rebel yell & other bad mom doings

The question for the week: What 3 things do you do, as a mother, that goes against all the books?

1. I can be a yeller and have been known to even swear a tad. It's often ineffectual (except in generating fear) and it makes me look like a lunatic, but sometimes it's all I can do to avoid breaking things.

2. Leave my kids home alone for up to an hour after school. They are 9 & 8 and I'm pretty sure it's legal but most moms around here would lose their minds about this. [For the record, I do call to check in and make sure they've locked the door, and usually there is a trustworthy neighbor available]

3. Allow ice cream, cake, pizza, or chocolate chips with breakfast. Usually there is a waffle or oatmeal involved with one of those items, but sometimes we just call it good if any food has been consumed in the morning.

And now I'm going to go do #4 which is take a long hot bath wearing ear plugs...

What Worked For You?

I know a mommy with a new baby girl. The kid is colicky and cries constantly. We've all been there, we all know what it's like.

So, I want to know - what worked for you? What was your miracle cure?

I'm going to collect all the answers, and send them to her, just so she has a bunch of options to try.

(you may reply to this as a comment - ie: this question is thrown wide to contributors and readers alike)

3 things that could be frowned upon

The question for the week: What 3 things do you do, as a mother, that goes against all the books?

Here are mine:
1. Kids get chips, or whatever is readily available, to eat to tide them over until dinner is ready. My mom would NEVER have done that! The problem is that I can never get home early enough to have supper ready in time, and I'd rather they not scream the place down while I'm cooking.

2. I leave the kids to play in the bath, and fetch things from the rooms. Yes, even the little one! How the heck are you supposed to stay in the bathroom if you've forgotten to get jarmies or a vest? It's too cold at the moment to dress them in their rooms. OK, I'm not that bad... I haven't been doing this for long with the little one!

3. We don't have a staircase gate. And that's probably why Connor can already climb the stairs. This does give me the heebie jeebies at times especially when he starts running at full steam for the top of the staircase, but nothing has happened so far (touch wood), and we are always upstairs with him.

I've restricted it to 3, so that I don't get carried away! LOL!

These I Can't Do...

It's late, sorry... but since I have been wracking my brain about what to put on this here list of 7-mommy-related-simply-can't-do-things, I am going to post it no matter what!
Naturally as Damien gets older, it gets easier and easier to do things I couldn’t do before… So I’m going to go back in time, and jump around a little, to things I couldn’t do before but can do now and vice-versa. And a lot of these are on the other mommy’s lists too... I knew I shouldn't have read them before I did mine!!

...I’ll start with sleeping in, especially with Damien! He would get up to all kinds of mischief if he was awake alone, including painting my pet rat, Loopy- and his cage- green when he was 4 years old. And of course attempting to make himself breakfast- resulting in a milk-and-rice-crispy-coated kitchen and a floor sticky with sugar! And no matter how many times, or how I tried, I never could get him to come and wake me when he woke up!

…shop just for me... even now with the knucklehead taller than me and 17 years old. Like a lot of mommies out there- my Angel to Damien purchase ratio is on average about 1-3.

…watch age-restricted movies! For a long time, and now still to a degree, I couldn’t rent a DVD if it had an age restriction older than Damien was. Another single mom neighbour friend and I used to make it a treat night for us to share a supper with the two of us and our two boys, rent a movie for them and one for us to watch when they had either gone to bed or were safely ensconced behind a bucket of LEGO and a closed door with snacky things and a small supply of cool drink. Of course the remote was close at hand to pause if one of them came out of the room…

…go on spontaneous outings or parties, or change my plans at the last minute… especially if I had organised a baby-sitter for Damien. If I had organised an overnight stay for him somewhere it was even harder to change my plans! And of course with a little Damien I would inevitably not have enough “stuff” to just stay late whenever I felt like it.

…not check up on him. I just cannot assume he’s fine, no matter what he’s doing or where he is. At least I don’t call him when he’s at school- but I STILL double check to make sure he’s had his meds and done his homework. I ask him every morning if he’s packed his bags for the day and if he has everything he needs for school. I know I know… I’m a nag! But I’m not going to make excuses for either of us- this is how it must be, okay!??

…stop researching Damien’s AD/HD. He goes through good phases and rough ones, and we deal with each one as it happens… but I never stop reading up on it. I have several books on the subject and I receive about 5 parenting e-news letters dealing with AD/HD and I attend seminars and talks when I can.

…not wonder if I could have or can do more…

7 things I can no longer do now that I'm a mommy

I know I'm a bit late, but here's my homework for last week! I'll post this week's homework tomorrow night.

Ummm, this ended up being more difficult than I thought it would be.

1. Go to the loo without having an audience! Just when the oldest one stopped being fascinated by me on the loo, I went and had another child!

2. Do crafts. I went to the most wonderful fabric painting classes on Saturdays pre Bradley... which entailed loads of wine and chatting. In fact the more wine that flowed, the more creative the painting! But that stopped when Bradley got mobile, and I haven't been able to go to a craft workshop since then.

3. Complete a conversation with friends. I'm really hoping that I'll remember how to complete a sentence by the time the kids let me talk again.

4. Shop for myself. This wasn't a problem until Connor was born, and for some reason, I really struggle going shopping now. It's just such a schlepp and I never have enough time

5. Work from home. I used to be able to work from home for a few days to catch up, but that's no longer possible... Connor will just not let me work at home at all.

6. Garden. I tend to lose interest in gardening when I'm pregnant, and in fact I haven't done much of it since Connor has been around at all. and it's a pity, because I love my garden.

7. Have completely uninterupted sleep... I reckon I'll be able to have that luxury in about 2 years time again. How sad! Means I'll have to live with my rings :)

The Shoes

Dear Cameron,

As you grow (and my word, you are growing so fast and so awesomely), you have one element of life as a girl of which I am so proud and yet, it is so very tiring.

You, my girl, from your earliest days, have been and always will be, a shoe fetishist.

The good kind though, you do not demand the purchase of a million pairs of shoes all at once. The good kind is the type where you LIKE a pair of shoes, and will NOT let them go. Not for toffee or bribery or anything I can muster up to convince you that “no, those shoes are really done for now and you should really wear this pair”.

You, my Cameron, are stubborn. This is not your fault. It’s genetic. And when you LOVE something or someone, you LOVE them. Wholeheartedly, and without inhibition.

And so, when you LOVE your shoes, you really do LOVE them.

You see, Cameron. I’ve known this about you since birth. I knew you would be a shoe fetishist. I have an affinity for shoes, and I love my favourite pairs and yes, I wear them to death’s door and just cannot let them go. Just one look at Mommy’s “smartie slops”and you’ll know this to be true.

Your very first proper pair of ’shoes’, were a pair of Vans that Anne bought for you on your first birthday. Before then, it had been booties and little slip on guys that you loved in much the same way - those red and blue ones stick in my mind particularly. You loved those slip-ons.

So, then appeared the Vans. With the velcro and the cool skulls and whilst some parents of other children would look a little askew at the ’strange parents who let their one-year old wear shoes with skulls on’, we did not care. You loved those shoes, and we loved that you loved them and we all loved how divine they were and how much they embodied your definitive coolness.

You wore those Vans everyday. You loved them. Even on the days when I would have to wash them.. you’d wait for them to dry in the sunshine just so that you could slip them on again and feel cool again.

My babe, you’re the coolest kid, even in your socks. Don’t forget that.

Then you grew some more, and those Vans needed to ‘move on’. And we found what you term your “sky present shoes”. A little pair of camo slip-ons, with a buckle and thick sole. And you loved them from the moment I put them on your feet.

And every day since that you put them on.

But those ’sky present shoes’ wore thin quickly, and we spent months cajoling and going shopping for new shoes. Hells, it got to Winter and you refused. You said “I will wear them with socks!”.

And, you stubborn girl, you did.

And then we finally found - your pink dancing shoes.

With the velcro and now that you were bigger, you could put them on and take them off by yourself and you loved them. LOVED them.

But, you were nearing three, fast, and being the tomboy you are, they started to fall apart quickly.

So, I spent six weeks trying. Taking you shopping, showing you shoes, purchasing no less than three pairs of shoes that you took some kind of a liking to in the stores and bringing them home.

You wearing those new shoes, proudly.

And the moment we’d walk in the front door, you’d sit down, take those lovely new shoes off and demand your dancing shoes.

I got to the point once where I just sat and sobbed over it.

Your stubbornness was defeating even me - the most stubborn of all. I’d tried everything - rainbow shoes, shoes with laces, shoes with little heels, shoes that sang, shoes that were pink, shoes that were green, anything).

So, i gave in. I caved.

I phoned your dad whilst I was at work one day.

And asked him to try and take you out shopping and see if he could get you to fall in love with a pair of shoes, and keep them on for more than five minutes and somehow, SOME.HOW, we could eliminate the ’sky present shoes’ and the ‘dancing shoes’ from the equation. I was desperate at this point, determined to somehow get new shoes on your feet…

The next day, a Friday, you woke up and we had our morning cuddle and I began the ritual of trying to catch you into wearing clean clothes for school and get your shoes on, and your face clean. I try and make it fun, I promise. And really, I do, with “spiders” and Super Mommy Powers and flying whooshing noises and cuddles and promises of “yes, i’m sure you can have a pony one day, Cam-Cam, if you’ll just let me get your socks on”…

So that Friday, I looked at you, you looked at me, and I said what I say every day:

“Cam-Cam, what shoes do you want to wear today?”

(and I hope and pray, every day, that you’d ask for not-the-dancing-shoes or not-the-sky-present-shoes).

And you looked at me, laughed and said:

“Mommy, you know, I want my new rainbow shoes”.