I didn't want to love pinterest but I do. When my mom was here a couple of weeks ago she asked me what Pinterest was and I tried to explain it to her. I explained how it's a virtual pinboard where you can store things you like. I then proceeded to show her all of the hilarious quotes that I've pinned and we laughed until we couldn't breath.
Pinterest makes me a better mom. I don't spend more than 10-20 minutes there every day but it really does inspire me to do fun things with my kids. I look at those pictures of what mom's are doing with their kids and I think, "I could do that."
This was a totally fun bath paint activity where you mix baking soda with bath paint and then spray it with vinegar.
Let the eye bombing begin!
Sorting diapers. So we're white trash but we're practicing sorting.
If any of you moms are looking for an awesome person to follow on Pinterest my friend Jen pins awesome educational things to do with your kids and you should follow this board of hers.
I'm thinking of starting yet another brilliant new blog--this time about highs and lows of parenting. I haven't really worked out the kinks yet but here's a rough idea
Bad Parent:
My 2-year old cries out, moans and screams in her sleep--the scariest thing Claire has ever seen was an episode of the Mario Brother's cartoon at a friend's house. She started crying the second Koopa walked in and they immediately turned it off. What is it that is so haunting her dreams that she cries and cries in her sleep.
Good Parent:
This same 2-year old walks around with her baby doll (Baby Dora) tucked under her arm constantly kissing her head and telling her she is a good baby.
Here's a picture of Claire holding Dora in her baby carrier (which is actually a nursing cover)
Here's another.
Good Parent:
I'm doing a pretty good job of remembering to take pictures of baby number 2
Bad Parent:
He's already working on his Karate moves
Think about it! We could each admit our parenting fears and the horrible things we do and then at the same time brag about the awesome job we're doing.
Quite truthfully I think it would be therapeutic.
Let's hear your best Good Parent, Bad Parent moments.
This article has been making it's way around the internet. I read it a couple of weeks ago and since then I have mentioned it in conversations with varying people more than a couple of times. I've read follow up articles and I just can't seem to stop thinking about it. The article is entitled "the mom stays in the picture" and it's all about a mom who realizes that she doesn't have pictures of her with her kids. As I scanned the article looking for a perfect quote I was seriously tempted to just quote the whole thing. It's a good article and if you have a love/hate relationship with your body or you find yourself always being the person behind the camera you should read it.
Here's a little snippit.
I'm everywhere in their young lives, and yet I have very few pictures of me with them. Someday I won't be here -- and I don't know if that someday is tomorrow or thirty or forty or fifty years from now -- but I want them to have pictures of me. I want them to see the way I looked at them, see how much I loved them. I am not perfect to look at and I am not perfect to love, but I am perfectly their mother.
When I look at pictures of my own mother, I don't look at cellulite or hair debacles. I just see her -- her kind eyes, her open-mouthed, joyful smile, her familiar clothes. That's the mother I remember. My mother's body is the vessel that carries all the memories of my childhood. I always loved that her stomach was soft, her skin freckled, her fingers long. I didn't care that she didn't look like a model. She was my mama.
So when all is said and done, if I can't do it for myself, I want to do it for my kids. I want to be in the picture, to give them that visual memory of me. I want them to see how much I am here, how my body looks wrapped around them in a hug, how loved they are.
There are more than 700 pictures on my phone. I am in less than 20 (and half of those have bee taken since I read the article and decided that I was going to better document my involvement in my children's lives). What's most horrifying is that I know there were more than that. I regularly scan my phone and have been known to erase photos that are unflattering and videos where I sound annoying.
And the experiment to take more pictures with me in them (and not erase them when I look chubby or awkward) has been humbling and not very pretty. There are lots of shots that look like this:
There I am with some part of the family holding my phone out at arms length trying to get us all in the shot as well as capture a little bit of the scenery (you can see that I've been a little obsessed with the changing colors this fall. It's the first fall that I've seen in 3 years and you better believe I'm going to enjoy it).
There are shots that are just horrible.
Like this TOTALLY unflattering picture. Scarry hair and face and no makeup, bags under my eyes and huge diet coke in front of me. But here's the thing about that picture. There is something valuable there for my kids to learn from this picture. I hope when they see it they won't focus on the scary view of mom but will see that even after what was clearly a long night when I was living on diet coke we were still snuggling and smiling together (or trying to smile in my case)
And shots that are so dark you can hardly make out who is there.
But I'm not erasing the bad ones even though I really want to because like Allison Tate I want my kids to have photographic evidence of what their childhood was like. Of what it was like to have a mom who stayed home with them and was almost annoyingly involved in their lives. I want them to know that I snuggled them and cuddled them, made silly faces with them, laughed and tickled them. But mostly I want them to see that I love. Love. Love them.
That's a little girl taking a nap in a big-girl bed.
The hubbs found the bed on Craigslist while we were gone and this weekend we borrowed a friend's truck and drove to pick it up. Claire is thrilled. She does have a little bit of a love/hate relationship with the bed right now though. She naps easily in it but bedtime is another story. Take last night for instance.
8:00 pm. Claire goes to sleep in her new bed
8:45 pm. Claire has been singing the whole time and cries out that she needs to go to sleep in her old bed
12:30 am. Claire wakes up screaming that she needs to be in her new bed. Mom gets up and moves her to her new bed
1:30 am. Claire wakes up screaming that she needs to be in her old bed. Mom gets up and moves her.
2:30 am. Claire wakes up and wants to get her her new bed. Mom gets up and tells her tough luck.
7:15 am. Mom and Claire are both groggy and mom is very grouchy.
Somewhere in the middle of the night Claire also lots one of her passes. This morning she found it in her play kitchen.
I don't even really want to know how it got there.
My mother-in-law asked me if I was sad that she was growing up and the honest answer is no. I'm not. I loved Claire as a baby but I don't miss her as a baby. There are women who love caring for babies and I'm just not one of them. I get so much more joy from Claire as a toddler. I love talking to her and listening to the funny things she says. I love being able to do things with her that make us both laugh.
I'm only hoping that I will find as she ages that I will find that I get even more joy from school age children, teenagers and adults.
(or rather a hard day in which we self-medicated with caffeine and sugar. But hey, you say toe-may-toe and I say toe-mah-toe)
*and remember when we used to read books on this blog? Me too. I finished The Sense of an Ending months ago and LOVED it but I just never talked about it. So....what if we do that Friday? Get reading. You'll love it.
For a long time we didn't have any toys that made noise. We play with wood blocks, legos, wood puzzles, crayons and lots of other kinds of old fashioned toys. This was exactly how we liked it. We liked it quiet around here.
Then, for Christmas, Grandma gave us the Alphabet Pal. At first I wasn't convinced.
I don't actually think she's learning anything from the Alphabet Pal but it doesn't matter. I made this amazing discovery. The Alphabet Pal NEVER gets tired of singing the same song over and over. I, on the other hand, do get tired of singing the same song over and over again and sometimes I am very thankful for the Alphabet Pal's cheery voice singing.
Guess who just waited out 1.5 hours of singing and pleading to get out of bed? Guess who calmly went in and set a timer telling her she could get out when it buzzed? Oh that would be me. If I have anything to say about it we will be napping at our house until age 5.
And now she is sleeping peacefully and I am watching bad TV on Netflix and drinking diet coke (I turned off the timer of course).
That was a pretty stressful 1.5 hours. I deserve a nap.
Last night both the hubbs and I had to attend a meeting at church. Luckily my parents are here visiting so they offered to put Claire to bed for us.As my parents are here they graciously offered to put Claire to bed ad watch her while we were at our meeting. As I was describing how we put Claire to bed I had to reveal one of my secret parenting shames.
"First you put her in the bath. After her bath, you put her in her jammies, brush teeth, read her a book, give her a pass, and put her in the crib. You ask her to lie down and then you cover her with 3 blankets (which you count out to her as you're covering her) give her her glass of milk, give her a kiss and say goodnight."
I wish you could have seen the horrified look on my mom's face when she said, "I put her to bed with a glass of milk?"
Yes. I know it's bad for her teeth, I know it's giving her a middle of the night snack dependence. I know it's wrong.
But we do it.
And she sleeps for 12 hours a night.
You know what else we've started doing this week? Calling soda juice. And in case you're wondering, she does drink it. Peach Fresca to be precise. I think she pounded 24 oz. last night.
And, just in case one of the people who nominate for parent of the year award stumbles across this post here is a list of the other things we do that we probably shouldn't.
Juice. She loves it. She's an addict.
TV. If I would let her, she would watch Kipper for 5 hours a day. And not that she would run in and out of the room and be occupied doing other things. She would sit on the couch, dead to the world and watch and watch and watch.
Fruit Snacks. Claire doesn't eat much but the currency of our house is Fruit Snacks. After we go somewhere she gets fruit snacks if she is nice about getting in the car.
Veggies. Doesn't eat them. At all. Unless you count pickles--which she eats by the truckload.
Jammies. Claire hates getting dressed and some days we just wear jammies all day long.
We've reached the tantrum phase--like the full-fledged, horrifying, run-to-the-library-and-check-out-every parenting-book-about-toddlers-they-have kind of tantrum phase. It's left me a little....well...shocked I guess. I't's like there's a new person living in our house and I don't always know how to handle her. The books have given me good advice and I no longer feel like I'm walking on egg shells around her.
One of the things that I have started to do is evaluate just how important things really are and if I'm just making her do something arbitrary that isn't really important. I have to make sure things are really worth it if we're going to risk a tantrum. For instance: today we went to the zoo and 20 min into our trip I found myself tugging and pulling her as she cried and fussed. She wanted to sit on the bars outside the cheetah enclosure (facing the wrong way) and watch the buses pass on road. Was it really important that we see animals? Is there anything wrong with using a trip to the zoo as a chance to get outside and watch the buses pass? No. There isn't. So I chilled. I did insist that we move to a shadier spot but we sat and watched gorillas and the alligator and I just let her do her thing. We didn't hurry. And even when the gorillas all left the viewing area we stayed there.
That kind of things happens all the time. Is there any reason we can't spend all of our park time on the swing? No. Does it matter if she takes her Elmo and a cup and spoon and a blanket and a sippy cup to the gym? No. Does it matter if she wants to take 3 glasses of water, 4 blankets and 10 books to bed with her? No. Does it matter if she wants to take a crayon to bed?
Today during a morning phone call my mom asked "so when are you going to start blogging again?"
I guess today.
When I first started being a stay-at-home mom I was at a party where I didn't really know anyone and someone asked me what I did. I stammered around for a few minutes and said, "well....well...I guess I'm a mom?" She laughed and said, "you must be new to this. It get's easier."
The hard part wasn't staying with Claire. I loved being with her (I still do) but there was something that was hard about redefining who I was. Before I was a mom I had a really cool job.I worked with a non-profit organization.We did work with poor communities in Africa
and South America.My job was working
with the staff we had in country to come up with the programs that they would
use in the communities.I helped them
plan out what they were doing, helped them manage the funds as they were going
along and helped with the follow up and analysis of the project.My job was, by in large, a desk job but it
did provide me with a chance to travel.Several times a year I would go to South America or Africa to work with
the communities and staff.It provided
me with many incredible experiences.I
have held a small boy in my arms who was dying of AIDS while we tried to feed
him a special meal powder designed by students at BYU to provide maximum
nutrition. He would be dead within 24 hours and when we woke up the next
morning we would hear the whole town performing their traditional wailing for
him.I have cooked traditional bread in
a hut on the savanna over a fire while the black smoke spewed and spewed and
the baby who was in the hut with us just coughed and coughed.I have seen the sun rise at Macchu Pichu and
I have spent and entire New Year's eve celebration dancing to terrible polka
music at fourteen-thousand feet.
Now that I'm 21 months into my parenting experiment one of the things that I am learning is that the
job that I left and the job that I have now are actually very similar. Both are packed with adventure, both have good
days and bad days, both are changing the lives of other people.
And both require a great deal of ingenuity.
Case study: this morning. Homemade yogurt is a little runnier than the store bought kind. The last couple of days breakfast at our house has deteriorated into a yogurt finger-painting free for all. Combine that with the fact that when Claire doesn't eat she gets really cross and things have been....tense to say the least.
Enter a trimmed bendy straw.
Ta-Da. A whole breakfast consumed, a happy girl and a happy mom.
Love is wanting to share your greatest successes and happiest moments with children.
You know, like your love of walking around the beach on a Monday in the middle of the work day with your metal detector. And really, who has 4 child-sized metal detectors?
(No, Calvin is not learning to use a metal detector. Like most people, he is just at the beach to play in the water, dig holes and chase seagulls. The kids with the metal detectors are behind him to the right. Grown-up and 4 kids huddled around some kind of treasure)
If I were better at taking pictures this would have been WAY funnier.
At one point last night I was sitting around a table with 7 other women. Most of our children were home sleeping but some of them were playing on the floor. We were talking and laughing and making ourselves really decadent cups of hot chocolate (mine had nutella and marshmallows in it). There may have also been donuts present.
We were telling stories and jokes in the way that women do and the story of the one time that my friend Lu got attacked by a bear in Denali National Forrest came up (she survived the incident with nothing but some scratches but the story is incredible). Some of us had heard the story, some had not. Another friend said, "I took Casey (her 3-year-old) hiking the other evening and she got so scared of bears that I had to tell her your story and I reminded her of how you were protected. When I finished it she had me tell it again." They had been hiking on UCSD campus and the library had been visible the whole time they walked along the paved path. We all laughed at the imagined fear of bears that a child can illicit in a major city.
Lu cleared her throat to begin telling the story for the friends who hadn't heard it when from the corner of the table came a tiny little voice. Casey, dressed in pink footie pajamas which she had then crammed into brown Mary Janes--the very image of Cindy Lu Hoo--started to tell her story. It took her a few minutes to get out the details. They had been hiking. She was scared. It was night. It was dark. And when they were done their dad picked them up in the car. As Casey was telling her story I looked around the table. Every one of women there was completely focused on the story she was telling. There was head nodding and verbal acknowledgement of the dramatic parts. No one rolled their eyes as if we just had to get through this part to hear the exciting bear attack story.
It brought me to tears.
Being a parent is humbling.
Being in a room full of women who are taking the time and effort to collectively love and parent another child is a reminder that we don't have to do it all. There is a whole crowd, a whole room of people who are there to help you along.
And when I came home I read this poem:
A Ritual to Read to Each Other
If you don't know the kind of person I am and I don't know the kind of person you are a pattern that others made may prevail in the world and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.
For there is many a small betrayal in the mind, a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood storming out to play through the broken dyke.
And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail, but if one wanders the circus won't find the park, I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.
And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy, a remote important region in all who talk: though we could fool each other, we should consider-- lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.
For it is important that awake people be awake, or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep; the signals we give--yes or no, or maybe-- should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.
I need to warn you that getting to the point of this post is going to take a little explaining of basic Mormon beliefs. Stick with me and I hope it will be worth it. If it's not, I promise that tomorrow my post will be airheaded at best. Fair?
So. Mormon's believe that God called prophets to write the Bible. Pretty basic right? These men, who lived in Jerusalem and round about were called by God to write and preach the things that he told them. Now, the trouble is that at the time there wasn't really any way to get information to other parts of the world but all of God's children needed to know the things that he was telling the people in Jerusalem (and they also needed some things that were specific to their needs and situations). Enter the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon was written by prophets who lived on the American continent and contains the same kinds of stories and prophecies that the Bible contains. Both books hold an equal level of sacred importance in our religion.
The first prophet to write in the Book of Mormon is named Lehi and he actually lived in Jerusalem before the Babylonian captivity. He was warned by the Lord that Jerusalem was going to be taken captive and told that if he left with his family he would be given a land of promise. Lehi probably thought that this "land of promise" was Canaan but...it was actually somewhere in the Americas.
We're going to jump into the story several hundred miles after Lehi and his family left Jerusalem. They traveled in the wilderness toward the Red Sea camping and hunting along the way. At this point the Lord speaks to Lehi and tells him that he neglected to bring any of the sacred writings with him and that the sacred writings are critical to the success of his journey so he needs to send 3 of his sons back to Jerusalem to get them (we can talk about the timing of the Lord another time but I can see that you are thinking, "that's probably information they could have used a hundred miles ago." I am thinking that same thing). So he sends his sons back.
As you can imagine, this is very hard on the children's mother. Sariah has picked up her whole house and is camping in the wilderness because her husband has had a vision that Jerusalem is going to be destroyed. Now he tells her that her oldest sons have to go back because they forgot to bring their scriptures. Just so you aren't left in suspense, the boys complete their mission but it takes longer than expected. After Sariah has waited for the amount of time that they assume it will take and her boys are not yet back she has a little melt down. She tells her husband that he is crazy and that she can't believe he dragged her into this and that she is sure they are going to die in the wilderness (of course I am paraphrasing).
Lehi's response is a lesson for husbands everywhere. He holds her and comforts her and assures her that the boys will return. He doesn't fight. Then he says this,
"I know that I am a visionary man; for if I had not seen the things of God in a vision I should not have known the goodness of God... But behold, I have obtained a land of promise, in the which things I do rejoice..."
Did you catch the tense there. He has obtained a land of promise. This is funny and a little troubling because he has not actually obtained a land of promise and he and his family will wander in the wilderness for a long time before he does.
Today I got it.
We had a typical morning. It started out with a bowl of cornflakes thrown on the floor, a time out, a second bowl of cornflakes eaten and a third thrown on the floor and another time out. Then some cuddling because two time-outs in 20 min is hard on everyone and finally we made some yogurt. Claire climbed up on the little step stool and busied herself trying to push everything into the sink. I asked her to take the canning lids and showed her how after I poured in the yogurt she was going to put them on and then I was going screw on the top. And. She got it. She cheered after she finished each one and when we were all finished she almost cried because she wanted to do more. And in that one little moment I thought, "we have arrived."
I know that Claire and I still have many years of wandering in the wilderness before we arrive at any kind of promised land. Maybe the trick to parenting is the same as the trick to surviving in the wilderness as the Lord leads you. And it's to trust so much in the destination and how great it's going to be that every step forward feels like you are already there even if you'll be finding cornflakes in the nooks and crannies for the next two weeks.
* Book of Mormons (yes, this is actually the correct pluralization despite popular belief) are widely available and if any of you are interested I would be happy to send you one.
So, there was this one time when I put a foot note on a post about grammar (the good news is that my landlord had no problem renting to someone who uses the wrong kind of "to" as long as they pay their rent on time so we are happily situated in our little, sunny apartment for 2 more years) and I said that I didn't dare write a whole post about grammar because that would put my own grammar under further scrutiny. Well today is the day I break the barrier.
When I'm being self-deprecating I call myself a lazy parent. I'm not really, but sometimes my parenting style can seem a lazy if you don't know what's happening. I believe in teaching children the law of action and consequence*. I think it's a lessons that is easier to learn when you're young and that learning to make good decisions and predict their consequences will guide you more easily through teen-hood and for your whole life.
So Claire....well...she has learned a lot about consequences. Just a couple of weeks ago when we were camping with friends Claire was tying to jump down the 3 cement stairs that led to the fire pit. I kept trying to stop her and help her and tell her that it was dangerous and then....I just let her try it. She fell and bonked her head and she cried and had a bruise, but I didn't have to worry about her trying it again. I was close by and confident that she wouldn't get REALLY injured and I just let her go. Lesson learned.
That being said, more than once I have told the hubbs that he can't pressure her into going to his alma mater. The hubbs' whole family went to BYU. So did his parents. It's kind of a family tradition. I affectionately call Knox College (my beloved alma mater) "Hippy School" and I tell people all about this one time that we designed our own class that didn't have a professor**. AWESOME. I want Claire to choose where she goes to school. If it's BYU, that's fine. If it's Knox, that's great. If it's UCSD, which is just down the street, that's fine too. I just want it to be her decision.
That being said, after having to stare at this bumper sticker for the last year (on a Pontiac Aztec that is ALWAYS parked in the lot) I will do what it takes to sway her from going to the University of Arizona. UofA marketing department...let's consider this a fail.
*I didn't come up with any of my parenting theory by myself. The two best books I have read about being a parent are Parenting with Love and Logic and Nurture Shock. There are lots of great books about how to help your baby sleep and what kinds of toys they should be playing with but these two book are different. They are mind- and life-altering when it comes to trying to raise, not just a child, but someone who will become a kind, well adjusted, loved human being. If you are thinking of joining the great parenting experiment you should read them.
**In said class-with-no-professor the Dean who oversaw the project asked me about it at the end and I said, "I hate to say it but we really needed a professor" and he said, "I knew that that was the conclusion you would come to."--talk about the perfect example of teaching someone the law of action and consequence.
Lucky for me when I was in Junior High I committed about 100 movies to memory so I generally have a very dated, hilarious quote to go with any kind of situation. Today's is maybe my best. The year is 1993.....
Stuart Mackenzie: Oh, I hated the Colonel with is wee *beady* eyes, and that smug look on his face. "Oh, you're gonna buy my chicken! Ohhhhh!" Charlie Mackenzie: Dad, how can you hate "The Colonel"? Stuart Mackenzie: Because he puts an addictive chemical in his chicken to make ya crave it fortnightly, smartass!
Around our house there is a similar love-hate situation. And you know who I hate? Elmo. You may be thinking, how can you hate Elmo? And the answer is because the makers of Sesame Street must be spreading some kind of hypnotic, mind-altering, brainwashing propaganda. I don't know what their aim is yet but I'm working on it.
A couple of months ago we received a second-hand Elmo counting book. Okay, the truth is that we stole said book from my mother because it has a magna-doodle on the top of it. Claire loves it. Within a week she was pointing at all of the characters and calling them by name. We saw a board book at Target for a dollar and carried it around our whole trip. She loves those little puppets.
Then I made one little mistake and suddenly my life is like a Thomas Hardy Novel and every day I pay for it. I showed Claire a youtube video of Elmo singing with Big Bird and Snuffy. Suddenly all day, every day Claire walks around crying "Melmo, melmo, melmo."
I give in all the time.
I know every nuance of this video.
I've mentioned a couple of times that Claire likes her dad better than she likes me. Some of you are skeptical. Some of you try to make me feel better by saying that she is only that way because she feels SO confident in my love (thank you. Keep saying it...that thought helps banish the one that says that staying home with someone who merely tolerates my presence is a waste of everybody's time).
I finally have proof. Last week the hubbs came home, had dinner and left right before bedtime so he could go get a haircut. This was Claire's reaction.
And don't think this is just a one-time thing. I hear that same cry at least once a day.
**On an unrelated note you should all follow my friend Susan's tumblr account. I love it and I think you will too. It will leave you missing the West (even if you've never lived there) and loving the outdoors and gardens and people.
We've talked before about how much Claire loves her dad. And I mean LOVES her dad. One of my friends who is a social worker assured me that Claire loves me and her feeling so confident in my love is what allows her to feel comfortable enough to prefer her dad. And she does--prefer her dad that is.
Let's be thankful that the hubbs and I are not in a custody battle for Claire which would be decided by us standing on opposite sides of the room, placing her in between us and calling for her to come to see who should have her a la Henry and Ribsy (all you people between the ages of 30 and 40 don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about). I would lose. She would walk right over to her dad and sit down in his lap.
On Saturday night Claire woke up crying at 3:30 am. Usually this is just because she has lost her pass or she is startled but after one experience where it was actually a poopy diaper and we left her crying until morning (with a serious diaper rash consequence) we always go in and check on her. I slowly opened the door to her room and right when she saw me she yelled, "No. Daddy."
I turned around and called out, "Honey, Claire is calling." The hubbs then got up and comforted her and put her back down and I went right back to sleep. Should I be offended that my staying home with her has caused her to believe that her dad is the superior parent or should I just be thankful that I don't even remember the hubbs coming back to bed because I was already fast asleep?
Oh the growing up we've been doing around here is pretty incredible. These days you're more likely to find her running along side me with her hand in mine than you are to find me carrying her. On Monday we went to the beach and for the first time ever she didn't want to hold my hand as we ran in the waves. She wanted to play with the other kids and follow them as they ran up and down the beach.
Then, on Monday evening I was cleaning off the table before dinner. I finished cleaning off the table, told Claire to get ready for dinner and went into the kitchen to put food on plates. I turned around to this--three matching place mats (her favorite) all on their way to the table.
This photo does not capture the pile of place mats on the floor next to her which she had sorted through to find the ones she wanted.
We don't have too many parenting rules at our house. I like to think that kids have a pretty good sense of what they need and we try to let Claire make mistakes so she can learn from them (I'll let you know in 20 years how that's panned out for us). At our house kids eat sand and sometimes crayons. Claire climbs on things only to fall off them and if she wants to eat so many blueberries that she gives herself diarrhea she gets to. I figure she'll learn.
But there is one hard fast rule that we do stick to and only break in the most dire of circumstances--Never Wake a Sleeping Baby. The doctor tells me to wake up my two-week old baby for feeding and I just ignore him. I schedule appointments around nap time and I've been known to make the hubbs come home from work (he can work from home and he just works around the corner) if it looks like we're going to have to wake her up for me to go somewhere.
That being said, this week I broke that rule. Claire has been sleeping from 7 pm until 8 am. Which is pretty awesome except.....(I know that I'm about to complain about a baby who sleeps for 13 hours straight so feel free to stop reading here if you'd like) that she's only been taking 45 minute naps during the day. And I'm not talking about two 45-minute naps during the day...just one. One 45 min nap during the whole of the day. And it was killing me.
Last night we kept her up until 8 and this morning I walked into her room at 7 am and I broke that cardinal rule which was scary because it's kind of the only one we have.
We're already at 1 hour and 45 minutes of nap time....oh let the clock keep ticking, let the clock keep ticking.
**Book Club. This month (actually for the next 2) we're reading Moby Dick as suggested by Joan. Get psyched to dig into a classic. I've just started and it's slow-going but I'm enjoying it.
***Remember when Gilderoy Lockhart made the test for the first day of school to test if the kids had read the assigned books over the summer and it was all full of questions about him? What's Gilderoy Lockhart's favorite color? What is his ideal birthday present?
Don't you think it would be totally hilarious if that was the next Facebook/blogger trend? People making quizzes all about themselves to see how carefully you're reading their blog/facebook page?
These days it takes us 5-10 minutes just to get out the door. We live on the first floor (up one flight of stairs--21 to be exact. I've had lots of time to count them recently) and Claire now insists on making the trip up and down all on her own. She has one hand firmly on the rail and I hold the other. She still teeters and falls and I have to catch her a couple of times going up and down. It would be frustrating except that every time we do it I remind myself that I am just getting closer and closer to my dream of packing her with a little backpack so that she can help lugging the groceries up that narrow staircase.
1) Make amazing artesiean bread in no time and with little to no effort. Delicious bread with a thick crunchy crust (On Saturday we ate it with homemade yogurt and it was like being in France)
2) Make the best pizza dough I have ever tasted and I have been to Italy more than once
3) Step on the scale 2 weeks after having the book arrive to find yourself 3lbs heavier than you were when it arrived.
Consider yourself warned.
*****
So remember when I went to the dentist and he drilled into my tooth and a stench like you would not believe filled the room? And I was diagnosed with periodontal disease? Well, this week I went back to the dentist for my checkup and things are going well. Turns out my gums are reattaching themselves to my teeth. It does show the sad state of things that I'm calling it a successful dentist appointment because the only super duper gross thing that happened was they jammed a slow release antibiotic under my gums to help with the reattachment.
*****
Two nights ago at 2 am when Claire was up for the 4th time and screaming and screaming and the only thing that would calm her was rocking and singing I busted out another and perhaps the most brilliant piece of my brainwashing repertoire. For those of you who are not going to watch the video I'll just put the lyrics right here for you to commit to memory. Somehow singing this as a lullaby makes 2 am way easier to stomach
First thing I remember knowing,
Was a lonesome whistle blowing,
And a young un's dream of growing up to ride;
On a freight train leaving town,
Not knowing where I'm bound,
No-one could change my mind but Mama tried.
One and only rebel child,
From a family, meek and mild:
My Mama seemed to know what lay in store.
Despite all my Sunday learning,
Towards the bad, I kept on turning.
'Til Mama couldn't hold me anymore.
I turned twenty-one in prison doing life without parole.
No-one could steer me right but Mama tried, Mama tried.
Mama tried to raise me better, but her pleading, I denied.
That leaves only me to blame 'cos Mama tried.
Dear old Daddy, rest his soul,
Left my Mom a heavy load;
She tried so very hard to fill his shoes.
Working hours without rest,
Wanted me to have the best.
She tried to raise me right but I refused.
And I turned twenty-one in prison doing life without parole.
No-one could steer me right but Mama tried, Mama tried.
Mama tried to raise me better, but her pleading, I denied.
That leaves only me to blame 'cos Mama tried.
