Pity Party and Roo's Garbage Adventures!

Today I’ve been a little preoccupied… to say the least.

This means my mothering instinct just takes over.

Bahahahahaha. Just kidding.

Here’s a little background for ya. I am one of those weird girls that got married right out of high school and started popping out babies. Then, *gasp* it didn’t work out, and I got divorced. Those child-marriages never last.

 I had both of my children while married, but now, not married.

You with me so far? 

 I started dating, which isn’t as fun as it looks by the way, and met a dude. Long story short, it didn’t work out and we recently split.

Today, I’ve been feeling sorry for myself. This actually helps in some ways, because when I’m upset I clean. The kitchen is looking lovely by the way, and the dishes are almost done.

But here is where the whole “Poor me” thing gets in the way of my Mother of the Year duties. Let’s number the many times I was such a wonderful parent today:

1. While I was washing the dishes, Roo pulled a stool over and started “helping”… while I was contemplating life, she decided to put the dirty bottle opener in her mouth. So I noticed and took it away.

2. Next she put her hands in the disgusting, cold, haven’t done the dishes in three days water… and was sucking it off her fingers! I almost vomited, and quickly stopped her.

3. So she went off to play, and I continued to wash dishes, and I hear her grunting. She has gotten herself stuck in between the seat-back and the seat of a little kid’s chair. I didn’t even go to help her. I just looked to make sure she wasn’t hurt and then resumed my brooding. She wasn’t crying, so eh, she’s fine.

4. Pretty soon, she has meandered into the kitchen again, and I’m off in my own world cleaning until I hear… “hot dogs! Yummy!” and I turn to find her going through the garbage from when I cleaned out the fridge. Ick. Again, I make her stop and she runs off to play.

5. After a few minutes I move some clean laundry into my room, and come out, and there is no Roo. Hmmmmm…..

SHE IS IN THE GARBAGE AGAIN!

 What is she a puppy? First she drinks nasty water and then she’s rifling through our garbage!

6-10: (because this deserves more than one number)

 Confession time:

Here’s  the worse part about my mothering skills today. I almost stole Roo’s blankie. Yep. I really don’t want to look at it, since it was a blanket that she got from my ex…. and I almost took it and shipped it back to him. As I folded it up and put it in the box, she started to freak, and right then I realized I needed to snap out of it.

So I gave the annoying thing back.

It doesn’t match her nursery, and the thing is way too big for her to drag around, but she does it anyway. She really loves it, only God knows why, and I figure she won’t remember where it came from by next year. So all’s well that ends well... I didn’t actually take it.

But I still feel like a total jerk for almost making her give it up. Because to be fair…I’m not giving back my snowboarding gear that I got from him, so she shouldn’t have to give up her blanket...

If you were wondering- My almost five year old Mads was at school today, lucky girl, so she missed most of my supreme parenting.

Moral of the story: A pity party is just like any other party... if you want to have one, hire a babysitter first.

Open Gym

Friday, the girls and I went to “open gym” at one of the local gymnastics centers.

It turned into a fiasco.

It started innocently enough. My sister texted me at about 9 am (which is too early for me) and asked if we wanted to go to the open gym with her and my niece. An hour of my children running themselves ragged on padded floors and trampolines? Perfect.  I got the girls out of bed and dressed and we were ready to go.

1^st Mother of the Year moment:

We are always running late. I can't seem to get everything done in the time frame I have...ever. It doesn't matter if I give myself an extra hour, by the time we are walking out the door I am completely frazzled, and something didn't get finished. This means I rarely wear makeup, because that is one thing I can cut out of our frantic scurry to leave the house. So...instead of sitting them down to a wholesome bowl of cereal and milk before we left, I put cheerios, fruit loops, teddy grahams and chocolate fish crackers into two little ziplock baggies. Perfect for the car. They also had apple juice, so it wasn’t as if I served their bag of goodies with Dr. Pepper or something.

We got to the gym at about 12pm and the girls were bouncing around, totally excited. When we got to the counter to pay, the receptionist said, it’s only $3 for two kids, since the session is halfway over… What? It turns out that Tuesday is 12-1pm open gym, and Friday is 11:30-12:30 for open gym. Thanks for making things as confusing as possible. It was less expensive, but we also had only a half an hour to play.

The girls had a rad time anyway. They jumped, they skipped, they frolicked, they fell on their faces and then laughed getting up.

2^nd Mother of the Year moment:

 The gym has this pit filled with blocks of foam. Underneath the foam is a trampoline, and all of the kids jump off the sides of the pit as if they were jumping into a swimming pool. Pretty fun, right? Roo jumped in, and a few minutes later wanted to get out. She was having a hard time and started to fuss, but then she would get determined and try again. My MoTY moment? I found my daughter floundering  in a pit full of foam blocks extremely funny and took this picture so I could send it to a couple of my friends.

Now let me tell you (before you decide I'm a sadist, or call CPS) that this picture looks a lot worse than it actually was. There are no tears on those cheeks and I was standing right next to her. This isn't an "I'm scared" cry, this was an "I'm frustrated" cry.... However when I look at this picture now, I think, get her out of there you jerk!

Don't worry guys, It wasn't all tears and mean moms. They actually had a lot of fun. Here is a picture of the girls on the big swing at the gym. This picture was taken after the foam blocks pit, so you can see that Roo isn't traumatized. This was actually pretty cute, because as you can see, Roo and Mads both got to ride it together and so did my niece. (She is the little blonde one refusing to look at the camera). The gym helper pushed them considerably slower than the girls we watched on the turn before ours, but I'm pretty sure that was because of Roo. While Mads looked like she was slightly bored the whole time, Roo hung on so tight her little knuckles were white.

My 3rd and final Mother of the Year moment (at the gym):

I lost my keys at the gym.

I. Lost. My. Keys. At. The. Gym.

When the girls had their shoes and coats on, and we were ready to walk out into the pouring down rain, I put my hand in my pocket and realized I had no keys. I am not going to detail the entire search, because truthfully, it took me 40 minutes to find them. 40 minutes. Do you have any idea how long 40 minutes is when you are searching for keys in a room that has a million cracks and crevices... not to mention (except I am mentioning it) the foam block pit of doom? I had finally given up. I thought they were lost forever, and so I called my sister-in-law and was working up the nerve to ask her to run to my house and search  for my spare keys. Because, of course I had no idea where my spare keys were. Perhaps a coat pocket? Anyhoo, while I am talking to the sister in law, a mom walks up to me and asks if the keys in her hand were mine. "Yes, Thank you!" I say. She told me that she had accidentally picked them up because she thought they were hers.

Here's what I was thinking. "You have been watching me search for my keys for 40 minutes, while your goofy looking little darling has her gymnastics class. Not only have I been looking for my keys, but so have 2 other people that work here at the gym. You have sat there and watched me look for my keys for 40 MINUTES. And now that I am on my phone asking for someone to find my spare keys, almost in tears, you decide to check your pocket and see if the extra set of keys in your pocket are mine? Are you the biggest jerk ever? Or just completely self absorbed? Did I AMUSE YOU searching frantically for my keys?"

Here's the kicker to my lost keys story. When my sister arrived, I was parallel parked, and she parked right behind me. I mean right behind me, I couldn't even walk between our cars. No problem, since we were going to be leaving at the same time. Unfortunately, the car behind her parked really close.... yep, you guessed it. My sister was stuck in her parking spot until I found my keys.

I really feel like I should take a bow or something.

Mama Bear

I turned into a bear today.

A Mama Bear to be exact.

My oldest who is almost 5 had to go to the dentist this morning. She has 3 cavities. Two of them will need baby root canals.

I’m giving you time to let that sink in.

Will the Mother of the Year please take a bow?

We got to the dentist at about 10:15 am, and I immediately had to start filling out forms. The first few were your basic medical forms asking about her history, and then the ever present “Privacy Policy” forms that I had to sign. It wasn’t until I reached the back page that I started to get uneasy.

The last form was an entire sheet of paper detailing their practices, and at the end of it there was a place for me to sign. Things like, “We may have to use a stern voice to get your child’s attention.”

That’s not so bad right? But mixed in with all of the stuff that didn’t bother me, there were a couple things that made me extremely uneasy.  “Parents are not allowed in the procedure area because of privacy concerns.” And “We may restrain your child either by holding his or her hand, or using a papoose board.” Wait a second… What?! I signed the consent, just to finish the paperwork, and then started texting my friends in the dentistry field. Something was totally wrong with this picture.

My cousin Liz was already on her way to the office to meet me and sit with my youngest while Mads, my oldest had her appointment. She has worked as a dental assistant, and was an office manager for an orthodontist, so I felt comfortable asking her opinion about the situation. I told her about the “Papoose board” and she told me it was, “absolutely not necessary.” So did every other person I talked to.

I asked the front desk if they really didn’t allow parents to go back into the office with their children. She answered that it was a privacy concern and the parents weren’t allowed back in the procedure area. My reply, “Ha. Good luck. She won’t go back there without me.” No way would Mads walk into the dentist’s “procedure area” all by herself. She’s four years old, almost five. She still needs her mommy. The dental assistant assured me that I got to go back with Mads during the first visit, so no worries. “Ok, but what about the next visit?” is what I wanted to ask.

By the time I walked back into the inner workings of the dentist’s office, the place where I had been warned that I wouldn’t be allowed again, I was completely in Mama Bear mode. I asked the dental assistant helping me why they would use the papoose board (hoping it was for extremely frantic children whose faces were falling off and needed dental help right this minute). She told me that they would use it for every procedure that Mads received, from cleaning her teeth to filling cavities.

My answer: “Absolutely not. I don’t want her put into that papoose board thing.”

Her reply: “Well if you aren’t ok with our practices, we won’t be able to see you here.”

Thought in my head that I didn’t say, but I wanted to:  “Screw off; I wouldn’t bring my daughter back here if you were the last dentist on the freaking planet!”

Ok, I know that is a little dramatic. I was also thinking this:

“Screw off; I don’t care if this is the only pediatric dentist covered by our insurance! I’ll find a different one and pay out of pocket!”

Eventually she went and grabbed the dentist, who was busy putting other people’s children in straight jackets and traumatizing them for life. When the dentist came in, I was surprised at how nice she was. I asked her if Mads would be in a papoose board thing for every procedure and she said that wouldn’t be necessary. Hmmmm, interesting answer. Then I told her that I NEVER wanted Mads to be put into one without my consent, and that if it ever came to the point that they needed to restrain her that much, we wouldn’t be staying for the party. She assured me that they would never restrain her without talking to me about it first. She seemed to be impressed that I stood my ground, and the snarky dental assistant stood in the corner pouting.

She also told me that most parents talk to her about restraining their kids, after it has already been done.  Hello parents! If you aren’t going to stick up for your kids who will?

Mads surprised them by being completely helpful while they did x-rays. (They thought they would have to sedate her first). And she lay quietly while the dentist poked around in her mouth. I wanted to laugh in their surprised faces, but I didn’t. The appointment went well, but we have to go back next week for her root canals.

We came to the conclusion that she will have to be restrained for next week’s procedure. I hate the idea, but she has to be sedated, and then given laughing gas so she will be pretty out of it. The papoose board (they call it “the sleeping bag”) will just keep her from flopping around while they try and fix her teeth. She’s actually not nervous about the appointment. Thank God. I think it might be because she heard me fighting for her. While I know that I wasn’t actually “fighting”, I think that Mads understands that I’m not going to let them do anything bad to her. So she knows that next week they are going to give her medicine to make her feel sort of funny, and then get into the sleeping bag, and then they will fix her teeth.

Did I mention yet that I will be allowed in the room with her until they are ready to start the procedure? I am going to help get her cozy in her sleeping bag and make sure she is completely comfortable before they start.

Privacy issues my eye. Nobody messes with my baby bear.

My Kangaroo turned 2!

Today was my 2 year old Roo's birthday. Awww the sweet sweet terrible two's. How I've missed you.
I have a feeling that this year is going to be fantastic and a little...what's the word I'm looking for? Stressful. Especially since her sister is almost five and has long blond hair.
Why, you may be thinking, does it matter that she is five and has long blond hair?
Here are my reasons to sigh in exasperation.
1. That long blond hair is perfect for pulling, cutting, and laying on while watching a movie.
2. At five years old her sister will be playing with barbies and beaded jewelry, and God only knows what other tiny little toys. Roo eats things. She once ate an entire beaded necklace, and I didn't even realize it until I changed her diaper.

Mother of the Year please step forward and raise your hand.

So here is a little story about Roo in honor of her second birthday. We started calling her Roo when she was a baby because she loved being carried around in a sling. Just like a little kangaroo baby in it's mama's pouch. I carried that child everywhere, through Disneyland, 2 different Zoos and so many other places I can't even remember. Funny thing about that, you would think she would turn out to be a Stage 5 Clinger, but she's not. She's independent and fearless actually. She is also a sweet little thing when she isn't bullying kids younger than she is. (She can't help it, she's got second child syndrome and must have everything the other person has. Right. This. Second.)
All joking aside, she is like sunshine. I love hearing her say, "Mom! Mom! Mom! Answer me!!!" when she wants me to get her out of bed in the morning. Did I happen to mention that she sleeps in until 10 am every day?  I am a lucky lucky mama.

She was born on January 16, 2009. I chose this day because it is my sister and brother-in-law's wedding anniversary and I thought it would be a nice gesture... It was also a Friday, and I wanted my parents to be able to keep my oldest while I convalesced in the hospital over the weekend. To be fair, they would have kept my almost three year old at any time, but I thought I was being helpful. I also could not stand one more day of being pregnant. I had tried to go the natural route with Roo, but at 6 days past my due date I wanted them to get her out any way possible. If they had said I had to deliver her through my nose, I would have agreed. Fortunately they have these things called c-sections where they numb you and cut your babe right out while you lay there awake on the table. Lovely. The end result is always worth it though!

Let's get to the pictures shall we?

Here I am, ready to explode. Big baby in a little mom.  I'm so short, I pretty much have only one way to grow...out. Please excuse the underwear.

Here is my darling, sleeping after her 10 minute ordeal. I don't think she realizes how easy she had it. Most babies have to go through that process for hours... She was born 8lbs 7 oz and was 20 1/2 inches long. Dark brown hair and those weird bluish gray eyes that most babies have. Her eyes turned brown like mine though.

Roo and big sister, the first week we got home. It was pretty much love at first sight. We spent a lot of time sitting on the couch together all cozy, watching the preschool channel on TV while Roo nursed.
Sick of the pictures yet? Of course not, my kids are flipping adorable. So here's some more for ya!

Roo at about 3 months I think. I really should have dated these pictures. That is a cloth diaper she's wearing. Because not only am I Mother of the Year, but I also save the planet in my free time.

My sweet girl eating her homemade gigantor cupcake on her first birthday.... both things (baby and cupcake) were made by yours truly.

Roo, 18 months old, this past summer, sleeping with sister. My oldest climbed in early in the morning, and fell back asleep, so this is what I found when I woke up. It makes my heart smile :)

And here she is today. Happy and healthy, so I must be doing something right! She is saying cheeeese in this picture. I didn't take this picture.... but this isn't her normal smile, this is the cheeeeeese smile :)

Here is one last peek at her. Hiding under grandma's high chair during her party. Silly girl.

Happy Birthday to my baby.
P.S. That's her real smile.

Dirty Dishes

Ok, here’s the deal.

I loathe washing the dishes.

I don’t just dread doing the dishes, I will actually clean my entire kitchen and put all of the dirty dishes into sudsy hot water, and then walk away. Because the kitchen looks clean enough, right?

Here’s the problem with that. There is something I loathe even more than doing the dishes: putting my hand in the cold slimy water filled with little pieces of food, and draining that water so I can fill it up with hot again.

I need a dishwasher or a housekeeper. A dishwasher is probably more in my price range in about 5 years, but a housekeeper would also vacuum and clean the toilets. I actually don’t mind cleaning toilets, the toilet bowl cleaner I use smells really good, I craved the smell when I was pregnant with my 2 year old and we have never had cleaner toilets…but I digress.

Tonight I enlisted the help of my 5 year old to help me wash the dishes. She got to rinse them, which means it took an exceptionally long time to finish. Every piece of silverware had to be individually rinsed. The whole time she chatted about dishes and princesses and how “boring” it was cleaning dishes. (Yet she kept rinsing and rinsing…)

Eventually my 2 year old woke up. By this time my 5 year old had started drying the dishes and putting them away. So then both my girls are working. My oldest is drying and my youngest is putting things away.

I just found out after 24 ½ years that I don’t loathe doing dishes. I still don’t like them. I will continue to put them in hot sudsy water and walk away. But today I got to spend time with my kiddos and I didn’t have to worry the whole time about things not getting done. Not too shabby.

Child labor laws don’t come into effect if you don’t actually pay the children right?

Mother of the Year

Hello, I’m Nicky. I’m a 24 year old single mom to two beautiful little girls. I’m also a full time college student, part time crafter, horrible cook and mediocre housekeeper. I can’t keep plants alive, and my car is always a disaster even if I have just attempted to clean it. At one point my car was clean, my floors didn’t have graham cracker crumbs and I had a plant for a whole year without killing it… but that’s a story for a different day.

Mother of the Year may seem a little presumptuous of me. I mean, who hands out this award right? And why do I keep winning it? Is there a competition? Is there an election? Do they draw names out of a hat?

Slow down ladies, it’s not what you think.

"Mother of the Year" is a term my sister and I started using whenever we did something that made us look like amateurs. We use this moniker a lot… For instance, I may or may not have left a permanent marker in a place where my two year old daughter could reach it, and she may or may not have colored a soul patch on her chin with it. Tip: Milk will wash permanent marker right off. Mostly.   I also may or may not have left a pair of scissors where my five year old could reach them, and she may or may not have cut her beautiful long hair with them... In my defense, they were children’s scissors.

This blog is not about being the perfect mother, far from it actually. This blog is about my trip being the un-perfect mother, with soul patches and uneven hair.

I can’t imagine anyone wanting to read a blog from a sleep deprived mother of two. Honestly, I can see me writing 5 years from now, and having 5 followers. However if you stick around,  I can guarantee some laughs, because in my non-cyber life…I’m pretty sure people are laughing at me all the time.