You and Your Family Blog

Precious Moments

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 09:20:18 -0700

I can’t believe it’s already March. Not too long ago, 2010 seemed like some far-off crazy future year, and now we're well into it. This year my husband and I will celebrate our tenth wedding anniversary, and my oldest daughter will turn five and go to kindergarten. Wow, that makes me feel old. Where has the time gone?

At this time last year, I had three kids under 3 1/2 years old. Sometimes it was as insane as it sounds, but thankfully the baby napped a lot at first, and that helped everyone adjust to the situation. Now Jack is old enough to be part of the group, and all three kids are close enough in age that they enjoy some of the same things. As I type this, all three kids are playing together with their train table. Moments like these are pretty amazing to me, and a real illustration of how far we’ve come. Of course, they don’t last for long, because it’s almost a certainty that one of them will steal a train or get in someone else's way, but I enjoy it while it lasts.

I’ve had so many proud moments this year, watching Gracie head off to preschool, seeing Max (almost) master potty training, and cheering Jack on as he learned to walk. Then there are those other moments of motherhood, the cringe-worthy ones that make you look both ways and say, “He didn’t learn that from me!” Like on observation day at gymnastics class when Gracie leaned over and licked her classmate right up the front of his face. Or the Christmas service at church when Max returned early from Junior Church. He walked all the way up the side aisle of the church trying to find us, clutching his rear and announcing, “My bottom is telling me I hafta go poop!”

Of course, for all the embarrassing moments, there are so many more that are sweet, funny, and charming. These are the stories I tell people, and they say, “Oh, you should write that down!” If only I could find a pen. I feel guilty that I can’t remember some of the hilarious things the kids have said, but I’m just thankful that I was around to hear them when they were said. A few highlights that I remember: Max’s use of the phrase “underwear-pants”; Gracie naming the time when both boys are napping “Girls’ Time"; Max receiving a cup of milk and responding, “Thanks Mom, you’re the best!”; Jack’s discovery of the absolute hilarity of peek-a-boo; I could go on all day, but moments like these make being a mom awesome.

As much as I've enjoyed these quotes from the kids, one of my favorite quotes comes from Lynette on Desperate Housewives, discussing her post-four-children body with a young expectant mother. After being told how good she looks, Lynette says, “You haven’s seen me naked. My stomach looks like Spanish stucco, and my breasts resemble two balloons you find behind the couch a week after the party.” I laughed till I had tears rolling down my cheeks. I won’t say why. It’s not like that description hit a little close to home or anything.

Where's the Chocolate?

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 09:10:39 -0700

It's the one appointment of the year when a girl really needs her best socks, and of course I couldn't find any clean ones without holes in the toes. You’d think I would have planned ahead for this, even laid out my socks the night before, perhaps even considering which ones would best accessorize the smashing paper-towel ensemble I'd have the privilege of wearing with them. But no, I was running late, as usual, and frantically digging through my sock drawer, having minimal luck.

If you’re a woman of childbearing age, you probably know which appointment I’m referring to. I can’t believe I’m actually writing about this, but it was a big event for me. I haven’t had a yearly checkup for over five years, not because I’ve been neglectful of my health, but because this is the first time I’ve made it long enough between pregnancies. I was already nine weeks' pregnant with Max at Gracie's first birthday, and I think I actually changed a regular appointment to a prenatal one when we found out Jack was on his way. So, it’s been a while.

Everything checked out fine, but what I found really interesting, and possibly worth sharing, was that the nurse practitioner was surprised to see that I didn’t have any problems after giving birth to 10 pound, 5 ounce Jack a year ago. Apparently, when you deliver a baby that big “from below” (that’s how she says it…it cracks me up that a trained medical professional won’t say “vaginally,” but she’s such a wonderful nurse practitioner that I won’t hold it against her!) you can expect problems with controlling functions down there. See, I won’t get into graphic language either. So, I’m very thankful to have a good report card there, and also very thankful to move on from this topic.

The other interesting topic of discussion was the potential size of a potential baby #4. Not that we’ve made any decisions in that department, but if I was to find out that #4 had a high likelihood of being 15 pounds, it would definitely affect my decision-making process. We talked again about Jack’s birth weight, and the nurse practitioner suspects that I did indeed have gestational diabetes while I was pregnant with him. I said, “But wait, I passed about 10 blood sugar tests, including the A1C at the end of the pregnancy.” She said sometimes, for whatever reason, it just doesn’t show up on those tests.

Those little tidbits of information were disappointing, because it made me feel like Jack’s birth weight was my fault. I know how to control the diabetes with my diet; I did it with Gracie, and she was a normal 7 lbs, 15 oz. I did pretty well with Jack, with the exception of fudge at Christmas time, and that cheating brought him up to a robust, but not freakishly large 9 lbs even. And then there was Jack. Let’s be honest, folks, I ate dessert during my pregnancy. As my husband so generously pointed out, ice cream almost every night. We all know how that story ended.

So I might have had gestational diabetes with Jack and didn’t know it. That’s both the good news and the bad news. The bad part is that somehow it wasn’t caught, and my love for sugar could have caused problems for both of us. Thankfully, my big baby didn’t have any lasting side effects for me, and we were extremely lucky that Jack didn’t have any problems with his shoulders or anything else during delivery. The nurse practitioner also told me that if they’d had any idea he was as big as he ended up being, they probably wouldn’t have even let me attempt a delivery “from below.” I’m thankful I was able to have him that way because my recovery was so much easier, and that was a big deal with three kids under age four to care for.

On the other hand, the good news is that if we do attempt a fourth pregnancy, they’re going to be watching me from the very beginning, and will probably be putting me on a strict gestational diabetes diet from the get-go. Wait, did I say that was the good news? No sugar for nine months, good news? In some ways, no, but if it means that I have a much better chance at a healthy, normal-sized, not-dangerous-for-both-of-us baby, then that knowledge is a good thing. Even if it means I’ll desperately miss chocolate. Hey, that reminds me, it’s almost Easter. Where’s the chocolate bunny? I might as well enjoy it while I can!

Jack Turns One!

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 11:02:29 -0700

In an effort not to bore people with every minute detail of Jack’s life, I feel like I haven’t written much about him lately. Certainly not as much as I did during my weekly pregnancy updates, or even in the first few months of his life. The truth is, he’s infinitely more interesting and fun now, and I could write a book about how cool he is. Don’t worry, I won’t! Here are a few of the highlights of my amazing little one-year-old man.

We had to postpone Jack’s birthday party because the whole family was sick. Jack’s birthday and mine are three days apart, so my 30th birthday was overshadowed by him turning one (as it should be, and probably will be for the rest of my life, and I couldn’t be happier about that!). We had a fun family party, and I made his favorite food, pot roast and mashed potatoes. He can eat a man-sized portion of it and still want more. The kid is a bottomless pit!

Jack had a Cars theme for his birthday, and seemed pretty excited about all the decorations and his Lightning McQueen cake. He was a little tired when we let him eat his cake though, and it quickly went from “Mmm…chocolate cake is yummy!” to “I’ll rub my eyes because I’m so tired. Ouch! It hurts when I grind cake into my eyeballs! Waaaah!” We plunked him in the sink and sprayed him off, then quickly whisked him off to bed. Not exactly the big finish I had in mind, but luckily we got a few good pictures before the meltdown.

I’ve affectionately referred to Jack as my “freakishly large baby” since his 30-week ultrasound showed he was measuring a few weeks ahead of schedule. At his one-year checkup, he proved he’s earning his nickname. He tipped the scales at 29 lbs. 4 oz, and is 34 inches tall. That’s the 98th percentile for weight and 100th for height, for anyone keeping score. Sheesh. No wonder my back, neck, and shoulders have been hurting for the past six months. He’s a big boy, but he’s proportional. Just the proportions of a two-year-old.

Jack’s height has provided us with some unique challenges that most parents of toddlers don’t have to worry about until their kids are closer to 18 months old. Jack is now able to climb up onto pretty much any chair in the house, and in the past week has discovered that he can climb from chairs onto other pieces of furniture. He also has really long arms, so he has an exceptionally long reach, often farther than we realize when there’s food involved. The boy knows no fear, and his great aunt just remarked the other day, “That one’ll have you in the emergency room all the time for broken bones.” I really hope she’s wrong, but somehow I think there may be some truth to her prediction.

Jack is into everything right now, and has a hilarious ornery streak. His older siblings would at least show a little remorse when they were busted for getting into things they shouldn’t have. Jack just looks up, grins, then giggles, and it’s so infectious I have to turn away so I don’t laugh right along with him. He has no shame whatsoever, which will probably get old some day if he doesn’t change his ways, but right now it’s awfully cute.

He’s already had his first time out for biting his brother. It was about a minute long, and I think at the time it was actually somewhat effective. He didn’t like being removed from the center of attention. I know he’s still just a baby, but I want him to learn as soon as possible that he can’t hurt other people, even if he is cutting four molars at once. With his size, I hope to make sure he’s a gentle giant before he goes into situations with other kids his age.

Jack made the transition from formula to whole milk really easily. He had been using a sippy cup since he switched from breast milk to formula at about eight months old, so at least we didn’t have to worry about getting rid of the bottle. We just mixed a few cups of half milk/half formula, and then he was ready for all milk. The only problem we had was that the whole milk didn’t fill him up as much as formula had, and he started waking up in the middle of the night again. After a few days, we got smart and fed him a little cereal before his night time milk, and all of us are sleeping through the night again. Other than his nightly snack of baby cereal, he's completely on big-people food now, and is doing a pretty good, but incredibly messy, job of feeding himself. Quite honestly, I'd rather clean up the mess of him feeding himself and have a chance to eat my own meals in peace while he makes the mess. Any independence in this family is always very welcome!

A few weeks after his first birthday, Jack was finally able to balance his top-heavy self and take a few steps. He still can’t go too far, but he can stand up on his own without holding on to furniture, and he’s gaining a lot of confidence with walking. He also loves his ride-on car and tractor, both for scooting around and walking behind. I’m thankful we have three of them, because all the kids can ride at the same time. They have races up and down the hallway, and Jack is starting to be able to keep up. It’s a lot of fun to see him interacting more with his brother and sister, and watching all three of them play together. That’s definitely a benefit of having all three of them so close in age.

Speaking of the other kids, Max is finally about 90 percent potty trained. I was starting to think he’d wear pull-ups to college, but something finally clicked, and he’s able to keep his “underwear-pants” (That’s what he calls them. I think it’s so cute!) dry all day. He’s even starting to warn us when he needs to go, and he announced to all our guests at Thanksgiving dinner that he’d just put his #2 where it needed to go for the first time.

Talk about something to be thankful for! Max also moved from his toddler bed into a big-boy bed, and he loves it. He and Jack are still sharing a room, which works out well most of the time. The only problem is that one of them is always awake by 7, and whoever is up first wakes the other one. No chance of sleeping in with those boys!

Big sister Gracie is still enjoying preschool three afternoons a week. She loves picking out her own clothes, which leads to some interesting fashion choices, but most of the time I don’t argue. She’s learning so much and becoming so independent, even trying to sound out words. Gracie loves to draw, and comes up with such interesting and detailed pictures. Princesses are her favorite things to draw, and the girls always have to have eyelashes. She cracks me up with her “rules” about life. Sometimes I’m amazed at how fast the past four years has gone with her. It’s just a reminder to soak up every second, and take lots of pictures.

Well, that ought to catch everyone up with the latest family news. As for the decision I discussed a few months back about whether or not to expand the family, the jury’s still out, but that winter deadline I mentioned is approaching. I’m just as curious as the next guy about what will happen, but there’s definitely nothing to announce now. Stay tuned!

Toddler Blues?

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 10:42:08 -0700

If I'd felt this way one year earlier, I would have chalked it up to a case of baby blues, or even mild postpartum depression. But my baby was a year old. Is there something called "toddler blues?"

Just after Jack's first birthday, I went through about two weeks of emotional upheaval. Things seemed really overwhelming, and I felt buried underneath all the things I felt I needed to accomplish. I was feeling really down, and even caught a little teasing about not dealing well with me turning 30 and my baby turning one. It truly wasn't either of those things; it was just feeling like I was so far behind that I might never catch up, and not having the energy or desire to even try.

Some of the pressure I was feeling came from things with actual deadlines, like the grad school assignments that I can't seem to find the time to do. Some of the pressure came from things I felt like I should be doing, like potty training my almost-three-year-old, or sorting through all the outgrown clothes in everyone's dressers and closets. Still more pressure was added by other ongoing time commitments, everything from the boys' swim lessons to volunteering at Gracie's preschool to increased responsibilities at church.

Add to that recovering from being sick, nursing a house full of sickies, and not having a solid night's sleep in weeks (who am I kidding, four years!)and I got really overwhelmed.

With such a long to-do list in my head, I also felt guilty no matter what I was doing. When I sat down to work on my grad school classes, I felt like I was neglecting the kids. When I played with the kids, I felt like I should have been doing laundry or paying bills. For a while, no matter what I did, it didn't seem to be enough or the right thing. That made it even more difficult to want to try.

In the past, I’ve had a few bouts with the blues, but never this deep or long. If the timing had been different, I might have suspected hormones playing a part, but, well, let's just say it wasn't the right timing for PMS or a surprise pregnancy to wreak havoc with my emotions. It was just a rough patch that, thankfully, I eventually found my way through.

I think one of the worst things of this whole episode was that I kept feeling like I didn't have a right to feel sad or depressed. I have a wonderful husband, three healthy kids, a decent house and an otherwise stable life. In other words, no good logical reason to be upset. And I'm all about the logical, or at least part of me is. I had a real split personality thing going on, where part of me would be down in the dumps, then the logical part of me would beat up on the bummed out part of me for being silly about stuff, which only made me feel worse.

It all came to a head one night when I lay in bed, sobbing, trying to explain to my husband what was wrong with me. Of course, there was no logical reason why his usually cheerful, somewhat put-together wife had turned into a heaving pile of weeping indecision. Awesome as usual, the hubby just gave me a hug and listened, and kept any ideas about sending me to the loony bin to himself.(Partly out of sensitivity, and partly out of self-preservation. I don't think I was a lot of fun to be married to while I felt this way!)

I’m still not sure what triggered all of this, or even what ended up turning things around, but I feel much better now. It’s like that old riddle: “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” So, one bite at a time, I’m making progress where I can. Some things I’m not willing to compromise on, like my time at Gracie’s school or my service at church; they’re things that take a lot of time, but they’re also things that give me big rewards emotionally, so they’re really worth my time. Other things have needed to take a back seat, like some cleaning and organizing, and, yes, even this blog. I’m trying to focus on feeling good about the things I get done, and not beating myself up over things that don’t get done. I’m also making sure that my kids get the best of my energy. Before I know it, they’ll be starting off to school, but I want them to know that they are my top priority.

So, that’s why it’s taken a while to post about Jack’s birthday and other recent developments. Sometimes I feel like if I only post the good, cheerful or funny things that are going on, I’m not painting an authentic picture of life as a mom of 3 kids under 4 1/2. I know that being able to talk about this with a friend really helped me feel like less of a wacko and more like a normal mom who was just hitting a tough spot, so maybe I can be a long-distance friend to someone else out there who is feeling a little off. My hope is that, by sharing this, it might help someone else feel a little better about what they’re going through, and know that there’s light at the end of the tunnel.

Big Boy Food

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:51:44 -0700

At just under a year, Charlie has crossed another threshold: he is eating grown-up food (table food,I believe is the widely accepted term, not human food, as my wife and I have been known to call it). Admittedly, he had to drag his mama and me across this threshold, as (like with everything else thus far) we've been too nervous to make the leap ourselves. Once again, we are paralyzed with self-doubt: How will we know what to give him? Or how much he'll eat? Or what he'll like? Obviously, this last one is pretty easy to figure out; he's not shy about letting us know what he's feeling at every given second, but we were freaked out all the same. And, so, we continued him on his diet of Stage 3 baby foods and we were all happy.

It took a checkup from the doctor to push us in the direction of grown-up food. We're fortunate to have a pediatrician who deals well with our neuroses (I like to tell myself that we're surely not the worst she sees, but I also try and convince myself that I'm not the biggest dork my wife knows; I could easily be wrong on both counts) and is able to talk to us very honestly and straight. She gave us the confidence to get Charlie off of baby food and onto table foods, even giving us a whole bunch of suggestions as to what we can prepare for him. And, while it helped life a tremendous load off of both of our shoulders (we knew that days was coming, but lacked the confidence to make the leap ourselves), it also creates a whole bunch of new questions. Such is the nature of child-raising.

We have a friend who has a son a little older than Charlie who was once talking to us about her parenting philosophy, and it came down to three simple words: "I'm the mom." Ultimately, she said, she'd listen to the advice of friends and family and, yes, even doctors, but at the end of the day she was going to do what she thought was right for her son (I think it had to do with giving her son regular cow's milk before the recommended age, but she felt comfortable with it and everything worked out just fine). That's a great philosophy to have, and ultimately the right one: No one knows what's right for your child except you and your child. Unfortunately, neither my wife nor I have that kind of self-confidence when it comes to making decisions for Charlie. Of course that's silly. We are his parents, after all, and if we don't know, then who does? Still, we feel a constant need to consult the experts.

And by experts, I'm referring to Steve Guttenberg, Ted Danson and Tom Selleck. Of course. That kid turned out great!

Now, each day is a new adventure in culinary experimentation: avocado and scrambled egg yolk; oatmeal, whole-wheat toast, applesauce, cheese, broccoli, baked potato, ground turkey. You name it. Yesterday morning, we tried a whole-grain waffle; Charlie really liked it, but my attempts at letting him hold the whole thing and feed himself were a tad premature. It turns out that Charlie, who loves, loves to eat (he gets that from his mama, though you would never know by looking at her), will continue to jam waffle in his mouth until no more will fit. And, so, at 7:15 a.m. on a Wednesday, I found myself digging wet, partially eaten waffle out of my baby's mouth with my finger. Such is the nature of childraising, he said, continuing to learn the hard way.

I will say this: The new change to human food does make us both a lot more excited about Thanksgiving, coming up in just a week. That's going to be fun.

Germs, Germs, Go Away!

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 15:50:04 -0700

This fall has been full of adventures for our family: apple picking, pumpkin patch, and even an indoor water park. But it seems like we've been squeezing in our fun family outings in the midst of our big theme for this fall: being sick.

You'd think by the third kid, I'd have things figured out: when to worry, when to take the kids in to the doctor, and when to just let a sickness run its course. It seems like this fall, it was the opposite. I made some doctor appointments for things that were no big deal, then waited things out and ended up rushing in with Jack when he had croup, and again with Max when I sat through a doctor appointment covered with the contents of his horribly upset tummy (nobody ever said motherhood was glamorous!). In trying not to overreact, I underreacted, then overreacted over stupid little stuff. I definitely don't have it figured out yet!

I still don't know how we've caught these things. Every time we go out, we slather on Purell, but still these nasty little bugs have hit the kids, sometimes one at a time, sometimes two or all three. As they all branch out into the world, it's hard to know if Gracie brought something home from school, Max caught something at Sunday School, or Jack got it in the playroom at the Y. I do know that sometimes it makes me want to never take them anywhere again. The thought of shopping carts at the grocery store or the playland at McDonalds totally skeeves me out right now, and I'm not usually the kind of person to freak out over those things.

It's one thing when the kids get sick, but when Mommy and Daddy are both down for the count, too, that's when things get ugly. The past two weeks, my house has been Swine Flu Central. Well, I probably can't label it that since we haven't been officially tested for it, so maybe "Suspected H1N1 Central" would be more appropriate.

My husband came home from work on a Friday feeling nasty, was sick all weekend, and missed school the following Monday and Tuesday. Tons of his sixth-graders had been out the week before, several with confirmed H1N1, and many more had come to school sick, so no big mystery where this particular bug had come from.

I was watching for signs in the kids, and thought we were in the clear until I kissed Gracie's forehead the following Wednesday evening. There's a reason why the middle of the word thermometer is "mom." Moms can always tell with their lips whether a child has a fever. The boys followed suit; Max got sick by that Friday, and Jack by Sunday. Somewhere in there I caught it too, and we've been a sorry bunch since then. Gracie was starting to feel better, but came down with a sinus infection secondary to the virus, and I got an ear infection for my birthday present.

As yucky as it's been around here, it's nothing that naps, DVDs, and plenty of fluids won't cure. H1N1 has been in the news every day, partly because of hype, but partly because it actually can be dangerous and put people in the hospital, or worse. It's why we cancelled Jack's and my birthday party last weekend so we wouldn't infect our family, and why the kids and I haven't been anywhere but the doctor's office for a week. It's not something we want to mess around with or share with anyone else.

Today I'm finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel for all of us. The older kids' fevers are lower, and Jack's thankfully is gone. I'm starting to be able to breathe again, and I'm coughing a lot less. I almost have enough energy to start tackling the mountains of laundry and dishes that seem to pile up when I'm out of commission.

Hopefully we'll all be back in action by this weekend, because we've got more fun fall festivities planned: a Halloween party, trick-or-treat, and a rescheduled birthday party. Now those are the kind of fall memories we like to make!

Friends' Night Out

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 15:38:25 -0700

This past New Year's Eve, as we celebrated with our friends, we realized that 2009 was the year we'd all turn 30. I've known these four girls most of my life, and now our kids (10 between the five of us) play together all the time. The moms get together a few times a year for Girls' Night Out, and we do lots of things with the whole families, but it's been forever since just the couples went out. The more we thought about it, we realized that it's been since before we had kids, so at least four years. It was time. We were going to plan a couples' night out sometime during 2009 for our 30th birthdays.

Fast-forward nine months: We hadn't done it yet, and now we were scrambling to find a date in the fall before we got into the holidays and our schedules became even more insane than usual. It's no small task to find a date whennobody's working or has plans, and everyone can find a sitter for their little darlings. When the day arrived, Jack had a raging case of croup and I thought about not going. My mom said she could handle it though, and shoved us out the door.

We went to a great restaurant that had set aside a small room for us. It was the longest conversation the ten of us have had in years, without taking breaks to feed kids, change diapers, or break up disputes over toys. We marveled at the fact that some of us have been friends for 25 years, and the rest of us at least 15.

Eventually, the conversation turned to the subject of Getting Old. I commented that I didn't realize how old I was until we started working with the high school youth group at church. I'm not just a few years older, I'm double the age of some of them! I don't know why this came as a surprise to me, maybe because I still hang out with the same people I did in high school, maybe because I still listen to loud music and prefer pizza to veggies, but I don't always feel like a grown-up.

The more we talked though, the more I realized that, indeed, we are grown-ups, and not even young ones at that. We talked about some of our ever more frequent aches and pains: I have a shoulder that's killing me from hauling around a 29+ pound baby, and some of the guys have weird back pain. The men all whined about how they can't eat the way they used to, and one of the wives teased her husband about how she always has to remind him to take a Zantac before they hit their favorite Mexican restaurant.

Nope, we're not as young as we used to be, but our lives are full. Somehow all five of us girls were blessed with great husbands who love their wives and are amazing fathers to their kids. We've got good friends, roofs over our heads, and hopefully in the past few years, we've gained some wisdom to go along with some of the side effects of aging.

As for me, I celebrated my 30th birthday with a wicked case of the flu. Gracie was looking so forward to taking me out for a birthday dinner, but I settled for a bowl of cereal, since that was the only thing that sounded good.

When my mom called to wish me a happy birthday, she told me about her 30th birthday, when she and my dad had been struggling with infertility and thought they'd never have kids. They were considering adoption, and were working through the process when she found out she was pregnant with me at age 31. My sister and brother followed in the next six years.

Mom said how different my 30th birthday is, with a four-year-old, two-and-a-half-year-old, and my baby who's approaching his own first birthday. For as much as we joked about dreading the big 3-0, if this is what it looks like, I'm good with it. My life is can be chaotic and messy, but it's definitely full of love. With a great husband and three awesome kids, being a grown-up 30-year-old is fine with me.

It's My Life

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 15:21:48 -0700

It occurred to me as I updated my Facebook status today, someday my kids may object to the amount of their personal life I've put out into cyberspace. I had a sneaking suspicion that I might be one of those people, you know, the ones who put too many details about their kids on Facebook. I didn't think it was that bad, but when I clicked on a "Status Analyzer" app, it said that my most common word in my statuses was ":-)" (for which I profusely apologize. Apparently I'm much perkier online than I am in real life!), and my second-most common word was "kids." Uh, oh, I'm definitely one of those people.

I guess it's part of being a stay-at-home mom. Not that the kids are my whole life, but let's face it, they're the biggest piece of the pie. Sometimes they say or do something hilarious that I want to share with the world. Sometimes they drive me nuts, and I get to vent. Sometimes they're just my companions on a noteworthy adventure. Whatever it is, apparently I talk about them a lot.

The thing is, I love hearing about my friends' kids too. When their kids say something that's funny enough to put on Facebook, it usually cracks me up, too. When their kids are having issues with some milestone, it makes mefeel better about Max telling me, "No, Mommy, I will not go potty, I will wear my diaper forever!" When friends tell about something fun they did with their kids, it usually sparks a comment about when we did the same thing, or gives me another idea for fun with my own kids.

I'm sure us parent-types annoy people without kids, or people who are far enough removed from these crazy baby-toddler days that they don't remember how important all the minutiae seem when you're in the thick of it. But when you are here in the trenches, those things are hugely important, and it's nice to know you're not the only one going through it.

I think our generation is in an interesting place as parents. We have a Facebook community, blogs, and the entire Internet to turn to when we have questions about raising our kids. It's great, because sometimes you canfind the answers to odd or embarrassing questions without asking your kid's pediatrician or your mother-in-law. At times it can also be overwhelming, when you find out that your cousin's kid was perfectly potty- trained by age two, and your own 33-month-old darling provided you with the aforementioned quote last week.

At times it makes me wonder if people are padding their stats. Seriously, their kids can't be that perfect. Or maybe their kids never drive them crazy, but somehow I think that's impossible. My kids are usually pretty great, but when they're not, I'd rather blow off some steam into cyberspace than take it out on them. More often, they do something bad that's also hilarious, and it helps me not to crack up while I'm disciplining them if I know I'll be able to run back and Facebook the whole goofy story while they sulk in time-out.

Okay, maybe I talk about my kids too much on Facebook, but it's a pretty accurate description of my life. The kids are my main focus most of the time, and that's by design. However, I also see Facebook as an opportunityto reconnect with some of the non-mom facets of my life: friends from work, friends from choir and drama in college, even the high school youth from church. For five minutes, my computer is a window to the outside world, which can be especially important to a stay-at-home mom. Those five-minute spurts of connecting and reconnecting with people can be enough to get me through a tough day.

So, if you look at my status updates and think "Jeez, doesn't she have a life?" let's make a deal: I'll leave out the more graphic details of the kids' bodily functions, and you can keep me updated on the outside world. Just don't bother looking at the pictures I post, because they're all of the kids, and I'm hardly in any. And to my friends with kids who get where I'm coming from, I'd encourage you join me in the whole bodily functions ban, but otherwise, keep it coming. Every day one of you brightens my day!

Daylight Savings

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 15:05:03 -0700

I'm not going to use this space to rant against the outdated phenomenon that is daylight savings time. Instead, I want to talk about something that I never saw coming: Daylight savings wreaks havoc on babies.

This last weekend marked the one night a year where we "fall back"; that is, we set our clocks back one hour and gain an hour of daylight in the morning (as a trade-off, it now gets dark at about 5:00). Growing up, it was always a happy occasion. Not only did it mean that winter was coming (which meant Christmas), but it also gave me one extra hour of sleep. It was like a little gift for which I had to offer nothing in return (unless you count the one hour I give up every year in the Spring when we do the reverse). And it wasn't until I was actually changing the clocks after midnight this year that it occurred to me that this could have an impact on Charlie.

The thing about Charlie is this: He wakes up at the same time every day. Lately, that time had been 7 a.m., almost to the minute. It doesn't matter when we put him down to sleep; whether it's his regular bedtime (about 7 p.m.) or two hours later, he'll be up at 7. It's not about a certain amount of hours for him. He's just wired to get up at the same time every day.

So, when we go ahead and move the clocks back an hour without consulting him, he's still going to get up at that same point. Only now it will be 6 instead of 7. Ok; I can deal with that (so much for my extra hour of sleep). But it creates a ripple effect that lasts the whole day: He's hungry for lunch by 10:30 a.m.; ready for his nap at 12:30. When by 4:30 in the afternoon he's starting to get crabby because he senses his bedtime coming, it really presents a problem. If we put him down an hour early (which was essentially what he was asking for), we start him on a new schedule. We needed to break him of these habits right away.

I'm sure it sounds like I'm making a big deal out of nothing. Truth be told, maybe I am. But Charlie's schedule has been very important to us. It's like planning a wedding: Some people are very concerned with the flowers, while others stress out about the food (for us, it was the music, hence "We Are Family" and "Celebrate" and a "slide" of any sort winding up on the rather comprehensive "Do Not Play" list THANK YOU VERY MUCH). Babies can be sort of the same way. Some new parents are worried about dressing their baby up in cute little outfits (Charlie, on the other hand, has spent half his life in pajamas, though they were cute, THANK YOU VERY MUCH). Others can't wait to get a football in the baby's hands. We're freaks about his schedule, and it's helped us out a lot. He's slept through the night for many months. He knows when it's time to eat and when it's time to go down for a nap. He knows what to expect in this crazy, mix-em-up world. And now, his schedule was being thrown off through no fault of our own but because of the RULES OF SOCIETY. That's a hard thing to explain to an 11-month-old. He grasps the "society" part, but has a tough time wrapping his head around "rules." Daddy's little Wild One.

It's taken a few days, and I'm still not sure he's fully adjusted (to be fair, I'm not sure I'm fully adjusted either). But it's just another one of those things that you would NEVER EVEN THINK ABOUT if someone didn't point it out to you. That's what I'm here for, folks.

The Movie Club

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:44:32 -0700

The reason for the title of this post is twofold. Yes, Charlie recently attended his first away-from-home meeting of Movie Club, the ironically-obvious-and-simply-named group my wife and I belong to where we and a few friends get together and watch movies. For being away from home for several hours, Charlie fared really well, despite the fact that he wouldn't nap, but, more importantly, seemed to enjoy dancing along to the music of The Blues Brothers. I'll take his enthusiasm for "Minnie the Moocher" and "Think" as a good sign; not because it matters all that much to me whether or not he likes blues and soul music, but because it's important that he develop an affinity for John Landis movies early on. There are several more I'll be exposing him to in the coming years.

The real reason for calling this post "The Movie Club" is because it's the title of a book I've just finished reading by Canadian author David Gilmour. It's a memoir recounting the relationship Gilmour had with his son after the author allowed him to drop out of high school on the grounds that he watch a movie with his dad every day. While I don't intend to take this particular bit of parenting advice (which, to be fair, was in no way the point of the book; it was not a decision Gilmour took lightly and a great deal of writing is devoted to whether or not he had made a huge mistake), the book spoke to me in that it was both about the relationship between a father and son (though much further down the road than I'm at) and the bond that forms between them through watching movies.

Gilmour writes something near the end of the book (it comes from a conversation he had with David Cronenberg, which automatically makes it unassailably cool) that nearly brought me to tears when I read it and which I haven't been able to shake since. He writes that "raising children is a series of good-byes," from crawling to diapers to childhood and then from the home. "They spend their young lives leaving you," he writes, and that sentence really wrecked me. It's exactly what's been so bittersweet about raising Charlie so far, even at only 11 months, articulated more succinctly than I've been able to manage. As happy as I am to see him advance to every new stage, whether it's crawling or walking or eating solid food or talking, I find myself sad to lose the baby that he was. He's going to keep getting older and growing up, and he's going to keep leaving me. The finality of that thought, that my little Sweets, my best friend, is going to grow up and leave his mom and me someday (even if that's over 20 years from now) practically paralyzes me. I'm not ready for it, and even if I've got two decades to get ready I know there's never any real "getting ready."

And then I thought about my own mom and my relationship with her. Is it as bittersweet for her as I feel like it already is for me? How did she ever deal with that? I'm sure she was happy to see my grow up and finish school and get married and start a family, but does she ever think back to the baby I was and get sad? The thought that Charlie won't be a baby forever breaks my heart. I'm sure this is an unpopular thing to think, much less say, of course I want Charlie to grow up and be healthy and happy and someday have his own baby so that he can wrestle with all these same feelings and finally understand the emotional torture that is fatherhood, but I don't care. He's safe and he's happy and he doesn't know what it is to be sad or afraid right now, and, of course, I wish it could always be that way. I know that it can't.

I hope we'll always be best friends, Charlie, and I hope you'll let me help you grow up. I may not let you drop out of school, but I'll always be happy to watch The Blues Brothers with you.