My Paycheck...

Being a stay at home mom is a thankless job - don't get me wrong, I LOVE the opportunity to be home with my two children and thank God every day that I have been given the chance to do so. However, if I said that life was always rosy and I loved to play kitties ten times a day (or watch Mickey's Clubhouse repeatedly as I have been doing during the past four days) I would be lying through my teeth and you would know it... I once saw a segment on the Today show about how much a stay-at-home-mom (SAHM) would make if compensated monetarily for their position - as you can well imagine, it was a six-figure income! Now this will shock you, but the big killer was the amount of overtime mom's put-in...HA! No kidding?!!! Really?!

So while I digress into sacarsm, I must admit that there are times when I am reminded how great it is that I am my children's caretaker. Missy Moo was diagnosed with the croup and bronchitis earlier this week and let me tell you, it has been a rough one. When kiddos don't feel well they must be velcroed to your person at all times and want you to know what it is they need before even they do...At which point, if I don't know exactly what she wants or needs INSTANTLY, it is a full-blown drama that you would not believe (more dramatic than our typical meltdowns) which of course, would be fine if she were the only child in the house but Bubba Boo has needs, too; however, I again thank God for the Jumperoo and hope that he will not be language-delayed or severely emotionally-handicapped. Anyway, this afternoon I scooped Bubba Boo up off the floor and asked Missy Moo if we could sit with her on her "couch bed" which is a mini-bed in the living room that I have created for her while she is sick. Her sweet, sickly face broke a smile and said that yes, we could indeed bless her with our presence on the couch bed. She then proceeded to pretty forcefully push Bubba Boo's hand off her leg as he DARED to brush it against her - touching her is a big no-no...At this point, I ask her if she thinks she will ever like her baby brother to which she replies, without missing one iota of a beat, "No." Lovely...As I stew for a moment over what exactly to do to make her start to like her baby brother who absolutely adores her and lights up as soon as she enters the room, she sweetly looks at me, let's out a refreshing sigh and says, "I love you, mommy." Now this may not sound like a huge deal but Missy Moo has never initiated this phrase - she has said "I love you, too" but never out-of-the-blue said these words, so innocent, to me. Of course, my heart melted and I instantly forget my anger over the fact that she said she will never like her brother...I can handle it for at least one more day...These are the snapshots I force myself to remember when I open the refrigerator door and am pelted in the forehead with four sticks of butter at 6:30 a.m. I am not lying - this is how I started my day today. However, the little "I love you's" and cuddles are my paycheck and the flying butter, well, that's just one of the downsides...Don't all jobs have them?

Is My Heart Broken?

As Missy Moo and I were sitting on her "hair chair" (shouldn't every 2.9 year old have a hair chair?) today debating on whether or not she wanted to wear her hair in ponytails or secured with a bow, she looked at me innocently and so sweetly said "Is my heart broken?"

Now let me give you the context here: Her "hair chair" is a pink and green rocking chair that has a neat little compartment on the side to hold books and a sweet little wooden heart that, when pulled out of the holder, plays a song while the string slowly slithers back into the holder until the song is complete. Missy Moo likes to call this her "heart snake" and gets a kick out of watching it slowly retreat back to its holder while playing a charming little ditty. I am not sure what happened but at one point, the heart stopped and the song glitched for a very brief, millisecond. With an alarmed look on her face, Missy Moo worriedly asked if her heart was broken. My reply to her was "No, sissy, it is not broken and I hope it never is."

As we went along our day, I got to thinking about my answer to her question and realized that what I said is not actually true. I DO hope her heart is broken at least one time in her life. As gut-wrenching as it is for me to say this about my child who, quite frankly, I will want to scratch the eyeballs out of any child who for one second hurts her feelings, I DO want her heart to break. I guess I feel that if her heart is broken, it means she has loved and has felt secure enough to take a chance and let her heart fly. As we all know, sometimes this is a great, life-altering decision such as when we just "knew" our life partner was the "one" and then there are the other times when your heart falls so instensely and so painfully that pieces of it remain at the scene of the crime to this very day. In addition, I believe that most of us have to have pieces of our heart left at the scene of the crime before we can find the one who takes it and does not ever let it fall.

I recently spotted the greatest quote in a catalog said by a VERY wise ten year old girl that very clearly has her head on straighter at ten than I did at 25. She said, "No boy is worth crying over and the one who is won't make you cry." Oh from the mouths of babes - could it be expressed any better? The thing is, there are so many kinds of heartbreak - how do we prep our own children for this? Can we? How can I describe that there were moments in my life that my heart hurt so badly that I had to live minute by minute, then hour by hour, then day by day? How do I reassure them that though those times really don't occur very often in life (THANK GOD) when you are in the midst of it, it feels like it will never end? How is it, too, that my heart broke in a different way when she took her first steps? Bittersweet heartbreak is that part of me that wants to pack her in bubble wrap and secure her so tightly that she will stop growing up so freaking fast. I feel it in my chest now with Bubba Boo - he is an official army crawler and no long unable to get places without help - my newborn is no longer and soon, he will be my toddler.

There is also another kind of heartbreak - the one I referred to when I mentioned that I might possibly scratch the eyeballs out of anyone who DARES to hurt my children's feelings...There is a heartbreak for someone you love when they experience heartbreak themselves. See, when we give our heart away, that is a little fringe benefit we never know about until it is too late to try and take it back. When someone has your heart, they carry a piece of you and you of them - when they hurt, so do you. But the nice thing is, when you hurt, they do as well. Isn't it worth it in the end? Now how to explain that to my 2.9 year old whose biggest concern is when she can have her Disney Princess snack? The mommy instinct tells me to wait on this one...

Living with Borderline Personality Disorder

I really hate to say this but parenting Missy Moo has been a bit of a struggle lately...She has recently decided that the world DOES indeed revolve around her and we are all here simply to accomodate her specific, needed-it-yesterday needs RIGHT AWAY. Here is a typical dialogue with my elder child:

Me: Good morning, sunshine! Are you ready for a great day!?
Missy Moo: Hi, Mommy!!!!! (good so far, right? Just wait...)
Me: Let's get up and get dressed so we can get downstairs and have our DinoEggs oatmeal!
Missy Moo: I don't want to get dressed.
Me: I know sissy but we have to get dressed because you are going to school.
Missy Moo: I don't want to get dressed.
Me: Same thing as I said in the last line.
Missy Moo: tantrum begins
Me: OK, sissy, I will go on downstairs and when you decide you want to stop crying and throwing your fit, I will help you get dressed.
Missy Moo: I want to get dressed (said in a tone that implies I am absolutely nuts for thinking she did not want to get dressed in the first place)

So we get dressed with just a few reminders that we do indeed need to complete getting dressed and there is about three minutes worth of peace until we walk down the hall to descend our stairs. Here is the next dialogue:

Me: Come on, sissy - let's go downstairs and get our Dino Eggs!
Missy Moo: I want you to carry me. (This is simply because I am carrying Bubba Boo, who, may I remind you, cannot yet walk let alone walk downstairs).
Me: I know you do, but mommy is carrying Bubba so you will have to walk downstairs like a big girl.
Missy Moo: Tantrum
Me: I am sorry that you are sad but please come down and eat your Dino Eggs when you are ready.

Missy Moo continues to scream and cry at the top of her lungs just outside our bedroom door where Classic Old Spice is attempting to get a few more precious minutes of sleep before he has to go off and be SuperDentist. I am fully-aware of the fact that this is now a power struggle so I make downstairs so irresistable that she has to cave - Dino Eggs, Flinstone vitamin, OJ, and as a special treat, we get to watch Clifford the Big Red Dog during breakfast!!!! As expected, she is downstairs within seconds and when I tell her how good it is to see her, she looks at me like I am the crazy one...Oh and by the name of the title, I am in no way insinuating that I know what it is like to have Borderline Personality Disorder or live with someone who does, I am just simply imagining that this might offer a small glimmer into what this disorder might entail.

I will spare the details of our other conversations but suffice it to say, NOTHING, I repeat, NOTHING is easy. You can ask her to do anything and she will respond with "I don't want to." This response has become so automatic to her that she now says it without thinking - such as "Let's have a giant ice cream cone" and she will immediately say "I don't want to." In addition, I catch myself uttering the exact phrase that used to irritate me completely whenever my own mother used to say it - the dreaded "Sometimes we have to do things we don't want to do," phrase. Before I could even think about it, these words were falling out of my mouth faster than I could pull them back in.

Since it can be almost guaranteed that anything is going to be a struggle, I have decided to have a sense of humor (most of the time) and remind myself that I am pretty sure this is how I was at the age of 2 years, 9 months. I guess I also have to admit that this is how I want my little girl to be - strong-willed, able to think for herself, independent, and free to speak her mind. Certainly a perfect example of the old adage, "Be careful what you wish for..." Would I take her any other way? Of course not - I wished for her to be exactly how she is and by golly, I got it.

All in the Gang...

Missy Moo with some of her pals in the 'hood...

Look what came out of the dryer!!!

Found in the dryer: One adorable (if I do say so myself), giggly, smiley, SO laid back little man who, despite double ear infections, continues to think that life is always good. With his sweet disposition, it always will be for him! Samuel continues to be hysterical and BIG - he is working off some of his 20 pounds (yes, he is just coming upon seven months and yes, he really does weigh 20 pounds) since he discovered a few weeks ago that he can get anywhere by doing an army crawl. Hates baby food, loves anything mommy makes from scratch but will only eat it if he can feed himself - we are going through three outfits a day. Hence why my little muffin got mixed up in the laundry...:)

Ear-Infected Sleepyhead

Here is my sleepy little pumpkin-head the day he was diagnosed with double ear infections...Trust me, I wish I could have been in that seat - I was up all night, too...:( He is wearing his "Jester Hat" which Missy Moo thinks is hysterically funny and he looks so darn cute. Of course, I am sure he will be bitter with me someday for putting it on him but it is so worth it...

The Misguided Label

So I have recently been pondering the question of how we all get labelled the way we do in this crazy life - I remember teaching second and third grade and being branded as the teacher who was good with children who had emotional problems and therefore needed some extra TLC. You know what happens to teachers who get that label? You got it - Clockwork Orange from 8:00 a.m. until 3:30 p.m. One of my co-workers was a phenomenol reading teacher - can you guess the struggles her students had? Yep - not one of them could read "Sam the Sea Cow" with the fluency we expect of a second grader. My point is that I loved each of my students wholeheartedly and I know my colleague did as well - it is just that we would prefer to not have 25 of them altogether in the same room for eight hours. I guess my thought is, how did I come to be known as such a teacher and as far as that goes, how do we as people build pictures of who we all are? My reason for broaching this subject is that there is a person that I am forced to play nice with that I don't really want to play nice with anymore but I absolutely have to - I can't go into anymore details without divulging my source, so let's leave it at that. This person has me pegged as someone who gets her nails done, works out with a personal trainer, and plays tennis, which truthfully, I am all of those things - but that is not what defines me. Though on paper I do engage in the forementioned activities, though admittedly the nails thing is a special luxury treat for when I really need a mental health day, it does not mean that I have forgotten the heartbreak of hearing the voices of a young boy and his brother say they don't want to go home because they are tired of the beatings, or that I have suddenly erased the pain of knowing my father resided in a homeless shelter for about a year while I was in college, or, while I am on my Debbie Downer horse, forgotten the lifeless fall of a hand being held while it crosses from among the living to the non-living. Not for one second do I take my life for granted because, truth be told, I have travelled a path that would make your skin curl. So the thing is, I have endured snide comments from this person one too many times and quite frankly, it makes me mad at myself for not recognizing the fact that this person's insecurities are what drives her ridiculous negativity. But at the same time, dammit, why do I allow HER issues and crap to suddenly become mine? I am in no way suggesting that I do not have issues - in fact, I have enough to have loyal yearly subscribers and special give-aways. I have worked hard over the past 34 years to figure out who I am and trust me, I am still working on it- one of the best quotes about life was said by the great Michelangelo at a very old age (80 something) " I am still learning". Yes, I continue to learn and yes, sometimes the learning I do is painful and not fun. However, I do know that 1) I am real, 2) I am not going to bullshit you, 3)Integrity wins over anything else and 4) We are all going to leave a legacy based on how we model for our children. I believe in a whole lot more but you will have to read "This I Believe" to see the rest. I guess the moral of this little story is the age-old adage of "Don't Judge a Book By It's Cover". Do so and it will end up biting you in the arse every time. OK, off my soap box and moving on to more pressing issues like which Disney princess dress-up outfit to buy Missy Moo for Christmas...