A Perfect 10

So, moms tend to complain, gripe, bellyache...what have you. I know I tend to do it. I know other moms who do it. In spite of it all, however, we all know our kids are pretty stinkin' cute. In homage to my utterly, ridiculously, fantastically cute almost 2-year old, I offer you the following video clip:

Craptastic

Scene One: Approximately 3:00 a.m. Bedroom. Mother sound asleep. 2-year old wide awake. 2-year old crawls into bed with mother, crawling over the top of the sleeping mother, sticking sharp elbows in places not meant to be stuck.

Toddler (tearily): Mommy, I got a runny nose!
Mother (wiping nose with tissue): All better?
Toddler: Yes.
Mother: Ok. Time for sleeping now. Close your eyes and go to sleep.
Toddler: Ok. (pause) You got long eyelashes Mama!
Mother: Mm-hm. Sleeping.
Toddler: Ok. I got the daddy pillow?
Mother: Mm-hm. Sleeping!

The toddler continues to pester the mother with questions for another 1 1/2 hours. In the meantime, toddler strips down to diaper, repeatedly clocks mother in head, chats incessantly. Finally around 4:15, toddler falls asleep.

Cue toddler #2. Starts coughing in her sleep. Continues to do so until she awakens for good at 7:30. Mother re-awakens with each couching jag.

Scene Two: Approximately 8:30 a.m. Toddlers attempting to eat breakfast (read toast and juice slowly munched and sipped while wandering around the house). Neighbor girl comes to house. Mother has yet to imbibe first inhalation of caffeine. Toddlers insist on playing outside. Mother caves in. Neighbor girl is now on porch, encouraging toddlers to come play. Mother dresses children, brushes hair and teeth, applies sunscreen, shoos cranky dog indoors so neighbor girl will not get eaten. All children play outside. Toddler #1 takes first trip down the slide, lands on bottom and bursts into tears. Mother finally quiets child. Toddler #1 proceeds to step off deck, slips a bit and again, bursts into tears. Neighbor girl decides its time to skip town. Mother thinking inappropriate thoughts about neighbor girl. Mother takes toddlers into house, attempts to appease them with My Little Pony video - the LIVE version. Toddlers proceed to burst into intermittent tears at least 3 more times in the following 20 minutes. Mother decides it's an early nap day.

Scene Three: Mother drugs children and puts them to bed. Fills cribs with a multitude of books and tissues. Children settle into beds comfortably. Mother breathes a sigh of relief, thinking she's in the clear. Mother is sorely mistaken. Mother proceeds to make approximately 80 billion trips upstairs to wipe noses, resettle children, change diapers, threaten children. Mother finally gives in and lets children out of cribs.

Scene Four: Mother calls friend to see what time is an ok time to start drinking. It's 5:00 p.m. somewhere right?

Frickin' Frackin' Pants

It was a cooler morning the other day, so I decided to wear some jeans when I took the girls to school. Unfortunately, the jeans were not compliant with my wish.

Here's a little mental picture for you:

I pull the jeans out of the drawer. Look them over. Think, "They're not the most comfortable, but the comfy ones are in the wash, so they'll have to do." Stick legs in jeans. Hike jeans over hips. Button jeans, after inhaling deeply. Attempt to zip jeans. Again, attempt to zip jeans. Think, "I just need a better grip on the zipper. These things are so small." Suck in air like it's my last breath, grip zipper for all it's worth and yank. No dice. Look at zipper marks (read grievous indentations, bordering on bloody) on fingers. Shake head. Lie on bed, flat as possible, again attempt to zip jeans. Still no dice. Stand up, take of jeans, think, "I bet the zipper's broken." Zip jeans easily. Groan loudly. Start looking for a different pair of pants, muttering obscenities.

Frickin' frackin' jeans.

Please Mommy?!

I strongly believe you need to have a good amount of humor when you're a mom. Or a dad. Or a caregiver. Between the massive amounts of poop, the projectile spit up, the picky eater, the non-sleeper, the screamer, the whiner, the hitter, the biter and all the other archetypes, if you can't laugh, chances are good you're going to lose it. Big time.

I'm big on manners. I expect my kids to have good manners, because let's face it, if your kids are rude, no one wants to be around them. And then how are you supposed to get a babysitter? So, I'm big on manners. And so far, I haven't heard anyone complain when I instruct my children to say "please" and "thank you". Go figure.

Being big on manners, I've been working on the "please" and "thank you" thing pretty much since the girls started making noise. I still have to remind them constantly, but lots of times they'll say the required words of their own accord. Still, having to remind them all the time to be polite gets a little old. So, I made up a way to make it just a little more amusing for yours truly.

When my oldest was a little younger, I started getting really sick of reminding her to say please. I'd try "What do you say?" and she'd just look at me. So I'd say, "Please Mommy?" and she would parrot me. Seeing that she just copied me, I'd say, "Please Mommy, my favorite Mommy?" And she would repeat, "Please Mommy, my favorite Mommy?" This made me smile, so I kept it up.

And now, when they really want something, they'll both say, independent of me, "PLEASE MOMMY MY FAVORITE MOMMY?!?!?" And there's a very good chance they'll get exactly what they want.

You Know You're a Mom When...

I was reading a magazine the other day and there was a Mother's Day article in it. In the article, various women were talking about when it dawned on them that they were actually mothers. Some of them were silly little anecdotes, some were women fighting to get their adopted children home or to get their sick children medical attention.

Although I have two kids, and the oldest has been around for almost three years now, a lot of days I feel like I'm still playing dress up. In my heart I know I'm a mom and I certainly care for my children all day, every day. But I still don't always feel like a mom. And I'm not even entirely sure how a mom's supposed to feel.

When I was little, I looked at my mom and all the other moms and I knew they were moms. They took care of us, made lunches, took us to school, washed our clothes, put our band aids on, filled the swimming pools, gave us our baths, took us to the playground... You name it, the moms did it. And I never questioned who the moms were or what they did.

Now that I am a mom, I look at other moms and I see the moms I saw when I was little. And I'm doing the same things the other moms do, more or less. But I don't know that other women look at me and think, "Now, there's a mom."

I do, however, have the occasional "Mom moment". I had one just the other day at Target. I had just walked into the store with my little ones tagging along behind me. A young couple had walked in just before us and they had a teeny tiny baby in a car seat. They looked like they literally had come from the hospital - that's how small the baby was.

Well, this couple was struggling with how to place their car-seated infant into the cart. Having done this about a billion times in the past couple years, I instantly went into action. I walked right over to the new mom and dad, showed them how to set the seat on the cart push bar, and told them they could just put the car seat right into the cart itself if they preferred. They looked so relieved it made me smile.

As I walked away, I thought, "Hmm...that was definitely a Mom moment. Maybe I really am one after all?!"