Things I Will Never Do: Toddler Edition

When I imagined myself as a mother when I was still a teenager/in my early 20's I had a lot of plans and opinions about how things would work. Though I never sat down and wrote a list (though that may be a lie, I may very well have done that and forgotten about it), I definitely had a mental list of my future mom rules that I would follow no matter what. I realized recently how incredibly foolish this was as one cannot begin to understand motherhood until you are right in the middle of the fire with chewed up food in one hand and a screaming child in the other.

This is especially true for being the parent of a toddler. I'm pretty sure none of my plans have come to fruition, but just for kicks and giggles, I have compared my list of "rules" to the actual reality of being a parent to a toddler. Obviously these don't apply to all toddlers, because they are all different, they are like unique snowflakes....crazy, loud, messy snowflakes that want to do things by themselves but also want you to do everything and expect you to know which of those they prefer at any given moment. No judging allowed....

1. My child will never throw fits in public, because the first time they do it I will just walk away and they will realize that the fit is futile and come over to me immediately to apologize.

This does not work with Mira, at all. She will follow you around the store, screaming her head off and pulling random items from the shelves and throwing them to the ground. While in California a bit ago, I marched out of a pet shop with her flailing and screaming, laying horizontally in my arms, all because I would not let her lick a cat toy she was playing with. 

2. I will never let my child watch TV on a tablet when we are out in public, and especially not at the table at a restaurant.

Yeah, well, sometimes I am actually hungry and would like to eat instead of picking up the following items from the floor 1000 times: forks, spoons, salt shakers, crayons, bowls of salsa, fake flowers in vases, my keys, and oh my gosh so many pacifiers. 

3. I will never use bribery to get my child to behave.

"Come sit down, I will give you a cookie"- A thing I actually uttered while at a park the other day. This isn't something I'm proud of and not something I plan to do in the future, but will most likely end up doing anyway. 

4. I potty trained eleven 2-year-olds at one time while teaching, potty training my own child will be a breeze.

I just removed a baguette-sized poop from the bathtub with my bare hands.  

5. My kid will have a strict bedtime, and it will be early enough that I can have plenty of time afterwards to do whatever I want.

I actually really like my kid, and sometimes what I want to do is hang out with her after 7:30pm. Last night she was in an extra awesome mood and so we hung out in the living room for a while, just chatting and playing as a family. Contrary to popular belief, your child will not die if they stay up past bedtime a few times. 

6. I will never be that parent in the airplane with the screaming child, obviously they are just lazy and aren't meeting their child's needs.

Nope, nope, double nope. Sometimes their "needs" are to get the heck off the plane immediately. Which is a little difficult to do when you are 30,000ft above the ground. Most of the time this isn't an issue for us, but the last flight we were on was super "special"....

7. I won't be one of those parents that gets annoyed with their kid.

I love my kid, I love her so much. But sometimes I do NOT like her. Sometimes when her father gets home I pass her over to him and lock myself in the bathroom and turn the fan on so I can't hear her.

8. My child will not be naughty, obviously I will be a better parent than that.

I always assumed that parents with crazy kids must have screwed up somewhere. Those kids must have learned that behavior somewhere, right? I have since learned that children do not come out as perfect angels and you ruin them, they come out as tiny monsters that you have to tame. I'm ashamed that I was a judgey pre-mom, because now I see other moms with screaming children and all I want to do is give those moms a hug, because I feel ya sister. We must band together with our mom buns and stained shirts, and uplift each other in the face of the tiny humans. 

9. My child will always be friendly and happy because she will have all her needs met and that's all it takes!

My toddler is like that cat you can pet exactly 6 times. If you pet it 7 times it will claw your eyes out. Except sometimes it's 5 times, not 6...or maybe she wants to cuddle all day except for at 1pm and then she doesn't like you. Also she will decide on a daily basis who she wants to be held by. Sometimes she walks up to complete strangers and starts a conversation, sometimes I am the only person in the world who is allowed to acknowledge her. She can be fed, hydrated, well rested, warm, and entertained, and yet still angry at life in general. We call this Diva Mode, it technically has levels ranging from 1-10....but lets be honest, she's either not in Diva Mode or she's in Diva Mode Level 8 and up. 

10. I have so much experience with children from teaching, there won't be any surprises when I have my own kid, especially when she's a toddler and a 4 year old (my classes as a teacher).

Hahahahaaaaaaa. I learn something new every day. Some things are pretty general things (crayon is really hard to get out of your white bedsheets) and some are specific to Mira. My favorite Mira-specific things are as follows: She will eat a sandwich all by herself, but quesadillas must be torn into tiny pieces. She must turn her pacifier in a circle at least once every 20 seconds. She usually poops on the potty halfway through the second book we read after she sits down. She must give all visitors or new people a gift of some sort, like a pillow from our couch or a crayon. And my absolute favorite: if she can't find something she will give you an imaginary item that she "picks up" from the floor and puts in your hand. 

In conclusion: Toddlers are weird, and are continually changing their minds about everything. If you accept that you will never really have the hang of parenting a toddler, you may survive this stage with your sanity still intact. Now I'm off to watch Peg + Cat and cuddle on the couch with my tiny human, or maybe we will end up stacking cat food cans and eating pretzels, because you never really know what the day holds, let alone what next week will look like.

Oh, and here is us trying to take a cute picture together this morning....because toddlers....

Red Splotches

When Mira was little, I would explain to people about how we were giving her Propranolol for her hemangiomas. More often than you would think, I would get this response "That's great! It will go away and she can be nice and pretty." I would smile and respond with, "Well she's already pretty, she just won't have hemangiomas threatening to close off her airway and damage her eye anymore." People can be jerks sometimes, even when they are trying to be nice.

All I want in the world is for Mira to feel beautiful no matter what she looks like. Societies rules and regulations for beauty make it hard for parents to instill self-worth and confidence in their children, not matter how hard they try. When you have a child that looks "different" from what people label as normal, it makes it that much more of a challenge. I realize of course that Mira's external hemangiomas will continue to fade and that someday she may not have any trace of them at all. This won't stop her from looking at pictures of herself as a baby and forming an opinion about how that baby with a special face relates to who she is then and whether than changes how she feels about herself. I've often worried about how she will feel looking back at all the pictures I take of her. Sometimes I've even wished I could do something to drastic to make her feel more comfortable, now and in the future, with her appearance. Like that couple who got tattoos of their child's birthmark on their legs, who if you haven't read about them, you should check it out here.

It's strange how things work out sometimes. Two weeks ago I was diagnosed with Psoriasis. For those of you who don't know, Psoriasis is an auto-immune disease that causes your cells to create new skin too quickly, leaving you with dry, red patches on your body. I've probably had some form of this my whole life, and it's just now decided to make itself known. It decided to do that on my face and scalp. At first I was freaking out because my face was (very rapidly) changing right before my eyes and I wasn't sure how to feel about it. Then a strange thing happened. I realized that my hope for a way to show Mira how everyone is awesome, even people with red splotches on their face, was staring right back at me in the mirror. 

So I made a decision. If I felt like wearing make-up to go out and feel fancy, I would. But otherwise, I 'm not going to make a big to-do about it every single day just to cover up these red splotches. 

I'd like to say this will be an easy thing to do, that my confidence is amazing and that I will never wonder what someone is thinking when I have a flair up and my face looks like it's on fire. But I have my own struggle with loving myself, as most of us do, and I know I will have a hard time feeling awesome all the time. But I feel like that's also something we should share with our children. That confidence isn't something that comes easily and that it's ok to struggle with it, just like mom or dad does. I think it's ok to let your kids know that you are human (gasp, I know, so crazy) and that they can share their fears and troubles with you because you've been there (or are currently still hanging out there). So, I'm going to go out into the world as I am. I am also going to make sure to take lots of pictures, so in 10 years when we are looking back at when Mira was tiny, I can show her how both of us were gorgeous inside and out everywhere we went.

To balance out the serious vibe of this post, I chose this picture to accompany it:

Just Dance

If you would have told me the day after we got Mira's Dandy Walker diagnosis that less than 2 years later she would be in dance class, I would have punched you in the face (sorry, I was pretty upset that day). Today we woke up early, ate a little breakfast, and put on our dance clothes. Mine may or may not have been yoga pants and a large shirt, no judging. The important part is that Mira's outfit involved a pink leotard. It was amazing.

We headed to the Chamberlain School of Ballet and enjoyed our first of many Wednesday mornings dancing around like maniacs (that may have just been me) with our friend Hallie (and her mama Kelly). Mira totally loved it (well, 3/4ths of it, she was tired and was ready for nap pretty quickly) and couldn't stop giggling about everything. It was awesome to see her not only enjoying herself and socializing, but doing something that I had convinced myself was something she would not be able to do anytime soon. This kid is a rockstar, I can't wait to see her continue to prove me wrong every day.

On a Roll

So I bought a film camera. My first camera was a 1976 Honeywell Pentax and I still dig the pictures that little guy took. I went to a local guy that has been collecting cameras for a while and bought myself a Canon A1, or as he kept calling it, The Black Beauty.

I decided that the best medicine for my lack of interest in my photography would be to bring it on back to film and then to do some pictures just for me. I decided to do this by photographing my favorite thing ever, aka Mira. 366 days this year and I will take (at least) 1 picture per day of her in her natural habitat, doing stuff that Mira just does.

I got my first roll back today and discovered a few things.

1. My house is dark, like way darker than I realized.
2. I'm a bit rusty with the whole film situation.
3. When one isn't supplied with an automatic focus, some of the pictures turn out a bit "different".
4. I love them anyway.

You'll notice they are a mixture of decent, ok, and downright blurry, but I've decided even the blurry ones are a part of the story. These pictures are from December 30 through January 4.

The Call of the Baby

I was shocked how draining the death of my dog was. I had all these ideas for blog posts and I have just recently been able to sit down and work on them at all. Strange how you can think you have a hold on things but if you look close enough you can see the tiny differences in your actions or mood that something like that can cause. Anyway, point being, I'm finally feeling like myself again.

So recently Mira has decided that bedtime isn't for her. We have a routine that we try to follow to help things along. First off, she is still in our room. She will probably be moving to the nursery soon but for now she is in the Pack n' Play about 2 feet from my head. I'm sure there are those who would disagree with the fact that my 8 month old still sleeps in my room. I have recently started to be ok ignoring all those people because frankly, we gotta do what works for us and Mira has 2 parents, neither of which is you. I think most moms can agree with that sentiment.

Ok, to the routine. She usually gets a nice, full, 6-oz bottle first. She never eats this much during the day, but apparently she is starving by the time we go to bed so she sucks that thing down in 2 minutes flat. Then we cuddle and read a book. Usually it ends up being one of the "If You Give A" books. Her favorite is "If You Give a Pig a Party", mostly because there is a page where we have to find all the animals and I make a big deal out of it. More than likely, she has no preference for that particular book but since I like it, I've decided she does to. So after we read we call in Papi (aka, Jonny) and we turn off the light and say our prayers. When I first started doing prayer with her, I felt like a complete idiot. I would mumble something about thanks for stuff and keep us safe and then quickly say Amen. I don't pray out loud, like ever, so it was definitely a learning process. When I was little my prayer in my head included keeping everyone in the world alive tonight and making sure I don't wet the bed, so I was never really an ace at it but I like to think that I've improved slightly over the years....at least I don't have to worry about wetting the bed....much. So we say our prayer and we say goodnight. I give her a kiss, Papi gives her a kiss, and that's that.....

2 minutes later the screaming starts. At first its a "Hey, so I don't want to be in here anymore, kindly remove me from my current location" whine. It's that cranky noise that is manageable but foreshadows doom. This soon transforms into the fake cry. Sometimes the fake cry gets so ridiculous that I start laughing which only causes the fake cry to increase in volume. There are no tears here, it's not real pain or sorrow, it's straight up manipulation. It should probably concern me that my 8 month old is so devious, but with me as a mother it's really not a surprise. Next step is the talk-crying. Mira has a very limited "recognized" vocabulary. She has said "Hi" twice and just this morning said "Papi" for the first time. But that doesn't mean that she doesn't talk. When fully awake and happy, she has full blown conversations with me, the cat, the couch, all involving words of her own design. Mostly it's "Bababababa abu huhuhuhu papapapapapa eeeeeee" which I've decided means "Mommy, you are the most beautiful lady in the world. No one will ever notice your love handles." When the talk-crying starts, she uses every "word" she knows. It's completely pitiful. This is usually the point when I give up and hold her and rock her to sleep. Mind you this whole thing has only lasted about 5 minutes at this point.

The other night I decided to try to ignore her. She was tired and I expected her to wear herself out pretty quickly. Oh was I wrong.

The talk-crying evolved into full on torturous screaming. I've tried to explain to others what this level of crying does to me, both physically and mentally. The only thing I can compare it to is when you are sitting in your house, minding your own business, and your smoke detector goes off. Pure panic. You start running around like a crazy person trying to figure out which one is going off. Once you find the culprit, you frantically wave your hands around trying to disperse any possible smoke particles that must have set it off even though more than likely it is because you let the dang battery run out or the electricity went out for a minute and set it off or something else completely not fire related. When you finally get the thing to turn off, you are exhausted. I've taken a nap after a similar incident because it was just too taxing. The funniest part is, I never thought to search for the fire. I was so focused on getting the loud blaring to stop that I completely ignored the possible cause. It's exactly the same when Mira cries at night. The big picture stops being important. I suddenly don't care about whether she will ever be able to put herself to sleep. It seems totally reasonable for me to follow her to college and rock her to sleep every night in her dorm room because WHATEVER!!! MAKE HER FEEL BETTER NOW!!!!

I think some parents are made for the "cry it out" method with their children. I also don't think I am one of them. I'm currently pursuing a different method that a friend recommended and we will see how it goes. It may totally bomb and we may be right back in this situation of me sitting in the bathtub with the fan on so I can't hear her crying while Jonny keeps watch. Or maybe it will totally work for us. Along with the realization that you can ignore the 1000 words of advice you get from everyone you know, you can also carve your own path when it comes to parenting. I'm pretty sure if you walked into a 3rd grade classroom and looked at all the kids, you wouldn't see a child paralyzed with fear, sitting in the corner, eating paste, all because their parent decided to rock them to sleep at night. I'm also sure you wouldn't see children feeling dramatically depressed and unloved, laying on the floor contemplating their existence because their parents decided to let them cry it out. While there is going to be underlying effects to everything you do with your children, I feel like we all usually make it to the same general place in the end. Do I think it's nice that people share their experiences and words of wisdom with me? Of course. Can I take pieces and parts and go my own way? Absolutely. Does that mean that I am not completely scared out of my mind that I will do something wrong? HAHAHAHAHA of course not. Because I worry, that's what moms do. But hopefully, just maybe, things will work out.

P.S. Mira naps in her crib like a champ, which is how I'm writing this. She just woke up though and is doing what she does every time, STARING at the monitor until I go get her. It's pretty hysterical.

Brooklyn

She was different than the other ones. Not only was her coat completely unique compared to all the other puppies in her cage, but she was the first one to figure out she could jump over the others and stand in the food bowl when no one would let her squeeze in. She was smart, she was sassy, and her birthday was the same day as the day Jonny and I started dating. She was the one.

I had gotten the job of Nature Center Director at my summer camp that year and I decided that it would be cool to get a puppy and have the kids help me raise it and train it over the summer. Jonny had come to California with me (even though we had only been dating a few months) and he was there at the shelter to help me pick up my puppy. I told everyone that I would find her a home at the end of the summer but from that first car ride home when she cuddled into my neck, I knew she was mine. We named her Brooklyn.

From the start she knew how to get me. At night, she would whine in her kennel unless I stuck my fingers through the gaps so she could lick them and rest her face on them. I spent every night of those first few weeks with a crick in my arm from the weird angle it was in to keep her calm. We woul bring her out to the grass to go potty and she would roll around and run to us on her short little legs. We got her a red collar that perfectly complimented her black and grey splotches and a shiny tag with her name on it in case she escaped up at camp. Soon it was time for Jonny to go home and time for me to head up to camp. Another counselor had brought some puppies up to camp as well, so Brooklyn spent the summer playing with her friends, licking campers, and unfortunately eating a chicken that strayed into the dog area. By summers end, she was bigger and rowdier, but still completely adorable and absolutely going home with me.

Over the next few months I started going to the local community college and trying to maintain a long distance relationship with the still Texas dwelling Jonny. I don't remember a lot during this time for one reason or another, but I do remember that Brooklyn was a great cuddler when I was sad. She licked my tears during my and Jonny's breakup that lasted a whole 20 hours, and she sat with me with her head in my lap while I talked to him endlessly on the phone.

I moved to Texas in October of that year. My dad brought Brooklyn out to me along with the majority of my belongings and I started my new life as an independent  "adult". Brooklyn got a playmate (Madison) and the dogs and I lived together in my tiny apartment in the bad part of Denton while I tried to figure out what I was going to do with myself.

This was all in 2005. In the last 10 years Brooklyn has been a constant in my life. Just like with a human child, there have been bumps along the way. There was plenty of destroying of property, massive diarrhea explosions, and a hole in an apartment wall (the cost of which is still on my credit report). I wasn't always the best pet mom I could be either. I know that and it rips me apart inside when I think about it. She's also had her fair share of medical issues and 2 major surgeries but like the tough girl she is, she always pulled through.

Brooklyn is an awesomely entertaining dog. We have to put peanut butter on the wall to get her to stay in the tub for a bath otherwise she will streak out of the bathroom and shake water and soap all over the house. She loves to lay on her back in the grass and wiggle back and forth with her tongue hanging out. Her ears stick up at all times and her tail is a deadly weapon. She makes hysterical noises when she yawns and talks on her sleep. She eats her food before the bowl has hit the ground and she polishes off the birthday cake we get her every year in 25 seconds flat. She is goofy, loving, loyal, sassy, stubborn, and one of a kind.

On Wednesday, Brooklyn is going to sleep for the last time. I will hold her as the pain she has been fighting for the last 3 months finally eases. We have spent the last week filling her with tasty treats and feeding her table food for the first time in her life. We got her birthday cake early and celebrated her life this evening. I also took some pictures today while we chilled outside in the beautiful weather.

We will spend the weekend cuddling and kissing her, scratching her favorite spot, and telling her how special she is. Then it will be time to say goodbye. I am utterly heartbroken.

Brooklyn, you will always be my first child, my company when I was lonely, my comforter when I was sad, my goofball that could always bring a smile to my face. You will always be my mine and I will never forget that tiny puppy at the shelter who stood out from the rest.

Too Many Tabs Open

So I find myself in a strange predicament. Instead of having no ideas for blog posts, I have too many. I have 5 drafts sitting in here waiting to be finished because I can't seem to focus my mind on just one. I will prevail though, and while you wait, here is something that I think is super awesome.

I love Jade's photography and the message that it sends to all woman who have brought babies into the world. She recently was pretty hot in the press after Facebook took down a picture she posted of numerous woman breastfeeding in the nude together (nipples were censored in accordance with guidelines to protect people from the evils of boobs) and then banned her for a day. Whether you support breastfeeding in public, breastfeeding in the nude (which I totally did because I was too lazy to get dressed for the first 2 weeks I was home), or if you are a cover it up or rock the bottle kind of person, you hopefully can still appreciate the fact that this is a form of art expression as well as a depiction of real woman being proud of themselves. I support the mindset of if celebrities can walk the red carpet with their nipples showing, why can't a mother breastfeed in public so these don't bother me one bit. I think it rocks that this woman is raising the self-esteem of not only her subjects, but of other woman who are having trouble adjusting to their new outside self. Below is a link to a Buzzfeed article that was just done on her, check it out if you'd like and let me know what you think.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/rossalynwarren/this-is-what-post-pregnancy-bodies-actually-look-like?s=mobile