We had a nice weekend – went away to the mountains with our neighbors, but it of course generated the next chaotic saga in my life. Our neighbors, Mike and Sheley, moved in across the street from us last year and they have a little boy, Colin, who is just a couple of months younger than Joey. In true “Three Martini Play Date” fashion, we initially had a few play dates with our kids to see how well we all meshed – fortunately, they were our kind of parents and we have made a habit of mixing play dates and happy hours several times a week – it wears the kids out and we have someone to drink a beer with. A few weeks ago they asked us if we wanted to go to Mike’s brother’s cabin in the mountains with them over Memorial Day weekend – we accepted and so proceeded our first out of town “date” with our new couple/kiddie friends. So, as I’m sure most of you can relate to, you want to leave a good impression on these sorts of trips – it’s one thing to do hang out and drink beer a few nights a week and it’s another to spend three days together in a cabin in the woods with two 2 year olds and an infant. For married couples with children, these are the equivalent of your first out of town weekend with a new boyfriend. So, we pack up and head for the mountains on Friday – the cabin outside of the Asheville/Boone area so the scenery is really great. For the most part, our trip went very well – when we got there a large cooler of beer was unloaded (our kind of people!) and I think everyone had a good time, but of course there were a few minor incidents that I felt merited an email.
To provide some background, Colin is doing very well with his potty training – he only had to use two pull-ups all weekend. On the other hand, slacker parents that we are, we basically gave up on trying to potty train Joey when Abby was born –declaring that we needed to give him some “adjustment time” – 7 months later, we apparently haven’t adjusted yet. So, Joey is watching Colin use the potty all weekend and I think the pressure of it all must have gotten to him because he failed to use the potty for #2 for 3 days (last fun diaper change for that was Thursday night). On Sunday, we decided to drive to Blowing Rock and walk around the town, go to the park, have lunch, etc. After lunch we all wandered down the street to have some ice cream. First, Joey declares he wants peppermint ice cream and that all goes well until Colin gets “superman” ice cream – then we listen to Joey declare/whine incessantly that he wants that kind for 20 minutes. Finally, just as we think we are ready to head out, Joey squats down on the main street of Blowing Rock, full of tourists, and announces that he has to poo. So, Joe says he will stay with him and I walk back to van to get “set up” for what we know will be a project. Of course, the van we brought was Mike and Sheley’s – we had moved the car seats so we could all ride together. Now we’re back at the van and we see Joe and Joey walking towards us. Joey comes up and announces “I’m wet” and proceeds to turn around and show us all his pants which have a wet/brownish tinge to them all the way down his leg. To save our neighbors from the true horror of it all, Joe and I take Joey and the diaper bag (which fortunately had a change of clothes in it) and head to this grassy area off to the side of the little school we are parked next to and begin the operation. I won’t go into detail here, but it wasn’t pretty. Nothing like changing your child’s blowout diaper disaster in a public park area while your neighbors wait and laugh at you. We ended up packing up his clothes in a baggy and throwing them in the back for the drive home. Joey also ended up with a bunch of bug bites on his butt from being changed in the grass. J When we get back to the cabin, Mike and Joe take the boys to the park nearby to run around and I start a load of laundry – as I’m doing that I walk by Abby and wonder if I should check her before starting the washer. No, I think naively, she rarely ever has a blow out, and I start the washer. Silly me, I should have known… she’d had apples and plums for lunch and was in her favorite “business” spot – the exersaucer. No sooner do I start the wash and pick her up when I notice her pants are wet. A quick investigation leads to the discovery that she has decided to learn from big brother and also have a blowout. I try to discreetly take her to the changer, but when I get things opened up I realize I am looking at a major OSHA incident. Also, Abby has hit a little stage where as soon as you take her diaper off, her little hands go IMMEDIATLEY to the va jay jay and start pulling – very ladylike. This is NOT good when there has been a blowout – just then Sheley walks by and sees my predicament. Fortunately, she takes it all in stride and helps me hold Abby and her hands down while the clean-up takes place. I don’t think they were horribly offended by the sheer amount of excrement that my children produced in the span of about an hour, but it’s not exactly the scenario you want on your first trip with the neighbors. If it were the boyfriend out of town weekend, you know the phone would never ring again – but thank goodness most parents have experienced this at one point or another.
A few other “Joeyisms” from the weekend though…
* After Sheley served him a biscuit with homemade jelly for breakfast – “This isn’t working for me”.
* We constantly had to drag him from the bathroom every time Colin was in it – he felt he should watch at all times.
* To Colin during dinner when he was playing with some lights near the window “Colin, stop playing with the electricity” (We had to remind him that Colin already had a mother several times).
* Joey and Colin to the adults. “We need to go get some more beer”.
And finally, Joey did learn something from Colin this weekend – how to pee in the woods – a big thrill all around. Of course, when we get home, Joe and I are unloading the car and Joe walks around the front of the house to find Joey watering down the mulch in our front lawn for all the neighbors to see. I’m sure that will be a big hit with the homeowner’s association – I can’t wait for my notice asking me to please refrain from letting my children urinate in the lawn.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Friday, May 23, 2008
The Fatal Flaw
We took a very brief trip up to MD over Mother’s Day for Joe’s grandmother’s 100th birthday party. We were only there two days due to the general chaos of traveling with two small children combined with an ant problem that was driving my mother-in-law crazy (for good reason) and some Kuhns family drama that is way too complicated for this email! In addition picking up a raging sinus infection while I was there, we also discovered Abby’s fatal flaw – she HATES long car rides. This came as a bit of a surprise, because for the most part she has been a pretty easy going baby --- other than thinking it’s still a good idea to wake up every morning around 4 and demand a bottle these days (God help me at the beach). She also always gets happy when I put her in her car seat at home because she knows that means she’s going somewhere and will have new things to look at. She particularly likes shopping – this doesn’t bode well for the teenage years…
(As an aside here… has anyone seen the dresses girls are wearing to the prom these days?! I may be turning into a prudish middle-aged old bag, but some of them look like something a high-priced call girl might wear – necklines to the naval and cut-out sides – on a 17 year old? Seriously?).
So, we pack up the car with pretty much everything we own and head out the day before the party. Joey has a video on and I’m thinking I might actually get a little peace. Then, after about an hour in the car, I discover that peace is not to be… Abby starts howling at the top of her lungs. So, I think maybe she’s hungry and try to give her a bottle. She takes a little but then proceeds to howl some more – so I make Joe stop so I can feed her properly. The very SECOND I get her out of her seat, she’s all smiles and squeals (she’s a talker) – so she takes her bottle and I think I have solved the problem. If only it were so easy. As soon as she’s back in her seat, the howling commences again. This literally went on for at least 3-4 out of the 7 hours of our trip – the rest of the time she FINALLY fell asleep. At one point I considered throwing myself from our speeding car when Abby’s howling and Joey is yelling “Shut Up Abby!” -- then we told him not to say “Shut Up” so he starts yelling “Dam#it, Dam#It, Dam*it” at the top of his lungs. It was like Dante’s 7th circle of hell. Let me just add that the way home was not much better – and included a fun and exciting stop at Cracker Barrel that featured Abby knocking over a glass of water on to me (and everywhere else) because she was flailing around like she’d just had a bottle of Red Bull instead of formula, Joey refusing to eat anything and then melting down when we wouldn’t get him a treat – about ½ way through the meal I realized that we were “THOSE people” that day. As soon as we got out of the car when we got home we immediately cracked a beer.
This leads me to my proposal for a new national policy – I think that parents of children under 5 or so should be given special sirens for their cars. The sirens could be hooked up to the parents like blood pressure monitors and as the parents blood pressure rises, the siren would get louder and louder urging people to get out of the way and giving the parents special dispensation for speeding. I assume something simple like a little whining wouldn’t result in the siren lighting up too much or wailing too loudly – but as additional disasters such as babies howling incessantly for hours, toddlers continuing the whining (and cursing in our case) for 30 minutes straight and other fun car events like blowout diapers and vomiting would then result in an ambulance-like siren that would announce to the rest of the world that there are desperate parents in the car who badly need a beer and should not be held up by petty things such as stop lights and Sunday drivers. I know I would pull over quickly if I saw a parent siren coming my way – I might even hold a beer out my window in solidarity in case they could grab it on the way by.
OK, this post has already gotten too long (as usual), so I’ll just sum up the rest of my life by saying that I saw a picture of myself from 10 years ago the other day and wondered what the hell happened to me because the tired old bag in the mirror with no make-up, bad clothes and a 15 pound spare tire around her middle clearly couldn’t be one in the same. J I think my children are just sucking the life out of me. Abby is still sweet natured for the most part (car rides aside), but she is suddenly incapable of sitting still for even a moment – she’s constantly grabbing for everything and pulling hair (even when she’s taking a bottle) and her diaper changes are like a wrestling match. Joey has been a treat as usual lately. Yesterday he slept on his leg wrong or something I think because he got up from his nap and couldn’t walk (or claimed he couldn’t – he could bend his leg and scoot around just fine, but couldn’t stand for some reason). This resulted in a HUGE meltdown when he couldn’t jump on his friend’s trampoline and then he insisted on being carried the rest of the night and sat on the couch demanding to watch Thomas the Train, eat snacks and drinks that he decreed should be delivered to him on the couch and wanted me to hold an ice pack on his knee – seriously, it was like he was on his death bed or something – this doesn’t bode well for his future wife. Needless to say when he got up this morning his leg was miraculously healed…
(As an aside here… has anyone seen the dresses girls are wearing to the prom these days?! I may be turning into a prudish middle-aged old bag, but some of them look like something a high-priced call girl might wear – necklines to the naval and cut-out sides – on a 17 year old? Seriously?).
So, we pack up the car with pretty much everything we own and head out the day before the party. Joey has a video on and I’m thinking I might actually get a little peace. Then, after about an hour in the car, I discover that peace is not to be… Abby starts howling at the top of her lungs. So, I think maybe she’s hungry and try to give her a bottle. She takes a little but then proceeds to howl some more – so I make Joe stop so I can feed her properly. The very SECOND I get her out of her seat, she’s all smiles and squeals (she’s a talker) – so she takes her bottle and I think I have solved the problem. If only it were so easy. As soon as she’s back in her seat, the howling commences again. This literally went on for at least 3-4 out of the 7 hours of our trip – the rest of the time she FINALLY fell asleep. At one point I considered throwing myself from our speeding car when Abby’s howling and Joey is yelling “Shut Up Abby!” -- then we told him not to say “Shut Up” so he starts yelling “Dam#it, Dam#It, Dam*it” at the top of his lungs. It was like Dante’s 7th circle of hell. Let me just add that the way home was not much better – and included a fun and exciting stop at Cracker Barrel that featured Abby knocking over a glass of water on to me (and everywhere else) because she was flailing around like she’d just had a bottle of Red Bull instead of formula, Joey refusing to eat anything and then melting down when we wouldn’t get him a treat – about ½ way through the meal I realized that we were “THOSE people” that day. As soon as we got out of the car when we got home we immediately cracked a beer.
This leads me to my proposal for a new national policy – I think that parents of children under 5 or so should be given special sirens for their cars. The sirens could be hooked up to the parents like blood pressure monitors and as the parents blood pressure rises, the siren would get louder and louder urging people to get out of the way and giving the parents special dispensation for speeding. I assume something simple like a little whining wouldn’t result in the siren lighting up too much or wailing too loudly – but as additional disasters such as babies howling incessantly for hours, toddlers continuing the whining (and cursing in our case) for 30 minutes straight and other fun car events like blowout diapers and vomiting would then result in an ambulance-like siren that would announce to the rest of the world that there are desperate parents in the car who badly need a beer and should not be held up by petty things such as stop lights and Sunday drivers. I know I would pull over quickly if I saw a parent siren coming my way – I might even hold a beer out my window in solidarity in case they could grab it on the way by.
OK, this post has already gotten too long (as usual), so I’ll just sum up the rest of my life by saying that I saw a picture of myself from 10 years ago the other day and wondered what the hell happened to me because the tired old bag in the mirror with no make-up, bad clothes and a 15 pound spare tire around her middle clearly couldn’t be one in the same. J I think my children are just sucking the life out of me. Abby is still sweet natured for the most part (car rides aside), but she is suddenly incapable of sitting still for even a moment – she’s constantly grabbing for everything and pulling hair (even when she’s taking a bottle) and her diaper changes are like a wrestling match. Joey has been a treat as usual lately. Yesterday he slept on his leg wrong or something I think because he got up from his nap and couldn’t walk (or claimed he couldn’t – he could bend his leg and scoot around just fine, but couldn’t stand for some reason). This resulted in a HUGE meltdown when he couldn’t jump on his friend’s trampoline and then he insisted on being carried the rest of the night and sat on the couch demanding to watch Thomas the Train, eat snacks and drinks that he decreed should be delivered to him on the couch and wanted me to hold an ice pack on his knee – seriously, it was like he was on his death bed or something – this doesn’t bode well for his future wife. Needless to say when he got up this morning his leg was miraculously healed…
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
I'm pretty sure this must be how Mussolini started out...
We’ve had a pretty eventful week here in NC. Joe was out of town in Trinidad and my mom stayed over to try and help me manage the kids – but on Wed. night she and Abby took a fall down our BRICK front steps. My mom got pretty banged up and Abby had to go get a CAT scan to make sure the bump on her head wasn’t serious – fortunately she’s fine – no worse for the wear and my mom is OK too. By some miracle my neighbors where home and outside, so Sheley drove me and Abby to the hospital and her husband Mike took Joey to play with their son who is the same age. Of course, this happened to be the ONE night that Sheley’s (my neighbor) mom and step-dad were in town on their way back to WV and I hogged them all with my medical disaster. Her parents were actually really nice and helped out my mom while we took care of everything else. I of course thanked them with the ever-appropriate gift of chocolate chip cookies and beer. JJ
Anyway, I turn to the actual topic of my post– the little fascist dictator that I seem to have spawned. I’m hoping this is just some exaggerated version of the terrible 2’s/3’s that we are experiencing, but as of late I’m starting to think that my sweet boy is possessed by the spirit of some fascist power-hungry demon. He seems to be under the impression that he should be able to do whatever he wants, whenever he wants and that we should all hop to immediately upon his issuing his latest order – or a huge meltdown is our punishment. He seems to have completely forgotten how to say please and thank you and has just started demanding things (i.e. “Get me a drink RIGHT NOW”) – needless to say he doesn’t get ANYTHING until he asks nicely, but that doesn’t seem to deter him. Anyway, I could go on and on with stories of his out-of-control bossiness (clearly inherited from his father JJ), but I’ll just provide you with a small sample of some of his latest decrees...
Joey: I’m an adult, you’re a child, I’m in charge.
Me/Joe: Noooo… we’re the adults, you’re the child and unless you plan to get a job and pay rent, we are in charge.
Joey (leaving his classroom at school): I shut the door so the kids don’t get out (he thinks he’s a teacher).
Joey (after having several toys taken for bad behavior): I put this toy up now because I’m not going to listen.
Seriously – what do you do when your child proactively takes his own toys away with full intentions of being bad?? Clearly we are not deterring him. I’m seriously thinking I need to look into military preschools. All he does is demand things and order everyone around. Between the constant bossiness, the still problematic drooling and the perpetual hand down the back of his pants, I fear he’s close to becoming “THAT kid”.
The other scary thought that occurred to me was that this is the child that is going to be responsible for caring for me in my old age. I can picture him now trying to put me in a home when I’m like 45 or something because I didn’t let him eat dessert for breakfast or something. I wouldn’t put attempting to get power of attorney past him by time he’s 8 or 9. I’m just hopeful that Abby will keep me out of the home… of course she’s so busy trying to eat paper these days that I doubt she’ll notice. The other day I laid her on our bed for literally 20 seconds while I ran into our closet to drop some clean clothes and by time I came out she’d managed to roll over to the Time Magazine that I’d left about a foot or so away from her and had already started chewing off the cover. She also likes to try to roll under the couch when I leave her on the living room floor on a blanket – I come back in and all I see is her head sticking out from under the couch. I literally can’t put the child down or she’s into something – and she’s not even crawling yet so this does NOT bode well. Of course, she always does it with a smile so it’s hard to be mad at her…
Well, I suppose I’ve rambled on enough for one day… Time to get back to my pathetic new couponing habit – Triple Coupons are coming up at Harris Teeter – the sad culmination of my existence these days…. J
Anyway, I turn to the actual topic of my post– the little fascist dictator that I seem to have spawned. I’m hoping this is just some exaggerated version of the terrible 2’s/3’s that we are experiencing, but as of late I’m starting to think that my sweet boy is possessed by the spirit of some fascist power-hungry demon. He seems to be under the impression that he should be able to do whatever he wants, whenever he wants and that we should all hop to immediately upon his issuing his latest order – or a huge meltdown is our punishment. He seems to have completely forgotten how to say please and thank you and has just started demanding things (i.e. “Get me a drink RIGHT NOW”) – needless to say he doesn’t get ANYTHING until he asks nicely, but that doesn’t seem to deter him. Anyway, I could go on and on with stories of his out-of-control bossiness (clearly inherited from his father JJ), but I’ll just provide you with a small sample of some of his latest decrees...
Joey: I’m an adult, you’re a child, I’m in charge.
Me/Joe: Noooo… we’re the adults, you’re the child and unless you plan to get a job and pay rent, we are in charge.
Joey (leaving his classroom at school): I shut the door so the kids don’t get out (he thinks he’s a teacher).
Joey (after having several toys taken for bad behavior): I put this toy up now because I’m not going to listen.
Seriously – what do you do when your child proactively takes his own toys away with full intentions of being bad?? Clearly we are not deterring him. I’m seriously thinking I need to look into military preschools. All he does is demand things and order everyone around. Between the constant bossiness, the still problematic drooling and the perpetual hand down the back of his pants, I fear he’s close to becoming “THAT kid”.
The other scary thought that occurred to me was that this is the child that is going to be responsible for caring for me in my old age. I can picture him now trying to put me in a home when I’m like 45 or something because I didn’t let him eat dessert for breakfast or something. I wouldn’t put attempting to get power of attorney past him by time he’s 8 or 9. I’m just hopeful that Abby will keep me out of the home… of course she’s so busy trying to eat paper these days that I doubt she’ll notice. The other day I laid her on our bed for literally 20 seconds while I ran into our closet to drop some clean clothes and by time I came out she’d managed to roll over to the Time Magazine that I’d left about a foot or so away from her and had already started chewing off the cover. She also likes to try to roll under the couch when I leave her on the living room floor on a blanket – I come back in and all I see is her head sticking out from under the couch. I literally can’t put the child down or she’s into something – and she’s not even crawling yet so this does NOT bode well. Of course, she always does it with a smile so it’s hard to be mad at her…
Well, I suppose I’ve rambled on enough for one day… Time to get back to my pathetic new couponing habit – Triple Coupons are coming up at Harris Teeter – the sad culmination of my existence these days…. J
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