Marley and Me

I just got finished watching Marley and Me and it reminded me of a couple things that I may have not thought of in a while.

1. Having little kids can be just as shitty and challenging and stressful and scary for the Dad as it is for the stay-at-home Mom. This can be hard to remember when you envy them for being able to drive by themselves in the car on the way to work.

2. It is the challenging ones that make an impression on our heart. It is the children or dogs or experiences that gave us a run for our money that we remember and forever leave a mark on our hearts. Nobody ever got anything worth having by just floating down the river and letting life pass them by.

I loved this movie and it was the first time in a long while that I thought it was a movie that was equally as good as the book.

SAMMY DO IT! The Trials and Tribulations of Having a Two Year Old

I find that having a two-year-old is equally exhausting as it is enjoyable. Recently she has begun to want to do everything on her own with the determination of an Olympic athlete.

Yesterday, she wanted to put on her own shoes. I have no problem with this, I even relish the idea that doing this will probably keep her occupied for at least ten minutes. Ecstatic at the idea that I will have ten whole minutes to accomplish something, I run to the closet and whip out the vacuum.

The whir and suck of the crumbs off the floor begin to sooth me until I am brought out of my vacuum induced meditation by a piercing, "MOM, HELP!"

I turn off the vacuum and begin in Sammy's direction. She waves me off. "No, Sammy do it." OK, I turn around to continue with my vacuuming.

"MOM, HELP!" I begin in her direction again. Again, I get the wave off. I let her do this one more time, until she has officially worn out my patients.

"NO! MOMMY HELP!" I say firmly and loudly as I set her in my lap. I have no problem with her trying to do things on her own, but this is ridiculous.

My husband runs in from the garage, "Were you yelling at my princess?" He asks with a grin. Indeed I was, my glare responds.

I can hear her now, crying upstairs as I try to finish writing this. I know when she comes down she is going to demand a breakfast she can get herself and to get her Barney fix. Half of me is tempted to open the door and throw her a string cheese, like you would a wild animal. The other half knows this will not hold her for nearly long enough.

I guess I will have to succumb to her cries...

The Toddler who cried, "MOM!"

My baby girl has one of the sweetest voices. She can melt your heart with her little, “night, night Mommy.” And I can’t hear her say, “Elmo cake.” Enough. I kept asking her, “What kind of cake did we get?” However, when I am recovering from a migraine I can’t help but compare her voice to one of the chipmunks.

I was sitting on the couch recovering from one such migraine (a whole other story) and she kept repeating over and over, “Mom, color on paper?”

“No Sammy do not color on paper.”

“MOM, color on paper?”

“No Sammy, put the marker down.”

“MOM! COLOR ON PAPER!

“Fine!” I reply in my best parenting moment.

All I wanted to do was sit on the couch and nurse my still throbbing head. Although she is now coloring on the paper, she has not stopped talking. I manage through some Zen parenting to tune out the particularly high pitch of her voice so I can finally relax.

After a while I notice that the squeaking is coming at a much more rapid pace and the volume has increased. I look over at my Mom who is sitting on the couch next to me, “What is she saying?” So we stop, and try to make out the latest ranting. Soon it becomes clear what she is wailing,

“I’m STUCK!”

We both look over in her direction and notice that in her attempt to get down from the barstool where she was coloring paper, she got her little body lodged under the armrest. Her feet are dangling and her arms are thrust up over her head. My Mom ran over and disentangled her from the chair.

I wondered to myself, how long had she been yelling to me and how long had I been tuning her out. If only she could save her precious words for when they really mattered this would not have happened. It seemed to me a classic case of the toddler who cried, “MOM!”

Ode to the Dollar Theater

I LOVE the dollar theater. I love going to the movies in general anyway, but I have a special place in my heart for the dollar theater. When I am stuck in the house with children that are finding it difficult to get along, this is where we go.

The sticky seats, the dirty floors, this is my bliss. Sometimes my children act up in a movie, particularly the little one. I know, I know, it is hard for you to imagine that my children would act up, but every once in a long while it happens. At first you feel guilty that you are ruining the next persons movie going experience and then you remember, wait a minute! They only paid a dollar to see this movie. Where else in the world could I whip my head over to someone who is giving me a dirty look and say, “Get over it you paid a dollar!”

If only that response could be as appropriate for the dirty looks I may receive when I am in church with my children.

Even the snacks at the dollar theater are perfect. They have created a spill proof method of distributing concessions to children. Anyone who has taken a child to a movie knows that snack spilling is inevitable and devastating to everyone involved. The people at the dollar theater made a box like a happy meal and they put the drink in pour in the popcorn and close it up and stick the straw through the top of the box. There is a shoot on the side of the box for them to get their popcorn out of. PURE GENEUIS! This is how I am going to start serving all their meals to them.

Thank you dollar theater for offering your entertainment at ridiculously low prices ($0.75 on Tuesdays) and giving Mom’s a place to go when cabin fever has hit your home like the plague. Dollar theater we salute you.

It's the Little Things

I am a passionate person.

I love passionately, I cry passionately, I dive head-first into just about everything that I do. I believe this is what makes me the emotional roller coaster that I am. For the past six months I have turned my passion to my writing.

I would really like to be a writer. I have been pursuing this venture with the usual passion that I pursue most things in my life. Although lately I have been a little discouraged. I would love a little success in my writing. Something to validate my efforts, to prove to me that this is something I am moderately good at.

Last night I was on the hour long drive home from my in-laws. I could not help thinking about my writing. Lately, the lack of success in this area is bringing me down a bit. I was thinking about how people say that the first step is the hardest. I think that saying is dumb. I think the first step, deciding to do something, is the easiest. The hard part is sticking with something when it gets challenging and is yet to be rewarding. I was sitting there and getting more and more depressed about the situation when I turned and looked at Ben.

He is such a good example to me. He worked for two years to achieve his goal of becoming a firefighter. He is an emotional rock, my complete opposite in that sense. He rarely became overwhelmed by the process and just kept pressing forward with his goal in mind. I was trying to use this as a comfort, it took him two years to achieve his success, I should not try and rush things so much. Yet, I was still feeling down.

That is when it happened. Someone in the car farted. Of course, I turned my angry glare to Ben. I was telling him through my facial expressions that I was just not up for this right now. Only when I turned to look at the usual culprit, he had an equal look of disgust on his face. That is when it happened.

From the back of the car the Elmo like voice stated, "Sammy toot!" Her lack of caring, but willingness to claim it sent me into uncontrolled laughter. I guess all it takes to turn my mood around is a good fart, they are almost always funny.

Remind me again why I did this!?

Ben and I are going to a wedding today. Since the weather is going to be in the single digits I thought I would get a nice shirt to wear with pants. I knew it was a gamble right from the beginning to bring all three of the children with me to buy clothes, but I rolled the dice anyway.

We arrived at the store and before we entered I dished out my usual threats, took a deep breath and then entered. Immediately I began frantically searching through the racks knowing my time was short before Riley and George would start wrestling and knocking over racks. The tiny tyrant still managed to pull shirts off their hangers from the comfort of her stroller. The cold sweat was beginning.

EUREKA! I found it, now I had to hustle the children to the fitting room. I took a deep breath when I noticed that the dressing rooms had curtains and not doors. In the past these have never served me well. The little dictator has been known to dash out of these type of dressing rooms when I am half naked and totally unable to get her.

I said a quick prayer and entered the dressing room. I quickly yank off my top. "Mom, why do mom's get stretch marks?" Riley inquires. I am feeling better about myself already.

"Because Riley, sometimes tiny mom's have to carry gigantic babies in their bellies." I calmly explained. If the person in the next dressing room was able to ignore that question she would find it impossible to ignore the chorus my son had broken into: stretch marks, stretch marks! All to the tune of the row your boat in a high soprano and a volume loud enough to be heard throughout the store.

This shirt will be fine, I quickly decide and hurriedly pay for my purchase. As we walk outside the cool air feels nice and begins to make my hot flash subside.

Another successful shopping trip.

Words can not describe

I write this next post with a heavy heart. One of my dearest friends has lost her baby. She was due next month. She noticed he wasn't moving and then the doctor couldn't find a heartbeat. Last night she had to deliver her stillborn baby. My heart aches for her and what she is experiencing.

I know it is a cliche to say that I can not imagine what she is going through, but I honestly can not wrap my head around the devastation she must be feeling. This baby was to be her first.

I can not stop thinking and praying for her and her husband. Last night as I was cooking dinner, I turned around and saw Samantha dangling from the open silverware drawer and George up on a kitchen chair dancing. While this scene would have normally sent me into a tizzy of yelling, yesterday was different. Yesterday I felt thankful for my children and all the craziness they bring. I know my family is a gift and I don't know what I would do without them.

Dear baby Rocco, the world was a better place because you were in it. Although your time here was short, your life mattered. You were loved and you are missed. As you watch down from heaven, please watch over your parents and let them feel your loving presence.