Parent of the Year

Well, I've probably used this title already...but judging by the fact that the last post was in September, I doubt that it matters if I'm using duplicate titles at this point. I knew this would be a quasi frequent activity for me, but it has gone the way of all things I enjoyed in my freetime...like exercise and sleep. I even had a really great start to a post once...I think I wrote it on the airplane...or in a hotel room. It was a catchy little tale about my daughter who took off her shoes at church and gave them to the Pastor to "give to my mommy, please". It was classic Little Miss, and quite well written, I might add! But alas, burried in the depths of my work computer.


Life has been busy. Buddy turned five last month, which my father was nice enough to point out to me makes me old. But, judging from the patch of grey hair I'm sporting, he's probably closer to the truth than I care to admit. Yes, I said grey hair. I've been told by the girl who cuts my hair that it "blends in nicely". That is totaly BS but I think she gets that I'm too cheap to "paint it" like my five year old would say. No one at 27 had a grey patch of hair that "blends in nicely". I was always going to go grey gracefully. That's when I thought it would happen in my late 30s...not my late 20s. But, as usual, I digress.

Buddy is five and will be a young kindergartener. Seriously, I may be sportying a fancy new college degree, but I still don't know if that word uses a 't' or a 'd'. "gardener" just seems wrong though. I can't spell, and i'm okay with that. Yes, so he will be young for his grade, which I've been told is horrible parenting. I've also been told I starve my children. But whatever. They look ok to me. ;) He's excited but nervous. He has a bit too much of his mother in him for his own good. (they both do, actually) He's so into how things work. The other day he would have taken the hair clippers apart if I would have let him.


Little Miss is so much like a smaller version of myself it gets me in trouble. For instance, what I thought was a genious moment a few months back when she remembered she hadn't finished her garlic bread when she was in bed, I told her I would let her eat her garlic bread if she gave me both her dolls. No WAY would she go for that deal. Yeah. I was wrong. She gave me the dolls and "

SON OF A MONKEY. I just deleted like three paragraphs!! Now the world will never know about the time I nearly canceled Little Miss' birthday on account of a poor worded threat by a then-two year old who called my bluff. Seriously. Stupid auto save clicked on two seconds after the delete.

Anyhoo, long and short is the girl got her freaking garlic bread and I was stuck with two dollies I never thought she'd give me. Yes, she is the spitting image of myself. I foresee years of difficulty with this one. Likely we will quit talking in about 2019 when she turns 12. I am guessing that she will like her father and that her and I will begin speaking again sometime around 2027 when she's 20...if I'm lucky. The thing is that the stubborn streak runs in both of us. The same one, too. So, when I dig in my heels, she digs in hers. I say three more bites of broccoli, she swats at me or throws me one of her classic looks. I still win (I mean, she is only 3) but I sense my tactics are going to need to change somewhere in the next five years if I don't want a constant battle on my hands. It's not that i want her wimpy (though often I do), it's mostly that I want to win. Oh wait, that sounds bad. I want her to be strong and to be determined, I'd just appreciate if it was only toward school work, or a career or something. You know, something useful, not something opposed to my fantastic leadership ability. But, I am quite sure this one will go far. (I may not live to see it...however!)

Buddy, too, has a mind that is facinating. However, though he has a stubborn streak, he is a much more sensative personality than either Little Miss or myself. Monday night, I think he would taken the hair clippers apart to see how they worked, if I would have let him. Building, measuring, making, thinking, all of these are things that the kid just eats up. It is interesting to watch children. While nuture may allow them to flourish at their natural gift, every one has such a unique and special skill and gift set, something I have absolutely no control over. It is wonderful and horrible at the same time.

In my four week break before the masters classes start, I've been able to walk at night. Not only does walking or running or some combination thereof help me get rid of the stress and the frustration from work, but by the last 10 minutes I almost always find myself overcome with the realization of how blessed I truly am and how wonderful it is to be living my life with my family right now. How thankful I am that I can leave stacks of papers on my desk to make it to three sets of swimming lessons every day (yes, we only have two kids). That I can, crappy parenting or not, still be able to be a part of the big things and that we are all healthy enough to enjoy them. Blessed beyond what I deserve, certainly.

So, why the Parent of the Year? Well, because my mother informed me AFTER I booked my tickets that the hubs and I will be on vacation over Buddy's first ever school Christmas program. While I would like to say that video will be just as good....

I suppose I could still hold him back a year! :)

Skirt in a sea of pants

Well, so, now I'm not even quasi punctual with this stuff. Oh well.



Quick update: The Club has healed. I am not a normal society member with a finger nail. Woot Woot! The shower incident has not been repeated; I have managed to stay upright for quite a while now.

Well, I’ve started and abandoned at least two of these already. Seems the months are plowing on whether I like it or not. Right now, though, school work is up to date and I’m on a trip for work sitting in my hotel waiting for the boys to go to dinner with no burning desire to tackle the budget reports sitting on the desk across the room or to try to design an ad w/ the finger-mouse. My shoes are on, my contacts are out. The only reason my shoes are on is because they and my socks are so full of dirt right now I know that if I take them off, I will not ever, ever want to have to put them back on. Plus, if I take them off I might fall asleep. I left the house at 4:30…was supposed to leave at 4, but my phone was not charged (darn it!) so I had to hang out for 20 minutes to give it enough juice to call anyone in an emergency since I do not own a car charger…since my phone was $20 and is a prepaid model, I couldn’t’ even find one at Target today. Man I love Target. Target and Costco. They get pretty much all the money that I spend…but then again, I don’t’ really like to spend money, so they’re pretty lucky, I guess.

I am missing Buddy and Little Miss, who I can call Mamadoo. I started calling her Mamadoo (that’s ma’am –a-dooo) a few weeks ago and she says she is not my mamadoo…but that doesn’t stop me from calling her Mamadoo. For a few weeks she was “von-hoobie-doobie” from a book we read. Apparently I don’t like real names. Hubby calls Buddy Frank…which is just plain weird and not at all cute like Mamadoo. Anyhooskies. Took Buddy to get his pictures taken yesterday. Boy did that suck! Nothing like the perma-grimace of a 4 year old. I thought 2 was bad! At least at 2 you can trick them into smiling. At 4, they know better, they don’t laugh at silly antics and look just plain bizarre on film. Anyhow, it’s a moment in time that Sears took care of for me. I don’t’ know if it is just me, but it is like 100 degrees in those photo rooms. I sweat like a pig every time I have to get a kid’s pictures taken. It is quite the ordeal. Buddy is enjoying pre-4, which I have been informed is “way cooler and funner than 3-preschool” (apparently we’re not learning grammar yet!). I’m wondering when my baby learned to say cool and to give thumbs up about stuff. Yesterday we also tried to do Costco and Target and pictures after work and before bed, complete with switching to the work F150 at my office before coming home. (where was I going with this…) oh yeah. Buddy had $10 from his birthday. He got to learn the hard way in Target that $10 doesn’t buy you as much as you might think. I had to keep telling him “no, honey, you don’t’ have enough money for that one”. But, not only is he completely captivated by his new Playmobile dungeon-ball-throwing-something-or-other, but he learned a good lesson about how far money goes and how you have to make choices with what money you have to spend.

In other news, my baby isn’t so much a baby but a big girl complete in princess (or princeies) panties. I only have the occasional poop-in-panties fun job to take care of. She’s really got it down now, though, and before she’s even 2 and a half, I can’t believe it. Plus, she’s pretty much ready for a big girl bed. She even sleeps on a little mat at daycare for her nap. Just lays down and does what she needs to do. I can’t believe that this is the same baby in my camera from Christmas with no hair!! The only time when I get teary about them growing up is looking at pictures. I always feel like “how did it go so fast” and “why didn’t’ I take more pictures when they were babies”. But, then again, they are so much fun now. The other night she helped me make muffins and we playing pretend party, complete with pretend cake and pretend party hats. She can give hugs and tells me “I love you muches to the moon” when she calls me at work. And for that, I think it’s great to have a two year old. One who can tell you stories and hold hands. So, it’s not all bad.

Speaking of being a big girl…I’ve now been back to work for over 3 months and besides the PITA of having to make lunches, it has gone relatively smoothly, I think. The kids love day care and pre-school, and I love being home in time to make snacks and play for a bit before dinner.
It’s odd though. I would’ve never considered myself any type of feminist (and I still don’t) nor would I consider my parents of that persuasion. Lately, I’ve been thinking that maybe it has to do with the fact that we live on one of the coasts, as opposed to the Midwest or something. I just don’t know. Anyhow, the point is that I feel like I’ve grown up in a family or in a mindset of the fact that I could do pretty much anything I wanted to, career and life wise. That just because I’m of the female persuasion means that I need to be submissive to my husband…but doesn’t limit me from being successful in my own right. Now, this is probably coming off wrong, or odd, but I’m getting to something. Hang with me. Now, I work in ag, where it is a anomaly to be a) a woman or b) young. Which I am both. But, I cannot say that I have EVER felt that is a disadvantage in my job or in my company. However, now, I’m in contact with a boss originally from Missouri and other people from other places and their attitude about my ability to do my job has completely caught me off guard. It’s just somewhat foreign to me that anyone would think I’m not capable of something, maybe because I’m so…I’m going to say driven….Hubby might say stubborn, but let’s face it, driven sounds a lot better! J I’ve never felt like the skirt in a pants world, but I have begun to see it a bit, and it is something I’m trying to navigate. Maybe it’s because I’m conflicted already on life and the directions it takes and the person that I am and I try to use the gifts I think I’ve been given. Or maybe it’s just because I AM a woman and I’m hyper sensitive to crap that’s not really there. Or maybe, I need more than 4 hours of sleep at night to form a cohesive paragraph…

As a fam we have a trip planned to Hawaii in December, and I am so freaking excited to go. It’s rather irrational, actually, but I am so excited to spend time with just our family away for a while. I have such happy memories looking at the pictures from Cancun in January…now I’m almost afraid that nothing will live up to my “memory land” vocational ideal. Either way, we decided to shoot the moon and book the Embassy Suites in Hawaii. It was about double what I was planning on spending on lodging, but taking into consideration how much easier it will make life for me, I think it will be totally worth it.

Well, I think I’d better go get some dinner. I think they boys may have gotten side tracked again! Boys.

20ish going on 80

Weeks one and two of Operation: Full Time Employment are already in the history books and I’m celebrating the fact that as FT I once again qualify for full, paid holidays. It was pre-buddy days that I last enjoyed the sweet taste of 8 hours of holiday pay. So, can I get a woot woot for having the 4th on the third week of work?!? Plus, it’s going to be 83 and we’re chillin and the lake with friends. Work is good. It is stimulating, it is challenging, it is exciting and it is crazy busy. I could probably put in 80 hours a week around this joint and not be caught up. Hubby is going to kill me when I start to bring my lap top home to work at night.

What seemed like a downright brilliant idea of taking 15 credits during the 8 week summer quarter is seeming a bit like misplaced brilliance. Apparently each class thinks I need to devote 12-15 hours a week…so, that means I’m supposed to work, do the books and put in 40 hours a week doing school. My counter offer is, how about 2-3 hours a day, total? Here’s hoping that I can pass Stats, Managerial Accounting, and MIS without being committed. Plus, I think I have a few side clients that need their work completed. Moonlight…again, it seemed like a great idea at the time. I suppose shag carpet once seemed like a good idea too….

So, two things happened yesterday to make me feel like I’m 20-something going on 80. I’m not saying 20-something because I’m ashamed of my age, mostly it’s just because I can no longer remember my age. You see, once you try to remember employee idea numbers, 4 pages of account codes, 150 different 3 letter acronyms, 4 social security numbers, 50 different short-cut key strokes per program, and what day it is, it no longer seems important to remember (nor does it seem humanly possible) your exact age. SO I don’t. I know what year I was born, and I think I know what year it is, between the two, I’ve probably got enough information to get by.
Anyhow, I was taking a shower last night around 9:50 when I realized that I keep forgetting to put new body wash in the shower and was officially out, out. So, I opened the curtain, reached across to the vanity, opened the door and got me a new bottle. One leg out to minimize drippage. As I swing my outside leg back in, the inside leg start sliding toward the drain. I’m about as coordinated as a 1 legged monkey, so I slip. I end up, ass in the air, head in the tub, leg in the curtain, water in the face in the bottom of the shower. Now, I’m not only oddly positioned but trying to figure out how to gracefully get my naked self back to vertical. Luckily, I manage this feat before hubby opens the shower curtain. As I cough from the impact he’s laughing at me…at least he didn’t see me w/ my leg in the curtain. Yes, I’m 20-something and I need some kind of shower handle, apparently.

Then, yesterday as I pried my eyes open with paper clips around 2pm, I decided to pour a large mug of 80% creamer, 20% coffee from the front office coffee pot, the one with caffeine. At 11:45 last night, unable to sleep, that seemed like a pretty stupid decision. Apparently now I’m the old person who can’t drink caffeine in the afternoon. Re-freaking-diculous.

Chaos & failure

I'm not sure if the line is actually from "The Godfather" since I've never seen it, but it sounds right to me. You see, "they made me an offer I couldn't refuse" (makes most sense when said in a crappy imitation of an italian accent). And yesterday I signed my life away. I was offered full time employment again and I accepted it. I have spent the past week and a half since they offer first showed up in my email in complete consternation. Every decision I make seems wrong.

Maybe it's because I had a picture in my head of who I was and what life was supposed to look like. The picture essentially boiled down to some fantastic version of a stay at home mom. Interesting since I have always despised babysitting in general. But logic told me that I would be fantastic and love it when it was my own kids. Turns out I love them more than I would have imagined, but I'm not good at "it". Sure, I can make squash and give timeouts with the best of them, but I'm not so good at the day to day. I'm not reall good at playing games and can't even think of anything "interesting" to do. I'm about the worst possible at meeting other moms or scheduling these things called play dates, and I find it impossible to "shut off" and enjoy them. What terrifies me about my decision is that I'm going to wake up at 45 when both kids are grown and essentially out of the house and regret this decision. That I'm going to miss out on the precious days of them being little. Logically, I know that I'm no less of a parent if I work. Heck, Hubby works insane hours and they still love him to pieces, but I'm essentially a failure of what I had planned for myself.

One thing I know for certain, at this point in life, I suck at being a part time working parent. It like being a half-ass employee and a half-ass parent all at the same time. Not that others couldn't juggle it better, but apparently I can't. I take on too much, push the kids to the side, and am generally crabby, all the while managing to put in just enough hours to do the job, but not quite enough to really do it to the best of my ability. Somehow, I hope that this change will make it easier to be home and actually be home (mentally, that is). I suppose I'm jealous of moms around me who are able to pull off being at home, enjoying it (for the most part), and providing that for their kids. It was what I planned on. This was not what I had in mind.

Then, I struggle with how I'm supposed to respond as a Christian. How should I understand the ideas of being Godly as a wife/mother with the ideas of "go to the ant, you sluggard" or the Proverbs 31 lady who considers a field and buys it. How do I not worry about the future (oh you of little faith) but still act as a sparrow and gather food? How do you determine whether you're burrying your talents and wasting them, or if you're pursuing them for the wrong reasons? How do you know whether it's God opening the door or if it is something else? I've been thinking that now would reallly be a good time for some sky writting or a talking donkey, apparently though, He's not planning on using those means right now.

So, I'm left to stumble through and pray about it and walk through open doors. I'd say I put out several fleeces (are we even supposed to do that??): a counter offer, a better work schedule (6am-3pm). Each was met with very little resistance. But, I'd still prefer sky writing.

It's not easy to tell a nearly 4 year old that you'll be working more. Even though I'm pretty crappy at being home, it appears that both Buddy & Little Miss still love me and still like to be around me. He tells me he doesn't like the baby sitter. Then you get the philosophical 3 year old "but why, mommy" question. But why indeed....

I'm not sure what to do with Little Miss. She always seems ready to go to bed around 7:30, but here we are again tonight, nearly 9pm and she is JUST showing the signs of sleep. The worst part is, she is happier playing in her crib from 7:30-8:30 than she is during the day. I just don't get it. Then, some days, she zonks the minute you put her down. Tonight I went in there and we sang songs and talked about her day at Mrs. Jen's. She loves to talk and has quite the vocabulary and quite the way of saying things. We talked about falling off the swings. We talked about if I was wearing underwear under my pants (yes, I was, in case you were wondering). We talked about playing dollies. We sang songs. You see, that's what I'm good at. Singing songs and reading books. The truth of the matter is that I had a wonderful stay at home mom who was good at all the traditional stay at home stuff. And, I think what I remember most is the songs at night. So I guess, I'm hoping that they (and I) will remember the songs at night, or the rocks in the chair, or the books before bed and forget all the yelling, the working, and the stuff I'd rather not stick in the baby books. And I hope that I'm not making a terrible mistake or something I'm going to regret later on. The thing about life is, at the end of the day I'm just trying to do my best to determine what God wants me to do, and since He's apparently said "no" to my pleadings for sky writing, I'm going to take the opportunity to walk through the open door. I'm going to have to trust that somehow He'll give us (the hubs and I) both the strength and wisdom to not completely screw up these two lives we've been entrusted with. And, I suppose I'll keep praying for calm within our new found chaos....but if you see any messages in the sky that I've missed, be sure and give me a call.

Kidisms

First, I have to apologize. I did something in my last post that is a cardinal sin. Something that makes me cringe every time I see it. A personal pet peve, right about up there with people who use the word irregardless. (sorry guys, that's a double negative, like saying "I'm going to un-thaw the meat" "Oh, honey, you're going to put it in the freezer??" It's either irrespective or regardless...irregardless is not a word.)

I typed their instead of there.

See, a person with such strong opinions on "irregardless" or "un-thaw" should be flogged for using their or they're or there incorrectly. Oh the depths I have fallen. The horor. So, please forgive me, everyone. I will try to be on better behavior. Spelling, I cannot do, (seriously, is it table or tabel? Label or Lable? ah crap, now I'm not sure which is right.....) So, yes, spelling I cannot do, but grammar I should be able to handle (or is it handel?) I'm probably the only person who got caught cheating on a 3rd grade spelling test (don't read that mom....). Yes, cheating at spelling. For shame. For shame.

So, the zoo was a rocking good time. Though I thought Hubby was going to go a bit postal on me in the car this morning.

There are two things that are bad for my marriage:
Putting together Ikea furniture
and
Reading directions

We are terrible at both. Actually, directions of any kind are very bad if we're together. We've nearly divorced over our bedroom set, nearly had to call in the cops for a domestic incident when we "put together" (and I use the words "we" and "put together" verrrry loosly) my elliptical machine, and any road trip tends to end in disaster.

Well, on this trip I forgot directions all together. (Take that!) Which, apparently is worse. Then the Emabassy lady gave us directions for coming from the SOUTH, not HEADING SOUTH on the freeway. I was nearly left at the side of the highway. But alas, we made it....... only to near divorce today, yet again.

So, we're heading to the zoo. Little did we know it was "mommy & me" day. Seriously? I have never SEEEEEEN so many people at the zoo. It took us an hour maybe more to make it 1.3 miles and find a parking spot. All the while I have to endure "I knew we shouldn't have gone swimming this morning and we should have come early" etc, etc, etc. But alas, we found a spot on some hill about 4 blocks from the zoo.

All in all, though, it was a good trip. I even invented the "car time out". Curious? I thought so. Here's how it goes. When you 1-day-short-of-being-2-year-old whines and cries for about 30 minutes enroute to the zoo, you then take away all the toys, blankets, lovies, etc that you have given her until she screems bloody murder. Then you turn around and say "if you can be good, you can have them back". This was much more effective that "if you don't stop crying, you won't get to a) go swimming b)play with your friends c) go to the zoo d) anything else i could think of taking away." No, the car time out gave us a good 45 minutes of happy baby. Phew.

To get you into the mind of my two year old (well, she will be tomorrow) I have to tell about the naughty baby book. We were reading this book about a baby who is naughty (they needed the car time out). Baby throws fits, spits, makes a mess, etc. Well on one baby baby is holding the ball while another baby cries. Page reads "Share the ball, baby, baby, baby please". Well, as I read it, I hear Little Miss say "Get your own ball, baby" to the crying baby. Yes, "Get your own ball." Sigh.

The last kidism was two days ago. Buddy came up to me while I was on the phone with my mom saying "mommy, i know who I want to be my new mommy. Kate!"
me: "baby, I'll always be your mommy"
b: "no, Kate!"
me: "Sweetie, she's your cousin (thinking abbreviated cousin nick name)"
My mom: "Uh, I think he means his wife."
me: "You mean like how uncle matt and auntie brittani are getting married"
b: "Yeah" (like where have you been??)
b: "Yeah, when I'm big and you're not my mommy."
me: "Then Kate from preschool will be your mommy."
b: "yep" runs out of room.
So, yes, my three year old already, apparently, has a girlfriend at school. His dad would be so proud....if not creeped out by the mommy reference. :)

Well, with a successful weekend away behind us, fun friends to share it w/ and a gaggle of people coming tomorrow, it's time to head.

happy m-day to all the mommies out there.

Don't worry, I screw up more than all of you put together!! :) If you don't believe me, read back through the posts!!

My big life change

Man. It has been too long again. Too many cute kid moments not memorialized for the world to remeber. For shame.

Here I am, with a disfigured club finger and no one to share it with. For those wondering the finger has undergone a lovely transformation and about 3/4 of it is now missing. It lead me to the fount of all earthly wisdom. I googled "How long does it take a fingernail to grow back?" that's right. The internet, useful for staying in contact with family, making business deals, world wide instant communication has about 2 billion hits for fingernails growing back. I think it is safe to say that we live in an age of excess! So, my hideous finger, according to my Google search, will be its lovely self in 6 to 18 months; not exactly what I was thinking... But hey, our PA friend says that they get people in the ER when they smash their finger. So I take pride in calling them ninnies.

Life has been crazy busy, and, even though I'm a bit of an admitted stress junkie, it's getting a tad overwhelming. I picked up another design client, which is good, Hubby is generating a lot of paperwork with his business (which is good, except for the stress because I'm the only one who knows if we have money or not!), school has been taking up about 15 hours a week, which is too many, and work has been religated to only 15 hours per week, which is probably not enough. I still have only about 12 hours of arranged child care. And, that math doesn't quuuuiiiite work out right! I temp myself out of bed in the morning by promising coffee with calorie ladden creamer to my tired body. The body no longer cares, though. I think I may have to buy whipped cream and up the ante a bit.

So, what is my big life change? People are going to laugh, but I've found a way to cope with the business while trying to keep a semblance of sanity: I use the dishwasher.

Shocking, no?

I've always used the dishwasher, just not a lot. I thought it "wasteful" to run it when it wasn't full. I though it "silly" to put pots, pans, measuring cups, blenders, in their. I thought it "terrible" to run it more than 3 times a week. Well, call me wasteful. Call me silly. Call me terrible. I run that puppy at least once a day, sometimes twice. Hand washing is a thing of the past at my house. You may think that I considered it theraputic or something to wash dishes. I did not. I'm about 2" too tall for a normal sink and it hurt my back. I just hand washed because it made more sense. It no longer makes more sense. So, I fire up the Whirlpool and enjoy all that modern convenience has to offer...if only they could make an option for "put everything away" I think I would have all the time I need for work.

Well, we are off to the big city this afternoon with the kiddos. We're staying at the Embassy Suites, the mecca for families. Why is it a mecca? Simple, really. There is a separate bedroom, allowing parents to retire at 10pm instead of 7 pm. There is a free breakfast, at which my children can arrive in their jammies if the spirit so moves. (Plus, bonus! there's no way we'll sleep past free breakfast hour!) And, it has things like cooked to order omlets and fruit. It has a pool. But the ringer? It has free alcohol from 7 to 9 pm. That's right. Free. A literal oasis in the desert of toddler-hood. Embassy Suites=greatest invention ever....totally, totally worth the $100.

Then, after we fill up on custom omlets, we plan to take the chillens to the zoo. Which reminds me that I need to charge the camera batteries. Well, though I have much more to write, I didn't drag my tired arse out of bed to do this. No, there are Australian ads to book, invoices to print (hopefully....please Lord let there be invoices to print!) and there are Geology rock labs to complete (PS, Geology is NOT a easy lab science. I soooooo should've chosen Astronomy or something....), there is cheesecake to make, a tort to finish, and a jello salad missing a top layer. There is toothpaste on the bathroom mirror, a nasty ring in the tub, remanents of another rock lab on the counter, apple peels from three weeks ago that need to get out to the compost pile, and some kind of grime all over the kitchen floor. I'd better fill my coffee cup.....

But I NEEEEEED it.

To put it simply, I have a loquacious daughter.

We have a bit of a tradition, lately at night that ended last night, but I'll get to that in a minute. It goes like this:
(Me, laying Little Miss in bed, gives her the pipe (pacifier for those not familar w/ the term pipe))
LM: What would daddy say? (The line a routinely use when she tries to take it out of the crib with her)
Me: Daddy says it's okay only for sleeping (celebrating that for ONCE daddy is the semi-bad guy)
LM: BUT I NEEEEEEEEEEED IT!!
Every night, the same saga unfolds.

Well, I've decided that since she is chattering like a five year old (I want to go in the hot tub RIGHT NOW! etc every comment out of her mouth ends with RIGHT NOW, I want milk RIGHT NOW, I want to play dolly downstairs RIGHT NOW, I'm working on at least a "please" but it doesn't look good) it is probably time for her to give up the pipe. Not that I wanted to, it's bittersweet, really. I'm not much for sentiment, but leaving the pipe behind marks leaving babyhood behind. While I relish the fact of bringing baby crap with me every time I leave the house, and I enjoy being past the making baby food stage or the 3am feeding stage, I do understand that it is sad when the baby is no longer a baby. Hubby's answer to this is "well, have another one. But I'm not going to help you with it; it will be your problem." What, because you get up during the night now?

I digress.

The point is, I could have 100 other children, and it would still be sad when the last one leaves the pipe behind....and that's no reason to have #101. We can't make time stop, all we can do is enjoy the moments and try to make a memory or two. So, yesterday we got dolly a potty at Target. Killing two birds with one stone, I might add. Giving excitment to the potty training that we're working on AND she decided at 7:05pm last night to trade her pipes to dad for dolly's potty. Of course, Hubby being a softy when it comes to his princess, promptly hid the pipes in my sock drawer. I told him "once we take them away, it's done, there is no going back. If we cave once, we'll never get past the hump" but he just couldn't throw them in the garbage...SOFTY!! I made Buddy throw his away himself. I think it was more so that I wouldn't go grabbing them out of the trash in the middle of the night, though, but it was a good method of both of us. So, Little Miss went to bed without even ASKING about the pipe. But, I could tell she missed it. We both had to go down because she was crying about 4 times before she finally fell asleep. It was a good soother. I know she lays in bed for at least an hour many nights, and the pipe clamed her...now all she has is tags on her blankets. The middle of the night was hard too. But the worst was nap time. Little Miss is my champion napper: down at 12:30 w/o a squeek. Routinely gives me 3 hours. Today, however, I was treated with 45 minutes of crying. I wanted to grab those puppies out of the sock drawer and say "I take it back! You're still a baby!!" But why come this far to throw in the towel? Not worth it. So I sucked it up, told her she was doing a great job and was such a big girl and helped her find her tags. I feel bad for her though, so that probably explains why I let her sleep by me this morning at 5am...that and I was dead tired! Battles of will w/ my daughter are best fought w/ a full night of sleep.

Those who know me would understand that I'm somewhat of a routine gal (I hear my mom laughing already). Okay, I'm REALLY a routine gal. We do the same things on the same days etc etc etc. My kids also love routines. One of our favorites is after Hubby reads the Bible story book at dinner. He pauses at the end of the lesson to which Buddy yells out "QUESTION TIME!" then, w/o missing a beat, Buddy counts '1,2,3' and we all have to say "question time". Then, Hubby is instructed to count for Little Miss who responds with "Question time" to which Buddy says, without fail, to Little Miss "I KNEW you would say it!" Then we ask the questions. It's just one of the great traditions/routines/whatever around our house. There is calm in the repetition and knowing what to expect.

So, hopefully night two will go better than night one. If not, I might take a hit off a pipe in the sock drawer. It's hard to admit, but a month away from her second birthday, she's really not a baby anymore. Without a pipe, can you believe it?