Parenting
We had such a blessed family vacation! Almost two weeks of cousin bliss. Our siblings came from south & east coasts and with their kiddos, the house was burgeoning with cries of joy and despair. Oh you know those sounds. “It’s MINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” “You HAVE to share with me!!!!!!!!!!!!!” “No, NO, NOO!!!!!!” Punctuated by SuperBoy’s newly minted fresh attitude (I’m 4 going on 14) and SweetPea’s strident possessiveness of all things that she may have seen, or touched, in her lifetime, the little cousins were so sweetly abominable to each other. My saintly nieces, 3 and 7 months, were snatched from, screamed at, tormented, and stepped on. They valiantly tried to give as good as they got, though the little 7 month old just looked perplexed as did our adorable Godson and nephew, 12 months. Those two, and BabyLoves, were out of the running for loudest child ever. My fav? When V, 3, would fancy a toy, and then SuperBoy & SweetPea would literally chase her into the ground to get it back. It was like she was the huntee and they the hunters–painful, painful to watch. Yet we did, we moms. We sat back with the bambinos nursing and pretended we couldn’t hear most of it. They were learning to share with some intervention, mostly narration, and a few time outs. It’s never long enough, we never can get enough time or conversation in, and I loved every single minute our time at the Lodge, the hanging around the house,…
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Just don’t. But let me back up and tell you about our epic morning first. We were up & at ’em bright and early with SuperBoy coming in before he’s supposed to (7am) at a lovely 6:40. I had just packed AA out the door with lunch, bfast, and a snack, scarfed down a bowl of cereal, Mom’s Best, the fake golden grahams? Yup. SuperBoy wanted to attack BabyLoves with his overpowering love for him. Lots of Here’s the Twins’ yearbook from two years ago. Let’s talk about each player. I love you SO much. You can play baseball just like me, if you want to . . . . Cue SweetPea and her stinky godzilla poopy night diaper. The girl’s been potty trained for 4 months but still opts to poop at naps & nighttime in her cloth diaper. Mama!!! I MADE A POOPIE!!!!! The morning starts off on rocky prickly ground as the big kids argue over who is going to touch and talk to the baby. There may be pushing and indignation. She always wins the screaming contests. I convince them to be nice to each other with the promise that their favorite family friend, Mr. J, who is a recent high school grad and doing small projects for us around the yard & house, will be here soon. Sunscreen on. Bug spray on. Kids in the queue for the toilet. {{What? Your kids are still getting bug bites? Aren’t you using Molly’s bug spray? It keeps even…
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Not that I’ve ever done this: mombard someone? Are you guilty of it? You read every book published about pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding, attachment parenting, vaccines, homemade organic baby food, cloth diapers, cosleeping, and maybe even elimination communication for when you don’t want to use your cloth diapers, and now you’re the pro. The expert. The one dispensing advice. You know you’ve mombarded someone if the following is familiar. And oh-my-gosh, we are all so self righteous and judgmental of other moms! Scenario number 1: Friend says: Oh, I’m just exhausted. This newborn is keeping me up all night. You think: She’s a new mom. She doesn’t know about night nursing. She doesn’t know about absorbent cloth night diapers. She doesn’t know about baby led sleeping (aka no sleep but nursing all night). She doesn’t know that if she just nurses and cosleeps her monster will be come an angel. I know everything because I’m a mom of multiple. You say: “Oh, it’s so hard. But really it only gets easier if you nurse all night and cosleep.” Friend thinks: Jerk. Scenario number 2: Friend says: “Oh, baby food is so expensive. And I’m back to work so it’s too hard to make. I’m exhausted.” You think: She’s a working mom. She should schedule making all her baby food on the weekends. She should also buy only organic products, preferably from the farmer’s market, so even if they’re not certified, they’re local. Carbon footprint et al. She should get those cute…
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I wrote this a while back and never published it. I suppose I was saving it for a rainy day. With BabyLoves here, and the world’s longest recovery, a little food for thought on character building that maybe someday we will be successful at! And no, I’m not going to quote Calvin’s dad from my favorite comic strip by Bill Waterson (still love reading Calvin and Hobbes), though he always told Calvin that doing X undesirable chore built his character. These are two Catholic sayings we grew up hearing that I think we’ll pass along to our children as well. I don’t think you have to be Catholic or Christian to appreciate them–as their properties of helping children become less self-focused are universally applicable through religious, spiritual, and moral beliefs of all kinds. 1) Offer it up. Yeah, does that one sound familiar, my Catholic friends? It means to stop complaining about something and instead, offer up your suffering for others. It’s like a Catholic version of sharing karma–like I’m suffering, but I’m going to channel my pain for someone else’s gain. This was frequently told to us when we whined in the car about not being there yet, whined at the dining table about not liking what was for dinner, or whined in bed because our sibling was hogging the covers. So is it just a polite, thinly veiled religious way of saying shut it to your kids? It could look like that, but I truly think it that…
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Music used to play a much larger role in my life. I sang in several choirs, one touring, and had private voice lessons in high school. As a child I even had my own rap group called “Nell, Inc.” Our signature (and only) song went something like this . . . break it down now, puttta, puttta, oh. And all my new acquaintances in high school, college, and law school would share music love with me–introducing me to new tunes, rocking out to well loved tunes together, making music, you name it. Now that I’m a mommy. And a mommy blogger at that. I have little access to the music scene. I’m too busy listening to Scythian’s Cake for Dinner or Burl Ives. Or classical music on Minnesota Public Radio. But when I made a playlist to stream from my iPhone during our third’s birth, I re-countered all these artists and songs I had forgotten about! Listen your heart out. And thanks to sweet people like my BFF (hi, Sarah!!) for continuing to introduce this old lady set of ears to new tunes. Don’t be shocked at the variety. It’s the spice of errr. . . birthing? When you say nothing at all . . . Alison Krauss It was my love song for my horses–because I don’t speak horse, of course. Wild world . . . Cat Stevens My sister Molly loved him as a young teen. Me too, duh. Donna nobis . . . choral arrangement directed by a dear deceased…
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It’s happened. Stop the presses. Wait–roll the presses & print this hot off the press: Nell owns a minivan. Nell will be driving said minivan. Around town. Toting & hauling her three kids. Driving to both the coop & Costco. Moms group & date night. You may wonder why I have mixed feelings about the minivander. This is a change from my years of hatred. When I was pregnant with SuperBoy, AA and I bought our first car together. We walked around the lot with an over eager salesman. He showed us a minivan with a huge grin on his face. Boy, we were his target audience. Pregnant woman, young couple, car shopping, of course we would spring for the vander. In a moment’s flash, his face fell as he realized I would rather die a death of serf in the Middle Ages than drive a minivan. He moved on to the Rav4 Toyota with a third row. Why? Because we had researched the heck out of it and AA found the one Rav4 in Minnesota that had a third row. Why the third row? Because we could fit four kids in there! Maybe even five! And two adults! Clearly I had never actually seen what sized child could fit in the very small third row. In our few weeks of having three kids, and shoving SuperBoy in the third row, squeezing SweetPea into the second row, and shoving the driver’s seat forward, ahhhhhhh. You see where this is going. But…
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