I lost that round

Last night was the first time we've attempted potty training in several weeks. Noodle initially agreed with the idea in theory, but putting actual cheek to seat? That was a no go.

We've stepped back and let her assert her authority for a few weeks. Everyone says this is the last form of control that they have, don't make it a war, don't traumatize them, she won't go to first grade in diapers. Well that's all well and good, but she can't go to pre-k until she's got this potty thing mastered.

So last night I ditched the well-meaning Elmo Potty Seat (Sorry Elmo but speaking to her in Spanish every time she grazes your hand - it's distracting the kid and killing my efforts. You gotta go dude.) She had been laughing and playing and trying to remove her diaper for a few minutes, so I told her if she could go potty like a big girl she could go naked! NO diapers! WOOHOO!!! (Give me a break here people, I have 2 in diapers. If just one of them will kick this Pamper addiction by the end of the year I'll throw a bonfire with lobster for everyone. I'm that desperate.) She agreed! Fine, it would be proven to be coercion in court but she's not suing me so let's just move on shall we?

I propped her very skinny toddler tushy on the potty & sat down in front of her for the first of three potty trips ... three very long potty trips .... three very long unproductive potty trips.

During the second trip I bent under the weight of bribery and offered marshmallows.

During the third trip J bent the rules and gave her a tiny marshmallow just to stay on the potty.

I asked her if she would please just try for mommy, just one time?

She leaned over, wrapped her arms around my neck, and very sweetly and quietly said "I did".

If she could just go once I think she would understand what we're asking for ... but I can't argue with her: She did try for me.

I really shouldn't know this much about other people's lives

Dear Jon*,

When we first met I thought you were a wonderful, caring man who had been handed a lot in a very short life. Only in your mid twenties you were already having to provide for a very (very) large family. Through the camera lens it looked like you were handling it with grace, and if not ease - at least happiness. Exhausted happiness.

Then we began seeing more of each other and I had even more respect for you as I got to know your wife better. I had the luxury of seeing both sides of your marriage and while I can understand her frustrations with you some days, I have to ask you, how did you not haul off and pop her back once in a while? Not that I'm condoning spousal abuse, but more of a "Hey! That hurts! How does this feel to you? Quit hitting me in 'love' woman!" kind of thing.

Your children are lovely and very well behaved considering it's basically a home daycare center situation. Seriously, have you taken out stock in Tylenol? After all the bottles of it you must have used to combat the noise induced headaches, I'm betting their stock could earn you a pretty penny.

As time progressed and you were able to find a job working from home and able to spend even more time with your kids, I was so impressed. But maybe that's when the change started for me, and maybe even for you. Our relationship stuttered as I realized that your wife was a strong glue for your situation. Just watching her run the battle ship and keep your world running was exhausting, I can't imagine how I would handle having so many children in my own home. Even as the fractures started to show, I hoped you would stand up and be the man that your family needed in a time of crisis ... I hoped you would be the man that *she* knew you could be. That you would be the man your children needed you to be.

And then you stuck your foot in your mouth and just kept chomping away until you had eaten all of one leg and half the other. You just had to take the girlfriend to France and make sure that you were spotted by the "P P People". The ink is barely dry on your separation papers and you're already on your second girlfriend? NOT. SMART. Your divorce attorney must be ready to throttle you.

In our final meeting you stated that you are so ready to start your new life, your new adventures ... and that you're totally here for the kids. Being there for the kids would mean, to me at least, that you would stay in the same country as your children while they try to understand all the changes in their life. Was there no real estate for sale in Pennsylvania? Is that why you went all the way to New York City to find a new home? Sacrificing your public life a bit and building a small house on a far corner of your large estate would have been a noble move to protect the hearts of your children ~ or attempting marital counseling. That would have been the move of a selfless father.

While I'm not ready to side with your soon-to-be-ex-wife on everything, this is one of those situations where it's time to grow up, man up and stop using cliched answers for reporters. Your children deserve a father who's going to be there for them, not a guy who likes the idea of being daddy but can't get past the loss of his youth. News flash dearest, every parent looses their youth & freedom at some point. Along with our sleep and ability to pee in private.

You've killed a lot of my faith and hope for you. I hope you can make a comeback, I hope you can really be there for your kids (and not just when the cameras are rolling). But until then, don't call me. Don't text me. I'm deleting your channel and walking away.

It's not me, it's you.
Bellamomma

*If you've been in a checkout line anywhere in the U.S. in the last 6 months, you know which Jon I'm speaking to.

We have movement 2.0

As a seasoned mommy you think I would be better prepared for the day when my little one learns self propulsion *SOB*

When Noodle started the army crawl I could have thrown a parade. We were convinced she was brilliant, ahead of the pack and this was the beginning of a new and beautiful world. And the end of carrying a 22+lb 8 month old around on my aching hip. What-eves. I had no clue this really meant it was the end of my sanity. Suddenly all those fun little toys were nothing compared to tiny bits of crud she found under chairs ... tiny bits that she could only see because she was the only member of the family lying on her belly at eye level with the bits. Tiny bits that I could never seem to keep clean enough. Tiny bits that were just the right size for her fists and mouth. We tell people that she learned to feed herself with Cheerios but the only way that's really true is if there was a stash of Cheerios under our furniture.

Squeaker started pushing up on her hands and toes last week in a perfect soldier push up. We figured she wouldn't get far in that position so we left her to it ... 5 short days later she was on her belly, pulling with those tiny fingers and pushing herself across the room in a hardwood floor version of the frogger swim stroke. While my mouth said the appropriate cheers, my brain did the inappropriate cussing. This time it's not as easy as keeping the floor clean and moving toys for her - this time there's a toddler to think of as well. A toddler who, historically, has issues with simply crashing into any objects in her way without consideration of the damage that she can do to them and herself.

Mix one (barely) mobile baby + a highly mobile and crash-prone toddler = the need for more money to pay the resulting medical bills.

My Dearest Squeaks,

I am so very proud of you & so happy that you've learned a new life skill. You are growing up so fast and learning so very much, Daddy and I are very proud of you.

Now could you please stay still until you gain at least 15 more pounds? I would hate to see you crushed under the oppression of your sister.

I love you!
Mom

OMG I'm still whining about sleep

It's been 7 months & this kid has still not figured out how to sleep.

Say one word to me about how "formula fed" babies sleep so wonderfully & I'll stab you in the eyes with a spoon.

I fully realize that breast feeding may be our enemy here.

I also realize that some kids just aren't sleepers; I think we got that model this time around.

Noodle had her bad nights, don't get me wrong, but for the most part she slept 12 hours straight. Rough nights with her were more of an oddity, and they were solved by either snuggling in bed with us or a dose of Tylenol. The reasons were easy enough to decipher: couldn't find a binky, the teeth were coming in or she was getting an ear infection. It was exceedingly rare to have 2 rough nights in a row, with the exception of illness or teething.

Squeaker is a whole different ball of insomnia. The child sleeps beautifully from 5am until 10am. It's the best stretch of sleep that we can rely on ... unfortunately I can only join her in that stretch 2 days out of the week. The other 5 are spent with me glaring at the bed at 6:50am and silently wishing I could just wake everyone else up with me & make them suffer through a long day after only 3 hours of peace and rest. But my husband would kill me if I started the kids' day before 7am. Can't say I blame him.

The good nights are rare for this child & I'm not sure how to reset this cycle. She will not go to sleep until after Noodle so it's 9:30 before we begin rocking (she's included on the diaper change/pajamas/kisses & prayers routine with sister). We rock for about 30 minutes & then lay her down in her bed (in our room). From there the night becomes every man for himself & the battle for sleep deprivation is on! I can count on one hand how many nights she's gone down at 10 and stayed asleep until 5am. It was on a Tuesday I believe. The nights when we are up at 1am, 3am, 4am and 5am? Those are a way of life, countless and endless, and creating new bags under my eyes. I officially have the raccoon-mommy-eyes & no concealer I have found can combat that look.

I have stopped letting her take any sort of catnap between 5pm & bedtime, which seems to do little good except that she doesn't fight going down nearly as long, if at all.

I have stretched out her nursing sessions at night, I have clustered them - neither of which showed a difference.

The child needs sleep but I'll be darned if I know how to get it for her .... why do small people think that sleep is so evil?! Am I missing a magic trick here?

To Go (to the ER) Or Not To Go, how do you decide?

Do your kids ever have those injuries where you & your spouse debate "ER? Yes or No?" (And how on earth do single parents navigate that decision?) J & I seem to have this discussion once every few months & neither of us wants to be the one who's wrong. Wrong in the sense of overreacting & paying a deductible to be told to give the kid an ice pack ~ or wrong as in DCFS is asking why you failed to seek treatment & now your kid will never learn to count past 8 ... we never know. In 33 months of parenting we've been to the ER once, on our 3rd day on the job. Turns out she just needed to poop. $100 deductible & one pooped on ER Dr later, we were on our way home with our perfectly healthy child at 5am. You can see why we would be leery of overreacting again.

Squeaker decided to play with her new friend Gravity the other night & launched herself out of the highchair. Her skull had a lovely meeting with the ceramic tile floors .... and now you ask me why we didn't rush to the ER.

Yeah. That was my reaction. Well, it was after I screamed, scooped her up & we both had a good cry.

My friend the nurse & J had the cooler heads. They looked her over, made her smile, checked her pupils, checked (and rechecked and checked again) her skull and neck. The general opinion was that since it was already 10pm we would keep her awake for a few hours, wake her every hour through the night & see how she was in the morning.

It was all well & good until I got to the pediatrician's office the next day & was lectured on how children can have skull fractures, brain swelling and damage and we would never have known. Then the nurse had the doctor come in and a funny thing happened: he did all the same things J & my friend did the night before & gave her a clean bill of health. He offered to give her an xray to make me feel better but I'm slightly against pumping radiation into my tiny baby's body unless absolutely necessary. Call me crazy, I like the non-glowing version of my child best. He thought she was fine, she was acting fine (just slightly fussy but that seems to be her general attitude lately even sans head injury).

We have a general rule at our house: If it bleeds for more than 5 minutes we go to the Dr. That's about as far as we've gotten. What's your criteria for an ER visit?

I need to just suck up my hatred of bodily fluids and go back to school for a nursing degree!

Feeling like a babysitter in my own home

J went back to working outside of the home last night (EEEE! BACK TO [slightly] BETTER INCOME!!!! Ok I'm done rejoicing now!) But now I'm at home with the girls every night for 6 hours. I do dinner, baths, bedtime ~ he won't be home until after midnight most nights. Somewhere in the course of last night I suddenly started feeling like I was babysitting ... I'm not sure I can explain it, just feeling like I was overwhelmed, exhausted & wanted to know when the real people in charge were going to come rescue me because I was in over my head!

Last night was just bad. Apparently there was a family meeting and the children voted to see how loud they could get before Mommy's ears burst. I was making dinner and juggling 12 other things and no one wanted to listen to Mom or help her out by just not screaming for 30 seconds. I felt like the babysitter and not the Mother, I wanted to be rescued & sent home with my $20 for 2 hours of work.

I almost called him & told him to quit the job, my sanity wasn't worth the paycheck.

I can see how a lot of dads get used to having Mom run the house & doing the hands on parenting - and then wind up seeing their care of the children as heroic or a sporadic thing that we can't count on them to do every night. When you're used to having one parent "in charge" it's hard to step into those shoes suddenly. J has been working from home for the last year & when I come in, I take over & he goes to his office - but he's still there if something happens. I'm not *really* on my own & somehow that knowledge calms me when the girls start finding new decibels to hit. There's always been a team member to commiserate with, but last night I was truly on my own with these kids & they were winning, hands down.

Hopefully tonight will be easier. Hopefully the girls will take pity on my eardrums and whine quietly. And if not, hopefully I have a bottle of wine stashed in the cabinet. Since I am the Mom and not the babysitter ~ I'm allowed to have a drink after bedtime!

Confessions of a discombobulated blogger

I blog about my life, no niche, no specialty topics that aren't on 4,000 other blogs ... except the mommyblogger parts. That title still makes me itchy, but that's what I am yo.

I've glossed over the tough parts of my life around here & that feels disingenuous to me (pause while I look up that word to be sure I used it correctly - yep, that's the one I want). There are days when I can't come here to post because I can't think of anything beyond the things I want to blog about, but it feels too personal, too real, too much of me to expose to the world & say "Here I am ~ let the judging begin!"

How do you spill your heart to the internet? ... But this person doesn't feel like me, there are too many pieces missing and too many other things that make me whole. So how do I get the blog to meet me in the middle?