Frustration. In haiku.

Sick baby vomits
big boy wakes up bed all wet
mommy gets no sleep


bed FULL of vomit
changing sheets in dead of night
MOMMY GETS NO SLEEP

Alarm clock blaring
babies sleeping soundly now
makes me want to cry

If I fall asleep
do not wake me up or else!
angry grizzly bear

Let me hear your body talk...

Body talk. More specifically, talking about the body and its various parts with my four year old. The age of four is an age of discovery, I'm finding. My son is fascinated by his body. Not surprising, really. But he's also fascinated by MY body. I guess that's not really surprising either, seeing as I'm the only female in the house. Vive la difference!

My son, like most males, is obsessed with his genitalia. He is recently potty trained, so he's also obsessed with toilets and the activities surrounding them. He likes to point out that he pees standing up because he has a winkie.

**Side note- I am a full grown, educated woman, but I can't say the word 'penis' with a straight face. I used to feel bad about it until my son's pediatrician told me (in reference to a question I had about penile adhesions due to circumcision), "Don't worry about his weiner. When he grows up and starts getting woodies it'll all work itself out."
If a medical professional cannot say the word 'penis' either, I don't feel so bad anymore.

Back to the story. My oldest likes to point out that he pees standing up because he has a winkie.  He also likes to note that I don't have a winkie. This observation has spawned hundreds of questions over the course of the last two years. He has deduced that girls don't have winkies, but they do have holes out of which they pee.

All in all I've found the potty training bathroom conversations to be very awkward and uncomfortable.

But nothing prepared me for what came next. My dear son, having found my anatomy lacking, said to me, "You need to get a toy winkie and put it in your hole."

(I'll just give you a moment to ponder that.)

Once I picked my jaw up off the floor and tamed my giggles, my mind quickly flashed over the contents of all my drawers and closets to see if there was ANYTHING in there he could have found that would have given him the idea of a 'toy winkie'.  There was nothing. He has conjured up in his imagination a 'toy winkie' that has a button I can push to make the pee come out.

As mortifying as this is, I think it's sweet that my little boy is trying to help me. He's so sweet and thoughtful! I did explain to him that I'm able to use the bathroom just fine on my own.

My only hope is that he doesn't take this conversation to school.

To spank, or not to spank...

I read an article the other day that linked spanking to mental illness. Read all about it here.

I'm not sure what to think about this.

I was spanked as a child, and yes, my mental health has been questionable at times. But it's impossible to say if I would have turned out better or worse had I not been spanked. At any rate, this blog isn't about the physical punishment I endured as a child.

It's about the physical punishments I administer to my own children.

Ok. I admit it. I have spanked my children. And I have to say that the results have been less than satisfactory. They still misbehave in the store. They still jump on the furniture. Big brother still torments little brother. They both still defiantly shout "NO!" at me.

So I have to question the effectiveness of spanking as a means of behavior modification.

 Maybe it works for some people, but it hasn't worked for me.

The only advice I have gotten from other mothers is that I need to spank them harder, or more often, or hit my children with objects (i.e. belt or paddle).

I can't do it.   I'm not here to judge any other parents' discipline methods.  Clearly I don't have all the answers. (Have you met my children?) I just don't feel good about spanking my kids.

It all boils down to this- when I stop in the moment when I am about to spank my son, and I really analyze the situation, I realize that my own feelings of anger, frustration, my need to "win"- these feelings are driving me to try to beat (and by beat I mean smacking their backsides with my hand. I never hit them anywhere but on the bottom, and only with my hand) a small child into submission.

And I have to ask myself, "Really? Thats all you've got?"

I feel like a failure when I resort to spanking.

So I don't think I'm going to do it anymore. I want my children to behave (by behave I mean things like use their manners, be respectful, play in a safe way, be kind.. that kind of stuff) because it's the right thing to do, not because they're afraid of what I'll do to them if they don't comply.

Yes, I'm sure I'm being idealistic here. And I do use other disciplinary measures, like time out and a reward system. My kids are pretty awesome most of the time.
But when they aren't, I'm not going to hit them.

I don't want my children to be motivated by fear.

(Now, let's see how long before I have to eat these words!)

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This is only a test...

I don't know why I take my children to the store. I guess I'm just an incurable optimist.

I've been working with children for most of my adult life. What I've learned is, managing children is a lot like playing chess. A good chess player thinks several moves ahead of his opponent. One would think that an adult, especially one with specialized training in behavior management, would easily be able to outwit two small children.

One would think...

I do pretty well at home. I set up the parameters for all of their activities. I provide them with choices. I use operant conditioning to reinforce positive behavior.  My children are fairly well behaved outside of the occasional tantrum.



But somehow they always get the better of me at the store. Or the restaurant. Public places in general.

I know that it is the nature of children to test boundaries. And I do set boundaries for my children. I do. But I think that my oldest one is learning that I react differently to his behavior at home than I do at the store. I can do and say things at home that I can't do or say at the store lest I be accused of child abuse.

What amazes me is the outrageous things my 4 year old can come up with. I've had the talk with him about playing with his body parts in front of other people. So in the middle of the drug store he sticks his hand down his pants and yells, "I'm playing with my butt, Mommy! I'm playing with my butt in the store, Mommy!"  And of course the unsaid but understood, "What are you going to do about it?"

Just walk away. This is only a test...

I'm learning that sometimes walking away is winning. I am the grown up, after all.

Babyproofing, or 'When did the world become so sharp, pointy, and dangerous?'

The way I see the world has definitely changed since I became a mommy. Whenever I enter a room I immediately scan for hidden dangers. What can my children climb on, fall from, pull down on top of themselves, bump their heads on, or otherwise suffer grievous injuries from. The world is a very dangerous place! Corners are sharp, walls and floors are hard, chairs and tables are precariously unstable. Electricity is everywhere, luring my children with tentacular cords.

As I write this I'm sitting in a doctor's office.





This lamp could kill my baby. Probably it won't, but we don't have table lamps at our house. We don't have tables either, for that matter.

I don't want anyone to get the idea that I'm some neurotic, overprotective crazy woman. Honestly I'm not. But keeping kids safe requires constant vigilance!

With my first child, I bought all that soft foamy stuff to put on all the edges and corners if the world. I put outlet covers on all of the outlets, doorknob covers on all the doors, locks on all the cabinets, and strategically placed baby gates to keep him confined to a particular area. What I found,though, is that my son merely saw all my babyproofing as a challenge, and he promptly destroyed it all. The outlet covers became a game for him. He pulled and chewed the foamy stuff off all of the edges and corners.
I'm finding that with my second son I'm far more relaxed about babyproofing. Our house is fairly safe, and my second son is wily like a fox. He's learning to navigate in a sharp, pointy world, and he's getting pretty good at it. He's a lot more agile and sure-footed than my first child.

Maybe babyproofing turns kids into sissies. I don't know. What I do know is that I have approximately one more year until I can relax (a little).
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

What? Why?

I needed a new blog. Back in the day I used to be quite the prolific blogger. Back in the day meaning before kids. I guess every parent's timeline is divided into two eras, before kids and after kids. For me, the difference between the two is striking. If I could use Holland as an example, my pre-kid life was Amsterdam. My post-kid life resembles that other part of Holland with the tulips and windmills and stuff. Very different parts of the same whole.
At any rate, this is a blog about mommy-hood. Not necessarily to document and share all the cute and hilarious things my kids do (I assure you, my kids give me PLENTY of blogging material), but to document and share what mommy-hood is doing to ME. Yes, my kids are freaking adorable, but this blog is about me and my growth and development through parenting.
So basically Mommyology 101 is a class that I'm making up as I go along, and these are my notes.

Welcome to Mommyology 101.