Smashing Pumpkins

I love the Fall. The changing colors, the cool weather, the pumpkin picking. Brian and I took the kids to a farm this past weekend out in the middle of nowhere called Connor's A-maizing Acres. Oh, those crazy farmers and their play on words.

For the most part Bodhi slept, but Maddox enjoyed himself pretty well. He terrorized the ducks and the goats. I got in a good laugh when he rode the Moo Cow tractor with Daddy. It was a bunch of oil barrels cut open and painted to resemble cows and then pulled behind a tractor. Yee ha! The kids loved it but the Daddies had to bend into these things like Gumbi. I saw many men limping away from the moo train. Funny thing about the moo train ride at that place- they only want you to ride once. You try telling that to a two year old. Yeah, first of all you have to get off the moo train and then after the tantrum that ensues following that conversation you get to tell the kids they don't get to ride the damn moo train again. Bastards. I will pay extra to ride that frikkin uncomfortable thing again! And not because I love the smell of diesel tractor exhaust either. But because otherwise your ducks arent going to have a feather left. Its your choice people!

So we terrorized the animals, rode the train, and abused as many pumpkins that we could. By the end of the day Maddox was super tired. On the way out they had an area set up to sell the pumpkins and a photo op. Ours was the kid chucking the mini pumpkins, throwing himself in the dirt and screaming for the family photo op. Good times, good times.

Don't get me wrong- I was trying to stop him from damaging the farm property, but that is not going to prevent me from taking pictures of the meltdown as it happens. Hey, I took pics of the happy times, I should be able to record the freak out too. Yes, we were those irresponsible parents snapping photos of our kid as he writhed around on the ground and laughing as he had to be carried away from the farm like a sack of potatoes. Hey, we were tired too! And what are you going to do other than laugh at that point?

Kiddo-chondria part deux

So it seems my kiddo-chondria knows no bounds. At least that is according to my husband. My latest obsession is about Bodhi's head. Or rather the shape of it. There is a flatness on one side and I swear her head comes to a point! My husband says he doesn't see it. I feel that this is one of his well known tactics to make me feel insane. Seriously, it is very obvious that her head does come to a point. I have tried to make sure I alternate laying her down on her right and left side to avoid the flatness. I admit I have even snuck in her room in the night and flipped her head while she sleeps! But how the hell do you avoid a pointy noggin?

I don't care what Brian says, I am going to mention this to the doctor at her 4 month checkup. I mean...could this be a sign there is something wrong? I once saw this television program on the Discovery channel about a baby who's fontanel fused together and had to have surgery on his cranium! I wonder what his symptoms were...

Note- Brian has since tried to ban me from watching Discovery channel ever again.

This does not stop me from wondering if I will be that mother with the kid wearing the giant round helmet? Ah, let people go ahead and stare! At least my baby's head will be round! Brian says that I shouldn't worry. That the shape of her head is going to change and any irregularities I imagine will go away the older she gets- whatever, his head comes to a point! I am still asking the doctor....

Corporate Kari

I haven't showered in a couple of days. I am sporting a hair do reminiscent of Flock of Seagulls and I am still in my jammies at noon. There is a large pile of laundry on my dining room table and a toy garbage truck in my refrigerator. I'm not really sure what it is doing there- but my two and a half year old assures me it has to park there to get the garbage and who am I to argue with that logic.

I used to be a problem solver, a multitasker. I used to be corporate Kari. The girl who got things done. The one people came to if there was a problem. I used to have a staff of six and my own private office. Now I'm the staff and I am lucky if I get to pee in private.

I used to drop hundreds of dollars on a pair of gorgeous Charles David boots. Now I don't have anywhere to wear those boots and my feet wont fit into those babies because they are flat. Flat from wearing flip flops day in and day out. I realized the other day that I haven't worn anything but flip flops for 2 years and counting.... What Not To Wear would have a field day with me.

On rainy Sunday's I used to go to the movies by myself. Now a rainy Sunday is a crazed circus of play dough, crayons, paints and projects to keep the cabin fever at a minimum. I haven't seen a movie in the theater since....well, I can't remember the last movie I saw. Huh, must not have been that good.

I used to think that I knew how much my parents loved me. Now that I have kids I know I was clueless. Funny. All the things I used to be obsessed with and thought I couldn't be happy without just don't seem all that important. Although, I do kinda miss those boots :)

Chip anyone?

It is the end of another long but wonderful day. Brian and I took the kids to St Augustine, where we proceeded to wear them out with lots of walking and plenty of fresh air. As a result we had some crazy and over tired kids on our hands. After much rocking with Bodhi on my part and many stories and cups of water with Maddie on Brian's part we finally have them down to bed. And I have come to the realization that there is no limit to the lengths Brian and I will go to keep from waking these kids up once they are down. I don't know about anyone else but my kids, when overtired, can hear a sharp noise from a mile off. Thus Bathroom Potato Chips were born.

This term came to me as I was lying in bed reading a book this evening after putting those tired little buggers down. Brian entered our bedroom carrying a bag of salt and vinegar Lays potato chips. He crossed to the far side of our room and made to open the bag.
"What are you doing? You had better take those into the bathroom!" I said in all seriousness.
Brian didn't blink an eye but proceeded into our master bath and closed the door where the muffled sounds of the cellophane bag could be heard.

He emerged victorious munching on his chips. We stared at each other and broke out laughing. We are both so tired. Tired enough that we have become so paranoid about waking those kids up we won't even risk opening a bag of chips anywhere near their rooms. Yup, Bathroom Potato Chips. That man crossed the entire house and into our room to open his chips and preserve the bedtime quiet. And if that weren't enough I forced him into the bathroom just in case one of the kids has bionic hearing. But hey they didn't wake up did they. And lets be honest shall we? A nighttime snack just tastes better when there isn't a kid crying all over it, you know?

Kiddo-chondria

I am probably the world's biggest worry wort- call it kid hypochondria if you will. I worry about it all, my husband likes to us the word obsess. One of my biggest worries is if Maddox is getting along socially with other children his age. He certainly has some first child weirdness going on to be sure and that is to be expected right? Having never raised a child I am fully aware that I am going to mess him up somehow. It is how badly I am going to screw with the kid that worries me most. Case in point- a while ago I took Maddox to a place called Pump it Up and released the freak in him for all to see...

Pump it Up is every child's dream come true. A giant warehouse of bouncey castles, bouncey slides, giant balls and bouncey mazes. For $7 a kid gets hours of bouncing fun. Well, that is to say your kid. Not my kid. My kid enters bounce town heaven only to find that there are other children there. The nerve.

Maddox climbs excitedly into the first bounce castle he comes to only to find that sometimes while bouncing with other kids they will bump into you. It is all too much for my freaky lil monkey. If a child so much as brushes against him we have full melt down. Maddox will go with his usual proceedure... there is the full on screaming right in the kid's face. "Ahhhhhhh!" Ah, it is so high pitched. His tongue is sticking out of his head and his face is turning purple. Moms all around the room are now turning to see who is having the meltdown. And they are just in time to see Maddie throw himself face down on the bouncey castle without even trying to break his fall. Oh, the crying that ensues....Now it is time for me to scramble into the bouncey house and wrestle my rigid flailing child out and down the slide so he doesnt hurt the other bouncing kids. You try to do this and keep your dignity- ha!

Note to self: NEVER wear a dress to Pump it Up again. That is if they will let us in again. Hmmmm, I wonder.

So as I send Maddox off to preschool this morning I try to bury my kiddo-chondria and hope that his weirdness to due to a close proximity to me. His teachers have never said anything...please just let it be a weirdness reserved to drive me to madness....

Your karma just ran over my dogma

I have what I affectionately like to call Sister or Jenny Karma. Sure, you've heard of Karma, the cycle of cause and effect. But I bet you have never heard of my particular brand. Jenny Karma is special kind that is reserved just for me and seems to relate exclusively to my life as a mother. It seemingly has no effect on my relationships with my husband, friends or family. Here's how it works: I make a judgement on my sister's parenting skills or methods. Even better I criticize her skills or methods to her face. And without fail I end up in the exact situation with my kids, sometimes worse. Otherwise known as having massive amounts of egg on my face.

A perfect example:
I, a childless auntie at the time, see the trouble my sister is having getting her kids to eat. They are picky eaters and she is at her wits end trying to get them to try different things. So I stupidly, and I am sure smugly, say "When I have children (note: any sentence starting this way should remain unsaid as you are dooming yourself!) they're going to eat everything that I put in front of them. If they don't they will just go hungry, I mean, they're not going to starve to death." My saint of a sister looks at me and just nods. She doesn't say what I would have wanted to say- "Uh, yeah, good luck with that, hope it works out for you."

Ho, ho! Fast forward 3 years or so and enter Maddox Jenkins, my beautiful son. THE pickiest eater the planet has ever know. The child is so stubborn in the eating arena that rather than eat anything other than his chosen favorites he will wait you out. He will not eat anything all day. You think I am kidding? This is no exaggeration- he went one day till 5pm and almost passed out before I finally broke. The point is Jenny Karma bit me back. The list go's on and on of the stupid things I said would never happen with me and my children only to find that the J. Karma slapped me upside the head and hard.

Yesterday was possibly one of the nastiest days I have had with Maddie. I was sick and sleep deprived and he was in a rip roaring mood, screaming at the top of his lungs, biting, kicking the dog and...uggh don't make me relive it...lets just say it was super bad. There was no nap people! And then it hit me. I had done it again. I specifically remember saying to my sister that she needed to be tough on her kids, spankings and such, if they were acting awful. I scoffed when she said that sometimes that just doesn't work and politely told me that some days are just like that with kids.

Ohhhh, you evil Jenny Karma! When will I learn to keep my mouth shut!!! The taste of shoe leather is bitter.

That is one big snake!

My husband is not one to be skittish but the snake he found in our yard a few weeks ago shook him up. He stumbled upon the 3 footer curled up in our flower bed early one evening and came and got me to have a look at the monster. I decided right away that it had to die. Now I am normally not a violent person, especially where animals are concerned, but after looking on the internet at pictures of water mocassins it was just too similar for my liking. There was a good chance that this indeed was a seriously posinous snake and my mind was made up.

Brian and I were on a mission. Like two lil' assassins we made for our weapons of choice. For Brian a flat blade on a long stick that is normally used to take up carpet. For me a shovel. We were ready for battle. Needless to say Maddox thought this was all very exciting. From the safe side of our fence Brian threw his blade thing like a javalin and struck that snake in the midsection. What deadly acquarcy- I was so proud. Well, boy was that snake angry! It started to slither away and lucky for us it was injured and wasnt getting far. Like an idiot I scream "its getting away!" and ran out past the safety of the fence and towards the retreating reptile. Turns out water moccasins are very aggressive. Who knew? So that snake sensing I was after him turned on me and started coming back in my direction. That is when he met with my shovel.

All the while Brian is calling me back from his place behind the fence. He wisely was not venturing out toward the snake. Adrenalin had taken its hold on me and to my frenzied mind it was that snake or my babies. Once the monster had stopped being able to slide away Brian joined me in my furious attempt to beat that snake into oblivion. Oh, the nightmares that followed after the adrenalline had gone. I can't believe how powerful my maternal killer instinct was. Hoo-yah! Just call me G.I. Jane Snake Killer. You don't mess with my babies backyard!

Don't pee into the wind...

My son just peed in his own face! You heard it right. He has lately become very interested in how the peepee comes out of there. In the process of looking down and pointing up the inevitable happened. This is getting interesting.
Yesterday, while at my doctors office, he insisted on standing up to pee. I was holding Bodhi in my arms and trying to point Mad in the right direction and all hell broke loose. The boy peed on the wall, on the tank, you name he peed on it. All in my doctors private restroom. That will teach her to let a patient with a toddler use her office facilities, huh? What is most concerning is that he thinks this hilarious. I was sweating, balancing a three month old in one arm, trying to stop a laughing and pantless boy from opening the door and escaping. All the while attempting to clean pee off of my OBGYN's shabby chic bathroom wall. Okay, so in hindsight it might be a wee bit funny. Oh- lil mommy humor there.
But the fun didn't stop there. I took him to the park where he proceeded to drop trowel in the grass in front of some horrified Lily Pulitizer wearing, Vera Bradely toting moms. You know the type. They dress up to go to the park to for a playdate? Needless to say I was the mom in the faded jeans and flip flops whose kid was peeing on the grass in front of the jungle gym. Uh, it is doubtful that we will be going back there anytime soon.
Long story short- we are going to need Daddy to step in here...cause Mama don't know how to deal with the standing up to pee!

What? You've never seen a kid have an apoplectic fit?

You know what drives me insane? When your little animal, otherwise known as a toddler, is having a massive fit in public and people are staring at you like you have three heads. Don't misunderstand, I get it, I am the train wreck, the car accident. There are going to be rubberneckers. But its the people who look at you like there is something more you can do to control your child from flailing around and slamming his head into things. Well- short from DCF coming and picking me up for going medieval on my kid there really isn't. I have to stay calm, wait the kid out, and struggle to restrain him from really hurting himself. Believe me, I like his behavior even less than you do. And I am the one having to wrestle with him in the waiting room, grocery store, post office...well you get the idea. If I had any power to stop him from biting himself and then screaming at the top of his lungs I would.
All I am saying is the next time you see some poor woman with a crazy little animal having a fit and she catches you rubber-necking make sure you give her your most sympathetic grin. You might even want to tell her you have your own crazy little animal at home. Better yet- just pretend that her kid isn't having the fit and that she and the rabid lil' beast are invisible, believe me, she wishes she were.

The trouble with Paci's

The trouble with pacifiers is that you can't strap them to your babies head.  Firstly, and most importantly, because it would be dangerous and traumatizing for the baby. Secondly, I am quite sure you would be arrested and rightly so.  Last, but certainly not least, I am pretty sure that it would no longer be called a pacifier but would hence be known as a ball gag.  And that my friends is simply disturbing.  But don't lie- I am pretty sure that I am not alone in waking up in the middle of the night to put the paci back in the kids mouth for the eight hundredth time and thinking "if only I could figure out some way to keep this darn thing in there."  Face it, until your kid can learn to suck on that paci with out spitting it out across the room or can pick it up and put in back in themselves- you're screwed.  

The Goat you say?

Yes, it is a truth universally acknowledged by the mothers of my acquaintance that breastfeeding is possibly the hardest part of being a new mommy. Whether it is your 1st or your 5th breastfeeding takes the cake hands down.

Just getting the little beggers to latch on can be an experiment in frustration. Then once they have latched on you get to experience the special hell that is a swollen and possibly cracked nipple. Oh, yes people, those puppies can crack! Now, this is not to say that when properly achieved nursing is not one of the most special forms of bonding with your baby- it is. I am just saying that nobody tells you how tough it can be or that you will end up smelling like a goat. I mean to say that most days, by the end of the day, even if I am lucky enough to have gotten a shower, I smell like I am making some kind of special French goat cheese in my nursing bra for crying out loud.

What to Expect When You're Expecting never told me to expect that!

They also never tell you that you can become so frik frakkin' engorged that your tata's can be shiny! You heard me, shiny! Not to mention misshapen. You have to wear little boob diapers they call nursing pads- but trust me they are boob diapers. You may find that you wake in the middle of the night only to discover that one of your boob diapers has mysteriously travelled out of your sleep bra and migrated to the land of "where the hell did that go". Now you and your bed are completely soaked in milk. Mmmmm. Or should I say Mooooooo?

And for some reason I keep finding that the general concenus of women who have never had kids, or have just had their first, is that this is supposed to be easy peasey. Now they are watching their hungry baby scream for food and have no control over the situation and feel guilty or inadequate because there is this huge misconception that this "natural" thing is supposed to just happen and be beautiful from the get go. Girls this little tyraid goes out to you, my fellow goats, give it time. It is tough and it can be beautiful, but it is not easy and it is not for everyone and that is okay. We have enough pressure without feeling like a bad mommy for not loving, or even being able, to breastfeed.

Love From,
Your friendly neighborhood Goat

All about poop.

Strangely enough my little section called "Things I never thought I would say..." has thus far been all about poop. And I guess that is understandable with a potty training kid. But I feel a need to elaborate on the latest phrase.
Pooping in the backyard. Yup, ever since we started potty training Maddox he has been trying to poo like Lucy (our Jack Russell Terrier) and I tell him that boys dont poop in the yard. Well, leave him alone with his daddy out in the yard and lo and behold that boy is dropping trowel and the deed is done. Brian was running around like a crazy person chasing the boy to try and wipe his bottom and make sure that he didnt get outside the back gate that evidently he forgot to pick up the poo! Yes, I came upon human poopoo in my backyard. That same Lucy was being a little too interested in said poo and it came to my attention that this poo was not doggy poo. Hence another phrase that came out of my mouth that I never would have imagined saying in a million years on Brian's cell phone...."Honey, did you leave human feces in the backyard? Call me back please." Oh my God. Ha, hahaahahahaha. This is my crazy life.

We have ignition...

Oh Lord...Maddox has discovered he has a peepee. We are potty training and while he has taken to it like a fish to water some things have "come up" that I was not prepared for. It went like this-
I was nursing the baby, minding my own business, when Maddie comes out of the bathroom without his pants on.
The sweet little angel looked at me and said, "Mama my pants got wet." It happens, I mean it is hard to make sure you get it in the bowl sometimes.
Well, I was nursing so I couldn't do anything about it at that moment so I told him just to hang out until I could get him a new pair. Mad plopped his naked bottom down beside me on the couch and proceeded to grab his peepee and as it disappeared into itself he screams "Mama where did my peepee go?!!"
I said, "It's okay babe it is still in there somewhere," need I say I was feeling more than a little uncomfortable. I am thinking Bodhi Mae needs to hurry up and eat so I can put some pants on this boy.
Well the relief that washed over his face was priceless. But then the real funny happened, since he was pulling on the peepee he had done the inevitable...we had ignition. The best part was that he was so proud. "Mama, look what my peepee can do! Do you want to touch it?"
"Ummm, no I don't want to touch it. That is great babe, but ummm, if you want to touch it you need to go to your room. We don't touch our peepee in front of people."
Oh God, I am disturbed. This is what raising boys is... so proud of their peepee's.
I related this story to Brian's mother who tells me that Brian did the same thing- even going as far as to go up to family members and proudly announce what his could do while giving them an eyeful. Guess some boys never grow up.

Oh for the love of all that is holy...

I hate myself. Some how a pull-up has found its way into my washing machine! Help me, Lord, there is diaper gel all over the place. For those of you without children diaper gel is the gunk that soaks up the pee. Well, turns out if you wash one of those bad boys it will essentially explode. Whodathunkit? Any ideas of how to get this crap out of my washer? The better question is how did I miss the fact that there was a pull-up in my son's hamper? Guess I better start watching him when I ask him to throw those things away. Like I said- I hate myself. Excuse me I am off to try and vacuum diaper gel out of my washer.