Category Archives for Uncategorized

Bedtime – Screwed Again

BB (Big Boy)’s putting SB to bed upstairs and I’m screwed again.  The only way to get past his room undetected is to either burrow under the carpet like a gopher and try to sneak by, or to crawl on my belly, Navy Seal-like, past his door and hope he doesn’t see me.  If I am spotted, it adds at least 15 minutes to the bedtime extravaganza.  Pray for me.  I’m going in.

Home Alone – Or the Lost Art of Doing Nothing…

SB (small boy) “blasted off” (his words, not mine) on a plane to Sacramento with his papa yesterday.  After they left, I realized that this is the first time I’ve been home for a few days by myself in SIX YEARS.

 Six years.  Wowee.  So what am I doing?  Half of me wants to do the “Risky Business Underwear Dance” and celebrate, and the other half is kind of stunned by all the silence. Last night I literally bounced around for about two hours doing laundry, tidying up, feeding pets, etc., and after all that figured it was probably time to go to bed. It was 7:45.  Not good.  So did I do something productive, like exercise?  No.  I snacked and watched three hours of TV.  Uh oh…

In order to maintain some semblance of order and avoid turning into a 400 pound slug in the next two days, I came up with a “to do” list:

Get pedicure

Bank

Shop for jeans

Buy dog food

Do nothing

Garden

I swear to God that’s what I wrote.  I actually have “do nothing” on my list.  Am I going to forget?  Can I cross it off on Sunday night?  How much nothing should I do before I can check it off?  Apparently I’m going to need an agenda for all the nothing that I’m planning on doing.  And if I plan on doing nothing, is it really nothing or is it something? 

Maybe I’ll just stop doing nothing and take a nap instead.

Did I Really Say This??

Two things I actually said today:

“Do NOT pick your nose with Sheriff Woody’s fingers!”

“Stay away from that chainsaw!” (in our defense, it wasn’t laying around in our living room, we were on a hike and they were clearing dead trees from the trail).

Perfectly Imperfect Parenting

Last night I had dinner with one of the funniest women I know – we were cracking up before we even started drinking our Margaritas.  It was one of those dinners where the belly laughs were so huge that I was sneaking glances around the restaurant to see if any paramedics happened to be eating there, in case we both needed the Heimlich maneuver.

When were done talking about our husbands, jobs and all those riveting subjects, oddly enough the talk turned to our kids.  We began laughing, ok – howling, about how hard we tried to do everything right when they were really little, and how far we’ve fallen from grace after a few years of reality.

I confessed in a previous post that I had sunk so low that I lied to our Pediatrician about how much TV SB (Small Boy) watched.  Dr. Perfect, AKA Dr. What World Do You Actually Live In? told me, with a straight face, that SB shouldn’t watch more than ½ hour of TV per day.  Hello?  Have you been to our house?  In the beginning I tried so hard to stick to that ½ hour goal, and then I realized that no one had eaten in a week, the house looked like the slums of Calcutta, the pets were starving, and we reeked because the laundry hadn’t been touched.

In order to not wind up behind bars for child abuse and animal cruelty, I relented to one hour a day.  The pets started to plump up and every now and then we’d actually be able to eat real food, rather than suck on frozen dinners for nourishment.   And now, one year later, SB can watch shows in the morning and evening.  Balance has been restored and we can actually go out in public without being shunned.

There are so many unrealistic expectations out there for parents – diet, how to discipline, teaching nice manners, etc.  I’ve slowly come to realize that we have to cut ourselves some slack.  This parenting stuff is hard – it’s not like our kids were squeezed out after 382 hours of labor clutching little owner’s manuals.  I’ve also discovered that trying to do everything right is boring.  I certainly don’t want to listen to a perfectly fit, self-righteous mom drone on about her kid’s balanced meals, good TV habits, and perfect manners while I’m surreptitiously wiping wine stains out of SB’s filthy  clothes and digging frantically for the remote…do you?

The Age of Contrasts. Big Ones.

First off, I have to say that having a full time job is really cutting into my writing time.  I’ve also discovered that the big problem with writing is you actually have to sit down and do it.  It’s really not one of those things you can fake, because I’d look pretty stupid posting blank pages on my blog site, and I’m guessing most people might catch on if I tried that.  With that being said, here are today’s musings, which is proof that I did manage to get my butt in the chair today… and for the four or five of you who actually read this, the long wait (or respite) is over…

So aside from the horror of having a three-year-old dictator-tot running the show most of the time, it’s also looking like this might just be a pretty sickeningly cute age.  There’s lots of hugging and snuggling, and lately he’s taken to singing, which just curls my toes and makes me want to die of a sugar/sweetness overdose.  It’s a time of great contrasts – our house is either like a Disney movie with birds landing on SB and everyone bursting into song, or it’s the set of The Shining with someone creeping around corners saying, “Redrum” with an evil laugh. 

I’m finding that bribery – oops, I mean rewards/incentives – work fairly well with SB now that’s he’s a big boy kid (his phrase, not mine).  I’m not saying that he’s a sucker, but I’m feeling fairly smug about how easily he falls for my schemes.  Usually.  Call it what you want, but if a $1.00 Hot Wheel does the trick of keeping him in bed, or peeing in the bathroom, whatever – I’m in. 

Lastly – the singing is off the charts.  For some strange reason, he really likes the Beatles’ “Octopus Garden”, and to hear him sing along and mangle the words makes me want to die of cute.  And not to be too obnoxious, but he’s clearly a musical prodigy.  It’s just a matter of time before he buys me a private island with his royalties.  As long as no one’s creeping around saying, “Redrum”, I’ll take it. 

So what do you all think?  Did the terrible-awful-embarrassing twos turn into the usually very cute – except when it’s not – threes?

 

 

No Words…

I have no words, nothing funny or insightful to say, except the obvious.  Hold your loved ones extra tight, let love guide your actions, and do something, anything – to work towards gun reform so that these kids and brave grown-ups have not died for nothing.  Pray for healing, pray for anything, but also pray for action in Washington.