Monthly Archives for June 2012

Weenies. Who’s Got ‘Em, Who Doesn’t

(Caution – this post has the word weenie in it.  More than once – in fact, a lot. Kind of like my life these days).
SB has discovered his weenie, and I guess this is how things will be for the rest of his life.  First off, I have to admit that I’m pretty impressed with what the weenie can handle, what with the tugging, pulling, twisting, and occasional bath toy run over it.  Who knew? 
Then there’s the never ending discussions.  We talk about who has weenies, who doesn’t, why, and I have to say SB looks pretty disappointed that his dog/mama/stuffed panda/fire truck/the lady at the grocery store doesn’t have one.  It’s like there’s a random weenie survey constantly going through his mind, and the questions can start anytime, without warning – in line at Whole Foods the other day, he pointed at the (female cashier) and said, “Mama, she have a weenie?”  I explained that no, she doesn’t (low and mumbled under my breath while madly fumbling for my credit card and wondering which store we haven’t humiliated ourselves in lately or maybe I can just buy everything online and never leave the house again and be THAT lady on the street that all the kids avoid even at Halloween – AARGH!!), and SB gave her a look of profound pity.  Poor weenie-less cashier lady.
He also likes to say the word weenie, especially now that I’ve told him it’s really not a word to use while we’re out and about.  At home, all bets are off – between the weenie and  poo-poo talk, we’re not really in high demand at parties these days, but when we’re OUT IN PUBLIC AROUND NORMAL PEOPLE, we need to cut out the incessant weenie/poo-poo chats. 
So of course he talks about it even more.  If I ask a question and he either doesn’t want to answer or doesn’t know, he says, “weenie-poo-poo”.  Secretly I have to give him bonus points for combining the two Forbidden In Public words, but I pretend to be upset.   When I decide to join the working world again, I’ll have to remember this approach on conference calls when I’m stumped, but for now I believe the hermit/online shopping scheme might be the better way to go.

The Invisible Mama

How is it that the small boy (SB) and the dog (just dog) both have figured out how to totally tune me out and ignore me?  Did my dog train the SB, or am I so annoying that they’ve both conspired to go selectively deaf together?  Have my cries of, “put that down/get that out of your mouth/don’t lick your shoes (really)/SLOOOOWWWW DOWNNNNN” really gotten that boring and repetitive?  
I’ve also tried the whispering/silent approach, which only garnered SB more freedom because then it was even easier to go selectively deaf.  Plus I felt like the Jewish mother version of Dirty Harry.  “Go ahead – make my day – lick that shopping cart.  Are you feeling lucky, punk?”
I actually read in a book that growling gets your kid’s attention.  Sure, so does setting yourself on fire or blowing up the house, but it’s easy to see why that approach isn’t taken too often.  Growling?  Can you imagine being in line at the store and hearing some frazzled mom growling at her kids?  You’d think you ended up in one of those “People of Walmart” emails that floats around.   And then you’d duck and cover until the authorities hauled her away.
I wonder how much I could get a Bullhorn for?  That could make quite an impact at the library when SB’s tearing through the racks and in high ignoring mode (HIM).  But on the bright side, I’m getting pretty good at the wind sprints through the children’s section…

Fears I Don’t Want To Pass Along to SB

    
Genetics aside, and sorry kiddo, this is what you get – I hope I don’t pass along any of my fears/neurosis/irrational hang-ups to SB (small boy).  A sampling of things that scare me include:  slugs, earthquakes, flying, Joan Rivers (and her daughter), grasshoppers, flying,  the Tea Party, pit bulls, reality TV about bored housewives/single people in New Jersey, flying, and very bad fake tans. 

Being a mom to a SB, I’ve had to really put the brakes on my reactions to the grossness factor.  Yesterday he picked his nose, held out his finger and said, “mama, you eat it?”  I call this “When the Sharing Lecture Fails”.  We pick up worms on our walks, which is a minor shudder, but when he saw a slug the other day I had to really go in to full blow lying mama mode (or FBLMM), and tell him slugs have sharp teeth and bite, and luckily this one was sleeping.  He can figure out the truth from the BS when he gets older, I guess.

Flying’s another one.  I’m a paranoid/crazy/much rather take a train but they don’t go to Hawaii white knuckler, to say the least.  I hate everything about the process, especially after 9/11.  The second we park at the airport I tend to become crabby and fearful, and now rather than making everyone with me miserable and homicidal, I have to act brave and cheery in front of SB.  It stinks, this being a grown-up thing.

No more glaring at the TSA employee who’s lecturing me about the tiny little thing of hairspray in my purse (because I’m going to style someone to death?), and no more exaggerated eye rolling when I have to take off my flip flops to prove that I’m not concealing a rocket launcher.  Once we actually manage to get our stroller checked at the gate, beg to be seated together, get on the plane, fight over who gets the window seat (not me), hold up the line putting our stuff in the absurdly miniscule overhead compartment while backing up the line like a log jam,  I then have to pretend that flying’s fun and interesting.  In other words, act like a normal, well adjusted person.  Right.

I can’t subtly check the pilot as we walk by the cockpit to make sure he’s sober/didn’t just put his dog to sleep/ is recently divorced and clinically depressed and fantasizing about pointing the plane into a cornfield and ending it all.  I have to actually listento the flight attendant tell me to put my mask on first.  Honey, if it gets to that point, I’ll already have died of fright, and what good is a mask going to do when we hit the cornfield anyway?

So I pretend flying’s fun.  So far SB hasn’t picked up on my phony smile and scary Disney Teen Perky voice, but I think he’s going to catch on soon.  In the meantime, maybe Amtrack’s building a bridge over the Pacific.  You never know.

Things I’ve Said?!?!?

After seven years in the shopping center biz working with the general public, I thought I’d seen and said it all.  Not even close.  Here’s a condensed list of things I’ve actually said since I’ve become a mom:
Don’t pick your/my/the dog’s nose.
Stop licking the window/shopping cart/railing/plants/sidewalk/that kid.
No, mama doesn’t have a weenie.
Stop painting/pretending to eat/licking the dog.
Don’t put that bead/blueberry/raisin/rolly bug in your nose/ear/mouth.
Don’t draw on the wall/window/dog/car/table/phone/stairs/me.
I don’t think the birds outside want your spaghetti/chicken/banana/chocolate brownie.
No, the dog can’t change your diaper with her paws.
Yes sweetie, I’ve put a sign on the door that says, “No Monsters Allowed”
No, we can’t have a pet rolly bug/worm/bee/moth/cow/gorilla in the house.
Please don’t put your train/panda/helicopter/face in the toilet.
More to come, but for now I’d like to just print out this list and hand it to him for reference.  I guess I’ll have to wait until he can actually read, but by then this list will most likely be 100 pages long…

Being Overprotective. Or Not.

So is it bad that I have SB convinced that if he ever rides on a motorcycle all his hair will blow off?
Being raised by a professional Jewish mother, I tend to lean towards the overprotective side and this really bugs me sometimes.  I’m sure it bugs SB a lot of the time.  I’ve resisted the urge to make him wear a bike helmet 24/7, and so far I haven’t wrapped him in bubble wrap, but it’s a fine line I walk…
As a kid, I always hated having the earliest curfew and having my mom hover at the pool every time my friends and I went swimming, well into my teens.  My grandma, with her charming Viennese accent, always said, “you’ve got to vatch”.  Doors were locked all the time and every terrible news story was discussed at length with a dire warning to us to be careful.  It’s a miracle we survived without cell phones, helmets, knee pads and GPS. 
So now I hear myself telling SB to be careful, stop putting stuff in his mouth, and the hardest – don’t pet dogs you don’t know.  I was bitten three times as a kid, despite my mom’s hovering, so I suppose there’s lessons we just learn on our own.  But not on my watch.  No way, Jose.
So how do you draw the line and not be too overprotective?  What if he grows up to be one of those freaky testosterone laden Outside Magazine kind of guys?  “Sure son, go ahead and juggle those flaming chainsaws while you’re tightrope walking across Niagra Falls.  Big wave surfing?  Why the heck not?  You want to hike across Afghanistan?  Go for it!”  See what I mean?  Boys like to do stuff like that.

I guess for now I’ll work on keeping Mr. Potato Heads eyes out of SB’s nose and try to stop him from eating rolly bugs.  Baby steps.  But I’m not going to give up on the motorcycle/baldness lie, at least not until he calls me on it…

Please Where Are Your Balls?

Last week I took SB (small boy) to the Pediatrician for his 2.5 year check up.  Now I need to preface this by saying that his doctor is a God among men, he juggles, plays with SB, he surfs, recommends sushi bars – oh, and he’s incredibly kind and competent.  All kinds of good stuff that you want in a doctor. 

So on the way to his office, SB was all excited about the juggling balls, and I, being a good if rather naggy mom, reminded him to say please if he wanted the doctor to juggle.  We finally got there, and when the God of all Pediatricians walked in, SB blurted out, “please where are your balls?”  I realized then and there that first of all, the ground NEVER swallows you up when you want it to, and that I was doomed to a lifetime of embarrassing little moments like this one. 

Another gem he likes to pull is when we get in elevators – he tells people to get out, or says, “I no like that man/lady/whatever”.  Then, depending on the person’s child tolerance level (or CTL), we either share a hearty chuckle, or ride in stony silence with SB glaring at the person the entire ride.  My theory is that people who have kids are a bit more tolerant since they’ve lived through these hellish memorable moments.

Which brings us to the delightful woman at Costco we encountered a few weeks ago.  As most parents know, you have to pick your battles and there’s nothing SB hates more than riding in a shopping cart (unless it has one of those damned cars attached to the front, then I’m stuck schlepping a motor home around the store).  So for fun at Costco, we run into the freezing produce section (on a side note, why is it kept at Arctic tundra temps?) and he screams and laughs, I grab the raspberries and we make a quick getaway.  Anything for a thrill.  So we did our usual shenanigans, and when SB screamed, a rather evil, witchy looking older woman said, (and I swear this is true) “what an argument for birth control!” 

I give myself bonus points for not murdering her and hiding her behind the produce (it’s cold enough to hide a body for a while, I’d guess). I did lay into her with a rather scathing retort (without using bad words, of course), and then followed her around the store when SB started melting down and screaming about being in the cart.

Parenthood has so many moments for enlightenment and growth.  I try to avoid them at all costs.

Day One

So it appears I’m starting a blog today. 

Lately it seems like my life is being orchestrated by a small person who’s incapable of putting on his pants and who firmly believes that shoving blueberries up his nose while being chased by a panicked woman is a fun time.  Thank God two year old boys can’t run for office – the world would be full of irrational dictators who think that a perfect day involves painting the dog green.  The bossiness (is that even a word?) is off the charts.  The other day small boy (going forward he’ll be referred to as “SB”) sat down on the couch and said, “Mama, bring me my dinner.”  It’s a good thing he doesn’t know how to snap his fingers or I’d be in big trouble.  I have alarming visions of SB 30 years from now, in a wife beater, yelling for his woman to bring him a Coors Light and a corn dog.  All because of me.

In the background, while I’m typing this, I keep hearing, “Mama, MAMA!!! Is Doc Hudson here today?”  I’ve now learned the hard way to NEVER tell a two year old that something’s coming in the mail – especially something coming from China via E-Bay.  Every day for the past week there’s been a discussion about how the mail works and every day for the past week he’s chosen to ignore me repeatedly and ask again if Doc Hudson’s here.  Like if he keeps saying the same thing over and over, it I’ll finally get it through my thick skull that he should be HERE. NOW.