The Worst Day Ever. Until Today.

Sometimes you just think so long and hard and overmuch about things that they leave an indentation on your brain that only time can resolve.

Which I why I never thought overlong about being a working mom. It’s what I have to do, so I do it.

But that doesn’t mean it is easy.

On Mondays, while I drive to work (and often on the drive home from work), my Heavenly Father gets extra long phone calls from me asking for His help for me to be patient and have faith that He’s working on the blessings that will make it so I can stay home. He hears from me all day long too, any time I miss my boy.

And lately? My Tuesdays and Wednesdays haven’t been so good either. Tuesday, I crunched budget numbers in Excel spreadsheets and made plans in my head. By Wednesday, perhaps because so much of my husband’s telecommuting day morphed into the embodiment of chaos theory, perhaps because, even though my mother-in-law meant only that I was the mom and the call was mine to make when she said “if you want to be with your boy, come get him,” the words beat my heart into pulp, perhaps because hormones and lunar cycles and maybe even the damn barometric pressure all combined against me, I was a fully dysfunctional, sobbing, crying, praying mess of a lump sitting in my car during my short lunch break.

This week was like that quote from the movie Office Space: “Ever since I started working, every single day of my life has been worse than the day before it. So that means that every single day that you see me, it's the worst day of my life.”

Wednesday night, I arrived home with a purchased dinner to find my kid had crossed the strike line to join up with the Grouchies. I told him, after I forced him into his high chair for dinner, that he didn’t have to be so upset, that he could actually choose not to be upset. I told him he could choose to be happy. He stopped fussing and looked at me, curious as he considered this new information for a while. And you know what? After that, he was happy.

We both learned a lesson that night. I am choosing to be happy!

Thursday was marginally better, but I could have done without the hunger, fatigue, and grouchiness (mine, this time, not the boy's).

But today? Today is Friday! The day I get to play Stay at Home Mom. And even though my kid woke up at the crack of stupid after a rough (rough!) night, and I am so tempted to trade our Grand Day Out for a Great Day In, I am going to make the best of today!

~Nichole

With a Will

I've written before about how nap times and Sunday schedules are like oil and water around these parts.

We moved into a new ward that is a whopping half hour earlier than our former ward, so the fact that my kid's nap time falls before and during church was not helped much.

BUT, I am happy to report that with prayer and effort, we have found a way to make it work!

We have gotten to where we just push his bedtime out a little so he sleeps longer and push his nap until later (i.e. keep him busy and occupied right up until church). We are able to make it through sacrament meeting without any major meltdowns. Then we rush out and get him into the car. Some days he is so tired, he falls asleep before we are out of the parking lot. Other days, he lasts until we reach the top of the hill before turning left for home.

One hour is not nearly enough, but it will do for now. And the experience has helped me re-realize that praying about something and being willing to put in the effort to make it happen really are a powerful combination!

~Nichole

The Shoulds

Have you ever met the Shoulds?

The Shoulds are a malicious bunch. They like to hold me hostage, back me into a corner, and squish the shreds of parenting dignity I have left beneath their crusty leather boots. Then, as a more acute and awful form of torture, one of them reads a list of my parenting transgressions: not paying enough attention to my kid, saying "damn it" when his octopus arms are busy grabbing my piles of freshly folded laundry, letting him slip underwater while I try a few acrobatics in the pool. . .

Then they stand around and recite their creed: "he Should be night weaned by now!" "he Should be in his own room!" "you Should be using time out!" "he Should be watching less movies and reading more books!"

Just when I feel about to succumb, my kid does something great like eat chicken (we've been convinced he's vegetarian!), or learn all his primary colors (plus black, purple, and orange), or recite 15 letters of the alphabet (out of order), or sit nicely through church (eating raisins).

Such things intimidate the Shoulds the way a patronus does a dementor! And they make me feel way better, too!

~Nichole

Crafting with Cephalopods

Here's the thing.
I don't quite know how it happened.
I don't know quite when it happened.

But sometime between 18 and 19 months of age, my son left babyhood behind and went into full-on toddler mode. He walks with a very purposeful toddler walk. He acts like he's the boss of everyone. (And everything.) I have never seen a person more self-possessed than a toddler!
Recently, I read a blog post that compared flying on a plane with a lap child to trying to hold an octopus still for a few hours.

Did you know that that is exactly what trying to do a craft project with a 19 month old running around is like?

I did the nice version of my tutorial here. Here's the real story.

We started in the morning. When he was extra wiggly. And prone to climbing every climbable surface on the planet.
He "helped" me measure and mark my button holes.

He climbed on the table about eleventy hundred more times. He modeled my fabric.

He grabbed all my tools from me, injected himself into every task I performed. He "helped" me make the buttons.

He ran around and generally caused a ruckus all over the household. Insert break for going to buy foam - during which the heat of the car and the noonish hour brought on a (too short) nap - which made the day all the more interesting.

Insert second break for lunch and chasing and redirecting and pulling a kid off all sorts of high-ish surfaces.

My octopus used his tentacles to grab and shake loose the legs of my once-sturdy table, at which point this octo-mom lost her patience and started using my own tentacles to pull him away much too forcefully and impatiently.

I called reinforcements in from outside (i.e. made his dad come and watch him while I operated the compressed air stapler).

Finally, about 12 hours after I started, I finished. We couldn't get one of the four corners of the legs to seat correctly thanks to the vigorous octopus shaking it received.

Oh, and it took about 4.5 seconds for my kid to stick his little tentacles under one of the tufted buttons and snap it right off. See for yourself:

Just keeping it real, folks. This is the side those cozy online tutorials won't tell you.

By the way, if ever I am tempted to attempt a project like this again with a toddler underfoot, remind me of this, will ya?

~Nichole

Toddler Discipline

Parenting a toddler is what I imagine being bipolar to be like. You're never quite sure how much that bump will hurt and whether it will elicit a cry, and at what point redirection will cease to work and major meltdowns will ensue.

To be sure, with each new developmental stage, parenting (and disciplining) a toddler feels most like being out at sea, never quite sure exactly which direction you should be heading in next.

Look up toddler discipline, and you'll get all sorts of directions. Brazelton has his way. Sears has his. There are time outs (which I honestly can't imagine for this age). There are "secret" methods. But all agree that consistency is key.

My approach, before I had kids and before my kid was a toddler, was simple. It involved a two-pronged attack of Redirection and Choosing Your Battles.

But, as my son tries harder and harder to gain independence, he has stopped listening. He has started testing limits. And I have started raising my voice and not wanting to get up 50 times to redirect (both of which I am working on).

With potentially dangerous and gross things like toilets and the fireplace, I've tried smacking hands or his butt. With the hands, he is completely unphased. And he is fascinated by his butt, so he thinks it's funny and when I say "I'm gonna spank your butt" he puts his butt out, pats it and says "butt". Which I think is funny.

I am learning right along with him. I try out one tack to see what works and even though I am supposed to speak with some sort of authority, some days I feel completely at a loss for what to do next - totally in the middle of the ocean.

How about you? What do you do?

~Nichole

19 Months

19 months!

And we have entered the stage where he's so adorably cute one second (that little voice singing in the back seat or trying to say every thing I say - you should hear him say his name. or haircut. or the letter "F".)

And then the next moment, you're out to dinner and he's an unholy whirlwind of terror, threatening to hit his head on every living surface in the restaurant (glass tabletop! tiled walls!) or pierce the ears of fellow diners with his fitful crying.

But mostly, the cute thing.

I love love love love this kid! I love love love love being his mother. It's the most awesome job in the whole world, crazy bits and all!

~Nichole

On Mothering

I have been thinking much lately about mothering. And what it means.

I confess I do not have any particularly stunning or profound insights.

I know only this: I love being C's mom. And I am learning a lot about prayer and faith and patience and trust as I pray for the blessing to work less or not at all someday in the near future. It is my fondest dream to spend my days with my boy, taking him to swimming lessons and storytime and picnics at the park.

In the meantime, I am trying to do my best with what I have. I like what Kelly had to say about her mother's recordkeeping. And about the most beautiful thing. And her utter honesty about her struggles with infertility. What I am saying is this: this week, Kelly's beautiful little blog is where it's at if you want some profound or stunning insights about mothering. She gave me something to think about several times this week.

~Nichole

A Letter

Dear C,

Pretty soon - four days your dad tells me - you will be 18 months old. You are amazing! Your language skills are exploding. Just today I told you we were going to the doctor and you said "Dot-ter?"

Your little voice and the way you repeat words with the upward tilt of a question - I could listen to that all day long!

Your little face is thinning out and you look more and more like a toddler and less and less like a baby each day. I love to run my finger along the curve of your cheek down toward your chin.

And your brown eyes! I can't even put a coherent sentence together about those beautiful browns!

Oh your laugh! And how you are so silly and take such delight in finding things to be silly about just so you can laugh. It's all so delightful and fun and it just makes life worth living.

I tell you all the time that you're my best boy ever, and that's the truth if ever I heard it! You are pretty great! You're smart, and you are a good listener and you are just the funnest person to be around.

The only only only thing I wish were different is . . . I'd really wish you'd poop. Because adding words like "suppositories" and "enema" to my SMS words is kind of crazy if you ask me.

Love,

~Mama

Always Go Back In

This morning began at the early (but used to it now!) hour of 7 a.m. with my baby next to me in his raised up toddler bed - screaming and ranting and just generally unhappy*. Now that he's all toddlery, he goes through these spells every now and then. Sometimes at 3:30 in the morning, but you know, why should that matter to us vampires? (Because I seriously think that's what parents have to become in order to cope with all the sleep deprivation . . . )

He rejected my soothing advances, my attempted caresses of his back, my calming tones by becoming rigid and frenzied, arching and tossing himself backward, and trying to get as far from me as possible,which is kind of hard to do when his sleeping quarters are designed to keep him within my reach.

I left him alone, writhing there and fussing. During such times, I usually say out loud, to no one in particular, "Well, kid, I don't know what to do for you."

And inevitably, when I stop trying to soothe, his frustrated crying gets worse. And inevitably, I take this as my cue to get back in there, get up to my elbows in fussy baby, and try again.

This morning, I asked M to bring me a sippy of milk. I laid C down on my chest, reclined back against my pillows, and as he calmed down and snuggled against me, I made a mental note.

Always get back in there.

No matter what. No matter how much the initial rejection stings. No matter if he's 17 months or 17 years. Get back in there. Get up to your elbows if need be. Because just when they think you're not what they need, you're exactly what they need the most.

(*Later, when happy and smiling and laying semi-still for a diaper change, I noticed the pointy white peaks of 1, 2, 3 teeth trying to come in. If I were cutting three teeth at once - and all molars, too! - I think I, also, would be a mite cantankerous . . . so, he gets a get out of jail free card. Who are we kidding: he always get a get out of jail free card!)

~Nichole

Time for Two

It is at the risk of entirely inflating my mom's hopes and getting her prematurely excited that I write this post.

My baby is 17 months old. As he becomes more and more independent, not a day goes by that I don't think about when to have another. "When" is a question that does not currently have an answer, since we are working to put some things in place and want to let the dust settle so we can see the picture clearly.

I've read plenty of articles about the ideal spacing for children. Everyone has their opinions. Even my mother-in-law, who once said "You guys are so funny. We never talked about when to have children or how to space them. We just did it."

If only.

Some people still take this approach. I am not one of them. But I am not getting any younger, people! (Are you?)

Some people say spacing of between two to three years is perfect, others say waiting longer (3, 4, 5 years) is better, still others say having them as close together (between one and two years apart) is the way to go.

What say you? What is your ideal spacing? Is it something you decided on purpose? Or are you one of those chosen few who have faith enough take them as they come?

~Nichole