Our Princess, Her Frog and the Drama that Ensued

     I think the major drug companies that keep peddling all of their miracle cures should start to work on some form of parenting prozac...


     maybe it would be more like xanax...you know, kind of a situational thing...prozac takes too long to get into the system. I need something in the moment, right away, after I feel like I've been riding an emotional roller coaster with my children for several hours, to calm my poor nervous system...I'm not sure I can take one more bruised knee, emergency neosporin application on a large blister, or an almost dead frog that prompted tears from both of the little people in our house and severe shock to the mother of the little people earlier today.


     It has been an eventful day and it is only 2:30, though the major issues that I will relate have all taken place in the last 2 hours and before I take a nap to sleep it off (my alternative to the parenting xanax I don't have) I will relate the story to you.


     It is a beautiful day here in Buffalo-- a very welcomed blessing after the long winter we have had. The girls and I were outside for most of the late morning and early afternoon. I was cutting the grass (yes ladies, sometimes I actually cut the grass! I figure if I'm outside with the girls anyway I might as well get it done. If left to Scott to do later he'd need me to watch the girls so that he could do it, so I'd rather do it earlier in the day so that he can hang with the girls later and I can do something more exciting...like run off the big pile of homemade mac & cheese that I couldn't control myself around at lunch time today!).


     The girls were swinging and running and sliding down their slide, quite happy for the most part. Ava had stopped crying about her blister (for which I had changed the band-aids 3 separate times already...one in response to a curdling scream that nearly took the breath out of me while I was trying to fix the girls lunch. She had new band-aids on, socks I demanded she not take off and momentarily seemed to have forgotten about the threatening wound). We eventually brought Elmo outside to also swing and somehow that seems to be where all of the drama started...


     I had cut the grass in the backyard before lunch and was going to venture out front to finish the job afterwards. Ava was happily swinging, I helped Ella put a corduroy polka dotted vest on Elmo because she insisted he would be cold otherwise and off she went to swing him.

     I managed to cut two long strips of grass on the side of the house when I saw Elmo's swing and Ava's swing simultaneously come back and mange to knock Ella to the ground. I ran to her, picked her up, calmed her down, wiped her tears and convinced her everything was o.k. I went back to the lawn mower...several more strips into lawn cutting I saw something move in front of me and let out a loud shriek as a rather large frog hopped in front of the mower startling the momma who doesn't like bugs or frogs or other outdoor thingy's with legs to be near me.


     The girls heard my scream and came running. Ella seemed a bit startled by the sight of the hopping reptile but Ava, who has been attempting to prove her bravery about things like worms and frogs tried to catch him. She finally did. She was petting him and holding him and it was really pretty cute. I was so gosh darned proud of her because I don't think I've ever so much as come close to even touching a frog with one finger in my life. I ran inside to grab the camera and managed to snap this shot of her trying to pick him up again.


(alright, I know the frog doesn't look very big here, but I swear he was in like the 75th percentile as far as local yard frogs go.)

     Next thing you know little miss Ella looks down, takes her chunky brown shoe and faster than I could stop her picks up her foot and stomps on the poor little guy right in front of Ava!!!


     My mouth dropped in shocked silence and my eyes must have been as wide as anything as I stood gapping and then screamed at Ella that that was "Bad. Bad. Bad!!!"


     Ava, of course, broke into a fit of weeping tears right away. I think I've mentioned she is the most sensitive child on the face of the planet.


     Through tears and sobs she starts screaming, "Mommy. Mommy. Mommy. He was a nice little frog and....sniffle, sniffle, sob, sob... and I was having fun with him and Ella just STOMPED him!!!"


     She was so angry and so sad-- the poor thing.


    Ava is just standing next to the poor frog and wants me to go pick her up, but I'm standing like 8 feet away and won't go any closer because I'm afraid there are frog guts all over the grass and I don't want to see the poor smooshed frog.


     I beckon her to come to me and she finally does. All the while, Ella sneaks behind me and goes back to pushing Elmo.


    "Look mommy. I pushing Elmo," she says with a grin, hoping I will be impressed enough to forget what she has just done to the frog.


     I'm pretty upset and sad for Ava and yell at her and tell her to go inside and up to her room.


     Now she starts sobbing and Ava is still sobbing and I run in the house and open the basement door and beckon my poor husband from his work because I don't think I can handle the situation alone anymore.


     I quickly fill him in and tell him to go outside and inspect the scene of the accident. He willingly obliges with Ava trailing behind him.


     Well, as it turns out, this little frog must have some serious connections up above or the guardian angel that trails Ella around to keep her out of trouble must have interceded because Scott went out with Ava and that poor little guy was still in the grass and able to hop.


    ....phew....


     I went inside and upstairs to find that Ella had crawled into her crib in her dark bedroom (the blinds were all down and the lights off). She's just standing in her crib crying that she is tired. "Mommy, I tired. I tired. I tired." over and over again. 


    You think you're tired? is what I wanted to say. 


    Instead,  I washed her hands  and we had a nice little talk about how you don't stomp on little animals. That it, plain and simple, is not very nice.


   " You wouldn't like it very much if someone just stomped on your stuffed ladybug there, would you?" I asked, hoping to make a connection. 


    "You mean like this?" She says to me as she proceeds to step on it. 


     Oh boy.


     "Yes, Ella, like that."


      "No mommy." 


      I'm not sure I really believe her. 


       I then made her apologize to her sister and told her no more stomping on small animals.


   Ava needed me to console her a bit more, needed to know that I had spoken to Ella about the whole thing and then needed me to tickle her arms and face to help her get to sleep.


    I am finally in bed, staring at a mountain of clothes at the foot of my bed, and ready to fall asleep as I come to terms with the fact that perhaps the clothes will get picked up someday when the girls are in school and I'm not dealing with almost fatal frog situations.


   The lawnmower is just sitting on the side of our house in a very obviously uncut patch of grass. Hopefully Mr. Froggy has hopped to safety.


    Off to sleep off the emotional turmoil...hoping the second half of our day is less eventful than the first.

Terrible Twos

It has been a chaotic morning. If one child wasn't crying they were getting into something that they shouldn't be getting into and vice versa. Non-stop. All morning. Finally, at around 11:45 I announced that we were going out to lunch because the prospect of handling the girls at a table outside of our home seemed more appealing than messing up our kitchen and the table in our home again. So we packed up and drove to Wegmans.

By this time, Scott was frustrated, I was frustrated, Ella was tired and crabby and Ava was in a momentary peaceful mood. Until we got into the car and Scott told her she couldn't have the freeze dried baby bananas and strawberries that I had brought for Ella. Ava wants to eat EVERYTHING except her meals lately. All of Ella's food, anything we're eating, anything she can find in the cupboards, anything except for her meals...it's a constant battle.

I would have given her some of them, but Scott told her no and then she started screaming. Loudly. I told Scott I would have given her a couple, so he snatched them out of my hand and gave the entire bag to Ava and sarcastically said, "This is what you get for screaming."

Oh boy.

So we kept driving (the drive is less than 10 minutes) and Ava proceeds to dump the entire bag of freeze dried fruit into the cup holder of her car seat.

Great. I keep my mouth shut and keep driving, because things have gotten hairy enough.

Ava demands meatballs at Wegmans, which of course they don't have for some reason...so we end up giving her fried rice, fruit and crackers for lunch.

Lunch was relatively peaceful until it was time to go home. Then, Ava NEEDED to use the potty. I took her and the entire process was, "I do it. I do it. I do it." Ugh. She wants to sit on the potty, get the toilet paper, flush the toilet, pull her pants up, all by herself. She is 2 and though she wants to do these things be herself, they are messy, and dirty and she really needs helps, but gets very frustrated when you try to help her. 

Finally we make it out of the bathroom and I leave the girls with Scott while I go to get the car because it's cold and snowy outside. While I'm getting the car Ava reminds Scott that we promised her that she could see the Lobsters after lunch. Scott realizes that we did tell her that we would go look at them and so he takes her back to see them, which is all fine and dandy until she sees cookies on the way to see the Lobsters and asks for one and is told no. Here we go again.

I park the car out front and walk to the front of the store where I hear Ava SCREAMING long before I  see her. I grab her, put her in the car, Scott puts Ella in the car and we pull away while Ava is screaming about cookies at the top of her lungs.

I proceed to turn up the CD player as loud as I can. So now we are in the car with a screaming toddler and Scott's favorite blue's artist whaling on his guitar at a very high decibel. Scott is playing air guitar, I'm driving as quickly as I can to get home, Ava is red in the face from crying incessantly and Ella falls asleep in the middle of it all!

I felt slightly guilty about turning the music up to tune Ava out, but you just cannot reason with her sometimes. She just throws these fits of whining and crying that make you feel like you'd rather be doing just about anything else in the world than sitting in the same room, much less the same car. I would have rather been collecting the trash in 15 degree weather, or chopping onions for eight hours straight.

The title of this blog alone likely speaks volumes for our current stage of life experiences. I wish I had a note of optimism related to our experience to help encourage another mom, but alas, all I have is our shared experience. 


I did try to start my day on a positive note, before the chaos began and read a wonderful essay in a little book I picked up at Barnes & Noble called "Attitudes of Gratitude".  The essay told the story of a man named Tom who eventually turned to a therapist requesting Prozac for his depression. The therapist instead asked if he'd be willing to try something everyday for a month. In the morning he was to ask himself "What do I feel grateful for about myself?" and in the evening he was to ask, "What did I do today that I feel good about?" 

The author goes on to say that "Gratitude makes us feel good because it helps us widen our frame of vision. Under depression or stress we can develop tunnel vision, seeing only this problem and that difficulty...When we experience gratitude we give ourselves a dose of mental sunshine." 


So I did wake up this morning and before the chaos began I told Scott I was grateful that the girls had slept in (it was already twenty after 8!!!) and that we had a comfortable king bed to snuggle in with the girls on many mornings. I'm also grateful for the ability to have had two healthy children; I know this is a struggle for many people. 


So that is my mental sunshine for the day and I'm hoping it is enough to get me through.

coming up for air

My sister's baby was 11 days old yesterday when she called to ask me the following question while taking care of her 19 mo.old toddler and the baby for the first time alone:

Her: Hey

Me: Hey

Her: So, why is that I feel like I'm barely keeping my head above water?

Me: Because you are barely keeping your head above water.

Her: Thanks

Me: Sure

This was of course a light-hearted conversation attempting to alleviate the often overwhelming feelings of taking care of two small children, both under 2. My own girls are 20 months apart, and Katie has heard my sometimes daily diatribes about wanting to check myself into a hospital or even a prison, anywhere that my meals are made for me and my space stays as clean as I'd like it to for as long as I'd like it to.

The fact of the matter is, taking care of two young children is HARD work! I don't know a woman who would say differently. I don't want to downplay the challenges of taking care of children who have more of an age gap between them, because I'm sure they are many, but taking care of of a child who is 2 and a baby at the same time can at times feel like a pre-requisite to at least partial insanity.

But, that is not the point of this entry.

The point is to say that it is important, as moms, to figure out what makes you feel like you are coming up for air, at least for a couple of hours a week; this is KEY to our sanity. The truth is, on most days, I feel like I am barely treading water. That I am just making it. The house is never clean, just sometimes picked up, our belongings never feel organized, just sometimes easier to find than others, and our car is never void of crushed crackers, and spilled milk. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.

All that said, I do the best I can to make it through most days, and if I lower my expectations about cleanliness and order enough, to actual enjoy many of them. But, I do need mommy time-- this is the time when I come up for air for more than just a few seconds, and actually feel like maybe, just maybe, I can keep swimming, and maybe just maybe I can do it gracefully for a short period of time.

While each woman is different (and man, for that matter- we need to help our husbands figure out how they can feel like they are able to breathe deeply as well!) coming up for air is a benefit of making time for yourself. Here are some ways I've done this:

• Right now I'm sitting a Panera, drinking coffee, watching the snow fall softly, listening to soft jazz and utilizing the free wi-fi to blog away, distraction free-- this is like HEAVEN to me! I pay a babysitter every Tuesday, from 2:30-5:30 to come watch the girls. I prefer to do some writing and/or reading, but often run errands as well. It hasn't always been this way. I've tried a lot of different things, occasional babysitters, mommy's helpers, etc. but this has been the best situation; a lovely 20 year old girl, that lives a couple miles from my house, is a local college student and has a pretty flexible schedule. For me I like being able to look forward to this period of time every week, rather than just doing it occasionally. 
• There is a local pre-school that has a playschool program- it's drop-off babysitting at a trusted church for $5 an hour. I take Ava there pretty regularly for two hours. Ella sleeps and I clean the house! 
• Sometimes, either after the girls go to bed, or just before I'll grab a book and head off to Starbucks. It helps to get out of the house, because I'm there all day. It is more refreshing than just sitting at home on the couch watching t.v..although that certainly holds merits on some days! 
• Taking the kids to the gym with me. I don't do this often because it is a bit of a hassle, and last time I took them both I was 22 minutes into a 30 minute interval run on the treadmill when I was notified that Ava needed to pee and I needed to take her! But, occasionally, I do put them in the nursery at the gym and feel excited to have accomplished a workout early in the day.

While there are other ways to find mommy time outs, I'll leave you with these and hope it inspires other moms to find time to breathe, to come up for air-- you need it, deserve it and will be a better mom for it!

Be Patient and Laugh at Yourself

Several nights ago I sent my 2 ½ year old upstairs to put her pajamas on. She is at the age where she really wants to do things by herself. “I do it, I do it, I DO IT!!” is her mantra and so as often as possible, and as long as her safety is not an issue, I let her do things on her own.

In the temperament of many first-borns (myself included) she can tend to be a little stubborn about things. She often wants to put her own clothes on, buckle her own seat belt, she even insists on cracking her own eggs into a bowl when we are making breakfast (a messy habit that my husband started!) and so I let her do many of these things. The problem is, at 2 ½ she has the desire to do them, but often not the skill set to complete the task properly without becoming frustrated.

On this particular night I watched her walk upstairs and listened carefully to see what would develop. Sure enough, within three minutes I heard, “AHHHHHHHHH. MOMMY. AHHHHHHHHH. Whimper, Whimper, Whimper. ARGHHHHHHHHHH!” In typical 2-year-old fashion she has gone from happy to tantrum in 60 seconds and was screaming and crying at a very high decibel.

“Oh boy,” I said to my husband as I rolled my eyes with a smirk and walked upstairs. Though it sounded as if she were in dire trouble I knew she was really just frustrated about something she couldn’t do.

As I walked into her room I had to hold back my laughter as I found her on the floor. In an attempt to take her shirt off, she had managed to pull the bottom of the shirt over her head and around the back of her neck with both of her arms still in the sleeves. She was screaming at me with her arms locked in her shirt and struggling to pull it off.

I calmly walked over to hear, pulled her towards me and gently helped her get her shirt off. She was still crying.

“Honey, you have to be patient with yourself. You don’t need to cry and get frustrated. Just say, ‘mommy I need some help’ in a nice voice’ and I’ll be right here. Alright?”

“Uh-huh,” she whimpered in her saddest voice.

We finished putting on her pj’s and got her to bed. Even though the situation only lasted a few minutes I found myself wondering, “How do I teach a 2 year old that it is not necessary to get so frustrated so quickly? That there are more reasonable ways of reacting and working through such a situation?”

But as I asked myself the question I knew that part of the answer had to do with modeling such behavior. How often during the day do I get frustrated about small things?

Even when she is not watching, how often do I get frustrated with myself and throw personal temper tantrums about not exercising enough, about not being organized, about not writing more, or cleaning more or being able to find my pediatrician’s phone number or even my car keys instantly. Being a mom of two small children is a period that poses great challenges to my time, to my organizational skills, etc. and yet I tend to be really hard on myself about things I think I should be able to do, but realistically cannot do at this period of my life.

Being a mom leaves me regularly listening to the advice I give my daughter and wondering if my actions are matching up with my words. She may need to learn to be more patient with herself in the small tasks that she is doing, but so do I.

So I’m trying to be a mother to myself. To say, “Lisa, you have to be patient with yourself. You don’t need to cry and get frustrated. Ask for help, but also realize that with the best of intentions come limitations.” So that the next time I have a shirt stuck over my head I can model a more rational response, laughter perhaps, but certainly patience—something that reminds myself and shows my daughter that we need to learn to be nice to ourselves and that acting like a 2 year old doesn’t really get us anywhere!

My Pacifier Complex and the Unexpected Blessing of a Runny Nose

We have two daughters, one is 2 ½ and the other is 9 months old today. I have often joked about my role as a paci pusher. Our 2 ½ year old has a love affair with her paci—from the time she was small it would calm her instantly. It was the miracle tool that brought peace to car rides, it was our snooze button on many mornings, and it has been a comfort and security for many falls, bangs and bruises. She still looks forward to her 2 ½ hour-long naps in the afternoon when she can grab paci, ducky and blankie and curl up in bed, away from the worries and chaos of life. Even though I know we should seriously be considering an intervention to go paci free with her sooner rather than later, I enjoy the security of having a way to calm her during some of these moments and so I let it go day after day.

Naturally, when our second daughter came along I offered her a pacifier as well. Knowing the immediate comfort it had brought to her sister(and therefore myself!) so often, I thought for sure she needed one as well. She fought us on it in the beginning—spitting it out or making faces when we tried to put it in. She was colicky in the first couple of months, and during those days of colic I drove from drugstore to drugstore laying down good money for different brands of paci’s with different types of nipples in an effort to find one that would “work” for her. Finally, she took the paci, and it did seem to calm some of her crying. It seemed as if all woes were answered, until…

At eight and a half months the youngest was still not sleeping through the night. Ack! We blamed it on her colic, and then on our move to a new house, and then on teeth, and indigestion and…well, we were out of excuses and about out of our minds from the broken nights. Our oldest slept through the night at 3 ½ months—an amount of time acceptable to the new parent who is expecting to lose some sleep…but by six, seven, eight months…well, for those of you who have been there, you know the frustration. It would be nothing for us to have to go into her room four, five, six, seven times a night to plug her paci back in. Sure, she’d fall right back to sleep, but often we wouldn’t and the toll was beginning to add up.

Finally, just last week, my husband and I were lamenting the long nights that were sure to be ahead when we noticed our daughter’s runny nose. We propped her mattress up, put a humidifier in her room, wiped her nose as well as possible, and ran into her bedroom every half hour to forty-five minutes the first night of her cold—she couldn’t breathe through her nose, so she couldn’t keep her paci in, so she couldn’t sleep! The next day during one of her naps I decided putting her down without her paci to sleep wasn’t any more or less ridiculous than our running into her room every half hour and so I did just that—I put her to sleep without her paci and she slept for 2 straight hours!

That night, we thought we would try again and guess what? She slept the entire night, let me repeat that, the ENTIRE NIGHT without so much as a peep-- and then the next, night and the next night and the next night. She has slept through the night, with a runny nose and not a sound for six nights in a row now and we have finally figured out the culprit of our sleepless nights!!

So while her bigger sister keeps trying to push the paci on her when she cries because she believes it to be the ultimate answer to all of life's woes, at nine months our little one is paci free and we are all sleeping a whole lot better for it. Bye, bye paci. Hello sleep. Amen to that!




Oh, and by the way, today I'm thankful for:
1. Sleep!
2. Sleep!
3. Sleep!
4. And the beautiful and unexpected blue skies and 70 degree weather we have had here in Buffalo.