Big Helper

Yesterday morning, Baylor emerged from her bathroom declaring that she had brushed her teeth all by herself. We all got very excited and I made a mental note to rebrush them later…

While passing by her room, I noticed a very strong smell of strawberry…upon further inspection I found that apparently in the “toothpaste on the toothbrush” portion of the morning, she had squirted about a third of the bottle of toothpaste into the sink. And now it was hard and not easily washed off. Crap. I made another mental note to deal with it later.

In the evening, PW and I were making dinner and chatting about schedules when it dawned on me I hadn’t seen or heard the munchkin in a while. My “what are you doing??” yell was answered with “ANYTHING!!” which is translated to I’m not doing anything which is always a lie. Two minutes later she came running into the kitchen announcing that she had cleaned all the toothpaste out of the sink! Awesome, I thought…and then I really thought about her cleaning skills and got a little worried. I asked her to show me her good work…which is where I discovered that apparently in two year old world, cleaning the toothpaste out of the sink means using goldfish crackers to do so.

This time I made a mental note to tell PW that this was a daddy clean up job.

 

Pneumonia Sheumonia

Phew  is the only word I can think of to describe the last 5 days.

Baylor came home crabby and running a slight fever on Wednesday last week. By Thursday afternoon, it was a full blown 104.5 fever with a cough, wheezing and labored breathing. Any one of those would mean “get to the doctor” but all four meant get there pronto.

I fully expected the doctor to say “it’s a virus, nothing we can do” and send us tired and crabbily on our way. But then he listened to her chest for a solid 5 minutes. He asked a lot more questions and then determined that her asthma might actually be pneumonia. His suggestion was a full workup of meds including a shot that makes adults cry, chest x-ray, two inhalers and oral antibiotics as well.

The good news is that her x-ray came back clear, but since it was a day behind the beginning of treatment, they moved ahead with the meds. After a few fitful hours of sleep (normally I compare sleeping with her to sleeping with a badger – this was like sleeping with a hot,  clingy badger), her fever dropped and she was able to get some real sleep. By Friday afternoon, her fever was gone and she was hungry and happy. We kept her mellow the rest of the weekend with lots of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and M&M’s to bribe her into taking the “yucky” inhaler. She was mellow to the point where she was restless and making herself and us nuts so she went happily off to school today. Fingers crossed there won’t be any calls from Teacher Jackie and we’re on the road to  really getting better this time.

If You Need Me, I’m in the Bathroom

Where the hell have I been for two days? I’ll tell you…it’s spring break for Bay this week (why the hell 2 year olds need a spring break from their grueling 3 half days a week, I don’t know. I guess it’s more for their freakishly patient teachers, but still… not that I don’t love my munchkin, Momma’s just gotten real used to those precious 12 hours of free time a week to do crazy stuff like work) and we are, drum roll please, potty training!

Yes, the bain of my existence as a parent is finally happening. We’ve knuckled down, broke out the timer, the potty, the big girl undies, the M&M’s and gasp! stayed in the house for 3 days straight. Well not really. I couldn’t take it so we made the super fast 5 minute trip to Noni’s house today so I could run a few errands without the fear of a wet car seat and without visiting the Costco, Sunflower, CVS and Safeway bathrooms repeatedly.

In short, I have been enjoying a little quiet / work time during the oh-so-brief nap times this week. All is going well so we will likely survive the week with little pee pee poured out for the homies and thus call it a success. Until then, it may be a little quiet around here…

Baylorisms – Part 4

Nishan – The Phonenician Resort where Aunt Ali works and where we sneak into the playground. Ssshhh….

Q-she Grge – Curious George

Q-she Grge. Good Monkey. Always very q-she – Curious George was a good little monkey and always very curious

Barilla – Gorilla

How your baby going? – What she asks Ali while she pats Ali’s belly. We think a combination of how are you doing and what’s going on.

What ARF you do in? – Not sure why she says arf, but it makes me laugh every time

Miska! Mooseka! Mickey Mouse! – the magic words for Mickey Mouse Club House

What his mommy’s name? – In Bay’s world, there is a mommy, a daddy and a kiddo – in reality it’s a husband, wife and sometimes a kiddo. So when she asks what someone’s mommy or daddy’s name is, she really means spouse. And trying to explain boyfriend and girlfriend is just a lost cause.

Modern Marvels

One of my mom’s favorite childhood stories about my sister Ali is when she came home asking my mom for a recipe for ice. Ali had been in the nurse’s office that day at school and the nurse had pulled out ice cube trays and popped out a few for a scrapped knee. Ali was in awe – we had an ice maker so she had never seen a tray of ice before and was totally enamored.

My step sister told me recently that her daughter asked to listen to the radio – when she put on XM radio, Madi said “no mom, like the real radio. Can we listen to the real radio sometime?”.

This past weekend it was my turn. At a friend’s house for a party, Bay and I went to the bathroom to wash hands. While in there she stared at the shower curtain. She gently pulled it back and said “Oh neat! The bath tub!”. I didn’t get it at first, but I guess she’s never really seen a bathtub with a curtain pulled across it. Oh how fascinating the world is when you’re two.

It Pays to Pay Attention

Ugh. Bay’s crud has finally attacked my immune system and won. I used to put up a fierce fight when I would feel the first signs of illness coming on – lots of rest, running it out, extreme mental denial of any illness, etc. However, because my two year old now hangs out with other two year olds at preschool a few half days a week, she comes home with every illness imaginable. Because despite her classroom being very clean and constant hand washing throughout her day, preschool = cesspool. Therefore I no longer fight it. At the first sign of a tickle in my throat, I down my usual cocktail of vitamin C, Mucinex D, Zyrtec and sometimes and Advil for good measure.

After a rough night’s sleep due to a scratch throat and PW’s scratchy throat and Baylor’s scratchy throat, I was a little more sleep deprived than usual. I realized my normal morning routine was a little scattered and I couldn’t quite put my finger on what came next on the priority list. Despite my general fuzziness, we made it out the door on time.

I dropped B off and stood for a few minutes watching her interact with her buddies – they were all hanging on the playground fence laughing and waving at a car parked with two dogs inside. It always cracks me up to see what she’s doing when she doesn’t know I’m looking.

I walked to the car making mental notes to remember to bring money at pick up for the pancake breakfast, to make a note about what I had signed up to bring for the Valentine’s party and which errand I needed to get done first. I pushed the button on my keys, heard the tell tale “beep beep” of an unlocked car, opened the door and started to swing into my seat when I realized something was weird…why are my seats tan and not gray? At that point a voice from the back door said “good morning”. I looked back to see a mom pulling her kiddo out of his car seat on the passenger side. It was then I realized I had just attempted to get into someone else’s car.

Thank God the mom clearly had a sense of humor and or empathy that she didn’t scream but rather just laughed and said “same car??”. And thank goodness I had at least attempted to get into a car that was exactly like my own (there are 4 white SUVs of the same make and model at B’s school – I counted) and not one that was completely different. I proceeded to get into the correct car and drive straight to Starbucks for an extra shot of caffeine to hopefully wake myself up a little.

While retelling the story to my friend and neighbor, a mom of three, she informed me that she too had done the same thing a few years ago. So at least I’m not alone in my airheadedness. Which means I’ll have friends when PW finally checks me into the funny farm.

Amen, Sister

One of my best friends Chrissy sent me an article yesterday – really she tagged me on facebook with the caption “Carry on Warrior” Wisch Wand, you’re going to love this”. And in true friend-who-knows-you-all-to-well form, I did.

The article is pretty much the premise of The Goon Room: sometimes being a parent is just downright gross. And annoying. And exhausting. And not fun. It talks about those annoying people who stop you in the grocery store and tell you to be sure to cherish every moment – and they are usually telling you this on a day when you’ve not had a shower, slept a collective 3 hours, your baby is screaming while simultaneously spitting up on you…again.

The tag line of the article is “Carpe Diem!!!” – or seize the day to you and me. The article is hilarious, truthful and sweet – I love how this momma is able to laugh at the gross stuff, shrug off “failures” and focus on the small wins. This is the kind of mom I strive to be.

I’m also going to start yelling “CARPE DIEM!!” instead of “WHY IS NO ONE LISTENING TO ME???”. Mostly because I think thinking about how I want to remember every moment of Baylor being a child – even the annoying ones – will make me chuckle.

Here’s the article:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/glennon-melton/dont-carpe-diem_b_1206346.html