Group Costume

Since Girl 1 could partake in trick-or-treating (i.e. walk on her own because I am not carrying her throughout the neighborhood*) we have themed the Halloween costumes. So the kids don't know anything else and dr soc and I will never tell them otherwise. 

*I did not apply the same logic in 2018 and carried 3 month old Girl 2 like a fool but almost 3 year old Girl 1 still walked when we were My Little Pony

This year we were Mario World:

Rosalina, *Power-up, Peach and Luigi
*people asked if they could punch dr soc a lot and he said yes if he could punch them back

One of my favorite Halloween *group costume stories of all time is from my early 20's and I wasn't even a part of the costume.

*favorite group costume in my early 20's was the sins. Yours truly strutted around the party in lingerie* as lust and totally got the boy I wanted.

*once again: early 20's     

Anyway, favorite story: I was getting drinks with some friends who had gotten married in September (I had been a bridesmaid btw). 

Newlywed girl (dreamy sappy voice of smug newlywed): It's our first married Halloween! We have to do something together! 

Newlywed boy (enthusiastically): Let's go as a horse!

Me and everyone else: (laughs)

Newlywed girl: (purses lips, glares at all of us)

They aren't married to each other anymore 🤷

Salty Bedtime

The past month bedtime with the girls has been...challenging. Bedtime routine is supposed to go:
- 7pm -

- Nighttime potty (Girl 1) /nighttime diaper* change (Girl 2)
- Vitamin
- Brush teeth
- Stories
- Kisses/hugs, go to rooms
- Sleep: around 7:30pm 

*We** are also trying to potty train at this time

**mom and dad are, Girl 2 is nope.    

Here's how bedtime routine actually goes:
- 7pm-7:30ish Shit it's bedtime -

- Nighttime potty (Girl 1) /nighttime diaper change (Girl 2)

1: Cajole into performing basic body function of going to the bathroom 

- Vitamin
- Brush teeth

fight over step stool, put toothpastes on tooth brushes. 1: whine/cry "I need help" because bodily function. 2: run giggling with the toothbrush in mouth  

- Stories
- Kisses/hugs, go to rooms

1: You need to go to your bed in your room. No you do not get another story. No it's not time to play with us. What do you want to show me? Yes you can play/listen to your music in your room but do so quietly. Shhh! Shhhh! (nothing is louder than girl 1 trying to be quiet)

- This part has been ALL ME the past month -  

2: Snuggle/rock. Exhaust. Lullaby. Put in bed. Put in bed. Put in bed... Eventually lay down in bed with mommy is snuggling.* Freak out/cry run if mommy inches** away.***  

*uncomfortably laying on the floor and toddler bed

**lay on floor next to bed trying to work out neck kink.

***literally scoot inch by inch towards the door while fighting all the lingering mommy exhaustion from the past month

- Sleep: 10pm or later

Tuesdays I get home from work around 8:30 so it's 100% dr soc/daddy bedtime. Last night went like:  

- 7pm

- Nighttime potty/diaper change

- Vitamin

- Brush teeth

- Stories

- Kisses/hugs, go to rooms

1: Plays fairly quietly in room until I come home and check on her. Thump. Thump. Thump. Honey, you need to whisper and and be still to be quiet. Thump. Thump. Thump. Repeat 17 times (give or take)

2: put in bed and fall asleep in 5 fucking minutes!!!!  

- Sleep: 1 no idea, late and mommy shushed as usual: 2: 7:fucking 30pm. 

I am thrilled all my work and rigmarole got girl 2 to sleep in 5 fucking minutes. But I am also salty as hell she fell asleep in 5 fucking minutes for dr soc.  So glad I made that part of parenting easier for my husband.  So yes, happy overall. But also incredibly salty because fucking hell 5 minutes with no snuggling, rocking, exhausting, parental yoga moves, inching away! What the hell kid?!

Yup, that's ________

dr soc: I was trying to leave and girl 2 peed in the pull-up. Now is naked and playing in waterless tub

me: Yup that's girl 2

dr soc: Girl 1 partially being helpful and partially driving me crazy

me: Yup that's girl 1

dr soc: Tug of war match over toy

me: Yup that's sisters

dr soc: Just look for me later rocking in a chair hugging myself all day

me: Yup that's parenting! 

Happy Mother's day!

Irony 2.0

The irony of  Girl 1 fighting me tooth and nail on her teeth* and nails is not lost on me.

*you may recall the teeth fight of 2020. Currently that war is at a lull but her checkup in December involved crying so her upcoming June appointment I don't know.

Now that she is a mature 5 year old the irony is this: The hill my child will die on is anything health related. 

• She will not take medicine, topical or internal. 
• She will not listen to her body for the bathroom.
• She will not blow her nose despite being unable to breath due to snot blockage or a river flowing from her nose 
• Refuses band aids and screams about any blood getting on anything and everything from refusing to cover it
• When she found out she had to go to the doctor because she mentioned to daddy her ear hurt, she said "I wish I hadn't said anything."*
• *This one actually worries me because I know she had to be hurting long and hard enough for her to even mentioned it. I don't want her to be afraid to say anything, ever. 
• Going to the doctor or dentist with her requires an iron will, Olympic sized bribes that never ever work which result to physically restraining her*
• *because that doesn't traumatize her at all and won't lead directly to the aforementioned fear of her being afraid to tell me anything.*
• *and that leads me to sobbing into my drink because OMG I hate that struggle so much and I do not know what to do so I cope by drinking and sobbing and questioning my entire ability of being a mom.

Uhhh, yeah. The irony here is that my child is willing to literally die on the health hill. Yeah.      

Dentist Drama

The excitement of Girl 1's first no crying successful* dentist visit was quickly tempered by the discovery of cavities. So a week later we go back to fill them and...nope. Reverted right back to the shrinking/wailing/terrified kid that we had to be referred to a pediatric** dentist. And when we went to that dentist she was even more terrified and screamed even worse, so the only treatment she received was a heavy fluoride treatment and was told to start using a mouthwash. When we go back to the not in network pediatric dentist in 3 months we have to hope that stopped them from growing, otherwise we have to put her under to treat her. All for teeth that she's going to lose eventually anyway. *cries*    

*Both visits prior she shrank into herself (and she's already pretty small) and wailed so much the dentist couldn't do anything in order not to traumatize her. 

**That's not in network. Of course not.

At least the mouthwash would be an easy enough stopgap measure right? *cackle* Fuck NO. The rigmarole at the dentists pales to the tantrums we've endured the past 3 weeks. My daughter fought me tooth and nail on her teeth...and nails* when she was a toddler and it's so. much. worse now.

*yeah, I know. The irony is not lost on me.

We have tried everything: No treats. No screen time. No puzzle with Grandma. We'll get her a Frozen II bed. No berry picking. Bribes. Go out for ice cream. Promises of Panera. Hugs. Kisses. Soothing tones. Screaming. Offering to do it with her. No Stories. Extra Stories. Walking away. And the one we thought would do it: No going to the babysitter's.  

Sunday night I sorta hog tied her with one arm and threw the mouthwash in her mouth while she thrashes and screamed with my other arm. Which went as well as it sounds. Monday night I told her she couldn't leave the bathroom until she did the mouthwash. She was begging to go to her bed (an entirely different battle for another blog for another day) and held on for an hour and a half before falling asleep on the bathroom floor. I was equal parts highly impressed at her ferocious tenacity and completely mortified she was asleep on the bathroom floor. 

 

So I don't know what to do. I don't know how to motivate her. I don't know her it seems. I never say the right things. I can't calm her down. I want to be a positive parent rather than a punitive one. I want to know what to do to help my girl. And I know this takes work but I wish it wasn't so fucking hard. This gargantuan effort it's taking to connect to my daughter makes me feel that I'm failing her. I'm not the parent I want to be and that hurts. And tonight the saga continues. Stay tuned.

My Little Pony

So girl 1 is all about My Little Pony at the moment. In the spirit of full disclosure I totally love watching it with her and we sing the whole theme song together. Plus Pinkie Pie is my spirit pony - true fact. Anyway. I was zipping her into her purple jacket and asked:

me: Honey do you want to be Twilight Sparkle for Halloween this year?
girl 1: YES!!!!!
me: Okay sweetie, mommy will make your costume.
girl 1: Oh thank you mommy! You will be Pinkie Pie. And Daddy Apple Jack!
me:  Okay darling.
--I think of the baby's wardrobe and know we have all white for her--
me: Your sister can be Rarity. 
girl 1: Okay! And Jules can be Rainbow Dash!

So it was decreed. Halloween 2018 we were My Little Ponies. I made the costumes while on leave and while the kids were at the sitter, and girl 1 was SO EXCITED she wanted to wear and show her costume off the whole week before Halloween.

Twilight Sparkle (pre-princess w/wings mainly because I didn't feel like it), Pinkie Pie carrying Rarity, & Apple Jack walking Rainbow Dash (our Fluttershy was sick) 

And you want to know who got the most attention trick or treating? The dog!😆

High Hopes

Girl-2 is a burper. Which is perfectly normal but since Girl-1 rarely burped (she still doesn't burp much really) any burping, especially the juicy ones, we notice more. Dr soc and I (okay, more me than him) find burps hi-lar-ious, so we (okay, more me once again) have high hopes Girl-2 will one day give us a "Ben & Jerry's burp."

The backstory: Dr soc and I were on the patio of Ben & Jerry's one afternoon (either engaged or newly married) with a mom and her 2 kids, a boy and a girl. Out of nowhere, the girl (about 8) lets out this monster burp. I'm talking John-Belushi-frat-boy-dragon-roar-style burp, followed with a dainty "'s'cuse me!" I absolutely lost it, laughing so hard I couldn't stop. Dr soc was laughing too, but not nearly to my extent. The mom was mortified, but the girl was quite proud of herself judging from the smug smile she was giving her brother. From that moment on, that "Ben & Jerry's burp" was deemed the pinnacle of burps and utter hilarity.

So here's hoping one day, Girl-2 (or Girl-1, really, just one of them), gives a "Ben & Jerry burp" and I laugh as hard as I did that one afternoon!

Go Viral

It's a not so secret dream of mine to have one of my social media posts go viral. Or make it onto the huffington post funniest parents and/or women lists. However nowadays people go viral for the wrong reasons (major embarrassment, social gaffe, racist/sexist/idiotic/etc behavior followed by (hopefully) public outrage), so "going viral" probably shouldn't be on my life's accomplishment's list.
  
Anyway, I'm on my social media a lot right now (I'm on leave, newborns are pretty boring, the toddler is every bit a 2.5 year old so I have to vent and daytime tv sucks). All of those platforms have ads which I normally gloss over and dismiss. But this time I noticed all the ads were for diet products, workout routines, waist trainers, supplements etc, all these...things in an effort to motivate me to become an even "better" me.

And I'm like, I just had a baby. She's not even a week old, we're talking days. I housed a tiny human in me and literally pushed them out of my lady parts. Some might even consider that the epitome of what a lady's body can do. Here I am, sleep deprived, mentally exhausted, sore everywhere, ice packs on my raw nipples, wearing diapers (postpartum life is disgusting y'all), super hormonal, in addition to raising two very needy small humans to not be assholes and I'm supposed to be pretty too? WTF?
   
So I posted this on facebook: 

All the diet ads/products on my feed imply I should be getting back to societal set beauty standards and be ashamed of my current body for producing a healthy baby. 

Guess what world? Fuck off!

Us ladies giving a middle finger to that mindset
I also like the prominence of my double chin and how I don't give a rat's ass 

I tagged my husband (because when it involves the kids that's pretty much what we do), and got a respectable amount of likes and comments applauding my fuck off. In fact, one of dr soc's friends copied and pasted my status and gave me credit on her own wall and she got lots of likes too! So in my own way, I'm going to count that as going viral.

Achievement unlocked!

Family Resemblance

I can usually see a family resemblance like everyone else when comparing people. Except in me. And my family to some extent. It's not like I don't see resemblance at all, but I just don't see the strong/twin/carbon copy/clone moniker people typically assign. I've never been able to see that really. People say my sister and I look alike, but I can almost always tell who's who even if it's just one of us in the picture.

me on the left, my sister on the right
see also: I am taller and older

My husband captioned this Mother's Day 2017 picture with "the resemblance is strong" 

me, my girl, my mom

Yeah, I see we look related. But the mom-clone thing is lost on me.          

And yesterday I posted a side-by-side Easter picture of my daughter and I at 2 years old: 

I wonder who had the better basket?
And isn't that orange kitchen great?

Everyone, and I mean everyone, made some sort of remark about that being the same kid. Even my mom (who at times is the most obtuse person out there) said we are spitting images of each other. And it's not that I don't see any resemblance at all. But I legit do not see twins. I see two extremely adorable but distinctly different little girls.    

Who knows if I'll ever be able to see it. I wonder if I'll see twins in my own kids. But it doesn't matter really, little lion is going to be a cutie just like little turkey. Twins or not.

Let's Talk About Sex, Baby!

Just like with Little Turkey, dr soc and I are going to find out the sex of Little Lion when they are born. So it either amuses me or annoys me when people have a negative opinion on not knowing the sex of our child. And yeah, driving people nuts is part of the fun. But this pregnancy I'm less amused and much more annoyed at those opinions. Probably because that opinion is usually accompanied with the additional opinion of what the opinioner wants (or assumes what we want) the sex to be.

Because we honestly don't care. We've never really cared what the sex of our children would be. Little Turkey it didn't matter because, well, that's just a privilege of being the first born. But we don't have a preference with Lion either. I'm one of 2 girls and dr soc is one of 2 boys (and we all turned out pretty good), so it's not like we think two of the same is a bad thing. 

So it upsets me a little bit when people say they want or assume we want one or the other (usually a boy). I mean, do people think we'll be disappointed one way or the other? Do they think dr soc wouldn't love another little girl as much as a boy? That I would love a little boy less because of my own sex?

I mean, it's a little human, one who will make our world a better place just for being in it. You don't need to have a specific sex for that. 

SHOUTING WILL SOLVE THIS

Apparently the assault riffle used in the most recent (fuck, most recent. Let that sink in) school shooting was bought legally. But legal or illegal, why does anyone have an assault riffle in the first place? And why do NRA paid politicians give those same objects assault weapons more rights and protections than humans women and children?

This is the 18th school shooting for 2018. EIGHTEENTH. THIRTY-FIVE DAYS INTO THE YEAR.
I know once you start shouting you have lost your argument, but I don't know what else to do at this moment. This is becoming normal and IT SHOULDN'T BE NORMAL.

Selfishly I think: how do I protect my children? I can save my girl from a ladybug on the playground, but a bullet at school where I'm not? Maybe I should home school the kids so they don't have to be a victim of another (because there will be another) school shooting. Or buy them bullet proof vests with the rest of their school supplies. Do they make those in size 5T? (my girl is tiny-she may be that size by kindergarten) WHY DO I EVEN HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT THIS?

Why does ANYONE WORRY ABOUT THIS? FIX THIS BULLSHIT.

Long Jacket

So, I've already got something to hold over the this next kid's head. Also: thank god it was winter and my coat covers me to about mid thigh.

Before we were telling people I was expecting I was trying to hide (and usually failing) how miserable I felt at times. But other times...
Trigger warning: this is hilarious but disgusting.
We're out to lunch and my stomach/intestines were giving me first trimester nonsense. I went to the bathroom and sat to wait it out. After waiting for a while and nothing happening, everything happened. My stomach revolted and I had a half second to throw myself backwards, bend at the waist and I throw up all over myself. All. Over. I didn't take anything with me to the bathroom (because that's gross) so I was trapped.   

I waited a few minutes until someone else came into the bathroom, and when they finished washing their hands I called out: "excuse me...Um, in the first stall here. Hi, I'm pregnant and I had a bit of an accident..."
I asked a stranger in the bathroom to find my husband (and daughter) in the restaurant, tell him I'm okay, but I need my purse and coat. I thank her profusely when she comes back bringing both, assure I'm okay and thank her again. In my purse I have a plastic bag (to throw up in though lot of good it did me there), wipes to clean up, and my phone to text Mike what the hell is going on.

In the next few minutes I get as much of my lunch off of my clothes into the toilet, bag up all my clothes, and wipe up what the clothes didn't "catch." I button my coat, pull up my knee socks (those were clean), and texted my husband: I'm leaving the bathroom now. I'll meet you at the car. Took a deep breath, grabbed my bags, put my head down and walked out of the McCalisters in just my coat. We're pulling out of the parking lot when I get sick again and throw up out the window of the car. (sorry about that honey...but we're both really glad I made it out the window) And to add insult to injury, I still haven't done what I was waiting to do in the bathroom in the first place!

At home, I take a bath, everything eventually leaves my system in the privacy of my bathroom and I feel better okay enough. The kid takes a nap, and Mike and I settle on the couch to watch football. He asks how I'm doing and I ruefully say: that trench coat fantasy is not what it's cracked up to be.