carolina is pretty boring on I-95 I can’t wait until we get to Savannah I love Savannah. Garmin Girl is telling us to go a different way than the hotel website said but of course we have to listen to her though it is a relief to get off of 95 wow there’s no traffic here.

Oh my look at that bridge I’m going to have to admit that Garmin Girl sent us a good way this view is AWESOME now we are going to find the hotel wow this neighborhood looks dodgy are those project houses? They totally are but this can’t be right because the website said we’d be in the historic district and I’m pretty sure they don’t put section 8 houses in historic districts oh my that’s the hotel well at least the lobby’s nice and we’re blocks from the historic district

GOOD LORD the historic district seems far poor Hot Guy pushing this behemoth triple stroller oh my Goddess I am hungry at least these projects don’t seem as bad as the ones I used to teach by we are never going to make it down to River Street with this stroller where are the ramps? Maybe we can find a place up here on Bay Street oh look a pub. I want a beer.

Hmmmm . . .this is good and they have kids’ food and what the hell are those girls wearing? They look like sorority and fraternity kids but those dresses look like hooker dresses from the ’80’s and the shoes are trampy too oh please god don’t tell me all those nice looking young frat guys brought hookers to a formal I am NOT staring, Hot Guy, and anyway they wouldn’t notice if I was, I’m old. I like this mixed aged happy hour crowd but I don’t like dragging Ironflower through it on the way to the bathroom oh the bathroom lady moved here from NJ and loves it I want to move to Savannah too

This walk back sucks and I don’t like the way that homeless guy is looking at us and I don’t care if that makes me prejudiced against the homeless or the mentally ill or whatever God I am SWEATING. . . .I love it here.

I can’t believe ChunkyMonkey is sleeping through the night but Lovebug is waking me up. . Uggghhhhhh. ..need sleep. ..so tired. … .

We are finally going to get to the Gulf Coast of Florida today but wow, northern Florida is kinda ugly. I was thinking that I would enjoy driving on this smaller road connecting 95 to 75 but I was so wrong I feel like I’m in Deliverance country and the traffic is so SLOW and we’re never going to get there. . .

Gainesville is the ugliest college town I have ever seen.

How come no one in Florida understands the basic traffic laws? I can’t believe all these crazy people passing on the right at 100 mph and the people on the left chugging along at 60 this is nuts and totally freaking me out God bless Hot Guy for driving oh please stop crying and whining Lovebug I want out of the car too JUST SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP.

Oh my poor baby Chunky has been such a trouper he’s finally done too bad the drive isn’t I hope he stops crying soon he’s full and and his diaper is new he’s just sick of the seat poor baby STOP CRYING, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.

I wonder if pulling my hair out of my head would make me feel better we have been on the road for over 20 hours all together and I just want to get there and THESE OLD PEOPLE ARE FUCKING INSANE DRIVERS it would be so tragic if we died now and my last thoughts were about how sick I am of I Spy and why didn’t I spend money on DVD players? Why?

An Actual Dirty Little Secret

I’ve hardly ever had a job that didn’t involve kids. Babysitter, nanny, teacher, tutor. . .MOM. I like kids. I do.

But, um, I don’t really like playing with them.

I love watching them play while I also watch TV or check my email. I love teaching them new things. I love reading to them. I love cuddle time. I’ll play active games, or sing songs willingly. I like going to the park and story time and other outings.

But playing princess dolls and trains? Not so much.

I feel like I just came out or admitted an addiction. “Hi, my name is Jerseygirl and I don’t like playing.”

“Hi Jerseygirl!”

It’s not so much that I DISlike playing with my kids. It’s that I get bored. I’m the kind of person who likes to read and watch TV at the same time. I like to check my email when I’m on the phone. I also like to read and/or watch TV and/or check Facebook while I play princess dolls. Because making the appropriate responses during Ironflower’s stories? Not so interesting. While she’s very creative artistically and when she’s telling a story, the princesses tend to do the same thing. Over and over. And over and over again.

Once Hot Guy asked me who had taught Lovebug to crash his trains and cars. Because we don’t let him see violent stuff and because this was before he’d started preschool, Hot Guy wondered how his little boy had learned to stage crashes.

I hated telling him that I had taught our innocent little boy to crash things because I got bored pushing them around and around. Strangely enough, Lovebug no longer wants me to play trains with him. It’s almost like he doesn’t trust me with all of his expensive Thomas toys.

Sometimes I imagine Ironflower on the therapist’s couch lamenting, “And every time my mom played with me, she had to watch Ugly Betty or Top Chef too. Now I think I’m boring and that’s why I have 87 piercings.” But then I think about how much therapy she’ll need if I starting banging my head against a wall while we’re playing, so I’m reasonably sure that I’m doing the lesser of the two evils.

What do you think?

My Mojo is a No – Go

I spent my entire pregnancy hoping for an easygoing child. Lovebug and Ironflower are so passionate and strong-willed that I was hoping for a bit of break this time. Unfortunately, I seem to still have some karma to pay back for being such a spoiled princess in high school because Chunkymonkey (that’s what the nurses called him at the hospital and I think it will do until his personality really develops) him waking up. His siblings can run, scream and jump all around him without him waking up. He can be passed from person to person to swing to couch without waking up. I can change his outfit without waking him up. But come 3am he’s wide awake. Not grouchy, but awake. And that whole strategy of waking him periodically during the day isn’t exactly working, since the child can apparently sleep through anything.

So I got nothing. I’ve been reading the same book since I got home from the hospital (that’s forever for me). The most complex TV show I can follow is Desperate Housewives. I can’t think of anything interesting to comment on people’s blogs – in fact, I can barely write Facebook updates. And let’s just forget about trying to answer emails. I have to check the calendar every day to figure out which kid has school. I can’t manage to sleep when the baby sleeps, what with the other children and all. I’m clean, the children are clean and the laundry is clean. So it’s not that I’ve lost it completely.

But I’ve got NO creative juices flowing. They’re not even dripping. At least I’ve stopped watching Bringing Home Baby – now that I’ve discovered all sorts of Law and Order episodes I missed. And Kitchen Nightmares with Gordon Ramsey, which totally deserves a post that I’m not capable of writing right now.

So this is probably the longest post I’ve ever written about absolutely nothing. Wahoo.

Update

I am so proud of Lovebug and Ironflower. While we’ve had some behavior issues, they have been nothing but sweet with their baby brother. They talk to him, give hugs and kisses and try to soothe him when he’s upset. Ironflower sings him a lullaby and Lovebug finds him a “babytoy” whenever he cries. I think their misbehavior has more to do with last week’s schedule upheaval and the fact that mommy has been pretty useless for the last few weeks than any jealousy. Fills me with motherly pride and motherly guilt at the same time.

Especially because I have become even more useless. I overdid it as soon as I arrived home on Saturday so now Hot Guy has forbidden me to get off the couch except to pee or get the baby from the cradle swing (how I LOVE the cradle swing). Though with all the eating Baby Z does, it’s not like I’d be getting up much anyway. This is the only one of my children who actually started gaining weight back in the hospital. He loves to eat – I swear I’ve already caught him smiling at the boob.

Much as I love this newborn phase and watching Ironflower and Lovebug embrace their roles as big siblings, I am truly looking forward to feeling normal again and to being back to a real routine. I don’t know when exactly that will be, but I’m already daydreaming about it.

Welcome Baby!

Introducing Baby Z, weighing in at 9 lbs. He’s 21 inches long and – just like his older brother – the doctor’s first comment was remarking upon his big head.  He is beautiful and already a champion nurser.

Mommy is doing well enough to be typing this herself. The pain management system at this hospital kicks SERIOUS ass.

Halloween Recap

My love/hate relationship with Halloween started when I became a teacher. Because while there’s a certain joy in watching the kids have fun, organizing the party and the parents and the changes in routine and dealing with the sugar rushes. . .well, it’s a lot of work. Of course, for most of the years I taught I was able to recover from the day by going out and getting drunk or by curling up with a book.

Stupidly, I somehow thought that Halloween as a parent would be easier. Or, at least less stressful. It was, until last year. And this year? We had school celebrations on two different days, one indecisive about costumes, one still having a hard time wearing his, sugar highs, trick or treat demands. . .oy. (I’m sure being freaking full term pregnant also had something to do with this year’s stress)

By the time I got them to bed last night – yes, I, Hot Guy and his just briefly in town brother had escaped to the city an hour before – I thought I was going to become a parent who spanks. I would give them a direction and it was like I was speaking to them in Chinese. Or like I was actually mute. Or that they were deaf. Or. . .er, you probably understand what I’m saying. Anyway, I have seen my children hyper and over-tired before, but never that far gone. I seriously thought I was going to have to tie them down to get their pajamas on.

It’s a good thing that they’re so cute.

I think this was the first time Lovebug really got Halloween. We actually got him to wear his costume this year – even if it required many, many reminders of the “no costume, no celebration” variety. (Something that the trio of middle schoolers who showed up at my door at 9:30 last night need to hear as well, I think) And he went along with his class quite well. But when his class sang for all the adoring parents? Lovebug seemed to think his job was to observe. Ironflower did the same thing the next day when her class sang. It’s so weird. My kids are not shy. They love to sing and get attention. But while their respective classes were performing, they just stood there. We couldn’t even get them to smile.

Oh well, at least they had fun otherwise. And I’m sure my back and feet will recover soon. Probably after Tuesday (when my c-section is scheduled, thankyougod). I told everyone that my costume was that I was pregnant with triplets. Hot Guy wore his pirate hat, Ironflower was Cinderella and Lovebug was Thomas the Tank Engine.

What were you and yours for Halloween?

Cheetos Are Bad For Me

When I had Ironflower, I planned to feed her a nutritious and organic diet as well as breastfeeding her for at least a year. The first crack showed up when she chose to wean herself at ten months. Then she swiped a french fry. And then she had chocolate cake at her first birthday. It was downhill from there. With Lovebug, I managed to at least breastfeed longer. He developed a penchant for his sister’s Cheetos at a very young age.

And now I’m being punished for it. I made the mistake of buying Cheetos at the grocery store yesterday. And I let Lovebug hold them. I suppose my second mistake was bragging to everyone about how easy it is to get my shopping done when one kid or the other is in preschool. Anyway, between my bragging and allowing a small child to eat Cheetos, I guess I deserved what happened next.

As I was paying, Lovebug demanded to hold the Cheetos again. I had forgotten to separate them, so the bagger had put them somewhere. Somewhere I couldn’t immediately locate. I explained he would have to wait until we got outside and out of the way. Lovebug’s demands grew louder – the kind of louder that told me he was overtired and we were due for a meltdown. The tears flowed. The yells grew louder. I tried to calmly explain that we don’t scream to get what we want as I pushed the full cart past all the people staring at me. I had barely taken two steps when I nearly collided with the person in front of me.

Lovebug and I were perhaps twenty feet from the door. I was sweating, since stress does that to me when I’m super pregnant. Lovebug was throwing a huge tantrum. We were quite a sight. And in front of us, in the too narrow for two carts to pass aisle, was an elderly couple. If they had been going any slower they would have been going backwards. Normally this would not have bothered me, but with sweat dripping down my face and a screaming two year old, I was in a bit of a hurry. Instead it took us five minutes to get to the door. I’m not exaggerating. I think the poor couple may have been deaf as well, since they never seemed to notice the huge tantrum going on behind them.

In our five minute trudge to the door, I tried not to have evil thoughts about them. I distracted myself by listing all the mistakes I had made that led to the tantrum – allowing Cheetos into my home, buying some that day, letting Lovebug hold them, not removing them from the bagger’s clutches, getting behind this couple. This didn’t really improve my mood.

Finally we made it to the car. Lovebug began to calm down. I wiped the sweat away. But then Lovebug decided he didn’t want to climb into his car seat. I loaded the groceries in. Still no luck. I told him he needed to climb in or I would have to put him in, because we had to go. Still no luck. So I put him in his seat – and the tantrum began again. I was tempted to let him get down and do it himself, but then I thought I’d be rewarding the tantrum. And I’m pretty sure that’s what got me into this tantrum mess in the first place. So I strapped his struggling body into the seat and got into the driver’s seat.

I blotted the sweat. I took a few deep breaths. Lovebug screamed. The shopping cart guy glared at me. I had visions of other grocery store workers surrounding my car and I quickly drove away.

Moral of the story? Cheetos are bad. And life isn’t necessarily easier when you only have one kid to deal with at the grocery story.