Parenting 101?

i was truly blessed to be able to be a stay at home mom. true, at times, it's driven me a little crazy, or at least made my craziness more apparent, but i'm grateful that i've been able to avoid serious daycare with my 2 little ones. but when my husband & i decided to have kids, we were both old & definitely wanted them. there were no *accidents*. although, by the time you're in your mid-30's there really shouldn't be any *oopsies* anyway :).

but it really gets my goat when i read another news story about seriously irresponsible parenting. i just read an article today that makes my heart sick. a mom (34 years old, so she should totally have known better!) left her toddler to drown in the tub while she played on facebook. really? drowning isn't a quiet way to go, so didn't she hear him thrashing? or was she that far away?

and the one that really gets my goat is the one about the parents who walled their naked kids into a room so they could get blitzed on whatever. seriously? they should just be taken out back and shot!

now, don't get me wrong, i'm not a perfect mom. i'm not expecting any medals. i've done my share of letting the tv watch the kids so i can pee/bathe/eat/cook/check my email/blog etc... but i still forget to shut the door when i'm in the bathroom cuz it's just gonna open again. i'm finally able to shower without a little head poking through the shower curtain. parenting isn't easy, but it's not supposed to be. if it is, you're doing something wrong!

living on the edge of perfection

so we're moving. it's such a pain in the butt! we've got a house that we want to buy, and the sellers are willing to wait until we're ready, but we've got to sell our house first. and in order to do that, we need to keep it in pristine condition so we can show it at the drop of a hat. so stressful! and i hate to clean. i've done so much cleaning in the past month or so that i'm sick of myself! but now that everything's clean, i find myself not wanting to do anything. chris & the kids were in youngstown over the weekend, and when i came home from work i came in through the garage and went no further than my basement computer room & craft area. i don't want to cook, cuz i don't want to mess up the kitchen. i would actually prefer to not be in my house right now for fear that i'll make something dirty & hafta clean it again!

it was a shock to see the listing online. it made it seem so real! and when i came home from the gym yesterday, the sign was in the front yard. i guess we're really selling our house. the kids keep asking for toys that we've packed to take to Miss Bea's house. as long as we're not giving them away to other little ones who don't have any toys, they're cool. :)

but the kids and i took a mental health day today. it's a beautiful day & as soon as isabelle has awoken from her nap, we're going outside to play in the snow (which we probably shouldn't do, cuz it'll mar the perfection of the yard...) and i'll bake cookies & make cocoa for when they come in. thankfully the cookies are in the freezer pre-made, so there's no mess there. just crumbs to clean up afterward, but fresh-baked cookies are always worth the effort :)

defiant use of urine

i just don't understand it. my daughter uses urine as a weapon. defiantly. it really drives me bonkers. if she's pissed off, and getting completely naked doesn't get her what she wants, she'll pee on the floor. sometimes she just pees while she's still fully dressed. the other day she peed on the couch while she was watching a movie & by the time i found out, it was cold, which meant it'd been a while since it happened.

it's almost like she's a dog with that extra store of urine so they can mark their territory. she can pee on command, as long as it's her desire & not mine. and she can hold it all day. there was one day that she hadn't gone to the bathroom all day. it was after dinner when i realized she hadn't gone all day & i finally forced her to go potty.

i know you're not supposed to *force* them to pee or it'll become a control issue & they'll be scarred later in life. i also know that you're not supposed to *punish* them for having accidents. but if i tell her she can't have something & her response is to pee on the floor, then that's not an accident.

and i'm so glad that we found a little spotbot for cleaning the floor from these incidents. if i had to pull the big carpet shampooer upstairs everytime we had a DUU then i'd be exhausted! we had 2 this evening: she peed while standing on the stool IN THE BATHROOM washing her hands, and again standing in her rocker picking pajamas. the ones in the bathroom just really blow my mind. she's peed on the floor IN FRONT OF THE POTTY. now, when she was sick & had unhappy poopey that was all over the bathroom carpet, that was different, cuz i really do think it just came out of her bottom. i'm just glad that one was IN the bathroom, cuz i could just take that carpet & throw it in the washer, where i'd have had to use the carpet shampooer in the hallway or her bedroom.

but i just don't know what to do to get her to stop DUU'ing. she still doesn't get what she wants, despite the stripping or peeing. and she gets a spank on the bottom (which is usually conveniently naked *smile*). and she hasta help clean it up (except for the unhappy poopey). but i'm tired of cleaning up pee pee! and i can only imagine what our house would smell like if we didn't have a shampooer. bleh!

working out

ok, so i've been going to the gym & working out like a fiend. not becuz i really care, cuz my clothes fit for the most part, but mostly becuz my dr. told me that if i can commit to working out 5 days a week for at least 45 minutes of cardio i can get off my meds. awesome! but for the past 2 weeks, i've taken alexander to school & gone directly to the gym 4 days out of 5, and i've actually GAINED A POUND!!! really? what's up with that!?

now, i've been going to the gym and doing at least 35 minutes on the elliptical machine (cuz 45 minutes is too blasted long!) and then either walking on the track if kellie's with me, or doing some weights or something. and i'm trying to make better food choices cuz if i'm doing the physical part, i might as well get skinny, right? but i still feel fat and sluggish, and this morning i actually had to cut my workout short cuz i thought i was gonna pass out. thank goodness i'd packed some apples for isabelle & i for afterward, cuz otherwise i would have gone straight to the drive-thru at mcdonalds :) i would have gotten a smoothie, but they're SO good with a small fry. and the calories cancel each other out, right? :)

so i'm starting to think there's something else going on. i need to see my dr. anyway to talk about this mysterious non-carpel tunnel pain in my hand, so i'll mention this to her as well. i know my dad's pre-diabetic & my brother's hypo-glycemic & i'm a hypochondriac, so... :) either i'll be fat & medicated or skinny and neurotic, so we'll see what happens...

toilet paper fetish

my daughter loves toilet paper. i don't know if it's a typical toddler thing, cuz alexander didn't do it, but isabelle loves to unroll toilet paper and tear it up. the first time she did it we were in youngstown at my mother-in-law's house. i was doubly horrified, 1st cuz she was doing it, & 2nd cuz christopher & my m-i-l were just standing there watching indulgently. my question to them was "how is she going to know not to do this at home if it's ok to do at grandma's?" the answer is, she doesn't!

i got the kids down for their naps this afternoon and was sitting on the sunporch working on a new necklace design. when i'd finished, i put it on to see how it looked and went upstairs to look in the bathroom mirror. what i saw horrified me! first off, isabelle was sound asleep, completly naked at the top of the stairs. but she was lying in a position that would indicate she'd fallen asleep in the process of going down the stairs. i'm not sure how that's possible.

but then i went 'round the corner and saw the bathroom. the sight that met my eyes was the stuff of nightmares! toilet paper EVERYWHERE.

i spend a lot of money on toilet paper and unfortunately, this isn't the first time that isabelle has unrolled a brand new roll of toilet paper. if christopher didn't complain about the really cheap stuff, i wouldn't worry about it, but once you start getting decent toilet paper, you're paying some decent money for it. and losing an entire roll just breaks my penny pinching heart! the last time she did this, i made her help me roll all the toilet paper back onto the roll, but i don't think that's possible this time. what a shame! but at least she just plays with it and doesn't eat it. then i'd have a whole different kettle of fish to worry about!

shopping with children -- the husband edition

so, i do about 95% of the shopping for our household, for the things that we use everyday from food to clothing. and i pretty much only shop before rest time, cuz the rest of the day is pretty unpredictable. if it's not done before 3pm (preferable 2pm) then it doesn't need to be done. my husband takes care of all the outdoor and home repair stuff. but every once in a while he decides that we all need to go to the store together for whatever we need. usually it's a big lots shopping spree, but tonight it was a trip to target. after dinner at the restaurant (eat n' park *smile*)

now, i love target. they've got the big carts with 2 seats for bigger kids, and that's awesome! i'm all about confinement for my 2 little ones. and when we got there, i found an appropriate cart and got them both strapped in, and they started whining about getting out. i'm a firm believer in confinement, but my husband told them that if they were good they could get out. i stopped to check out the jewelry (for inspiration *smile*) and the next thing i knew, they were both out of the cart, and the madness began!

i really don't know what he was thinking. our children have not yet grasped the concept of looking with your eyes and not your hands. they don't understand that we need to use our inside voices when we're inside. they don't understand that they can't just go look at something just cuz they want to, even if we're not going over there. they want to look at what they want, and not what's on mommy's list. hence the need for confinement. but my husband's got isabelle on his shoulders and alexander by the hand, and they're both talking a mile a minute while i push this ginormous cart that's completely empty. i found everything on my list while he went to look at bikes and toys and whatnot, and was forced to explain that they both already have bikes, so we're not taking the princess tricycle home. did i mention the need for confinement? *smile* by the time we were ready to check out, he was ready to leave them both in the store. it was after 9pm -- past their bedtime on a late night -- and we were both frazzled. they were both jazzed by being up late, even though they didn't get any popcorn, and they wanted to sing all the way home. needless to say, they're both asleep and i think my husband is too. they're exhausting on a regular day, but let us try something new and different, and i need an adult beverage! maybe next time he'll remember why they need to be confined in the store!