Griffin's New Trick

The Best Laid Plans...

Or, How to Induce a Meltdown in 15 Easy Steps!

1. Wake up and be very, very excited about how well your day is going to go.

2. Confidently plan a full afternoon of activities after a full morning of errands, knowing that your angelic children will be well-rested after their naps.

3. Tuck said angelic children in for naps. Forget to put your almost-all-the-way-potty-trained 3 year old in Pullups. Forget to reassemble baby swing correctly.

4. Pat yourself on the back after 10 minutes of silence. Obviously, your kids are napping!

5. Run upstairs at minute 11 when all hell breaks loose, and screaming /crying erupts.

6. Divide and conquer! Mommy, you unstrap the baby from the sideways, broken cradle of the swing. Dad, you clean up the accidental poop in the big boy's underwear.

7. After one hour, when it is clear that neither child is going to nap, get both kids up in an attempt to keep your busy afternoon schedule. It's going to be so much fun, after all!

8. Park your car approximately one mile away from the playground. Plan on walking there and back, in an effort to enjoy the sunshiney afternoon.

9. Change your mind about walking to the park halfway there. Go back to the car and drive to the playground instead.

10. Play at playground. Do not remove baby from her car seat, as the sunny sky is accompanied by a chilly wind.

11. Get back into the car to drive to another town. Run extraneous errands. Listen to the baby express her displeasure at being trapped in her car seat. At the top of her lungs.

12. Pop in to see some friends and their new baby. Do not feed your three year old. Do not have any extra snacks in your car. Do not bring more than one small car to entertain him.

13. Voila! You have achieved critical mass! Nuclear meltdown will be achieved in five, four, three, two, one!

14. After apologizing profusely to your friends for the very loud meltdown, load everyone into the car. Listen to three year old AND baby express displeasure at being back in the car headed home. Realize that you still have one more stop to make before you get home.

15. Get home. Pour large glass of wine. Drink wine.

On the Road Again

Last weekend we loaded up the family truckster and made the 5 hour drive down to Connecticut. My aunt and uncle kindly put us up, but I don't think anyone was fully prepared for the Vermont Circus on Wheels. We made it, safe and sound and relatively sane! Here are some highlights of the weekend:

The baby meets her adoring public!



She loves the cool swing in Wendy's sunroom!




Playground with cousin Em:



I'm Bat-Man!



World's Smallest Guitar Heroes



Thanks for having us! We had a great time.

A Moment of Weakness

There are not many things I miss from my retail career. My current job provides me wih plenty of interaction with all sorts of people, new challenges, and of course, plenty to bitch about. What I miss, without question, is the clothes. For more than 7 years, my job required me to try on and buy new clothes regularly. New colors, new cuts, new cute accessories to go with them. Oh, the beautiful clothes (sniff).

I spent most of my first year at my new job pregnant, which meant I was just trying to find a few reasonably cute things that worked with my bump. Then I was on maternity leave, wearing nothing but yoga pants and nursing tanks. This is my first big season change with no new wardrobe, and I'm definitely feeling the loss.

So I guess it's understandable that I found my way to the mall yesterday. I just couldn't help myself. When I saw that cute spring coats and handbags were 50% off I had what I like to call a "moment of weakness".

When I was a retail manager, I talked to many women who hid their new clothes in the trunk of their car (including one who got dressed in the garage) so their husbands wouldn't get angry about their shopping habits. I always swore (rather smugly, actually) that my husband and I would not have that kind of relationship. I was an independent woman, making my own money, and I'd be damned if my husband would tell me what I could and couldn't buy! Well, true to my beliefs, I did not hide my new coat and bag in the trunk.

I hid them in our bedroom.

Forgive me, honey. They were on sale! Deeply discounted! Think of the money I SAVED by being such a thrifty shopper!

Not working? Well, at least I'll look fabulous in the doghouse.

Our Dog, the Kleptomaniac

It's true. Our dog is a kleptomaniac, and I'm so ashamed!

We've all been loving the gorgeous warm weather, but my husband noticed something strange. As the snow melted, our yard began to look like the scene of a grisly homicide, or a meat processing plant.

Our dog has been systematically stealing bones from the Dobermans across the street, who are behind an invisible fence and unable to retaliate. Meanie!

My husband stopped counting at 31 bones. We also found 3 stuffed animals, a hat and a glove. I don't know what to do. Do I give them back? Do I throw them away? Do I bury them in a sandbox and let my son play "paleontologist"?

Awkward. Sorry, Dobermans.

Fun in the Bowl

Tonight, as I was getting our son ready for bed, he looked pensively into the toilet and said, "We don't put our feet in the potty, right?"

"Right!"

"And we don't put toys in the potty, right?"

"Right!"

"Even the potty at school, right?"

Okay, one question I can write off. Three questions means I need to start worrying. The last conversation we had about what NOT to put in the potty was prompted by my beautiful boy sticking his head in the toilet to try to wash his hair. I'm not sure I can handle another one of those "hepatitis moments", so it's with great trepidation that I ask the question:

"Buddy, did you put...something...in the potty at school?"

"No, but Holden and Andy put their toys in the potty at school today."

Oh, thank God. Let Holden and Andy's parents worry about hepatitis tonight. I can bask in the pride of being the one whose kid didn't play in the pooper today.

Aaah, sweet relief.

Only in the Mind of a 3 Year Old

does Cruella Deville = Wonder Woman. No idea where that came from.

Somehow, my husband has now become "Grandpa Wonder Woman". I don't know where that came from either, but I'm laughing every time he refers to my husband by this name.

That is all.

Exhausted

I am a person who generally has no trouble sleeping. I can "rest my eyes" on couches, in cars, and certainly in beds. It tends to be a running joke. In fact, I once called me husband in a panic, convinced our house was filling with carbon monoxide, since I was sitting on our couch at 9 pm and couldn't keep my eyes open. (By the way, thank you Oprah for planting that little seed in my head) Instead of taking me seriously, he cracked up laughing and basically hung up on me.

Cue Rodney Dangerfield, cause I don't get no respect.

One of the governing rules of parenting is that you only sleep as well as your children sleep. Last night, I was SOL, as our little girl had a stuffy nose that caused her to be restless all night long. I woke up roughly every 45 minutes, got her settled, got sucked into whatever episode of SVU was on USA, fell asleep before the case was resolved, repeat ad nauseum.

Now, in the midst of this relative chaos, my husband was snoring away next to me...loudly. I hit him, trying to get him to roll on his back, chanting his name over and over, trying to get him to stir enough to at least stop the snoring. It was then that I noticed what he was wearing: NOISE CANCELLING HEADPHONES! I'm sorry, is the volume of the TV, set to the lowest possible level, interfering with your ability to snore with enough force to shake the god damn bed?!

Now I'm sitting here watching a movie with our son, hoping my industrial strength coffee is enough to keep me going for the rest of the day, while my husband's snores drift down from the second floor. Guess who's noise cancelling headphones will be floating in the toilet in no time flat?

Breastfeeding: One Woman's Opinion

After 6 months of successful breastfeeding, I am slowly weaning my daughter. I'm having mixed feelings about the situation, to be honest. On one hand, six months is a long time, twice as long as my son had breast milk. On the other hand, I feel selfish that the factors primarily affecting this decision are about me, and not about her. Like everything else about breastfeeding, it makes me second guess myself constantly.

Overall, I've had a wonderful experience breastfeeding my daughter, certainly a better experience than attempting to breastfeed my son. My son never latched on correctly, struggling, frustrated, working himself up into a frantic panic for food, while I cried along with him, feeling inadequate and unprepared for motherhood. If I couldn't do this, supposedly the most basic, instinctive process on earth, how the hell was I supposed to do everything else? For weeks my husband fed my son with a syringe so we didn't "spoil" him with a bottle while I tried to figure out why I was such a failure. Half of greater Burlington saw my boobs, pinched my nipples, and smooshed my son's tiny head against me in an attempt to make it work. Still, no luck.

Thank God for my husband, who had a clear enough head about the situation to finally say "stop". Hearing him tell me that it was okay for it not to work perfectly, okay for my son to have a bottle instead, really helped me. After all, the "bonding" I was supposed to have with him while he nursed was not happening. In fact, the poor babe was learning to scream in fear and frustration every time he was placed at my breast. We started bottle-feeding pumped breast milk that day, and never looked back.

My experience with my daughter was the complete opposite. From the hour of her birth, she was comfortable and natural on the breast. She spent her first 48 hours eating like a champ, and when she unexpectedly had to spend some time in the NICU, she was not thrown off. When she finally got to come home with us, I had the number for a local lactation consultant, but chucked after 2 days of problem-free feeding. We were golden.

But while breast feeding has it's amazing moments, it also has its drawbacks. With my son, my husband and I were true partners for the first six weeks, taking equal turns with nightfeeding, lack of sleep, soothing the crying babe. We were a team, and I fell in love all over again watching him be such an amazing daddy to our little boy. With my daughter, she and I were so connected for the first six weeks, we were essentially one, just like when I was pregnant. And just like when I was pregnant, I often felt a little sad or a little resentful that my husband could not share the exact same experiences I had with our little peanut, by virtue of biology. I felt like it took him longer to really connect with her, mostly due to frustration that he couldn't comfort her in the same way I could. I often felt alone with her, even when others were in the room, because sometimes I was the only one that would do for her.

I also think that people need to stop doing women the disservice of telling them that breastfeeding will just happen naturally. Yes, sometimes it will, but often it won't, and if it doesn't happen right away, or at all, you are not a failure. It's easy to feel that way, but it's not true. Honestly, I have my theories about why one nursed so easily and one didn't, but all they are is theories. They are different kids who had different experiences, but were equally loved and well cared for. They are both happy, they are both healthy, neither dissolved into a pool of goo at the taste of formula. Good parents do what they need to do to keep their kids, their marriage and their sanity intact in the beginning, and that may or may not be breastfeeding.

I'm glad I was able to have the experience with one of my kids, but I am just as glad to be finishing up. No more strapping myself to the damn pump, no more leakage on my work clothes, no more frightening people with the threat of public nursing. Of course, this also means slightly less exclusive cuddle time with my little peanut, but I will make that trade off. We're on to solids now, and that brings enough adventures of its own.

Our Son, the Poet

Our son's daycare recently spent a week learning about poetry. The kids each made a book, and wrote poems and drew pictures to illustrate. This is our son's first entry:

A Pond

I want to go to a pond.

I want to play in a pond.

I would play with a

dinosaur in the pond.

I want to play and

let the dinosaur eat

the trees off.

I would play in the pond

with my Mom and Dad.

He also wrote another:

A Puddle

My puddle is big.

My puddle has grass and mud.

My Mom and Dad.

are gonna look at it

My Mom and Dad

are gonna step in my puddle.

I would walk in it

with snow in it too.

I'm gonna wear boots

in the puddle.

God, I love that kid.

The Boys + Tub Crayons =

Scary dinosaur with blood dripping from it's jaws.

"Dating" for Families

Our plans for yesterday included a trip into downtown Burlington for the annual Mardi Gras parade. We were scheduled to meet up with another family from our town, with kids the same age as ours. Perfect plan, except for the fact that Mardi Gras is in February, and we are in Vermont, and the mild weather we've been having couldn't possibly last long enough for us to get outside for the day. It was a perfect winter's day, sunny and COLD! A little too cold for the babies, so we made a new plan.

Play date!

I'm fairly new to the world of play dates, but I certainly feel the name is apt. It's been awhile since I was single, but I remember the feelings: the initial connection, then the gradual exploration as to whether this acquaintance might grow to something...more.

We've had some interaction with this family before. All the kids go to the same daycare, and we've gotten together at least twice before, with some success. The kids get along, the parents are friendly and laid back, and so far we have all the hallmarks of a "match". However, it's still a little early in the game, and while the kids let it all hang out, the adult are still in "best behavior" mode.

Parental conversation starts with the basic, neutral conversations: kids, work, day care, parenthood. We bring up thoughtful details that we remember from our previous interactions, and things go smoothly. It's when the conversation lags a bit that the choice is made: do I reveal my addiction to trash TV and celebrity gossip now, or do I suppress it for a bit? I chose to suppress it, not wanting to rock the boat of our early friendship.

By the time dinner is on the table, we've weathered a few minor kiddie upsets, mainly revolving around head bonking and toy stealing. We are tentatively talking about spring and summer get togethers, subtly communicating that both families are feeling good about the relationship. We don't close the deal on our next "date" yet, because by the end of the night the kids are tired and becoming unreasonable. The knowledge is there as we say our goodbyes, collect toys and pack up bottles: there will be a next time.

The next get together will be on our turf, and at that point maybe we'll cross that bridge into the next phase. We can stop shaving our legs, wear sweats, and eat dessert, because at that point the relationship is a keeper.