{Originally published on Mayberry Mom}

Yesterday afternoon my kids really wanted to go to the pool. Since I was already feeling peevish and whiny I refused. We actually have a really nice community pool here. It has an enormous shallow end with lots of fountains and sprayers and other fun stuff; it has two water slides, a huge grassy area, a big sand play area, a snack bar, and halfway decent locker rooms. It’s a five-minute walk from our house. Of course, the kids love it (anyway I think that’s a Little Kid Law, to love any and all swimming pools).

But yesterday I just wasn’t up for changing the clothes and slathering the sunscreen and packing the stuff and blah blah. And I especially wasn’t up for the post-pool herding of two children into the showers and back home (where I’d immediately have to move right into Dinner-Books-Bed mode).

So I brought out all my home-based water ammo: Let’s play with the volcano sprinkler! How about you guys can spray each other with hoses! I’ll blow up the little pool! They grudgingly agreed to the little pool. Which I then spent TWO HOURS trying to inflate with a bicycle pump. (Two hours, because I had to keep stopping to a] prevent myself from keeling over and b] check what mischief Opie was up to wandering around the house/yard by himself. Apparently, according to my husband we do have some kind of electric pump but all I could find was its tormentingly empty box.)

Of course the kids lost interest way before the pool was ever inflated. And my arms fell off and now I really don’t look good in a bathing suit even if you do overlook my stretchmarks and smushy belly.

And so the moral of the story is I should have just taken them to the pool that didn’t require inflating, mommy suit and all. Especially after last weekend’s visit to The Waterpark Capital of the WORLD (where people wander all over wearing next to nothing and believe me, some of them need just a little more something), I have come to terms with my tankinis and swim skirts. When I go to the pool, I accessorize my post-kid body with a couple of cute kids and that means a lot.

{Originally published on The Little Jobber and titled, I Don’t Mean to Scare You.

If you have recently welcomed a boy into your family, or you are pregnant with a boy, or you have any interest in making a boy a part of your family sometime in the future, you might want to skip over my posts for the next few . . . years.

In fact, you may want to stop reading this blog. Just close your browser completely and never come back here. Forget the url. Lose my email address. Pretend you never met me. Dodge me when we happen to be shopping at Hannaford at the same time.

I will be sorry to see you go, but I will understand. I don’t want to scare you with my reports of the destruction and grossity grossness of boyhood. Well, toddler boyhood. Conal’s toddler boyhood, anyway. I don’t want you to think that boys are hard to handle and that they do crazy, scary things. I don’t want to give you the wrong impression of life with a boy.

Not all boys relish in the hard-core boyness of boydom. So, don’t worry! You know how on those diet ads they’ll say something like, “Results not typical” when the spokesperson has lost like a hundred pounds? Well, that might be similar to what’s going on here. You know, maybe my tagline should be, “Destructive and gross actions not typical.”

Unless they are . . .

But they might not be! I mean, I’m sure that not all boys think it is hilarious when their moms suction the mucus out of their noses and, at the end, they do a super-quick head turn so the string of mucus slaps across their faces, nose to ear. Sure, some boys think that is funny. Some boys think that when the nose suctioner thingy comes out, it is time for fun! But, not all boys do. Of course, I don’t know these boys. I only know the boy who thinks mucus suctioning is a great big joke fest.

Similarly, not all boys like to get dirty. They don’t all like to lick their dirty hands and then rub those spitty, dirty hands on their faces. No! They don’t all like to do that! It’s not fun for all boys!

But, again, I don’t know those boys.

{Originally posted at Missives From Suburbia}

The Ambassador is a notoriously picky eater. More so than the average two-year-old from what I gather by comparing notes with my mom friends. I’m sure it’s a stage. Well, I hope it’s a stage, and he hasn’t inherited my father’s abysmal taste in food (everything dry, please, and burn if it you have the time, thanks). I suppose we’ll find out in about 20 years or so.

But really, it’s bad. The Ambassador won’t even touch the usual kid foods. No chicken fingers, no hot dogs, no pizza, no spaghetti, and let’s not discuss condiments of any kind. We’ve resorted to things like boxed mac & cheese, Hamburger Helper — which I’d never even tasted before a couple months ago — and our current fallback, Taco Bell’s Beef Combo Burritos.*

Truth be told, Hubby does end up taking the kid out to lunch more than I do, but that’s because I’m too lazy to leave the house most days, not because Hubby is any less concerned about The Ambassador’s nutritional well-being. Anyway, knowing how often they dine out together, it didn’t surprise me the other day when we swung by the Taco Bell in midtown Minneapolis (aka, the Taco Bell voted most likely to be held up at gunpoint), and Hubby said, “Hey! That’s the pimp and the hooker I told you about last time we were here!” Uhhh… refresh me on that one, honey?

{Originally published on T with Honey and titled A Moment Almost Missed}

The little curly haired girl crawled out of her mother’s lap and headed over to the box of toys. It was time to pick out a special friend to take to bed to be cuddled through the night. After careful consideration she picks up Baby Bop.

As per her usual habit she lays the toy on its tummy, finds a little blanket and begins to tuck Baby Bop into bed. The blanket doesn’t go down right the first time so she lifts it up to try again. As she does the little girl notices that Baby Bop has a friend. In the pocket on the front of Baby Bop’s outfit is a little stuffed piggy.
The little girl picks up her toy and asks “What this?” Her mommy repies, “It’s Baby Bop’s toy.”

“Oh, what this called?” she said pointing to the pink toy. “It’s a piggy”
The little girl is curious about the piggy. She wants to pull it out, look at it and ask more questions. Her mommy just wants her to crawl in bed and go to sleep. It’s getting late.

The toddler’s inquisitiveness takes a stronger hold. She points at the little animal and asks for the fourth time, “What this called?”
The mommy flatly states, “It’s a piggy.” Then with more than a little exasperation in her voice she says, “Princess, it is time for bed. You need to stop this. Lay down and go to sleep.”

The little girl’s arms sag and she glances at her mommy’s face. Her mother’s eyes meet hers for just a fraction of a second but the girl’s frustration and sadness comes across in that look and stab into her mommy’s soul.

(click title for more)

Originally posted on Okay, Fine, Dammit

The minute Emma was born, I knew something was wrong. I’d swallowed a horse, fought its hellish bucking to the death, turned myself inside out, until I won. Until she slid breathlessly — literally — into the world. I listened for her bourning cry but it did not come, because she was not breathing.

I lie there, split apart at the seams and bleeding out, and watched
the scene as if from above. I bore witness while the midwives pumped
oxygen into someone else’s baby for eleven minutes before they called
9-1-1, before two ambulances delivered both of us to a nearby hospital.
It was all for naught anyway — by the time we got there, she was
breathing on her own as if nothing had ever happened.

When we left the hospital for home, Emma was perfect in every way
but one: she would not nurse. She could not suck. I knew the
powers-that-be wanted to remedy the situation with a feeding tube, to
rapidly ameliorate the problem and neatly close out our file, but she
was our second child and so I had faith in my body, and in my baby.
Somehow I held patience as she lost weight.

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Originally posted on Nitro Vista

I got yer “bathroom language” RIGHT HERE….

I’m surprised it took this long. I almost made it to the end of the year.

Alas, I’m finally enraged at Isaac’s school, and in full, hit-the-mattresses belligerent dad mode.

Isaac is an intensely smart, hyper-sensitive 6-year old. While he has no qualms about speaking his mind, he is generally socially gracious and appropriate. Ours is an open and honest relationship. If he does something wrong, he comes clean. He has neither the inclination, nor really even the capacity, to tell lies at this point in his life.

His teacher loves him, and has had nothing but effusive praise for his intelligence and social skills.

Now I’m not so blinded with love for my firstborn that I cannot admit that he can be a wildass screaming hellion on wheels at times. But he is by no means a disciplinary problem. It is usually quite simple to correct his behaviour with a positive suggestion. He gets this.

So imagine my surprise yesterday when he came home with an unsigned
form letter in his backpack, informing us in the haughtiest possible
tone that he was being disciplined for using “bathroom language” in the
lunchroom; and would we please discuss this with him, provide a list of
5 “appropriate topics” for lunchroom conversation, and sign and return
the form.

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