Hoping to get noticed by Huffington Post...

I recently read a hilarious article from Huff Post entitled "How to Put a Toddler to Bed in 100 Easy Steps." (See link below.) Tonight I find myself inspired to rip off this piece and create my own "How to put a 3-year old little girl to bed... in as many steps as it takes before you actually carry your beer into her room with you as you meet her demands."

Step 1: Help her brush her teeth. Because she insists on bring a "friend" (stuffed animal and/or doll) with her to every room to do anything and everything, her turtle (affectionately and adorably called "Pokey") falls into the tooth-paste covered sink.

Step 2: Wash Pokey and dry tears.

Step 3: Redo child's braids. Because it is bedtime and every girl needs beautiful braids... to sleep in.

Step 4: Help her change into pajamas. She can do it herself. Nope. She needs help. Nope. She can do it herself. Nope. She needs help.

Step 5: Allow her to spend 3 full minutes choosing which skirt to wear over her pajamas. TO BED.

Step 6: Read "Belle Book" (Beauty and the Beast) for the 985th time.

Step 7: Say prayers, including praying for "Baby, Pokey, Giraffe, Brown Bear, Baby Bear, Polar Bear, Baby Polar Bear, Bunny....

Step 8: Because she realized she was missing some friends during prayers, search for specific missing friends. Tonight they include 4 puppies (she owns about 12).

Step 9: After 4 puppies are found, head back upstairs. As you reach the very top stair, you hear "And Dragon!" Turn around and go back downstairs. Find Dragon.

Step 10: Deliver 4 puppies and a dragon.

Step 11: You are now told that Dragon needs her blanket. The specific blanket you are looking for is about 2 x 3 inches. Good luck.

Step 12: After miraculously finding the tiny blanket (because "Mommy, Dragon is sooooo cold"), and bringing it to your 3-year old, she responds: "All of my other friends need blankets too. Can you find each one their own little blanket?"

Step 13: Open beer. Write this blog.











http://www.huffingtonpost.com/honest-toddler/how-to-put-a-toddler-to-bed-in-100-easy-steps_b_4968226.html

Another body part is retiring. Well, 2 actually.

I have made no secret about the fact that I am in a state of simultaneous mourning / elation this year. 2014: the first time in 6 years that I will not be pregnant or nursing -- because we have decided to retire my uterus and declare that 3 kids in 5 years is probably enough kids.

Elation: No more babies!!! No more freakishly large body that does not fit into any maternity pants properly! No more pushing out the big fat babies we tend to create (although I love how fat and healthy they are, my lady parts sure don't). No more 9+ months without beer or wine!

Mourning: No more babies. No more positive pregnancy tests, no more ultrasound appointments, no more finding out the gender, no more baby name duels. No more amazing birthing experiences (and yes, I use the word amazing. I have truly loved the experience of giving birth -- grossness and all).

And now, as of today, before either of us were ready (who knows if I would have ever been ready), no more nursing. My youngest is almost 13 months. It was time to start weaning him. He is a big boy -- drinks milk from a cup, and only really nurses for comfort. But he does still nurse for comfort every night, and I was not ready to rip that away from him just yet. Unfortunately, however, I have been fighting a bout of pneumonia. (Who knew moms were allowed to get pneumonia? I sure didn't.) And the previous nursing-safe meds did not work. And I got sicker. So back to the doctor today, and she said what I was dreading: "You need to go on stronger medication. And you CANNOT nurse on this stuff." She could probably see the sadness in my face (or the Really? Not even a little? It is probably okay... look on my face) because on the bottle, written clearly are the words: "DO NOT BREASTFEED WHILE TAKING THIS MEDICATION."

I feel robbed of that special moment when you get to know it is the last time. Turns out the last time was at 5 am this morning and I did not know. With my eldest son, I had that special time. He was 14 months old, and although sad, I felt ready and I knew he was ready. I played with his hair and looked at him and talked to him and knew it was ok. My daughter did not grant me that opportunity. At 11 1/2 months, she bit me, bit me on the other side, and then later that night, bit me again. She finally looked up at me as if to say, "Mom! I don't want this anymore. Are you not getting it?" And while this was harsh, if you know her, you are probably saying, yep, that sounds about right. She runs her own show, always has. The boys took forever to come out and she came flying out as the doctor barely made it into the room. So as I look back, her end to nursing was very fitting. But with my little guy, this just doesn't seem fair. I can try to start again after 7 days when I should be done with the medication, but at this point, with him only really nursing for comfort and being over a year, I know that isn't going to happen.

So another chapter is closing. If you see me in public and my eyes are red and I look a little forlorn, feel free to hand me a beer or a glass of wine (if it is the morning, you can put in my travel coffee mug so we are not judged), and tell me to keep my chin up! Celebration! No more nursing bras, nursing pads, no more being unaware that you leaked through your shirt so you continue to have 20 minute conversations with people. No more dreaded breast pump!

Watch out summer! I might rock a tank top for the first time since 2007!

An "Open Letter"

Lately there have been lots of "open letters" in the media. I guess the idea is to write a letter and then post it to Twitter, Facebook, etc. so it is "open" to the general public. Well, here is my open letter.
To Costco.

Dear Powers That Be at Costco,

I frequent your establishment a couple of times per month. I have noticed that most of your clientele fall within one of two categories: moms and the elderly. What do moms and the elderly have in common? We are all up at 5 am. Therefore, on behalf of moms (and maybe the elderly -- I don't know their feelings on this subject) I would like to express my frustration at your 10:00 am opening time. By 10 am, I have been up for hours. One, if not two of my kids are already dropped off at school. My baby has probably already had a morning nap. 10 am is almost the middle of the day.

Kids are dropped off at school before the 9:00 hour, so by not opening until 10 am, moms are forced to wander aimlessly around town with our babies in the car or go home for 28 minutes and accomplish absolutely nothing before we can shop at your store. Since neither of these options are very appealing, moms like me have to wait until after picking the big kids up from school to enter your establishment. This is not what you want, Costco, trust me. You would rather I shop at your store with fewer kids and earlier in the morning when I am freshly caffeinated. Instead, I enter my local Costco at lunch time (school gets out at 11:30) with all 3 kids. My coffee has worn off. The kids are hungry for lunch so they insist on stopping at every single sampling station, even if it is beet jelly on pita bread. They will not like the beet jelly and will loudly state their opinions to anyone nearby.

I know your game. You are thinking, but Mommy! Stop at our cafe and treat your kids to a slice of pizza! Um, have you seen me? 3 kids. 5, 3, and 1. The 3-year old still pees and poops her pants on occasion. The 1-year old is 1. Enough said. Dining out is hazardous enough when my husband is with me. Do you really expect me to wait in line, order slices of pizza, and park it at one of your indoor picnic tables in a vain attempt at feeding all of my children without any of them dropping the entire slice of pizza on the floor, peeing on their chairs, or falling out of them?

In closing, please consider opening your doors at 9:00 am.

Sincerely,

Up-since-5-am-Mommy.

All because Mommy got a cold

Seriously, I cannot make this shit up. Pun intended for obvious forthcoming reasons.

So we all know Mommy cannot get sick. It one of the universal truths of life, in all cultures, in all corners of the world. I have come to realize this more and more with each illness I contract and with each new kid I birth.

My lovely kids shared their boogery cold with me, so I am congested and have almost no sense of smell.  Kid #3 was about to go into bath with his older brother. I had changed his diaper a few minutes earlier and smelled no sign of poop (or really anything else all day). So I haphazardly ripped off his diaper with him draped over my arm. Crap. For real. Poop falling out of diaper... now smearing all over Mommy's thigh and arm... dropping all over the floor... I rush him to his changing table, which is in his room, across hall from bathroom, dropping poop as I go and subsequently stepping in it in my favorite slippers, ensuring that it is truly ground into our carpet.

On changing table, poop is EVERYWHERE. Not only is it smeared all over various parts of my body, but also his. And he keeps putting his foot in more because it is all over the changing table pad. Oh, and he is screaming in anger because he was so excited to take a bath with his brother and instead was ripped from happy bathland to be de-poopified.

Where the hell do I begin? So I just started wiping and wiping and wiping and wiping and wiping. And oh, there is more. Yep, there too. Finally once he was clean, I put him in his crib to then take off my poop-covered clothes. And then on to the carpet...

20 minutes later, baby and I re-emerge in the bathroom where kid #1 has been taking a bath. My slippers are now in the trash, but my socks are suddenly soaked. There is a lake -- a sea I could call it -- of water on the bathroom floor. My son explains that he had created a "water machine" and did not realize the mess he had made. Are you kidding me?! So baby gets plopped into bath (now finally happy) and Mommy takes on the task of mopping up the effect of said "water machine."

So thank you, cold, for turning my one-beer night into a two-beer night.
Silver lining, people. It is all about the silver lining.

The Great Equalizer

This holiday season, I drove over 2,000 miles with my 3 kids to celebrate with family. This means we experienced all of the joys of road trip travel, and I had an epiphany on the last day. We had stopped for  an ice cream / bathroom break in some middle of nowhere town. I usually take the kids to the bathroom in shifts -- in random order: baby gets new diaper, 3-year old pees and/or poops and changes possibly wet underpants or may get a pull-up, 5-year old pees and/or poops. Mommy gets to go somewhere in the shuffle if she's lucky. This routine is repeated approximately every 3 hours on a road trip, which means lots of public bathroom visits.

My epiphany was this: the public restroom is the great equalizer of all moms. I realized this at the middle of nowhere ice cream shop as I entered the bathroom with one of my kids (I forget which one). There was a mother changing her daughter on the changing table. Her little girl was at that oh-so-fun age -- probably over 1 -- you know, a little too big for the changing table but not quite old enough to stand to be changed? (Note to self: Invent changing station for toddlers. Make millions.) Two of my senses (sight and smell) told me immediately that the girl had pooped. There were other children in the restroom as well, running amuck through the stalls. She tried to control / reprimand them as she cleaned her child, speaking in Spanish.

I smiled at this mother. I wanted to help. I only had 1 child in the bathroom with me because I was lucky enough to have help watching the others. So many other times, however, I have been in her position -- with all of my kids, in a bathroom, trying to corral them, clean them, contain them. And it is a BATHROOM of all places. The only place where the thought of my kids touching stuff is grosser than changing the actual poopy diaper. I did not offer to help -- 1, because I don't speak fluent Spanish, and 2, because I am a random stranger. But I saw her and immediately empathized with her. And that is when I realized that the public bathroom is our great equalizer. Here was a woman who lives in a different part of the country than I do and speaks a different language than I do to her children, and I am just like her.

You can walk into a public bathroom with a Michael Kors bag on your shoulder or a purse you found at Good Will. Either way, there inevitably won't be a hook for it (Note to self: Campaign for all restroom doors to have hooks. Win award.)... And you will have to put your bag on the floor before pulling your toddler's pants down. Your 2-year old will sit on the potty for 5 minutes singing and touching way more of that toilet than you can stomach. No mom is better than the other in here. We are all saying, "Can you go? Are you done? Are you sure? Is there more? Don't touch it!"

To the mom in the random ice cream shop in the faraway town: We're all with you.

Night #1

Christmas time in our household = travel. Every year. Unless I have just had a baby or am about to have a baby, which will never be the case again. So yep, travel. Every year. With 3 kids. Lots of Mommy-bloggers and Daddy-bloggers have written about this topic, so here is my latest tale to add to the pile.

We usually make our Kansas City - Chicago drive in one day, but with an impending KC ice storm, we needed to get on the road ASAP. This led to us splitting the drive and spending the night in St. Louis.

We arrived at the hotel at around 11 pm. All 3 kids were blessedly sound asleep, so my husband went in to check in and set up the room with bags, pack and play, etc. As it was late, dark, and a sketchy man was wandering the parking lot asking for change, I locked the doors while we waited in the car. About 3 minutes later, our 5-year old awoke screaming that he needed to go potty RIGHT NOW. Ummmm.... your sister and brother are still asleep and Daddy is somewhere in the hotel. It is almost the middle of the night, and freezing rain is pouring down. Options?? Not many. Not sure yet how I am going to manage this, I know that at least I need to get him out of the car. Maybe Daddy will come out to get him, maybe he will pee on the sidewalk, who knows. I hop out, run around to his side of the van, and.... oh crap, I had locked the doors. The keys are in the ignition because we are keeping the car running for the heat. So Mommy is standing outside in the rain yelling to my hysterical son through the window.

"Try to open the door! Can you open it? Try! Try again!"
Fail. Damn safety locks!

"Mommy!!! I reeeeeeeeeally need to go potty!"

Crap. I did happen to have my phone so I texted my husband: "Come outside. Now."

Next course of action -- I told him to climb over the seat (please don't pee on it!) into the driver seat to hit the unlock button.

"See the button with the lock on it? Hit the unlock button. No, not that one. That one. Not that one. That one. The one above it. The other one. No, the OTHER ONE."

Other people are entering the hotel watching this frantic mother standing outside her mini-van in the rain at 11 pm yelling "The UNLOCK button! UNLOCK!"

Finally, he gets it. Success!! No pee yet! As he emerges from the car, my terrified husband comes running out of the hotel thinking I am being car-jacked due to my frantic text. I push my son towards him and yell, "POTTY!!!"

15 minutes later, we are in the hotel room. Son has peed, other kids are wide awake. Over an hour later, however, everyone is settled and in bed. But baby is not happy. Baby wants Mommy, not this random pack and play in a strange hotel room. I warn everyone that he is going to cry for a bit, and we all need to deal and lay down quietly. The pack and play is RIGHT NEXT to our bed. I lay him down, climb into bed, and he screams. After a few minutes, he is quiet. But I have to pee. I slowly start to pull the covers back and WAAAA! again. SHIT. No pee for Mom. 5 minutes later, he is calm again. But now I have to cough (and still pee). I try like hell to hold it in (the cough, and well, also the pee). Tears are streaming down my face. After about 5 more minutes, I let out a quick cough as quietly as possible into a pillow.

WAAAAAAAAAAA!

This was night 1 of a 2-week trip.

Out with the old...

I was recently lamenting the dusty box in my basement full of my pre-child holiday decorations. Each year for the past 5 years, fewer and fewer items emerge from it. This year, I barely tried. I have 3 kids this Christmas -- one of whom wants to eat any and all objects he can get to, and the other two are bringing home lovely "creations" that usually resemble Christmas (well, at least they are green and red) on a weekly basis. Also, we are traveling this year and won't even be home for the week before or after the actual holiday. So, for all of these reasons, I did not put much effort into Christmas decorations. Where would I put anything anyway? Fancy Christmas towels? Ha! For sticky little syrupy hands to wipe on?? Linen napkins with Christmas napkin rings?? Haven't seen 'em in years. Santa candlesticks?? Right... for my dining room table -- which my son now officially calls the "Lego table"?? We did put up a tree, but even the ornaments are feeling abandoned. Nothing breakable down low, where little hands can reach them = lots of expensive ornaments staying in their boxes in recent years.

As I pine for years past when I used all of my beautiful decorations, and as I peruse Pinterest and pin (for some silly reason) decorating ideas that I will use who knows when, I look around my house. I realized something today. My house is more festive, more Christmas-y than ever before. There is a holiday decoration in every nook and cranny. Where there used to be a porcelain antique Santa, there is now this snowman:

To replace my lush green holly wreath, I now have this wreath:

On my mantle, there are no Santa candlesticks. They have been replaced with this Christmas tree masterpiece and the accompanying card we received:

And the window clings... This is what happened when my 3-year old got a hold of the individual pieces to make a snowman and Santa, after which she exclaimed, "What a beautiful job I did!"

I am not sure when the old box of decorations will get re-visited, if ever. But I think my house is plenty festive these days without them. And yes, kids, a beautiful job you did.