I submit there are 3 certainties in life: death, taxes, and poopage

Posted on by peeinpeace

When you spend all day with toddlers, chances are something either really gross or scary (or both) is going to happen at some point in the course of 12 hours.  It’s almost a given.  This morning, I took the kids out in the yard to play.  As I do most days as soon as I get out there, I started to clean up the dog poop to prevent the kids from either accidentally or purposely getting into it.  (Eliza still asks, “Mommy there’s dog poop.  Can I eat it?”)

Well, this morning somehow within about two minutes Zach not only managed to step in a fresh, wet pile (why it couldn’t have been a sun-dried one, I’ll never know), but he also managed to get some in his hair.

And moments like this are frustrating and annoying, but for the past few weeks, I’ve tried to thank God for them.  I don’t want to make anyone cry, but these two weeks have been tough.  Dear friends of ours lost their beautiful 14-year-old daughter, Olivia, in a tragic drowning accident on June 23rd.  And I’ve lived through tragic deaths before; but this one has hit me more than any other unexpected loss.  This family is just so amazing, so loving, so wonderful, that it seems so unfair for them to have to live through something like this.  At the viewing, I was hugging Steve, Olivia’s dad, and I said, “You give great hugs.”  And he said, “Hugs are all I’ve got right now.  Do me a favor and hug and kiss your babies for me when you get home.”

I’ve been so struck by how much EVERY moment is a gift.  Though not likely, and certainly not fun to think about, any moment could be my last moment with one of my precious little ones.  And I’ve really pondered that these past couple of weeks.  When Zach has been waking me up (almost nightly for a reason I still haven’t determined, but I think it’s nightmares), in my tiredness and frustration, I’m trying to feel blessed that I can hold him and touch him and comfort him.  When Eliza and I have one of our 72 daily conversations that exacerbates my patience,  I’m trying to be thankful for her inquisitiveness (or desire to be annoying – I am not sure which it is yet).

Just this morning, we had this conversation:

Me: “Eliza, we need to put the Play-Doh away because you’re dropping it on the floor and Zach doesn’t understand that he shouldn’t eat it, so we need to play with it when he’s not around,” and she says,

“Why mommy?” and I say,

“Because he’s still too young to understand that it’s not food,” and then she says,

“But why mommy?”

and I try patiently to come up with an answer (my favorite these days is that I don’t have to explain myself to her and she should trust my judgment).

But back to my point, I guarantee that if she weren’t here tomorrow to ask me these questions, I would give anything (an arm? a leg? all our assets?) for one more annoying moment with her.  And if something happened to Zach, I would give anything to clean the poop off of his shoes again if I could have one more of his amazing hugs.

So in my grief, I want to encourage you to enjoy the gross and scary moments before they’re gone.  And in the words of Steve, go give your babies a hug and a kiss, just because you can.

Being supermom in a superwoman world: how to do it all

Posted on by peeinpeace

Sike.

There’s no such thing.

If only I could remember that on a day-in, day-out basis.

Did you ever notice that Mrs. Brady had Alice?  That Mary Poppins is a nanny (and the children have a mom who does … I’m not sure what)?  Why is it that we take on staying-at-home with our kids like there’s a corporate measure of success for it and we have to beat everyone else?  Why does it seem so embarrassing, so indefensible, to need help sometimes?  Where does this onus to do it like we’re going to get a bonus from society at the end of each fiscal year come from?  Who’s judging you?  Who are you allowing to influence how you feel about yourself as a mom?

I am coming to realize the deeper into parenthood I get (and I’m really only ankle-deep) that there’s no way to do it all.  You have to pick and choose what’s important to your family and stick to those priorities.  Sure, there might be some obvious “no, don’t do thats,” but generally speaking, I would argue that there’s no wrong way to be a mom.  Some moms are super organized.  Some keep a messy home.  Some work very hard to make sure their kids are mentally stimulated, others care more about getting outside and getting dirty.  Some want to have something on the schedule every day to keep things interesting.  Others are happy to be in their homes for days on end.  Some are afraid of germs, others invite them in.  (“Sure, Johnny, suck your dirt-covered thumb that your sick friend Caroline just sneezed on.”)  Some think TV and sugar are evil, and others are okay if their kids get doses here and there (or all the time, which I think most doctors would say is a “no, don’t do that.”)

The point is I am always discovering what kind of mother I am.  I evolve and learn from other moms, and some of my friends have been such great influences on helping me let things go, which I need to do.  But when I get into the comparison game, I have to realize I’m not in an office building anymore.  In the workplace, you can measure yourself against others by completing projects, going the extra mile, and being recognized for those accomplishments.  Parenthood is not like that; it is unending and constantly changing.  You can’t check it off your “to-do” list.  So forget about finding a way to do it all.  You cannot possibly do everything your doctor, husband, family and friends tell you that you should fit into your day.  When I cut myself slack for not being perfect, that’s when I think I am at my best.

If you stick to what you know to be true and use trial and error, my guess is you’ll find that your kids will think you’re superwoman.  And really, isn’t that all that matters?

Mess up fess up

Posted on by peeinpeace

A mess takes only moments to make

I’m a bad mom.  As I usually have to make dinner while I have the kids around, I generally put on a TV show to keep them occupied.  (No, this isn’t the bad mom part.)  Last night they were giggling a lot, and I was distracted because I was making a new recipe, so I didn’t check on them.  That was a big mistake.  Exhibit A shows the damage they did, in a few minutes of I’m sure what they thought was good, clean fun.  That pile, before dinner, was folded laundry.

I lost it.  If you have an infant, you lose it when your baby wakes you for the third time in three hours, screaming, and you have no idea why.  And you shout in your head, “Shut the BLEEP up,” while wishing you could put her outside to sleep, just for a few hours so you could think straight again.  Of course, instead, you probably pick up your baby in your stupor and rock her as your anger needle drops, because rationalization overcomes your frustration.  (She is, after all, a defenseless baby.)

But when your kids are a little older, and they have brains that work, and you’ve told them before not to play with folded laundry, the anger that wells up from direct disobedience in a fleeting moment can overwhelm you.  I would go so far as to say I can have an out-of-body experience.  This isn’t a defenseless child; this is someone who made a conscious decision to combat you, just because it was fun, or just to see what you would do in return.  It is an ex-haus-ting, often daily, battle.

But (always afterwards) I realize that’s not a good reason to lose it.  I yelled about how I’d asked her not to do that before, and how that meant I would have to re-fold it, and how I don’t have time to do that, and it’s inconsiderate and mean to do such a thing to your poor mother.  And what that means is that all last night and all this morning, Eliza kept saying, “Mommy, you’re not happy with me.  You yelled at me.  I’m sorry” in a way that indicates the hurt I put on her was far worse than the frustration of re-folding laundry.  I forgot about re-folding the laundry by this morning.  Eliza, however, couldn’t forget hurting me in such a way that caused me to react like that.

I hope that next time I can look at the laundry pile and laugh, because my kids had a blast making the mess.  After all, it’s laundry.  I should be thankful we have clothes to wear, and a working washer and dryer to clean them, not to mention my floor was mopped earlier in the day, so the clothes were still clean.  Next time, I hope I can bring myself to say, “Oh gosh, that’s going to take some time to clean up.  Can you help me, because it’s okay to make a mess as long as you clean it up,” which would turn the situation into a teaching moment.

I hope next time I can react in such a way that doesn’t make me feel like a bad mom.  I’m not going to beat myself up over it anymore, because one thing my kids are already teaching me is that their grace, like God’s, is new each day.  And that reminds me that I might have bad moments, but I’m a good mom.

Dinner dilemmas and solutions

Posted on by peeinpeace

If you want to be cured of perfectionism, become a parent.  I can’t tell you how much I am struggling to rid myself of this terrible disease, especially in the area of meals.

Before having kids, I definitely looked down on other parents for allowing their kids to eat McDonald’s and other fast food.  Just the other day I told Eliza we were leaving the library, and she said, “So we’re going to stop at Old MacDonald’s for lunch and get chicken nuggets and then go home and eat and then take a nap.  Okay?  Okay.”  How quickly they learn what’s behind the facade of those golden arches.  It’s amazing how living out being a parent can quickly change you.  I read a friend’s Facebook post about how she had two glasses of wine, a fudgesicle and a sleeping pill for dinner (sounds good to me!) and her daughter had pot stickers and chocolate milk.  And instead of thinking about how awful that was (which is what she was implying), I thought, “Hmm, cabbage, meat, carrots, dough, oil, milk and chocolate.  That just about covers all the major food groups.”  See, I’m changing.

But kidding aside (because I do have to laugh about my kids’ eating habits, otherwise I would cry even more than I do already), I daily struggle with getting them what they need.  It baffles me how a child can eat just about every vegetable known to man between the ages of six months and a year, only to shun every single one of them by the time she’s 18-months-old.  Once you add another child into the mix, it just becomes more stressful, because every child has different tastes.  (And I’m sure each subsequent child exponentially worsens the problem and can plunge you deeper into becoming a short order cook.)

Right now, Zach is anemic and Eliza’s iron levels are low.  I am constantly walking a tight rope, where one side is force-feeding what they need, and the other side is letting it go.  I try to stay in the middle, constantly offering good, nutritious food (along with special treats) and trying not to freak out when they refuse to eat it.  I often require Eliza to eat a certain number of bites of whatever it is we’re having before she can be finished.  But I also try to make meals that all our family can eat, which is very hard to do when you have a 16-month-old, a 2-and-3/4-year-old, and two adults whose idea of a delicious meal is a soy-ginger glazed filet of salmon on top of a bed of pea shoots.  (If that sounds good to you, too, the recipe is here: http://aveceric.com/wp/recipes/season-1/seared-salmon-with-sauteed-pea-shoots-and-ginger-soy-vinaigrette/)

So, I figured I’d write about a few of the ways I TRY to keep my sanity when it comes to feeding my kids.  Let’s face it – it’s one of the biggest struggles because they MUST EAT TO SURVIVE.  Please, if ever you were to comment with helpful tips, now would be the time I would beg you to do so.

1. Meal planning – I generally don’t go to the grocery store without planning.  I take a list based on the 4 or 5 dinner meals I plan to cook.  I plan the week’s meals out on either Sunday, Monday or Tuesday (depending on when I get the energy and make the time).  When I run out of inspiration and ideas, I look to the cookbooks and cooking magazines I have on-hand.  To help plan out the week’s meals, I use the “What to Eat” pad from Knock Knock Stuff (http://www.knockknock.biz/catalog/categories/pads/kk-pads/what-to-eat-pad/).  I write my grocery list each week on the back of the “What to Eat” sheet from the previous week.

2. I keep a list of meals that get eaten –  It’s impossible to remember what works for each kid and also what they BOTH end up liking.  Plus, their tastes continue changing and evolving.  So, if I need some go-to foods or meals, I consult this list.

3. Breakfast is key – My kids eat the most in the morning when they are hungriest.  I take advantage of this and generally cook old-fashioned or steel-cut oatmeal with fruit, or I make them a spinach and cheese omelet, or I do both.  (I keep a frozen bag of spinach instead of the boxes of it, so I can dump a few ounces in a glass bowl with some water and heat for 30 seconds and voila – have a serving of spinach.)  I save cereal for those mornings I just don’t have energy.

4. Sneaky sneaky – I add pumpkin to pancakes, parsnips to mashed potatoes, and do things like roast kale and call it “potato chips.”  (At the very bottom is my recipe for kale and Eliza loves it!)  If you make it fun and cool, your kids are more likely to eat it.

5. Don’t give up – I am constantly reminding myself of this.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve planned a great meal, served it, and been greeted with blank stares and, “I don’t like its.”  It is frustrating and exhausting.  But just like every other parenting challenge, you must not give in and stop trying.  If you eat a wide variety of healthy and nutritious foods, your kids will, too.  You just have to stay the course.

6. Don’t give in – Eliza has to at least try every food I put in front of her before she can leave the table.  My friend, Debbie, has a five bite rule.  Your kids will not die if you force them to eat food they don’t like that you know they need.  Remember, you’re the parent and you know best.

7. Give yourself a break – Date nights or nights when you put the kids to bed and cook together with your spouse or a friend are the perfect times for making a pizza or heating up some frozen chicken nuggets and sweet potato fries for the kids.  I will be the first to tell you – it is OKAY to do this sometimes!

This will not be the last time I write about meals and planning them, I’m sure.  I’ll try to post some of my kids’ favorite recipes over time.  For now, tell me what YOU do!  We can all use a little inspiration, even those of us who are perfect.  😉

KALE CHIPS – enough for a small side dish; ingredients: kale, about 1 Tbsp. olive oil, salt and pepper to taste
Preheat your oven to 375 and make sure there’s a rack pretty far from the heat (if your burners are on the bottom of the oven, put the rack near the top and vice versa).  Get out a big cookie or baking sheet.  Then pull all the kale leaves off their stems, and while doing so, break the leafy parts into small pieces of equal sizes, like a small potato chip.  As you’re breaking them apart, put them straight onto the baking sheet.  What you want to do is make sure all your kale “chips” are the same size and thickness.  Some kale is big and thick, and some of it is more “baby,” so the leaves are thinner and curlier.  So try to separate them out even to that degree so you bake “like kale” with “like kale.”
Once you have a tray full so the pieces are all in one layer, drizzle about a tablespoon of olive oil on it, and sprinkle on some salt (I use kosher) and freshly grated pepper.  Mix it all together with your fingers so all pieces have some seasonings and oil on them.  Bake them for 11-13 minutes, watching them at 10 minutes.  They go from perfectly baked to burned in about 1 minute.  So as the thinnest pieces start to turn brownish, you know they’re done.

Becoming a mom can make you ugly – really

Posted on by peeinpeace

I was just jarred by a memory that I had long forgotten, probably because the part of my brain that controls self-esteem made me forget it.

In the days and weeks after having a baby, you really can look and feel like crap.  You still look pregnant, even though the baby and all that junk that comes with it (holler if you looked at your placenta and wish you hadn’t) are out.  And you can’t really find clean clothes and remember to brush your teeth, let alone put on makeup.

Eliza was maybe two-months-old, and I had a rare moment to get out by myself and feel like a person, so of course, Greg whisked me away on a romantic date, the kind you see in diamond commercials.  Okay, no really, I went to the grocery store alone.  I started my journey through the aisles, basking in the ability to focus on … whatever the heck I wanted.  Early on, I passed a woman who smiled gently at me, making eye contact, and I didn’t think anything of it.  Then I passed her again somewhere in the middle of the store and she did the same thing again.  It made me wonder if I knew her, and I tried, in my sleep-deprived, round-the-clock nursing and pumping state to conjure up a memory of this person because I was sure my brain was misfiring.  And finally, in the freezer section, it happened a third time.  But this time, she approached me.

Now, let me set the stage by saying I am pretty sure I had changed out of pajamas, grabbed a purse instead of a diaper bag and showered that day.  In my mind, I was not someone in need of a “What Not To Wear” intervention.  So this woman said very gently and sweetly, “May I give you one of my business cards?”

I am being totally honest when I say my first thought was, “This woman thinks I look good and wants me to model for her.”  Remember, I’ve already mentioned I was beyond sleep-deprived, and, of course, on the hormonal roller coaster that is life with a newborn.  I’m sure that visions of grandeur are par for the course, perhaps as a defense mechanism.

So I said, “Sure.”  And she handed me her card, smiled really big, and I walked away.  And then I looked at the card.  She was a Mary Kay consultant.  This woman thought I needed makeup.  She didn’t think I looked good.  She thought I looked like crap.

I was devastated, defeated and disappointed.  This woman had NO IDEA what I had been through, having a child get stuck all up in my junk for 30 hours before flying out like a cannon ball on the third suction attempt and ripping what was two holes into one big gaping mess.  My moment that was making me feel like an individual who had freedom to do normal things like go to the grocery store (on a Saturday night) was stolen from me by a woman who – seriously – was not attractive herself and had on way too much makeup!  (Take THAT!)

Fast forward to now, when thinking about this upcoming weekend brought back the memory.  A friend just started a Mary Kay business and she’s going to “fix me up” on Saturday.  And I’m here to tell you that if you’re in the ugly phase after having a baby, please know that all mothers have been there and it does go away.  I’m not offended by getting made up by a Mary Kay consultant now because I’m in a totally different place.  I can safely say that my body, my brain, and my life seem so much more like my own again.  It just takes a little (or in some cases, a lot of) time.

And of course, having had several good dates with my husband since then has made a difference, even if they didn’t include receiving diamonds.

Fewer naps, dwindling sleep … thank goodness for Daylight Saving Time!

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Tonight is the night I’m going to sleep in.  Even though it won’t be a real gain on the number of hours I get to snooze, I am blissfully assuming that when we roll the clocks forward an hour, my kids will just start sleeping until that time.

Until recently, my kids slept from 7 to 7.  Then somehow both of them decided 5:30 to 6 a.m. would be a good time to wake up, despite going to bed at the same time and despite not napping longer.  (In fact, Zach is transitioning from two daytime naps to one, but that is another post.)

We have tried putting them to bed earlier for several days in a row because the “Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Baby” book says to do that.  It didn’t work.  We have tried putting them to bed later, around 7:30 to 8, because my dad told me I should do that and they would adjust, eventually, to sleeping later.  But two weeks into that, I’m here to tell you it hasn’t caused much improvement.  This represents a huge pain in my butt because having your kids decide all of a sudden that they need an hour or two less sleep each day, despite that causing multiple tantrums and fits and ornery-ness, is like having your house broken into and robbed of your most prized possessions, and all of your furniture pooped on by the thieves.

Although I haven’t put much research into sleep, I’ve put a lot of effort investing into bedtime routines and scheduled naps, and it’s worked for me.  My kids generally don’t fight about heading to bed.  So this is an unexpected thorn in my side.  And perhaps I just need to accept that they are getting older and sleeping less.  But why is that so hard?  Why am I clinging to their sleep patterns of old?  The answer, of course, is because this change doesn’t meet my expectations and I don’t like getting woken up by crying children who need more sleep at 6 a.m. but are up anyway.

So, if Daylight Saving Time doesn’t work (and oh, how I hope it does), I’m going to buy a large, digital alarm clock for Eliza’s room, draw a 7 and put it above the hour number, and tell her she’s not allowed to leave until the clock shows a 7 or higher in that hour spot.  But what to do about Zach?  I guess, in the words of Princess Leah, help me Daylight Saving Time, you’re my only hope.

Breaking out without breaking the budget: creative ways to get me-time

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This morning Zach woke himself at 5:40 by pooping.  I changed his diaper, put him back in his crib with a few toys, and told him he needed to give me at least another hour.  By 6:24, he was crying again loudly, so in an effort to keep him from waking up Eliza, I covered his mouth firmly with my hand and stubbornly yet gingerly made my way down the creaking stairs.  I actually sat him on the sun room floor in his hysterical state and yelled at him to stop crying because it was too early for me to deal with it.  Of course, Eliza found her way down the stairs a few minutes later.  This has for some reason been the story of my mornings for about two weeks (since he got the chicken pox).  Well, not the yelling part, but the getting up part.

Needless to say, I need a break.  But I always need a break.  Every parent – working or not – always needs breaks.  I love my job and I love my family, but I have to get away sometimes.  It can be really challenging both financially and emotionally to break out of the house.  But I know I have to find ways to do it.

So, here are three suggestions:

1. Swap babysitting with a friend – I think my mom friends and I talk about this way more than we actually do it, but it really does work.  I’m going to challenge myself to commit to doing this for two date nights a month (so with two friends a month).  On Valentine’s Day, I babysat for a friend with three kids.  I put my own kids to bed, drove over to her house, and from about 7:30 until 9:30, she and her husband had a date night for I’m guessing about $30.  Her two eldest were awake and we just watched a movie and read books and they went to sleep at 8:30.  Then I read a book in the peaceful quietude for an hour.  It was actually a lot more restful than being in my own house.  What’s funny is my friend thanked me profusely, but said how much she felt guilty about having me care for her kids.  How silly is that?  I’ve put lots of my friends who don’t have kids yet to work so Greg and I can get alone time (thanks Jenn, Josh, Amy, Andy, Brandon and Gaby – just to name a few!).  There’s nothing to feel guilty about.  Real friends help each other out – even if that means sitting in your house for you so you don’t have to be there.

2. Start a Mom’s Night Out – Just today, I finally sent out invitations to the neighborhood moms I know for a monthly night out.  I polled everyone for their weeknight availability and we set a standing date and time of 8 p.m. on the third Monday of every month.  There are only two rules – stay under $20 a person and 20 minutes of travel time.  Starting it that late means that kids will be sleeping or close to it when we meet.  We will all rotate the responsibility to plan the event, and I’m sure we’ll do late dinners out, coffee shop meetings, and the like, but even doing chick flick nights or manis and pedis in someone’s home would be enough of a break.

3. Share babysitters – It’s a lot of fun to get together with moms during the day while your kids play with a babysitter.  You can do this pretty inexpensively and possibly even find a mother’s helper who is home-schooled or can come over after school.  My friend, Tracy, organizes bi-weekly meetings like this at her house where we drink tea and (in theory) knit.  I LOVE these.  We all pitch in for the babysitter and rotate bringing snacks.

If you have a great idea of how you balance your budget with your need to get away, post it here in the comments section!  I’ll probably read what you write sometime around 5 or 6 tomorrow morning – unless Zach decides to have some mercy on my tired soul.

Top 10 reasons to love staying at home with your kids

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I suffer from a constant, nagging internal struggle about wanting to work.  I’ve talked with and listened to so many moms who try to put into words their very same torment over this issue.  Because the grass is always greener on the other side, I find myself wishing often that I could have a sick day, or that my kids were messing up a daycare center instead of my house, or that I could pee in peace in a bathroom stall at work.  But today, I want to focus on the many blessings of being present, in the here and now, with my children.  Here are just the tip of the iceberg reasons to enjoy this precious time with them:

10. Your children need your presence more than they need your presents. I once read this on a church bulletin board as I drove by, and it stuck.  We live in a society that tells us if we buy our kids the best sneakers or video games or get them into the best private schools, we love them more than parents who don’t provide these things.  It’s bologna.

9. You can’t have quality time without quantity time.  Quality time can’t be forced to fit into scheduled time slots.  I’ve found that when I schedule special events, they often don’t live up to expectations.  The mundane tasks of everyday life give me those moments when Eliza looks over at me while I’m cooking and says, “I love you mommy.  Thanks for making me dinner.”

8. I might not get sick days, but I get play days. It is unusually warm for a winter day.  And I have the freedom to take my kids outside and enjoy the sunshine.  If I weren’t my own boss, I couldn’t do that.

7. Kids are sponges and they soak up everything – especially dirt and grime. I don’t have to wonder what my kids are learning about life from someone else.  The worldview they are getting is the one Greg and I want to teach them.  Sure, so I have a 2 1/2-year-old who says “freaking” and “what the heck?” and even “DAMMIT.”  It could be so much worse.

6. You get to experience the wonder of learning everything for the first time. Let’s face it – our earliest memories are probably from about age three.  It’s amazing to watch infants and toddlers learn day-by-day how the world works – how toilet paper rolls off if you spin it, how dirt tastes, how water splashes, how to give a good raspberry, how to sing a song and how to annoy the dog.

5. We only have to consider one person’s work schedule when planning vacations and trips. Every time I think about getting a part-time job, I cringe at the thought of not being able to get off work when I want to get off work.

4. My kids really get to know me. For better or worse, my children see all the sides of me.  Sometimes, I fly off the handle, like I did briefly this morning when I got Zach dressed and he subsequently spilled the dog water bowl all over the floor and himself, and then did the same thing with my water-glass about two minutes later.  When I mess up, I get the opportunity to model apologizing, taking responsibility for my mistakes, and accepting forgiveness from them.  If I were working, there wouldn’t be enough time to reveal my true self to my kids.

3. I can better serve my husband. When I went back to work after having Eliza, things like laundry, dry cleaning and dishes didn’t get done and we ate a lot of takeout.  I was getting by with the bare minimum.  I didn’t have enough hours in the day to do anything really well, and for a type-A person, that’s a very hard place to be.

2. Nap time. I am anal about this and I have always coordinated their naps so the two of them sleep at the same time in the afternoon.  If I need to take a snooze, I can.  There’s no way you can do that at work.

1. Not even Mother Teresa could love your kids like you do.  No other boo boo kisser, monster deterrer, bug squasher, book reader or nose and fanny wiper could substitute for you.  Period.

Parenting lesson #9: When it rains, it pours, so make sure you have a good umbrella

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Blue skies are ahead if you keep looking up!

Sometimes things just stink.  Sometimes you throw your hands up in the air and ask in a very sarcastic voice, “Really, God?  Is there anything else you want to throw my way right now?”  And sometimes, the answer to that is, “Yes,” and then things stink harder.

You might recall from my last post that two weeks ago we all had sinus infections and began antibiotics.  This has been a house of illness since then.  I’ve had what we’ll call “stomach” issues for two weeks.  Zach came down with the chicken pox on Saturday.  (It’s a long story.)  The urgent care doctor also said he has mild pneumonia.  He has to stay in the house for a week.  I came down with an ear infection Sunday.  Something is “off” about Eliza, where she doesn’t want to go to school and is super clingy.  She busted her upper lip Sunday and had to go to the dentist.  Last week our fridge broke.  Last night the dishwasher did.  Greg is moving into an office amid all of this.  I think I’m forgetting something.

People say “When it rains, it pours,” and sometimes that is the case, like with the past several days for us.  But it’s when we are at our weakest and most needy that God provides a big umbrella.

We have been covered with offers for help.  One friend lent me numbing ear drops so I could sleep Sunday night before being able to see a doctor on Monday.  Two friends – one who has three of her own kids – offered to take Eliza off my hands, and so I was able to get her out of the house for three glorious hours yesterday.  Two friends offered to bring us dinner.  One of them – another friend with three kids – made us a fantastic meal Monday night that saved the day.  My next door neighbor picked up milk for me and I ordered the rest of my groceries online through Peapod.

There was a time when I thought reaching out to others for help would somehow reflect weakness on my part.  But since having kids, I’ve realized it’s impossible to live life without community.  And in our recent time of need, my friends and neighbors have really covered us and blessed us.

It’s only Wednesday and I already find that we’re coming out the other end of this.   And that’s how it is with life’s ebbs and flows and calms and storms.  The current stench is lifting and I smell a brighter day – one when I can help others in the same way they have helped me, because when your life is full of sunshine, you should have an umbrella to spare.

The “big deals” of child rearing that we dread don’t always turn out to be dreadful

Posted on by peeinpeace

Killing two birds with one stone is awesome, especially when it relates to kids.  Often, it seems like forces are working against you as a parent.  Some days nothing goes as you wish, you feel like a failure and Murphy’s Law kicks your butt.  But sometimes, you get pleasantly surprised.

I’ve been dreading weaning Zach from his pacifier.  Of course I read somewhere that kids shouldn’t need them or use them past the age of 1, so as Zach is 13+ months, I already feel like a failure in this area.  (We type-A folks put a lot of pressure on ourselves.)  Side note: I know plenty of two- and three-year-olds who still use them, and they seem to be doing just fine, but that just isn’t for me, like changing two- and three-year-old poop diapers isn’t for me.  (See all my posts about potty training Eliza at 23-months.)

So, Zach has used the pacifier to sleep since he was a newborn, and he just started sleeping 12-hour nights consistently a few weeks ago.  So the idea of weaning him from using it was looming over me like a storm cloud.  I didn’t want to lose my newfound seven straight-hours-of-sleep nights that have made me feel like a new woman.

Welcome to real life, where children younger than five get an average of seven infections a year and a bunch of viral colds on top of that.  A week ago Zach started hacking so badly it made him throw up.  For the first several nights of the sinus infection that has now infiltrated us all, I gave him his pacifier but he kept spitting it out.  He could not breathe with it in.  And finally, I just stopped giving it to him at all on Tuesday.  He has been pacifier-free since then.  Granted, he’s not sleeping great anyway because he’s sick, but I’m not planning on giving it back to him.  In the quest to get him well, I’m also fixing his pacifier addiction.  I was anticipating a difficult, drawn-out process, but this illness has forced me to have more sleepless nights, and presented the perfect opportunity to wean him because he can’t use it anyway.

I love it when things like this happen as a parent.  You can keep changing phases and stages so quickly that all you do is dread the next big thing.  The problem is you forget to remember all the progress you’ve made and all the things that end up not being a big deal.  It’s amazing that Eliza has mastered so many skills that seemed so onerous when they were on the horizon, such as feeding herself and using the bathroom by herself.

So with Zach, it’s amazing that he’s mastered things like smiling, feeding himself finger foods and crawling.  I don’t want to forget to be thankful that we’ve passed through these phases joyfully.

Now, if only there were a way illness could get him to walk.  Oh well.  One thing at a time.  It’s pretty hard to kill three birds with one stone.