on THAT MOM...

Yesterday I was "THAT MOM" you know the kind, it's the kind that you used to see struggling with an out of control child and in your professional opinion as an unmarried, childless women you thought "what is wrong with that kid! what a spoiled little brat, I bet THAT MOM lets him get away with anything at home. That's why he is flipping out. It serves her right."

Ok so maybe you are better than I am but I will admit that I judged a few poor frazzled women with a crazed child in my day as the worst mother in the world and that she must have brought this on herself.  And then yesterday all those moments of judging came back to bite me.

I went to a friends house for a baby shower, and my child was in a mood. He spent half the time stealing the other children's toys or food or really anything else that they touched in the 2 hours we were there, and the other half of the time he spent screaming, at the top of his lungs, for no reason. It was one of the low points of my life.

And I felt like such an idiot. Like everyone was wondering exactly what I let him get away with at home. And let me tell you, I don't let him get away with anything. I swear I don't just lay around on the couch all day and let my child have full run of the place. He is not allowed to trash the house or hit people or steal things. Time outs, and saying "I'm sorry" and "Please and thank you" are the norm around here. I have a fairly well behaved child on a day to day basis. Sure he's a little high strung and spirited but on the whole he's a good kid.

And so yesterday I realized something about THAT MOM. Maybe those poor women that I labeled as bad mothers were really, like me, just having a bad day. And I have resolved from here on out to be more understanding and sympathetic, and when I see THAT MOM with her kid in the store I will politely turn my head and pretend to not noticed the piercing screams.

on what today looked like...

From where I sit this is what today looked like...

here's to lazy summer days.

on things that ARE great...

This post was originally going to be entitled things that seem great... at first, and I was going to list all of the things through motherhood that you spend your time looking forward to and then it happens and you wonder why you were excited for it. Things like...

-when you are first pregnant and you are so excited to get all cute and round so you can wear pregnancy clothes and look pregnant.

(all of the mothers out there can now laugh at the ridiculousness of that statement, however we all felt it at first) and then we got our wish and suddenly you are gigantic and you realize just how good you had it when you didn't have to wear elastic waist pants. 

-or when you lay in bed being kicked to death from the inside and you thought "I can't wait till this kid comes out because I am sure that I will sleep better"

OH how wrong you are! Dealing with a baby at 3 am get old REALLY fast, and suddenly you find yourself wishing you could put it back in for just one night so you could sleep.

-or when your blessedly still child gets frustrated because he cannot move and keeps accidentally batting the toys just out of his grasp and you think "I cannot wait until he is mobile and can get the things he wants by himself"

And then he becomes mobile and insists upon hovering dangerously close to all the sharp corners in your home and you long for the days when he was stuck wherever you placed him.

-or when your child starts walking

This is perhaps the shortest moment of excitement in a mother's life. You shout for joy exactly one time and then you realize that your life is now over.

I had planned to put the following event on this list as well, but I changed my mind and then had to change the post as well...

-when the first time your child says "mama" is followed closely by the 5,000th time they say "mama"

I had heard and envisioned being so excited when my baby finally said mama and then being completely sick of hearing it as my child repeated the name endlessly all day and night.

and then my child waited a full 15 months to say it and although he has probably said mama a million times this week alone, I STILL LOVE IT! My little mother's heart just about bursts with pride and joy when I hear him call my name. Perhaps it is because I had to wait so long, perhaps it is because he has always preferred "dada" and has said so since he was 7 months old. I don't know but I still can't get enough of it.

I think it partially has to do with the way he says "mama." See dad is the fun one who throws him up in the air and tackles him to the ground so "dada" is usually said in excitement as he is running full tilt away from his father who is inevitably chasing him. Whereas "mama" is said in his sweet soft little voice. It is usually said when he needs comfort and almost always comes with a hug or a kiss. On that note it is "mama" that he calls for when he wakes up in the night. And I have to say that although I am a stickler for his bedtime routine and being all business when dealing with him in the night. But nothing breaks my heart and sends me running into his room like hearing him cry for "mama".

Other things that are as great as they seem...

-your baby's smile and laugh

-watching them learn and understand things

-having them be able to communicate with you and tell you what they want instead of whining

-watching your baby experience new things especially things that you did as a child

-SLEEPING THROUGH THE NIGHT!

-getting a hug and kiss

-when they are interested in watching tv. I know that nominates me for mother of the year but it is so true!

-labor

I know this one needs some explaining.

perhaps I should have said labor with an epidural.

After labor I remember holding my new little baby and turning to my husband and saying "that wasn't bad at all." Now that's not saying that it didn't hurt, especially before the epidural which is why I will be asking for one immediately upon entering the hospital next time. But there is something very empowering about bringing a child into the world. And then I look at this sweet little guy in my arms and thought "wow! I did that!" Plus you get a baby out of it so it is pretty great.

on having 8 kids...

Today I went to a funeral. It was a sad day. On the back of the program they had all the man's children and grandchildren listed. He had 8 children and 39 grandchildren when he died. After reading through the names my husband turns to me and says "I want to have 8 kids." I replied "Good luck with that!"

I wish I could tell you that he was joking. But my husband LOVES kids. So chances are he probably wasn't.

Just thinking about that makes me tired.

on being right...

My baby is screaming bloody murder right now, for no apparent reason. He is supposed to be sleeping, but he is not. He also only took an hour and a half nap today instead of the normal 3 hour one. I think he is exhausted and therefor beside himself.

Something you should know about my child is that he is not one to be coddled or snuggled. He does not want help being put to sleep but rather to be left alone. This is great on a normal night but on those off nights when he has trouble sleeping it is not, because he thinks that he wants help getting to sleep and yet he REFUSES to let you at the same time. It can be very confusing and aggravating.

This is how it usually goes. You hear the child scream so your natural instinct is to run into the room and snatch him from his bed. This will (and has many times) turned out badly. Because he then thinks that you are there to stay... forever, even though he really needs you to leave so he can get to sleep, and he SCREAMS when you try and sneak out after attempting and failing to help him sleep. Confusing...yes. Frustrating...yes! Especially at 3am.

So what to do? Well you let him cry for a minute and usually he goes right back to sleep. If that doesn't work you go in make sure nothing is wrong give him his binkie and say "go to sleep" and leave. This will work only if done properly and quickly. It is all business, you DO NOT pick him up or pat his back or give any indication of staying. He occasionally will let out a cry in protest when you exit and you wait 5 min (watch a clock and make sure it 5 because 1 minute can seem like 10 when you are listening to your baby scream). GO back in repeat the above and leave. In the early days of this method you double the time you wait before going back in until the child falls asleep on their own. Usually we don't go in more than twice. It works like a charm. Except when you don't follow it precisely.

We put our child to sleep at 8:20. At 9:00 he started screaming. He cried for a little while and then my husband said he would go in. I repeated the above rules to him because he is known to cheat. He went in and when he left the screaming began again. He can downstairs but almost immediately turned to go back up. I told him to not go back in, he had just barely left, I told him it would go badly if he went back in and if he tried to put him to sleep it would only get worse. But he didn't listen. At 9:05 he entered the baby's room all was quiet until 9:15 when my husband decided that it wasn't working and was tired of trying. The above bloody murder screaming then ensued. As my husband came back downstairs he seemed tensed for the lecture he was sure to receive from me about how I was right wasn't I. But I am tired and not wanting to start a fight I held my tongue. At 9:25 (with no one in the room) there was silence.

I am being a good wife and not rubbing it in but just for the record...

 I was right.

on temper tantrums...

I am getting tired of these. I mean REALLY must we freak out over every little thing?! Especially out in public. Does my child honestly enjoy watching his mothers face turn 50 shades of red and start sweating profusely as I am attempting to wrestle the child back into the shopping cart that I am trying to keep moving through the store to finish my errands so I can go home and crawl under a table and die from shame and embarassment.

I have been reading up on the toddler years to try and find some reason strike that reasons got nothing to do with this. There is no reason it just is. Well then, I have been trying to understand it more to possibly have chance of living through it. And actually after reading I was really on the road to handling it fairly well.

First, I learned that a child in the midst of a full blown tantrum is not in the mood to be reasoned, bargined, or bribed into cooperation. They are so beside themselves that no matter what you say (aside from giving them what they want in the first place) they don't want to hear it.  Here in lies our first problem, I have a very strong willed child. He knows what he wants and cannot be distracted from it. Unfortunately for him he has a strong willed mother, who was a nanny for many years and has never given into a screaming child and does not plan on changing that anytime soon.

My plan for dealing with this was to find a place away from people and just let him cry out his frustrations until he was done and ready to listen to reason. And it actually worked pretty well because 1. I was away from people so my child was not bothering anyone as he sorted through his problem 2. I didn't get upset with him as I have before while trying to talk him out of the inevitable tantrum, I just let him be mad and get it off his chest 3. He didn't get mine and an enire store full of people's attention which only fuels a tantrum and 4. Once he was done we could go on with life.

Second, children like mine do not handle change well. Part of his independence is that he doesn't want to be forced into doing things. Like getting his diaper changed. For a couple months he would completely lose it when we changed his diaper, we would have to just pin him down to get it done.

But now we explain to him what is going to happen and what will happen next so he knows what to expect and doesn't feel forced into it. He has done so much better once we started explaining it to him instead of treating him like a baby. Now we can say "can you go get mommy a diaper and lay down?" and he will, just like that.

Third, active children such as mine sometimes get overwhelmed and overtired which leads to the tantrum. My little guy is not an observer but a doer (is that a word?) Meaning he will not just sit back and watch things happen he wants to be involved. We have cousins that live close by and whenever we are with them he is great and loving life for about 2 hours and then he melts down. And I have determined from my readings that it is because he is so excited and active and involved that at some point he just hits a wall, and by nature he won't just sit down and rest and watch for a while. SO he loses it.

How we deal with this? Well 12 hours of sleep a night plus one 3 hour nap helps. (Don't be jealous it is my gift for dealing with a wild child everyday.) And when we notice a meltdown starting to form we take him away from the situation to let him rest and have a calm moment.

With all these things in mind you would think that I had things under control. And then today happened.

I had no motivation to leave my house this morning, I beleive it was a message from above that no good would come out of trying to run errands but we were running dangerously low on toilet paper. No TP + Pregnant bladder = trouble. So off to target I went. And I started by explaining to the child "We just have to go into this one store and then we will go get lunch." And he seemed on board with me until we approached the building. Then the screaming started.

fight or flight, fight or flight, fight or flight...

but we REALLY needed toilet paper so I pushed on figuring that I would find something in the store to amuse him. I was wrong. The screaming intensified. I got some of the dirtiest looks of my life from every person I passed. All the sympathetic mothers must have heeded the warnings this morning and just stayed home. I soon had a cart full of things and a completly inconsolable child who was challenging my every effort to keep him in the cart. I reasoned, I barginned, I begged, I even threatened that he was going to be "IN BIG TROUBLE" (scary I know). But he didn't care. Instead he tried to claw his way out of the cart and so that he could grab onto me with his vice-like arms. Hence the opening to this post and my reason for wanting to die right there in the middle of the paper goods isle.

The morale of the story is this 1. listen to those little hints that perhaps this is not going to be your day and cut your losses and stay home 2. Stock up on toilet paper 3. Don't ever claim that you have life under control because life likes to prove you wrong 4. Never take a hungry, tired, crabby child to target.