Parenting For Realz

Our 2 year old was doing the ultimate pre-potty-training practice of becoming AWARE of that stuff comes out. What is that? Why is it happening? I don’t like it so I’m going to hold it in and cry for days in constipation making the lives of my loved ones miserable in my existence. Two out of our four have done this. It’s painful for all who have to witness it and the quicker you can get them to realize that pooping is okay and FEELS GOOD, then the better it is for everyone. This had been going on for a couple of months. On this particular evening she had whined and hung on to my legs the entire time I cooked dinner and put away laundry. Misery for all involved I mentioned. And I could tell she was making herself not feel good by doing this. Last summer, I had success with the age-old technique of throwing my barely three year old in the pool to teach him to swim. He refused to take off his floaties, but I could tell from my experience as a swim instructor that he was more than capable of swimming on his own. After a couple of chunks, and serious crying, he was taking off like a fish swimming with his brothers and never turning back to the floaties that we eventually ‘lost.’ Back to the similar potty situation, I knew she was more than ready, but she was too scared. So like chunking the kid in the pool with no choice, I decided that while I got in my shower in my bathroom, I’d sit her on the potty with no other choice but to face her fear. She’s good at sitting on a big potty and holding the sides so I knew she’d be safe. Of course she immediately started crying from the anxiety of needing to go but not wanting to. She continued the crying for the first couple of minutes of my shower as I calmly urged her to ‘just go poop, you’ll feel better’ and ‘Momma’s right here, it’s ok.’ A typical relaxing Momma shower. Suddenly it got quiet. I continued with my shower not wanting to interrupt anything. Then there it was. The smell. I knew she had done it. She had taken over her fear and her smile of relief was eerily similar to the one on her brother’s face when he realized he could swim.

The oldest boy who can absolutely amaze me with his maturity and responsibility at the deer lease (see here) can drive me insane with his forgetfulness and lack of focus at other times. After a million reminders (accurate hyperbole) for him to grab his bag for baseball practice as we rushed out the door, we got to practice to find that he did not. Driving back to the house for HIS stuff, feeling just ‘sick of it’ for taking care of his lack of responsibility, he was given the job of doing all the kids’ chores of the house for the rest of the week; feeding both pets, taking out the trash every night and unloading the dishwasher. By the third night of this ‘punishment’ Will was getting tired of having to go out in the dark to the trash bin and used the excuse that he was nervous because he ‘heard a noise out there.’ Daddo and I heard none of it and quickly told him to head out the door to get it done. As soon as he went out the door, Daddo took off running around to the other back door and and out to the wooden fence. He heard Will on the other side tossing the bag into the trash can completely unaware of the impending ‘attack’ on the other side.’ Daddo started shaking the fence and roaring at the top of his lungs. Will screamed louder than I’ve ever heard a kid scream. It took him a little while to get over it and gave Daddo a small silent treatment, but he knew it was just for fun and it was a little cool too. I’m pretty sure that’s one punishment he won’t forget for awhile… whether he’ll start remembering all of his stuff or not is doubtful.

Our newly turned four year old is in the stage of fighting off the nap. Our experience in nap time is that by four they start showing signs of not needing them every day. But how do you keep a routine, especially with something as mean as ‘time to go to sleep in the middle of the beautiful day’ if you don’t do it every day. So with this stubborn red head who wants to be just like his 8 and 9 year old  ‘brudders’ I make him ‘rest’ every day. I don’t use the word nap because to him that means sleep, like his little sister. But they share a room in our too-small house so he has to be quiet during his rest time. I tell him to just lay down and rest in his bed and he doesn’t have to go to sleep. Me saying that last part numerous times helps him feel like he’s in control and he’s a big boy.  So laying quietly in his bed with the fan blowing and the light turned off usually ends with how you guessed it, a sleeping and perfectly we’ll-rested four year old. There’s a few days where he’ll lay in there for 45 minutes and then quietly walk out of his room. Those are the days I know for sure he didn’t need a nap. The others, nap time was HIS choice. And that’s where we mommas secretly win. Make I your plan seem like their decision. Welcome to the shady moms club.

Back to the littlest in our home who is learning more and more words every day and also learning to use them to her advantage.  Every one of our kids have gone through more than one period where they were obsessed with sleeping in Momma and Daddo’s bed. Not that they had much experience in it, because they don’t. I think it’s actually the realizations of different fearful things that cause them to not like their own bed. Either way, Daddo and I have a queen bed and we like it all to ourselves. Each child has their own bed and we all sleep so much soundly in them. CL’s new found vocabulary and her desire to sleep with us has given us a few less-than restful nights here lately. This one night actually had the both of us laughing, yes in the middle of the night. Keep it fun right? CL started out with her ‘Momma!’ at the top of her lungs in a very obnoxious, stern tone. ‘Mommmmaaaaa!’ Sometimes I’ll go in there and immediately tell her to lay down and go to sleep in a not-so-nice ‘momma tone.’ But this night I just let her keep going. After a few minutes of yelling for me, she changed her tone to a soft, loving, sweet ‘Dadddyyyy. Daaaaddddyyyy.’ (notice the ending
punctuation is much nicer). I elbowed Daddo who usually is a softie to when ever she says his name, and he’ll go in there and hug her for a bit. But this night was tough love from us both. Silence for a minute. Then we hear, ‘Help. Help meeeee. Daddy help meeeeee.’ Of course you know, and we knew that if a 1 year old actually needs help, they’re going to scream and cry. This performance was Oscar worthy I tell you. But it was no match for the exhausted parents of four kids. And the inexperienced-with-life, youngest child of four thought she was doomed to a lonely night in her bed. Until she thought of one last thing to say. ‘Mommy, POOP. I POOP Mommy. Poooooop.’ My warm covers were thrown to the side and I was at her crib peeking down the back of her diaper before I even knew what happened. Nothing. She tricked me. But it was sure fun just lying in bed listening to what the creative one year old mind would say next in her desperate plea to try to get in our bed.

Believe it or not I have no funny parenting story to share about Cole at the moment. He’s kind of handling his own stuff. He currently knows EVERYTHING and needs NO ideas or help from any adult. (sarcasm) He can turn any random thought into a deep discussion about life and his profound level of knowledge about everything. ‘Well actually…’ we hear countless times from the eight year old. A few months ago when I went to the store and got my upgraded new phone, Cole fully expected he was going to get my old phone. ‘I thought I was going to get your old phone since you got a new one! I need a phone so I can text!’ he pleaded. His otherwise socially oblivious older brother piped up with his first thought of the possibility, ‘if anyone gets her old phone it’s me because I’m the oldest!’
‘No you don’t Bubba, you don’t like to talk to people!’ he argued back. He’s brought it up a few more times, ‘Why can’t I have a phone for texting or for when I’m not with you.’
‘Because,’ I reply ‘you’re never with anyone I can’t contact myself and because you’re EIGHT.’
So if anyone needs ANY information about ANYTHING please feel free to call my second grader on his iphone…. which is just as non-existent as his Facebook account and texting minutes.

And that’s parenting for realz people. No books, no helpful advice.  Just clinging on to the small bit of on-the-spot sound judgment we have. There’s no Help button for parenting. There’s not an app on your phone for when things are happening right then. We try to make the best decisions for ourselves and for our children and well sometimes we gotta just do what our momma gut tells us to! Usually it’s right.