My life would be improved if...

these three inventions existed:

1. A [safe, of course!] stair-climbing machine for babies. Will would be happy all day, every day.

2. A car-simulator, to help Caroline go down for her nap in the afternoon. At home, she gets tired, but never sleepy. In the car, she's out like a light.

3. Some sort of sprayskirt like kayakers wear. It would attach to the high chair, and fit tight around Will's waist, so that the seat of the high chair would not end up full of smooshed bananas and crushed Cheerios. Yes, the food would end up on the floor, but the floor's easier to clean.

What do you think? Are you with me?

Watch your language around my child!

So Lucy, like all young children, has her own terms/pronunciations for things. Some of them, I get. Some of them, I don't.

This one, I didn't. It was clear, from context, that when she said, "momo-feagan," that she meant "more." But the origin of the phrase, I didn't know.

Then, it evolved into "mo-feagan."

And then, I realized she was saying, "more freakin.'" As in, "More freakin' cheese, please, Momma!"

Who taught my child that? Where would she hear such a thing?



Oh, wait.

It's possible...

No.

But maybe...

Oh, I hope not.



She learned it from me.



It was a sad day when I realized that.

Our church is part of our family

Do you have young children? Do you take them to church?

Have you ever had that sinking feeling that, though they are YOUR children, you cannot control them, and you need help?

You haven't? Okay, come back and read tomorrow's post, but not this one.

The morning started with a small battle in the bathroom with Caroline. You see, she likes to go to the bathroom in other bathrooms. A little variety. (Grocery shopping at Target? Let's go to the bathroom! At a restaurant? Let's go to the bathroom!) So I wanted her to try to go to the bathroom at home before we left for church, so that we wouldn't make the inevitable bathroom trip in the middle of the service. She didn't want to try. I sent her in to the bathroom anyway. When I went to check on her, I found her with a SOAKING wet baby wipe ... and I do not want to know how that thing got so wet. Preemptive bathroom trip: fail.

We get to church, and all is going well. Caroline announces that she has to poop. I leave Will with Lucy's godmother Demetra, and take the two girls to the bathroom. So far, so good.

We go back into church. The kids are doing relatively well, though I'm a bit flustered, since I prefer to have Bob with me, helping keep the kids in line. You know what they say about going from two kids to three (or more)? No more man-to-man; now it's zone defense. So true.

A couple minutes later, Caroline tells me she needs to pee. Are you serious? Yes, she is. So this time, I leave Will in his car seat, Lucy with Demetra, and Caroline & I go to the bathroom. When we get back, they're reading the Gospel already. And then I look down and see that while Caroline did wash her hands, she failed to wash off any of the soap on the BACK of her hands. So back to the bathroom we go.

By the time we get back this time, Lindsey's holding Will, Demetra still has Lucy, and I'd like to actually participate in the service. Caroline starts asking me if she can go see Michelle, her godmother (um, no. A little too much activity from our family this morning. No more trips across the church.). When it's time for Communion, Caroline ends up going with Brian, her godfather. Lucy's with Demetra. Will's with Laura, his godmother. I go up for Communion, blessedly by myself.

And I feel like a loser. This morning felt like musical children.

The kids really weren't misbehaving or acting up; they were just needing different things from me at the same time (the nerve of them!), and I only have two hands. At home, I can prioritize, and if someone melts, so be it. But in church, the stakes are higher. I really do not want my family to be a distraction for anyone from the service. So demands need to be dealt with right away, before any meltdowns.

I'm incredibly grateful for my church family. I might have just left in the middle of the service, if people who love us and our children hadn't stepped in to help me.

So thank you.

Fail.

Let's say you have a three-and-a-half-year-old. Let's say she is sweet-natured, brimming with compassion, and pretty darn smart. And you love her dearly.

And then, let's say, you say something flippantly that causes her anguish ... and you to kick yourself repeatedly, apologize, ask for forgiveness, etc., and still feel awful about.

Caroline is toilet-trained. (Sorry, I hate the word potty.) She does not have accidents. She wears a diaper to bed at night, but we've stopped with the naptime diapers. She usually is awake long enough before she falls asleep that she asks me if she can go to the bathroom, and I always say yes.

Until today.

Today, I was feeling irritable because of the MESS these kids make. Why can't they ever put anything away? And why won't they keep their clothes on? I'm tired of saying, "Where are your clothes??" Anyway, I put the girls down for their naps, and then I was tackling a couple tasks (disassembling a piece of furniture in the kitchen, updating our tax return online with the tax statement I received today, checking Facebook, etc.) downstairs. Caroline asked to go to the bathroom. Twice. She went. Twice. The third (or maybe fourth? I don't remember--) time, she called down from upstairs, "May I go to the bathroom?" I yelled back, "No, you may not go to the bathroom again!" This is all in the space of about ten or fifteen minutes.

Five minutes later, I heard her upstairs wailing, and I knew something was terribly wrong. I raced up there and found her, peeing, in my bedroom. The white noise machine was near her on the floor, and I wasn't sure exactly what had happened. Was she hurt? Had she gotten shocked? I raced her into the bathroom, sat her on the toilet, and calmed her down. She concocted a story about where she was hurt, but when I pressed her, she admitted she was crying because she'd peed in her underwear.

Oh my goodness. Dagger to my heart.

I almost lost it.

I apologized profusely and told her it was my fault. That I was not angry with her. That I should not have told her no. Etc., etc. Then I cleaned up the bedroom and got her some clean clothes.

I thought I'd better talk with her again about what had happened, so I reiterated that this was MY fault and I was not angry. And would she please forgive me? She said yes. And then she said, "Momma, what's 'forgive'?"

I thought hard. How do you define it? So, I told her, it's like this:

I say, Caroline, I am so sorry. I should not have told you you couldn't go to the bathroom.
And then you say, Momma, it's okay. I love you.

That's what it means to forgive.

To which she replied, "Momma, it's okay. I love you."

Life with a Baby

Will is at a fun age: very smiley, very interactive, just generally happy ...

except for tonight. Tonight, he's needy, fussy, cry-y, and it isn't much fun.

Today...

I will have a baby.

I'm being induced at 11:30. This is just too weird. I really don't like having it scheduled, but I'll address why we're doing it that way in another post.

So ... even though this isn't the ideal way I'd like to go into labor, I can't wait to meet the little guy!

One Hour Photo

I often think of myself as the "one hour photo" type ... by which I mean that I don't like to wait. (Do you remember when you dropped off your film and had to wait at least a couple days, if not a week, for your pictures to be developed?) And, with the efficiency of today's technology, even one hour seems too long to wait for photos ... to me, anyway.

That said, 40 weeks is a long time to wait for a baby to be born. Granted, for a couple of those first weeks, I didn't know I was pregnant. (Technicality: based on how the OB-GYN world counts pregnancy, you're actually NOT PREGNANT for about the first two weeks that you're "pregnant." Go figure.)

So, I'm 38 weeks pregnant today. I've been having contractions off and on for at least a month. I had contractions all night last night, some of them relatively painful. I got excited, hopeful. I sat up from 3:30-5, timing them. They were coming 4-5 minutes apart. Not bad. But they didn't get any "worse" or stronger, so I went back to bed. I'm not in labor. And as a result, I'm in a really grouchy mood. It doesn't help that I'm tired, that my parents left today after a brief visit, that my dog ate (yet some more) of my home-made bread, that my washer has been out of commission for THREE WEEKS...

And while we're talking about the washer: I had the appliance guys come out three weeks ago today. They said they needed to order a couple parts, that it would take a couple of days, maybe a week. Of course, that seemed too long for Miss One Hour Photo, but I sucked it up and did laundry at my mother-in-law's, which was nice, except for all the hauling that involves. Every day that I didn't hear from the appliance guys, I would think, apparently over-optimistically, maybe they'll call tomorrow! Finally, Bob called them. Turns out a part is on back-order. Honestly, I do not understand why they didn't let me know this. Ugh. It would have been helpful, as the piles of laundry got taller and taller, to know that I should go do laundry somewhere, and not hold out hope that I'd be doing it in my own basement the next day or so.

Seriously, what were they thinking? And I don't even know if there's an estimate on when the part will arrive. But I am NOT HAPPY. Come on guys. Get my freaking washer fixed for me already. I do not want to bring a new baby home to a house filled with dirty laundry...

And may that new baby come soon...