Motherhood Uncensored

I never

Punishing Quinlan used to be a no brainer. I'd point to the corner, flip the egg timer, and that was that. Then came the high knee stomping, 5-alarm screams, and door slamming.

But lately, she goes into these soap opera dramatic rants, all of which start with "I never." "I never get to play with toys. I never get to watch a show. I never get to eat 4000 bags of candy" she says in a whiny, angry little voice, through a frowning face and wrinkled nose.

The only thing missing is "like the other kids." I'm sure that's due in a few weeks.

At first, I took the intellectual approach, mostly because I enjoy attempting to rationalize with four-year-olds, or jersey cows. It's basically the same.

"Well, never means 'not ever' and the last time I checked you actually do watch shows, play with toys, and eat way too much candy. You are the weakest link. Goodbye!"

Heh.

But surprise! That didn't work.

So then I just started to get annoyed (again, intelligent mom tactic there), and so I would just say "You're right." "You live a terrible horrible life with no toys or television or candy. And I make you bring in water in large buckets that you carry on your head from the manual water pump that's two miles away."

Shit. I should just start in with the whole "starving kids in Africa" speech and get it over with already.

Finally, I figured out that she was angry (duh!) and was just spouting off her mouth in her own preschooler way (duh!), and so I did the trained therapist (hello!) thing to do and acknowledged her anger, and offered her a few other really boring and appropriate things that she might say instead, you know, like "I'm really angry right now."

And actually, it went over pretty well. Sure, she included her 4 year old expletives in there, like "OH MAN" or "THAT STINKS!" but at least we lost the whole "I never" thing.

That is until a few days ago when I heard "I never get to do anything."

From Drew.

*cue primal scream*

6 Months - Knock Knock, Who's There? Eatha! Eatha Who?

 

Eatha Bunny!

Happy Easter, everyone. I've decided to go purple for Maddie.

The Post-Partum Vagina Monologues

After two kids, I was dropping tampons. But with three, I've got as much muscle tone as the half-ton teen.

Yep. Whatever semblance of a vagina that I was left with after Drew has now completely disappeared.

I suppose I should have expected such things, seeing as the vagina is a muscle, and when you push a few 8lb babies through it, chances are it's not just going to spring back to virginal attention.

But unfortunately, I must have just skipped right past the "Your vagina will resemble a pig intestine" chapter in those pregnancy books.

Silly me.

You're too focused on keeping your baby alive and fed, and yourself bathed and toileted, that you don't really think about your vagina.

Plus, hello. The vagina needs rest and relaxation and to be left the fuck alone anyway.

But just when you feel like you're getting your groove back after five months of your post partum haze - sporting your newly thinner ass and thrice refined muffin top in your old jeans, and not squirting milk at the cry of every baby within two city blocks - you want the sex.

Because you're clean and you smell nothing like baby products and you're wearing your one-minute thong (one minute because that's as long as you can wear it before it starts bothering your hemorrhoids), damnit.

But then you're all like "I want you all the way inside of me" in your deepest, groaniest, sexiest but not too loud so you won't wake the baby voice and he says:

Um, I already am.

FUCK.

And then it's the in and out and in and out like a tire pump pushing air into a deflated balloon that will flap and pffffffrrrt in what would generally be hilariously entertaining but holy Jesus IT'S MY VAGINA.

Then your groans get louder to cover the stray air leaving THE NOT SO FUNNY ORIFICE and you're wishing you had downed a fifth of something more than filtered water or that you had kegeled a few thousand more times and you're desperately squeezing as if that might actually do anything but squeeze more air out.

Yeah. Was there a chapter on this in those books?

Because I really wish I would have read it.

Preschoolers for Jesus

If I was truly anti-religion, I probably wouldn't be sending my daughter to a Catholic school. Even though we've yet to formulate the role of faith in our family, I can deal with the rosary homework prizes and the coloring pictures of Mary with really bad eye shadow and lipstick. 

But Jesus dying on a cross and coming back from the dead? Well, that's one of those stories that I'm not sure I can even swallow, let alone a 4 year old.

I mean one minute she's singing songs about wee little men in trees, and the next minute she's drawing a dead man on a cross. And that's enough to make me realize that we've been taking the whole religion thing a bit too lightly around here.

I can't say I'd be happy either.

I'd never consider myself to be someone who'd leave anything completely up to a teacher and a school curriculum, even academics for that matter. But I guess my own issues with religion got in the way of better preparing my daughter for what has obviously become more than just a weekend of egg hunts and chocolate overdoses.

But then just a few days ago during her afternoon quiet time, she reported quite proudly that she had completely cleaned up her room. When I complimented her handywork, she said: "Well, Jesus is coming back to earth Mommy and I don't want my room to look nasty for Him."

And then I thought, maybe the message she's getting from school isn't that bad after all.

Jesus: Providing inspiration everywhere. Even to messy preschoolers.

Bonnie and Clyde

For as much as I wasn't ready for the sibling UFC championships over a Playmobil Fire Engine and a scarf I got at a thrift store for 25 cents, I was completely ready - almost giddy with anticipation - for them to be super sneaky sibling cohorts in crimes against mothers and clean houses.

In my opinion, I'd much rather wipe up a couple of gallons of bath water off the bathroom floor while my children laugh hysterically than pull them off each other and soothe bite marks and scratches.

But the best part, other than saving money on bandaids, is hearing the whole entire super secret plot go down. Because no matter who sly they try to be, they're still a bumbly toddler and a loud-mouthed preschooler who couldn't speak in a whisper or walk quietly through a room if you paid them with 400 jelly beans. Their "inside voices" are still around a 60 decibel level and even a 95 year old woman without her ear horn could repeat what they are saying verbatim.

Of course, they could probably get away with their naugtiness, which as of late has included unraveling an entire container of dental floss all over the floor, playing water table with the bathroom sink, and emptying the entire contents of our kitchen junk drawer into a box. But because they think that their antics are the funniest thing since the last time they made a big freakin' mess, I can't help but be drawn to the complete, eery silence quickly followed by hearty guffaws and high pitched screeches.

I suppose tossing a $3 container of floss, drying soaking wet tile, and reorganizing my junk drawer is a small price to pay for them to actually get along.

If only I could get them to find cleaning up to be equally as entertaining.