War Of The Wheels

Ah, the Mommy Wars. There are all of the standard battles: Breast vs. Bottle, Co-sleeping Attachment Parenting vs. Terrible Horrible Parent Neglect, Spanking vs. Time Outs, and the ever popular Working Mom vs. Stay At Home Mom. But this week my eyes were opened to a whole new mommy war: The Minivan Conflict. A friend of mine is the proud owner of a shiny new minivan, which was a surprise from her husband. In her excitement she posted the news as her status on Facebook, and the commenting ensued. There were proclamations of "How wonderful, I LOVE MY MINIVAN!" and there were statements such as "Oh, you're crossing over to the dark side?!" It seemed that the commenters each fell squarely in one camp or another: Minivan Moms or, um, Not Minivan Moms. Let me just say right this minute that I do not care if you choose to drive a 1989 Cutlass with rainbows and unicorns painted on it. I just do not care and do not really have the time to sit and ponder why people choose the cars they choose. That is maybe why I don't understand what happened next. Another friend commented: "Oh, watch out, Abby's next. Before you know it she'll have the stick-figure family and a soccer ball decal on the back window." And I may have replied with something to the effect of, "When hell freezes over I will!" Which led to the inevitable, "WHAT IS WRONG WITH STICK-FIGURE DECALS OF YOUR FAMILY ON THE BACK OF YOUR MINIVAN?!?!1! RAWR!!!" To which I said nothing, obviously, because I had just pissed off someone with plenty of trunk space and probably some rope in those under-the-floorboard-storage things. No no no, picturing myself bound and thrown in the back of a Toyota Sienna with a stick-figure decal slapped tightly over my mouth was enough to make me go WHOA. STOP. But the more I thought about it, the more I wondered WHY someone would care if I like their stick-figure decals and their minivan. I do not drive my Jeep down the road fretting about what it says about me as a person, and I certainly do not feel the need to defend my choice of vehicle to anyone. I like my car, just as I'm sure millions of moms love their minivans, but you will rarely find an SUV driver Mommy defending their cars to the death. Maybe I'm naive and I will be eating my words in five years when I am rolling into the carpool lane in my hot new Dodge Caravan. But I doubt it. For as much as I do not care one iota what other people drive (although, come on. The stick-figure people on the back? THIS MUST STOP. NOW. These to me are just as bad as the yellow "Baby On Board" stickers, and nearly as bad as the "My Kid Beat Up Your Honor Student" bumper stickers.), driving a minivan is the ONE thing about parenthood that I just cannot make myself embrace. I have never looked at a mom driving one and thought anything negative (except for when aforementioned stickers are involved), yet I can't do it. I just CAN'T. I feel allergic to minivans. I don't hate them, I don't think they're ugly, and yes I KNOW they drive like a dream and all the storage! and room! and dvd players! But...I can't. I do occasionally, you know, have a life outside of my family, and go out somewhere with friends. And I have a recurring nightmare of valet parking my minivan at some trendy new restaurant and slinking inside before anyone sees which car I got out of. Silly? Maybe. But I feel like there is a list twelve miles long of things that I have given up to be a mother (sleep, sanity, and the ability to pee alone are just a few), and while there is also a list a thousand miles long of things I have gained with parenthood, I cannot, will not, put "driving a minivan" onto the latter list. I will forever make my children actually open the doors instead of using one of those door opener clicky things that vans come with these days, and I do not have seventy-five cubic feet of storage space under the backseats. But I don't care. Viva la resistance.

In Which I Type So Many Words That Your Eyeballs Might Bleed When You Read This.

And I kicked it all off with what is possibly the longest blog post title ever. So! A whole month has gone by since I last wrote on here. A whole month! I actually had to click on the little "Forgot your password?" thingy at the bottom of the log in screen when I tried to access my blog. Let's get started, shall we?

I choose to begin this recap with what was maybe one of (ONE OF! Because, hello? Does anyone remember, umm, Charlie's whole first four months of life? Those sucked, too) the worst weeks of my life. Charlie's First Ear Infection.




We go in to the pediatrician for an innocent well-child checkup, and leave with a prescription for antibiotics and the nurses waving goodbye with sympathetic looks on their faces. I was unprepared for this. This HORROR, the ear infection. Ella didn't have one until she was 3, and it was a minor one at that. And Ella is Ella and she doesn't really complain that much. But oooohhhhhh Charlie. He was never happy, not for a solid week. He didn't want me to sit down with him, he didn't want to nap, he didn't want to really eat much, what he wanted was for me to carry him around the house while humming softly and kinda jiggling him around and OH MY GOD I had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder panic attack flashbacks to when he was a baby and I did the baby jiggling routine for 24 straight hours a day. I also maybe kinda started to lose it on Day Four of the Scream Fest. I am a rational adult, I understood that the poor little guy was in pain, and I felt so badly for him, I really did. I soothed. I cuddled, I dispensed appropriate medications to help ease the pain. But dear God in heaven there is a limit to how much screaming I can take and nothing I did was working and I may or may not have uttered the words "This needs to effing stop right now, you are being a jerk, baby." And then felt like a complete asshole for calling my baby a jerk. Aaaannyway, it ended up fine.

And then Christmas happened. I actually do not really remember a whole lot about it, except that our electricity went out on Christmas Eve while we were getting ready to go to church. Well, I was getting everyone ready, the husband was doing something work-related, I think. Although I can't be sure because I think I have blocked that entire night from my memory. Suffice it to say that both kids were screaming, it was pitch black in the house and my hair was still wet, and then things calmed down a bit when I reminded myself that hey, we are going to church to celebrate Jesus's birth and maybe it is inappropriate to say the GD word. Ahem. Christmas pictures!

















And then it was our sixth wedding anniversary. We partied it up big time by going to dinner on New Year's Eve, and being asleep in bed by 10:00. The plan was initially maybe to do dinner AND a movie, but someone *coughcoughmecough* was a complete tool and didn't make reservations for dinner on NEW YEAR'S EVE. An hour and a half of waiting in the restaurant and a nice dinner together and we were spent. I feel old.

Next up, I give you Panic! In The South! Aka SNOW. Sweet Jeebus, I am FROM the damn south and I have never ever gotten my panties in a bunch like some people I saw around here. For three whole days before Blizzard '10 hit us, the news channels here showed nothing but weather coverage with weather men and women standing in front of screens that said things like "Preparing For The Snow". And then...it came. SNOW! I'll admit I actually got a teensy bit excited when it started coming down heavily that morning. By all accounts it was supposed to continue all night and we should wake up to veritable winter wonderland the next day. You can only imagine how damn excited Ella was that night before bed. So we wake up the next day and she rushes out to the window and...umm, you could still see the grass. Yes, it snowed and the driveway was covered, but there was MAYBE an inch total. MAYBE. And yet there were still abandoned cars on the side of the road after some dumbass gunned it going around a curve or slammed on his brakes and fishtailed off the road. God, I love the south.



Playing in a teeny tiny patch of snow on the driveway, because there was not enough in the grass to even make a snowball.




And now we move on to my least favorite time of year. The black, abysmal void that is January and February. These two months could fall off the calendar for all I care. All they are good for making you be trapped inside with your sick kids and their whiny whining all day. Here's what we've been up to so far in January. Try not to be jealous, it's all terribly exciting.



Ella, umm, cuddling with a bottle of nail polish remover? I hate the winter.



Ella discovered the newest rage amongst kids these days...Silly Bands. Bracelets that are shaped like something like a heart or a giraffe and then you can wear them on your arm. Huh? Whatever. I hate them, because they are sold out everywhere and she keeps losing them and wanting more and I can't find them anywhere.



Close up of the hooker dolls she is in love with lately. They may meet their demise next week in the form of a trip down the garbage disposal. What, is she sixteen all of the sudden with the bracelets and the mini-whore dolls?



Charlie learned to do this:



He fell in love with THIS thing, which, if you have kids I highly recommend to you. It is a ball popper that shoots balls out the top and simultaneously plays horribly obnoxious music, but it is Baby Crack. I thought Charlie was going to stroke out when we turned it on for the first time, plus he will play with it by himself for like a full twenty minutes, which YAY. RAISE MY BABY, FISHER PRICE.



And then we all went insane from lack of sunshine and adult conversation.



And that is all. I think that brings us up to date, minus the horrible colds that we are all passing around, except for me who is probably immune to the common cold because I have had so many given to me by my children. At this point, though, who really cares because it's not like wiping up green snot and throat phlegm could get any worse if I were sick.

"The end. Get off my lawn, you crazy kids with your hooker dolls and Silly Bandzzz."

The Real Reason.

Trying today, in the midst of all of the wrapping and visiting and last minute shopping, to remember the real reason why we do all of this. I posted this last year, and I might just post it every Christmas because I like it that much. And because it's my blog and I can do what I want.

My Day In Numbers, aka There's Not Enough Vodka In The World

To add to the madness that is December in this house, we not only get to throw two birthday parties, oh no no no. We get to have WELL VISITS!!! To those of you non-parents out there, that right there is code for Water Boarding Level Torture. I can make my way to the pediatrician's office and put up with all of the crap that goes along with it when one of my kids is sick and NEEDS medical attention. But for some reason it always annoys me more when they are perfectly healthy and we have to spend half of our day in a petri dish waiting room. So, without further bitching and moaning about today, I give you a countdown.

12: the number of people in line ahead of me to valet park their cars. Approximate wait time: seven hours.

11: The number of kids on the Sick Side of the waiting room, germing up the place. We were the only healthy ones there. I bet that lasts until tomorrow when we all wake up either puking or with swine flu.

10: Number of times Ella had a mini nervous breakdown about having a shot, even though I had reassured her since 6am that she did not have to get a shot.

9: How long we waited in the waiting room for the pediatrician to come in. Nine. As in HOURS.

8: Number of teeth Charlie should have by the end of the week. He saw two of them about to pop through. Equals: More fevers, drool, hand-gnawing and screaming.

7: Times that I poured Germ X on both kids' hands between the waiting room and the exam room.

6: Times that Ella interrupted the doctor when he was trying to talk to me about Charlie. Resulting in massive meltdowns that she wasn't the center of attention, oh my god Charlie how could you steal my spotlight by needing health care?

5: Number of times Ella asked the doctor if he liked her pretty blue panties.

4: Number of times Ella offered to show perfect strangers in the waiting room her scar from her stitches.

3: Number of live viruses in a needle jabbed into my son's legs.

2: Number of stickers Ella stole. Times twelve.

1: Number of infected ears (Charlie's!)*.

*Funny story, heh heh. Charlie has had a mystery something or other going on for the last week or so. Symptoms include massive amounts of drool, foul not-of-this-world poop, and chewing on his hands constantly. Teething! I was so sure it was teething. The his snot turned...green. Which is decidedly not a symptom of teething. Not one to rush into the doctor at the first sign of a 99 degree fever, I stuck with "Yeah, um, teething." People would ask "Why is Charlie clawing at his face and banging his head into the wall?" And I would reply "He's kinda...teething? I think? Maybe?". So golly gee, imagine my surprise when our pediatrician found an ear infection in my sweet boy. Parenting FAIL.

It has officially begun: The Time Of Year That I Do Not Sit Down For One Single Moment Because There Is Too Much To Do. This? Is not an exaggeration. The minute that Thanksgiving is over I know it is coming, it is looming over my head like a big rain cloud about to burst. It all kicks off with Charlie's birthday on the third, followed closely by Ella's birthday on the ninth, followed by a mad dash to complete Christmas shopping, followed by actual Christmas, and then our anniversary, then New Years. There are parties to attend, parties to host, shopping to get done, food to cook. It is all starting tomorrow with not one but two, yes TWO! parties at our house. Ella is having a small party for her friends...she wanted to let everyone make their own ice cream sundaes. After the guests from that party leave I will have approximately fifteen minutes to clean up the aftermath, set out all of the food for the next party, and maybe take a swig (or twelve) of wine before 25 people make their way into our home for a joint birthday party for Ella and Charlie. So we will be partying here in this house from 3pm until...whenever I shoo the last guests out of the house somewhere around 7-ish. At which time I will promptly collapse onto the couch in a heap and sleep until my alarm goes off Monday morning, at 5:15am.

IN other news, Charlie is ONE! ONE YEAR OLD! My God, this year has simultaneously crept by and flown by, if that's possible. The parts that crept by were, um, the entire first four months of his little life in which he made me consider tying my own tubes each night and the crappy parts like teething and sleep training. But the parts that have flown by, oh! the sweet snuggles and the first smiles and the pride I felt watching him learn new things, and at times I swear I could literally SEE him growing up before my eyes. I remember feeling this same way when Ella turned one. On one hand , the really bad parts are over with and gone, hooray! But, on the other hand, the really really great parts are also gone forever, and that is sad. Now we march onward into the land of temper tantrums, walking, talking, and lots more snuggling.

Congratulations, you wonderful little person. We made it! And it only cost Mommy a small portion of her sanity.

Adventures In Stepford Wifery.

So. Ella goes to this school, this school that we LOVE with all of our hearts and to which we will one day send Charlie. Way back in September when the school year started I noticed Hmmm, about 95% of the moms are really dressed up and have perfectly styled hair and makeup, and they all amazingly lack the presence of spit-up or peanut butter on their perfectly put together ensembles. Hmmm. I chalked it up to a First-Week-Let's-Make-A-Good-Impression kinda thing. But now, as we round the bend into the end of November, they are still at it. Still with the hair that has been freshly curled, and the crisply ironed button down shirts, and Oh My God if I see one more pair of jeans tucked into a pair of Uggs I am going to vomit. We got to school a minute early this morning and while we were waiting for the doors to open, I sat in my car and watched a group of these moms stand outside and talk. I was amazed! Not a wrinkle or stain or sweatshirt among them. Which got me to thinking they must all either have A) live-in nannies who entertain the kid(s) while they are primping and preening and shoving those blue jean hems into their Uggs, or B) children who actually sit contentedly by themselves for the three hours it takes them to get ready in the morning. I could possibly understand all of this if we were rolling up to the school at, oh, 10:00 in the morning. But people!!! We get there at 9am, which means we leave the house no later than 8:40am, maybe 8:30 if Mama has had a particularly rough morning and needs to space out in the car with Laurie Berkner blasting from the radio to keep the kiddies quiet. So from wake-up time to 8:30 am, these Made Up Moms need to fit in the following (or at least *I* do): diaper changes (2), breakfast prep, actual feeding of the breakfast, teeth brushing, dressing two wiggly kids, hair brushing, hair putting-up for the girl, one bottle feeding, a shoe reconnaissance mission, lunch packing, backpack finding, breaking-up-of-the-sibling-rivalry squabbles, basic Child Safety measures which include, but are not limited to, making sure Baby does not crawl into the slippery shower, rescuing stray Barbie shoe from the throat of Baby, and protecting all lamps, laptops, fireplace screens, power cords, and dvds from the wrath of Baby. All between the hours of 6ish-o-clock and 8:30. Also noteworthy is that the above list does not, in fact, include anything whatsoever pertaining to ME. Always up for a challenge, I decided to give this whole Stepford Wife look a go. What follows should be read as a How To Not Look Like You Stepped Out Of The Pages Of A Magazine Before 9am kind of a guide. Enjoy.

1. I prepared the night before by packing whatever items could be pre-packed into the lunchbox. Set out clothes for both kids. Picked out my own clothes and set them aside. I. WAS. PREPARED. Piece of cake, this was going to be.

2. Wake up a smidge earlier than my normal 5:15am to give me time to take a full-on shower, rather than the usual Oh, crap, there's still a little bit of shampoo left in my hair because the Baby was going to chew on the bottle of Pine Sol so I had to jump out of the shower early. Accomplish task #1, hooray! Both legs fully shaved with no prickly stripes left behind. Actual facial exfoliation went on in there, people. And moisturizing afterward! I felt like a new woman. Was smug and beginning to think that this was actually do-able. Was about to get knocked on my ass (literally) as a reward for smugishness. Throw hair in wet ponytail and get on with this charade.

3. Aaand, Go Time. The natives wake up, and the race is on. Bottle feeding: check. Coffee refill #3: check. Breakfast prep, fresh pot of coffee made, diaper change: check. Bonus points for me that breakfast included actual scrambled eggs cooked by me, because you just wouldn't be a TRUE Stepford Wife if you slapped a pop tart and juice box in front of the kids. Mad dash to finish lunch packing. Is 7:15.

4. Downstairs we go, to get everyone dressed and presentable. Tugging and crying commence. Time spent on kids: 782. Time spent on me: big fat pajama-wearing ZERO. Is 7:45.

5. Into the bathroom I go, armed with a make-up bag, blow dryer, and straightening iron. Step One: blow dry hair as straight as possible while keeping one eye on the Baby who is crawling dangerously close to the toilet. Stop blow drying nineteen times to remove him from a situation including the toilet brush and his mouth. Notice that as a result of Stop And Go Blow Drying, hair has dried in a style not unlike Carrot Top's. Sigh and move on to the straightening portion of this bullshit. Like a good Stepford Wife, actually TRY to get it right, meaning clipping tiny chunks of hair up on top of your head while straightening minuscule amounts of hair at one time. Get through three pencil-thin sections before actual toilet-brush-to-mouth contact is made and calls for a thorough wiping down of the baby with Wet Ones. Back to the hair. While flipping hair around to cool it off from scorching heat of the iron, Baby somehow crawls between me and the cabinets, somehow culminating in a fantastical flailing arms and hair brushes dance that ends with my foot tangled in the cord to the blow dryer, and me on my ass. And Baby screaming because I almost fell on him and oh yeah, there are fifty clips in my hair and I probably look like Medusa to him. Comfort screaming child. Is 8:15.

6. Throw on pre-selected clothes. Massive Pooping Up The Back occurs (Baby, not me), screaming and a bath are necessitated. Clothes are ruined, clothes are changed, Preschooler is crying because I don't have time to build a block castle for the Barbies with her. Vodka on the rocks is looking good right now. Is 8:25.

7. Definitely one of the previously discussed Zone Out In The Car mornings. Load up both kids in the car, throw in lunchbox, backpack, blankies and pacis and a very large coffee for me. And we're off.

Stepford Wife status: Jeans (and NOT the cute ones that now have poop on the leg), a tshirt, and SURPRISE! a sweatshirt and Birkenstock clog-y things in lieu of the cute brown suede loafers that would have been soooo Stepford of me if I had been able to wear the shirt I had planned on. Halfway straightened hair, with the leftovers twisted into a knot on top of my head. No makeup made its way onto this here face.

So in other words? I looked just like I do every other morning at 8:30am, except I may have suffered a stroke or two. And my kids had no playtime with mom like they usually do, which made them crabbier. Which did not help with my need to iron and bursh and lacquer myself beyond recognition.

Hats off to you, Oh Wearer Of The Stain-Free Button Down Shirt, Perfectly Curled Hair At 8am Lady, and Holy Hell Did She IRON HER JEANS? Woman. You are better women than I. Either that, or you wake up at 3am to accomplish these ungodly feats. And in that case? No thank you.

I'm Suprised He Didn't Come Out Holding a PBR And Watching Nascar.

For the first three years of my career in parenting, life was all about a girl. A dresses-nail polish-Barbies-playing beauty salon-sweet powdery smelling girl. That is all I knew of parenthood, the endless hours playing dress up and letting her put makeup on me until I resembled a car accident survivor. I marveled at how this girl seemed to be born with the innate knowledge of what to do with a blush brush and how to spin around and make her skirt twirl like a fairy and how to find the most glittery, pink item in a toy store. So, too, do boys. Apparently. As Charlie rapidly moves from Baby to Boy, I am in awe of how much like a little MAN he is. There are no gentle caresses for a baby doll. Baby Doll gets thrown across the room or gets her head smashed into the wall repeatedly. As a member of The Gentler Sex, Ella was content to sit and play with her shape sorter for an hour, actually trying to figure out where the pieces fit. Charlie? Holds said shape sorter over his head and bounces up and down, bangs the pieces into another toy, and then grunts and yells like Tarzan. I knew going into this that boys and girls are different from one another, but I don't think I was fully prepared for just how different they can be. I give you Exhibits A-E to display how little boys are just tiny little men.

A. He is obsessed with The Junk. I believe Ella was a few days shy of her third birthday before she realized, hey! there is something down there! Charlie grabs incessantly at the bits during every diaper change.

B. He doesn't pay attention to one thing for more than three seconds. One minute he's playing with his car, the next he's all "Hey! Let's go knock some crap over!" It is vaguely reminiscent of my conversations with the hubs: "Hon, could you take the trash to the curb, it's..." "Yeah, sure...WHOA! Golf is on! Score."

C. He wants a woman (ie. ME) to do everything for him. Why make the effort to lift that Cheerio to your own mouth when there's a woman to do it for you? Holding your own bottle? Psssh, Mom's got that covered. Any day now he'll start leaving the new toilet paper roll propped up ON TOP OF THE OLD, EMPTY CARDBOARD ROLL.

D. His feet stink. I'm not sure what this is all about, as he doesn't wear shoes yet, and they stink first thing in the morning, when the last thing they have touched is sweet smelling bath water the night before. I now firmly believe that men are born with a stink gene that makes this possible.

E. He grunts and yells and is about three seconds away from pounding on his chest and yelling "MORE POWER!" a la Tim Taylor The Tool Guy.

But he sure is cute, and there truly is nothing else like the snuggles that he reserves for only me.




It might look like he is playing in the yard, but he was actually about to crawl inside to get on the couch, scratch his crotch, burp, and then watch football.