Tales From A Three Year Old

My three year old is a story teller, a fibber and a tad bit of a white liar . . . minus the tad bit and white.

I've never really cared what people have thought of me, either you like me, or you don't . . . then, my oldest daughter turned three (now almost four) and suddenly I have become a little self conscious. I'm certainly not perfect, I've never claimed to be perfect and I never will, however, her story telling has me 100% convinced that I will win the weirdo mom of the year award.

Story Number 1 . . . I don't feed my kids food.

It goes back to about six months ago when she came home from school with a backpack filled with paintings. She immediately grabbed two easel sized drawings that were smothered in brown paint and handed one to her sister and kept one for herself. I told her that her paintings were beautiful, and praised her for sharing. As I walked away I heard her say, "Here Charlotte, I painted you this nice big piece of steak." I turned around and told her that it was very creative that she painted some steak and this is what she said next , "Yes, I told my teachers that you don't feed us, so I needed to make some food for me and my sister to eat." What?! I feed you! On top of feeding you, I bribe you with ice cream cones and jello snack packs if you actually eat a decent meal! To set the record straight, I can assure you I give my kids food.

Story Number 2 . . . I have a baby in my belly.

One day I was dropping my oldest off at preschool when I realized she had stuffed a figurine of Peppa Pig's little brother George in her Pocket. As we got out of the car I reminded her that bringing toys from home was not a good idea, so I stuffed George in the front pocket of my hooded sweatshirt. Now this was when she was going through a really big Peppa Pig phase, she actually spoke with a British accent introduced herself to strangers as Peppa. Thankfully, that has stopped, but not before she told me that she said to her teachers that I was "keeping her little brother safe and warm in my belly." I mean I guess that wasn't entirely a lie because I did walk around with a pig figurine that she referred to as her little brother in my pocket for one day, but I can assure you that there a no real live babies in there. It was one day, and we're talking about a plastic pig.

Story Number 3 . . . I sleep in the parking lot of her preschool while she's inside.

Just the other day I picked her up from school, and as always I was eager to hear about her day. Before I could even ask about it she said to me, "Mommy, do you miss me while I'm in school, or do you have fun sleeping in your car while you wait for me to come out?" I responded, "Of course I miss you Lanie, but I don't sleep in my car!" Her reply, "Oh, well I told my teachers you do. We all had fun looking out the window for you." Awesome.

AND THE WEIRDO MOM OF THE
YEAR GOES TO . . .

(It's only by default, I swear.)

The Quirky Confessions: Days in the Life of a Stay at Home Mom

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Mother's Little Helper

No, I'm not referring to The Rolling Stones hit from the 60's, I'm referring to my kids. Some of you may have them . . . the kids who always want to "help" out. Nine out of ten times if you're not paying close attention to their help tactics, this can lead to disaster.

First off, let me state that I'm very grateful to have kids that are so willing to "help" me out. It's a nice alternative to kids that plop themselves on the couch all day and demand watching that bald, little brat Caillou on Nick Jr. (Although, sometimes I secretly wish that they were more of the TV watching type.) This leads me to:

Disaster Number 1 - Cooking

A few weeks back my kids "helped" me make meatballs and sauce to put in the crock-pot for dinner that night. Their help during this fun filled, cooking activity lead to everyone needing immediate baths, and a kitchen ceiling coated with red sauce. Don't ask. After cleaning everyone up, and attempting to clean spaghetti sauce off our ceiling, I clearly needed a shower myself. I thought that I could put a movie on to keep them occupied during my three minute shower sprint. As I left the room I heard my oldest whisper to my youngest "As soon as Mommy gets in the shower we can make something that we want to eat for dinner instead."  Obviously this prompted me to hold off on my shower sprint and see what they were up to. I left the room and stood by the door. I witnessed them gather their magnetic letters off of my dishwasher and attempt to put them in the crock pot to make "alphabet soup". Thankfully, I was able to stop them in their tracks. I did not fit a shower in, and that's okay. I didn't need anymore disasters . . . the kitchen ceiling was enough for one day.

Disaster number 2 - Laundry

What's better than laundry helpers? They can gather clothes, load and attempt to fold. They can even match your socks for you! They can also let a disposable diaper get past you and into the washing machine in the blink of an eye. I really thought my mom skills were right on track that day. . . I was able to feed my kids, dress them and had even timed my "helping hand" laundry cycle perfectly so that I could switch the clothes over to the dryer before we left to go to an animal adventure show at my oldest daughter's preschool. Well, not the case. I told my kids, "as soon as the washing machine beeps, we'll switch the stuff over to the dryer and we can go." I even had enough time to grab a coffee on the way. No, no I didn't. I had enough time to deal with the reality that I had a shredded wet diaper all over our clean clothes. I did not have time to clean that up, despite having my very ready and will helping hands, and still get to the school on time. (Even though I tried.) I left the big mess, skipped out on my coffee, but arrived just in time for the big boa constrictors to be released from their crates. Fun! Note to self: Don't wear a black sweater when attempting to clean a wet shredded diaper out of your washer and off of your clothes. Otherwise, you may end up at animal day with sticky, white diaper particles all over yourself resembling jumbo sized dandruff flakes. Fail.

Update: I'm happy to report that my kids have recently shown a sudden interest in the kid's TV show, Blues Clues. This has been my savior when it comes to taking showers. This also took a turn for the worst today while I was doing a load of laundry without my little helpers. (This was immediately following my shower and they were engaged in the show, so I did not interrupt them for help. . . I should have.) While I was in the bathroom gathering clothes, they took the laundry baskets and used them as make shift stools to get on the counter and get their hands on some cherry flavored Chapstick. During the 45 seconds that I was out of the room, they coated their hands with it and slapped chap-sticky hand prints all over our stainless steel fridge while yelling "PAW PRINT CLUES!" Sigh. At least they helped me clean it off.

The Quirky Confessions: Days in the Life of a Stay at Home Mom

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The Quirky Confessions #Kickstarter Campaign has Launched!

We are so happy to announce that our Kickstarter campaign has "kicked" off!

Our goal is to raise funds to print and bind our book, "The Quirky Confessions: Days in the Life of a Stay at Home Mom". We have been working on it for over a year now.

Please visit our kickstarter page to read the full story about what we have been up to.

There are several levels of cool, quirky rewards when you make a donation, including the printed book. And . . . you will receive your rewards before Mother's Day - great for gift giving!

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Happy St. Patrick's Day!

My Picky Eaters

Let me start by saying I didn't always have picky eaters. My first born would pretty much eat everything that was given to her from a young age on. Both baby food and mealtimes were quick favorites. From the moment I noticed her first tooth, I couldn't shovel enough food into her. It started with Cheerios, and we quickly moved onto fruits, veggies and meats. You name it, she ate it.

My second born was a little more challenging. The mush on the spoon, pretend airplane approach never really worked with her. I don't ever recall getting a drop of baby food in her mouth, but things took a turn when we moved onto solid foods. She was more apt to try stuff, and not like it. I never worried too much though, just like her big sister she has always been labeled as "healthy", and has ranged in the 90th percentiles for both height and weight.

I'd say age two has been the turning point for both of my girls. While my youngest (age 2) has attempted to try and like more foods, my oldest (3 1/2) has pretty much given up on trying anything. For the past year and a half she has been living off of grilled cheese sandwiches, milk, fruit and everything that makes up the chocolate food group. My youngest lives off all of those as well, but with her you can add some meats and a few other things into the mix. Just the other morning she really disgusted her big sister by saying she wanted "more chickens" for breakfast. She was referring to scrambled eggs. (The reason she knows that scrambled eggs come from chickens is because my oldest said this to her a few weeks back, "Yuck. I can't believe you are eating baby chicks." Thankfully, the true reality did not phase my two year old.) This is exactly why my oldest is a picky eater. . .

The very day that she associated some of the foods she ate as being animals, was the day she stopped eating them.

Example: 

If you tell this kid we are having chicken for dinner, you will get this response, "You cannot make me eat birds!" The same goes for Turkey. It got really bad when she learned that chickens lay eggs, and figured out that those scrambled or fried eggs on her plate are "baby chicks". She will NOT eat baby chicks. She will not eat steak, because she knows it's a cow, I'm not sure who told her, but it wasn't me. However, she will eat cheeseburgers. As a matter of fact,  she ate one the other day when I gave myself a break from cooking and took my kids to Burger King. (My husband had been gone for all of two hours into a four day business trip, and I caved and brought them to a fast food joint for lunch.) She happily sat and ate her burger (which I'm not even 100% sure if it's real cow) with a huge smile. The real kicker was when we were leaving and I informed my kids that this was a special treat, and that I would indeed be cooking for the rest of the week . . . My oldest said this to my youngest, "Charlotte, put these into your pocket. We'll just have them for dinner."  These = ketchup packets.

So a tip for all the parents out there with picky eaters . . . you can always smother the crap out of everything ketchup packets.

Bon appétit!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Surviving Sickness with the Kids

The past week has been H -E - double hockey sticks. It all started when my youngest got the sniffles. Those sniffles led to a bad cough, which then led to a fever and three back to back sleepless nights for my husband and I. Alright, I may be exaggerating a tad bit... I think we got a half hour of sleep here and there, although, it's not always easy to catch Z's when you have a restless toddler who finds comfort by sprawling herself across your king sized bed and digging her feet into your ribs. Having a cat that decides to plop himself on your back while all of this is going on doesn't really help the the situation either. I wasn't moving an inch though. I was not going to risk disrupting a sick/unhappy child who was finally comfortable and asleep for the night. Luckily, her fever/cold was short-lived, and that following night I was excited to be back on the track of her getting a full night's sleep in her own room, and me hopefully getting a full night's sleep without her footy pajamas in my face. That thought quickly turned to panic when I heard my older daughter hacking like an 85 year old, male smoker the following morning at four AM. Those three nights of cramped up ribs and footy pajamas in my face was nothing compared to what was coming. It was merely just a trial run to get me back in the swing of life with a newborn, except without a newborn. Instead, with a three year old diagnosed with pneumonia.

Let me start by saying, my three year old is the happiest sick kid ever. I would have never known she was ill if it hadn't have been for that old man smoker's cough, which progressively got worse, and the temperature of 104 the following night made it a dead giveaway. As I'm sitting there at three AM on the couch with her, counting down the hours until her doctors office opens, she's happily singing songs, shooting Advil and indulging in sticky grape popsicles. She was in heaven, and I was exhausted and in panic mode. The only time she got upset was when I told her that she was going to have to stay home from preschool because she was sick. I take that back, she did get upset before I took her temperature and I said, "Oh my gosh, you're on fire!" (meaning she had a fever). Note to self: that was dumb, considering she is three, and understandably takes everything literally. She yelled really loud and exclaimed firmly to me that she was not on fire. She forgave me when I said that I meant she definitely had a fever, and we'd have to make an appointment with her doctor as soon as the sun came up.

A few hours later, after refusing to go back to bed, she was still dancing around in circles, thrilled that she had an appointment with her pediatrician. (She loves any and all appointments.) The Advil had done its job and brought her fever way down, and she and her sister were practically doing cartwheels in the doctor's office waiting room. I'm sure the receptionist thought I was crazy for insisting that I had a very sick child that needed to be seen as soon as possible. However, my instincts were dead on, and despite being as happy she was, she was indeed sick. Her pneumonia required a couple different prescriptions which resulted in a trip to two different pharmacies because they both weren't in stock at the pharmacy we usually go to. (Of course.) So picture it: two grouchy kids, one has been up since three AM, the other since five AM, and it's beyond lunchtime by this point. Now throw one very tired mother, who now feels like crap too, and has probably gotten a total of six hours of sleep in five nights. Bad scenario, real bad.

While my kids are sick, hungry and tired, I'm dragging them to two different drug stores to get the meds that are of course not ready for pick up. As I'm handing over my insurance card, my kids are getting their arms stuck in the blood pressure testing machine that they should not even be playing with in the first place. F@*K!  I know people are looking at me and probably thinking 'control your kids', but all I'm thinking about is getting these meds and getting my kids home where they belong. Just cut me some slack, please. We made it home where the lack of sleep caught up to everyone. Tantrums were being dropped like they were hot, and I just wanted to curl up on the living room floor right there with my kids and throw a fit too, but I didn't have time to do that. I needed to make them lunch. That night my oldest ate her first meal in two days, pizza! She had also drank tons of Gatorade which I was happy about, because she had not been eating or drinking much of anything over the past few days. I was thrilled about it, until she went to bed and had a major coughing fit and puked pizza and Gatorade everywhere. I remained 100% sympathetic and genuinely felt so bad for her, but at the same time I just wanted to curl up in my bed and cry. Tired was an understatement.

The following day was a turn around. The medications were finally kicking in for Lanie, and I had gotten a little more sleep. I was beyond thrilled to leave the house for a dentist appointment. Unlike my kids, I'm not a huge fan of appointments... but I'll be honest, having a cleaning and a couple of cavities filled felt like a mini vacation. Thanks for making my dentist appointment not so bad, kids. I owe ya one.

I'm happy to report that everyone is on the mend at our house. I'm also happy to report that I have gotten a full 16 hours of sleep over the past two nights. Up all night, up all day is no longer a trend in our house. Hallef'nlujah!  ;)

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