Me, to #1: Please, grab me a cloth napkin so I can wipe 3′s nose. They are in the laundry room.
#1, returning with one of Husband’s socks: This is all we have, and you’re just going to have to make do.
No one on this photo shoot had kids?
Dear Betty Crocker,
Ms. Crocker, I picked up at box of your cake mix the other day. Thanks for that, by the way, the mix in the boxes, because there is no way in hell I could have made the six – yes, SIX – batches if cupcakes I had to make last month from scratch. So, thank you, Ms. Crocker, for that.
But, Betty – can I call you Betty? – I just have to ask: Do you have kids? Becaused, based on yor packaging, I’m assuming you DON’T have kids. Which packaging, you ask? Well, this one:
Now, Betty, I have baked with kids. I have had little people so anxious to eat your cakes that they are almost unable to stand on their little chairs. They do not, as pictured here, smile sweetly as they watch. No, Betty, they don’t. They help, in the least helpful way possible.
Here is what they actually do: ad you are pulling out the mixing bowl, they rip open the box, making the directions unreadable. When you pour the dry mix into the bowl, they immediately start stirring (and, by stirring, I mean “throwing it around.”). When you add the raw egg, they stir a moment, then stick a big spoonful into their little mouths. It is horrific, Betty, horrific. And then, the whole time it bakes, they dance outside the red-hot oven, singing, “is it done yet? Are the cupcakes ready?”
I’m just saying, this picture is kind of false advertising, right? Because, if your product could produce this result, I would buy it by the truckload.
If you really want to move product, show a mom with the cupcakes in the oven and a glass of wine in her hand as she reclines on the couch. If we’re going for a fantasy picture, have her husband in the background, cleaning the kitchen.
Best,
Me
Imagined Conversations: Let’s Ruin Mom’s Manicure
#1: what should we do this morning?
#2: how about we go into the bathroom, poop in the toilet, then stuff it full of toilet paper and flush repeatedly?
#1: I like the way your mind works!
Actual Conversations: Well, duh!
#1: Coco goes on the tracks. Coco, like, at my preschool?
Husband: Coco?
#1: Not Coco! Cole! She’s a boy.
The Kindness of Strangers Might Be Easier
The thing I’ve found about living with an addict is that I just never know what’s next.
My husband is – allegedly – off pills and has cut back on the alcohol. That would be terrific, except:
1. I know it is temporary.
2. He has substituted it with a new addiction: sleep.
I am not joking: he is sleeping 12-15 hours a day. He works nights, presumably 12 hour shifts, though it’s rare he works more than 8. Then, he gets home around 4 am and goes to sleep. At 5 pm, I try to rouse him. Some days I can, sone days I can’t.
As I’ve mentioned, I am a sleep deprived new mom. I get – on a good night – 6 hours of sleep. I also deal with our three kids, ages 4 and under, all alone from 6 am until he wakes (not counting the midnight hours with the baby). I do all the cleaning, all the cooking, all the laundry. I do everything except pay the bilks and take out the trash (though i’ve been taking over trash duty to get the piles put of my garage).
So, I feel a little hostile when my husband sleeps non-stop. And when he isn’t working or sleeping, he isn’t helping around the house. I actually don’t know what he’s doing. But it isn’t helping.
We have had many, many fights about this. He doesn’t understand why I’m angry. “why shouldn’t I sleep 12 hours a day? I obviously need it!”
Of course, I’ve been pregnant or breastfeeeding for 5 years this week. No mention of if I am tired.
The thing is: I don’t want him to be sleep deprived and miserable so I cam be happy. And I don’t want me to be sleep deprived, overworked, and miserable for him to be happy. I want us both to be a little miserable together, as a team.
But addicts don’t play team sports. Addiction is too selfish for that.
This morning, I was sick, and I begged my husband to take the kids just for an hour so I could sleep a little more. “actually,” he said, “I was about to go to sleep. (It was 7 am and he’d been awake since midnight .)
“Please,” I begged, “just an hour.”
Thirty minutes later, the baby was shrieking hysterically. I went into the living room to find him asleep (passed out?) on the couch, wailing baby in arms, about to drop her.
I felt like such an idiot! Why did I ask him for help? Why? I endangered my baby, all for what? Because I had a cold! Because I was desperate for sleep?
Of course, it ended in a big fight, a big, useless fight.
I can’t depend on him. I can’t leave, either. All I can think to do is pretend he’s not here and carry on like a single mom. He won’t bother us; he’ll be asleep. What other choices do I have?
Actual Conversations: Navy intelligence
Between me and Husband, while eating dinner:
Husband: You know why they call these Navy beans, right?
Me: It isn’t because they serve them in the Navy.
Husband: Yes, it is. It’s the only bean they serve.
Me: Are you meaning to tell me that, any time you were out to see, you ONLY ate white beans.
Husband: no, Sometime we had other beans. Red beans, pintos, black beans… But they’re all called navy beans when they’re served in the navy.
Me: That is completely untrue.
Husband: it’s just like Navy blue is what they call black.
Me: Navy blue is a color. It’s a dark, dark blue.
Husband: No, the “blue” uniform we wear are actually black. Therefore, navy blue IS black.
Me: That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.
Recipe: White and Green Chili (crockpot)
I love soup. And since I’ve declared 2010 to be “the Year I Will Lose My Baby Weight,” soup is a good way to fill myself up without blowing the rest of the day. Put this soup in your calorie counter of choice; you will be happy with the results.
I’m also doing this whole “Package Free by 2011″ thing, where I’m trying to cut down on pre-packaged foods (like canned beans). I’ve given you the amounts in cups, since I make mine from dry and stick them in the freezer. It’s ok to use cans; just get the amounts close. All my recipes are things I throw in the pot, anyway; I only post it when I get something right. Also, I only used 3 chicken thighs because I’ve resolved to eat less meat. You could probably double that, too.
If you have a small person who doesn’t like spice, cut the spices in half. It’s still a nice, warm soup, with just a little spice.
Put all this stuff in a 6 quart crockpot. Cook on high for 4 hours, or low for 6+ hours. Just before serving, pull out the chicken and shred it with a fork.
4 cups fat free chicken broth
3 chicken thighs
1 green pepper, chopped
1 small yellow onion, chopped
1 1/2 cups spinach, frozen
2 1/2 cups navy beans
2 tbsp corriander
2 tbsp cumin
2 tbsp cilantro
salt to taste (I used a lot. i like salt)
ultrasharp white cheddar cheese or sour cream, optional garnishes
CRAPs
“They’re not even an actual group!” L is so upset, she’s half crying, half shouting through the phone. She’s so upset, I think I could hang up and hear her shouting all the way from Virginia. “I don’t think they’re actually associated with the school at all. I asked. There’s no ‘booster club.’ They just declared themselves a booster club and then gave themselves a stupid name.”
Me: “Stupid name?”
“POPs.” She sighes straight down the line. “Parents of Preschoolers.”
What is at issue: Apparently, these “POPs” - the self-declared leaders of the parents at L’s son’s preschool - have decided to throw a teacher appreciation luncheon. They want the other, non-POP parents to bring a covered dish. So my friend L offers to bring her Buffalo Chicken Dip. And the POPs turned their noses up at it. “Buffalo Chicken Dip? Um. . . that’s not what we have in mind. So, no thanks.”
Apparently, they were thinking homemade mini-quiches, prunes wrapped in applewood bacon, and bite sized Beef Wellington. L’s Buffalo Chicken Dip was just too pedestrian.
“I would have made something else, but, after that, I was out! They’re all these perfect, plastic, over-streaked stepford moms,” she wails. (I do not interrupt with a reminder that I have jumped on the streaky hair bandwagon. This is her rant.) ”They’re a bunch of adult bullies. They’re the ‘popular’ girls in high school, all grown up. POPs,” she mutters. “I think they’re CRAPs: Catty, rotten attitude parents.”
“They are your own version of That Bitch, Lisa Mullins!” I declare.
L, who has heard me bitch about Lisa Mullins endlessly, “Yes! Just like Lisa Mullins!”
I’ve heard a lot about these so-called Mommy Wars, this war that is allegedly raging between working and stay-at-home moms. I have to tell you: I don’t think this Mommy War is what people think it is. I don’t think it exists at all. I have been a working mom, and I have been a stay at home mom. I never thought stay at home moms were lazy or that working moms were fobbing off their children.
Most of the parents I hang out with pass no judgement on each other for anything. There’s no Sears/Ferber debates, no jarred/homemade baby food scuffles. I’m not spending my days worrying about who uses cloth or buys Pampers. And I sure don’t care who works and who stays home.
But you know who does? The CRAPs.
They care, because if you aren’t doing what they’re doing, you are wrong. And they have to let you know that you are wrong. They pick a side, they get on it, and they start fighting with us, the . . . well, I don’t have a catchy ancronym for us, those who don’t care about the parenting choices of others, those who understand that every parent and every child are different, and we all have to do best for our kids in different ways. It isn’t working moms vs stay at home moms. It’s CRAP parents versus the rest of us. It’s their superior, better-than-you attitude that is bringing all the moms down. And it’s time to take a stand against them and their CRAPiness.
It is time for us to stand up to them. “I respect your parenting choices, but they are not mine!” Isn’t that what I tell my four-year-old to do, use his words? Why am I cowed by That Bitch, Lisa Mullins? Why do I let her make me feel bad for buying conventional groceries, for driving a domestic car, for letting my kids watch PBS when I am at the end of my rope. No! No! I am secure in my choices. I am doing ok! No, I am not Mom of the Year material, but I am doing well with what I’m working with! And I should tell her that.
All you CRAP parents: Shut up! The rest of us are doing our best. yes, we might be fumbling. But we are trying.
“Oh, goodness, are WE CRAPs?” I lament to L. “Am I a crap because I hate That Bitch, Lisa Mullins?”
“No!” she said immediately. “You are not a CRAP. You don’t dislike That Bitch, Lisa Mullins because she parents differently than you do. You dislike her based on her own merits, who she is as a person. Specifically: her bitchiness.”
And that, my friends, is the way it should be. We shouldn’t dislike each other because of whether we work in or outside the home. We shouldn’t dislike each other because of whether we are “crunchy”moms or not. If a mom is effectively and lovingly parenting her kids, we should respect that, and let it be. What we should dislike are bitchy moms, CRAP parents, those that have to make the rest of us feel bad.
And I just have to say: I pity L’s CRAPs. I have had L’s Buffalo Chicken Dip, and it is amazing and without equal. If you act like CRAP, you just miss out.
Limerick: Regression
There once was a little girl child
Who during the day was quite mild
But save rocking or song
She was up all night long
And drove her poor mother quite wild.
Night(s) of the Living Dead
When I first found out I was pregnant with #3, I cried, and not with joy. Why? Because I’d finally gotten #2 sleeping properly, and I knew that I had to survive sleep training one more time.
Apparently, I am complete crap at getting my kids to sleep independently. I don’t know what I do, I don’t know how I do it, but, around 6 months, all my kids decide that they are completely incapable of sleeping unless they are right next to me. With my boob in their mouth. No naps, no night sleep, nothing, unless I am sleeping next to them and my boob is available for a pacifier.
So, perhaps I don’t neeed to explain why this doesn’t work for me. I love my kids, and I love breast-feeding them, but I simply can not let them use me as a pacifier every time they want to sleep. I can’t. Because I can’t sleep when, every time I move or shift, a baby wakes up and starts wailing. And, when I don’t sleep, I am not a good mom. Or wife. Especially wife.
So, as it always does, the day came when I was getting little enough sleep to decide to do something about it. That day was this past Monday. I am not Ferberizer. I don’t have the stomach for it. Plus, I tried it with #2 who cried for 6 hours STRAIGHT.
What I did with #2 and what I’m doing again with #3 is a combination of the Pantley Method and the Mindel method. With Pantley, I nurse her to sleep and then do the “pop her off the boob over and over until she accepts it and goes to sleep.” With Mindel, I then put her in her crib, holding my hand on her head until I can finally inch out of the room. Over time, I move further and further from the crib as the baby learns to fall asleep alone.
I divide these into “rounds,” with one round being the activities that lead up to her being asleep in her crib. Within the round, there are “attempts,” meaning, times I try to pop her off the boob and get her into her crib.
#2 was. . . hmm. . . let’s go with “Spirited.” Because saying your kid was stubborn as shit probably isn’t very nice. Oh, but he was. Despite all my “no cry” parental love, he would not get with the program. And, since my husband was deployed at the time, I had to do it All By My Self. It took forever. I think I spent 3-4 hours a night putting him down for well over a month, and I had a good 9 days of complete sleep deprivation.
So, why would I go through this again? Because, now, he is a great sleeper! As long as he has a nap during the day or goes to bed super early, he will sleep all night, get up if he has to pee, and put himself back to bed. Sometimes I have to help him to the potty if he’s overtired (skipped nap and went to bed way to late) but, as long as I do my job correctly, he sleeps beautifully.
And, I figured, I have Husband this time to help me.
Ha. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Ha.
I’m going to spare you the bloody details, but, over the first 4 nights of sleep training, I got 12 hours of sleep. That’s total out of 48 hours. I felt dreadful. Then, I looked in the mirror and realized I looked worse than I felt, which was surprising, because I felt like roadkill.
Here are some highlights:
Night one: facebooked all night. Read the entries later and they were complete jibberish.
Night 2: kept falling asleep in the chair in #3′s room, which is lit by a dim, blue bulb at night. Had dreams in full color and thought that awake in the blue room was a dream and asleep in color was awake.
Night 3: had a full-on, waking dream/delusion that I was Dora the Explorer. Sent Husband no fewer than 6 angry, ranting emails.
Day 4: fell asleep during my moms’ group. Drooled.
Night 4: ran into a wall stumbling to the nursery at 3 am. Got a welt on my face.
But, then, night 5: nursed baby, cuddled baby, put baby in crib in less than 30 minutes! She slept almost 3 hours. Ate, then went back to sleep for 4 hours. Ate, and slept until 8:30 am.
(insert singing choirs here)
Night 5, My husband did help me, and I got 8 hours of sleep. Broken sleep, but a lot of sleep.
Is she the world’s best sleeper now? No. But we are getting there! And the best part? I never have to do this again. For real, this time.
