Eschewing pants, eating chicken nuggets and getting knocked up.

This week parents everywhere did a collective head smack when they saw the tumblr “Reasons My Son Is Crying.”  Because, yes! Toddlers are the fickle little dictators of their small nations, reducing parents to sycophantic yes-men just to get them to SHUT THE HELL UP.

I mean, parenting is a joy and a treasure…cherish something something.

Recently, my daughter has been throwing herself to the floor in this sliding-to-home-plate kind of move. It’s pretty hilarious, especially when she launches herself right off the bejeweled princess training toilet, sobbing, bare bum in the air. And I say to her gently, “If you want people to take you seriously, you need to put on pants.” Which might just be the best parenting advice I’ve ever given.

So here, as a tribute to that father’s brilliance, is my own list of things that have made my daughter not only cry, but throw herself to the floor sobbing. Sometimes without pants on.

1. She wanted strawberry pancakes

2. There were “too much” strawberries in her pancakes

3. I told her she could only have 10 more M&Ms

4. I wouldn’t let the pigeon drive the bus

5.  I wouldn’t let her touch the electrical outlet

6. I made her wait until the cookies cooled to eat them

7. Birds were in her yard eating worms

8.  Her hands got dirty when she threw herself to the ground in rage over the birds

9. I told her the baby wasn’t a sheep

10. Because I talked like a pirate

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Also, a little bit of shameless promotion. I’m co-producing a local Listen to Your Mother show here in Iowa. So, if you haven’t seen me spam the internet about that, yet. You might want to head over to the site and oh, yeah, buy your tickets.

I posted about our baby name drama over on The Real Moms complete with a list of reject names so you can judge me for that.

Finally, a couple of my posts both here and for Mom.me were nominated for a BlogHer Voice of the Year Award, which was really nice. (You guys take Paypal, right?) You can follow those links to vote, if you want. Or if you want to send BlogHer an angry message about why I am awful, I think you can do that too. Either way, I understand. I believe you can tweet your rage to @BlogHer.

There are also a lot of other really great bloggers out there and if you love them you should vote for them.

Last night, while talking about baby names I went from 0 to crazy in 5 seconds, here is how it happened.

Dave: Maybe we should name the baby Cake, since you’ve eaten all of it.

Me, laughing: No, seriously, what do you think about Carolina?

Dave: You listen to too much James Taylor.

Me, eyes welling with tears: TAKE THIS SERIOUSLY OR OUR CHILD WILL NEVER HAVE A NAME!

Dave’s only response was to blink several times before turning back to what he was doing before: reading conservative blogs and grumbling about taxes. At 25 weeks, my descent into madness is coming quick and fast. I feel like a sick gorilla and it’s time for me to abandon the herd and find a hollow tree trunk in which I die.

These moments of crazy happen suddenly, while the rational me watches fat crazy me in wonder, shaking her head. But I can’t stop it, so I’ve decided that it’s time to tell all my friends and family that I love them and that whatever happens in the next year, I want them to remember me as I was: an awkward clumsy, lover of nuggets who had an uncomfortable amount of knowledge about serial killers.

And not as the person I’m becoming: A cake-obsessed, crank, who gets ridiculously outraged over shirts with cowl necks. Like every woman who finds herself knocked up suddenly loses her desire for a normal neckline? (See what I mean?).

To prove my point, I am listing for you the top 10 things that have filled me with wall-punching-rage over the past two months.

1. Having leftover birthday cake in the house: I mean, I’m trying to be healthy. That cake isn’t helping with it’s delicious whipped frosting. You think you are better than me, cake?

2. The pyramids: What is their problem? Sitting their all smug with their secrets. I’ve got secrets too, assholes.

3.  Cowl necks: I’m not kidding. My chest now looks like the hull of a ship. Why do makers of maternity clothes automatically assume I want extra fabric up there? And not just extra fabric, but loose fabric, the kind that just begs for my 2-year-old to pull on it in the middle of Target.

4.  Maternity swimsuits: If they fit my belly, then they have ridiculous v-necks that make swimming lessons feel like some shoddy B movie. If they cover my boobs then they also have skirts that make me feel like somewhere, some Amish guy is cackling with glee.  I give up.

5. Cooking dinner: I bet Phillip Roth never had to bother with this crap.

6. Sneezing: Inevitably, I will have to change my pants.

7. Pants: Go home pants, you’re drunk!

8. My garden: It is now barely above freezing in Iowa and I already have to weed. Get back in the ground, plants.

9. Princesses: I’m trying to raise a down-to-earth, well-rounded girl and you come along with your fancy tiaras and pretty dresses and just put all of that to hell. Fine, Princess Band-Aids it is.

10.  The United States Postal Service: If anyone else just dumped a pile of junky paper off at my house everyday, I’d call the cops.

 

So, as you can see. These hormones are not affecting me at all.

My friend Rachelle inspired this post with her own hilarious list. You should probably read her blog, since she is fabulous.

When I went into my six-month check up with my first child, I asked my doctor if I needed a birth plan. “Yes,” she said, “the plan is to get the baby out.”

And that’s exactly what happened after almost 20 hours of labor and six hours of pushing and a baby vacuum, which is really just a hand pump and a hose. And I need Dyson to make a nicer fancier model for my next kid.

I went into my birth with no expectations. No hopes other than a healthy baby and no preset plan for how I wanted things to go. I felt comfortable doing this because I love my doctor. She is smart, realistic, no nonsense and once she told me I could have a glass of wine. So, we are basically BFF. She is a real Midwestern doctor. I often imagine she’d rather just have me lay down in a bed of hay, deliver the kids and then get up and plow the fields, “Like the pioneers did!”

But labor was a little difficult. I lost a lot of blood and continued to bleed for a long time. I didn’t need surgery, but the hospital staff did monitor me very closely for the next few hours. Ellis also made weird sounds, which we know now is just because she is weird, but at the time the nurses thought she might have water in her lungs, so there were x-rays and monitoring and all this meant that there was someone in my hospital room almost every 10 minutes.

I didn’t get sleep. At. All.

Every time I did fall asleep a nurse came into check my blood pressure. I got so desperate for sleep that I asked a nurse to keep Ellis in the nursery and just give her formula if necessary, but they kept wheeling her back telling me that she was fussy. “She might be hungry,” said the nurse.

“Well, I did say you could give her formula,” was my groggy response.

The nurse sighed, “We’ll let you take care of that.”

Let me do the math. My water broke at three in the morning. I gave birth at nine at night. It was nine the NEXT night, when I asked them to keep Ellis in the nursery because I hadn’t slept in over 48 hours. Needless to say, we left as soon as we could. I got more sleep at home with a newborn than at the hospital.

I’m sure after over 48 hours without sleep, I wasn’t exactly the ideal patient. I remember when a nurse suggested a bath to help me feel better, I told her, “Two hours of unmolested sleep would make me feel better than stewing my own juices.” So, that probably wasn’t very nice.

In the end, I’ve decided that I don’t want a birth plan, I want an afterbirth plan, which is: LEAVE ME THE HELL ALONE. That’s it. That is all I want.

But here is the problem: I don’t know how to make it happen. I will be discussing this issue with my doctor at my next appointment. And I’ve already floated the idea by my dad, who works as general council for a hospital chain and is the father of eight. He basically told me I can’t keep hospital staff out of the room, so then the other options would be home birth (no, no, no, no, I want that mess elsewhere) or a midwife clinic. But I love my doctor and she only delivers at this specific hospital. I want her to be there and to kindly roll her eyes when I tell her all the jokes I have prepared just in case they have to use forceps on this next kid.

What are your thoughts?

Running Amok on the Internet:

I talk about how much I hate the phrase “babymoon” on Mom.me

Also, I’m convinced my child is a psychopath and I have the science to prove it (also Mom.me)

Things I really, really want to say about pregnancy, but I don’t (for Real Moms of Eastern Iowa)

Ellis is scared of dinosaurs. When my family was visiting this weekend, she walked around the table and solemnly told each family member, “I a’cared of dinosaurs.”

It happened on vacation. We were at the Tampa Zoo waiting to go in.  It was 50, which is basically sub-zero in Florida and we were dressed like we’d never felt temperatures below 60. Long sleeves. Sweaters. Coats. Hats. Gloves.

“Your daughter is cold,” the ticket lady told me.

“What?” I was confused. My Nordic child should be sweating in her get up.

“She’s shaking.”

I peered down into the stroller. Ellis was clutching her arms to her chest. Her lips pulled in an exaggerated frown. “What is it?” I asked. She pointed to the large, animatronic dinosaur sitting by the front gate. “I a’cared,” she whispered.

How long had she been sitting there too afraid to talk? My heart sank and I picked her up. “It’s okay, it’s just fake…” and on and on. But the rest of the day, all she could talk about were the dinosaurs. Even during her nap, she cried out in her sleep, “NO DINOSAURS! NO!” It’s easy to fail at parenting without even trying.

We’ve been working on the fear. Listening to her. Assuring her that no, dinosaurs will not come into your room. Dinosaurs will not eat your yogurt. Dinosaurs are not here. I promise. Just don’t talk to the relatives who believe in cryptozoology.

But on Sunday night, she refused to settle down and sleep. I could hear her talking to herself. So, I went in and picked her up. When we got situated in the rocking chair, she took her pacifier out of her mouth and very seriously said, “I a’cared of monsters too.”

“Oh honey, there are no monsters.”

“They right there.” She pointed to her changing table.

“No honey, those are not monsters, just shadows.”

She shook her head. “Monsters are eberywhere.”

She is right. Monsters are everywhere. No place is safe. And no matter what I do, or how hard I try, one moment I will look away, and something will touch her with its talons. For now, it’s an animatronic dinosaur. But it’s not going to always be this easy. I know too well that you can’t hide from monsters forever.  My parents did their best to raise their children away from every harmful influences in the world–limited TV, no news, we were home schooled–but in the end, what got us were that monsters on the inside.

I don’t know how children know this so well. I remember being five and laying in the dark, imagining that the dull roar of air conditioner was a lion prowling our halls and the swirls of black I saw behind my eyelids were demons. I believed if I prayed hard enough we wouldn’t be harmed. Later, I got older and learned that doesn’t always work either.

I can’t lie to my daughter. I can’t tell her that life is perfect. That nothing bad will ever happen. I can’t tell her that because monsters are everywhere, even inside.  So, instead, I tell her that she shouldn’t worry, because they can be beaten. We can defeat the bad ones and embrace the good ones.

“The monsters that you see right now are good and silly,” I said. “They will sing you songs. If you ever see a bad monster, we will fight him. So, please sweetie, don’t worry.” And then we sang songs about how every little thing would be alright, which is always the deepest prayer of my heart.

I’ve spent all day remembering how on this day, two years ago, my water broke on your dad’s leather office chair. This was after he encased my side of the bed in plastic bags and ordered me to sit on blankets on the couch, just so I didn’t ruin the furniture when “all that stuff…happened.”

In this way, I feel like we are in cahoots.

When you were six months old, you did this thing where we would sit forehead to forehead and I would sing and you would squeal along. Recently, you started doing that again. Except this time, you say, “More kisses!” And I will smooch your cheek and then you will put your forehead to mine and squeal until I laugh.

And I call you sunny, because even on your worst days you always laugh.

You’ve recently started telling me all the things that you “wuves”–wheels on the bus, pink, monsters, fluffy dresses, chocolate milk, zebras, koalas, your daddy. And even the things you don’t love–for example, dinosaurs–you still try to get to know them. We have this dinosaur book that you insist we read to you, even though you frequently wake up from your naps, crying out “No dinosaurs! I a’cared.” One day, you insisted dinosaurs would come into your room. After ten minutes of trying to explain to you why dinosaurs won’t come into your room, I got frustrated and yelled, “They are all dead.”

And then you cried, because you didn’t want dinosaurs to be “a’dead.”

I love that little sweet spirit. The one that immediately confesses to sin, like coloring on walls, coloring in books, or that time you pushed me too hard while I was ignoring you to vacuum  I didn’t say anything. I didn’t really notice. But you immediately frowned. “No hittin mom.” You said. “I go time out.” And then you sat there for the alotted five minutes, while I tried really hard not to laugh.

You tell all your baby dolls the rules. “No blow bubbles in milk,” you lectured your doll the other day. “Make big mess. Naughty.”

And your best friend is my foot, who you talk to on a regular basis. So much so that I have to go hide in the kitchen just so you can finish lunch. “Footie, what you doin’?” You ask.

“Footie, wook. A jay bird! Wook, a bus!”

“Footie, mom cleaning up. Wet’s go, foot!”

And then there are your imaginary friends. You go to the door and knock. Then, you announce, “Monster here! Come on in, monster!” And for the next hour, the monster is  with us. He gets to color next to you at the table, he gets a plate at lunch and sits next to you in the car.

I love these moments because they remind me of my imaginary friend, Em, and how real she was. How I swore I saw her one time leap from my brother’s bed into the closet. I dreamed about her. I mourned with her the day dad drove too fast up a mountain road, throwing her imaginary cousins off the roof of our van and into the ravine below. And then, one day, when I was seven,  I told her that she need to be friends with someone else and I suggested my sister Becky. I don’t think they ever hit it off.

Parenting you is giving me PTSD. The older you get, the more flashbacks I have from my childhood. Some days, I feel like the two little girls, one blonde and the other brunette, are living parallel lives. Tutus and pink toes wiggling out from underneath books. Time looping endlessly.

But even that is not entirely true. Because you are yourself. You love to count and organize. You like things clean. When I take you to the park in the mall and the kids get rowdy, you stick your fingers in your ears, “Too woud, kids! Too woud!”

You demand accessories and already like to tell me what to wear. “Wear da flowers.” You told me last week. And I did and three people complimented me. I think I listen to you more than I should. I put on a pink sweater to go out with some friends and you balked. “No. Da blue one!” I tried to reason with you. “But the blue one is too small for my baby belly.”

Your dad stepped in. “Lyz, you are letting a toddler tell you what to do.”

But you are frequently right. Even your dad admits it. You think this baby will either be a girl or Shawn the Sheep. You think I need to clean the stairs because there are too many “yuckies.” You think mom needs to wear earrings. I’m sure you are right.

I love this age. I love every age that you are in.

This year has been harder on me because you notice more things now. You notice my moods. You notice my sharp voice. You notice when your daddy and I argue and you often mimic me, shaking your finger at him and yelling, “No, dad. Widiculous.” It’s humiliating so see your most righteous self mimicked by a child. It leaves me feeling vulnerable and foolish. Why can’t you do that to your dad?

Right now we are going through an epic battle over naptime. Two months ago, you refused your naps. I tried everything. Leaving you alone–you’d play happily for three hours until I felt like I was running a Russian orphanage and I came to rescue you.  Then I tried sitting in there until you fell asleep, but you thought it was a big party and you’d jump and scream and laugh. When that happened, I tried to punish you. And I felt miserable. One day, after two hours of battle, I started crying. I couldn’t punish you. I hated yelling at you. So,we got ice cream. I apologized for failing. For yelling. For being so frustrated. You just smiled and said, “Wank you for my ice cream!”

And I realized, through out this whole ordeal, I was the only one getting upset. You’ve been happy, stubborn, but happy. We’ve tried again. Moving your naptime a little earlier and that seems to work. Although, it’s not entirely perfect, it’s better.

I am not entirely perfect. But I am trying to be better.

Happy Birthday, Sunshine.

I don’t like actively lying to my child. Not because I’m moral. Just because if she is going to ask a question, she is going to get an answer. A full answer. A complete answer. With charts and graphs. You see, while some moms are good at making cake pops and turning average holidays into magic and actually cooking the recipes they put on Pinterest, I’m good at answering questions.

In 11th grade, my AP European History teacher actually banned me from raising my hand until two other people had answered questions.  That should be on my Linked In profile. I mean, really.

But there is something about a toddler and their insistence, their questions aren’t really questions, they are more a toddler’s way of giving you the finger before they learn the manual dexterity to actually do so. When my daughter says, “What dat? What dat? WHAT DAT!?” Twenty times in five minutes, I don’t hear, “I’m a child and curious about the world” I hear her saying “When I’m 13 I’m going to tell you I hate you everyday.”

It’s like that. So, when she started talking, I gave her full answers. “Why can you see the moon during the day? Well, because the moon reflects the light from the sun and sometimes, early in the morning it’s still visible because of the low light and…oh, you pooped.’

Now, I say, “What moon? I don’t see a moon. Don’t put that sticker on my butt.”

Here are 10 of the lies I tell my daughter on a regular basis. I’m documenting them, so years later, when she Googles, “Why do I have trust issues” I hope I can provide her some clarity, because if she asks me, I’m going to be all, “What trust issues? I’ve never lied. Pour me a drink!”

1.  The snowmen had to go home to see their moms’ and clean up their toys.

2.  I don’t know where “Brown Bear, Brown Bear”/your pacifier/or the toy that sings the ABC’s really loudly is.

3.  We don’t have any more cookies. Daddy ate them all up.

4. Sure, I’d love to read you George and the Tadpoles again. And again.

5.  I’m sure that dog doesn’t want to eat your food.

6. I’m sure that bird doesn’t want to eat your food.

7. The new baby won’t eat your food.

8.  I won’t eat your chicken nuggets.

9.  Even if a dinosaur was alive, he wouldn’t come into your room because he just wants to eat some yummy broccoli.

10. The iPad is broken.

 

On Tuesday, I rushed Ellis out of the door for our 10:30 swim lessons. I had planned on being on time, but failed to build into my schedule a buffer for a fruitless attempt at pooping on the potty and a twenty minute discussion about why no dinosaurs will eat our snacks.

I signed up for swim lessons, not because I believe my daughter is going to be some sort of two-year-old Michael Phelps, or even remember any of this, but because they were cheap and we need something to do. And despite the fact that swim lessons are less than half a mile from our home, I still end up being five minutes late every single time.

So, I hauled Ellis through the parking lot into the locker room. All of our classmates were in the water and the locker room was filled with the remnants of the water aerobics class, who were discussing fiber supplements and tying their Keds, very slowly. I was peeling off Ellis’ layers, when a woman who smelled of broccoli and Liz Taylor’s White Diamonds came over to our bench. She was wearing nothing but a maroon turtle neck and white cotton underwear.

“You ladies in the next class?”

“Yes,” I nodded and continued to change.

“There’s another one at 10:30?”

“Yes,” I nodded trying not to look at her legs, through which I could see someone’s bra and an orthopedic shoe.

“You sure about that?”

“I’ve been coming for four weeks.”

The woman shook her head.

“There is no class at 10:30. You girls missed it today.”

I stopped and looked at the clock. Holy hell. Class was at 10, not 10:30.

“Oh…I guess, you are right. I just forgot.” I looked at my child, who was in a state of undress. Oprah says to send good thoughts out into the universe and at that moment the thought I was sending was, “DON’T SCREAM AT MOM!”

“Why did you forget?” The lady demanded.

“Oh I don’t know, these things…happen.” The woman didn’t appear convinced. I turned to my daughter.

“Hey, sweetie lets have a snack and go to the library,” I said like I was offering her a million dollar home. Apple sauce! Library books! Don’t yell at mom.

“I don’t wike it,” Ellis pouted. “I wanna go swimmin’. I wanna go swimmin’!” The crescendo of her whine wasn’t doing me any favors. I put her shoes back on and zipped her coat. “I go SWIMMIN’!”

I hoped I could haul her out of there before she threw herself onto the tile and gnashed her teeth in righteous rage.

The woman bent down to Ellis’ eye level. “Honey,” she said. “Your mommy forgot all about swimming lessons and so you can’t swim today.  She forgot the right time. Now you have to go away.”

I don’t think this woman hated me. I think she wanted to help me. Maybe with my messy bun and sparkly shoes, I didn’t look like a responsible adult who could juggle a complex task like dressing a child and remembering  what time swimming lessons were. It didn’t help that Ellis was wearing her sparkly dress, five necklaces and sunglasses. Or that I had food stuck to my dress. I’m sure she didn’t hate me.

And one some level, I am glad she said something before we got into the water. And yet, I couldn’t help shake the feeling that she was enjoying watching this failure.

And in that moment, I kind of hated her.

Tears welled in Ellis’ eyes. “Mom, I go swimmin!” She wailed. “I GO SWIMMIN’!” I tucked Ellis under my arm and ran out of there, just as her limbs started to flail.

And I thought we made a great recovery. There were snacks. Library books. Chicken nuggets and juice. But later that night, as I sat on the couch to read Ellis some books, she looked at me and said, “Mom say no swimmin. I pretty sad. I cry. I wanna go swimmin.”

I realize now, we’ve reached a new milestone: That enduring age where everything I do ruins her forever.

 

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In honor of National Pi Day, here is the story of how pie got me hitched.