Watch your mouth

Out of the mouths of babes, as the saying goes.  As my children grow older, they grow mouthier.  This started when they were little, but I was so much bigger than them, that one look (you know the "mom" look) and they would buckle that lip right up.  Now my fifteen year old towers above me.  But, I can give him a look or a phrase and it will shut him up.  His main problem (or gift) is that he will argue a point to death.  For no real reason, he just wants to get you all fired up opposing him.  He is too smart for his britches, as my grandma used to say.

The other thing those precious little guys do is the "why?" thing.  "Go clean your room,"  says mom, "Why" says the child.  After a little "tit for tat" of this, you turn into your mother and say at the top of your voice, "Because I said so".  Then you go back to your room, close the door and wonder what happened to the size six girl who used to rule the bar scene in Scottsdale.  Yikes.  Not that I want to go out to bars, you really can only survive that when you are 21 and stupid as a turnip.  But to a women, turning into our mothers can be traumatic.  All those phrases that drove you crazy as a child, start coming out of your mouth at your children.  Do you know what that means?  Our mothers were right.  This shakes our worlds.  But, once you calm down you should send your mom flowers for a job well done.

Mouthy kids bother me.  I work at Starbucks and all the teenie boppers come in every Friday night.  If you send your child to the mall friday night please tell them to be polite.  These brats throw money on the counter, come in to the store in gaggles with loud obnoxious voices, and ninety-nine times out of a hundred, never and I mean never, say please or thank you.  If that turns out to be my kid, tell me and I will beat the crap out of him/her.  In these economic times, you have no idea if the person at McDonalds or wherever has a degree and just cannot get a different job.  We as a nation are failing to raise children with manners and it is revolting.  I also do not want to see some teenager making out in the corner all night.  That is what movie theaters are for.  And I realize that I did most of this stuff when I was a kid, but I was taught manners and I used them on a consistent basis.  Also, if you blindly drop your child off at a mall for four or five hours, I highly recommend, on at least one occasion that you drive to a different entrance, go in,  and spy on your kid.  Your well behaved, going to church on Sunday kid.  It will be enlightening.  I am not saying it won't ever be my obnoxious kid, but I will do everything in my power to raise respectful children.  

Manners, learn them, love them, live them.  Please and Thank You go a long way in this world.  I should not be shocked because one child says them, I should be shocked because one child forgets them.  

God Bless you and yours.

Why would they do that?

We have all asked this question about our kids.  Why in the world would they do that?  Yesterday's blog had me thinking of all the weird and unusual things that either my child or my friends children have done.  Stupid and weird stuff.  Really, it makes me doubt their intelligence, even if they do end up being straight A students.  Let's play along and laugh at some of their antics.  You may also cry because the same thing happened to you.

When we brought Grant home from the hospital, the next morning, my perfectly potty trained three year old took a whiz right by the cradle.  I know this is the whole regression thing, but seriously, I thought he was just checking Grant out, and then the fateful noise.  Yikes, thank God for Spot Shot.

A couple of days later, Grant was in his baby seat and Ty just walked up and smacked him.  In his defense, he did not know I would walk in the room at the exact moment he belted the newborn.  Again, I get it, new baby, no attention for him.  But makes you wonder if you have some how messed up as a parent.

A good friend of mine had twin girls nine months after I had my twins and we would call each other every day with the latest "Oh my gosh" moment.  Hers would sometimes top mine, but this one tops them all.  She had just put the girls down for a nap.  She is very orderly, everything in it's place type of person.  But on that fateful day, she forgot one thing.  The girls got into her brand new, big tub, not tube, tub of Desitin.  You have seen it, the big jar.  They plastered each other's hair, the brand new bedspreads (mom had just redecorated), the wall paper and their clothes.  Why?  That stuff is water proof and her precious angels had to go around for three weeks with nasty hair until it all came out.  She must have washed their hair three times a day during that time.  They had plastered it on themselves.  It is enough to make you cry.

My all time favorite comes from a nameless child of a dear friend in Arizona.  They had gotten a pool and since most houses in Az have tile floors, my friend had told the boys they could go around the side of the house and "go to the bathroom", so they a: wouldn't pee in the pool and b: wouldn't kill themselves running wet on the tile and slip and fall.  Sounds logical to all of us, right?  A couple of weeks later, she comes around the side of the house and her seven year old son  is in full squat position doing what we all know she did not mean on the side of the house.  I mean, she never specified "number one" or "number two".  We all know what she meant, but her little bundle of joy just did what he was told to do.  

Men say they can't figure women out, well try to figure a kids logic and you will go batty.  All our kids do these types of things.  I think it is them testing out their little world.  At least that is what I tell myself when it is my kid.  Man, the hilarity of our jobs as mothers.  Take a minute, think about it, what has your precious little one done lately that made you scratch your head.

God bless you and yours.

The Frustration of Motherhood

From toddlers to teenagers, kids can be so frustrating.  They do things you do not understand for reasons known only to them and trying to figure it out only makes you crazy.  We have all had those moments where we lock ourselves in the bathroom to cool down.  If you have not had a moment like that, I will assume you are a mother of one small baby who still is too cute to move around and talk back to you.  Have you ever been so mad you see red?  I have, and it scared me.  I had to send my son to his room for an hour so I could calm down.  I thank God I had the sense to do just that and not raise my hand to my child in anger.

I still remember my first "red" moment.  I was pregnant with Grant and resting, Tyler was supposed to be quietly watching TV and I got up to check on him and he had sliced five straight lines right down the back of the couch with a knife.  He was trying to reach something under the couch.  I flipped out.  Why would he do that?  I had to send him to his room or beat the crud out of him.  I waited and worried what my husband would do and say.  In the end, when I had calmed down, I spanked him for getting a knife.  He knew he wasn't allowed to touch knives, the couch thing I could almost see his little reasoning.  He needed to get the sock under the couch, he could not reach it, he could not move the couch, so he sliced through it.  Perfectly logical to a three year old.  But he knew he could not touch the knives, and I explained this to him before I spanked his little butt, calmly and with reason.  Luckily, we had a friend who worked for a furniture store who had a friend who did knew how to fix the back of the couch. 

I had a friend of mine say, while our kids were three to four years old, she understood child abuse, she did not do it, but she could wrap her mind around it.  Munchkins can wear you out, wear you down and break your spirit.  Especially if they are smart or strong willed.  If you have a strong willed child, I highly recommend the book by James Dobson, "The Strong Willed Child", it will change your life and your child's, all for the better.  Another discipline book that helped me so much was Kevin Lehman's "How to make your children mind without losing yours."  Very good.  Both authors are Christians and have wonderful insight on handling your handfuls.

Never be afraid to ask for help, share your stories with your girlfriends.  Trust me, anything your kid has done, her kid has done something just as weird and complex and wrong.  If you have a friend who unfortunately has a perfect child, stop hanging out with that friend, she is delusional.  No kids are perfect, not one out there, they all mess up.  We are charged, as mothers, with keeping our cool and doing our best in the stress of the day.  We can do it.  If I survived three in diapers and eight years of diaper changing (I added it up one day, eight years, tragic), then you can do it too.  Read your bible, pray a lot, then pray some more, share with friends, read some responsible literature on parenting, and keep plugging along.  

Because just as you are about to break, the do something so cute, so wonderful, so loving, they mend your broken heart.  It is worth it.  I am still plugging along, and there are good days and bad days, but in the end, I would not trade it for the world.

God bless you and yours.

My baby is 15!

Today, my little baby is turning fifteen.  When did that happen.  Everyone says it goes so fast, but it really does.  The funny thing is, I could not wait for this kid to be born.  Not just because he was my first and we did want to be surprised as to whether it was a boy or a girl.  Tyler was nine days late.  Nine days.  

You see, pregnancy is weird.  First you are so happy (or really, really surprised, whoops), but you still feel kind of sick, really tired and you have to pee all the time.  Then, the middle is wondrous.  You feel like you have your energy back, food is fun again, sometimes your sex drive comes back, the baby moves for the first time, all that fun exciting stuff.  Then your third trimester rolls around.  You use your tummy for a table, heartburn comes along after eating anything, your feet swell up, the baby is big enough to kick you in the ribs and make it count, you get to be done.  Really ready to be done.  You also start to believe that you will be pregnant forever.  And ever and ever and ever.  

I was sure Tyler was a girl.  Positive, knew it, knew it, knew it.  So much for a mother's intuition.  He's a boy.  He is a boy who arrived after sixteen hours of labor, nine days late, he pooped inside me (they do that when they are late) and gave me a raging infection during labor which resulted in a C-section.  Thank God it was a C-section because he came in at 9lbs. 10 oz.  That is not a typo, he was huge.  It was like having a three month old.  He as also the most beautiful baby.  No cone head from the birth canal, no marks on his face, nothing except perfect little round face and ten happy toes and ten happy little chunk a munk fingers.

It was worth it, but those last nine days were miserable.  Now he stands two inches taller than me, has a blonde afro like hair and is an amazing human being.  I know he is mine, but he really is a great kid.  I cannot believe he is turning fifteen.  It did go fast.

Take a minute to watch your children today, make a memory and try to remember it.  

God bless you and yours.

No. Just No.

What part of NO don't you understand?  As a mother, I have uttered this phrase an infinite number of times.  Why don't our children just listen the first time?  I have wrestled with this dilemma.  I think it is almost instinctual for a child to fight you on every little thing.  "Can I have a candy bar?", says the hopeful child.  "No, not right now" says the mom.  What follows is one of many phrases designed to wear a momma down.  "Why not?", "pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease", "How come?"  "All my friends are eating candy bars"  Or you can fill in the blank.  It is not as if they take the first "no" at face value.  They keep trying.  They keep wishing that the "no" will turn into a "yes".  And at the end of a bad day, about the fifth or sixth "please" a tired mom will cave.  I have, if you are being honest, you have.  We all have.  And because we have caved in the past, hope springs eternal that we will cave again.

When the twins were babies until they were about three years old, my oldest son, four at the time of the twins birth, used this mercilessly.  No mercy for the momma.  It was a dark time of many diapers and spit ups and doctor visits.  I seriously can't remember most of it.  I see videos of birthday parties and cannot physically remember being there.  I was exhausted.  Physically, mentally and spiritually.  So of course, being a small child of infinite wisdom, Tyler would take advantage.  He is not a bad kid, he is a smart kid.  He knew when to hit.  He knew when I would cave out of pure desperation for a quiet moment.

If I had been more centered in my faith, reading my bible and praying every day, maybe I would have been better.  I know God wasn't a daily part of my life then, just waking up in the morning was challenging enough.  

I do believe in discipline.  My kids know this, their friends know this, all of us know what we should do to raise kids who will grow up to be someone we can be proud of.  I am just saying that somedays, especially if the kids are under the age of five, we cave.  I have learned that you can break this behavior and recover control of your house.  It comes about when they are all in school and you can actually breathe for once in your parental life.  Then you can recover enough to insist your No means No.  I have done this, so I know it is achievable.  

Keep your chin up moms, today is just one day.  You will not screw your kid up in just one day.  We all have those days.  Give yourself a break.  You need one.

God bless you and yours.

Movie Marathons

Okay, we like movies, but with six in our family, going to the movies requires a loan from a major bank.  On the rare occasion we go to the theater, even if we go in the afternoon, it is never under sixty bucks.  So we wait a lot for the DVD to come out.  Everyone in our house got a movie for Christmas and we have been watching one every night.  I love it.  I got Scott some John Candy movies, Uncle Buck and the Great Outdoors.  Hilarious.  We watched Narnia, Prince Caspian last night, awesome.

I love it when the whole family is laying around or sitting around, under blankets and watching a movie, shushing everyone through the whole thing.  Then the days afterward when we are all quoting the funny or great parts.  It is a wonderful thing.

ELF is our new Christmas favorite.  If you have never seen it, just buy it.  I rented it four times before I bought if for the family.  We can quote it and laugh every time.  "You sit on a throne of lies", "You stink of meat and cheese"  Stuff like that.  If you have seen ELF, you are laughing hysterically.  Even Cooper quotes ELF.  

We also watch It's A Wonderful Life every year.  Every year when George is running through town at the end of the movie, I am crying like a baby.  Every year for cripes sake.  

What is your favorite movie?  Rent it and watch it today.  Introduce your children to it.  They will think you are either a genius or an idiot or both. 

God Bless you and yours.

Happy New Year and all that jazz

So I sit here bleary eyed and tired.  I did try to go to bed by ten, but everyone was screaming at midnight, so I was back up again.  No New Years resolutions for me.  I try to make them every year, but I have been thinking a lot about this.  

We just want to be better.  Maybe it's losing weight, or to quit smoking or going to church more or being nicer.  But it all comes down to trying to be a better you.  We should ask ourselves everyday how to do this, not just one night a year.  Every day I am going to ask myself how to be  better.  Not a goal for the year, a goal for the day.  We can improve a little everyday. 

So maybe that it is a resolution, but I say it's just me trying to be a little bit better to the world every day.

Anyone out there make a resolution, ever, and stick to it all year long?  I would love to know.  

God bless you and yours.