The one where my life makes me laugh…

By Preschool Mom

I think one of the best things I’ve learned from being a mom is that sometimes you really do just have to laugh. That may sound like a total cliché, but honestly, it was what kept me from losing it today. I literally started laughing because if I hadn’t laughed, I for sure would have cried.

We’ve had a lot going on lately, between house stuff, having two small children and end of school craziness we’ve been running around like nutty people. (I am not even going to address the fact that it is the end of the PRESCHOOL year and I’m already inundated with parties, theme days and teacher gifts – what in the world is real school going to be like?!) Add to that mix a bout of the stomach flu for me and something slightly more troubling for my husband and you come up with a recipe for one stressed out, stretched thin mama. Everything sort of came to a head today, and I found myself giggling at the absurdity of it all.

Some back story if you please. It is May. It is hot. Our air conditioning stopped working last week when it was around 89 degrees for several days in a row. We opened our own “home for displaced fans” (air circulating, not sports cheering) and tried to hang on through the THREE estimates the homeowner wanted to get to replace the system. When he finally picked a place, they dropped the bombshell that they couldn’t come out to fix the problem for five days. FIVE DAYS!!! Two kids, two adults, two cats and one very hairy dog without A/C for five days…let’s just say that is not my kind of math. Then I got the stomach flu. Then my husband got what he thought was the flu. Cue the laugh so you don’t cry reflex.

We decided to stop “toughing it out” and shipped the dog off to the air conditioned boarding facility and ourselves to a local hotel with not just A/C but also with an indoor pool. It seemed like we had fixed our problems until my husband couldn’t stop throwing up and we ended up in the emergency room. I couldn’t help but think, “Hey, at least I don’t have to worry about running home to let the dog out!”

Fast forward to my husband being admitted to the hospital, me scrambling to find childcare and my son disappointed by the fact that we couldn’t use the lovely indoor pool because daddy was in the hospital and mommy was going crazy. So after spending all day in the ER with my husband, juggling the baby and finding someone to liberate my older one from the clutches of mind-altering boredom , I fell victim to mommy guilt and promised my child that I would take him to the pool. As soon as the words came out of my mouth it started thundering and lightning, literally. Seriously?! Thankfully the storm passed and the kid got to play in the pool, but not before a deluge of tears and me having the desk clerk explain to him that they really did close the pool if there was a storm and mommy truly wasn’t a horrible person.

I thought maybe I was in the clear the next day. I packed up all our stuff, checked out of the hotel and hauled the kids back to the car through the pouring rain. After running home (in the opposite direction from my kid’s school) to get diapers (which I had forgotten to pack enough of) I stopped at McDonalds to get breakfast (pancakes and syrup – go sugar) before dropping the kid and heading to the hospital. Mission accomplished, right? Wrong. By the end of the day I had the following summation: My husband was in the hospital with a rather contagious bacterial infection, my house still didn’t have air conditioning, my baby projectile vomited and executed a huge diaper blow-out at the same time, my four-year-old was found standing naked in the bathroom (never a good sign) and explained that his clothes were aggravating his poop, and I remembered that I had to move half of the boxes in our fully packed attic before 8am the next morning so the guys could fix the A/C. I couldn’t help it, I literally burst out laughing. I couldn’t help but think that if we owned a goldfish it would have died. It was just that kind of day…

Even writing this now I sort of have to giggle, but what really makes me smile is the response I got from my friends when I texted them about my woes. I just wanted them to share in my awe at the perfect storm of circumstances and maybe laugh at the absurd comments that issue forth from a four-year-old brain. Instead, I got a bevy of “what do you needs?” and “how can we helps?”

 As a rule, I think a lot of us try to do it all. We work, take care of the kids, try to keep the hubby happy and the in-laws from feeling excluded all within what turns out to be a terribly short 24-hour day. Rarely do we allow ourselves to accept the help of others, instead we just push forward until we almost break, thinking that is the way things have to be. But through all of this, I have learned more than just how to laugh it off, I learned that asking and receiving help really is a good thing, and that I have some pretty awesome friends!

The one with the mini-van envy...

By Preschool Mom

I am not a car person. To me a car is just a means of getting from point A to point B. When I got my last car, my two requirements were cup holders and a clicker to open the door, beyond that I was pretty clueless. Imagine my surprise when I found myself with a major case of mini-van envy.

Like a lot of my friends, my husband has flat out refused to buy a mini-van. I don't know if it is some sort of macho thing or an age thing, but he shuts the door on the subject every time I even so much as mention it. Of course, he is not the one schelpping two kids, an infant seat, a stroller and the rest of the crap that goes with kids day in and day out. He works from home; sometimes he goes days without even getting in a car! But after several years of gentle hints and heavy guilt trips I stopped even bringing it up. That all changed on a recent trip.

We just took our first plane/rental car/hotel trip with both kids. Before I always dreaded trying to get two or three large suitcases, three carry-ons and a stroller in a car the size of a bathroom stall (we go cheap with the rental cars). This time I gently reminded my husband that we now had two kids worth of crap and he seemed happy to shell over a little more cash to get an SUV. When we got to the counter to upgrade, they said it would be $20 more a day for an SUV. We said we would take it, but before the agent could book it the price jumped to $49 more a day. Instead he offered us a mini-van for $15 more a day, I looked at my husband with hopeful puppy-dog eyes, and he finally caved!

It took less than three minutes for me to completely fall in love with the Chrysler Town and Country mini-van. You push a button and the doors slide open. You push the button again and they slide closed. You put the car in reverse and the back-up camera shows me that no one is hiding behind the car. Love.At.First.Sight.

The entire way to the hotel I gushed about the van. I called my mom to gush about the van. I called my friend who owns one of these vans and gushed to her about the van. I couldn't stop smiling thinking about the van. I tried the puppy-dog eyes again on my husband, and he told me to enjoy the rental because that was the only way I was going to ever get a mini-van.

The next day I got a chance to tool around in the mini-van with just the baby. As I sat at a traffic light singing "Twinkle, twinkle, little star" a small sedan pulled up beside me. The windows in that car were down and two young couples were acting the way you do when you are young and at the beach and having fun. They were hanging out the windows, singing to the radio and laughing at life. I saw them glance over at me a time or two and I swear I could read the mockery in their eyes.

For a moment I thought I should hide my face as I sat behind the wheel of the mom-mobile. Then I realized I had nothing to hide for, I loved my ride! As much fun as those kids were having, I had no envy for them. My sweet baby boy was in the back seat, I was on my way to pick up my big kid and I didn't want to be anywhere else.

It was hard to hand those keys back over at the end of our trip, and even harder to not pout like a child when my husband once again said no to a van, but at least I had the memory of those few days with my dream car. And honestly, I have high hopes that by the time we actually do buy a new car there will be an SUV that will not only have push-button doors, it will also change my kid's diapers.

The one where I expose my son to all manner of inappropriate things…

By Preschool Mom

As parents, we try to shield our children from things that are scary and age-inappropriate. We don’t always get it right, for example the time my husband let our son watch Ghostbusters, and we dealt with ghost sightings around the house for a week! But as a general rule we try to keep him away from bad language, scary images or things that are just not right for a four-year-old. Recently, I’ve managed to expose our son to all kinds of things that are not really age appropriate, but are rather funny in the retelling at least.

My oldest is currently fascinated by “old” things. I truly have no clue where this is coming from, but as I am a huge history fan I am pretty excited about this phase. He likes to look at my “old” books, one of which is an encyclopedia of mythology, a lovely illustrated look at Greek, Celtic and Norse myths. I didn’t think anything about this until he asked me to read the book with him.

 A few pages in I realized my mistake. While looking at a painting of some goddess or other he looked at me with this total little boy grin and said, “She doesn’t have any clothes on.” Oh great – here we go. “Why doesn’t she have any clothes on?” My not-so-bad response, “Because they dressed differently a long time ago and sometimes didn’t wear clothes.” His response to that, with said naughty grin, “She has a butt!” And close book…yikes! After this exchange I managed to convince him we should look at another book about old things and brought in one about the Wright brothers first flight. In this book everyone had their clothes ON!

Now I know that the folks in the paintings are classical figures and should not be twittered over, but try explaining that to a four-year-old. I also know that there is nothing sexual in his glee over the “naked” pictures, to him it is just funny to say the word “butt.” However, it just seemed wildly inappropriate to continue looking at the book when the lack of clothing seemed to be the biggest draw. 

I thought we had fulfilled our somewhat inappropriate book quota for the day, but later he brought me several Little Golden Books to read. One of them was The Owl and the Pussycat. I was not familiar with this Edward Lear poem, so I started to read without knowing the text. I felt like a total 5^th grader when it got to the part where the Owl professes his love to the Pussycat and I burst out in giggles. I

am a thirtysomething married woman who probably didn’t even know there was an alternative meaning to the word “pussy” until I was in high school, but I was completely shocked to see it there in print. The poem is from the 1870s, so obviously they didn’t have that particular slang term, but when on the very next page of the book it started talking about the “bong-tree” I’d reached my limit and burst out laughing.

My son looked at me with total innocence and wanted to know why mommy was laughing.  Not only was I NOT going to explain the humor to him, I also wasn’t prepared to explain to him that mommy was really just being extremely immature. So instead I changed “Pussy Cat” to “Kitty Cat” and managed to make it through the rest of the book.

The moral of the story here seems to be that no matter how hard you try, there are just some things you can’t shield your kids from.  And honestly that is probably a good thing. After all, he has to learn how to respond appropriately to things he is likely to encounter (actually maybe I do too) and he won’t be able to do that if we aren’t there to help him understand. Oh and as for our copy of The Owl and the Pussycat, well that just might make it into the donation pile for the thrift store. There are limits to what I can handle…

The one where I explain terrorism to a four-year-old…

By Preschool Mom

I have a four-year-old boy. He asks questions about everything. All the time…

A few months back he started asking where Sesame Street was. It took me forever to realize he was asking this because the theme song asks “Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Sesame Street?” After DAYS of fielding that question, I finally told him Sesame Street was in New York (because it looks like New York City to me) and hoped that would be the end of it. Silly me…that just lead to a lot more questions, like “How do you get to New York?” Answer “An airplane.” Question: “Where is New York?” Answer: “North of here.” Question: “What is north?” Answer: “Don’t you want to go outside and play?”

Not long ago my husband had to go to New York on business and my son’s first question to him was, “Are you going to Sesame Street?” My husband said he wasn’t going to make it that trip; he would wait until our son could go with him. Ironically, he was staying at a hotel in Times Square and one of the first things he saw when he got out of the cab were several Sesame Street characters posing for pictures. I felt vindicated; Sesame Street is in New York after all!

Being a teacher, I frequent our local thrift shop a lot for new books for my classroom. At ten cents a board book you just can’t go wrong. Today I was thrilled to find a children’s book called My New York, and snapped it up for a whopping 75 cents. WooHoo, I thought, a book to answer all the countless New York questions!!! My son flipped through the book without me first, looked up and said “Sesame Street isn’t in here.” I told him I was sure there were lots of other neat things to learn about and sat down to read it with him. It didn’t even dawn on me to check the copyright date of the book, and so I was shocked when the twin towers of the World Trade Center popped up in several sections.  

I could have just glossed over those two tall buildings, but something inside me said no. I know he’s only four, but it seemed to dishonor the memory of all those who died to not tell him a little about what happened. He is obsessed with bad guys right now, so when he pointed out the towers on the map I told him they weren’t there anymore, that really real bad guys knocked the buildings down. I left out the part about the airplanes (because with an upcoming trip to grandma’s I didn’t think TSA would look too highly on a kid talking about planes crashing into buildings) but I did try to explain about how people who didn’t like us did a very bad thing.

Was I wrong to do this? Did the limited information I provided him offer just enough for him to be confused or scared? Honestly, I don’t know. But it was a gut parenting moment where I felt like the truth was far better than the white lie of omission. I want to protect my children as much as possible. I want them to believe in Santa, the Easter Bunny and the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Ultimately I want them to remain children for as long as they can. But I can’t ignore the world we live in, and I can’t pretend that it is always a safe place. I think my son needs to know that bad guys can be real and aren’t just characters in a cartoon. After all, that knowledge might one day save his life. 

Note: The edition of the book we read was from 1993. The New Anniversary Edition from 2003 is updated with the words “site of the World Trade Center.”

 

The New Diet Craze....The Wet Nurse

by Climber Mom

I have decided that public health professionals have gone about encouraging breastfeeding all wrong.

When you're pregnant everything you read and hear from friends and family (whether solicited or not) describes how important breastfeeding is to the health of your newborn. I totally agree, and while I was pregnant I went to a breastfeeding class and even a few La Leche league meetings to be as prepared as I could be to ensure I could nurse my child.

But in all that information, nowhere did I read or hear about the truly awesome benefit of breastfeeding.... the weight loss!

I think the public health community has really missed an opportunity with their target audience -- and hey I work in PR so I can say that:). EVERY women worries about the weight gained from pregnancy and how hard it will be to lose the weight after her child is born. And you can't turn around in a grocery store or book store without a magazine article about a new diet craze or weight loss plan. We care about how we look -- shocking. And we want to look like "ourselves" after our baby and not just a "mom."

So seriously, why does no one talk about the most awesome part of breastfeeding?.... You actually expend hundreds of calories a day just sitting around watching TV and eating everything in site (I eat more than my husband and continue to lose weight- sweet!). This is every woman's dream!

As a bonus, you are doing the absolute best thing you can be doing for your child:) And people don't talk about this???

Oh and don't forget the boobs! You gain a cup size just by nursing your baby. Forget plastic surgery, you want to get skinny and get big boobs... have a baby (and nurse him or her):)

It's weird. I have always wanted to have children so I never concerned myself too much with what would happen to my body. I just figured it would be worth it and I'd deal with it. But I have to admit, once I was pregnant, I was a bit terrified about how I would lose the 35 pounds I gained for my 8 pound 3 oz baby. I wanted to look like the woman my husband married after the baby, and I just wasn't sure how hard that would be to accomplish.

For me (and obviously, this isn't true for everyone so please don't hate me!- I've probably just cursed myself for round two), but loosing the weight was easier than I ever imagined. The week after my son was born (who ate constantly), I was back in my regular clothes. And by my six week postpardum visit, I weighed 10 pounds less than I did when I got pregnant -  I actually weighed less than I did when I graduated high school....with no effort at all, other than feeding my baby.

So basically this last year was kind of a dream. It was my one year to be Barbie. I had the giant nursing boobs and a tiny waist (well tiny for me) and I worked out less than any year I can remember (a baby with an early bedtime and the constant rounds of daycare colds inhibited my grand workout plans). So again, why is this a best kept secret?

Now my problem is, my child is 13 months old and I'm weaning him (he's down to just a morning feeding). For the most part, I'm thrilled. I'm ready to have my body back all to myself, to be able to share the joy of getting up with my son at 6:30 a.m. with my husband and to let his grandparents enjoy him for a weekend while his parents sleep in. Yes, I will miss the closeness that comes with nursing and I'm sad my baby isn't a baby any more, but you know what's equally as bad... I finally stop sharing my body with my baby and I lose the diet plan! That just so wrong;)

I have actually considered continuing to pump after he's weaned just so I can keep eating as much as I want and stay skinny. As a bonus I could even donate the milk and feel great about myself:) The only problem with that is pumping really sucks.... but then so does running....

Maybe instead I can bring back the wet nurse. Perhaps I can write a book and get that started as a new diet craze:)

The one with the breast pump and the rock concert…

By Preschool Mom

Motherhood routinely surprises me. You would think after four years and two kids I would be prepared for the unexpected, but nope, still taken off guard on a regular basis. Sometimes it is simply a result of sleep deprivation. I have a three month old, and not one of those strange alien creatures who sleeps eight to ten hours a night. Needless to say I’m not always on my “A” game, so it makes sense that I will walk into a room and be surprised to find my sleeping baby there. No, no, I didn’t forget that I put him there; I forgot that I had him! Yikes!

Thankfully forgetting I have two children doesn’t happen often, but each day  is filled with a variety of surprising things that come out of my mouth that I just have to shake my head at. The most recent of these was said to my husband: “Thank you for holding the baby for me; going to the bathroom alone was such a pleasant experience.” You know you’ve reached full on mom-dom when you describe a solo trip to the loo as a pleasant experience.  Between my own two boys and my part-time job as a preschool teacher I pretty much live in kidville 24/7, so I was really not prepared for re-entry into adult life. When my husband got tickets to the Eric Clapton concert we thought, woohoo, a totally kid-free zone! Yeah, not so much…

As all moms know, coordinating a night out can require the planning of a military invasion. After shipping the four-year-old off to grandma and grandpa for the night, I got the younger one ready to spend some quality time with a sitter. Since I’m nursing, this required pumping, packing alternative bottles and praying that he would actually eat after all that work.  I was exhausted by the time we got in the car and headed for the concert!

Of course when you are nursing you can’t just say to the girls, “okay, the kid is not around so I don’t need you to work for the next four hours or so.” Nope, the boobs are on 24/7 production mode with no off switch. I had thrown the breast pump in a ziplock bag because I figured I’d need to pump, but I wasn’t thinking about the fact that we had to park a mile away and I wouldn’t be able to nip out to the car and take care of business. I’d been so excited to carry my cute little bag instead of the ever present diaper backpack, that I didn’t even consider the need to stash the hand-pump somewhere. When we got to the concert I realized I had NOT planned accordingly. My husband is a pretty understanding guy, but no way was he walking in with me and a gallon sized CLEAR ziplock bag with a breast pump and milk storage bags.

I couldn’t help it, I actually giggled at the absurdity of the situation. Never in a million years did I expect to be sitting in my car deciding what was more important to take into a rock concert, my wallet or my breast pump.  Ultimately, I was shocked at how much my little Kate Spade bag could hold, and even more shocked was the 70-year-old man who checked my bag at the door. He looked inside the bag, and then he looked up at me with raised eyebrows.  I just shook my head and thought, “That’s right mister, it’s a breast pump!”

The concert was great (except for the 6’10” guy sitting in front of 5’2” me) and it was a lot of fun to be out with my husband. I got lucky and didn’t have to pump which was a good thing because a) pumping in a public restroom at a concert = gross and b) the baby refused the bottle so he was thrilled to see me and his food supply when we picked him up. At the end of the night I couldn’t help thinking that only a mother would find herself in such a situation, and only a mother would do the same thing again!