No Whining

Kids fall down and get hurt, they will cry but they need to figure out how to get back up and get on with life. Life is messy and sometimes sucks. I can't crawl under a rock and give up when things get tough and I don't expect my children to do so either.

I'm not a bitch. I don't just ignore them if they are hurt, but I will walk away from a tantrum. 

I bandage boo-boos, dry tears and give kisses. I love hugs and snuggles and a good tickle fight! I hate to see my kids hurt or struggling but I know that those struggles are what will make them stronger. 

I also love playing games with the kids but I don't let them win on purpose. When they beat me at Uno, it's fair and square!

I am not the type of person who over-mother's my kids. I am not a helicopter parent and don't deal well with people who manufacture reasons to worry. 

I've always known that when I had children, I was going to raise them to be independent, self-sufficient respectful, productive members of society. 

It's the way I was raised and couldn't imagine doing it any other way.

But...once I became a boy mom it became even more important to raise good future husbands.

Seriously, I hope to have daughters-in-law someday and I don't want them to hate me because I raised a couple of momma's boys who couldn't do anything for themselves! 

Besides, I'm not a coddler. I despise whiney anything. I don't care if it's a cat, dog, fish or child. Whine and I don't want to be anywhere near you.

Both Glenn and I have encouraged the boys to do things for themselves at very early ages as well as have them help with tasks around the house. These could include anything from scrubbing toilets to helping put the mulch in the gardens.

They are in third grade now but have been getting dressed, getting their breakfast and brushing their teeth on their own since first grade. Initially I would assist but they handle the bulk of it.

I will give time prompts like, "30 minutes to bus!" but they handle the rest.

After the pandemic hit and we were forced into quarantine, I bought Uncrustables, snacks, juice packs, etc. and showed them where everything in the fridge was. At lunchtime, they'd grab their stuff and either sit inside if it was cold or rainy or outside in the sun to eat lunch.

Raising self-sufficient kids isn't hard. It just takes commitment to let them do things on their own and resist the urge to micromanage. Most of the time they do not do things the way I would, (they are, afterall only 9) but, in the grand scheme of things, that doesn't really matter if the job gets finished. 

I want them to make their own way in the world and that requires them to figure stuff out on their own. 

We believe in chores.

They help with the laundry, empty and reload the dishwasher, help with the trash and recycling, vacuum, mop, dust and scrub toilets.

If I have a crazy week and life gets ahead of me, they can, and do, pitch in.

Having independent kids paid off in spades while I was going through chemo. There were days that I literally, could not lift my head off the pillow.

During the summer it wasn't a really big deal but once school started, they had to fend for themselves in the mornings. They would get breakfast, brush their teeth, pack their snacks and get dressed by themselves. I would give my usual time prompts but they handled everything else.  I would message a neighbor asking her to let me know that they got on the bus safely but that was about all I could handle. 

Chemo ended in September and our busy lives continued with gymnastics, karate, business, etc. 

Then Glenn and I caught Covid at Christmas. 

Not a style of holiday celebration I recommend for anyone...by the way. 

We didn't get the easy, get over it in a few days’ variant. We got nailed!

The boys were fine but Glenn and I were down for the count...for days. More than a week really.

Once again having independent children who could fend for themselves paid off.

Neither Glenn nor I were able to get up. We had lots of leftovers in the fridge that the kids could eat and I would order food to be delivered so that they weren't always scrounging to find something.

Hubby and I joke about the kid’s week of "self-parenting" but they really did. With covid in the house no one could go anywhere anyway so iPads, pillows and forts were the tools of choice.

I got better, Glenn did not.

We got him to the hospital where he stayed for 19 days.

I did my best to keep life as usual for the kids. Thanks to some wonderful friends we were able to maintain the status quo. But I am thankful that my kids can and do the chores we taught them. 

Glenn was discharged on Saturday, January 29...in a snow storm because, why not?

It was great to have him home.

He was still exhausted, and we had soooooo much to learn about the diabetes but we have wonderful friends who have jumped in to share their knowledge and experience that we also had peace of mind knowing that we had back up if we needed it.

The kids were just happy to have him back in the house.

They were pretty chill through the whole hospital stay but dad's return was an obvious relief.

Glenn is doing much better. Unfortunately, we recently had a major scare that sent Glenn to the ER via ambulance.

To say that it was terrifying for me was an understatement. Blowing a kiss goodbye to the man I love as the ambulance doors closed will forever be one of the toughest moments of my life.

Sending him off with a major pain in his chest and still filled with blood clots was terrifying because I had no idea if I was going to see him alive again. 

The cause of the pain was never diagnosed but all the things that could have killed him were ruled out. So that was good-ish. I try to focus on the positive but it's so difficult sometimes. I feel like I'm constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop...thank goodness I'm not a centipede! 

I struggle with the unknown.

Even when something is bad I can usually deal with it as long as I know what it is. Trying to maintain my faith when I have no clue what is happening (like mystery chest pain) is something that I struggle with.

My friends know this about me. Three different people sent this to me in the past 48 hours. 

“And the peace of God which surpasses all understanding, 

will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” 

Philippians 4:7

All it takes is faith and really cool kids. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just

There is no "just" when you have kids.

Before children, which has only been 14 months, if we wanted to go out for dinner all we had to do was grab our coats and head out the door. Every aspect of our lives has changed since we had kids. Not only can we not "just go out for dinner" but we can no longer "just run to the store," "just take a nap," or even "just run upstairs for a quickie!"

I have learned to tolerate soggy cereal and I have even stopped eating oatmeal for breakfast as I can't stand it when it's cold!

I was relatively prepared for the change in lifestyle, and since having children was such a long endeavor, I welcomed the changes...I thought.

I would no longer be jetting around the country for work or spend my evenings line dancing.

I was going to be a mother and had every misconception about that experience running through my head that you can imagine. My days would be full of fun times with happy-go-lucky children, who were brilliant and charming...I thought.

That still may come; for now however, my days are filled with dirty diapers, barf, drool and whining.

A. Noise. I. Despise!

I can't stand whining when it comes from any kid, and maybe because it's coming from mine, I really hate it. I mean really, it's sooooo annoying. I called my bestie the other day to ask if I should feel guilty for wanting to lock my kids in the house and go for a long drive because the stuntman was driving me crazy.

No one in their right mind romanticizes the idea of snuggling with a whiner! So I was largely unprepared to deal with a child who does. Hence the desire to take a long slow drive around the block...alone!

If you say that you've never been irritated by your child I'm just going to call BS now!

Don't get me wrong here. I love my boys. They are beautiful, adorable and extremely cute. Most of the time they are really happy and I love spending time with them and learning to see the world all over again through their eyes. However, they can also drive me nuts.

The whining is enough to put me over the edge.

Teething has truly sucked beyond words but they won't be teething forever. However, I'm a little nervous however, that they will whine forever.

The stuntman's primary form of communication seems to come in the form of whining. He does it when he has something that he wants me to open, he does it when his brother refuses to let him steal the toy he was playing with and he does it when something is wrong.

The volume seems to be the only way to tell the severity of his need.

He's sort of a sky is falling type of kid. He whines all the time so it's pretty hard to know when there is something serious.

The good news is that he has learned the word "ball." Well, we think it's ball. Bottle, bear and ball all come out as "bah." You have to look at what he's pointing at to decipher his intention.

Last night for about two straight hours he walked around the first floor of the house saying, "bah." As irritating as it might have been, he wasn't whining!!!

Thank God for small favors!

Lately, the boys have been into sharing their food with us. They fight over toys but are more than willing to give daddy or me a bite of their grilled cheese, PB&J sandwiches, crackers, etc.

This morning, while I was cutting up their oranges, the engineer had finished is banana and Cheerios. By happenstance their highchairs were close enough that they could reach each others hands. I looked up from the cutting board just in time to see the stuntman reach out with a handful of banana and Cheerios to the engineer who took it and put it in his mouth.

They were sharing with each other!!!

Not only was this ADORABLE but for children who often whine and hit each other over the head with toys when they don't want to share, this was nothing less than amazing.

Think I'll just go say a prayer of thanks.

You Call It Teething, I Call It Hell!

When I was pregnant women reveled in telling me their horror stories about pregnancy and birth. I was extremely sick when I was pregnant and while it was nice to hear that other women didn't enjoy the experience either I would have preferred to have talked about anything other than being pregnant like, I don't know...like...the migratory pattern of the swallow or anything else that would have taken my mind off of my misery. 

After the boys were born, I was given a reprieve from the "my pregnancy was worse than yours" stories but was then bombarded with annoying "just wait until" stories that primarily revolved around poop: color, texture and smell. And, while I appreciate a good laugh, the stories did little to offer any advice or assistance. 

We have received some really good advice such as using mini frozen pancakes as teethers. They numb their gums and give them a snack at the same time. 

Some of the bad advice has been to put the coffee table in the basement and basically bubble wrap the entire house, if not the children. My mother is strangely obsessed with tempered glass. Every time the boys press their faces to the windows, which they love to do, she says, "I hope that glass is tempered." I get the impression that even if it was bullet-proof glass she would say the same thing. 

We take necessary precautions and have removed thing that can kill them, inserted outlet covers,  bought a new (to us) entertainment center that closes so they won't be inclined to play with the cable box and installed gates at the top and bottom of the stairs. 

There will be no bubble wrapping of the house. 

It's amazing how many lessons we have learned in the first year of their lives. 

First and foremost on the list is that the biggest oxymoron in the history of mankind is term "childproof."

"Child-resistant" would be more accurate. And even then, it should be prefaced with the word hopefully. 

We try but seriously, we can't be with the kids 24/7 and don't want to be either. In fact, you can tell the kids whose parents hover around them. They are whiny, demanding and incapable of entertaining themselves. 

The boys are pretty good at entertaining themselves for a couple of hours each day. They do fight over toys and access to them but for the most part, once redirected, do a great job. 

There are days, and nights, that are endless hours of hell that can be attributed to one thing and one thing only...Teething! 

This began at four months when one of the boys teethed non-stop for an entire day. 

Since then we've had days and weeks of reprieve but lately both of the boys have been teething incessantly. Most of the time we can settle them down with a coating of Orajel (on their gums) and when needed baby Tylenol or baby Motrin. Most of the time...

The past week has been horrible! 

They have been teething worse than ever and all I can hope is that they will cut a whole mouthful and get this over with! 

The drool, runny noses and crying aside, the worst of it is the whining! 

I HATE WHINING!

I really do. I despised it before having children. I despise it in other children and I despise it in my own children. When they whine, I usually say something like, "Nobody wants to hear that." I thought I was making that statement up but according to my Aunts, my grandmother was known for saying this as well. Evidently, I'd heard it years ago and filed it away for future use. 

The boys' used to sleep through the night. Now they are awake multiple times. One has night terrors and is teething, the other is just teething. Either way, I'm pretty sure I got more sleep when they were two months old than I do now. 

If you've known me for any period of time, you know that I am a high-energy person who is capable of operating very well on very few hours of sleep. However, I don't really do well in the middle of the night when my REM sleep is interrupted by a screaming child...or two...in need of another coating of Orajel or some pain medication. 

Most of the time I am very patient with the kids but in the middle of the night, when woken from a dead sleep, I am neither patient nor thinking rationally. I try to get up and get to them as quickly as possible but there are times that I pretend to be sleeping hoping my hubby will get to them first. 

Why I do this, I don't know. It rarely ever works and even if he does get up, he can't get them to settle like I can and I end up getting up anyway. 

We have all of the over-the-counter teething meds, some of the newest and greatest teething toys but what works best? Frozen sweet potato fries and frozen pancakes if they are crying but if just in need of something to chew on they love their spoons. They have two types of spoons. One is all plastic and the other is metal with the rubber coated bowl. Those are actually their favorites which is cause for more lecturing from my well-intentioned family and friends. 

I understand their concern but when they are hurting and nothing else works, they get the metal spoons...end of discussion. 

I'm sure that something will come along soon enough that I will deem worse than this but the  teething experience is terrible and the doctor assures me that this can be a two year long process...Oh goody! 

In the big scheme of things two years is really a drop in a pond and crying, colic, poopie diapers, boo-boos, etc. are all things that can be fairly easily overcome. But, it is pretty evident to me that Dante was not a parent. Otherwise he would have created a level of hell filled with teething infants preventing individuals from sleeping by whining and screaming at all hours of the day and night as penance for evils committed during their lifetimes.