Coming Clean

In the spirit of new beginnings, fresh starts etc., I am taking this opportunity to admit to the following (in no particular order):

1. I sometimes forget to feed my children breakfast. More often than not they are well fed and I always feed them on school days. But now and again, I'll find myself at 11 am on a Saturday wondering why the hell those three are so cranky.
2. Noggin is my nanny.
3. I subscribe to US Weekly. I also subscribe to Atlantic Monthly. I read every US Weekly cover to cover, I read the cover of Atlantic Monthly.
4. I can sing the Hanna Montana theme song.
5. Last week, I didn't get dressed until Friday (I did however potty-train one toddler, do 14 loads of laundry, clean a bathroom, feed my children roughly 3 meals each day, finish one article, play calico critters and puppy in my pocket, and load and empty the dishwasher no less than 25 times.)
6. I sometimes pretend I can't do things just so my kids won't ask me to do them. For example, my children believe I have no idea how to hook the wii up to the tv. Its a shame how long it took me to realize the power of playing dumb.
7. Once I let my stove stay broken for three weeks so I didn't have to cook.
8. If you have a new baby, I'm totally faking it when I offer to hold your baby (and if your kids are older, I probably don't like them either).
9. I don't care about the environment as much as I seem to, I'd just rather spend my money on a new anthro sweater than paper towels.
10. I buy Gap jeans because they run big and I can pretend I'm a size six and not an eight.
11. I "ran into" my college boyfriend on facebook and he pretended he didn't know me.
12. I am one of the people who will over analyze your Christmas card.
13. I actually think Kathy Griffin is pretty funny.

News From the Trenches...

I'm still not ready to say the "less than one day" method worked. I think it may have, but that feels way to confident, almost braggy to acknowledge it. And any girl who survived sixth grade knows that bragging will screw you in a myriad of ways, not the least of which is that it will totally undo whatever feat you are bragging about. Therefore, I am not going to say that the method worked. I am going to say, that as of right now (10:30 a.m.), my daughter has had zero accidents today and has taken her self to the potty three times (that's called self-initiation in 1970s male-psycho speak).

This may sound like great news, but really its not. Because this whole process has catapulted me into a state of stress that can only be compared to the hyper-awareness a soldier must feel during down-time in the (you guessed it) trenches. If you have ever spent time with a child in their first few days, or months, or let's face it first year, in underwear, you know exactly what I mean. I can not relax, I can not let my guard down. I can not stop my head from snapping sideways to check for sudden pee deposits. I see shit everywhere I look. I sense wetness at all times. When I close my eyes at night, I wonder if she is dry. I never reached deep sleep last night for fear that my child would notice she had peed in her pull-up and not like the feeling (granted, that was crazy, but you can't help crazy when you're in the trenches). This hyper-vigilante state must be what Bush had in mind when he created the color coded alert system after 9/11. Except that I've gone beyond red, I'm at a deep, deep magenta.

And suddenly, I can remember exactly why potty training sucks. Its not the pee on the family room rug, or the living room couch, or on my own socks for that matter. Its the constant fear that there could be pee anywhere at any minute. And the delusion that I can somehow, if I try hard enough control that pee. And its not the living with this fear for a a day or even a couple of weeks that breaks you down. Its the living with it for months on end and just when you finally say screw it, I don't need to be afraid anymore, I don't need the extra pair of underwear in my purse and the potty seat in the trunk of my car, finding a warm turd on your foot. Kind of like when they would be having a big old barbecue on China Beach and then theViet Cong would come screaming out of the jungle.

Potty Training Update

Ok, it is 2 o'clock and I'm still not ready for the full report. The book says five self-initiated, successful attempts (that doesn't seem entirely semantically correct but whatever) and your kid can count as potty-trained. We have had three or four, but we are approaching hour number five...
Here's what I can report at this time:
1. I have never paid so much attention to my daughter - ever. That in itself is a total coup for here.
2. She is currently friends with her excrement and obsessed with wishing it a goodbye with a quick flush of the toilet.
3. Bunneri and Pikachu are really, really proud of what a good girl she is.
4. Spicy Chip buffet is disgusting when paired with juicy-juice fruit punch.
5. The fisher price royal potty seat may be the best potty training tool ever (ours is obviously pink). Seriously.

Potty Training

Yep. In T-minus one hour, the potty training will begin. You might think, that as a mother of two well-toileted children, this last time around would be a breeze. Alas, you do not know the hell that was potty training those first two. Let me just say this, thanks to my son, I have been shit on in every possible way. We will not even mention the pee. This time around I am bravely trying something new - the original (1974) method - "Toilet Training in Less Than A Day." More on that later, but here's what you need to know: apparently if I ply my my daughter with delicious potato chips, candy and more drinks than her little bladder can handle; use the voice of a robot who says things like "You are such a big girl, Polly. You use the Potty. Are your pants wet?"; and stay in my kitchen for at most four hours, my daughter should be potty trained shortly after lunch.

Updating the blog around 2 pm, should be totally doable as that is OVER four hours from now.

I don't mean to have a bad attitude (I know that can kill these sorts of things), but I can see one problem so far - the child in the book's example is a boy... there's no wiping anywhere in the instructions!

New Year's Resolutions

This year I took a different approach to resolutions. Instead of focusing on just one thing that will never happen - run more, starve and miraculously regain my pre-three-baby body (which isn’t exactly dreaming big, trust me) - I decided to shoot for making over my entire life, thereby giving myself multiple areas in which to fail on the off-chance that I might actually meet one or two goals. Its no secret that if you write down your resolutions, or otherwise share them, you are more likely to follow through with them. So here they are:

1. Drink Less. In fact, due to an unfortunate series of events involving red wine and family gatherings, I’ve gone dry for all of January. So far, so good, but as you’ll see below this may have impacted some of my other resolutions in some not-so-unexpected ways.

2. Play more. That means play more with my kids. After stumbling upon a written complaint categorizing my parenting style as a lay-about, I have vowed that I must shake the perception and do everything I can to engage with my children in their play. Unfortunately as I do not regularly wrestle with my children, I will never unseat their father as the ultimate play-mate. I can, however, do my best to do a little more in the area of pretend play. After a full day of playing every kind of small figure in the house (including but not limited to Little People, Puppies in My Pocket, Calico Critters and doll house), this much is clear - resolution #1 was a bad idea.

3. Commit to an exercise routine. Back before my husband left me for the glamorous life of a bankruptcy attorney (he has been gone almost every week since mid September), I was an avid runner. Without fail, I would wake up at 5:45 am to meet a friend (another mother of three, also running to get the hell away from her kids). When I became a single parent that routine became impossible. Thus I have vowed that 2009 will be the year for me to create a more flexible and somehow successful exercise regimen. I can tell you already that I will not be using the Hollywood plan by which you stay fit and trim by simply "chasing your amazing children around."
4. Stay on top the laundry. It seems like such a simple resolution, but really its huge. Think about the laundry involved with three children, all of whom have trouble keeping their food on their plates or in their mouths. And then there are the special laundry deadlines involved with gym uniforms and traveling spouses, these garments always cut to the front of the line, often leaving me without something like a clean sports bra for weeks at a time. So far I am not on top of the laundry, unless you count the fact that the laundry is backed up in the chute all the way to the first floor and as I write this I am on the second floor.

5. Do more outdoor stuff with the kids. This goes under the "what was I thinking" category. It is currently 24 degrees outside with the added bonus of a winter storm warning. None of my children has the ability to keep a mitten dry or the tolerance to soldier on with a wet one. Its January and we live in Cleveland. And again - if resolution #1 is going to stick, #5 is going to have to go.

6. Read more with the kids. I love books, I do. In fact reading to my kids is one of my top three parenting activities (giving baths and coloring are my other two). Its just that I don’t like reading the same book over and over again. Especially when the book is awful. For example, I have read Dora Loves Boots 17 times today. The fact that I have alternated reading that book with reading Meet Backpack, doesn’t really help.

7. Cook more. I put this resolution into action almost immediately. The first thing I did was survey my children to figure out if I were to cook, what exactly would they eat. Luckily, because there are 7 nights in a week, we came up with six meals that they each would be willing to eat. They are: spaghetti, although only the youngest eats actual spaghetti, the other two eat variations such as undressed noodles or in the case of my son, garlic bread; soft tacos, again not all my children eat the full taco, my son eats only the shredded cheese; hot dogs and oven fries, I say oven fires so you can be sure that I am extra- committed to good nutrition; Ham; Pizza; and "Plate of Choices", this is a variation on cheese and crackers in which I place all sorts of cheese, crackers, and pepperoni and salami on table and let the kids fill their own plates. Obviously fruit and vegetables are included at each meal - we’re big on baby carrots and red grapes. Armed with this information, I have been doing some serious menu planning so far this year. We have indeed eaten at home most nights and the best part is, I really haven’t had to cook a thing!

If I can keep any of these resolutions that will be fantastic. If I can keep any of these resolutions and keep number one, that will be a miracle.

Election Wrap Up

Just a couple of anecdotes about the election.

1. I took my toddler with me to vote (what else would I do with her?) and I must admit I did have a sense of "this is an historic experience and a wonderful memory that I am sharing with you - because I am such a fucking great mom if I take you to vote" This was completely lost on my toddler. She was in fact very, very excited to go with me, actually humming throughout our short walk to the polls. She told me many times on our way there that she would see many "exciting and instresting things" (I can spell, she can not pronounce - I'm practicing capturing dialects). Once I was in the actual booth, she happily played underfoot. I did try to show her that I was inking in the bubble for the first black president. She was unimpressed. I finished my business and we left. Upon our return home, my daughter asked me when we would be getting there (to the polls). When I explained to her we had already been, she became deeply disappointed - "but where are the boats!?" she shrieked.

Apparently she was excited to be going boating, and was not, as I previously believed, excited to be experiencing democracy first hand and going voting.

2. My five year old son has a new knock-knock joke. And this one shows a world of improvement in his sense of humor. Old jokes went something like this:
Knock-Knock
Who's There?
Poop.
Poop Who?
Poop-a-lock-a-chock-a-nonny-moo-moo
(Pardon the pun, but no shit, that's how he told jokes). Anyway, here's his new one:
Knock-Knock
Who's There?
Broccoli
Broccoli Who?.
Broccoli Obama!
And there's something wonderful in that. From this election my boy took nothing but a similarity between name and vegetable. And that in itself is what's fantastic about Obama's election, that my five year old son saw nothing more significant than the material for a better knock-knock joke!

Daylight Savings Time

Most of the United States "fell back" this weekend, early this morning actually. Conventional wisdom says that we should be grateful for this artificial time change because it comes with this amazing bonus gift of extra time - a whole hour to be exact!

But I take issue with conventional wisdom (and the obviously childless legislators that brought this whole scheme to us in the first place).

My gripe is as follows:

Who needs an extra hour at 2 a.m. on a Sunday?
I need an extra hour on Tuesday morning at 7:15 - when I am trying to make ghost shaped pancakes for the sixth morning in a row, while looking for one left gym shoe with Velcro closures and special mittens that have glove fingers and a flip top mitten cover (they’re called "glomits"), and making two completely different lunches.

And I need an extra hour again at 2:45 pm, simply to forestall the ending of the school day and the necessary retrieval of two very tired, very hungry, and very needy children, who require snacks, bathrooms, and general attention at the same moment that their toddler sister falls asleep in the car seat, covered in apple juice and chocolate chunks (one would think it would be pretty hard to fall asleep sitting up all hopped up on natural and artificial sweeteners, but apparently it can be done!)

I don’t need an extra hour at 5:45 pm on Sunday evening, after the children have been fed (because children, like senior citizens, must eat at the same time every day no matter what the clock says) and long after they have used up their allotted daily TV time. And I don’t need that hour because the crushing weight of that extra hour and our collective need to fill it can lead to desperate measures like a family game of Chutes and Ladders, which can take much more than an hour to complete - especially when playing with a habitual cheater and a third grader who thinks its utterly hilarious to do one good deed (help an injured dog) and then immediately follow it by eating an entire plate of cookies, throwing up and then reading a comic book during history class.

What’s more, I absolutely do not need an extra hour at 7:45 pm on Sunday night. Especially, when that extra hour perverts what just last night was a glorious fifteen minutes until bedtime and stretches it into an almost unbearable hour and fifteen minutes until bedtime.

I think that if the government is going to impose this extra hour on me, especially if its going to be on the same weekend as Halloween - a night in which all of the carefully planned rules and routines of every household are handily discarded in favor of candy, children running through the neighborhoods in the dark and talking to each and every stranger they encounter - then the architects of "daylight savings time" should offer this package deal to America’s parents: included with the requisite extra hour should be a bottle of wine and a magic pill that makes children happily bathe themselves and quickly tuck themselves into their beds - silently.