Top Ten Reasons Mommy Is Losing Her Mind

 

It’s Tuesday, and already it has been a super-long week.  Overtime hours at work and a house in worse than its usual state of disarray.  I fell asleep early on the couch, watching Transformers (my favorite!) on Netflix (not influenced at all by my five year old son). It started out rather okay. It started out…

I am pretty sure a break down is imminent.

Here is a Top Ten List of the reasons why:

1. Waking up to puke on my floor
2. Waking up to a puke covered toddler
3. Waking up to puke on my couch
4. Waking up to puke on my pants
5. Waking up to puke on my t-shirt
6. Waking up to puke in my hair
7. Waking up to puke on my floor
8. Trying not to puke myself at the smell
9. Carefully taking off puke-covered toddler’s clothes
10. Cleaning up puke from my toddler’s skin
11. Cleaning up puke from my toddler’s hair
12. New jammies and toddler to bed
13. Cleaning up puke from my couch
14. Cleaning puke off the remote control
15. Dragging myself into my bedroom
16. Finding another sick child in my bed
17. Carefully taking off puke-covered preschooler’s clothes
18. Cleaning puke off my preschooler
19. New jammies and preschooler to bed
20. Cleaning up puke from my comforter
21. Cleaning up puke from my sheets
22. Cleaning up puke from my mattress cover
23. Washing puke from my pillows
24. Washing puke off of my hair
25. Washing puke off of my hands
26. New sweatpants and t-shirt
27. Smelling bleach cleaner all over my hands
28. Washing couch cover, clothes, sheets, and towels at 2 am
29. Wishing I had never bought raspberries

Wait, I think that is more than ten.  But, I am too frazzled to fix this. I am going to get some sleep before the kids wake me again.

 

The Great Alphabet Battle, Part One

My son likes to hit things with sticks.  My son likes to play video games on his tablet and “kill” bad guys.  My son likes to wear super hero costumes and run around with his friends.  My son likes to go to the park.  My son likes to eat lasagna and ice cream and pizza with only cheese on it.

My son, however, does NOT like to learn anything and is content to look at signs, and make up what he wants them to say, and “read” them to me.

It seemed we were on track at age two, when he learned the alphabet song and sang it over and over and watched Sesame Street.  (Even though when he sang, he said “x” twice and omitted “s”).

But cut forward three years…his two year old sister, a Super Why super fan, knows about two-thirds of her letters, and her brother at five, knows about three.  We were fortunate enough to get him accepted into a top notch school, and he will be evaluated in three months before kindergarten in August.

But, he doesn’t know his letters, and he doesn’t care.  I have tried so many things.  Rubber letter quizzes in the bathtub, where he shrugs his shoulders and says he does not know and his sister behind him will quietly and correctly say, “Q” . 

He refuses to watch Super Why or Sesame Street now.

A month ago, he fixated on a Nerf gun with a ton of accessories at Costco.  It was a bit expensive, but I bought it and told him he could have it when he learned his alphabet.  That darn gun has sat in its box in the living room ever since.  He has tried to trick me into giving it to me, his sister, my friend, and his Grandmother.  I made a Rewards Chart that showed making effort would get him his Nerf gun.

I have tried working with him by my putting the bath letters in order on  a table and singing the song and pointing to them, then working on which one is which.  He sang as fast as he could and laughed.  I made a set of flashcards with the alphabet to go with the bath letters, and asked him to match it to the corresponding card in the bath set.  He played it whole-heartedly two times, did well, and then decided before he could play, he had to stack all the bath letters in piles by colors, and refused to try to identify any.  I downloaded The Letter Factory from Leap Frog. 

I have had had it.

He has lost tablet and television privileges until he learns his alphabet.  And his Nerf gun is going back to Costco.  I am not playing anymore.  Because I won’t fight battles at this level with him for the next thirteen years over homework. 

Wish me luck…

 

Momming Everyday

 I love my life as a parent.  I love my kids.  I love the thought processes of my children, and I love our everyday life together. Some of the every day things, that really are extraordinary, melt me with joy and pride at these amazing little humans (“I am NOT little! I am a big kid!” my son would say if he could read this).

The living room dance offs.  When I bought an Alexa Dot, is was mostly to use the timer to try to help me stop burning things I cooked in the oven, and extract some fun information from her.  But, her access to music—specifically, Alvin and the Chipmunks songs—has started off a whirlwind of dance parties, the likes of which the world has never seen before.

The sleeping positions no one over ten would ever think of.  Head dangling off a chair cushion, chest stretched out backwards, a leg in each direction, and my son fast asleep.  My daughter has been observed sleeping in a position which indicated she was standing next to the couch, and basically fell over, face forward, sound asleep with her feet still on the floor.

My two year old spends time plotting to get to do her favorite activity: taking a bath.  She will take my hand and try to lead me to the bathroom, saying, “Come, bath.”  And when I am already in the bathroom, she will grab the bottle of bubble bath and wave it enticingly, dancing around because surely, if I just think about it, I will want her to have a bubble bath. 

My five year old explains things to his two-year old sister, so she can understand life concepts such as that we can’t get a new car because ours already has a back seat.  He is working his master plan constantly so we can get a more acceptable house.  Our house is not acceptable, not because he shares a room with his sister but because we do not have a staircase.  Indoor or outdoor, he is not picky, but to really be a home a house needs a staircase. 

My daughter last night mastered the art of making Lego towers, and beamed with pride as she made tower after tower and carried the precariously tall towers wavering around the living room to show off to her visiting Grandmother and myself.

My son has recently graduated to a big boy bike, and hand brakes. The training wheels aren’t quite off yet, but he no longer stops Fred Flintstone style by sticking out his feet.

I love every moment, except how fast it is all going. No cure for that; I just have to enjoy every bit I can get.

Why I Don’t Make Resolutions

I have a thing against Resolutions. 

Not exactly a grudge, but more of a dislike.  I understand the desire to change things and improve.  Makes perfect sense.  I have many areas I would like to change things and improve myself.  I am planning on doing a budget and being responsible with my money, very soon.  I want to find some clothes to wear besides my work clothes on work days and yoga pants and t-shirts on my days off.  I want to step up my game and occasionally wear makeup again.  I am going to try to finally figure out how to put on fake eyelashes without making myself laugh at the results.  I want to declutter so I can get in my car AND walk around my garage.  I want to cook more meals for my family and go through the drive up window for dinner far less than I have been.

Lofty goals, all of them.  But I have not declared a single one of them to be a resolution.  And, I am not going to.

Why? (I hope) you ask.

“There is no try. Only do.” 

                                –Yoda

I see resolutions not as bad things in and of themselves.  I just see a ton of good intentions and not much sticking with it.  I tended to make a long list of resolutions each year, which, if fulfilled, would pretty much render me perfect, or at least very together.

I would then half-heartedly work on some of them for a very little while, before the idea of them went out of existence in my mind.  By February I wouldn’t have been able to tell you what most of them were.  I did this year after year.  It not only didn’t produce results, but it gave me a free pass from November until December 31^st to slack off and not work on anything.

My goals in 2018 are to work on a bunch of areas as I can, but not to declare anything as a resolution.  I tried to work on those areas all throughout November and December and I will keep trying to work on them.

But aren’t my “goals” basically the same thing as resolutions?

I don’t think so.  In my mind, a goal is something to strive for. But a resolution feels like something I have “resolved to”, and have to, do.  And who wants to do what you “have to”?  Why not do what you want to?

What are your goals for 2018 and beyond?