| How many times can you tell a 2 year old? |
So today my thoughts are random things that I wonder how many times it takes before it locks into a 2 year old's mind and is it just me or is he messing with me?
- How many times can you tell a 2 year old that if you throw the plastic Easter Eggs against the wall or other hard objects, they're going to break open and Mommy can't drop everything at 2 minute intervals to pop them back together.
- How many times do you have to tell a 2 year old that a PB&J is the same if it's open faced or if it's with 2 slices like a regular sandwich, and that just because you can't see all the PB&J doesn't mean it's "icky".
- Telling Mommy to "quit being bossy" isn't nice, especially if she's just standing there washing dishes or folding towels. In the same turn, it doesn't mean that she's a huge meanie when she tells you to quite being bossy and you get offended and cry like she's horse whipped you.
- Sidewalk chalk is not for the screen door, tile in the entry way, kitchen floor, kitchen cabinets, or clothes. It does wash off, but we don't have time to clean like that.
- We don't put water outside the bathtub. PERIOD!
- Please don't put toys in your daddy's boots. He doesn't check them before he sticks his feet into them at 6 a.m. to leave for work. Trains and Wonder Pets can be scary at 6 a.m. in the morning.
- Even if you use profanity correctly, it doesn't mean it's not a bad word. I'm sorry Cars went off, but we don't need to say "Oh damn it" to express our anger.
- If Daddy is doing something Mommy told you not to do, don't get hostile in correcting him. Daddy doesn't like being hit in the pee pee in the middle of Walmart because you were told not to touch the trash cans and he had to throw away something.
- Cameras don't bounce.
- Just because you say cheese 10 times doesn't mean the camera will take a picture either.
- Band aids are really cool, but we don't need one everytime you get a bruise or pinch your finger or smack yourself with a toy. I say this only after I witnessed you smacking yourself with a toy and pinching your own arm to get said band-aid.
- The world will not end if you can't wear your light up Thomas and Friends sneakers for one trip down the street to the post office.
- Mommy would appreciate it if you could try to eat something other than chicken nuggets, chicken fingers, chicken fries, chicken strips, PB&J's, fruits, pickles, fruit snacks, string cheese, pizza, waffles, french toast, pancakes. There are other food groups. While I appreciate that atleast they're healthy foods and that you think that granola bars are candy bars, I wish you'd broaden your horizons a bit.
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| MOMMY NEEDS PRIVACY!!! |
When you have a toddler or even an infant and things get too messy, sticky, poopy, colored on, etc. in life, the one constant is that you can always throw them in the tub and hose them down. Anyone else in your life that was filthy and you rushed them with such fever up the stairs and into the bathroom to be stripped down and scrubbed thoroughly would be appalled and put up lots of protest, but a small child is happy so long as the bubbles keep coming, a few rubber duckies are floating around them, a little colored or scented soap, and the triumph that they did something to make Mommy make a funny noise or expression and it's all fine!
When Kyan was a newborn, almost every bath I took between the hours of 5 a.m. and 8 p.m. included him. With a reflux child, you're always waiting for something to happen when you're not holding them or within 2 inches of them and a burp cloth. Kyan was no different. Many a days I'd hop into the shower, baby and all, while I tried to get some type of cleaning of myself (or usually he spit up so bad that it soaked both of us and we both needed to get the smell and the grossness off of us) done while he was near orgasmic proportions with the shower head massaging his little scalp, or the fact that he could eat while the whole process was going on.
I've also brought him in, even recently, because Mommy needed to wash her hair and he couldn't be trusted to be left alone while I did this, or because he refused to take a nap and I thought we'd kill two birds with one stone by having a relaxing bath while I got to get the sleep skank off my body. Dh on the other had is not that big on nudity around a child. Even at 1 week old, he wouldn't be naked around the baby. I think the fact that having a breast baby who will turn on anything shirtless with nipples (grandpa included!) just solidified his stance. Bathing with Kyan the few times he did it included hawaiian swim trunks and near panic attacks that Kyan was going to poop in the tub or that he was peeing and you didn't know it. I guess that's the difference between Daddies and Mommies.
Top 10 Things Mommies Don't Mind and Daddies Can't Discuss!
1. Talking about their war stories, including that episiotomy, hemmoroids, postnatal bleeding, bm during labor, leaking through your nursing pad and shirt, etc.
2. Emptying a potty, especially their first poopy in the potty!
3. Buying a potty and how big of a deal it is to find the right one for your child. Which is better for boys, which is cleaner, less messy, to the point that your internet browser history log shows nothing but potty reviews.
4. Expressing Breastmilk in any way shape or form. For someone who would look at a boob any chance they had, the first few weeks of breastfeeding is more about "what the hell is - how is that-what's this for and why do you need it- oh nevermind!" and then later it's nothing to just see a boob flopped out.
5. Other people breastfeeding. The first time my dh saw someone else adjusting herself to nurse her baby under her shirt with only a bit of belly showing, he was mortified! Cracking a mathematical theorum wouldn't have been so tough as wrapping his mind around the fact that other people breastfeed.
6. Changing that first bm diaper of an infant without gagging.
7. The first time your child gets the flu or other tummy viruses and vomits in front of you. Kyan was in bed with us that morning. Woke up, and threw up right in between us. To this day I still don't understand that he picked cleaning up the sheets rather than cleaning up the child. I guess he was shell shocked.
8. Watching the baby being born. Dh said he couldn't watch after Kyan's face was coming out from forehead down. He was afraid his eyes would be open. He didn't want to be looking and locking eyes with something coming out of me at the same time.
9. The first time they have to be alone with a toddler who is potty training. I went to get my hair trimmed and told him before leaving the house that I couldn't go unless I knew that he would stick to the routine and Kyan could potty while I was gone and he wouldn't just slap a pull up or diaper on him to not deal with it. He walked upstairs for a second, and came back down to find that Kyan was holding the pot part of the potty and waiting for him to empty it, let him flush, and get his M&M or Skittle reward.
10. Baby Fever! Let's do it all again!!!
So, having said all of this. I really have started thinking about the fact that I am the minority in a house full of men. I can raise Kyan all I want to not be messy in the bathroom, gross and disgusting, but he's still a boy and boys still want to be like their Daddies and Papaws and Poppys, and they still want to fit in with their friends, and nothing is going to change that DNA that says bugs are cool, frogs need to be let into the house to get lost and not found for weeks, and bodily functions are funny.
It wasn't though until the other day when Kyan was napping, I had just sat down in the tub and was beginning to lather my legs, when dh opens the bathroom door and alerts me that Kyan is awake. I almost wanted to throw the loofa at him! Was he not able to see that I was in the bathtub or that my announcement that I was going to take a bath when Kyan napped wasn't clear enough? Could he himself not go and get his son and either try to put him back down for the nap or play with him while I finished? The snide remarks of my unshaved legs were not important now that he had to deal with a 2 1/2 year old on his own for another 10-15 minutes? But what bothered me the most was that he didn't even knock!!! Where is my privacy?! Is it enough than Mon-Fri I don't even get the luxary of peeing in privacy most of the time from 5-5 but could I on Saturday get a little time to do some grooming in the privacy of my own bathroom?! Is this going to get worse as time goes on? And the fact that I was nude wasn't even an issue! I was doing something for myself!
So now in our house there is a rule. I kind of modeled it after the speech Nicholson gave to Kinnear in As Good As It Gets about not to knock on his door. (Love that part!) Unless there is a scream for help, a thud so loud that it can only be my body dropping to the floor and then no response when called out to, smoke or water pouring from beneath the door, or any other distress signs or lack of response, do not for any reason come into the bathroom when that door is shut and I am inside. If for any reason you think you need to talk to me or anyone else does then a knock should be done followed by talking through the door unless asked to come in. Simple rules for anybody, right?! This is a Saturday and Sunday rule only, not much to ask for in the scheme of things. So from now on in our house, take care of it yourself or think "Is this something that can wait or that really needs to be addressed at this moment?" and proceed accordingly. Mommy needs her privacy too! |
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| The best test I've ever passed! |
You grow up and there are certain tests that there is a fair amount of pressure for you to pass. I always thought the most embarassing one to fail was the Spelling Bee you had amongst your classmates in Elementary school. You're standing up there with all 27 people in your 2nd grade class and you know you suck at spelling aloud but you have to do it anyways and it sucks. I think in my class the same 4 people always made it to the end each time anyways. Now having taught for a few years I realize that it has nothing to do with being smarter or more/less educated that someone, it's about what works for the kid. Some people are totally brilliant conversationalists, read tons of books, absorb knowledge like a sponge, but can't take a test to save their lives!(especially if it's True False.) I think in 2nd grade the biggest thing for me was that we had a Sub the day that we took our Spelling Bee and my word was "grade". I got all the way to d without messing up and she said incorrect right before I said e. I will live with that internal embarassment and angst for the rest of my life. It's probably trivial to some, but to me it lives on. It's a reminder to always make sure I get my fair say and to complete something to the best of my ability on my own terms without regret.
So here I sit, almost 20 years later, and I'm recalling all the tests that were important to me that I have done well on. The ACT's, a school art show where I got a little honorable mention, a history award I won in 8th grade, taking the Golden Horseshoe Test, and eventhough I didn't get a perfect score or win first place or anything on most of them it was just the fact that I was able or picked to do it that mattered the most.
Right now my biggest challenge is trying to get a positive on my ovulation test strips. Even with the positive pregnancy test I got during my first pregnancy in 2005, I have felt more happiness seeing the lines on these ovulation tests in the past week! Now, for someone who has never dealt with the ups and downs of trying to concieve, you probably think how stupid is that but to someone who knows what it's like to go a year without getting pregnant or longer or having fertility issues, you get what I'm saying. It's horrible. The let down, the seeing lines that aren't there, or wondering what's wrong with you, are you defective, will it ever happen, should you make peace that one child or no child is what you have been given so divert your bliss towards them or towards another goal in helping children or adopting or fostering or whatever. It's insane the amount of pressure you put on yourself, second guessing, wishful thinking, and how almost insignificant the reward is (come on, positive ovulation doesn't mean you'll get pregnant that month necessarily!). It almost feels like everything up to this point in your life has been a sham. Why did I bust my ass in college on that Lit final when really it wasn't that big a deal? Why did I worry about getting into college in the first place? Why didn't I put more emphasis on my first pregnancy? Why did I worry about getting knocked up all that time when it's been so hard trying this time? Was my first conception really a miraculous event and I didn't know it? It really puts things into perspective.
To update:
SNM has been to the OBGYN and the following tests, conclusions, results and treatments were discussed and started.
Internal ultrasound was performed and came back fine. Bloodwork was unnecessary at this stage (whoohoo!) but the theory is that unlike most normal women she only ovulates 6-8 times max a year instead of the normal 12.
Provera was prescribed and will be started in a few weeks if not pregnant by then. If it doesn't result in pregnancy in 3 months then the pill form of Clomid will come next, followed by injections, followed by more $$ tests/treatments all within the next 6 months. Ovulation test strips are now a daily part of my life for the foreseeable future. |
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Alias: SNM
Hometown: Farmington, WV, United States
About Me: SMN is currently a S@HM who resides in the Senior Citizen capital of the world. Amongst her many talents are writing, tiptoeing through the mind field that is her living room, saving run away strollers, lacing any comment with sarcasm, and changing a diaper in 10 seconds flat. Her greatest achievements are birthing Thing One and Thing Two. Ongoing projects include diving into the world of blogging, weaning an aggressive breast feeder, parenting and all it's challenges, and being a wife she can live with (as well as her husband).
See my profile...
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