My kids are pink. I took them out for a walk yesterday, not planning to be out long at all and therefore quite unprepared. But, of course, Sam could see lots of kids down at the playground for our complex and how can you say no when your child is saying, “I want to be wif all the ofer childwen!” And so, we walked further and stayed out longer than I’d expected. And now I have a boy with a red ear, a baby with a slightly pink face, and a mom with a guilty conscience. Oddly enough, I blogged about this very thing when I first started two years ago - it was my fourth post. And I just went to go look at it for old time’s sake. I had two comments on it. Would you like to know who they were?

One - Mama D. I love D. She’s been with me from the very beginning (well, not really. She found my blog about seven posts in and then went back and read all of my previous posts. That’s about as beginning as you can get, I suppose.) She’s someone who I feel I really know well, and our relationship has surpassed the regular internet friendship. And I’m so excited that she’ll have her second child soon, so we can continue to commiserate.

Second - Daring Young Mom. Isn’t that funny? She was my very first commenter on my blog ever. It was probably the only time she ever came over here, and it was probably because I left her a comment saying I had just started blogging. I remember how very excited I was getting my first comment. All of a sudden the whole blogging thing made sense, and I was hooked.

But now, on to sunscreen. The other reason I let my kids roast yesterday is because I didn’t actually have anything in the house to put on them sunscreen-wise. I had not yet done my research to find a product to use that wasn’t laden with toxic chemicals. So I’m all over that today. If you haven’t yet found it, Skin Deep is a really helpful site when it comes to finding products that are safe and don’t contain dangerous ingredients. I think my husband found it back when all that stuff was coming out about the dangers of ingredients in baby soaps and shampoos. We now use it to check the products we already have, as well as researching those we might want to buy. You can look up individual products to find out how the products you use are ranked, or you can search various types of products to find the safest to bring into your house. I just printed out the list for baby sunscreens (it ranks them according to both health hazard and sun hazard, and the safest are listed last with the more hazardous listed first - it’s backwards - so I can see that the Coppertone water babies that I was using last year is like an 8 on the hazard scale…excellent) and will use it today to help me find something I can feel good about. And then maybe I can stop calling Robby Robster.

If anyone has a sunscreen they feel good about as far as the ingredients and the sun safety please let me know. I’d love to have a personal recommendation for this. Steph? Ashlee? Kate? Charline? You’re the first that come to mind on this one.

Labels: Learn More Every Day, Mommy friends

He gets out late. There’s traffic due to the rain. It’s already dark, almost dinner time already, and he hasn’t been home for about ten hours. He’s missing his family - his wife, the older child, the baby - but he’s so tired and ready to just collapse and go to bed. A full day of work and more to come at home, drudgery of a different nature.

A tantruming toddler, battling over dinner - what chair will he sit in, what plate will he use, how many bites will he eat, how many times will he scream, “No! I want Mommy to do it”? A fussy baby - cranky and tired from naps that were too short, unwilling to be held by anyone but his mother because she is the most familiar. And the mother, herself? Cranky. Angry about his lateness, tired from a long day, also just waiting to collapse, bitter and resentful about a lack of help that is beyond his control.

Being a stay at home mom is hard, no doubt. But as much as I complain and feel sorry for myself about my difficulties, when I think about what my husband does every day, I am humbled and so very appreciative. He drives home for an hour after a long day of work and rolls in to find everyone is approaching their threshold. We are at our worst at dinnertime, meltdown time; it’s the scene of an accident. And he is stuck on the side, trapped between trying to help and not wanting to make things worse by getting in the way.

Sam, almost three, often insists that I do everything for him because that is what he’s used to from our days together. My husband believes Sam gets angry at him for going to work. When he comes home, Sam often frowns at him, sometimes he even yells at him, acting out on his hurt or just responding to a change in our normal pace. Robby is so attached to me that often I am the only one who can calm him and keep him happy. He often cries when other people hold him. My husband has to watch his children, who he has missed all day, deny him the privilege of participating. And that is the time he gets with us each day, the hour and a half before bedtime. That’s all.

Occasionally he gets some interaction with the kids in the morning, on those days where everyone is awake before he leaves, but that’s not necessarily any better. Either the kids are awake too early and are therefore cranky, making me irritable and exhausted from the start, causing all of us to act much like we do at the end of the day. Or, and this might be even worse, all goes well in the morning and everyone is pleasant. But then when he has to leave for work he has to face Sam, who wants him to stay because he has been so happy to see him for that extra period of time: “I don’t want you to work; I want you to stay home.” At which point my husband has no choice but to hug and kiss us goodbye, turn around, and walk out the door, listening to Sam cry as he walks down the hall of our building, or watching us wave to him from our apartment until he turns the corner. He does this every day. And I can’t imagine it. He does it so that at the end of the day, he can come back home to us and hear about what we did together, without him.

_______________________________________________________________________________

I wrote this for Scribbit’s Write Away contest. The theme is “Going Home.”

Labels: Hubby, Writing

He’s eight months old today.

He’s a sweet-tempered, happy boy.

He smiles easily, you just have look at him.

He waves at everyone he sees by sticking his hand up in the air.

He has the best baby laugh ever. EVER.

He’s never had a blog post devoted entirely to him alone - he’s a neglected second child.

To be fair, I didn’t even start blogging until his brother was nearly a year old, so in that respect he is ahead.

He’s huge and heavy.

He has recently started to smile with his eyes closed.

He has two teeth and more on the way.

His name is Robby.

And he’s my baby.

Labels: Pictures, The Little One

My mom, Mimi to the boys (Meme? Memi? We’ll have to decide on that) just left this morning after a one week visit. Many of you may remember her from this escapade, and some of you may know who she is without realizing it - she’s the lurker located in North Carolina that reads all your blogs (sorry mom, but you’re just such a LURKER!).

I was worried about how Sam would take her leaving. He’s very attached to her and has pretty much had her undivided attention this whole week. When she left he hugged her goodbye and gave her some kisses, told her he loved her, and then he walked away and went back to playing with his cars. I thought it was a bit abrupt. Honestly, I expected a tantrum. I realized that he just didn’t really understand that she was leaving for good. I figured I’d see his real response in a few days when she still wasn’t back.

About two minutes after my husband and she left for the airport, Sam went looking for “Mimi’s hairbrush.” When he couldn’t find it I explained to him that she had to take it home with her so that she could brush her hair, would he like his comb? Well, he flipped the eff out. He wanted Mimi’s hairbrush NOW. And then he started crying. We sat on the couch and talked about what a nice visit we had with her, how we both really looked forward to seeing her again after we move into our new house.

He still kept insisting that he was just upset because he wanted her hairbrush. It must be so hard to have such strong feelings that you don’t understand and can’t explain.

Hope you had a safe trip back, mom. Thanks so much for the visit.

Labels: Learn More Every Day, The Big One

A few nights ago we heard Sam yelling in his bed. I ran in to see if I could help him back to sleep. He was dreaming, having a nightmare I suppose, and he often talks in his sleep. And he kept crying, “That mine! Give it back!” It wasn’t in the way he would usually say something like that when awake; he was more sad and less angry. He seemed truly upset and hurt by whatever was happening in his mind. I got him back to sleep in just a few minutes, but it left me very sad.

I know we can’t shield our kids from everything and that it’s not healthy to do so anyway. But as I walked out of his room I couldn’t help but wonder where in his life he is experiencing a situation that would cause him to have nightmares about people taking things from him. He goes to school for a whopping four hours a week. He loves it and never wants to come home. His teachers talk about what a great day he had every time I pick him up. And those four hours are the only time that he isn’t with me during the week. I just wish I knew who he was speaking to in his dream, what they had taken, and most of all, what I could do to fix it.

It’s hard to let go.

Labels: Talking, The Big One

So, there’s this woman I know . . .

She’s a stay at home mom, and I’ve seen her around a few times - playgrounds, community events, etc. - I’ve talked to her a bit. She’s nice, a little weird maybe, really great with her kids. The thing is, she’s like uber-fashionable. Do you know what I mean? Once she was at the playground totally decked out like she was on a magazine cover, wearing all of the “hottest trends.” She had the hat, the decorative scarf (I know that’s not the right term. You can see I am out of my element here. A scarf that is not for warmth as much as it is for fashion. Whatever that’s called), a vest thingy, nice pants that I am tempted to refer to as “slacks,” and it was all coordinated in the colors of the season, if you will. And I have to say, she looked ridiculous.

I know I shouldn’t be talking smack, but I just find the whole thing really fascinating. Why does she dress like that? I wonder about this every time I see her. Is it for me or the other random moms she sees as she goes through her day? Is it for her kids? I doubt it. I suppose it’s for her, but why?

The whole stay at home moms who’ve let themselves go thing is such a pervasive stereotype. I mean, how many makeovers have we seen of moms getting new hair, new clothes, tons of make-up, all to make them feel better about how they look because for the last such and such number of years they’ve been putting everyone else before them/ tending to their needs last/ haven’t had the time or energy to pay attention to themselves/ etcetera etcetera. The thing is though, at the end of those make-over shows - you know, after I’ve oohed and aahed over their miraculous transformation and looked down at what I’m wearing, shaking my head, promising myself that tomorrow I’ll “put myself first for once!” - I then start to think about how weird they’d look if they went through their day like that. Is she really going to wear that scarlet red trench and the shiny boots with heels just to pick up her kid at pre-school? Seriously?

I’m not saying the intent isn’t in the right place. We do need to give ourselves attention and do what we need to do in order to feel good about ourselves. I remember when I challenged you all to get out of those butt-ugly, frayed, unflattering PJs. I expounded on how much better I felt from just a simple change to slightly nicer lounging clothes. My main argument was that if my husband was only going to see me in pajamas every day, then they’d better be some damn nice pajamas. And I meant all of that. When we feel less frumpy, we just feel better, at least I do anyway. But I try to keep it practical.

But where do we draw the line? I’ve used this woman as an example because I have never once noticed what another mom is wearing at a playgroup, school, playground, whatever, and thought she was under-dressed. I never look at someone and think, “Ugh, I can’t BELIEVE she’s wearing a t-shirt and JEANS of all things! She’s REALLY let herself go!” I never think that because I understand what we do each and every day, and I understand that comfort is generally the first priority. It’s when the opposite is the case that I really notice it and start to wonder what is going on with someone, “Where the heck is she going that she needs to dress like THAT?” And then, if I’m feeling bitchy, I enter the “Who does she think she is?” realm, but I really try not to. I understand this is all a preference, I just question the motivation behind a decision like that.

How much of this little show is for us to genuinely feel good about our appearance, and how much is us just buying in to what we are told every day about who we are as SAHMs? We’re told that we’re frumpy, unfashionable, overweight, have bad (mom) haircuts, and constantly put ourselves last. So how much of what we do is just us trying to prove everyone else wrong? How much of it, if any, is a sign of dissatisfaction with what we are doing? Or, are these stereotypes in place because they are all true?

I pretty much wear the same two outfits every day; they’re like my uniforms. They’re not ugly, but they’re certainly not hot either. They’re functional, comfortable, and at the ready when I need to get dressed in the morning and have one, if not two children screaming at me. I would say that if someone saw me out on the street during the day, even without my kids, they’d probably know I’m a mom. I imagine the lack of makeup, the air-dried hair, the bags under my eyes, and the clothes that are clearly not meant for the office or appearances in general probably tells them what I am. I suppose I just look like a mom, whatever that means. So, perhaps I feed-in to the opinion our culture has of SAHMS. I guess I’m just wondering if that really is such a bad thing.

Besides, no one really knows what’s beyond the surface for us moms. My huge nursing bra is hot pink, baby.

Labels: Mommyhood

Today we visited our house, our very first house. Hubby and I have lived in various apartments since we graduated from college nearly ten years ago. We close at the end of this month. Very exciting, very overwhelming. We took measurements and tried to place furniture in our minds. We need to look at paint cards and buy a lawn mower. It’s like we’ve been college kids for years, living on a budget in small apartments. We’ve been kids with kids. But look at us now! A house, life insurance policies; we’re so very adult. It’s been a long time coming.

I’ll tell you what I won’t miss - apartment neighbors. I would say one of the main reasons I have wanted us to buy us a house so much has been to get away from crappy neighbors. Yes, I realize it is possible to have crappy neighbors in a nice neighborhood, and that in many ways it is worse because you are stuck with them when you own a home. But I think nothing can compare to sharing walls (or floors, or ceilings) with really bad neighbors. We’ve had some really “special” people surrounding us in our years of apartment living. It’s always something that’s really difficult to deal with when the people who live around you are bothersome. You can’t really do much for fear you will make things worse, and then they are still your neighbors, just now they hate you for say, calling the cops, writing a letter to their landlord, etc.

Usually I resort to writing letters in my head to make me feel better. I’ve told these people off repeatedly in my mind, drafting letters to be stuck on their door for them to find, but I never actually do the sticking. Perhaps I can find some closure if I get them out of my head and share them here. So, from our most inoffensive bad neighbors to the ones that I will truly never forget, I give you part one of a series of “Letters to My Bad Neighbors.”

Dear Dude and Wife Upstairs,

We hear you. We hear everything you do.

Wife, how can you stand your husband’s laugh? How can you hear it, day after day? The high pitched, hyena-like cackle: wuuuuuhp (a sharp scoop of roughly an octave here) buhp buhp buhp buhp buhp. Tell me, exactly how much pot are you guys smoking each day because WOW, it’s gotta be a lot.

I have to tell you that you guys are not nearly as good at Rock Band/Guitar Hero as you think you are. Practice has not made you any better either. Your rendition of Black Hole Sun has not improved with time. Although, I must say, I would rather hear your stoned, tone-deaf incantations than feel our apartment shake each time you dropped a bomb in your previous air strike game that you played for twelve hour sessions every Saturday.

I think it is safe to say that if I can tell you what movie you are watching just from hearing the soundtrack through my ceiling (Gladiator, by the way), that it might be a tad too loud.

Can’t say we’ll miss you, I just hope we get out of here before you get yourselves a Wii.

The fam downstairs

Labels: House, Tales