the gift that keeps giving

I buy 99% of the Christmas presents in our home. Last year, the 1 % my husband purchased came in the form of Wyatt's Santa present. I told my husband 'just go out and buy him some little toy' after all he was 8 months old at the time and it was really more for Henry, so he knows that Santa isn't some dud that give shoes for a present (which is what I purchased originally but was 'told' I was being a dud myself).

My husband picked out the WORLD'S MOST ANNOYING TOY. When Wyatt 'opened' it on Christmas morning, I looked at my husband and just said 'are you serious?'. I immediately told him when Henry was out of earshot, 'we have to return that, I will go absolutely insane'. He responded 'the kids will love it and besides it's from Santa, how we are going to explain to Henry that Santa changed his mind.'

Why am I thinking about Christmas in June? Though the toy looks different today; the chute is already pulled apart since it's new role is often that of a 'leaf blower' and the balls (that are suppose to pop into the air) are missing somewhere in the toy abyss, Wyatt has developed a new fondness for this toy. When I'm getting dressed at 7 in the morning, Wyatt plays in the toy room next to the bathroom, right next to our bedroom. As my husband tries to continue to sleep, Wyatt starts up playing with his 'favorite' new toy.

It is the gift that keeps giving. A little bit of me smiles on the inside every time he pushes the button. Oh, the sweet sound of revenge.

(I dare anyone to show me that you have anything remotely as annoying)

we're not famous

We're not famous. We don't pretend to be famous either; I don't dress my children up in Polo shirts and multi-colored plaid shorts, I myself don't dress in white capris and a shirt coordinating to my children, and I will never in a million years coordinate my entire family's clothing just for the heck of it. We're an 'average' American family. Being the 'average' family, our outings aren't too beyond average either. Friday nights have become one of those oh-so-fun bath nights and this past Saturday we spent at the zoo.

Friday- I gave Henry and Wyatt their bath, my husband was in charge of drying them off, lathering them up and getting PJs on them. Wyatt has a tiny bit of cradle cap which I've informed my husband to apply a tiny bit of baby oil to. He slathered it on his head to the point I couldn't get it off without getting him in the bath and re-washing his hair. Of course, that wasn't happening.

Saturday- Wyatt hair is still a greasy mess. I scrubbed it a little bit more to no avail. We decided to just go with it. My husband mohawked his hair and off to the zoo we went.

Being that we are an 'average' family, we at first weren't aware of all the comments and looks that we were getting. When people started pointing and smiling, I figured it out. 'Look at that baby'. 'Look at that hair'. (Wyatt also eggs it on by waving his little baby wave and saying 'hi' to anyone in a 10 foot radius.) I'm sure there were those 'what are they thinking?' and 'are those parents serious?' but I did not hear them, or better yet, I chose not to hear them.

I'm not sure if all the attention got to Wyatt's head or what, but here is a family picture a passerby took, right after saying to her husband 'did you see that baby's hair?'.

(not a blog worthy photo of the family with the exception of Wyatt)

Did you get that? Here's a closer look. Perhaps Wyatt thought the paparazzi were taking his picture. I guess, maybe Wyatt thinks he's famous.

when life gives you lemons

Homemade ice cream. I think it all started with the homemade ice cream that I attempted to make. It turned into that horrible early nineties version of light ice cream my mother use to eat, 'ice milk'. I stashed it in the freezer (where it still remains today, three weeks later) in hopes that it would magically continue churning itself into ice cream, but alas it is simply, and might I add disgustingly, still frozen milk. Lucky for me, Henry doesn't really like ice cream. He was just excited about pouring the ingredients in and watching the blade turn.

Disappointment was averted.

But now, he seems to be on this 'is this homemade?' kick.

Henry: "Mom, is this lemonade homemade?"

Me: "Sure it is." Didn't he see me take out the packet of Crystal Light, get water from the tap, and proceed to pour that tiny little packet into said water?

Henry: "No Mom, you know when you cut up lemons, pour in water and lots of sugar. That's real lemonade."

Me: Who in the world has tainted my child's taste buds for a desire for 'real' lemonade. (It might have been us at the Minnesota State Fair last year, where 'other' criminal acts include putting anything edible on a stick but I'm not yet ready to take the blame) I respond "Wow, that sounds like a lot of work".

Henry: "It's not Mom, it doesn't sound hard."

Me: "But I don't have any lemons"

Henry: "We could go get some, let's go grocery shopping."

Me: I knew this time would come, but it seems so premature, he's only four years old after all. I was certain that I had at least a few more years to put up this facade. I look him straight in the eye, let out a big sigh and tell him "I'm just too lazy".

Disappointment has initiated.

Sorry Henry, when life gives you lemons, your anti-supermommy will not be making you lemonade. At least now at the tender age of four I can be honest with him about exactly why Mommy doesn't do some things and stop playing dumb.

dirty talk

"Let your kids eat dirt", the first time I heard this was from my Uncle, a real down home Iowan farmer. Me, being that I just gave birth to my first child a mere six months before, responded like any new mother would with 'isn't that a sign of an iron deficiency?'. I didn't get what he was really saying. But now I get it, our society has created this monstrous fear in children of scary germs. We've even created this super germ resistant to soaps and antibiotics to many antibacterial lovin' moms' dismay. I think we've forgotten to let kids get dirty.

Today this 'let your kids eat dirt philosophy' holds true in our household. The 'five second' rule is more like the 'if it didn't land in a pile of something gross, it's okay to eat' rule. I have a turn in policy, if a child finds a piece of candy, he is allowed to 'turn it in' for a fresh piece. I have to give them something for being honest and not shoving the piece of I-not-sure-what-in-the-world-type-of-dried-up-I-believe-candy straight into their mouths, but if it was simply a little dirty, big deal. You will not find me hand sanitizing my hand sanitizer bottle. (Contrary to the above though, I do not let me children play with dirt they found in the middle of the street or let them try to find strangers to trade-in their candy to.)

This weekend we had what my husband dubbed 'the redneck water park'. (Please take no offense any rednecks that may be reading, this is a compliment to your ingenuity.) Our play set slide had a hose running down it with the slide landing inside our inflatable pool. We had not one, but two sprinklers running at one time and of course, the infamous slip-n-slide was flanking the outside of our makeshift park. With all of this going on around them, you know where all the children were (not only mine), at the mud puddle created from this water festivus.

I really do let my kids eat dirt.

(perhaps Wyatt took it too literally)

note to self

Hey you - err, me (internal me, guts and stuff)

What is your problem? Why are you not letting me sleep. This is ridiculous, I've had caffeine like 10 hours ago, I should be able to move past the effects, but no, you have seemed to develop this horrible anti-resistance to caffeine. Remember those two little people I gave birth to, (oh yeah) that means I'm a mom. Therefore, it's my God given right to wear my robe, have my hair in rollers, have my eyes half open and hold in my hand, sipping *almost* happily, a cup of joe, you've heard of it, you know, coffee!

I'm tired of laying in bed with my own version of a nervous tummy. I swear, if you make me forget about giving my children their medicine before bedtime yet again, I'll social service your butt. Obviously the effects of not sleeping are taking it's toil, I think you are even starting to make me hallucinate.

is this a gorilla playing an accordion?a flying upside-down angel food cake?

a really tall woman in a really bad outfit?

okay, are those bikers sitting on bar stools, pedaling and drinking at the same time? (Pretty sure there's a minor or a really short person in the back seat there too).

A voice starts to retaliate to my complaints, it's my subconscious.

Subconscious: but mmm, beer, you like beer and biking too. What a great idea.

a larger-than-life Big Mac?

Subconscious: now, I know you like a good big ol' greasy Big Mac after drinking. You've posted enough about McDonald's to earn royalties.

One, really huge Salvation Army bucket?

Subconscious: we both know how you can't handle your beer. Aim your night of beer-on-a-bike, Big-Mac munchies throw up in here. Can't handle 'the caffeine', huh?

it's magic time

'It's magic time', that's what my mind is thinking as it does it's little mind dance at the strike of two o'clock. The babies are sleeping and the preschoolers are going down for a little of their own 'me' time as I've convinced them that rest time is to rest their brains, so no talking or loud noises are allowed and escaping (err, coming out) of their rooms is punishable by death.

So why does the world seem to be unaware of my little magic time. I turn off almost all of the lights, throw the telephone under the pillow to mute it (just in case there is an emergency, remember I take care of other people's children), but alas to the outside world this appears to be some signal that you are suppose to come to my house, ring my doorbell.

Strike one, they are ruining my me time, my 'magic' time. Strike two, they rang the doorbell. How dare they actually 'ring' the doorbell. Don't they know that doorbells are simultaneously hooked up to preschoolers' brains to activate their twenty questions button. Even if they wait for the full hour of rest time to ask me questions, I tell you, there will be questions. To this, there will be consequence, oh beware of the consequences you 'ringing-my-doorbell-activating-my-preschoolers-ruining-my-me-time person'.

I open the door, it's Southwestern. I have such a soft spot for them. (For those of you that aren't familiar with Southwestern, they are a children's book company that hire college students to go door-to-door selling their books to parents).

Every year that they've come to my door, I've bought books from them. The books are fabulous, Henry loves them and I do believe that his vocabulary is remarkable in part because of these books. I tell her 'of course, I will buy them', I shell out $80 for a set of books (which still gets me that I have no problem paying $80 for my children at the drop of a hat, but me, I clearance rack whatever I think I need, I'm such a burnt toast mother).

Every year I usually end of telling those college, Southwestern booksellers that 'I admire them', that 'they are doing a hard job' and that 'it will look great on their resume'. I also share with them a story of when this anti-supermom was neither anti much of anything (at least not enough for her way liberal college) nor a supermom (or in fact mom at all, yes I do remember that, vaguely).

The lure of a summer away in a new, exciting city. The idea of meeting new people that were doing the same thing as me. I too, was a candidate for Southwestern. The only step left was to actually commit. I called my parents to tell them the good new. My mother asks if I 'was going through some sort of crisis' and proceeds to hang up, calls my father, who in turn calls me less than 10 minutes later and tells me that 'it's not such a great idea'. See it's 100% commission based. What did I know, I was a thought-I-knew-it-all college student.

As I finish my story with this fine student holding dearly to my $80 she replies, 'yeah, this job sucks. It's the hardest thing I've ever done. Three of my roommates already left (umm, it's the beginning of June). I'm going to try sticking it out for a little bit longer.'

So this anti-supermom, when she was neither of those things, wants to thank her father (and her mother) for convincing her that selling door-to-door was not for her. Possibly, he might have even saved my life as I would have never know about mothers who kill doorbell ringers for ruining their 'magic time'.



(Happy Father's Day)

my 'other' children

Isn't it ironic (cue the Alanis Morissette since songs seems to be the theme of everyone's posts lately), that though I changed my whole world to be home with my two children, I actually take better care of the two that aren't even mine.

Example one: For lunch yesterday I served fettuccine with chicken, plums, fresh green beans and milk. When it's just me and my boys it's nuked chicken nuggets, applesauce and baby carrots or we head to McDonald's for our Friday lunch out. (Which happens to be pretty much every Friday. Should I be worried that all the employees know me and my children? When I go up to the counter I feel like they are giving me a wink like they know how I hate to cook for my children or anybody for that matter. I actually tried ordering 'the usual' one time, but they just looked at me like I was crazy, like they didn't actually know who I was. I take offense, you know who I am, I'm the hot-Fridays-at-McDonald's-Mom! Don't I look hot with my hair pulled back, flip flops on, toting two kiddos?)



back to examples


Example two: I change the 'other' baby's diapers three to four times while he is here. Wyatt, on the other hand, is stuck in soggy-doggy diapers until either he decides to poop in it or if he's going to bed (because, yes I do like him to have a fresh diaper for the night, aka I'm not getting up in the middle of the night because he's peed all over the sheets; change sheets, change him, unnecessarily launder sheets, I'm just that kind of a mom).


Example three: I write down everything for the parents. They know what CDs I played, what books we read, what toys they played with, what they ate, when they peed and pooped, they know all the 'necessities' of their dear sweet child-in-my-care. My husband is lucky if he find out when my children eat, I mean our children. Yes, our children.


My point is really that I will take good care of the children in my care. (for those of you that were worried, I only blog during nap time(s) and when I'm ignoring my own children, I guess that should be example four). I'm interviewing four families this week for a rarity of all things rare, an infant opening. I'm in the lucky position that I get to choose who I bring into my childcare, but it's hard, I have to tell families 'no', I'm not taking care of that most precious person in your life because I've chosen someone elses.


But I also want to tell them, 'Hey, I'm the anti-supermom, I'm choosing other people's children over my own too.'

the waiter

In real anti-supermom style, at about 10 months I have my child fend, I mean fed for themselves. At this point, I've been feeding them spoon-to-mouth, three times a day for about four months, give or take a few meals. The awesomeness of feeding my child the first spoon of rice cereal has been replaced by a clock-watching mom that has better things to do than scrape food off his chin every two minutes. Wyatt has been fine with this, in fact he prefers it. He shovels it in very well, he gets messy, but this is something that I simply don't care about.

When we go to restaurants, I usually don't think anything of it. We settled down to eat on Saturday after a great stroll through the Art on the Lake in Excelsior. We sit down, I order saltines to come as soon as possible (it's 1:30 after all and I'm a professional restaurant-with-children-mom) and order spaghetti for the boys to share. As usual, I fork cut Wyatt's food and slide it directly on the table. He devours it, along with my coleslaw. It's all over his face and hair, it's on his clothes, it's smeared on the table, it's smashed into the highchair and thrown on the floor. This is normal. I think nothing of it.

The waiter walks by and under his breath, though audible he says "oh man".

I lowered my head, looked under the table to survey the damage, I've seen worse. My husband looks at me and asked "is this normal, do other people spoon feed their kids at restaurants?" Normal? I really have no idea, but do I care? The answer is yes; I stacked all the plates on the table, cleaned off the highchair and tried putting all the food on the floor into a convenient, easy-to-pick-up pile. I left him the pile and a 20% tip.

leotards and legwarmers

This video has been in my head since watching it yesterday, all. day. long. It came full circle last night when my husband was on his facebook, looking at comments and asked me what 'kettlebells' are. 'What are kettlebells?' I say, 'oh, do I have a video for you'. I didn't know what they were until yesterday, now they are haunting me, hourly. The video came from a blogger I've been lurking on Tessie. (I puffy heart your posts, now it's out, I've been lurking for a week without comment, okay maybe two or three weeks. Can I make it up to you with a post dedicated to your post?)

So now I come to you with a little self-confession. I, Beth am a Jazzerciser. I'm not going to the gym, swinging kettlebells above my head, but I do workout. I'm inspired (yes, jealous too, how could you not be?) by her video, but I'm not going to say that I feel like garbage because she looks so stink' great. Every Monday and Thursday night I pack up both kids and bring them to the church basement to be with a babysitter that I pay $1.25 per child to watch while I workout. I've been doing this for seven years (obviously with and without children).

Jazzercise has the stigma of leotards and legwarmers, and yes, there is one women who wears a leotard but she looks as hot as someone possibly can wearing a leotard but where else can I pay $30 a month, wear wrinkly t-shirt straight off the floor of my bedroom and still not care what I look like? I need to know, are there other people embarrassed of 'how' they workout? I feel so not cool being a jazzerciser, admitting that I am one is hard. Nonetheless, I've decided that today is the day that I will come out, keepin' it real (right, Missy!) and will lift my head up, get my jazz hands out and sing along with the instructor, loudly.

just a taste

This past week, I got a taste of what it's like to have a sick child. Not just sick, but sick. Where the nurse is agreeing with you 'that those symptoms are strange' and the doctor tells you that he 'doesn't know what's wrong' with your child even after the lab results come in. Where you look in on your child four times a night, touching the top of his blanket to make sure that he is indeed still breathing. Where you find yourself tearing up at what it might be, what's the worst cause scenario; that this might be the moment I recall years later of when 'it started'. Where I begin playing in my head what's the next step, what specialist do I need to call, to see to make sure that my first born child will indeed get better.

It was luckily, just a taste. I never again want to have this bitterness of unknown in my mouth again. My heart aches for those families that don't have this, that actually do have a sick child. It makes me think of the fourth floor of the hospital that I volunteer at. Those child-size hospital beds surrounded by cheery motifs, those incubators that are sectioned off in entire rooms, with only them and rocking chairs. I wish that the 'fourth floor' never existed.

At this time, we think that it's just a milk allergy, an intolerance or something along that lines. Something not so significant in scheme of what-could-be's. Today, he is a happy, running wild child. I hope and pray that he continues to only get a good taste of childhood.