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?

Mission: Playlist

I've been known to write a post or two about my running (or lack thereof). Between the heat, my job, 2 kids and a travelling husband, running has been almost non-existent in my life lately. My biggest excuse this time around has been that I need a good playlist to motivate me to get out of bed early enough to beat the heat and be done in time to get a shower in, get 2 kids ready, and make it to work. The music that had been on my ipod was downloaded a couple of years ago as I was getting ready for Sadie to be born. At least it was all uplifting, but a little too mellow to really get my feet moving and blood pumping. Being the technical wizard that I am, I never remember how to load and unload my shuffle, and when I finally sat down to try to see if I could figure it out, the cable malfunctioned.

In spite of a lack of music, I've made it out of bed and out the door before 5:00 for a run the last two mornings. And the entire time I run, I have this imaginary playlist going through my head. But since I only remember parts of songs, and those are way out of tune as I render them, it hasn't exactly been the ideal substitute. So I got a new cable today and was able to sit down and load some stuff on my ipod that I think will get me up tomorrow (and hopefully beyond!) morning. The mix is eclectic, to say the least. Here's a sample of what it includes: The Cure, David Cook, The Go Go's, Journey, Modern English, Jason Mraz, Ryan Adams, Foo Fighters, Fountains of Wayne, Nirvana, "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" by that Hawaiian guy, the Beatles, some Lyle Lovett and Dwight Yokum, the Police, and a vast assortment of my favorites from various TV and movie soundtracks along with some Spoon, Cake, and Nirvana. Oh yeah, and as a tribute to all of the fallen pop culture icons of my youth over the past week, I had to include some Michael Jackson.

What do you think? What's on your get-your-feet-moving-and-heart-pumping playlist?

*In light of the fact that it is nearing 11:00pm as I hit the publish button on this post and put the finishing touches on my perfect-for-running playlist, it's safe to say that my new shuffle mix will not be road-tested any time soon, as in Running Tomorrow Morning = Mission: Impossible!*

Saturday Morning Workout

Who needs the gym?