Toddler Jail

I know it's only Wednesday, but this has been quite a week! It's really sad because now, I miss so many wonderful (sometimes!) adventures because I am at work. It breaks my heart, but I know that when breaks and summer comes, I'll certainly get some good material! Some of the stuff I'm going to tell you is actually really scary, but now that it's over and Charlotte is safe - we have to laugh about it or we'd go crazy!

The rebellion of my precious little girl continues! She was okay for me over the weekend about goine pee, but poo is another story. Saturday afternoon she got a time out (surprising, right?) and proceded to pee in the time out spot (just to protest) so I put her on the potty and went to clean it up. I turn around the corner and hear rain drops in the bathroom. We go in there to find that its not rain at all, but that she has found the container of deoderizing gel beads and is dumping them all over the floor. She is also making a funny face and informs us that she has eaten two of them. The number could be a lie, but she definitely at some! Crap! While Jon is the on the phone to poison control, I'm holding Jack and giving Charlotte a bath. This is when she decides to go poo. Greeeat. Now every single one of her toys - and her body - are tainted with poop! (Poison control said watch out for 24 hours, but she was fine). She also thought it was a good idea to throw her plastic, toy bagel into the toilet...and flush. Our toilet is now clogged. By a bagel. That's going to be fun to tell the plumber.

Next day, I go in to get her from her nap and she wakes up and starts cuddling me so sweetly. Then she quietly points out the poo, on her windowsill, on the bottom of her curtains. Her brown curtains. With her poo that strangely didn't smell (maybe freshened from the gel beads the day before) and I probably wouldn't have noticed right away. Again, take everything off the bed and put it in the wash. She even has the potty in her room, and still decides to go everywhere else! Next day, she goes in her room again. Wash everything...again. Tuesday, she decides to go pee and poo. Pee all over her chair, poo - NEXT to the potty. The little booger. Jon had to wash everything again, and he was NOT happy when I got home. This is how she ends up in jail.

Before I put her to bed last night, everything came out. She now has a twin bed and a dresser with all the drawers tied closed. Sad, I know. I go in there every night to check on her before I go to bed and that's when I realized that my little girl was actually in toddler jail. There she was, her little tiny body lying there, naked (she takes her underwear off after we put her to bed) on a big giant bed. One tiny little blanket (she was banned from anything else because of the laundry) and one fitted sheet. There was nothing except for the potty in the corner and a weird glow from the night-light on which she has to keep the monsters away. Door lock on the door so she can't get out. It was a toddler jail scene. I wish it didn't have to be - but as long as she continues to go everywhere, jail it is.

Other things this week:

*She also threw my hair straightener, which was plugged in, into the bath tub while she was in it.

*Jon caught a baby possum or large rat downstairs in Charlotte's fun zone!

*Today she had to wear one of Jack's cloth diapers to nap - and then went poo on the potty twice! Guess she really doesn't want to be a baby!

Transporter

I will admit that I am not the most...tidy person. It's not like I let the house get dirty and gross, but I just can never seem to put everything away. I always leave one little thing out and then another little thing out and so, things just aren't tidy. (And on a side note - I don't think I'd ever used the word tidy so much until I married Jonathan). I try really hard to be organized, have things together, and always put everything away - but I don't. I never have been that person, but I'm trying really hard to change! Before I had kids, being like that was sort of okay. It may have been annoying to Jonathan, but he could handle it. Now that we have a toddler and a baby in the house, it has become out of control. I really think that even if I was super organized and tidy, that must get messed up when you have two little kids. I just cannot keep up with all the mess.

One of Charlotte's favorite things in the world to do is transport. She has even earned the nickname (one of many) "transporter." She absolutely loves to take things, ANYthing, and move it. From upstairs to downstairs, from living room to bathroom," from one container to another, from your hand or pocket into hers! Jon has always joked that she would make an excellent pickpocket because somehow she always seems to grab, snatch, steal, move something without you knowing! A lot of time, its fine. She's making a gigantic mess, but at least she's just transporting her own toys. A few things a day though mysteriously disappear, sometimes never to be found.

Now, admitting I am not the most tidy is one thing, but admitting this is another...I have had a pair of earrings that have lived for about 4 years in my car. They have never gotten damaged or lost, they were just somehow always okay in the car. I know, that's ridiculous. To have earrings in your car for 4 years, just sitting there. I have cleaned the car, but its one of those stupid things that you just never put away. So, yes, they have been there for that long. The other day I wore them, took them off and put them on my nightstand (thinking to myself, oh, it's just to much work to put them in the jewelry box - and thats why I'm untidy!). The next day, one was gone, and guess who the culprit was. Yeah, transporter herself. This morning Charlotte and I went upstairs to get dressed. I showed her the one earring and asked her where the other was. She told me, without hesitation, downstairs. (She somehow knows where every item she ever moved is - except when she moved Jon's wedding ring!). I came down and told Jon her response and he and I had a two minute conversation about how he is certain it is not down here (even though I found the baby nail-clippers downstairs that had been on my nightstand right next to them). He saw her move those (which, for some reason he let her do!) but he's absolutely sure she did not bring down an earring. He would have seen that. I stand up, start to walk into the kitchen, and right there on the corner of the coffee table is the missing earring. The transporter does it again. If she ever visits your house, your classroom, or even just goes through your purse...keep track of every. single. item because you never know where she might put it!

"Go to work Mommy"

The day finally came...yesterday I had to go back to work. I have been dreading it all summer because it breaks my heart to think of not being with my babies all day. Jon has been dreading it all summer...because he is going to be by himself all day with those same precious babies! I get it. It is a lot of work being a stay at home parent. I completely understand how much of a job it is and how frustrating it can be and how when you're home all day with both kids, you might be the one wishing you were at work. I still would rather be home than at work.


The day started with Charlotte (who has been doing really well!) waking up with poop in her underwear and pee soaking her blankie. Awesome. When she rebels, she really goes for it. After cleaning her and her bed up, hanging out with the kids and Jon, and getting ready to go - it was time to say goodbye. Tears filled my eyes and I stood outside the car attempting to squeeze the last little bit of love out of my little girl (Jack was already back in bed!). I just kept telling her I love her and saying goodbye...and she, like always, dried my tears and got me laughing. She said, "Go to work. Get in the car Mommy." - while she pushed the car door closed. I left while she stood in Jon's arms blowing me kisses. It's nice that my 2 year old can make things, well, exactly what they are. Just a day at work! She proceeded to rebel and pee in her pants all day long - especially for Jon.

Today started off pretty similar to yesterday, except Charlotte held in just enough pee to soak the couch cushion. (If you ever come over, don't worry, we thoroughly cleaned it, although I think you should be aware that if you ever go to someone's house who has a potty training kid...there has probably been pee on a lot of things you might be touching!) Curious George was on while I was leaving this morning, so I barely even got a goodbye. She continued her potty training rebellion and added pushing every single button she could with Jon. I walked in the door from work at the end of the day to immediately be passed a screaming baby and see a half naked Charlotte dancing around the room and thought to myself...whoa, this is going to be one crazy school year. Following my entrance I fed Jack a bottle, ate dinner, gave Jack his cereal, put Jack to bed, tried to convince Charlotte to go to the bathroom on the toilet, put Charlotte to bed, cleaned up the mess from dinner, did laundry, cleaned up the tornado of a mess Charlotte left...And now, at 8:35 I have finally sat down to write this blog, instead of doing the mountain of school work I already have waiting for me.
Leaving to go to work every day sucks and leaving my family ever day really, really sucks...unless you ask Jon, then you might get a different opinion! ;-)

When you're not a parent...

When you're not a parent, you think differently than when you are one. That seems pretty obvious - but only once you become a parent. I know a lot of things can be like that, you don't notice "that" kind of car everywhere until you've just bought one. You can think couple-y stuff is dumb and then you meet your future husband or wife and all you want to do is that stuff. I get it - I just think its pretty funny. I can tell you that although I have worked with kids since I was 17 and have been babysitting since way before that, I still never got it until I became a parent myself.





Pre-kids, I used to hear some people's conversations with their kids and think, "oh my gosh, this is why some kids are so stupid because the parents are so dumb themselves." Yes, I judged and had no idea. Now, I wish I could apologize to every parent I ever thought that about (unless you actually are that stupid and then, I'm just sorry for that!). Here's what I mean (and this is a very mild case of this). Yesterday, we went to Trader Joe's and Charlotte was asking for everything. She just loves to snack. She asked for an apple, then a banana, eventually a pear. I didn't want her eating a piece of fruit through the store and we weren't planning on buying any that day and I certainly didn't want her to have a meltdown...which was coming.


I finally just had to touch the pear and tell her that none of them were good. All the pears are bad. Now, if you were listening to me, you might have touched a pear yourself and thought - she's dumb, they're perfect. And you know what, non-parent me would have thought the same exact thing so I don't blame you. The thing is - you have to lie to your kids. You don't want them lying to you, ever...but you probably lie to them every day. And guess what non-parents - all parents aren't dumb, we're just lying!





The other thing about not being a parent is that when things are happening to kids and you think it is concerning - it is more worrying to you than to the parents. It's not because as parents we don't care, it's that, the thing that you might be so concerned about happens every few minutes to us. We're used to it - little things don't phase us anymore. Today I had to run to the store with Charlotte and Jack to get some sugar. Yes, I HAD to. You need sugar to have tea...and in our English household, you need tea. So, Jack was in the front pack, Charlotte in the little crappy umbrella stroller that barely turns that she insists she rides in. Of course it doesn't have any storage so I'm holding my wallet, the sugar, and lifting Jack's head. I get up to the register and the young guy checking me out looks really concerned. He finally says, "uuh, he's spitting or something there." Yup, that white, cottage-cheesy stuff is puke buddy. I calmly look around Jack's head to see and I wipe it with my fingers and onto the bottom of my shirt (because honestly, my shirt already had puke on it from the walk in from the car). This guy looked absolutely distraught. He was just watching me with such concern and disgust and then he asks if I want a papertowel. I nicely said, "no thanks." That really got him. "Really, are you sure?" Yeah dude, I've already wiped it all with my hands and it's just a bit of puke, I'm good! (No, I didn't say that, but I was thinking it) He was really concerned about the whole thing.


I do get that it seems horribly gross when it's not your kid and you're probably thinking I'm crazy - but I'm okay with that. I did it to other parents before I was one and now, all those people are doing it to me. Just know that if no one is bleeding, crying, peeing or pooing...it's not really that big of a deal. :-)

Cloth diapers, potty training, and wood chips, oh my!

*All of my posts will not be about poop, I promise!

Jon and I are lucky enough to both have been home during the day for the summer while I'm off school. I'm only really alone with both kids on Saturday and Sunday mornings and during this time, it's often hilarious. Stuff happens that I think to myself, if someone was watching this, they would be cracking up. That's usually how it is - something is stressful to the person its happening to, but hilarious to everyone else. Most of my experiences are like that - last Sunday was no exception!

When Jon and I had Charlotte we didn't use cloth diapers, but with Jack, I convinced Jon. I love the green-ness of them, the low cost, and sometimes the cool colors, but that's about it! I know they're a long way from the cloth diapers all of our parents used - but they are still a lot of extra work compared to disposables. They can be especially annoying to me when there's a poo...specifically a Jack poo. Now - I won't go into the details, but they're a mess. I'm cleaning up one of these disgusting poos, trying to get as little as I can on me as possible, and wishing that formula poos weren't so gross.

On a trip back from the bathroom where I was cleaning up Jack's poo...I walked in on her. There she is, my adorable little girl with "the look." You probably know it if you have kids. The frozen, red faced, statue look. I asked her with urgency what she was doing and she squeaked out, "poo poos." "Noooo!" I frantically found a place for the stuff in my hands, carefully grabbed her, and made a mad dash for the toilet. When we got there, she went and I was sooo proud...and then she informed me that wasn't all of it. We went back in Jack's room and found the rest, there, on his play mate. Great.

In an effort to get away from all things poop and have some fun, we went outside to play on the water table. Charlotte is amazing with Jack - her Jackie Boy she calls him. She has never purposely hurt him and almost never even accidentally hurt him, so I don't really worry about leaving them alone. I got her outside, put him outside in his bouncer, grabbed the bucket, and headed in to fill it up. When I returned, the first thing I see is Charlotte giving me the other look. The one that says, I did something and I'm trying really hard not to smile so you don't know that I did. I immediately asked her what she did and she just smiled and looked at Jack. I look down and see sweet, little Jack sitting there, happy as can be...with a mouth full of wood chips. When I looked back at her, she informed me "Jack only drinks formula." Yes Charlotte, that's right, formula - surprisingly not wood chips! And that, was only about 10 minutes of my Sunday morning ;-)

Snot sucker?

There are a lot of times that Jon and I are doing something or trying to do something having to do with the kids and I'll say something like, "why don't they have ______?" I don't really know who they is, but I know that there are definitely some products that someone should have made already! If I had more money and any idea how you go about creating and marketing a product, I might just make it myself. For now, I just complain about what is not out there and laugh at some of the people who must have money and know how and create ridiculous products.

When I became a parent, I started signing up for all the discount cards, parent websites, and Groupon-like e-mails for baby stuff. I'm not sure what I thought I'd be getting out these, but I signed up anyway. Almost every single e-mail I get is something I am never going to buy and yet every morning, I sort through my e-mail just hoping for some magical baby item to be on sale that I can't live without. It never happens! While I don't get anything useful, it sometimes provides me with some laughs. One of those ridiculous e-mails I got this morning was from bump.com. The title was "Ingenious Baby Solutions" and I'll admit, it got me to open the e-mail up, which is more than I can say for the rest of the e-mails I get. When I opened it, this product was a main focus of the ad.

Now, there is some stuff that I have done as a parent that I did say I would never do. I mean...the poop and pee stuff alone is enough. But really, do I have to suck my own child's snot out of their nose? Yes, I feel bad when they have a cold and I wish I could help them, but I'm not too good for that greenish bulb they give you at the hospital to get the snot out. So thank you bump.com, but I'm going to stick to an "old fashioned" way and use tissues or the greenish bulb and keep the snot out of my mouth.

Poop...yes, poop

I told you that there were a lot of things I didn't think I'd be doing, ever, in my life, but when you become a parent, sometimes you don't have a choice. We have been potty training Charlotte for a while now. Well, it feels like forever, in reality only a few months. And I don't even know if you can call it potty training. She pretty much shot us down when really pushed it at the beginning of the summer. So, we really didn't have a choice but to give up on it. She wasn't having it. Then one morning, on vacation (of course), she announces she has to go pee. Ugh...okay, fine...here, sit on the potty. Yup - she peed. Shame on me. 30 minutes later, she tells me again and just to humor her, I take her back to the room. Yup - she peed again. This began her self potty training, we pretty much had nothing to do with it. I know - the title is poop - don't worry, I'm getting there. She is now in "big girl pants" all the time - except nap and night-time, what is she wearing then?




Yesterday when I went in to get her from her nap that she never took, her diaper was off and she was laying on the floor naked. I asked her why and she kindly informed me she had peed. When I asked where, her response was, "on the monkey's eye." She nicely showed me her little animal rug and sure enough, the monkey's eye had been peed on (at least she's helpful when she does something wrong!). I took the rug, put in the wash, and we came downstairs for the rest of the afternoon. Later that night when Jon and I went in to do our check before we go to bed, her room smelled strangely like a petting zoo. We left, closed the door, and then I thought...that's not right! (Yes, it took me leaving to realize it really did smell like a petting zoo.) We realized that she probably did something else during her "nap" early in the day. We turned on the hallway light and went back into her room in search of a hidden poo!! Told you - only as a parent! Jon eventually found some little poos - under her bed!!!! That little sneak. Talk about the art of distraction. She directs me to the wet monkey's eye, meanwhile there's poo hiding under her bed!



This morning when we went back into her room and she hopped onto her bed, you can only guess what I saw. There, hiding under Meemo (her stuffed monkey) was the bulk of the hidden poo riiight at the corner of her bed. Yes, now almost a day old, there it was, gross as ever. Her sheets (and Meemo) quickly made a trip to the washing machine as I wondered if putting duct tape around her diaper so she can't get it off is wrong? My dad always told me that duct tape has 101 uses - could that be one of them? Gross Charlotte, gross!

Everyone's adventures in parenthood...

I've been a parent for a little over two years now and every day something hilarious, amazing, stressful, frustrating, and wonderful happens. Lately when one of those has occured, I've been thinking to myself...wow, only as a parent could such ridiculous things happen to you. I have also been thinking that I just wanted to write some of these things down and get my thoughts out, even if no one reads it. And if someone does read it, maybe they could relate and laugh along with me or have no idea what I'm talking about and go ahead and laugh at me. Either way, hopefully there's some laughter. Although this blog is about my adventures in parenthood, I'm pretty sure they're every parents' adventures just told through my words.

I'm generally pretty cautious about putting my opinion out there or being totally honest about things, but as a parent, I have come to let go of some of that so I'm willing to share my experiences (the good, the bad, and all the stuff in between). If you are a parent and you ever read this and shake your head in disappointment, scoff at my stories, or judge my choices...come on, it's either happened to you or is going to happen to you, let's just agree about that! I do things as a parent that I thought I would never, ever do in my life...most of those situations have to do with throw up and poop. I love so, so much about being a parent, probably 99.9% of the time I love it...and then there are "those" moments. Those tiny moments that both your kids are screaming their heads off. One of them squirming, screaming at the top of their lungs, and smacking you in the face. The other crying the saddest cry you've ever heard in your life because they don't want to go in the carseat (which happens to be the same cry they had when they got their circumcision, so how are you supposed to know if it IS actually the worst thing in the world happening to them?!). In this moment, you sometimes wish you could just start crying and have a fit of your own! But at the end of the day, any moment you may have had during the day where you wanted to scream melts away with the kisses you give and get when you're rocking your kids to bed.