Go the F to sleep

Flash forward a a few years.   Boy child is now 7, baby girl is now a little girl at 4 and a new baby girl, almost 1, has entered the arena. 

My children sleep in stages it seems.  Boy child likes to wake up early, which is why there are dark out curtains on his window.   Little girl likes to stay up late and sleep in.   New baby girl takes up everything in between.     Between the three I feel at times in a perpetual state of sleep deprivation and I am honestly starting to suspect myself of suffering from insomnia.   I find myself exhausted before the bedtime ritual even starts in the evenings.  Drudging through dinner and bath time in methodical state of repetition.

The boy usually falls asleep fairly quickly in the evening.  I think he has started to learn to accept the fact that it is okay to admit that you are tired every now and then.  I have to sigh on the nights he begs to stay up to read his books.  After winning the battle over learning to read or not with him he has now developed my love for it, which is wonderful but I don't want him to suffer for my bad habit of , " I will sleep after this page."  "Ok, after this chapter." only to finally put it down after the book has been ravenously devoured.   So I tend to limit his time but most of the time he falls asleep with the light still on.

Little girl has taken over his role as the hall wander and creator of "I'm not tired." excuses.  She starts school next year so the role of night shift little mother hen need to start coming to a close.  She debates with me some nights on why she should not be going to be just yet.  I finally get her into bed and sit down only to hear the creak of an opening door and the loud pattering of someone's tiny feet down the hall.  I turn to see a small head peering around the corner and as she sees that I see her one of two things happen.  She lets out a little shriek and runs back or proudly thrust herself into the room to make a request. Pick one: "I'm thirsty"   "I had a bad dream."  "There's a monster." "I need another story."  "I have to go to the bathroom.".  Her newest is "My stomach hurts."  this line was pulled for almost two weeks and even though I could find no true evidence of such an ailment I took her to the doctor.  Who reminder her it was important to not lie about such things and try to poop.  We are still have slight issues of her not wanting to do that...

By the time I get her finally convinced that perhaps she should fall asleep the baby girl either wakes up or decides this would be grand time to fuss all her woes to the world.  I play, rock, feed, cuddle, sing, read or just plan entertain the final child left awake. Until she finally falls asleep or I swaddle her and place her in her bed.   Then it's my turn to convince myself to sleep.

You see I have passed the the exhaustion that early threatened to have my curl up on the couch for a snooze.  I have now gotten my second wind so I try to do somethings to go to sleep.  Some nights I turn on the tv to have a little noise drone on so I can finish cleaning up messes.  Some nights I crawl in the bathtub to soak away the day, most of the time I have an audience in baby girl. Some nights I pick up the book that I failed to even read a full page from during the day and try to find my way back into the story.  Some nights I lay in the dark willing myself to sleep.

Go to sleep mommy.  Just go the F to sleep, quickly before the sun starts to rise and boy child awakes. 

The Good, The Bad & The Disgusting

From the Day our children are born we have to teach them things or help the learn how to do it whatever it is they are doing.

Some of it is fun- helping them learn to craw, walk, run, teaching them silly songs and their ABC's, helping them make artwork to hang on the fridge, teaching them to help make cookies, clap their hands to a beat, roll down a grassy hill, build sandcastles, swim, enjoy the simplicity of listening to the birds sing and feeling the wind in your hair.

Some of it is kinda frustrating and makes you want to bang your head against the wall- teaching them to read, write, anything really that they must learn in order to function in school and society that most kids just don't have the attention span for, to use the potty instead of diapers, to not hit, kick, bite or fight with their sister/brother or other random child, to not fling their food around the kitchen out of sheer boredom, to not be a greedy selfish monster.

Some of it is just plan disgusting - Like teaching your child how to blow his/her nose more often than not you end of with snot all over you. Or teaching them how to wipe their butt after they poop, yes as a parent one has been doing this since they were born but for some reason it is more excusable and less gross when they are a mostly helpless baby. Rushing them to the toilet in an effort to teach them throw up there and having it end up on your lap is another fun experience one never looks forward to. Teaching a child to brush their teeth shouldn't be disgusting right(?), except when you are trying to teach that child to spit out the toothpaste and they let it dribble out their mouth and all over themselves and you. Or the worst experience for me thus far is convincing my almost 2 yr old daughter that she has to poop and then having to help her when she refuses to do it even when it is on the verge of coming out by means that only medical professionals should have to (but never want to) deal with.

Most of the normal gross things I can deal with: slobber (dogs do that and people still think they are cute), mud or food covered children (no problem), spit up (eh.. it happens), throw up (as long as it is not on me I will survive... mostly), poop explosions ( as long as I have enough wipes), snotty nosed kids (again as long as there are plenty of wipes). Most of my gag reflexes have been beat down from years of working with animals and their various stinky bodily functions and being a biology major and having the majority of my classes in a building that had a permanent smell of formaldehyde and decay in it, but my children still find new and disgusting ways to to make turn around and gasp for breath at random times and fight the urge to vomit what little food I have managed to cram down my throat during the day.

Where is the book for THAT??

I have always known that my child is stubborn. It he thinks he can get away with doing as little as possible he will. This applies to talking as well as obeying for him. Last summer I had some concerns because he was not talking that much. So I had someone from the state come out and test him and they said that while he was a little delayed is wasn't enough for them to help me with it. I could have done private speech therapy but I was under the understanding that it would work itself out.

This year his MDO (mother's day out) program tells me that they are worried about his talking. So they want me to test him (remember the first time was all me). The annoying part is that the examples they gave me were more along the lines of behavior issues. Mainly my child is the class clown and since he already knows everything that they are going over he gets bored and acts up. They are just now really working on letters, numbers, shapes, etc. He knows all of that and needs more of a challenge, but it is just a MDO program so I don't expect that much from them honestly. But the problem is that he is now seeking attention through bad behavior because they give him that attention rather than ignoring him or putting him in time out when he acts up. Which makes it harder for me to reinforce my "punishment" methods at home. But he is not the biter of the class, nor the hitter, or the severely quiet and shy child of the class (which there are all three types in that group) he just acts silly.

Anyways so I go to get the child tested and they tell me that he is technically a year behind on speech and language comprehension. Why? Because he does not understand things like possessive pronominal adjective, which one is not whatever, using contractions, not using 4-5 word sentences, using -ing- at the end of things like reading, singing, playing, etc. not identifying things by groups like animals, toys, etc. There were more but I can not remember them right now.
Now most of this I was like "What the hell, you expect a three year old to know crap like that but not all their letters and shapes until he is like 4 or 5???" Not to mention the desired jump in language comprehension from the time a child is 2 to 3 is crazy! AND to make it more fun, they are supposed to just learn this information through osmosis. I mean hell, it is not like I don't talk to the child, read to him, sing to him. He can already read some simple three letter words but he apparently doesn't understand the supposed basic language comprehension that a three old year should. Way to make a parent feel like absolute and utter crap!!!

So the examiner was like do you have any questions after she told me her findings. And I was like " Uh, YEAH! How am I supposed to know this?" I mean they make books for potty training, sibling rivalry discipline, sleeping, where they need to be in physical development but I have not seen any they say where you kids need to be for language comprehension! They may be out there but they must be few and far between cause I haven't seen them in the bookstore. Her response was usually they just pick it up or you pedi should tell you if they suspect something. WHAT??

So whatever, I will wait for the rest of the school system stuff to come back to see whether I should put him in speech therapy or not.

Now an annoying thing is now after doing the testing he is using those things first off because I make a point to use them in front of him more pronouncedly and secondly because I MAKE him use them because I want him to know that I expect it. But even more annoying is that according to this chart, that I looked up later after searching the web. http://www.childdevelopmentinfo.com/development/language_development.shtml - he is not THAT far off. There is like one or two things he is still working on but for the most part he has got most of them. But it also shows that jump that I was talking about them wanting.

Now I know that I don't have a stupid child, far from it in fact. I think what I have is a very stubborn child who is more or less lazy in some areas than in others. He ahead or right at where he needs to be on most other areas. But apparently not this one.

Bad Mother!

Why is it that other mothers than can make a mother feel so horrible? You know with their looks and their whispers. (or perhaps I am just paranoid, hmm..) I know it is hard to not judge but damn when they say looks could kill some people really need to listen and apply it to themselves.

Today we went to the pool.

The boy has been bugging the living hell out of me for days to go swimming or basically get out of the house. I did not go to the pool until today for one reason. The weather people told me it was going to rain. And I didn't want to go through the trouble of packing all the necessary things for a swimming trip with two kids only to get there and have to leave again due to thunder or whatnot. Well, what do you know, the weather people were wrong..again. I should have known this, the goobers can't even tell you when it is going to snow! ugh.

Anyways after two days of being trapped in the house with both kids because it was supposed to rain and it is too freaking hot (insert humid) to go outside, UNLESS you are at the pool, so I dragged my sleep deprived self and the kids to the pool.

Now normally the boy would immediately run into the pool (wading pool with a swimming float, FYI) and begin playing. Today he was a clutchy butt for the first hour. Totally abnormal behavior for my independent boy. And since I am in a foul mood already this annoys me. So I tell him go play, go down the slide, Get off my Leg! something, ANYTHING, just go away!
I did start off being nice but when you have a three old climbing on you like some sort of leech and 10 month old so eager to get out of her float and potentially drown herself it is stressful. So in the end I yelled at him to get off and go play.

That got the attention of the other moms. And so they began to watch me with my child.

I told him go down the slide (once again this is a baby pool). He gets out, waits in line, gets on, and sits there blocking the way. I tell him come on. He sits. I get up and close the 5 ft gap between us. Come on go down, I say. He sits there looking at me. Go down your blocking the slide, I yell. He continues to sit there. Grr, you stubborn boy, I say to him. So I step an inch away from the baby girl in her float, grab the boy by his foot and pull him down the slide. Promptly pull him out of the pool and sit him on the side for time out.

This whole thing earned me several looks of surprise and slight anger from the other moms. Who I must point out don't know me from Adam. None of them have the courage to say anything to me but grumble amongst their friends.

I eventually worked the boy out of his clutchy funk and he went back to his normal independent self.

But for the rest of the time I was watched. I wonder what these moms must think. That I am a bad mother because I dared to yell at my precious darling. Ugh, to me since they are moms too they should be giving me looks of sympathy and understanding. But apparently I am the only mom who goes through phases where I get angry at my kids. What a terrible person I am... bah.

I really and truly try very hard not to judge other moms so when they seem to judge me it makes me all the more angry. They don't have my child. And to be quite honest I have a very well behaved child. He may be stubborn and willful. I may have to raise my voice and be mean sounding but at least he listens (most of the time) and comes when I tell him to. Compared to these other kids that walk all over their moms.

Why should I be made to feel ashamed when I get angry with my child for misbehaving or being annoying? I am only human after all. These mothers that think that all moms should always love their kids and be patient and loving at all times disgust me. If that is they way they want to be then fine but don't dare try to cram me into your box of perfection. I deal with enough freakin' guilt on my own without their judgment.

Yes, I love my kids! I would give my life for them. If something where to happen to them I would probably want to lay down and die.

But that does not mean I am not tempted to give them away to gypsies at times or want to run off into the hills screaming some days. Some times I really don't like my children.

(Like when they stay up screaming "MOMMY" every 15 freaking minutes! Why won't he just go to bed, it is past 10:30! ARGH! )

I feel like it is okay to not like your kids at times. It makes one real and honest. In my opinion, the moms that say they love their children at all times either have the elusive truly easy going child or they are doped up. Or perhaps they just lie to make themselves feel better.

Children = No sleep

I once read (somewhere) that the constant waking up and not getting a full nights sleep during the last months of pregnancy is Mother Nature's way of preparing you for the new baby (when it wakes up every three hours and screams to be feed). Mother Nature is a bitch and she can keep her nasty little joke to herself, thank you.

The first three months are hell on one's sleep schedule, then it gets better... a bit. Once your child reaches about six months they should more or less sleep through the night a good 8-10 hrs. THEN the teething happens, which can take months before the damned teeth even poke through but in the meantime your happy baby becomes a whiny monster who wakes up all night long. Worse this comes and goes. So on week your fine the next not so much. And let's throw in some growth spurts while were at it. The times when your darling becomes a ravenous pig demanding to be feed at all hours. There now we are done with the first year, whew... Oh crips, what did I do? I have to go through this again.. damn.

The second year was not so bad. The boy was still in a crib and I could just leave him in there for a bit if he woke up before ,oh let's say, 9 AM. Note: I am not a morning person in any way form or fashion, I despise the morning.

But once we moved him to the big bed there was nothing keeping him confined expect a gate on the door. Which is all fine and dandy for keeping small children trapped in their room but children do not come with a remote for volume control. So he is loud while playing and singing to himself and I am not a heavy sleeper at all. Which means I have to get up anywhere between 7 -9 AM, it varies from day to day, week to week and month to month. Of course he naturally seems to get up early on the days when I don't go to bed until 2 AM or so (he seems to sense when I do this) and later on the days when I go to bed at old people time around 10 or so. And it never fails that since I have two now if one wakes up before the other they usually succeed in waking up the still sleeping one with their loudness.
The biggest issue is that the boy refuses to go to sleep when I lay him down at night and he usually plays his stupid game of " I am still up, Nah Nah Boo Boo!" with me. Some nights I say "screw it" and ignore the little brat and other nights I go in and threaten with bodily harm if he opens the door one more time. Needless to say he does not fall asleep until well after 10:00 PM when the hubby has left for work. By this time I have two choices go straight to bed and get as much sleep as I need OR spend some much needed ME time. Most of the time I choose the latter and do something like read a book, watch a movie, zone out watch mindlessly stupid TV shows, surf the internet search for Nothing and Everything, or play Wii (right now it is Zelda) which tends to cause me to stay up way to late. So I am usually none to cheerful in the morning when the rooster crows with his usual "MOMMY!". But that it is alright I can lay back down for a bit during nap time right???

Or then again maybe not.... My kids suck right now. Almost everyday I lay the baby girl down and then try to get boy child to lay down. She goes right to sleep, he doesn't. He spends almost 2 hrs squirming and doing everything he can do to NOT go to sleep. Most of the time I have to sit on him (well lay next to him and hold him still). Then I go take a nap, YAY! After about 30 mins, baby girl wakes up and wants to play, not by herself. Joy...up I get to get the baby before she works herself into a tizzy so not to wake the hubby up sleeping off his 3rd shift job. Play with her a bit, feed her and she wears herself out again then lays back down. Okay now I can try to lay down again... or not. Now boy child has awoken...sigh.

If I am lucky I can catch a bit of a nap in after the hubby wakes up but sometimes I don't see the point of it by time it becomes 5 PM.

And here we are, another night... boy child still up playing his game. He has added something to it that makes it even more frustrating, he wants a kiss (sweet yes) but every five minutes! Ugh

"I hope you have a child just like you !"

My mother told me this once..or maybe it was more than once, oh well. And sometimes I hate her for it, cause she succeeded in her wishes (or curses perhaps)upon me. I apparently was a strong-willed stubborn child who gave her hell for the first several years of my life. But I ever grew out of it(or had it beat out of me) before I got to old to really be a nuisance in my teenage years.

I had my first child in Jan of 2007, he was born two months early for no known reason. THAT should have been my first clue! Every since then the child has been marching to the beat of his own drum and not giving a damn about what anyone else tells him he should do in the process. He has always been a very loving and sweet child but he as also always been very busy, very independent and very stubborn. There have been numerous amounts of time since I have become a mother that I have often pondered the wonderment that is loving someone so much while hating them all at the same time.

My lovably stubborn first born has been sort of potty trained for almost two months now. I say sort of because the child flat out REFUSES to tell me when he needs to go. And even when I tell him to go he gives me the typical toddler response of "No". And the damnable thing is I know that the child has got to go he just refuses to do "Simply" because I told him so.

Today I put him in his room for about 20 minutes so I could take a brief shower and when I come back out the boy has peed in his pants. AR-UGH! So then breaks out berserker mom who screams, yells, throws boy in bathroom and pops him. And I know I will suffer for it later when I make myself feel guilty for getting mad and being a "bad" mom. It was partially my fault for putting the gate on his door so he would not run around the house getting into things- I was cursed (or blessed) with a curiously smart child as well- or let himself out into the backyard. BUT he STILL could have said something like oh I don't know " Mommy Peepee!" or some such ilk. But No, god forbid he should stoop to the level of telling someone he needs something.

It is like this with every blasted thing! Eating, sleeping, playing, bodily functions! And to add to all this crap I have a nine month old that I am dealing with too. Fortunately for me she is of a sweet disposition currently and for the most part is a very happy baby, she just likes a lot of attention. Which is exhausting when added with the busyness of a three old.

So everyday is an adventure of how to make this stubborn child listen to me without destroying his independent spirit. SIGH.....

And of course the child now comes over to give me a kiss (blast the forgiving nature of young children)..ugh

At least I got a consolation prize from my mother this week. She told me basically that she admired me or in her words "I don't see how you do it everyday, I never would have been able to deal with two so close together!" You see she only stayed home with me until I was about 2 or so and my sister is seven years younger than I. So she never had to deal with that chaos that I do every day. So that is something I guess