Brought to you by the letter "P"

I only have one item in my make up case that costs more than ten dollars. It's this:

That would be an M.A.C. blush brush. It may not seem like much of a splurge; but consider the fact that I will use the same goopy Wet 'n' Wild mascara for six months until BJ's runs a coupon for it. So a thirty dollar blush brush? Big splurge. But it makes my cheekbones look great.

So here's the scene. Bella is on the potty.

Her clothes are covered in green paint. "Baby Isaac and I are going upstairs for one minute to get you some clean clothes." I say sternly. "Do not get up off this potty."

Well. Those of you who have had an almost-three-year-old know that I may as well have said "Please get up off the potty and do the most disgusting thing imaginable while I am gone." Have you guessed yet? Forty five seconds later I returned to find her painting the bathroom walls with her own pee. Her choice of paintbrush?

I was actually so beyond repulsed and angry that I burst out laughing. Isabel, relieved, laughed as well. Then, before I could decide what to do with the monstrous mess in front of me, she solemnly sprinkled the baby and I with the pee, like a Catholic priest blessing the congregation with holy water.

To be fair, our lesson theme for the day was the letter "P". We made cute little toilet-paper-roll Piggies, hand print Penguins, Painted Pictures of Peacocks, and ate Pasta with Peas. So, I guess this seemed like a fitting end to the morning?

Thank you, God, for a sense of humor. And also for Clorox wipes.

Toddlers + Too much rain = Crazy

Well I am working on a hugegantic post about my weekend, but I wanted to quickly share a super fun activity that we just discovered.

First off, I want to say that I love my job. I cannot think of anything I would rather be doing every day than taking care of my family. But today was just one of those days. Isaac was nuts because he missed his morning nap, and Bella was nuts because the weather was bad and she hadn't been outside all day. I was just nuts, and we were all feeding off of each other's moods. You could cut the crazy with a knife around here.

The solution? Pudding painting! Now I am sure that many an innovative Mommy has come up with this idea before, but it was a new one for us. I took off the kid's shirts, put Bella at the table with a cup of pudding and a pastry brush, and let her go to town. I put Isaac in his high chair and opened a tub of Gerber sweet potatoes and let him do the same. They painted the tables, chairs, themselves, and each other. They had so much fun.

I'll admit I had to hog-tie my inner neat freak and sit on her for about twenty minutes. You can't start a mess like that and then expect to keep it under control. I kept finding myself saying, "No no...not in your...oh my...not the...aw, hell..."

But you know what? Totally worth it. By the time they were done and bathed, we were like a different family. And I have an ace up my sleeve for this afternoon. We are going to blow up the air mattress and jump around on it, then build a fort. Did I mention that I love my job?

So how do you pass your rainy days? I'd love to hear any suggestions. I'm running low on pudding.

Sleep Training

Right now? It is one am.

I am typing this post into Word so I can proofread and post it tomorrow after I have (hopefully!!) had a few hours of sleep and consequently have stopped hallucinating.
All that money I wasted on drugs in my youth, when all I really needed was a six month old to keep me in a state of chronic sleep deprivation.

Anyone else been there? We are sleep training. You can’t tell, but my fingers are dripping with sarcasm as I type the word sleep. Because sleep training has nothing to do with sleep, as far as I can tell, and everything to do with excruciating mental torture. It’s about as much fun as it sounds.

For those of you who are blissfully ignorant, sleep training involves taking an infant who is accustomed to sleeping with his parents and attempting to teach him to sleep in his own bed. By himself. You do this by putting him in his crib while he is “drowsy but awake”, giving him a reassuring pat on the head, and leaving the room. Then you wait for the mouth of Hades to open up on the spot and swallow you, because that is what happens next. There is no feeling on earth like listening to your child scream for you.

Of course, both parents are not affected by this the same way. Most men seem to have some sort of switch in their brains that allows them to “turn off” the screaming and sleep right through it. Most women, on the other hand, have the switch in their brains that takes the sound of their child crying and turns it into a uncontrollable urge to rip the skin off their faces and stuff it into their ears. I understand that biologically, this makes sense. He has to be able to get up tomorrow and provide for the family, while me? I can slap a Sesame Street video on repeat, make sure the knives and matches are all out of the toddler’s reach, and call it a day. So it’s a good thing that right now Mr. Monkeysparkets is snoozing like a non-sleep-training baby. God bless his twisted black little heart.

Just kidding! Love you, honey!

Actually, the fact that my hubby is willing to go through this whole thing with me makes him, according to my survey, better than 88% of all husbands out there. And he is astoundingly patient with my cranky, hallucinating, sleep-deprived ass. So seriously, God bless him. And as much as I complain, I do believe that for us, this is a necessary process. A little bump on the road to a well-rested family. We did this with our two year old, and after about two horrific weeks she began sleeping through the night like an angel.

I’m not going to get into defending the practice of sleep training here. If you are an attachment parenting zealot, you’ve already decided that I am going to parenting hell and nothing I can say will change your mind. If you’ve been where I am, you are just nodding sympathetically and saying, “Girl, just stick with it. It’ll all come out in the wash.”

Or something like that.

By the Power of Greyskull

I take a two year old with a sugar rush, a six month old in desperate need of a nap, a large diaper bag, an over sized umbrella and two Mylar balloons. I navigate the crowded parking lot at Red Lobster on foot. In a rainstorm. Bonus points for not loosing my cool when the two year old loses a boot halfway to the car. I somehow stuff all of them into the back of a Mercury Grand Marquis, buckle them in and wipe their noses.

I look back in the rear view mirror and think, “How did I do that with only two arms?” Moments like these, I feel invincible. I am the master of the effen universe, baby.

Three cheers for all you other He-Mums out there who do stuff like this every day. I know you get me.