New Jersey Moms Blog

I Have a New Child In My Life, His Name is Only Me

I used to have a sweet little boy named Tyler, but a couple of months ago, around age two-and-a-half, he went away.  A boy named Only Me took his place. 

It's been difficult living with Only Me.  Only Me does not need my help in dressing himself, trying to put together or fix a toy, or getting into his highchair.  And Only Me certainly does not need my help in any matters of toilet training or hygiene.  This would be okay, except Only Me often puts two legs in one opening in his pull-up, or has one of his butt cheeks hanging out.  Sometimes, Only Me does not know which way his penis is supposed to lay in his pull-up, causing him to get an unwanted shower of pee pee on his stomach, chest, or even in his face.

Am I In Beverly Hills or New Jersey?

Between not living in the area any longer and being disabled, I had not been to the Freehold Raceway Mall for some time.  In case you are unfamiliar with this mall or have not been there for a while yourself, there have been many high-end stores gradually moving into the mall, which is surrounded by a few affluent towns such as Manalapan and Marlboro Townships.  This past Mother's Day, my family decided to gather there as we picked The Cheesecake Factory to celebrate at.  

Being a mom of a two-and-a-half-year-old I am lucky to get a shower and get anywhere on time, let alone dress to the nines for a trip to the mall, even if it is Mother's Day.  Imagine my surprise (shock?) when I saw woman after woman dressed as if she were heading out for a night clubbing in New York City. The plastic surgery was obvious as these women stood alongside their twenty to thirty-something daughters, attempting to look more like their sisters.  Anyone recall the commercial from the 1970's "Which one is the mother and which is the daughter?"  I can't remember what the commercial was trying to sell but I don't think it was Botox!

Separate Beds? Moms Confess!

Yes, the above title does sound like something one would find in a tabloid located by the checkout aisle of a supermarket.  I will confess; my husband and I often do not sleep in the same bed and it has been going on for a while.  There are so many reasons for us.  Separate bedtimes, for one, one of us will stay up later than the other and if it's me that's up late, my husband cannot fall asleep with me typing away at my computer even when he turns up his iPod.  Sometimes, due to my chronic illness and pain issues, my husband feels if he's the one coming into bed later he is afraid of waking me, once I have finally made it to sleep.

One of my friends who is in her early 30s moved in with her husband prior to their being married.  She had one large dog and he had two as well.  Well before the marriage and kids came, instead of sleeping with each other, their dogs slept with them in their own beds.  As ridiculous as I might think this to be, who am I to judge when I too am sleeping apart from my husband?  

Wanted: Toddler to English Dictionary

I'm not sure if it is because we have an only child, but my husband and I try our best to understand our two-and-a half-year-old son.  Now that he's gotten older, it's actually gotten more complicated as my son attempts to get across more complex words and sentences to us.  When I can't get it, we look at each other, as if I am from America and he is from Russia, with expressions of frustration on our face, then just smiling at each other and giving up, our hands held up in a truce.

Here was one example from the other night.

Tyler: I want my 'pezzos'.

Me: You want your Pezclown?

Tyler: No, I want my pezzos.

Me: You want to play with your puzzles?

This ended with him sighing in frustration, and me shrugging my shoulders; my face apologetic. It wasn't that important to him so he let it go.

Class Reunions, Class(ic) Avoidance

As a woman approaching the big 4-0, I’ve had a number of opportunities to go to class reunions, alumni gatherings, or annual dinners celebrating activities I used to do before I became a "grown-up", such as theater or choir.  Most of them I have avoided.  Oh, sure, I’ve gone to some of the Young Alumni Reunions at Bar A (and if you’re a New Jersey college graduate you know what I am talking about!), but I never went to my high school’s 5th,10th, or, gulp, 20th reunion.

Starting in college and for a few years afterwards, I had a five year relationship with a now ex-boyfriend. After we broke up I started avoiding any college reunion-type functions.  It would have been just too painful, even though it was I who did the breaking up.  Even now, although I probably wouldn’t avoid a reunion like that any more as I am far away from that relationship, it still would have that “Ick” factor. Seeing him and his wife would probably be a little weird as the reason I broke up with him was that he did not want to get married. (Flashback to When Harry Met Sally:  "All this time I thought he didn't want to get married. But, the truth is, he didn't want to marry me".)

New Jersey's Disappearing Date Nights

If you haven't been touched by the effects of the economy, chances are good you know a friend or family member in New Jersey who has.  The housing market is down 25% from two years ago, nearly 48 thousand homes were foreclosed on last year and unemployment is up 74% from 2007.*

If you haven't been hit in some way by these grim statistics, you may be still be a bit apprehensive as this Recession/Depression continues.  

And then when a Jersey gal and her hubby want to get a much needed break from the kids, now it's even starting to affect our "Date Nights."  Noooooooo!  

What Doctors Don't Tell You... Another Postpartum Disorder

I think by now it is pretty much the norm that an OB/GYN doctor or nurse is going to talk to a pregnant woman about Postpartum Depression; what it is, the warning signs, when it can happen.  By now I think it's even safe to say that most American moms and moms-to-be already know about it without having to be told.  But about a month or so after I had my son, I was feeling that something was going on with me, I knew it wasn't Postpartum Depression, but something just wasn't right.

I had fears and thoughts that if I thought about them logically, I knew they were silly. But despite knowing that, I couldn't help having them. One of biggest ones I remember was the fear of running out of clean bottles.  I had 12 bottles! But what if somehow I got busy and didn't have a clean one, and my son was screaming to be fed? I never ran out of clean bottles, ever, but I still couldn't help thinking about it constantly.

Report Card For a Two-Year-Old

The following is from the "I Couldn't Make This Stuff Up" files.  It was something that I found so funny that it could just stand on it's own, with no hyperbole or even a single word needing to be changed.

I'm talking about something my son's daycare does that can only be called a Report Card for a Two-Year-Old.  Okay, in actuality it is entitled "Individualizing Goals and Objectives for Toddlers."  I am not saying it isn't a good thing to help my husband and I evaluate our son's development, but I pity the poor teacher who had to write this, and I found some of the things so laugh-out-loud funny I had to share them with you.  There were no grades given, so I will grade the examples and provide some commentary of my own.

'Tyler is able to communicate through behavior and sounds when he is angry or sad as well as happy or scared.  He is also capable at times to express these emotions verbally.  Tyler can be observed helping his friends when they cry, usually saying, "Are you okay"? or "It's Okay!"' 

Okay now, good communication skills and a genuine caring for his fellow man, uhm, toddler.  I've got to give that an A.

A Healing in New Jersey

Before I begin I would ask that if you believe in this kind of thing, or if I have described your church or something pretty similar, that you not take offense.  I am just telling this as it happened to me last Fall and how I feel about it.  It is not meant to reflect the beliefs of anyone else on New Jersey Moms Blog, or any of our sister sites connected with the Silicon Valley Mom Group.  Whether you believe in it or not, this is my story. 

As both my husband and I are unemployed and disabled, we were getting food for a time from a local church.  I had met the Pastor of this church, along with the woman who ran the program.  Both asked me to go join their church.  I believe when people ask you things like this that is a compliment, but told them although I no longer went to church due to being chronically ill, that I still very much believed in the religion I was raised in.  They understood, but the Pastor asked if I could come one Sunday morning so he and his parishioners would do a "Laying of Hands," a healing on me.  He told me that he had seen people cured of cancer.  I told him I would think about it, but I wasn't so crazy about the idea.  Especially when I later recalled the conversation and remembered him saying that this healing would rid me of my sins which had caused my illnesses.

Wait.  Stop.  Right.  Here.  When you have chronic illness or illnesses, it's one of the worst things to know that some people actually believe that crap.  As if I  hadn't often wondered a hundred times myself if my being sick is the result of some sort of punishment for something I have done.  If that is the case though, then what about children who are diagnosed with Leukemia or those with congenital heart disease?  What sins could they have committed to earn those horrible illnesses?  

Thinking about it and what the pastor believed made me determined to politely turn him down.  

Oh, If Only We Were In the Season the Stores Say We Are In!

I learned years ago that after Christmas, clothing stores went right to displaying their Spring and sometimes even their Summer clothes.  I never understood it.  Who wanted to buy a pair of shorts when it was 20 degrees outside?  What if you had an event in February and you decided you wanted or needed to wear something new?  It was the clearance rack or nothing!  It always seemed to me that merchandisers would be able to make more money if they left their Winter stuff out just a little bit longer.

I had made my peace with that annoyance until I had my child and saw that the same thing happens in their stores too!  Now, this makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Kids grow like weeds; it's quite possible that they can change a whole size, and suddenly you find yourself in need of some Size 3T winter pants.  But try going out to Babies r' Us or Gymboree in February and you've got rompers and shorts staring at you!  Um, I live in New Jersey and my son's not going to be able to wear shorts until the end of May!