Parenting OC Bloggers

My sister has three girls. More specifically three TWEENS.  I have an almost 3 year old and a 1 year old. Suffice it to say we are at different stages in our parenting adventures. I have to admit I had different expectations of my nieces when I had babies. In my mind, they’d be volunteering to baby sit every free moment they had (for free of course) and they’d all fall all over them at every turn. I’d no sooner arrive at a family function, and they’d snatch the kids out of my hands so fast and I’d not see them again for the rest of the day. The reality? Notsomuch.

Most of the time I feel like a pretty competent mom. I am a scatterbrained person in general, but I can be fairly organized if I put my mind to it. I am extremely patient and I can handle poop, spit up, hanging out all day, you name it. Nothing really bothers me.  Except one thing. And it’s a big thing.

About 10 years ago I noticed I was having a hard time hearing people, so I had my ears checked. I assumed they’d do a thorough cleaning and find some wax build up and I’d leave with squeaky-clean ears. Instead, I was informed that I had major hearing loss in both ears. “WHAT?” I asked incredulously (which I said partly because I was shocked, and party because I couldn’t hear).

You know you have done it. Or at least thought about it.  You need to run a quick errand but your kids are asleep in the car. What do you do?  Do you really have to unbuckle both kids to drag them with you and disrupt that peaceful time they seem to be having with Mr. Sandman? Can’t you just run in real quick or will you be arrested?

I just spent nine days in Connecticut.  The weather was perfect for this time of the year, not too cold, no precipitation.  The ranch where we were staying was just deep enough into the forest that you couldn’t see the nearby town and could only barely make out the closest neighbor through the trees.  The setting reminded me of the various farms and country homesteads that I lived on as a child.

Leave it to toddler story time to help me figure out the meaning of life. As I was sitting with my two year old listening to the storyteller read a Thanksgiving story to a room full of squirmy toddlers, all I kept thinking about was how thankful I am to not be a kindergarten teacher anymore. Don’t get me wrong, I loved teaching kindergarten, but now that I have my own little ones I am more than happy to let somebody else exert that kind of energy.  It was nice to be in the audience for once, and I enjoyed hearing the story from a child’s perspective.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. So for this week's blog, you get a picture that says it all. Here's a fine example of when a toddler tries to help out with the baby.  Thank you, Honey! (I see blackmail in your future)...

Rainy days are here again. I love lying in bed listening to the sound of the rain on the roof, staying in my pajamas, drinking coffee, reading, watching movies, or catching up on DVR shows. Basically I think rainy days give people an excuse to be lazy and just relax. Oh wait. I have a 2 year old and a baby. Never mind. Scratch that. Scratch ALL OF THAT.

How did I end up being the disciplinarian?  I always figured myself for the mellow parent.  But, as it turns out, I’m the one that is usually the first to say, “Okay, that’s enough.”  Now I don’t beat my kid because it doesn’t work and I don’t believe in it, as I have mentioned before.  Some folks think that I must just let my kid run wild, and maybe, by their standards, I do.  If you come to my house you’ll see that my kid climbs on the couch.  It’s a couch.  It’s not an antique, it’s not made out of crystal, but it is fluffy and comfortable and sturdy.  Let him climb on it.

I used to be really crafty. As in arts and crafty.  I have a closet full of drawers filled with glitter, pipe cleaners, googley eyes, buttons, construction paper, markers, and yes, I own a glue gun and I know how to use it.

I learned quite a few interesting hand gestures from my parents.  Most of them aren’t fit for polite company, mind you.  I also don’t believe my parents intended to teach them.  More than likely I just picked them up with a child’s crafty ability to mimic what they see.  In later years I suppose some of those hand gestures might even be considered useful.  A man needs to know which finger to wave at another driver when he gets cut off in traffic, for example.