Tag Archives: MommyFail

07

Oct. ’13

Bedtime or Bust

I’m sure every family has a time of day that just seems to cause stress. Maybe it’s the breakfast and out the door to school/work rush, maybe it’s the afternoon when a toddler has stopped napping but still needs one, or maybe you are like our family and it’s the time between dinner and bedtime.

From 6-7 pm every night I’m pretty sure someone has taken my children and replaced them with caged monkeys that look like my children. They are wound up, their listening ears have long since shut off and I seriously find myself wondering how I haven’t downed an entire bottle of pinot in this hour. 

I get it. Other than school in the mornings, the kids don’t really leave our house. So from 12-7 they have the same toys either inside or outside to play with and see the same faces. I get a little stir crazy too and I have stuff I should be doing. It’s also the time where we don’t really have enough time to get involved with anything (especially anything that makes a mess) but they are bored and dying for stimulation. Only, I’m at my witching hour too. I’ve been at work all day and have come home to make dinner and am brain dead or I’ve already been entertaining them all day long and am fresh out of ideas. And fresh out of patience. 

I try to keep it to a simplified routine, but Charlie somehow thinks that alligator wrestling pajamas on him is part of his routine and Molly thinks draining our entire city of water by playing in the sink for 10 minutes is part of her routine. Just once I would love to brush everyone’s teeth without someone biting down on the toothbrush or sealing their lips like they’ve been super glued. And I’m not sure exactly but I’m pretty sure that there is a game of “hide the lovey” that the kids have created in order to extend bedtime by another 10 minutes as we search high and low for someone’s favorite stuffed animal. I think Charlie’s beige puppy dog shoved into my Ugg boot wins the prize of the longest search. Tonight like a crazed maniac I forced the kids on a death march to search for said puppy dog then realized that a 4 and 2 year old are probably the worst searchers ever. I don’t know what I was thinking, these kids can’t find me hiding under the dining room table while we play hide and seek, how are the going to find a stuffed dog the size of my hand? (and why can’t their favorite stuffed animal be those ginormous ones you win at carnivals???)

We finally make it to the bedrooms only to not be able to agree on 1 story to read, so we read 2. Or 3. Or I put my foot down at 4. Technically I could do it earlier but I hope if I give them lots of attention before leaving they will be less inclined to exit their rooms looking for more. I’m usually wrong. With Molly, she was content with us kissing her goodnight and leaving, we had that part in the bag. We were home free once that door shut. Then Charlie decided that he wanted to sleep in a double bed and needs us to lay down with him, lest he cry like we have broken his heart. So we lay with him for a couple minutes. BIG MISTAKE. That leads to Molly wanting to cuddle and why not? We cuddle with Charlie, it’s only fair. Bust, we let that good thing fly out the window and added an extra 10 minutes to bedtime. When we finally do get to evacuate, we are only at a 50/50 chance that Molly won’t wander from her room and whine for me at the top of the steps to tell me that one last pressing item before going to bed.

An hour later, everyone is maybe asleep and I flop on the couch only to realize that it’s only 7:30 and the night is still young for this mama in need of doing dishes and cleaning up and all that other fun household work that doesn’t get done while I’m at work. But what I really want is some cake and a glass of wine so I compromise and drink while I fold laundry then eat cake. Which reminds me, I’m out of cake.

So, what is your stressful time of day? Are you a morning, afternoon, or like us, a bedtime monkey show?

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09

Sep. ’13

We Don’t Say Those Words

One of my many fails as a mom was my inability to control my potty mouth when Molly was a baby. She had been verbal for way too long as swear words were still flying from my mouth as easily as saying “how was your day?”. In my defense, I did share a rocking chair with my blue mouthed Grammy until I was 6. Some things were bound to wear off on me. Then it happened. My 2 year old said “Jesus Crazus” which was her interpretation of “Jesus Christ”. The bad part was is that I found it somewhat amusing. Not because of what she was saying but how she was saying it. There was a string of exasperation that went along with it, “Oh my! Oh my goodness! Oh my gosh! Oh my Jesus Crazus!”. Plus, she had a look on her face that she knew she was saying something taboo. However,  we couldn’t have her blurting this out at Christian Preschool, so we did what all good parents do when their toddlers say things they shouldn’t, we ignored the behavior.

Only the behavior only got worse.

At first she banged her head into the door and said “shit” as she walked away. I couldn’t hide from that one, she was imitating me. But it didn’t end there. I was explaining to her about God, she asked “like God Dammit?”. I said “well, yes, but he doesn’t use his last name”. This one could’ve been either Stampy or myself, but it was probably me. Still, we were trying to ignore the words as they came out. I mean, if you don’t react to the behavior should stop, right??

Nope. It gets worse.

My sweet little girl said it. She said the F bomb. She used it correctly. Then she said it again. And Again. And Again. In fact, last year on our vacation trip she shut herself in the bathroom and preceded to scream it at the top of her lungs multiple times. We tried ignoring it, she said it more. We tried explaining it wasn’t nice. She continued to say it. The problem when your child is smart is that they know from day 1 that it isn’t ok, and that’s why they do it. And when we ignored it she would keep saying it until we would address it. We were trapped. We were trapped in a F’in horrible situation. We didn’t know what to do. I think they only thing that really worked was divine Jesus Crazus intervention and she eventually moved on to something else to get our attention. Like strangling her brother.

We had our sweet mouth girl back.

Then she turned 4. And the words have become worse.

Shut Up and Stupid.

Now, I might have a potty mouth but I don’t have a mean mouth. We have limits in this house and those 2 words are definitely on the not-under-my-roof-you-don’t type list. I even skip over those words in the Berenstein Bear books. We have had several talks and time outs for using “mean words” and I think it’s working. Last night Molly said “Mom, I’m not going to say shut up. I’m going to tell you that S-H makes the ‘sh’ sound and that’s the sound that begins shut up” and continued with her dinner. Yup. She gets it. And she gets how she can get away with saying the black listed words without getting into trouble. She’s 4. I have a long road ahead of me.

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What words on your “black list”?

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28

Aug. ’13

My Kids Eat Jelly Sandwiches

Dear Parents Magazine,

While I appreciate your monthly reading material that comes to my house, I’m having difficulty following you on Pinterest. I guess I usually just flip through your magazine, reading an article here and there and just looking at pretty pictures along the way. You always have the cutest babies and toddlers.  However, on your Pinterest page I’m forced to read your captions on Pinterest and then I realize that I’ve been missing a lot of shenanigans while flipping through your magazine. For example, this jewel of a pin you had last week:

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Now, I’m not saying that this isn’t a cute idea. I mean, probably to get my kids to do this would suck about a good hour of our day which I’m always looking for activities that occupy little hands for more than 10 minutes but I think you are overlooking a big problem in our house. My kids eat sandwiches, yes, but fancy ones? No. Charlie would’ve thrown all the Cheerios on the floor and proceeded to tap dance on them to create a nice sandy floor to roll on. Molly would end up screaming and in tears over the fact that her masterpiece wasn’t good enough and demanding that I sprinkle her Cheerios for her. Oh, and I also wouldn’t do it up to her standards so there would be more tears. This time from both of us. I’m sure at this point Charlie would be bored of his Cheerio dust and decide to mess up what Molly has been working on for 20 minutes to get “just right”. This leads to more tears, usually followed by “mean actions” and a time out. Did I mention my kids don’t eat vegetables? Charlie’s would be on the floor with his Cheerios and Molly would be telling me 800 times “I don’t like that” and insisting it be removed, then crying because her flower doesn’t have a stalk or leaves. Skip ahead through a few more arguments and time outs and we are now way past lunch time, nobody has eaten and I’m half a bottle of wine in and it’s only noon.  So, while I like your idea of fancy food, I have to admit that my kids aren’t fancy and if it’s all the same we’ll stick to our plain old grape jelly sandwiches.

Sincerely,
Jamie, mom to Sensational Kids.

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19

Aug. ’13

Parent Fail: Miniature Golf Style

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Doesn’t this look like a fun family outing? Everyone is enjoying a round of miniature golf, the Wild Card is even wearing a collared shirt, but in reality it was a disaster. A parenting fail at its worst. The Mollinator is a perfectionist at the age of 4 and thanks to her Sensory Processing Disorder she also has motor delays, primarily in motor planning. It’s hard enough for a 4 year old to grasp the hand-eye coordination to successfully putt the ball through obstacles and into a hole, now imagine one that can’t sequence all of her movements correctly or figure out how hard or soft she needs to hit the ball to get it to the hole and on top of that have her be a perfectionist so when she doesn’t get a hole-in-one she thinks she failed. Did you get all that? I can tell you that it’s a recipe for disaster and tears next to a #8 flag. She actually sat down on hole 8 to exclaim she was a bad golfer. She’s 4 and the thought that she couldn’t hit the ball into a hole in one shot was just too much for her to bear. Luckily it was a rainy day so the course was pretty empty but those that were there saw parenting at its worst best.

As parents we want our kids to have fun so we tried everything in our power to turn that frown upside down but nothing worked. Her frustrations got bigger and our patience got smaller. I tried to avoid it but I walked to the car with a screaming kid in tow. I did my best not to yell, I just handed her putter to Stampy and walked away, but honestly I wanted to scream. Not at Molly, this isn’t her fault. I wanted to scream at the universe for making this our reality. Our reality that we will most likely leave places early and in tears. Only to come home and have whiney temper tantrums and cling with all her might to me. It’s the reality that some days make me want to peel my skin off and it’s the reality that ends in alcohol or exercise.

So I take a lot of pictures in hopes that when I look back at them I will remember the few moments where we smiled and laughed. So I remember fun outings with the kids. And so when Molly accuses me of never taking her anywhere, I can show her that we did. Maybe I’ll also show her this post to explain why our outings were so few and far between.

The Wild Card was there too. I assumed he would run like a crazed monkey all over the course so naturally he tried to play golf and stayed right by me. He also got carried to the car screaming, but that was because he was having fun and didn’t want to leave.

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01

Aug. ’13

The Summer I didn’t Shower

My mom has blessed us with taking care of our children while Stampy and I work. We know how lucky we are to not have a day care bill. Believe me, we know this. However, with this blessing comes comments like this:

Noni: Did you give the kids a bath yesterday?
Me: No
Noni: Jamie! They had sunscreen on, they went to the pool yesterday!
Me: eehhh

These conversations happen a lot. Weekly in some cases with new reasons why I should have given the kids a bath. So, with that being said, let me tell you about the summer I didn’t shower.

I was 17 and in between my junior and senior years of high school. My days went something like this:

  • 5:00am: wake up
  • 5:30am: drive to pool #1
  • 6:00-8:00am: swim practice
  • 8:00am: wash hair at pool shower. (note, did not take off bathing suits to wash my hair) After washing hair, change into different bathing suit.
  • 8:30am: drive from pool #1 to pool #2 for swim lessons, swim team #2, and lifeguarding. (note: drove ONLY wearing bathing suits. Apparently this is also the summer I didn’t wear clothes)
  • 9:00am-10:00pm: complete various jobs of teaching swim lessons, coaching, lifeguarding and cleaning pool. In the hot humid Maryland summer.
  • Go to bed, repeat.

Also learned this summer is hair brushing is optional. I’m pretty sure I didn’t own a brush this year. Thankfully I had lots of scrunchies.

So there you have it, the same woman who worries that her grandkids do not get bathed did not worry that her daughter did not shower for an entire summer. (and based on my history, it’s probably not surprising that I don’t bathe my kids too often)

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24

Jul. ’13

How Molly Will Save My Fellow Shoppers

I have a real problem. It’s of the farting kind. It’s not your typical several farts a day kind of problem, it’s several an hour. If I and the others around me are lucky. I should probably be checked out by a doctor, but it’s entertaining. I’ve been able to get away with it for a long time, thankfully to a best friend that lost her sense of smell and a husband who wooed me with dutch ovens. Not really, but he did it often enough you would think I liked it. I also fart in stores. That smell you get when you walk down an aisle but no one is there, that was me. Sadly, these days are coming to an end.

Why?

Because my daughter has the sense of smell of a blood hound. And she announces that things smell. LOUDLY. She can smell things that no one else can smell. Sometimes I wonder if she is just saying she smells something for effect. However, it only took once twice, er…. half a dozen times for her to out me in the store before I learned my lesson.

So, my fellow shoppers rejoice! The crop dusting has ended but be warned for she may call you out one day.

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She smells something and she doesn’t like it

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23

Jul. ’13

Mommy Confessions

In Charlie’s eyes, I failed him today. So I thought I would share my MommyFAIL along with a confession that goes along with it. Charlie is 2 years, 4 months old and he still drinks from the bottle. GASP!! I know. There are a lot reasons why he still does but the biggest is it just was never a big deal to make him stop. He drinks water, juice, lemonade etc from a cup and even drinks out of a regular cup now but he wants his milk in his “baby bottle”. To the point he gets mad, I mean really mad if we give it to him in a sippy cup. Thanks to Avent, we had a transition spout that could go on his bottle. I thought “perfect!”, Charlie thought “what the *&%^ is this??!!?”. There it is, my FAIL for the day, I gave my 2 year 4 month old son this:
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/hangs head in shame.

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20

Jul. ’13

This is why I drink

Four years ago I had the most adorable baby girl in the whole world. She slept and I would look at her and think, “I can’t believe I created this perfect person” then she would wake up and cry. And cry. And cry. It didn’t end. We paced, we rocked, we sang, we saw doctors and lactation consultants, we did everything and ended up with some reflux medicine and patience. Then I had some wine. Three years ago I had a pretty awesome toddler that was incredibly smart. She also would scream and cry if naps were missed or our day veered off the normal track. One day of fun meant the next day was hell, so I had some wine. Two years ago I had two year old and a newborn. I had some wine. One year ago I had a toddler boy that was learning to walk and climb and three year old that would have upwards of a dozen temper tantrums a day, for various reasons. I had some a lot of wine. Now I have a four year old that has been labeled as a “master manipulator” by more than one mental or otherwise health professional and a two year old that we like to refer to as “the wild card”. So I have some wine. Sometimes it’s after the kids go to bed, sometimes it’s at 11 am, and sometimes is just to keep me from letting my inner Walmart mom out. 

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