Avonlea Overheard, Vol. 13

We are out getting a drink, and Avonlea says, "I want a drink, too."
So I ask, "Oh really? What kind of drink do you want?"
And she says, "Umm...I will take a sweet tea. With light ice, please."

Avonlea Overheard, Vol. 12

Mom: Avonlea, do you want to go to Buffalo Wild Wings, or Applebee's?

Avonlea: I don't know what you're saying.
(Which is what I say to her when she mumbles or is using a new word J haven't deciphered yet.)

Avonlea Overheard, Vol. 11

Mom: What story do you want to read tonight, Avonlea?

(Avonlea picks up a Disney collection of stories, points to the Minnie Mouse story.)

Avonlea: The scratch story!

Mom: Oh, Avonlea. Mommy doesn't want to read that story. We read it all the time. I want to read a different one.

Avonlea: I know Mommy. But you need to be nice.

Afternoon in the Life...

I follow a really great group on Facebook called Toddler Approved. It's always chock-full of great ideas, and having done several of them, I can say that it's one of the best sites for toddler sensory/art/behavioral techniques.

I saw a great post about "Fizzle Pumpkins" that I thought Avonlea would really enjoy. We painted a couple of our pumpkins a few days ago, and she really enjoyed it, so I thought it would be fun to step it up a little.

We paint at our house at least once a week, and Avonlea really enjoys it. She's also pretty good at keeping the paint off of herself and on the paper/other surface we are working with.

At 4:45 I got the painting equipment together. I mixed the paint up while Aria played on the floor peacefully. Avonlea was excited about painting, so she was running back and forth in and out of the house. I brought Aria out and put her in the Bumbo seat, along with our metal colander and a spoon. She enjoys "making music", so I thought she would enjoy it while Avonlea and I painted.

We started painting, and right away I found out that my paint/baking soda ratio was off. It wasn't gliding onto the pumpkin like paint would normally, it was looking more like clumpy cottage cheese, and sliding off. I was frustrated, but we pressed on. Avonlea seemed to be enjoying herself, so I just let it go.

Aria took a really great nap today, but she slept early, so she was ready for another nap early. She started to get fussy only a few minutes after getting outside. She had tossed aside the spoon and was instead leaning over as far as possible and playing in the dirt (of course).

I decided to speed the process up and bring the vinegar out in a cup with a straw. Of course, Avonlea couldn't manage the technique, so I was helping. But because the ratio was off, I'm pretty sure it wasn't as spectacular as it would normally be.

During the entire time we were painting, we were being buzzed by flies. I'm not sure what it is about our house, but the flies and the ants are TERRIBLE. We have a fly trap that we have been meaning to put out, but just haven't yet, so I decided, after 10 minutes of trying to swat the flies, that I would put up the fly trap.  So I left the girls outside and went in to get the rope and fly trap.

I came back out and Avonlea had taken the paints in her playhouse. While I was hanging the fly trap onto the roof, I was trying to yell to Avonlea not to pain the inside of her house. I finally got the thing hung up (it is full of water, so I couldn't just set it down to stop Avonlea), stepped off the chair, and my knot came undone and fell to the ground, completely breaking apart and splashing stank water all over me.

At this point, I am frustrated. I look in the house, and Avonlea is disobeying and painting the inside of her house--with her fingers. I carry Aria inside and put her on the floor with some toys. I go back out and carry Avonlea inside and rinse her off and wash off my legs, which had been sprayed by fly trap stank water. I put Avonlea in time out, and gather Aria, since she was angry about being put on the floor.

After Avonlea's 2 minute time-out, I take her back outside to clean up her mess, which of course she can't clean up well, but I have to follow through on in order to be a good mom.

The whole time I am thinking, why did I even attempt this nonsense??

This happens to me SO OFTEN. I have good intentions, and then it all gets mucked up somehow. *sigh*

Avonlea Overheard, Vol. 10

Avonlea: I have something in my eye.
Allison: Oh yeah? What do you have in your eye?
Avonlea: An eyeball.

Avonlea Overheard, Vol. 9

"I do it all by my very self."

The Worst Mom in the World

There's this mom I know. She makes some of the worst parenting decisions ever. I can't even believe it sometimes. Some of the things she does--how she can think of herself as a good mom at all??

Think I'm being harsh? Here are just a few of the terrible things she has done:

* She wasn't happy when she found out she was having a baby. In fact, she cried. A lot. And not happy tears, either!
* She didn't put her baby on a schedule at all. She was up every hour or two hours all night until her baby was like, 10 months old!
* This one time, she took her baby on a flight across the country, and it screamed the ENTIRE FLIGHT. Ugh--how annoying, right?
* I hear she lets her daughter watch TV EVERY DAY. Sometimes, more than one show a day!
* She gives her daughter the BAD mac-n-cheese.
* She uses canned baby food.
* This mom lets her kid run around the park and she doesn't even watch her every second.
* She left her baby in the car one time while she ran into the gas station.
* Once, she even forgot to strap her baby into the car seat, and then took the FREEWAY HOME. *shudder* Who forgets to strap in the baby??
* Oh my gosh, she lets her kids eat off of the floor, too!
* This one time, her kids were outside in 50-degree weather, and she didn't even have coats for them. Her little baby had blue lips!
* I'm pretty sure she has "heat and serve" dinners pretty much every night of the week. Sometimes, she even goes to TACO BELL for dinner. They have Grade D beef there!
* There have been several times she has said that she doesn't like her kids. Did you hear that? She doesn't like her OWN KIDS sometimes!
* Her daughter will ask, "Mommy, will you play with me?" and she doesn't always say yes. Sometimes, she gets frustrated by the question.
* She has spanked her daughter. In anger!
* Most of the time she looks like a hot mess. She went so long without doing her hair it just stayed put when she took her ponytail holder out.
* She leaves her daughter screaming in the childcare while she works out for an hour.
* Her daughter is 2.5 and STILL not potty trained. And she doesn't even care!
* She says that her favorite time of day is when both her girls are asleep.
* She has non-organic food in the house. And I know she cheats on her diet!
* She let the baby sleep in the bed with her and her husband.
* The baby doesn't have any idea how to put herself to sleep--she has to be rocked to sleep, even at 8 months old!
* She plays music in the car that has bad words and/or bad messages in them.
* Sometimes, she puts her older kid to bed just because she doesn't want to hear her voice anymore.

I mean, seriously. This mom has got a lock on the Bad Mom title. Look at that huge list! And I know there's more. Thank goodness I'm a better mom than her.

Only I'm not. Because, if you might have guessed, the mom "deserving of the Bad Mom title" is ME. I have done all those things above, and countless others. I'm firmly on the "don't" side of the "do's and don't's of parenting" sign.

I fail all the time. All. The. Time. Sometimes, it's an unconscious fail, but often, it's a fully-realized, I-know-this-isn't-the-best-thing kind of fail.

The one that kills me the most is near the end of the list. Lately, Avonlea (who is a very independent girl, and happy to play solo) has been asking "Mommy, will you play with me?" nearly 35 times a day. And every single time she asks me it feels like it is one of those Important Moments. Do I really want to be the mom that says "no" when my 2-year old asks me to play with her?  Of course not.

But...

What if it's the 30th time she's asked you, and you have been playing with her for the last hour, and the load of laundry needs to be switched out? Or the ants are invading the kitchen (again) because the dirty dishes from last night are still on the counter? Or you really need to take a shower? Or, for just this next 20 minutes, you just don't want to? You just want to sit and veg on the couch with a book or a project or an email or a blog post (or yes, Instagram), and have her play by herself.  WHY do I feel like if I choose "me" over "her" once or twice or three times a day (or some days more, if I'm honest), that she's going to end up in therapy because "I remember asking my mom to play with me and she chose to be on her phone instead."

That list above *is* me. I'm going to own it. I screw up. I make mistakes. But I'm also an awesome mom. I have to remind myself a lot, because I screw up a lot. I have to try to not be an awesome* mom, with the asterisk pointing to a footnote that says, "*sometimes."

* I'm REALLY good with reading. We can read the same book 5 times in a row, and I don't get tired of it.
* I'm also good at making up stories on the fly. Today it was about a little girl who wished for adventure and so a magic butterfly came and granted her one wish and turned her house into a rocketship that went to the moon.
* We do amazing karaoke together. And I know every Disney song and I have excellent melody/harmony skills, so we never go off key, and we never start too high or too low. We always have music with us wherever we go, and we love to sing together.
* I am excellent at documenting. Pictures, notes, blogs, baby books--mine are all updated and beautiful. Yes, Aria, too.
* We explore new places together. We have zoo passes and go as often as we can when it's not 8000 degrees. We have been to all the Children's museums in the area and plan to visit a couple more I just heard about. We go to local parks and playgrounds together. We have gone to baseball games and soccer games and theater shows and concerts. We have gone to the pool and to the beach. We have been to Hollywood and to Philadelphia.
* I'm not great, but I'm getting better at making whole food for the kids. I'm reading labels and making better choices.
* I'm conscious about making sure my girls see me interacting with their Daddy in a positive way, and see me interacting with friends and neighbors in a polite way. I want them also to see me taking care of my body, which is why I take them to the gym 3x a week (even when Aria is losing her mind).
* I can ALWAYS make the girls laugh. And unless it's an unusual circumstance, I can always calm them down from a tantrum.
* Avonlea loves green beans and peas and carrots and celery. She loves natural peanut butter and greek yogurt. She loves turkey and ham. I'm trying to have her be as well-rounded as possible so that she makes healthy choices for herself someday.

I guess more than anything, though, is that I try. I WANT to do well. I want to be a good mom, to have my girls turn out mostly okay. I can't do it all on my own, and it certainly isn't easy when the mom guilt kicks in. But I'm trying.

Edited to add: After I published this, an article popped up in my newsfeed from Scary Mommy, and I realized that this sounds very similar to that article. I will link to it here, and say that I did read that article such a long time ago, and its format must have stuck with me. So I guess I was inspired by it, be it extremely unconsciously!

Avonlea Overheard, Vol. 8

Nick was bathing Avonlea, and let a particularly stinky fart. After a minute:

Avonlea: Aaw, Daddy poop in your pants?

Avonlea Overheard, Vol. 7

I gave Avonlea a larger spoon of peanut butter to supplement a dinner the other night. Nick commented on it at the table while Avonlea listened on.

Nick: that is a really big spoonful. She is little.
Avonlea: No, I'm big! And strong!

Giggling in the Rearview...

****

I'm going to not try to pretend I'm good at keeping up with blogging anymore. I'm still good with pictures. But blogging, not so much. Every once in a while I'll be struck by something, and so I'll attempt to get it out "on paper", but then the baby will wake and start crying, or I'll feel just guilty enough to do the dishes, or I'll just be so tired I need to go to sleep, and the writing will get postponed until I forget about it.

Aah, well. It's a season.

****

I grew up just down the street from one of my best friends. We grew up in church together, and ended up living across the street and 5 houses down from each other through middle and high school. We would spend an afternoon together, and then spend an hour or more "walking each other home" back and forth, back and forth between our homes.

I don't remember a lot of specifics of our conversations. I'm sure a lot of it revolved around our completely innocent crushes, church, school, friends, and other things, but a lot of our conversations were full of silliness. We grew up in Midwestern, middle-class comfort, with not a lot of baggage or trouble. We had very little knowledge of scandal or drama; most of our struggles were how to get our hair sprayed just the right way, or how to peg our jeans (and I NEVER got those things right, anyway). We spent the majority of time making up silly stories or laughing over games of M.A.S.H.Y. We had a very elaborate ongoing story that kept getting continued by the phrase, "and that was the beginning of pig snorting!" We had a habit of reading all street and business signs backwards, cracking up at trying to pronounce azziP tuH over and over again.

Ingrained in my memory is the sound of my friend's laughter, something I always recall when I think of her. It's an incredibly happy memory.

As with many aspects of the middle schoolers' existence, I recall sharing a lot of these laughing fits while in the presence of my parents. They would drive us to the mall, or to Kings Island amusement park, or to church and back again, all while we cackled and giggled and told completely nonsensical stories in the car. They would watch us in bemused wonderment, and probably ask us more than once, "What in the world are you girls talking about?" to which we would crack up again.

I read a story tonight about a local 12-year old who was talked off of a bridge by a police officer. Without going into too much about the story (because oh. my. God. It breaks my heart into a million pieces.--you can read about it here), it just made me reflect on what I was like as a 12-year old--and I was instantly taken back to those times with my friend, laughing and cackling in the back of my parent's station wagon. I have zero instances of moments where I wanted to take my life. None. And this is coming from someone who had a pretty terrible middle school experience. There were definitely days I never wanted to go back to school. I wanted to transfer. I wanted to melt into the pavement and never see certain people ever again. But end my life? Not once. It would never have even entered my mind.

The life of my 12-year old existence and the life of the 12-year old in the news seem so diametrically opposed to each other. So much so that it actually makes me worry.

Is this what I have to prepare myself for? I am raising two girls. In Los Angeles. In the social media-driven, celebrity-obsessed culture for which I am immersed but also well-prepared for. HOW IN THE WORLD am I supposed to get my girls ready to handle it while they're also up to their necks surrounded by it?

I picture myself now, not as the kid laughing with her friend in the backseat. That careless abandon and whimsy seems almost weird now that I'm immersed in "adult land", full of bills and responsibilities and mothering. I now picture myself as the parent, and it is a much more wistful scenario. I now see myself as my mom probably saw me--hearing laughter, looking in my rear-view mirror. And where she saw my friend and I, I *hope* that I get to see my girls laughing together with their girlfriends in the backseat. That they're laughing over silly stories and songs, and not laughing at others' expense. On a more basic level, that they're *laughing* together, and not crying over boys or their bodies or (God forbid) their existence.

God, I need your help in raising my girls! Help me to protect their innocence to the world while also preparing them for the reality of it. Help me to instill in them a love of laughter and friendship and staying young. Help me to be an example to them of silliness and loud songs and climbing and dancing wildly. Lead them to friends like I had: friends that smile and laugh and joke and act their age. Give me grace to make mistakes and not feel too guilty about "screwing them up totally." Bestow upon them courage to make mistakes and live boldly and serve humbly and make this world better than it was when they came into it.

It's gonna be a wild and crazy ride. I hope to see them giggling in the rearview.

Avonlea Overheard, Vol. 6

Avonlea has stayed with a friend and her 3 kids while I play early softball games.  This last week, as we were leaving, she says,  "Mom, that was such a good time."

Bait and Switch

Sadly, this post has been a few weeks coming. I wish things would show signs of changing course, but it doesn't appear to be headed anywhere else.

Aria pulled a bait and switch on me. 

She spent the first three months of her life sleeping peacefully anywhere and everywhere she had the chance. She slept so much I actually thought something might be wrong with her. But no, she was just an amazing sleeper.

She hit three months, and the sleeping overnight started to get messed up. She started to have swaddle problems.

She hit four months, and she went down to three naps a day, and decided that she wanted to sleep on her side (but couldn't stay in that position on her own).

She hit five months, and decided she no longer wanted to sleep in her own bed, but in ours.

Now at five and a half months, she decides that going to sleep is going to be a battle every. Single. Time. Not only that, but she sleeps so fitfully that she wakes herself up constantly.

I thought I had a baby that was going to be amazing at sleep!  Nope. Bait and switch.

She still needs a lot of sleep. She is REALLY cranky when she gets tired.  But she will no longer go down easily. It takes me feeding her laying down, plus staying with her holding the pacifier in her mouth for her to sleep. And then, she will still sometimes wake up every 45 minutes (even though she isn't ready to wake up) and I will have to come back in and roll her onto her side and stick the pacifier back in because she can't soothe herself.

Avonlea was awful for the first several months, but at least I could put her in her own bed and she would get herself to sleep relatively easy. She would scoot and travel around the bed, but never really wake up. Once she woke up, she was actually ready to wake up. Aria is NOT this way. She needs constant coaxing to get to sleep, and then if she rolls over at all she wakes up angry and needs more coddling to get back to sleep.

I know you're not supposed to compare your kids to each other, but it's hard not to in this case, when one is doing so terribly, and you have fond memories of the other.

Someone told me that it is really helpful to do your best to get your kids napping at the same time. And thankfully, this actually works really well for us. Aria usually goes down for a second nap at noon, I fix Avonlea's lunch and she goes down between 12:30 and 1. Aria sleeps for about 3 hours, Avonlea is down for 3 or 4 hours.

The problem is that Aria has no idea how to soothe herself--because I am constantly trying to keep her from crying out during naptime because Avonlea is sleeping, too! Since Avonlea takes such a long nap, you can imagine how ROTTEN she is if she doesn't get a nap. Aria cries and wakes Avonlea up, so I am doing whatever I can to make sure that doesn't happen. I kind of wonder if all second babies are like this--terrible at self-soothing because moms don't want them to cry and wake up the older kid.

I would like to do a little bit of cry it out, but there just isn't a good time to do it. We are in a 2-bedroom house, and the bedrooms are so close together. I wish there was an upstairs, or some separation between the rooms or something so I could work more with sleep training Aria without messing up Avonlea.

*sigh*

Quick Post

I haven't written in a while. When wrangling a 2 year old and a 5 month old, my down time becomes do-as-much-as-I-can time, or more recently, do-as-little-as-possible time.

Aria is 5.5 months old now. Craziness! I don't know if it's because she's the 2nd, or if I'm just slower this time around, but I really feel like she's such a baby still. And then she'll go and do something that reminds me that she isn't a baby, she's growing up and learning and doing new things all the time. I mean, I can't get it in my head that she can start trying solid foods soon. Like, what?? I'm ready for that, but also so not.

She's firmly planted in our bed now. I haven't tried her in the pack-and-play for almost a week. Why? She just squirms and cries all night if I do, and I would like some SLEEP, thankyouverymuch.  I'm hoping it's a temporary arrangement. Nick and I have talked about getting the mattress for the crib we got off Craigslist to see if she'll sleep in it any better than she sleeps in our bed. It isn't too big of a deal right now, but she is getting bigger, and her feet are in the middle of my back all night long, which is a drag. I NEVER thought I would co-sleep, but these days, I do what I've gotta do to get some sleep. When she was in her pack-and-play, she was squirming and whining every 20-30 minutes. Ain't nobody got time for that nonsense!

Avonlea is awesome. She's funny and smart, and playful and expressive. She's mimicking everything we say, which makes us have to be a little more careful--not that we say too many bad phrases or anything, but when a toddler says "Aaaw, shoot!" sometimes it doesn't really sound the same, and we get strange looks in the store.

Sunni and I took the girls to the beach a few weeks ago. Aria loved laying on a blanket in the sand. Avonlea wasn't a big fan of the sand or the ocean, but she got used to it after a half hour or so, and spent the rest of the day building things in the sand with Sunni.

I'm so glad I get to spend every day with these beauties. I didn't do anything to deserve them, but I'll keep them.

Avonlea Overheard, Vol. 5

A friend of mine was walking in the house, making gestures like he was going to tickle Avonlea. She stood up as tall as she could, held out her hand, and said "Sop it."

Friend: "Avonlea, what is your Daddy's name?"
Avonlea: "Daddy."
Friend: "Avonlea, what is your Mommy's name?"
Avonlea: {pronouncing phonetically} "Ahleeson."

Swimming!

Avonlea Overheard, Vol. 4

Favorite toddler phrases:

When she wants you to stop: "Sop it."

When she wants you to pick her up: "Hold you?"

When she wants a hug: "Give you hug more?"

When she wants something and I ask her to ask politely: "Say please?"

If we go to Panda Express, or have pasta for dinner, she'll announce with joy, "Panda time!" or "Pasta time!"

Avonlea Overheard, Vol. 3

Avonlea is holding a mini magna doodle, walking around the house saying, "A...V...O...N...L...E...A...Avonlea!"

Avonlea Overheard, Vol. 2

Yesterday, in the car.

We see a stalled vehicle on the side of the highway, and a tow truck is there with flashing lights on.
Avonlea: Siren, mommy!
Me: A siren? Oh, no that it a tow truck.
Avonlea: (trying the words out) Tow truck?
Me: Yes. It is there to help that car that has stopped running. It will use a special cable to pick up the car and take it to get fixed.
Avonlea: *silence*
(A couple of minutes later)
Avonlea: Like Mater!
Me: What? Where do you see Mater? (It had been so long, I had forgotten what we had talked about. It took me a minute to figure out what she was talking about.)  Oh! Yes, the tow truck was like Mater. Mater is a tow truck, too!
Avonlea: Tow truck like Mater!  Oh, how cute!

Clappity Claps

Avonlea has taken to clapping whenever she is super happy about something, or when she is really excited about something.

It's adorable.

Avonlea Overheard, Vol. 1

"Watt Mitty Moww? O tay."
(Watch Mickey Mouse? Okay.--she doesn't even wait for us to say yes.)