Sorry for the delay

Much going on here the past two months, visiting grandparents, taking some trips and coping with the ever changing world of parenting a preschooler. Plus, winter made me terribly depressed and I just couldn't muster a negative blog about living in freaking Ohio.

So, the funny thing is, it is after 10:30 a.m. and my kid is still asleep. This is the most peculiar thing in the world. New world record. Shattering the previous record of 8:45 a.m. I could REALLY get into this! I am getting a glimpse into the teen years.

Right now, he eats, sleeps and argues. He is either a shark, a preschooler or a teen. I can't say he argues every day, but once a week without fail, we butt heads. And at the end of that day, he tells me "I love you SOOOOOOO much" about 1,000 times. Ah, the pushing of boundaries to make SURE your mom loves you!

The Young and Relentless - ep 1

I have been reading lots of books lately about parenting. Toddlers are tough characters, so tender one minute so outlandish the next. The most interesting thing I learned of late is that they treat their mothers differently than their fathers. In some cases, they save up all their mis-behaving for their dear old mommies. I am here to tell you this is T-R-U-E!

O vascilates between snuggly sweetie to arguing, button-pushing tyrant within minutes. The most charming characteristic of late is to never let me have one minute without doing something for him. Making play-doh guys, building block castles, you name it and he wants them all at once. Most of the time, I LOVE IT. I know he will never be this reliant on me for approval again and to cherish it. Plus, this is what I signed up for.

There will come a day when he won't let me pick him up, or make a castle for him. And then, there is the 2% of the time when I need to get to something that I just want to throw a sock at him. But, the best part of me realizes that this is a GREAT personality trait, I have it, too. It is a relentless tenacity to get whatever I want. I am grateful for this trait in him, and in me.

Can't sleep

I have never been good at falling asleep. Most of my striving little life, it has been due to stress, panic, fear, worry and general insanity. The last two nights, I was unable to fall asleep because I was SO HAPPY. That is a new one, people. I really feel secure in my life right now, which would normally cause me great panic ("when life looks like easy street there is danger at your door" - thanks Jerry Garcia!) But right now, I am blissfully content. I know who I am, what my purpose is and what makes me happy. I know when I am not happy, how to get there. I have no earthly idea how this happened.

Up until Owen, I never thought motherhood was for me. In fact, even through his first year or so, I didn't think this would work out well. I am very different now. I hope it stays this way. I like this, A LOT. Don't get me wrong, I am still striving for the next big thing (opened a consulting business - more on that later), and trying to figure out when I can get that Benz I want, but for the big part of my brain, I feel really confident. I am the most important person in the world to someone who is learning everything from scratch. Not even a month ago this statement terrified me with the huge-ness of it, now, I feel very strongly that I am doing a good job WAY more times than not and I am even getting some delish validation (mommy, I love you soooo much!)

What a crazy turn of events, indeed.

Holiday check in

UPDATED
So, aside from the desperately ill child, things are churning along nicely toward Christmas. Here's how I am doing...

Bake cookies - check
Buy the tree - check
Watch It's a Wonderful Life (same night as the tree) - check
Take clothes and toys to homeless shelter and women's shelter - oopsy, must happen this week
Write letter to Santa w/ Owen - check
Picture w/Santa - check
Storytime w/ Santa - not gonna happen
Shop for Steve and Owen - check and check
Host 8 again for Christmas dinner - stay tuned

Breakdowns - none...YET. I was close today and not over the holidays. O and I are back to the tussling, how exhausting. When we are together, he is on some serious emotional roller-coaster, when I am not with him and Steve is, all he wants is me and when we are reunited, he just hugs and kisses me for about 15 minutes and then we start tussling again. Neat, huh? Seems cyclical, need to start studying the cycle.

The cycle ended after three days, we are on day two of regular O...double YAY!

Passing trials

In the last 6 months I have struggled with my role, child, home situation, worth and identity. I am pretty much done with that now.

I am a mom and a damned good one at that, at least normal. Last night, I came home from Christmas shopping to a VERY sick child. It was the first time in his life that he threw up. It was 12:30 a.m., of course it was. I was there. I helped him, cared for him, changed his bed clothes and made him as comfortable as possible. I did this until 2:30. Steve took over until 5, when I took over again. When he was hungry at 6 a.m. I made him some toast. He threw that up. He got diarrhea and vomiting. He was pitiful.

I was calm, cool and caring. Oh, and PROUD! I didn't once shudder at the piles of vomit on me all night and throughout the morning. I raged at a doctor who told me there was nothing to give him and I got him to sleep for a short while. I am a mother, his mother, the best job in the whole world. I could not be more thankful that I am lucky enough to have a flexible home situation with my husband and I am really thankful for my LG steam washer with the biohazard setting. I think I'm going to make it.

The curse of Monday

Every single Monday is such an unbelievable trial. O is so cranky, contrarian and just downright twerpy. EVERY SINGLE MONDAY. Without fail. Seriously. Then poof, Tuesday, fab child returns.

On Monday, he doesn't want to leave the house. He wants to do nothing all day but mope and crank and argue. I asked Steve if this was the same for him and he said it absolutely was. Something goes on on Monday for this kid. I think it is because of all the dual parent time and a lot of times, my parents are here to add to the excitement and then, Monday, it is all gone.

Funny thing is that every single Tuesday morning, he sleeps in past 8 a.m. Clearly something goes on that day. Now, if I can just learn and develop a strategy to deal with Mr. Cranky Pants on Monday...

The more you know...

You know in your regular, collecting a paycheck job, you can choose to have a loser day sometimes. You know, where you update FB every 15 minutes, or shop for the holidays, whatever. Time on the job where you don't have to think. What is cool about my new job is that I get 1.5-3 hours of this almost every day. What I didn't realize is that the hours I am on the clock, I have to think HARD! The Happiest Toddler on the Block book reminded me just how much thinking goes into raising a happy kid. Lemme tell you something, there are hours every day that I scrutinize every work before it comes out of my mouth. And if you knew me before, I have no filter...whatever pops into my head most often came out. It was a charming quirk (unless you were on the receiving end of a rant) anyway, what a change this one is. It is a good one because I avoid so much conflict when I do it, but damn, my brain hurts!

I used to like roller coasters

I battled post partum depression during O's first year. It was the most heartbreaking thing that I could imagine. I was so out of my head that I feel in hindsight, I missed a chunk of his babyhood. And then this week, it hit me again. I started to spiral again and get very unstable. Living with a two-year-old is inexplicably hard.

In many ways they are more difficult that babies. Mostly because you don't get the impression that babies will remember crying for 2 hours five minutes after they stopped, but toddlers, oh, they remember, at least mine does. And he can tell you all about it. The cry, they argue, the contradict, the want what they want RIGHT NOOOOOOOWWWWW!! They are annoying as hell. Until you remember that they are little, weaker and do not win many battles if you don't let them.

I didn't remember that for a whole day. There was a whole day this week where I was a complete dip shit, egomaniacal, digging-in-my-heels, asshat. A whole day. I wasted a WHOLE DAY. I hate wasting time. I took this role because I felt like a missed the first two years and REALLY missed a good six months when I was a mental Jello mold. And then, I pissed a whole day away. One that could have been awesome, but instead, it was a cry-fest. Let's be honest, in the past three weeks, I pissed away 4-5 whole days, and two more while I was on vacation. All because I couldn't remember that he is little, weaker and doesn't get to win much...but alas, I did remember. Since I remembered, happy, happy kid and guess what? Happy, happy mommy, who can also be a major stupid ass.

Hmmm...

Am I ever going to feel like I am good at this?? I am beginning to wonder.

Downside of development

The boy has nightmares now...big, honking, scary, screaming, quivering lip nightmares. Last night, I think he slept for a total of 5 hours. Meaning Steve and I slept for a little less than that. The sad part is the fear in his eyes. Chalk this one up to "Crap I DIDN'T think about when I realized I wanted to have kids." Poor buddy!

Busting out

O can be timid around new people and places, which is both hilarious based on the fact that I am his mother and un-nerving (same reason). It takes him time to warm up and I am growing concerned about him being labeled shy, when in fact, he is not shy, he just is deciding whether a given situation is worth his time.

I stopped worrying this weekend when we all miraculously recovered from our colds to attend a family wedding. My family is HUGE, so I have countless cousins, aunts, uncles, the works. The droom was a cousin I babysat when he was little. We took O to his first wedding. He was excited to see the princess (this will be a coming post) and her prince and then have cake. We had him with princess and cake. He was his usual reserved self in church and during dinner. In fact, when a man asked O if he could have two of the plateful of crackers, O counted out two crackers and handed them over with a look that said, "that's your limit buddy, these are my crackers, don't ask again!" Then, the music started and the cake was served.

He was ALL OVER THE PLACE. Racing between tables, talking to everyone and BURNING UP the dance floor. I had sore abs from laughing with his joy. He drug everyone onto the dance floor. Me, Steve, and both my mom and dad. He danced for more than 2 hours and would have continued had it not been 10:30 - WAY past bed time.

Needless to say, I worry too much!

Having some fun

Vacation as a stay at home mom is hilarious. It is crazy how different it is than being at home. I am a flat-out tourist and I don't care. I took O to a waterfall and a fish hatchery yesterday. It was so fun. We just farted around for three hours. We had a breakfast date and a lunch date. I took tons of pictures and just had a glorious time. It is nice to smell the roses and be with my boy to show him all of nature's wonders. He loves the mountains and the waterfalls. But when asked if he wanted to live here or our house, he said I like our house best. It was sweet.

It was only weird when I saw a group of business people at breakfast and I realized that used to be me...making deals, decisions, traveling. I suppressed the urge to sit with them and talk. Good thing, because I got the sense they wouldn't be too pleased with the sticky toddler by my side. Although, I can say I wouldn't trade business travel for any level of sticky toddler...

Bouncing back a bit

Last week was a vision from hell. Failure, tantrums, all kinds of tear-filled days. I finally realized that I am doing a number of things that I find to be wrong for me. First off, let me say that I have some serious flaws as it relates to parenting, first, I am obsessed with efficiency. My aim everyday as a worker was to finish all of my work for the day by noon and to have all my week's work done by early afternoon Wednesday. This worked for me very well. I am and was efficient. An example of this would be that in the course of cleaning the house, I try to figure out the fewest number of times I need to go to the basement to work with cleaning supplies and the vacuum. I can do it in one trip...

Secondly, and by far worse that the efficiency thing, I am a pretty self-centered individual. This makes it very challenging to be a parent. I am not proud being self-centered, in fact, if there were a cure for it, it would be at the top of my to-do list. Which is yet another damaging parent flaw, I am to-do oriented. I used to have lists, lots of lists. Things that needed to be accomplished everyday in order for me to feel like I was successful. So, being efficient, self centered and goal oriented, I am trying a new strategy...Make a plan for the week. Not a concrete plan, but a rough outline of the activities and fun things Owen and I can do together. Today is a perfect example...We went to the zoo, he ran the show, we came home and while he napped, I made cookie dough. So, when he gets up from his nap, we can make football cookies. He loves doing this with play-doh, so I figured it would be a winner. I will let you all know how this goes.

I think with a rough plan, I will feel less confused, lazy and like a bad parent if I fill our days will fun things to do. I also need to let go of the rushing of the poor child...he is pokey, so what!

Q: So what do you DO all day?

A: Awakened by plaintive "mmmoooooooommmmmmmmmmmmmeeeeeeeeeeee!", greet child in bed, tell him to go get daddy cuz mommy's going for a run, finish run, get a rousing hiphiphooray from child, shovel down breakfast, print out grocery list, manage morning tantrum, put on different shirt because running shirt too sweaty to wear to the grocery, coax irritable toddler to go to grocery store, select toy to thwart store tantrum, run out of house with binky, grocery list, car key and purse, oh yeah, and the toddler, toss purse in car, ask toddler to hold key, pick up toddler, wedge him into the Jetta, buckle him in, open garage, breathe, drive to grocery, more breathing (phwew), walk through grocery chasing my dancing child, pay for groceries, wrestle with my purse, get cart to car, open car and start it to cool it so I will not have to hear how hot the car is for 20 minutes, put groceries in car, return cart with child, put kid in car, buckle kid, dispense binky, wonder if I will make it home before peeing my pants. Get home, unbuckle kid, send him to the house. Prop open doors, unload groceries, unpack groceries, make a snack, continue unpacking grocs, pour a cup of milk, finish unpacking groceries, get doodle pad out for budding artist, take out all of the crap we didn't eat last week to the trash, take out the recycling, trip over recycling cans, curse and scream. return to house a little fresher, talk toddler off ledge, unload diswasher that hubby was kind enough to run, load dishwasher with all the tupperware from fridge that has moldy crap in it, go outside and play, watch dog be tormented by bees, gather no fewer than 6 awful mosquito bites, drag screaming toddler in house. Convince toddler to play favorite past time, play-doh. Make fab pond with ducks, fish and bread to feed ducks, pull out more drawing materials, draw and color, greet hubby for lunch, make "triangle" sandwich as requested, serve lunch, eat something, not sure what, take child out of seat, wash hands, walk up steps, crawl into bed with child, roll around and play before child dozes off to sleep, visit with hubby, sit down, read the Internet and blog...and it's only 2:15.

Yep, I am that mom

Much to my surprise, I am the mom that does not allow juice, limits television to less than 2 hours a WEEK and yes, even in his easter eggs, I hid cereal and yogurt raisins. People, I think, know this about me. The moms I see and spend time with know that he doesn't get the same things their kids get, but for some reason, they cannot stop themselves from trying to ply my child with juice, cookies, you name it.

I am beginning to think that they believe I am depriving my child, doing a poor job as a mother, or what could be worse, trying to undermine all of my hard work. Stop doing this, if I say no thank you, it means, no thank you. And PLEASE don't say the word ice cream louder than any other word in your sentence so I have to either manage a tantrum or cave. ARGH!

To add to all of this silliness, tonight, Steve and I decided we will start having weekly movie nights as a family. It will be a prelude to family game night, etc. So, we tell O tonight that we are going to watch a movie tomorrow and maybe even eat on the couch in front of the television. His response: (direct quote) "That'd be craazzzaaayyy"

I guess I am a little stiff with the rules.

Things you just didn't know

I admit, I had no idea how hard being a parent was going to be. I just didn't. Especially the beginning, oye, the beginning! And then there was a lull in the difficulty, and now, a new difficulty has reared its ugly head. Nope, not the terrible twos, although, they are terrible, it is the paralyzing fear that your child will suffer other children's cruelty.

When I realized I wanted to have a baby I wanted to see life again. I was thinking about all the cool stuff, like learning to ride a bike, a first kiss, eating ice cream as it dripped down my face, you know, the Hallmark card crap. I failed to remember that life is hard, people are mean and children are violent, rotten creatures. I think it is important to note that my son is truly a docile soul. He watches everyone and everything and when he is ready, he decides who he will play with and what he will join. He chooses his friends carefully. The other day, Steve caught a bigger boy pick on O while we were at a play date. I was furious. I wanted to kick that 5-year-olds ass. But, I can't. Talk about egging on bullies (your mom rescued you, blahblahblah).

But, the more I learned about the story, the prouder I was of my son. This bigger child wanted to put some stuffed animal in O's shirt, O wouldn't let him and stood his ground. The bigger boy got mad and probably shoved him, but O still wouldn't let him. I was so proud of him for saying NO, you will no do what I don't want you to do. Now, I just need to teach him to shove back...see, O, is 3'3+" tall, according to charts, he is likely to be over 6'4". He is almost as big as this 5 year old. And he is pretty strong. I am sure he won't have many bullying problems later in life, but, I know I will restraining myself from roughing up a 6 year old...

The adjustment period

Last week felt like a vacation. It really did. I just felt like there would be work to go back to at some point and that it was just a short little respite. This week, feels a little more like permanence and it is both scary and confusing.

I remember when I was leaving, I was feeling that I would be wanting to do nothing but be Owen's mom for the next few years and would not want to even think about taking anything on for at least another 6 months.

A few days ago, I pictured working in the afternoons. Yesterday, I was figuring out when I could work and what I wanted to work on. Some 6 months. I am so grateful Steve is committed to a 6 month contract to allow me to fully adjust. I know this is just a moment in time where I feel that I only provide value when I am working. I just didn't realize that I derived so much of who I am from working and earning.

I can say that either way, I still cannot imagine going back to anything full time. I cannot really see working for anyone but me and deciding what I could and would take on. I wonder when even part time will pass as a desire now that the vacation is over.

Funny, but true, I really am struggling with simply being a mom. Maybe it is because the last 16 years have been so frenetic and I became accustomed to doing 47 things at once and now I simply answer the same question 47 times.

Girdin' up time

One week to go and how did I kick off this scary week? By being a complete jerk. It made me realize that since giving birth, I have lacked energy and enthusiasm. I have been tired and lazy. I am slow to rise to help do things. I am embarrassed by this. I want to have energy back. I want to be enthusiastic again. I have one week to find those big girl pants so I can stop feeling scared and disappointed and start projecting confidence again. I need that energy back if I am going to live up to my next job as Owen's mom. I owe him that at the very least.

Raising people

Now that I will be going from managing clients to raising a child. I see very few differences. Really, if I want a client to do something and they are challenging, I make it their idea. This might be one of my special skills. I know it sounds completely manipulative, and maybe it is, but it works and everyone feels good about the outcome.

The same can be said about our son. He is in a big boy bed now. We made it his idea. We bought some rails and played in the bed with him and when it came time to go to bed one day, he said big bed, big bed. And then he slept the whole night for like 4 days in a row (this is the current record).

The same for the potty. We bought him a potty when he asked for one. We never pressed him to use it, instead we would tell him that when he used it all the time, he would get a fish to replace his changing pad. We also told him many times as he squirmed during a diaper change, that if you don't want us to change your diaper, you can always learn to use to potty. Last week, he looked like he might have to go. I asked him and he did. He is not using it all the time, but it isn't scary or a big deal. It is his idea to use it.