Tick Tock

When my husband and I decided to go for child number three, some people would question me about it.

"Do you really want a third baby? Are you ready?"

My response was always "No, I don't want a third baby, I want a third child."

Don't get me wrong, I love babies. Especially mine. But I wasn't thrilled with the idea of doing it all over again. Breastfeeding, burping, spit up, bottles, diapers...I was past all that with the other two, and the idea of going back was a bit overwhelming.

But I always thought I wanted three kids. I wasn't thinking about the baby part, I was thinking about the kid part. The soccer games and birthday parties, the family ski trips and bicycle rides. You know, what kids do, not what babies do.

So now we fast forward and he's here. That third child. But he's not a child really. He's a baby. A wonderful, over-active, snuggly baby that I adore. Of course I do.

But I still find myself trying to age him. In my mind, a few more times a day than I care to admit, I think to myself how much easier this whole three kids thing will be once he gets to be older. How old? I'm not sure, but my mind usually advances him to at least the age of three.

It's that never-ending ticking of the clock that I catch myself wanting to tick a little faster. Past the age of putting random objects in his mouth, through the stage of crying out full-throttle when he can't get the stroller to move over the objects strewn all over the floor, and right over the back-breaking need to be picked up hundreds of times a day.

It's the same clock that is keeping track of when we can go on our first family vacation without bringing a pack-n-play, diapers, swim floaties, stuffed animals and sippy cups. And when I hear it ticking in those terms, I can't wait for it to speed up a bit.

But then here comes my son. Teaching me to sloooooow doooown.

He just wants to be a baby. No matter what I do to try to age him, he remains true to himself. If I try to give him the same food as us, he often won't eat it if it's on his tray. He wants to be spoon fed. Or I can cut up fresh fruit and give it to him so he feeds himself. But no, he'd rather eat the "baby food" jars that I again spoon-feed him. After all, he is still a baby.

And it's not just me that he's reminding. At our athletic club's day care, he is so active and energetic that they tried to move him to the next room, the one for kids that are 18 months and older. And he was only a little over 14 months old. On the first day that I dropped him off after his graduation, they brought him to the "big room" and all he did was cry. And cry and cry. He wanted his Gloria back (the woman in the pre-toddler room whom he loves and adores) and he wanted nothing to do with this large, overwhelming room designed for big kids. So they moved him back, and he gets to be a baby for a little while longer.

At times I think he can make it longer without a nap because he's getting older, and no, he needs - nay, demands- that extra sleep.

Or I will try to encourage him to socialize with others, especially to say "hi" and "bye" to familiar adults, and he wants none of it. Most of the time he just wants to cling to me, both hands around my neck, face snuggled into my shoulder.

I want him to go play with his toys on his own so I can get my life in gear. But he'll come find me, hiding at the computer. And he'll take my hand, and heart, and literally drag me along, forcing me to join in the fun.

And it is fun. And magical. And so special that I really do need to slow down and smell the diapers roses.

He is my last baby after all, so I shouldn't be wishing it all away in the name of tear-free days and crib-free vacations.

So I have been trying to catch myself, as often as I can, when I see the clock speeding up in my mind, to slow down and live in the moment. Even if that moment is an exhausting, snot-covered, back-aching day.

Because really, the moment, right now, right here, is all we have. We can think about the next thing, plan for the next thing, but we can't make it happen now.

There are no guarantees. Memories of the future are just fantasies until we get there. And why live in a fantasy when I have all my dreams coming true right now?

Plus, it goes without saying that we won't ever get back these moments of time.

Which I know I will be wishing for with all my heart in about 17 years.

Unplugged

Sometimes I am happily reminded of the benefits of unplugging for a little while. No cell phones. No email. No blogging. Just a bit of peace and quiet in a little patch of nature.

We just returned from a wonderful week off. We packed up the kids, and all their accessories, and went out to Virginia to visit some friends. And we spent a few days off the grid.

Our trip was centered around the generosity of our friends' invitation to join them at their house on a lake in Northern Virginia. At no time was there less than six kids and four adults, and for the most part there were a couple more of each at any given moment as more friends came and went, dipping their toes in the lake and visiting for a little good cheer.

And yet it was still a very quiet week.

Sure there were plenty of screams. Usually cries of joy as one of the kids discovered a turtle swimming in the lake or went for a running-start jump off the dock into the water. At times the cries were of a more tragic nature when there was "play date overload". But besides the boat motors and the kids, the loudest things around were the birds and crickets.

You just gotta love nature. It forces you to observe and listen, stealing our attention away from our technology-induced stupors and stressors. Instead we focus on the most important things in our lives that all too often get put aside for a "little" time on the computer.

You know it happens to all of us. "I'll just be a few minutes on email/internet/bill-paying and then we can play that game." Before you know it an hour has passed and then it's time to do something else, like make dinner, change a diaper, or keep a child from bodily harm at the hands of his or her siblings. And that little person that so patiently waited for you gets bubkus.

Not so when you are on vacation. Everyone gets your full attention the whole time, which is a pretty amazing thing. Take away your daily routine and you take away your worries and excuses. Unplug from the craziness of this world we live in and just be.

Watching your kids discover new passions is priceless. And unfortunately, it doesn't happen often enough in our internet-driven, inflation-ridden, information-overloaded world.

I'm so grateful to our friends for opening their home to us. And I'm even more grateful to my family for filling my senses with giggles, hand-holding, water-splashing and finger-licking-good smores.

Last week I definitely found my happy place.

The Price of Vanity

Today I had a very frustrating experience at the doctor's office. I was there to try to get one more pregnancy souvenir taken care of, my spider veins.

I really don't have that many of these on my legs, and one of them I've had since I was a teenager, but a while back I thought I would look into getting them treated. And I wanted to get rid of a large mole that developed during my first pregnancy, called an agioma. This was my sort of "congratulations-you-carried-and-gave-birth-to-three-beautiful-children-and-now-you-are-done-with-that-crap" present to myself. Yes, yes, pregnancy is nature's most amazing gift, yada, yada, yada.

So I went to a 'consultation' that consisted of me sitting in a group of 50+ year olds and discussing cosmetic treatments with a medical dermatologist (this was the necessary first step to getting treated at the medical foundation I use for my primary care). The doctor looked at each person one at a time and you had to sit there through the whole thing. I was easily the youngest in the room, so I felt a bit like a calf in a herd of grandma cows that they were shuffling through the pasture as fast as possible. They clearly had more important cattle to handle than us.

Despite this not very warm and fuzzy experience, I decided to make an appointment. When I called I was told there was nothing on file for the prescribed treatment for the angioma, so I'd have to get it looked at again. Clearly this place, a well established medical facility, has some marks against it in my book already. But I really like some of their departments (pediatrics, namely), so I was willing to move forward.

I did have an alternative location in mind, a skin spa, but decided to go to the reknowned medical facility for this procedure. Huh. Should have given that another thought, I guess.

So today was the day that I was supposed to get my youthful legs back. I show up 10 minutes late; my bad. But I did have to get my husband to take the 3 year old to preschool - kicking and screaming - and then wait for the babysitter to show up for my other two. I am called in by a nurse that either isn't happy that I am late or just can't seem to find her happy place. She's rude and has a very indignant tone to her voice. She proceeds to tell me that I didn't listen to their advice in making appointments in the summer-time, which is the worst time of year to do any cosmetic treatments.

"You'll just end up with brown streaks in place of the spider veins that you say you don't like," she says. Excuse me, but are there people out there that actually like spider veins on their legs?

My retort is that I didn't recall any such advice and I didn't realize that treating veins would cause pigmentation changes. Although this does ring a bell when she mentions it, but I don't say so.

She then essentially tells me that I'm the idiot here, not her. She says "you people" were all at that cosmetic dermatology consultation and that's what they always tell "the groups". Just like, the sky is always blue. It's a fact. They said it and I didn't heed the warning.

At this point it is not lost on me that her reference to the room full of wrinkled, gray-haired, age-spotted women was like we were a bunch of puffy-lipped, breast-augmented, botoxed thirty year old bottle-blonds looking to get an eyelash transplant.

I mean, give me a break. I know there are people here with serious health concerns, but it's not like we aren't paying customers too. OUT-OF-POCKET paying customers, by the way. And I didn't just pull the nurse out of a life-saving melanoma removal to talk about botox. I made an appointment, like everyone else.

Then I ask her to just cancel my treatment for today, but to look at the angioma so I know what kind of treatment I can get for that, explaining why I don't have that information from the consultation. Since I am clearly wasting her time now, she gives a big sigh and tells me to show it to her.

Next I get a series of condescending remarks: "those are nothing" about some of my spider veins; "you know, that's not the angioma" while pointing to a vein, which I am well aware of and never claimed it to be; "yes, you are really tan" stated in the same tone she might say "yes, I see you are smoking while eating a large order of cheese fries and drinking a vodka tonic". Finally she looks at it and proclaims she needs to get the doctor to look at it too. Fabulous.

I then wait 35 minutes for the same doctor to come in and look at it (again) and tell us what is recommended. At least I'm not the only one that had her time wasted; the nurse was waiting too.

Then I bid farewell to the two women that look like they have spent way too much time in their coffins offices. I think they must drive to their medical facility in the dark of night so as to avoid any exposure to "the elements", like the beautiful sunshine that "my people" like to enjoy.

Skin spa here I come.

In the winter of course.

I'm not that vain.

On The Wagon

I'm one of those no-nonsense kind of moms.

My kid turns one, and we are off the bottle. And no more formula too.

Withdrawal symptoms can be troublesome, so I usually go somewhat cold turkey.

Sounds a little harsh I know, but it's all based on my theory that my child won't miss something if he can't see it. There is only so long this theory can be applied, and in my experience it is mostly before their 2nd birthday, and in some cases before their 1st.

I have weened the pacifiers before their 1st birthdays; actually before they were 9 months old. So far I have been 3 for 3 on the binkies.

I ween the bottles at their first birthdays; again, 3 for 3.

There is one thing that I will never ween my children from, and that's the transitional object. For that, I have no timeline. They can snuggle with their favorite animal or blanket (daughter 1: Bunny, daughter 2: Pierre the pig, son: blanket) until they go off to college. Or they can take it with them to the dorm, I really don't care. To me, snuggling is THAT important.

But sucking on things? Not so important. Don't get me wrong; this is VERY important as a newborn and infant. But, in my experience, it loses it's ability to soothe them somewhere around that 9 or 10 month old age. That's when it becomes a habit. And THAT'S when it becomes much too hard to take something away.

Hence why we go completely bottle-less in under 24 hours. If he sees a bottle, he'll cry and whine and I will give in. But if he doesn't see one, his withdrawal symptoms are much more manageable. Nothing that a little patience and perserverence can't solve.

Although there is a little trickery involved.

My son used to hit the juice pretty hard on the bottle. He'd suck that thing dry and then keep at it, hoping to get a few more drops out that may have been lodged in a crevice somewhere. In fact, he's been known to go to the bottle drawer (within his reach) and take them out and suck on them completely empty.

So I first gave him his formula in a sippy cup a few days ago. Once he figured out what was in there, he went at it. But he was lacking the vigor of his bottle days. So be it.

That was the official beginning of the end. Then I started mixing milk in with his formula. I would have done that longer, but I ran out of formula. And with groceries costing us an arm, a leg and an eyeball these days, I wasn't about to buy more.

So there went the formula.

When I gave him just straight up cold milk in his sippy cup, he proceeded to throw it overboard from his high chair without even tasting it.

So I picked it up and shook it in front of him (much like I did with formula).

This invoked quite a curiousity, so he took a swig.

Nope, still not formula, so it went for a high dive again.

Then I went for the double play; I microwaved it and then shook it.

This invoked a lot more swigs, but it still eventually took a plunge overboard.

So be it.

I kept that cup around for the next hour, offering it to him as he played. And sure enough, he finished it eventually.

Now I have the top rack of my dishwasher back, and I couldn't be happier.

Persistence always pays off.

In the MOMent

I know we are supposed to say that Mothers’ Day is no big deal; it’s just a Hallmark holiday. Or that every day should be Mother’s Day. I guess that means you can call me a sucker, because I like it. It’s a rare day that everyone cleans the house, let’s me sleep in, and brings me breakfast in bed. So I’m going to enjoy it, damn it. And you should too.

But really, this day isn’t about me. For me, the best part of this weekend is taking a moment to truly appreciate my kids. After all, without them, I’m not a mother.

Lately I’ve learned that I’m a happier and better mother when I can be in the moment with my kids. All too often I find myself racing from one thing to the next, just trying to get through my day without going cuckoo for cocoa puffs. But when I do that, I end up losing sight of my kids.

This is one of the many simple things I have learned from my children. Live in the now. It’s why our kids are so in love with every new toy or make such a lively squeal when they see cupcakes. It’s all about what’s in front of them at this very moment.

So I say, for today, and any other day you can manage to get it done:

Fret not about being late for every SINGLE thing for the next 18 years and instead take a mental picture of every big smile full of pure love shining through from the heart.

Forget about the tantrums and the whining, and remember the big, soulful eyes with wet eyelashes clumped together that look up at you when they need comforting.

Hold off on the sigh of exasperation when your child asks yet ANOTHER ‘why’ question, and instead be amazed by the accomplishments of the human sponge brain.

Don’t worry about the fact that your child hasn’t had a shred of nutrition in three days and respect the growth that literally happens before your very eyes, whether you want it to or not.

Wait just a few minutes before racing through a bath that is already an hour past bedtime and inspire some giggles that make your heart smile.

And next time you hug your children goodnight, let in the love and appreciation that comes from simply being who you are, not what you do.

Know that this little person standing before you, growing more mature by the minute, is still your sweet newborn baby inside. And recognize that as each day goes by, this child will be farther and farther away from that little baby, moving ever closer to their independent future.

Take time to live in the moment, and bask in their essential need for the unique love, respect, trust and pride that only a Mother can provide.

Welcome to My Water Cooler

Man, I am so cool. I mean I don't want to toot my own horn, but I was almost a whole month ahead of this wave of attention on "mommy blogging". Sure, sure, there are women out there that have been at this blogging thing for five or six years now. But that's beside the point. This is about me. After all, this is MY blog, right?

Don't know what I'm talking about? Take a look at this video from The Today Show. But don't forget to come back here afterwards.

It all started for me about a month or two ago when I got an email from one of my best friends. She wanted to cheer me up after a hectic day (in other words, a Wednesday) so she sent me an email about Heather Armstrong and her blog. What my friend didn't see coming is that she was instantly putting me in touch with hundreds of other women that were also having a hectic day. A hectic mommy day, that is. I really had no idea they were all out there, just a click away.

So now here we are, numbering in the thousands and growing. And we're out here telling everyone about our families, our work, or whatever strikes us that day. And apparently some people don't want these women sharing their personal lives because they feel it will in some way harm the children that are the stars of the show.

But I say if you feel that way, then stop reading. It's a free world and if people want to share their stories with millions of other people, so be it. Will their children hate them later? That's not for us to worry about; leave that to the writers.

The way I see it, what all this "mommy blogging" is really about is a chance for us moms to have a water cooler. If being a mom to our kids meant going to an office, we could connect to a somewhat larger community by sharing stories around the proverbial water cooler. We'd have meetings about topics like "How to Get Your Toddler Out the Door in Under 10 Minutes" and "When is a Wet Diaper Just Too Wet?". We'd let others know that they are not alone, and we'd share all the details about how we could do this job better. Because it is a job. And it's the most important one there is, in my opinion. And let's face it, we're not in June Cleaver's world anymore. This job is tough and we're not afraid to complain about it.

Now we can stand together and laugh at the moments in our lives that might otherwise have us running for the hills. We can share and commiserate and revel in the victories and frustrations of being a mother.

And since I'm doubting that all of these mommy blog fans and readers could fit into any one woman's living room, I say, blog away. Put it out there. Because I like knowing that I am not alone in this experience.