Fall Ball

Dylan had his first t-ball game last weekend. What kind of mom would I be if I let the occasion pass without posting some of the highlights?

The proud papa, helping Dylan get ready for the game. It was also Scott's coaching debut... he is on his way to fulfilling a lifelong aspiration of fatherhood by being Dylan's coach.

First at bat.

A hit!

And a run!

Dylan got to be catcher when his team took the field. I'm not sure if he caught one ball, but he sure loved dressing out in all the gear!

...and he looked like the real deal, too!

The 100th

According to my archives list, this is my 100th post. I have been putting it off because it has proved to be daunting. First of all, it has taken me just over 2 years to make it this far. Most bloggers that I admire passed this milestone well within their first few months of blogging! Second, I'm not really a meme-y kind of girl, yet I don't have an original idea of my own to mark this momentous occasion, so I will do what I have seen other bloggers do since that is why I started blogging in the first place.

So here it goes: 100 random things about me that you could probably care less to know. You already got 1 & 2 in the first paragraph. (Well, 3, if you count the fact that I also mentioned that this is my 100th post. You might not have known that about me before now.)

4. This list will probably never end up being even remotely close to 100. I'm okay with that the same way that I'm okay with taking as long as I have to publish 100 posts.
5. I will be 40 in three months.
6. I remember when 40 seemed OLD.
7. I wish I didn't.
8. Because now I am that OLD.
9. I don't have a "bucket list."
10. I don't really think I will ever have one, because I don't want to end up regretting the things that I couldn't quite cross off.
11. If I did make one, it would include traveling to all of the continents, except for two of them.
12. I would omit the icy, arctic-y ones.
13. I guess technically, I wouldn't have to travel "to" North America since I'm already here, but there are so many parts yet to see.
14. Even though we have decided that our family is complete and we're "done" having kids, I still REALLY want one more.
15. We won't have another one.
16. We are 99.9% assured that after a simple recent procedure, it would be a medical improbability.
17. At least I know that I will be able to enjoy a cocktail (or 13!) on my birthday.
18. With my amazing, complete family.
19. I sometimes regret that I didn't complete a more versatile degree in college than the one I have.
20. I am a teacher.
21. Technically, it's two degrees. I have a master's in education also. It only made me more versatile in that one career though, so it doesn't really count.
22. I have tried working from home since my kids were born.
23. What do you mean I can't earn a salary for educating my own kids?
24. I don't have the CV to support some great work from home freelance opportunity.
25. I would suck at having an actual "job" in my home anyway.
26. I lack the discipline to get things done in a timely, efficient manner that would probably be required in order to actually earn an income doing whatever it is I was doing from my home.
27. Look how long it took me to publish 100 posts and no one's paying me, it's just a hobby.
28. If I had more time to spend doing what I really like to spend my free time doing, I would probably just sleep more.
29. My house might be a little bit cleaner.
30. There might not still be size 3 month clothing in my daughter's dresser drawers.
31. I might have completed a few more projects.
32. I might publish my blog more frequently.
33. I might bake more cookies.
34. I might have a better song selection on my ipod.
35. I might exercise more.
36. I might eat better and plan more healthful meals for my kids.
37. Hopefully, I'd just play more Candy Land or Diego Bingo.
38. But definitely not Chutes and Ladders.
39. What? My kids like games. I play games with them. Does it make me a bad mother that I am picky about which ones I will play? I don't like Chutes and Ladders.
40. I was 6 or 7 when I got the Chicken Pox. My parents had plans to go away for the weekend and at the last minute my mom was scrambling to find family friends to take care of us who's children had already had the Chicken Pox. I remember the oldest daughter of the family where we ended up staying not letting me play Chutes and Ladders because I would get my Chicken Pox all over her game board. So I hate the game. Apparently my little 6-or-7 year old spotted self was not assertive enough to remind the beyoch that the only reason I had pox in the first place was because just a few short weeks prior, I had let her play Chutes and Ladders at my house and her chicken cooties got all over my board. So move over and give me that spinner. Yeah, I'm sure if I'd said that back then I would love to play Chutes and Ladders now. Stupid game.
41. I am drinking wine as I type.
42. Apparently typing while drinking is not so different than talking while drinking. My speech is becoming slurred through my fingertips instead of my mouth.
43. The backspace key is my new best friend.
44. You can't tell how slurry that last sentence just came out because I backspaced right over it.
45. But if I were speaking, you would know that I am well beyond my first or second glass.
46. Don't worry. The kids were in bed a few glasses ago.
47. I'm screwed if they wake up and really need something.
48. Actually, I'll probably care less. They'll be the screwed ones.
49. I did not sign up to single-parent.
50. I hate that about my husband's job most of the time.
51. Thus the need for multiple glasses of wine.
52. We are four days into a nine day absence of Dad in our household.
53. I know.
54. And I am.
55. Grateful.
56. That his job hasn't tanked with the economy. At least he has a job.
57. I'm not complaining, just feeling a little sorry for my lonely, single-mom self.
58. We'll get over it.
59. We always do.
60. Whenever he gets home from a trip, I end up thinking back to the week or so we were on our own and wishing I had been a better, more patient mom to my kids in his absence.
61. Maybe this trip.
62. Maybe we'll go to the zoo tomorrow instead of eating cereal right out of the box while watching cartoons and staying in our pj's until it's lunch time when I realize I have nothing in the house to eat except for cereal right out of the box.
63. Phoenix has a great zoo.
64. I grew up going to that zoo.
65. I am flooded with 39 & 3/4 years of nostalgia every time we walk through that gate.
66. Great. Now I'm back to thinking about when 40 was old.
67. Looking for more wine.
68. Not gonna feel like getting out of bed in the morning.
69. Let alone getting the cereal boxes out for the kids.
70. I might leave a note taped to my bedroom door about leaving me alone and with instructions for the TV remote so they can watch what they want until I feel like getting up.
71. They might figure it out.
72. Dylan read Hop On Pop the other day.
73. Not the whole book, just the title and some of the simpler sentences at the beginning.
74. It brought me to tears.
75. Yes, I just teared up again typing that.
76. Because he's just 4, he should still be little.
77. But he's figuring out reading, and so many other things that big kids do.
78. I might not be ready for him to be that big yet.
79. But I am loving every minute of watching him grow up and become himself.
80. I've made it to #80. That's closer than I thought I'd get before getting bored and hitting publish.
81. Now I'm determined to make it to 100.
82. But it's so late.
83. Note or no note, Sadie will be in my room before 7a.m. with her daily juice request.
84. It would be easy to fix her juice before going to bed so she won't have to ask for it and I won't have to get out of bed to fulfill her request.
85. But then I won't get her to go potty and change into underwear.
86. And she'll probably crawl into bed with me, snuggling up while sipping her juice.
87. And then I'll have to get up anyway because I'll end up laying there in a puddle of spilled juice.
88. And that might make me a little more grumpy than just waging the morning potty battle and rewarding her with juice to begin with.
86. Yeah, I'm still working on my Mom of the Year application.
87. And yes, I am loving every minute of watching her grow up and become herself, too.
88. I just might have a few more gray hairs of her doing than Dylan's.
89. Because she's just 2 but I swear she's going on 17.
90. Strong willed and fiercely independent put it mildly.
91. I'm so proud of her.
92. Of them both.
93. Every moment of every day.
94. I don't remember as a child aspiring to be anything in particular when I grew up.
95. I'm sure at some point I was indoctrinated to respond "a mom."
96. But I don't know that I ever pictured it.
97. Or is it just that the reality of everything that "Mom" encompasses obliterates the memory of anything that could have ever been imagined?
98. I'd like to say that I'm a better person because of my kids.
99. I hope they don't end up saying that they grew up okay in spite of me.
100. It's all a work in progress.

Friendly Relations

The following conversation occurred between my (2 1/2 year old) daughter and myself the other day while we were discussing extended family members and their relationship to her.

Sadie: An-toh Pa-thit (Uncle Patrick) is my.... um.... I don't know.

Me: He's your uncle.

S: Oh, my an-toh. No a-choo-lee I think he's my boy-fend.

Me: No, actually he's your uncle.

S: Oh. I have 2 boy-fends at soo-ool.

Me: Two boyfriends? Who are your boyfriends at school?

S: Um.... Shamus is my boy-fend!

Me: Who's your other boyfriend?

S: Um... Ms. Tistin! (Ms. Kristin, one of her teachers) She's my boy-fend and I'm gonna marry her!

Me: Well, Ms. Kristin is a girl. She could be your friend that's a girl, but she can't be your boyfriend.

S: Oh. O-tay. Tistin is a goll and I am a boy. I can be her boy-fend. I wanna tell her that I will be her boy-fend, o-tay?

Me: Um, okay?

Great. Otay!

Overheard, Kitchen Version

Dylan: (This one is far into the category of "bragging mom" quotes from her kids.)

Can I have some lemon-lade, please?

(Tastes it, wrinkles his nose, then promptly rejects it.)

It's too tart. (Tart? He's 4. Tart is an impressive word for 4.)

***

Sadie: (As we're putting the finishing touches on dinner with our backs to the table, which already has salad and bottles of dressing on it.)

DADDY! DAAAAAAAAAADDY! DADDYDADDYDADDYDADDYDADDY! I want some ranch, Daddy!

(We continue to prepare dinner while an ignored Sadie takes matters into her own hands.)

Daddy! I got A LOT of ranch!



Yes you did, Sadie. Yes, you did.

My Mother Made Me Do It

There are a few things I swore I'd never do to my own kids before I had them. Mostly things that I remember being done to me as a child, and looking back they just seem like, well, bad parenting. Boy, did my kids get lucky today. I think they suffered through all of the above.

1. Try to get my kids to eat foods that they don't want by bribing them with sweets, or something that they would rather eat instead. (As in: if you just even try that one little bite of broccoli, then you can have this entire ice cream cone!) So the message here is that some food that might be really, really good for you doesn't always taste so great, but if you eat it you can reward yourself with this other food that tastes really, really good but isn't really good for you. I see eating disorders in their futures.

2. Bribe my kids to do anything with something. Our latest kick is gum. Dylan used to chew gum occasionally, like when he'd be around his older cousins and wanted to know what it was all about. Sadie recently asked for gum when Dylan got some. The timing was perfect with potty training and it became her reward when she was able to do all of her business in its proper place. Now it's just how I get them to do what I need them to do, like get in the car in the morning so I can get to work on time. They have gum now all. the. time. Soon it's novelty will wear off and I will have to come up with the next great thing. Do I really want them to learn that they should only do something that should be done anyway just because there might be something in it for them? And really, what am I going to do when they just don't want another piece of gum? Mom really needs to get to work, little people!

3. Tell them, "Okay, well I'm leaving now so I guess I'll see you later!" Wrong on so many levels. Just wrong. First of all, do I really want my kids to think that I am the kind of person who would actually leave them behind, should they choose not to follow me when it's time to go? And also, would I really, ever follow through on that threat? Yes, I do believe my children trust me, why do you ask?

So chalk this one up as a stellar day of parenting in our household. Nothing that a few years in therapy can't take care of.

What I really want to know is: When did my mom start teaching parenting classes and why did I think it would be a good idea to sign up for them?

Overheard from the Little People

It seems like every day I overhear my kids say something that at least makes me laugh out loud, if it doesn't exactly have me rolling on the floor. I always think, "I should write this down somewhere so I don't forget it." But then of course I don't, so I do. Usually it is location humor (you had to be there and hear it first hand for it to actually really be funny), an unintended double entendre (which is only funny because apparently my sense of humor hasn't matured beyond jr. high), or an awww how cute (not really funny, but hey, I'm their mom, everything they do is endearing). Either way, I thought I would give the "installment in a series" approach to blogging a try, and so here is my first attempt at a "quote of the week" as overheard from the little people in my household blog post.

Dylan, said while walking past a store with automatic sliding doors:

Mommy, those doors opened up when I walked past. Those doors thought I wanted to go in there! That's silly!

Sadie, said while gathering an armful of toys to play with:

I got a LOT of balls!

(I warned you it would be a little adolescent-esque. It was really only funny because I had to turn around to see what she was talking about. I laughed when I saw her arms full of actual balls. It was funnier when she said it again as she was trying to take her brother's toy truck away from him. Okay, she didn't really say the last part. But that? Would not only have been funny, but a classic example of the caliber of parenting practices around here. You know, that they've actually heard one of us use that phrase in that context!)

So what funny things have you heard the little people in your life say lately?

Sleepwear

Back in October, we set out to potty train our not yet two-year-old daughter. I wrote a couple of posts about our attempts. While she clearly wasn't ready back then, she learned all about the potty and how and when and where she might go. Sure enough, she let us know when she was ready and just as surely, somewhere along the way we've been able to consider ourselves the parents of a fully potty trained two-year-old. One day we were leaving the house fully stocked with wipes, lots of extra clothes, bags for wet and soiled clothes, pull-ups in case we ran out of extra clothes, and towels for the car seat. The next we left empty handed because we knew that accidents were a thing of the past. Being the proud owners of TWO potty trained children is very liberating. We leave the house unencumbered with diaper bags. We laugh at how we used to have to plan for potty emergencies and/or accidents. We wonder at how we went from training mode and several outfits a day to "done" and the same outfit from morning til bedtime. We have to stop to think about the last time she even asked for a treat for using the potty. And we scream at the top our lungs: WE ARE NEVER, EVER BUYING DIAPERS AGAIN, FOREVER AND EVER AMEN!

But the truth is that we're not really done. We never had to night-train Dylan. When we started potty-training him, he would wear a pull-up to bed. He just never woke up wet. So we quit buying them and he slept in underwear from then on. I can probably count on one hand the number of times that he has gotten up to go potty in the middle of the night (the point being that he GETS UP) and he's actually wet the bed maybe once or twice. He's been sleeping in underwear for at least 2 years.

Sadie, not so much. She wears a pull-up to bed and always wakes up wet. She's never woken and wanted to use the potty. I am at a complete and utter loss to know when she will be ready for underwear at night. Will she just stop peeing in her sleep? Will she start waking up to go? If I put her in underwear will she learn, or will I just end up doing a lot of extra laundry?

Apparently, it's not my choice to make. My not at all willful and stubborn Sadie has decided that she is no longer going to wear a pull-up to bed. Okay, she's ready, I think. She let us know she was ready for the rest of it, she's ready to take this on. Great, we'll try underwear. Here's how it's gone so far:

Night 1 - Around midnight, I heard her crying that she needed to go potty. (Midnight crying "I have to go potty" in Sadie's world actually means, "I went potty in my bed and I'm wet!") Easily solved with a towel over the wet spot and a change of clothes. Except she didn't go back to sleep for an hour and a half and got up 3x in that 90 minutes to go potty. But woke up dry the next morning! I, however, woke up feeling like I'd only slept for about 90 minutes the entire night.

Night 2 - Around midnight, I heard her cry out in her sleep. When I went to check on her, she was still sleeping but wet. Hmm... do I wake her to take care of the wet, and risk a repeat of last night, or do I let her sleep and bathe her in the morning? Mother of the Year, here! I let her sleep. (And maybe, possibly did a quik once over with a diaper wipe in lieu of an actual bath.)

Night 3 - She decided to wear a pull-up, which ended up soaking wet, but yea! I didn't have to launder sheets the next morning and air out the mattress. (And we both got a full night's sleep!)

Night 4 is tonight. She is in underwear and went potty 3x before finally staying in bed to sleep. I am planning to wake her to go once more before I go to bed. (PLEEEEASE, please, please, go right back to sleep!) We'll see how that goes.

I know it has only been a few days, but I'm kinda thinking she might not quite be ready for the underwear at night thing. I've never done this before so I don't know how I'll know when she is ready. Do I put my foot down and insist that she wear a pull-up to bed (I am the mom, right?) until I feel more equipped to deal with this, or do I let her keep wearing underwear and hope she'll figure it out?