Tag Archives: family

Embarrassing moments with my kids

Posted on by

We all have those moments you can’t prep the kids for, until they happen… THEN you can say “And remember not to tell Uncle Frank that his breath stinks”, or “remember not to poke the big pimples on Sally’s face”…. things you wouldn’t think to coach them about until it’s already been too late once….

So this week I’ve had a few moments like that.

First moment…. there is a mom on Sammy’s T-ball team. We’ve seen her several times in the last few days, and every time I see her she wears a purple T shirt. I noticed it as I pulled up to the game last week, I see her sitting there, in a purple shirt. I notice this to myself, in my head… and I hear Sammy in the back seat “Why does Billy’s mom always wear a purple shirt?”

After silently congratulating him for being so aware, I offer an explanation. “Probably she has a lot of purple shirts…..that seem to look exactly the same…..and just wears a lot of purple shirts. Because she likes purple.” Both kids seemed to understand. I even told Sammy, “but don’t say anything about her purple shirt because it might make her feel bad if you think she wears purple too much.”

So JENNA walks up to her…. “Why are you wearing a purple shirt?”

As I die over to the side…. the poor lady calmly answers that it was there, clean, so she just wore it. And Jenna looks very speculative…. “I have ONE purple shirt”. Then goes to play. And I am left….shaking my head and kind of laughing… don’t know what THAT was all about….kids these days….he he he……

Most recently, it was Sammy’s turn to embarrass me. We are driving with a woman who is about 20 years older than me….. she’s very skinny, definitely skinnier than me.

For some reason, the kids start to debate who is bigger, me or this lady. Sammy says I’m bigger, Jenna says the lady is bigger. I try to say they are both right. “Well, she’s big because she’s a grown up, but she’s a small grown up.”

And Sammy turns to Jenna and feels the need to educate her, “I’ve noticed that when people get old, they get smaller….for some reason…..”

 

cupcankles

Posted on by

Cankles, according to urbandictionary.com, are calves that become feet-without taking an ankle break.

This word has a negative connotation, right?  Imagine my distress when I see my little 16 month old nephew toddle across the kitchen today, supported by his own little set of cankles….

 

although these images from www.cafepress.com illustrate a movement to not only accept the cankle in our  young ones, but to support and embrace it….. the word cankle still sounds kind of harsh and judgy.

It doesn’t inspire the mental image we want to take away when thinking of our sweet, dimply, jolly little guy. You may call him Rubenesque…but you may never call him fat.

We tossed around some variations of the word…. baby + cankles = bankles????  No…….

Then the sister came up with a brilliant compromise to describe the transient phenomenon of baby cankles…

CUPcankles!!!

Doesn’t it sound adorable and kind of delicious?

One day, when the nephew is a strapping young man, complete with toned calves and visible ankles, we will remind him of his sweet little baby cupcankles. Until then, we will enjoy them 🙂

mother/sister confusion

Posted on by

The other day, my sister and I went somewhere together. Sometimes, we do that.

We went into a building and passed by a security guard. He looked over and smiled at us. “You must be mother and daughter, huh?” He kept smiling and continued “You look just alike, you probably get that all the time, huh?”

I smiled, but my mind was racing….. did he just….?  did he just ask me if I was her MOTHER?

Looking at my sisters smiling face. No, she wasn’t just smiling. She was laughing.

We continue on, stepping into an elevator. I’m inspecting myself in the reflection. “It’s the sweater…. it’s a total mom sweater….”. I asked one of the people in the elevator, “do I look like I could be her mom?!”  He looked confused. “NO!”, I helped him with the correct answer. “I DON’T!”.

Then he smiled knowingly, “you’re sisters huh?”

Clearly….. the first guy may have been completely blind. I don’t even remember him having eyes to be honest.

I give you exhibit A. A recent photo of two SISTERS at a play together…..

And exhibit B: 4 kids in the train at the mall. They all look under 10 to me. No mom-looking people here……

And exhibit C:

Hmmmm, so maybe I do tend to look overall more subdued. More mature in a very young and not mom-ish way. Definitely don’t look like I gave birth to that lady with the chopsticks….

And finally, exhibit D:

Oh, well isn’t that precious. She was my little bitty baby sister….. and I doted on her and probably did pretend to be her mommy back then. Just look at that little face…..

You know what? It’s really ok. I do kind of feel like a mom to her sometimes, I practiced my parenting technique on her before trying it out on my own kids…. thanks to the mistakes I made with my sister, my oldest has turned out pretty awesome.

Oh, I love that little sister of mine. Even if I am going to have to ugly her up a bit before we hang out together next time…. 🙂

 

Babysitter secrets

Posted on by

I was having a conversation with my sister the other day, about a mutual friend who seems to have such conflicted feelings toward her babysitter.

Seems like the sitter is very nice, happy, friendly, responsible, and loving toward her child. He loves going over there. He is treated like family. Yet….. the friend was reluctant to leave him with her. Found fault with the way she did things, and seemed very suspicious of her.

My sister doesn’t understand how in the world this is possible. Especially since the babysitter is also a close friend of hers…and she can vouch that the girl is in fact NOT torturing or neglecting this child during the time she is watching him.

I decided to fill her in on the whole mom/babysitter relationship. At least how it sometimes goes.

For example, if you look on any babysitting site, there are ads from parents looking for that perfect person to watch their baby. But what they are asking for and what they really want aren’t always the same. In these cases, you need to read between the lines and understand that we don’t REALLY want you to love our kids. Maybe just a little, but not enough to make them love you BACK. Because then you’re competition. And that makes us hate you.

This might be a more honest look into the heart of a mom who has to work, and needs a sitter, but also hates the idea of needing a sitter, and worries about being replaced emotionally.

“In search of a dependable, efficient, no-nonsense sitter for my kids. Please be very kind to them, but also sometimes indifferent so they don’t start to love you, but instead always remember to love me more. No more than 3 hugs per day, which must be initiated by the child and tolerated by you. Absolutely no cute nicknames for them. Please do make them healthy and yummy lunches, but don’t cut the sandwich the special way that I cut it… and no pancakes made to spell their names. Just circles for you. If you witness a “first” moment, ignore it. Pretend it didn’t happen… save it for me. If they tell you they love you, pretend you just stubbed your toe and jump around yelling to distract them from those dangerous thoughts. Must be kind of irritable at the end of the day so they run to me with smiles when I come home.”

Or if you need visuals:

NO

YES

 

I may have experienced this myself…. so it’s possible that I know what I’m talking about just a tiny bit. It doesn’t make sense, but nothing makes sense after having kids anyway… In my own experience, I did finally come to really appreciate that the kids and the sitter DID love each other, and time made me realize that nothing-so far-has been able to replace me in their affections.

I think our friend is going through the same issue. Which sucks, but I guess I’d rather hate my sitter for loving my kids and making me jealous, than for actually being a shitty sitter. Ha, try saying that five times fast, shitty sitter, shitty sitter, shitty sitter….. can’t do it can you??

 

Another pee story

Posted on by

Because you can’t really hear enough about pee, right?

There was an accident in the dining room today, as the 3 year old was playing hide and seek with her brother. A pee accident. Because she couldn’t come out of her hiding spot, so what was a girl to do?

After a tearful (on her part) and somewhat angry (on my part) discussion on the merits of peeing when you need to go vs “holding it”…. we came to an agreement. We agreed to still love each other even when one of us decides to pee our pants, and even if the other person is not very happy about it. And also that we really should take time to stop playing and go pee before it decides to make a grand entrance on a very expensive rug that your father may have a stroke over if he ever found out. She missed the rug…but it was close. Too close.

But as my husband hears the story, he seems so shocked….why did she do it?

Oh, I know.

And now for my next pee story.

I was somewhere around 5 or 6 years old. Playing at the neighbors house, and at some point realized I needed to pee. I think I was in a battle with my bladder, not wanting to allow it any power over me. I would be the one to choose my place and time of elimination, thank you very much! Not some brainless, hollow organ that can’t even stretch enough to let me finish playing a summer afternoon game of hide and seek.

At some point the urge grew from nagging to alarming. I crouched down, begging my body to just HOLD IT IN! I was doing fine, until I lost my balance, fell over and released Hoover Dam.

flikrhivemind.net

I then stood, and took stock of what I had to work with. Warm sunny day, very wet pants. Can’t blame it on falling in a puddle….. but I COULD blame it on falling in a puddle of BUBBLES! Of course, I would tell my parents we were playing with a lake of bubbles and silly me fell in. Surely they would buy it!

I still remember crying, insisting it was BUBBLES and not pee!!!  Isn’t it funny how indignant we get when someone doesn’t believe our perfectly plausible lie?

So I get it. I get that I will have to expect these moments here and there, and remind the youngest to pee sometimes when she’s doing her best to avoid it. And I’ll tell her all the stuff, like I did today, about how it’s bad to hold it in, and not good for your body etc….

What I won’t tell her is that I’ve just gotten sooooo much better at holding it. That’s right, pee, I’m totally the boss of you.

freeimages.com

Charlie saves the day

Posted on by

We had a play date today, me and the 2 youngest.

Jenna at any moment is usually carrying one or several pet dogs or horses, the stuffed variety. Today she insisted on bringing “Chip”, a beagle looking stuffed dog with her.

after 3 hours of playing, we left. All of us forgetting Chip behind.

The mom sends me a text, they found him…how do I want to arrange getting him back?

I made an executive decision, counting on Jenna to not remember that we forgot her baby behind. Just send him to school with her youngest on Monday, I’ll have Sammy bring him home.

Wouldn’t you know, Jenna sure did remember her dog…..

image

She didn’t take too well to my plan of letting him stay away for a few days. Even promising to get him tomorrow didn’t stop the tears.

image

I thought she’d taper off, go do something else, but she stayed focused on her misery. The only thing that slowed the tears was actually watching me take her photos…she would slow down enough to inspect each image. I pointed out tears and tried some filters to catch her anguish at its best advantage.

She is excellent at expressing her despair.

Finally, in desperation, I made a deal. I offered her the companionship of my own best stuffed friend, Charlie. With me since the age of 3, he is kept in a place away from grabbing hands where he can sit in peace and reflect on all the good years he’s shared with me.

I every so carefully brought him out and told Jenna she could take care of him until Chip comes back. She was taken with the idea of befriending my elderly raccoon.

image

No, Chip is not forgotten….but for now she is content.

image

And tomorrow….tomorrow that beagle is coming home.

 

Daddy’s girl

Posted on by

nails1

When we had Sammy, the husband was over the moon. Not because he was a boy, but because it was his child, his first.

In truth, I believe he was actually hoping for a girl when we found ourselves expecting.

He has a niece, Jenna, and swore if he had a daughter he was going to give her the same name because he just loved her so much.

He talks about his younger sister, born when he was a teenager, and how he loved helping take care of her, she was like a little doll. He is such a softie. I have often compared his personality with the kids to a grandma, because he is seriously that doting.

Obviously, I’m the mean one.

When we found out we were having a girl the next time around, I expected him to be thrilled. After all, Sammy wasn’t a month old before he was asking when I was going to give him a daughter. (you don’t want to know how that conversation went…. )

He was not thrilled. He was terrified. Hoping the ultrasound was wrong.

I was shocked. And kind of pissed at him. And thrilled because I “knew” it was a girl. I was ready for another girl after having boys the last 2 times.

the husband fretted about the responsibility of having a daughter…. I heard him muttering things about boys….and periods…. a bit overwhelmed.

We named her Jenna. And at first…. I worried that she wouldn’t get the same love from the husband that he gave to Sammy. I feared that he loved his first child so much, there couldn’t be room for another. Especially now that he seemed so scared of having a daughter.

As time has gone on, Jenna has made her place in the family. She is not gentle natured like her brother and her dad. She is bossy, and sassy…. and the tougher of our two little ones.

But still, it happened. He is a slave to her whims. He begs for hugs and kisses, and she doles them out very sparingly. She blatantly uses him to stay up late when I say no, or to get things I say she can’t have. He knows this, but he is powerless to tell her no. (that grandma syndrome again)

She is three now, and very secure in her dads affections.

And he has turned into a hair-styling, nail-polishing, awesome dad who is grateful for his boy and his girl, even if she is as prickly as a cactus sometimes.

The trouble with a tongue

Posted on by

tongue1

I find myself, multiple times a day, telling the 3 year old to keep her tongue in her mouth. I fear if we don’t learn to restrain the thing, she may have problems later in life.

It tends to snake out of her mouth and test the air….for temperature, scent??, I’m not sure…. but it doesn’t like to stay where it belongs. How many times can you tell someone to keep their tongue out of their nose…. their nose!!!  This is not something that will be understood in school. I see possibly some popularity from it in preschool, at least with the boys…. but some unwanted attention from those same boys in later years…..

This tongue is amazingly long, it might even help her with balance as it extends out of her mouth while running…… A throwback from prehistoric times?… or is this a new adaptation that we will start to see in future generations? Maybe we just haven’t discovered the extent of it’s purpose yet.

Stay tuned, possible new talent or superpower to be discovered….

tongue2