LA Moms Blog

One Potato, Two Potato, Three potato . . . No More!

A year or two ago, I interviewed babysitters very differently than I do now. Two years ago I was willing to hire a sitter because she had CPR and claimed to love children. She proceeded to sit on my floor and pat my kids on the back while watching soap operas. One down. The next one got cozy on my couch and decided it was ok to change what was recording on our TiVo because she wanted to watch something else. Meanwhile, my kids sat on the floor and looked up at her with curiosity. Two down.  I hired a doula who is my mom’s age, and she was wonderful. She came over twice a week, made me something to eat and insisted I go take a nap. While I fitfully slept, she folded laundry, tidied up and fed the babies. But she was ghastly expensive and I desperately needed more help. Three down. All this within the span of a month. Over the next few months I tried one more gal, who seemed great at first – then called in pregnant one day. Four down.

Somewhere along the way in that first couple of months, KK came along. She was laid back, and at first I thought maybe she was not so motivated because she came across as very mellow. Boy howdy was I wrong! She is one of the best things that happened to my kids and our family. This girl walked in and started laughing with my babies, and was equally at ease laughing with me, even though she is young enough to be my daughter (notice I didn’t say I am old enough to be her mother). Over the past two years I also hired two more amazing young ladies, and they all work a few hours a week so I can get out to the store, meet a friend for coffee now and again and they provide extra energy to the kids when I feel just worn out. From them all I have re-learned things I used to know and thought I still did. They are all closer to having been babysat and been children than I am. They are more in touch with playing games, blowing bubbles and drawing with sidewalk chalk than I am. I was so sure I was. I wanted my kids fiercely and I love them with all my heart. But no one tells you how hard motherhood can be. And truly, you can’t know anything about anything until you are actually there. 

Getting Out

I often underestimate the power of getting out of the house. I’m less motivated to take my kids out when I am alone for several reasons, not the least of which is that I cannot run in three directions if they all take off on me. This is bound to happen sooner or later, but most of the time they are their own play group. Being naturally more solitary, I’m content to stay home. Working at home gives me balance, besides the ever present opportunity to wipe snot off my shirt and pick up empty bottles. Don’t get me wrong, I take the kids on play dates. And we visit the children’s room at the local library once a week (it is a contained room with toys, books and games). This being my comfort zone, I often forget that it is also a vacuum, where it’s pretty easy to avoid drama and have a peaceful existence, outside of the requisite crying and sibling rivalry. 

Ice Cream as Punishment?

The timer goes off for the nutritious lunch I have put in the oven for my little ones. Once they are safely ensconced in their high chairs, I casually move the Ben & Jerry’s container into which I have been digging for that elusive ribbon of caramel, over to the other side of the fridge so they cannot see my gluttonous indulgence. 

What I realize as I shovel in the very tasty and oh so satisfying treat, is that I used to do this in college when I was a young and angry girl. Down with every spoonful or forkful of attractiveness prohibiting food I ate, went my misery, anger, sadness, whatever the negative emotion of the day was. My lips coated in sugary caramel, I ponder that which has been eating at me (pun intended) of late. Family issues rooted in childhood. Ok, now that sounds pretty much like everyone I know, so why is this still lingering? I could answer that, but I won’t here.  I already know the answer. The problem isn’t that I don’t know the problem, or the answer. It’s how it works its way into my mouth instead of out of my head. 

I Work for Free

I like working at home. I also like working for free. I know you’re sitting there thinking, “What is she talking about?” But it’s true. Years spent in corporate management yielded traveling, high salaries, free hotel rooms, TONS of accumulated mileage, great clothes, shoes, parties. Right, what’s the downside? I also was alone a lot, I missed TONS of family events, my friends and boyfriend(s) moved on when they got tired of waiting for me, and I was a slave to the paycheck. I was also a slave to the corporate culture. I had to act a certain way, be there on time, chant the company lingo and mantra at every opportunity, throw myself on the grenade for the good of the company (someone actually told me to do this once). What can I say? I was young, I needed the money. Or so I thought.

Of course I needed to put food on the table and have decent clothes to wear. Everyone has that need. But what I really needed was the freedom that comes from what I do now. Living my life. I have a strong work ethic and belief in self discipline and delayed gratification. This has served me well and still does. However, this does not mean that it must be used in nine to five circumstances. Since it only took me a couple of decades to figure that out, I was glad I didn’t have kids until I had come to that conclusion. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I would have been a horrible mother trying to have it all. 

Noise and Routine

Mostly I can’t stand the noise or the crying. It doesn’t always bother me if they are upset. I can deal with whatever they have going on. But I feel like I have to keep taking these deep breaths and sighing and exhaling to stay calm when the noise level reaches a point where I can’t hear myself think any longer. What to do, what to do. I can’t hide in the garage, they know how to open the door. I can’t go outside, they want to go too. I can no longer put them in a pack-n-play, they can escape. 

I have recently changed our morning routine to keep them more occupied, with ‘distraction and action’ as my new mantra. Taking advantage of the time change, I have been trying to get my seemingly naturally early risers to sleep later.  That seems to be working mostly. After a later breakfast, or a second breakfast if they don’t eat enough the first go around, they play, then we read. When we sit down to read, we all prop up on pillows, cover our legs with blankets, and everyone takes a nice, deep breath. Genius! Once we have plowed our way through the same 10 books, they play some more, and then – it’s nap time. I live for that some days. 

Poo-Pooing the Potty

I hate toilets. I have always hated them. I don’t like being near them, I don’t like touching them, I get out of the bathroom as fast as I can, especially public bathrooms. This has all been very amusing to my husband, who was eager to see how I would handle diapers, poop and all things smelly baby related. Multiply that by three and I was in fear for my delicate nasal sensibilities my whole pregnancy. Surprisingly, diapers and their inevitable contents have not been that difficult for me. Changing them is no picnic, but I can do it pretty quickly, and my husband is kind enough to empty our fast filling diaper pail often.  But looming ahead of us is something I have always dreaded even more than diapers and toilets.  

Potty training. 

I am so not looking forward to this. I have heard that if you start potty training a child at two years old, they will be trained by three. And if you start training a child at three, they will be trained by three. Mine are a little over two now, so I am not in any big rush to get this going. But watching the Elmo’s Potty Party dvd, or whatever it’s called, daily, has apparently been so inspiring to my kids that they are starting to ask about sitting on the potty. While Elmo’s daddy sings, “Put your body on the potty”, and, “Everyone has accidents”,  I watch as my now toddlers look around for the potty door in our house that Elmo comes out of so they can go in it. This has resulted in tape around the door knob safety device so they cannot pop it off and go stick their hands in the toilet. Ewww. There is not enough anti bacterial gel to overcome that.

Changes

I visited a pre-school the other day. It was nice, everyone was friendly, and the rooms were neat and filled with children’s artwork and imaginary play toys. It was kind of an out of body experience until I realized that MY children’s artwork would soon be hanging on those walls. MY children would soon be running willy-nilly around the cute playground. And I will be the parent worrying that the gate can be pushed open for my oh-so clever escape artist child to take off through and make his way into the world. The gate itself is actually secure. Even if he tried to push the bar that opens it, he will not be successful in getting out. But one day, he will be allowed out, and will push other bars open on other doors, actually making his way in the world. This alarmed me as I am sure it has with mothers before me and those to come after me. Was I waxing too philosophical? How can they be two years old? How can they almost be ready for a pre-school class? 

Once upon a time I was a day camp director and had files upon files of medical release paperwork for the kids attending camp. Medicine lists, allergies, physical considerations, etc., all telling me what to do in case of an emergency. Not that I was nonchalant by any stretch, but I can say now that looking back, I had only a simple concept of what that paperwork meant. I was responsible for those children, and I took it seriously. But what it really meant was that I was a temporary ‘parent’ for the day. Those parents all trusted me and the companies I worked for to handle their children carefully. Though I cared for hundreds of children before my own, the responsibility I now feel for my three is more weighty than I could ever have imagined. Now that it is my own children, I must fill these forms out and trust that “in case of”, what I write down will be followed and my kids will be ok. But I can’t know that. We can’t ever really know that can we? We can only trust that we are making the right choices for them until they can do it on their own.

Original post to LA Moms Blog.

Splish Splash

From time to time when I am washing endless bottles and sippy cups, I feel the warm water running over my hands and think about how nice it would be to just sit in a Jacuzzi, or a hot bath. Then I think about what it would take to get to the point where that would be possible. Sigh. After feeding, dressing, playing with and refereeing between three two year olds all day, it’s all I can do to get THEM bathed. No fair. They get to splash around in a bath tub, make a mess, NOT clean it up, then wiggle into fleecy jammies and go to bed listening to soft music.

The bed and bath time routine covers a nightly rendition of the clean up song (we have to sing it every night to put all the toys away), a disrobing where my daughter decides she is suddenly amped and ready to run around the house until we can catch her and steal the clothes off her body, and a special march into the bedroom to put Panda and Barney in bed before hopping into the tub.

The Kitchen Symphony

Kids love routine. It turns out, so do adults.

Wash the bottles
Make the coffee
Cut the fruit and waffles up
Serve some to each kid
Clean the counters
Put away the high chairs

That’s breakfast.

I can barely hearken back to the days I slept late and meandered to the coffee shop before work or on weekends. I remember it, it just seems like it was someone else’s life. In those days the biggest decision was what to wear and which of my Starbucks coffee cups I felt like drinking from that day. I suppose that was a routine of sorts, but the choices only affected me.

Once we get naps underway, and oh yesss, the routine is in full effect for that dance, I have a little time to do whatever I want around the house. That usually involves some sort of getting on the computer with every intention of writing, doing a little work, or paying bills. Sometimes some of that even gets done.

Panda-monium

This past holiday season was the first one where my kids opened presents. Before that they didn’t know  what a present was. After one day they were asking, "Presents, Mama, more presents?" I tried to go easy with gifts, but I got a little carried away.

I ended up filling a bin with toys that have outgrown, and another with some of the new stuff. I need to start rotating toys in and out of play. Three kids alone is enough, forget about the toy mess. Goodwill here I come. All they really needed was the paper. Then I got the bright idea to take the used wrapping paper and re-wrap the toys they already have so they could keep opening presents. Not sure if that was clever or if it will perpetuate the desire for ‘more’, but they had fun. I wonder how many years I can get away with that?