Thanks, kid.

Elizabeth is watching television.

E: Mom?! You have diabetes, right?!
S: What? No, I don't. Why?
E: Awwww. If you did, we could get these free cookbooks.

On a related note - Sprout, why are you showing commercials for free diabetes cookbooks?

Wrong Line of Work (This Week, At Least)

This past week tried to kill me. I think it was because of the long Thanksgiving weekend combined with our first snowfall resulting in accumulation. The kids were really keyed up, I was still tired from all of our Thanksgiving adventures, Jake refused to nap three days out of five, and when you throw several hours of girl scout leader training in there - not to mention an emergency trip to Target for snow boots for Elizabeth - I just didn't rise to the occasion. I yelled too much, I retreated into the computer too much, and I wasn't patient enough. Mom guilt, I have it.

Next week will be better. They deserve better. Even when I want to feed them to the bears.

It's Not About the Shirt

People like to tell me who my kids are like, usually in reference to other family members. Interestingly, it's very rarely me that they compare them to, but I think that's because the traits they're talking about tend to be superficial. Dig a little deeper; these babies are exactly like me.

On Monday morning, Elizabeth got dressed for school in one of her current favorite outfits - a fuschia patterned playdress and heather gray leggings. It was nearly time to leave for the bus stop when she sat up from what she was doing, a panicked look on her face, and said "I don't want to wear this, I want my purple shirt with the ruffles!"

I feel the need to preface this by saying that Elizabeth takes forever to get dressed and tends to screw around while doing so.

"Honey, it's almost time to go. You can wear the purple shirt tomorrow."
*lip quiver* "But I waaaaant my shirt!"
"Elizabeth, unless you have a really good reason for changing you clothes, please just keep that outfit on. Do you have a good reason?"
"I WANT MY SHIRT!"
"That's not a good reason, I'm sorry. And now you're screaming at me, so I really can't let you have it anyway."

Cue gigantic tantrum that lasted so long, I had to drive her to the bus stop when it was over, negating the whole "we are leaving in a few minutes and there's no time" thing which made me not let her change her clothes in the first place. And the whole time, she couldn't tell me why she wanted that damn shirt. "I JUST WAAAAANT IT" was the most I could get out of her, even though the look on her face told me that it was something more and she just couldn't tell me for whatever reason.

Flashback to approximately 1985. It was a Saturday, I was six years old, and I was supposed to spend the night at my grandparents' house. We'd spent the day together, if I recall correctly, driving around looking at houses - and when we got back to my parents' house, I was expected to grab my overnight bag and get right back in the car for the 45 minute drive to my grandparents' house.

Cue gigantic incoherent tantrum.

I remember that tantrum because 1) I didn't actually throw THAT many enormous tantrums, 2) I felt bad the whole time I was doing it because I was afraid I was hurting my grandparents' feelings (I was), and 3) I just couldn't explain why I didn't want to leave the house again. I KNEW why I didn't - I'd just been in the car all day, I wanted to play with my toys, and any other number of very simple, reasonable explanations - but I couldn't verbalize it.

That's how I imagine Monday morning felt for Elizabeth, minus the guilt about making people feel bad. But now, on the parental side of things, I was in the unfortunate position of not being able to give into her (admittedly small) request, because she'd launched into a tantrum when I didn't immediately comply.

Parenting is hard, man.

So there's one of many stories about why my kid, who everyone likes to compare to everyone but me, is like me. More importantly though, she's like HER. She's not Dan's clone, she's not the second coming of my brother, she's not my grandmother revisited, she's not even me at heart. She may be all of those things in isolated moments in time, but more often than not, she's none of them.

Elizabeth is like Elizabeth, and that's all that really matters.

Happy Halloween from My Little Monsters

Elizabeth is a turtle, and Jacob is Thomas the Tank Engine. Told you he was totally ensnared by the Thomas marketing machine.

Now to steal all the peanut butter cups.

The Mighty Ladybugs

Elizabeth is currently in the midst of her first experience playing a team sport - community soccer. Her team is called the Ladybugs, and it is made up of kindergarten girls from four nearby elementary schools. They are all sweet, adorable little things and they get along very well. They are also all clearly pumped to play, and they have great team spirit. One of her team mates, upon finding out that their team was called the Ladybugs, immediately asked "What do Ladybugs destroy??"

Well, as it turns out... nothing.

These sweet, earnest little girls have played four games. In four games, they have scored one goal. In four games, they have had about thirty goals scored against them. It is truly heartbreaking to watch.

For the parents, that is. The girls mostly want to know what they're having for snack at the end of the game. And no matter what is going on on the field, their team mates are usually sitting on the sidelines chanting "LAY-DEE-BUGS! LAY-DEE-BUGS!" - seemingly without knowing that they are being utterly pummeled by the other team of adorable five year old girls.

Elizabeth, unsurprisingly, is not a very aggressive soccer player. She gets distracted a lot, and she doesn't run very fast. But she's always happy to get out on the field, and she usually remembers which direction she is supposed to kick the ball in - and at five, I think that's good enough for now. Most of her team is very similar. Her coach has a good attitude and so do the rest of the parents - the parents with our team, that is.

Gotta say though, I'm a little appalled by the behavior of some of the other parents on other teams. Too loud, too negative. Not in the spirit of everyone playing and having a good time. It's too bad, really. And it kind of turns your stomach at the end of a game to see kids jumping up and down screaming "WE WON! WE WON!" when your tired group of little girls would have been happy with even just one goal.

...You'll just have to forget I said that last part when the Ladybugs score another goal though, because I'm pretty sure all the parents will be jumping up and down celebrating. I bet if it was allowed, we'd bust out some champagne, too!

He's Two, What's Your Excuse?

Jacob and I made an excursion to the local toy store today. He wanted to play with the train table; I wanted to get started on ideas for Christmas - win-win. We go to this toy store often. They know us pretty well, and it's the kind of place where there are toys out for the kids to play with, and the atmosphere is very friendly.

Usually.

Today we shared our toy store experience with a wobbly old lady and a child who appeared to be her five year old great-great-great granddaughter (I may be exaggerating a little.) In his enthusiasm while getting from the train table to the toy work bench, Jacob accidentally bumped into the wobbly old lady. I apologized, she sniffed at me, and I decided to stay closer to Jacob than I might have otherwise, just to make sure he didn't bother her again.

Jacob played happily for several minutes. I made notes in my notebook about things I want to purchase for Christmas, and put in an order for a specific Playmobil set that I know Elizabeth is dying to have. I gave Jacob a five minute warning before I planned to leave. In the background, I heard the wobbly old lady give one of the clerks a bit of a hard time because they didn't have a toy doctor kit for sale - just dress up doctor clothes. Once I'd finished making my lists, I told Jacob it was time to go home for lunch.

Cue tantrum.

Jacob, understandably, does not like leaving the toy store. Frankly, neither do I. I'm thirty two and I still want to buy about 90% of what's for sale there. He ran away from me backwards, but I managed to catch him when he was distracted by the shiny rocks in the "pick your own bag of shiny rocks" display. As I hauled my screaming demon out of the store, he flailed, and landed a solid hit right to my face, nearly knocking my glasses off.

Wobbly old lady gasps in horror, and makes The Face.

You know what face I'm talking about. The Face that tells you that the person wearing it is thinking "Good god, woman - get control of your child. If you could call that shrieking hellbeast a child. You are the Worst Parent in the World."

I put my glasses back on, smiled pleasantly at her, and dragged my toddler out of the toy store. She never said a word to me, but The Face stays with you. Amazing how perfect strangers can really make you feel terrible about yourself. My initial inclination was to be embarrassed. I still kind of am.

But I'm also kind of angry. Lady, he is two. It was lunch time. I didn't roll over and bribe him with candy or a toy to get him out of the store. I took my lumps (literally) and hauled his little butt out of there. And you're still going to look at me like I'm everything that's wrong with modern parenting? Screw that.

There's some old advice about how we should always be gentle to each other, because everyone around us is fighting some sort of battle in their lives. Not only do I wholeheartedly agree in general, I think it's especially true for parents. I hope I am never so far removed from my parenting experiences that I can't step back for a second and have some sympathy for someone wrestling with a cranky toddler instead of putting on my judgey pants. You never know what trials someone else is living. And I'll be thankful that the only trial today (so far) has been a crabby two year old.

The Worst Thing About Adulthood

I was the child who wanted to Believe.

I believed in everything, ever so much longer than my peers. I believed in Santa Claus. I believed in unicorns, and dragons. I believed in Never Land. I believed in fairies. I believed in wishing on stars, in throwing pennies in fountains, in four leaf clovers. I believed in magic in every form.

In my adolescence, I believed in things like psychic powers and phenomena, in ghosts and afterlives. I read about indigo children and astrology and burned candles, imagining I could control the flames. I believed in all sorts of new age hippie crystal crap. My father even humored me once on a family vacation and took me on a tour of the vortexes in Sedona. I sat in them trying to feel the energy, scratching my name into the stone and leaving piles of pebbles in what I thought were meaningful arrangements. To his credit, he never made fun of me once (at least not to my face.)

When I started college, I believed I was a good student and that someday, I was going to be the best in the world at SOMETHING. I didn't know what yet, but I was going to get a Ph.D. and everyone was going to know my name. It took exactly one semester for me to realize, perhaps for the first time in my life, that it wasn't going to happen. I was not a notable student. My mediocre work ethic that had gotten me decent grades in high school earned me nothing but mediocre grades in college. Worse, when I realized that I needed to work harder - and did, harder than I ever had before - my results were still mediocre. I was never going to do well in college level math, and therefore I was never going to do well in college level science. When I turned my attention to literature, I discovered that literary theory made me want to throw myself off the campus bell tower. I settled for anthropology, which made me feel like I could do science but didn't actually require me to know any "hard" science like chemistry or physics. I thought I could make something of myself in animal behavior research, but my luck ran out when my primatology professor went on sabbatical during my junior and senior years, and I failed to impress the other animal behavior prof on campus (and honestly, his work with ground squirrels failed to impress me, too.)

There was a moment shortly before I finished my bachelor's degree when I was walking down North University Avenue in late fall, headed towards the museum. I don't know what it was about that day, or that moment, but as I passed the League and the Dental School and saw the museum building in front of me, imposing and impressive, it dawned on me. I was not going to get a Ph.D. I was not going to be the best at anything, in any field. The most I could hope for was being the best at my new job that they'd ever seen... and honestly, the woman in the position before me had set the bar pretty damn low.

For awhile, I had some delusions that I could be a major player in informal education. Then I attended some conferences, met a lot of people, and realized that there are two kinds of museum educators - the people in charge, and the people who actually do the work. My career is an excellent illustration of this. I could never get past being one of the people who actually does the work, and I wasn't even sure I wanted to - even if it gets other people fancy titles and fatter paychecks and gets me... here.

The older I get, the more I realize that there is pretty much nothing about me that's special or unique. I am never going to be notable for pretty much anything. And for a kid who wanted desperately to believe in something, ANYTHING, that would set her apart from the rest of the mundane... that's a pretty hard pill to swallow.

I thought being a parent would give me a chance to believe in something bigger than me again. And in a lot of ways, it has. But in so many others, it has brought every single one of my failures into sharp relief and provided endless reminders that I am not only nothing but average - sometimes I am barely adequate. Monetarily, I can barely provide my kids with a fraction of what I had in childhood. I realize this is situational and that a lot of my generation is stuck in the same boat because of what the world is like right now, but knowing that doesn't ease my anguish over it.

And to add insult to injury - on top of ALL THIS - I appear to be raising a skeptic. "But is it REAL???" is one of the most common questions Elizabeth asks. At five, I don't think I EVER would have questioned the reality of something I wanted to believe in - I just believed. She wants answers, and she wants them in detail. For the first time in perhaps my entire life, I am dreading Christmas. I am so afraid she is going to ask how Santa will get into our house when we don't have a chimney or a fireplace. On the one hand, there are plenty of acceptable explanations for this that won't necessarily hamper her ability to believe. But on the other... I'm 32 years old and my babies don't have a fireplace. Will my seemingly unrelated mundane failures somehow cost her the magic of belief? I don't know.

I still want to believe. It's just so much harder and more heartbreaking than it used to be.

Naptime is the New Happy Hour

I am starting to embrace the fact that I do most of my writing and reading when Jacob is napping (or supposed to be napping.) In my head, this is not the most effective use of those blissful few hours in the early afternoon when he is out of commission. For example, here are some things that I have recently told myself I would accomplish during nap time:

• Sorting old clothes to donate to Purple Heart
• Replacing the summer clothes with the fall/winter ones
• Dust. Dust. Dust.
• Laundry. Laundry. Laundry.
• Reorganizing the book/DVD/video game shelves
• Sorting toys
• Cleaning out any number of closets (why does this tiny condo have so many closets?!)

Guess how many of those things I've done during nap time? If you guessed zero - well, you'd be wrong because I actually did get together a Purple Heart donation during nap time last week. BUT. Most of it? Not at all. The best part is how I can justify it all. Dusting and laundry? Great chores to do while the kids are actually up and around because it's so easy to work around them. Switching out clothes? I'll wake him up if I'm in and out of the bedroom doing that. Sorting toys and cleaning out shelves and closets? Either too loud or too big a job to get done in two hours - and Dan would kill me if I had all the disc media strewn all over the house while either of the kids was around to get into it.

So I write instead, because if I don't, I can actually FEEL my brain atrophy. And hello, my Farmville crops aren't going to harvest themselves, you know.

Just kidding.

...Not really.

An Oldie But Goodie

The beginning of fall will forever remind me of a hilarious exchange that took place between Dan and Elizabeth when she was about three years old and we were walking up toward the day care center to drop the kids off for the day. Everything was decorated with pumpkins and cornstalks and other "fall" things...

Elizabeth: Lookit all the PUMPKINS, MAMA! DADDY, LOOKIT THE PUMPKINS!
Dan: They're pretty cool, aren't they?
Elizabeth: YES!
Dan: And on Halloween, they'll hatch!
Elizabeth: *saucer eyes*

...Sarah: *headdesk*

How to Get a Free Full Body Massage

1. Make sure your children have plenty of toy trains and trucks readily available.
2. Ask them if they want to play "Mountain."
3. Lay on the floor on your stomach.
4. Tell them you are the mountain.
5. Specify that only toy vehicles are allowed on the mountain, NO ACTUAL CHILDREN.
6. Enjoy being horizontal until they start fighting over who gets to be Lightning McQueen.

This Post is About Poop. And Why I'm a Nice Wife.

Not even ten posts in and I'm already talking about poop. We'll get to the nice wife part later. I told you this was just another mommy blog.

So, Jacob wears cloth diapers most of the time. Elizabeth did too before she potty trained. I'd love to tell you that it's because I'm just that green, but really, it's because Dan is just that green. He's even a member of some order of green engineers that strive to use their powers for good protect the planet's resources in their work or something like that. I signed on because cloth diapers are cute. Oh hey, guess who does the diaper laundry! Hint: It's not me.

Over five years of cloth diapering in this house has made us both experts, albeit in different aspects of this undertaking. Dan is an expert in how to juggle the laundry. I am an expert in where to find the cutest diapers.

Invariably, when people find out that we use cloth, one of the standard responses is "But what about the POOP?" Yes, what about the poop? Not gonna lie, it's kind of gross. You're supposed to dump it into the toilet before throwing the diapers in the wash, but have you ever SEEN baby poop? It's not really something you can dump (no pun intended.) It's more of a "scraping" thing. Yeah, sorry for that imagery. Anyway.

Because we never really found a good cloth night time solution, Jacob wears a disposable diaper at night - we go through one pack of disposables every couple weeks or so. There are always a few in the house for that reason. Being home with Jacob all the time has me much more in tune with his rhythms, if you know what I mean. It occurred to me a couple weeks ago - I know about when he poops every day. What if I put a disposable diaper on him right before that? NO MORE SCRAPING! Or at least, a lot less scraping. And far fewer ripe poopy diapers in the diaper pail waiting for Dan every night!

And that's how we started going through two disposable diapers every day instead of just one. My environmentally conscious husband is totally okay with this, because he figures we're still doing better than if we were using all disposables all the time. And hello, the laundry is way less toxic.

Told you I was a nice wife. ;)

The Sad Story of Henry, or A Cautionary Tale About Children's Books

Okay, so anyone with a kid under the age of ten knows who Thomas the Tank Engine is. Thomas' marketing machine is vast and all-encompassing; if you have a toddler or preschooler you have almost certainly been ensnared by it in one way or another. And it's not limited to boys, let me tell you. When Elizabeth was two, she was really into the wooden trains at her daycare center, so she asked Santa to bring her some trains. Santa happily complied, and a wooden figure eight track with an engine and other fun stuff appeared under the tree. However, because Santa didn't see a reason at the time to spend nearly triple the amount on the Thomas brand set, Elizabeth's Christmas trains were plain old trains.

The first thing she said when she saw her lovely train set?
"HEY! WHERE'S THE FACE?"

Anyway.

Thomas has been a permanent fixture in our home for the last few years, and we're only getting deeper in, now that Jacob is two and also loves trains. On our weekly jaunts to the library, he always wants to check out a Thomas story book or a Thomas DVD. Last week when we went, the ENORMOUS BOOK OF EVERY THOMAS STORY EVER was actually available, so we checked it out, and it has been a hit at bedtime ever since. Until we read about poor Henry.

Henry, a shiny green train, doesn't like the rain. He's afraid it will mess up his lovely green paint, and so he decides to hide in a tunnel where he won't get wet. Everyone tries to get Henry out of the tunnel. Nobody is successful.

SO THEY WALL HIM INTO THE TUNNEL AND LEAVE HIM FOR DEAD.

NO. SERIOUSLY.

And this is how the story ends:

"But I think he deserved it, don't you?"

WHAT.

Dan and I looked at each other in HORROR upon finishing this story in the book and basically could hardly believe what we'd just read aloud to our children. The kids looked at us, a little bewildered, because surely that couldn't be the end, could it?

And then Dan and I couldn't stop laughing because it sounds EXACTLY like the kind of ending we would have sarcastically made up for the story, resulting in both children giggling and shrieking "NO THAT'S NOT HOW IT GOES." Then we'd read it the right way and everyone would have a good laugh. BUT NO. Henry gets walled into a tunnel and he DESERVES IT. Poor bastard.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should tell you that in the following story, Henry redeems himself and they let him out of his Poe-like predicament. BUT STILL.

It's all downhill from here, man. Premature burial at the ripe old ages of five and two? I might as well just bust out "A Modest Proposal" and read that to them tonight.

I Miss Sick Days

When you work full time outside the home - or at least, when I worked full time outside the home - getting sick was a nuisance, but at least I had sick days. Daycare would still happily take my little monsters, and I could stay home, blissfully alone, and nurse myself back to health. Nursing myself back to health often meant sleeping most of the day and watching as many Maury paternity episodes as I could find. Not so anymore.

Since leaving my job last spring, I've been sick three times - twice with strep throat, and this latest bout of illness is either a fall cold or really severe fall allergies (or maybe a little of both.) The strep episodes were particularly awful, because Elizabeth hadn't started school yet so I had both kids home with my sick self, and it was SUMMER and shouldn't we be DOING EVERYTHING ALL DAY LONG IN THE SUMMER, MAMA?!?! I could barely swallow, let alone get my butt off the couch, and she wanted to know why we weren't going to the pool. Sit DOWN, child.

It's easier to be sick with just Jacob at home, but I still have to drag myself to and from the bus stop (and today, soccer practice.) My television options are generally more along the lines of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse instead of Maury, but at least Jacob still takes a nap... even if he did drink half of my peach-banana-orange smoothie, the little sneak.

Clean Up the Duplo and You Can Watch Disney Junior

Most of the time, it's just me and my son these days. We walk my daughter to the bus stop at 8am every morning - about a mile round trip - and then it's the two of us until it's time to pick her up around 4pm.

Jacob is my easy going child. He is shockingly compliant for a two year old, and while he certainly has his moments, I really can't complain that much.

This morning the kids left Duplo strewn all over the living room floor, and we didn't have time to clean it up before our walk to the bus stop. When we got home, I told Jacob that I would let him watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse if he picked up the Duplo. It went something like this:

S: Pick up all the Legos and then you can watch Mickey Mouse!
J: Otay!
*Jacob proceeds to pick up about half the blocks, and then stops*
J: You help me?
S: *sigh* ...Okay.

Then I got down on the floor and started picking up Duplo. Jacob immediately stops and climbs up on the couch.

S: Hey! Where are you going?
J: I sit on the couch, watch Mickey Mouse.
S: You have to finish picking up the Legos first.
J: *sigh* ...Otay.

Then he got down and picked up the rest with me, and I turned on Disney Junior and made this post.

Seriously, this is not normal two year old behavior. Where was the tantrum? Where was the sass? I think my daughter has scarred me for life in this regard.

See, I told you this was just another mommy blog. At least we're going to the farmers market later?

Oh, hi.

So apparently, there is a whole sea of "mommy blogs" out there. I guess this is probably destined to be yet another one.

My kids are cuter than those other ones though, so you should read anyway.