Testing Testing

November 18, 2005 BlogPants

That’s what Good Child is doing RIGHT NOW. I’m ready to throttle him. When he crawled into my bed at 5:30, he had a headache and sore throat. Obviously this *could* be exaggerated, seeing as he is nearly 7 and seeing as he comes from a long, proud line of hypocrondriacs. Not wanting to subject him to the loud bus ride to school, and knowing how much my own headaches hurt, I decided that it was okay that he stay home from school.

BUZZ!!!! Wrong answer.

He has been a lively pest this morning and as I promised him, he is in his room this afternoon, supposed to be taking a nap.

BUZZ!!!! Wrong answer again.

After lunch I put Mista T down and he went willingly. Little D however, decided to give me a hassle but I insisted and I’m standing my ground.

3 minutes after tucking him in, he was down here, saying that he couldn’t sleep but I sent him back up, insisting that sick little boys need sleep. He bit his tongue about not being sick and headed back up.

6 minutes after that, he was at my side again, with the same story. I re-wrote the same ending with the same result and off he went again.

9 minutes after that, he is creeping down the stairs. Confronted and frustrated, he huffed off after I told him to get to his room, that he has to nap because he is sick.

“I’m NOT sick!” he stammered.

BUZZ!!!! BUZZ!!!! BUUUUUUZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!!!!

“Then you are busted, thereby grounded and must be in your room anyway.”

Booyah!

Some days I’m a kick-ass mother.

113232831089255739

BlogPants

Today has started all wrong. It started at 5:30 A.M. with Little D’s bony little feet in my butt, waking me because he could not sleep any more. Poor insomniac had a headache and a sore throat. So I got up, got him some Tylenol and tucked his little butt back into his own bed. I called the school, left a note for his buddy that walks him to the bus, and debated on whether I should go back to bed. I opted for sleep, although the internet was beckening my name, the little orange ’sleepy’ light on the computer was giving off a glow that called to me. Nevertheless, I snuggled back into bed, beside Big D, who was oblivious to anything that was going on.

I woke at 8 to the cries and bellows of Troll Baby. He does not wake up like Little D did as a toddler, all happy and smiles. Oh no, not Troll Baby. He wakes as if a gargoyle has been nawing on him all night and he is missing a limb. He is loud, obnoxious, and has a deep throaty cry, much like a cat in heat or under threat. It is not something you want to wake up to, trust me. Rather than stop crying at the sound of Mommy desperately trying to pee before getting him, Troll baby cries harder and louder and throatier. Not wanting him to wake Little D, I pushed out my pee as hard as I could, hoping not to burst an artery in my head. Ever tried to pee harder, in a rush? Well I’m getting to the age where things don’t work as well first thing in the morning, so WHAT WAS I THINKING, HAVING A TROLL AT 30? I’m slow to move in the morning, my muscles don’t work and the fact that I use my Tony Little Gazelle every day for an hour doesn’t not help. My calves are rocks first thing and I walk around, hobbled over like a Troll Mama.

Anyway, the boy is screaming and I’m power-peeing……. I go into his room and he is so loud, he doesn’t hear me coming so when I open the door, he is startled and that makes things SO MUCH WORSE. No one has the range this kid has, not Mariah Carey, not Clay Aiken, not even a car alarm. I bet if you left this kid in a eighty thousand dollar BMW, with a crate of greenbacks, no one would dare steal it. He breaks eardrums 40 miles away.

I pick him up, and bring him to the window, opening the denim curtains and peering out for his friends: the squirrels. He LOVES looking for squirrels and talking to them from the window. Guess he knows that one day, at the institution, he will be twiddling his thumbs and toes and watching the nuts eat the squirrels, or however that song goes.

Within 4.6 seconds of changing him and getting downstairs, Little D is up and I can hear him in the bathroom. Great. So much for him getting any more sleep. Mista T is on his way up to Little D’s room since his has left his bedroom door open. Whoops! By the time I get up there, Mista T is standing there with crayons in one hand and Playstation Games in the other. He hasn’t yet figured out to put them together in order to destroy them, so I empty his paws and shuffle him out. He throws himself on the hallway floor and screams until all the windows in the house shatter. Excellent.

I ignore him and walk downstairs to try and make some breakfast for these two. Soon after, Little D is on the couch, watching t.v. and Mista T is standing at the gate to the kitchen, still screaming. I chant “90-10, 90-10” in my head and stick a sippy cup in his mitts. He sucks it back like a Jello shooter and throws the cup back at me. I hand him a small bowl of Apple Cinnamon Cheerios and tell him to put it on the table. I don’t know what I was expecting, but he dumps the bowl all over the floor and Ruffy comes running to suck it all up.

Mista T decides to go watch t.v. with Little D and stands directly in front of the box. Little D is complaining and whining about this, while I very efficiently ignore them both to tackle the kitchen. Last night was “Good T.V. night,” and it is our tradition on Thursdays to eat baked nachos in front of the tube while watching Survivor, ER, Reunion, Apprentice, C.S.I. and Without a Trace. HEAVEN. Sour cream and cheese go well with Trump and Jeff Probst. It’s time for Big D and I to just unwind and hang out. Part of this tradition is to leave the dishes for me for Friday morning. Blech. Oh well.

I manage to get halfway through the kitchen before Troll Baby is at the gate, whining, whining and more whining. It isn’t quite a cry and it’s VERY ANNOYING. I wasn’t the one who dumped my breakfast all over the living room floor. Why must you punish me child?

Finally I got him some real breakfast in his high chair. Yummy bologna and cut up pineapple. Hey, he likes it. Who the hell would argue with this creature? Certainly not this Troll Mama.

How Many President’s Choice Cheddar Gators Can One Dog Eat?

November 17, 2005 BlogPants

Four hundred, fifty four and a half…..(link)

Quote of the Day

BlogPants

“….and I was all like, where’s my panties?”

Anger? What anger? Poof!

BlogPants

Well after reading this about a week ago, I decided to take my life in a new direction. I’ve been thinking about it non-stop and applying it quite well, especially to a couple of short people who like to push my buttons.

Little D is notorious for arguing. His routine after school through until bedtime kinda looks like this:

Walks through the door. Asked if he wants a snack. Basically ignores Mommy and beelines for the computer, which has 14 windows open and clearly Mommy is working on stuff. Opens window 15 and goes to his online game. Told to do homework. Asks for a snack. Mommy bangs head against wall 30 times. Asked what he wants for snack. Silence. Asked again what he wants for a snack. Mumbles that he doesn’t know what there is. Click click click on the mouse. Despite me now being able to stay calm, thanks to that article, I find he still gets really upset. He yells, slams doors - much like a 15 year old girl. Maybe I’ve passed down that trait to him as well - he’s learned it somewhere of course….excellent. So he does the homework, inturrupting himself 10 times to ask me questions, blah blah blah………KING OF STALL TACTICS, lemme just tell ya. All the while, I am frustrated on the inside but somehow managing……….chanting 90-10, 90-10 in the back of my head.

Okay I understand that kids need down time (especially after school) but the fact remains that Little D will procrastinate his way till bedtime do avoid homework and dinner to play online. So we have established these rules that he absolutely must do his homework right after snack, or bedtime is a real pain in the ass event. There’s enough stall factors at bedtime to warrant more banging of one’s head against the wall, believe me. 90-10, 90-10….

Now before, I use to yell at him to ‘get it done,’ and believe me, that only resulted in both of us very upset and my blood pressure and stress levels through the roof.

I’ve tried on my own, many times, to get myself to naturally avoid the point of getting so worked up, but that only results in me becoming complacent as a parent. When Little D was about 5 and younger (hmmmm, BEFORE Troll Baby, I think there is a theory there) I was a good parent. Honestly, I was patient. I enjoyed spending time with him ALL THE TIME, not just when it was a “good time.” I used to make up games, songs and teach him new things all the time. I still do that, but it’s not all the time anymore. Maybe that is good. Mista T plays well on his own, for the most part. When Little D was Little-er, I would play with him the entire time he was in my presence. Even making dinner, I would find ways of incorporating games into what I was doing, or sing to him, or let him help me. Now it’s “Mommy’s going to make dinner. You can have the computer, but you have to keep an eye on your brother.” Occassionally I will ask him if he wants to help, but he simply doesn’t want to anymore.

So the anger that I once held on to and coddled, is no longer there after reading that. I mean, I know I was close to getting back to my old happy self, but I can’t believe what an impact the 90-10 theory had on me.

Even today, as Mista T cried all morning, on and off, whiney and pestering, I was able to keep my cool and it ended up a better result. He is napping now and I suppose if I had gotten all angry about it, he only would have cried harder and gotten too upset to sleep. He senses how Mommy is, and my hope is that if I set a good example with anger management, my boys will grow up to be happy people too.

As for Big D, he has always been on even keel and I’ve never seen him angry. He is a happy person naturally and although he has been upset a few times, he normally takes everything in stride and I should have listened to him for the last ten years. But you know women, we just don’t listen to men! At least I don’t.

So thank you so much to Sassy, who not only pointed that article out to me last week, she has been there for me for the last few years while I went through this weird period in my life. I don’t know what the hell I’ve been so angry at, but it’s gone now. Thanks hun for being such an amazing friend, for being a wonderful person for me to look up to, and for all the laughs. You are a very special person and if I can be half the mother you are, my kids won’t need (much) therapy. Muah!

Have you read this before?

BlogPants

Discover the 90/10 Principle. It will change your life (at least the way you react to situations).What is this principle?10% of life is made up of what happens to you.90% of life is decided by how you react.What does this mean?We really have no control over 10% of what happens to us. We cannot stop the car from breaking down. The plane will be late arriving, which throws our whole schedule off. A driver may cut us off in traffic. We have no control over this 10%. The other 90% is different. You determine the other 90%.How? By your reaction. You cannot control a red light., but you can control your reaction. Don’t let people fool you; YOU can control how you react.

Let’s use an example.You are eating breakfast with your family. Your daughter knocks over a cup of coffee onto your business shirt. You have no control over what just what happened. What happens when the next will be determined by how you react. You curse. You harshly scold your daughter for knocking the cup over. She breaks down in tears. After scolding her, you turn to your spouse and criticize her for placing the cup too close to the edge of the table. A short verbal battle follows. You storm upstairs and change your shirt. Back downstairs, you find your daughter has been too busy crying to finish breakfast and get ready for school. She misses the bus. Your spouse must leave immediately for work. You rush to the car and drive yourdaughter to school. Because you are late, you drive 40 miles an hour in a 30 mph speed limit. After a 15-minute delay and throwing $60 traffic fine away, you arrive at school. Your daughter runs into the building without saying goodbye. After arriving at the office 20 minutes late, you find you forgot your briefcase. Your day has started terrible. As it continues, it seems to get worse and worse. You look forward to coming home, When you arrive home, you find small wedge in your relations hip with your spouse and daughter.

Why? Because of how you reacted in the morning. Why did you have a bad day?A) Did the coffee cause it?B) Did your daughter cause it?C) Did the policeman cause it?D) Did you cause it?

The answer is D.You had no control over what happened with the coffee. How you reacted in those 5 seconds is what caused your bad day. Here is what could have and should have happened. Coffee splashes over you. Your daughter is about to cry. You gently say, “It s ok honey, you just need, to be more careful next time . Grabbing a towel you rush upstairs. After grabbing a new shirt and your briefcase, you come back down in time to look through the window and see your child getting on the bus. She turns and waves. You arrive 5 minutes early and cheerfully greet the staff. Your boss comments on how good the day you are having.Notice the difference? Two different scenarios. Both started the same. Both ended different. Why? Because of how you REACTED. You really do not have any control over 10% of what happens. The other 90% was determined by your reaction. Here are some ways to apply the 90/10 principle.

If someone says something negative about you, don’t be asponge. Let the attack roll off like water on glass. You don’thave to let the negative comment affect you! React properly andit will not ruin your day. A wrong reaction could result inlosing a friend, being fired, getting stressed out etc.

How do you react if someone cuts you off in traffic? Do youLose your temper? Pound on the steering wheel? A friend of minehad the steering wheel fall off) Do you curse? Does your bloodpressure skyrocket? Do you try and bump them? WHO CARES if youarrive ten seconds later at work? Why let the cars ruin yourdrive? Remember the 90/10 principle, and do not worry about it.

You are told you lost your job. Why lose sleep and getirritated? It will work out. Use your worrying energy and timeinto finding another job.

The plane is late; it is going to mangle your schedule for theday. Why take out your frustration on the flight attendant? Shehas no control over what is going on. Use your time to study,get to know the other passenger. Why get stressed out? It willjust make things worse. Now you know the 90-10 principle. Applyit and you will be amazed at the results. You will lose nothingif you try it.

The 90-10 principle is incredible. Very few know and apply this principle. The result? Millions of people are suffering from undeserved stress,trials,problems and heartache. There never seem to be a success in life. Bad days follow bad days. Terrible things seem to be constantly happening. There is constant stress, lack of joy, and broken relationships. Worry consumes time. Anger breaks friendships and life seems dreary and is not enjoyed to the fullest. Friends are lost. Life is a bore and often seems cruel. Does this describe you? If so, do not be discouraged.

You can be different! Understand and apply the 90/10 principle. It will change your life.

La La….Oh How Art Thou Loved….

BlogPants

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Why do we call him Troll Baby?

November 15, 2005 BlogPants

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Someone asked me - I answered:

There is not enough room on this server to tell you the reasons why we call him Troll Baby but here’s a few:

1) His initals really are TB. Actually they are TBCB, but Troll Baby Can’t Behave is too long.

2) He hasn’t stopped screaming for 1 year, 4 months, 1 week, 8 hours and 12 minutes.

3) He is incredibly cute, but equally irritating.

4) He poops no less than 4 times a day.

FOUR.

FREAKING.

TIMES.

PEOPLE.

5) He believes, and is brainwashing us to believe, that the entire world revolves around him.

6) He is remarkably better than Elf baby, and comes with more cowbell.

Thanks for asking!

B-Log

BlogPants

“How come you never write about me on your blog?”

“What do you want me to write about you?

“A fantastic father, a wonderful husband and …”

“So you wanna be a guest writer on my blog?” (fiction perhaps?)

“Um, I don’t blog. I don’t wanna do anything with the word ‘log’ in it.”

“Riiiiiiiight. Like you don’t do anything with the word ‘log’ and a newspaper on Saturday mornings, for like, AN HOUR.”

Troll Baby…..always helping!

November 14, 2005 BlogPants

Well Troll Baby has been really helpful lately. When I bring the laundry up from the dryer, I fold it in the living room and put it on the top of the couch so it’s out of reach. Well recently, Mista T has figured out not only how to get on to the couch, but that piles of laundry knocked behind the couch make for huge amounts of destructive fun! You see, Mista T likes to knock over ANYTHING that is stacked neatly, whether it’s his Peek-A-Blocks, his nesting cups in the tub, or laundry. I guess there is that innate curiousity that every kid has that makes these little people so destructive. We’ve been calling him Tomosaurus Rex and Destructo for months now and the names fit. You have no idea.

Today I took the laundry a step further (WHOA! LOOK OUT!) and went upstairs to actually put it away so SOMEONE couldn’t get his little mitts on it. As much as I LOVE folding laundry 8 times before it makes it’s way to our closests and dressers, I had to restrain myself on all that fun and just git ‘er done. So my shadow of course is right there, the entire time, while I cleaned his closest out, then I had to put the diaper pail back together (blech blech blech!), then refold his ENTIRE FUCKING PYJAMA DRAWER, and well, I’m sure you get the picture.

Tonight Mista T was quite stuffy at dinner, kinda whistling through his nose like the evil Keebler Elf that he is, so I made a mental note to put saline in his nose before bed. We played for a bit after dinner as he made that little ssssss, sssssss, sssssss sound as he threw balls across the house, tossed toys over the baby gate down to the rec room, just to hear them hit the floor. He ran back and forth across the (laundry-free) couch between Big D and I, ‘honking’ our noses and then his own…..which from his little face, sounds like this:

“Cnonk cnonk sssssss Ha ha ha ha.”

He tugs so hard at his own nose, I can peer into his little brain through his eye sockets and see the mini devils at work, complete with pitchforks and mischief on their faces.

I finally said to Tomosaurus Rex…..”Time for bed! Let’s go to your room!”

It is so cute to see him waddle off to the stairs, climb up ahead of me, and wait at his door. I changed his diaper, put on some cozy jammies and commenced Operation Boogersnot.

See, like most kids his age, he doesn’t like anyone touching his face to wash it, remove eye gunk, or of course, the ultimate picking of the nose. I’m pretty sure that most Moms, like me, actually enjoy the challenge of the nose. From birth, we’re constantly picking at these kids; and we like it. Maybe I’m weird, but I kind of take pride in making sure my kid isn’t the one with the boogers hanging everywhere.

So I squeeze a couple of drops of saline into each nostril and watch him as he sniffs it up like crack cocaine, and the grin comes over his face. I don’t know why he does that, but it’s pretty damn funny. My little saline addict. He usually sneezes at this point, but tonight, being the little helper he was all day, he stuck two fingers up his nostrils, and pulled them out to present me with giant boogs ON EACH ONE. MMmmm thanks buddy….you totally wrecked all my fun.