Teef

Today, I think my son gave his first attempt at a sentence a seriously awesome try. He's been teething again and his mouth is really hurting him. The only thing that seems to calm him down is being near Sam. So he climbed up on the couch next to her and said,

"Sissy, bebe teef. Oh, bebe"

And she knew exactly what he meant. She kissed him on his face and looked at me and said, "You need to give my brother some medicine. His teeth are hurting again."

The Crib

Every morning when I hear my children chatting and singing to each other over the baby monitor, I go into their room, pick up Samantha, and put her in the crib with her brother. We chat and play for a while, then we get up and start our day.

Backstory part 1: When Samantha was a baby, this very same crib was her favorite place in all the world. She would have stayed in there for hours on end if I had let her. She played and talked and looked a little disappointed when we would take her out. I knew, even then, that she had an unusual attachment to her crib. About six months before her brother was born, I took down her crib and put up a toddler bed for her. Yes, she could crawl out of it, but she almost never did. It wasn't a safety issue. I knew she was going to be really upset seeing a new baby in her bed. I was hoping that would be enough time for her to develop a new attachment and forget about this one. Obviously, I was mistaken. Her favorite morning activity is still getting in the crib with her brother and playing with stuffed animals and books.

This morning started out like all the others; play in the crib, drink some chocolate milk, watch some Sprout. At some point, Samantha and I were playing around and I jokingly stuck her in the crib. She said, "Mommy, I'm your little baby!" to which I replied, "Oh really? Are you going to sleep in the baby crib tonight?" This excited her a great deal. I joked around with her about it a few times today, knowing that by the time we got home from my mother's house she would be so exhausted she would just pass out in her own bed without even thinking about it. Sometimes my naivite amazes even myself.

We arrived at our house almost an hour past their usual bed time. Caius was asleep and Sam was only barely awake. As I was holding her sleeping brother in my arms, she walked into the house, went straight to their room, climbed into his crib, and pulled his blanket up to her chin. She looked at me with the sweetest little face and said, "Caius can sleep in here with me if he wants to."

Backstory part 2: Nobody--NOBODY can sleep with my daughter. Its like sleeping with an over-sized weenie dog with exceptionally long and powerful legs. When you leave the experience, you will be sleep deprived, freezing, and likely have several bruises.

So I smiled at her and said just that: "No one can sleep with you, dear." She wasn't sure what I meant, but it was good enough for her and she fell asleep. Now I have a sleeping baby in my arms and a toddler in my crib. I decide since Sam wasn't much older than Caius when she got her "big girl bed" we'll give it a try. I lay him down. He opens his eyes and gives me a "what the...?!?!" look. I caress his hair and sing to him a bit until he falls asleep.

My husband is in Arkansas for a training right now, so I quietly shut the door and went into the next room to call him. I was intently listening for him to fall out of the bed or wake up at all. I didn't want him to be frightened by the experience at all. After about an hour, I decided to go in and check on them.

The door wouldn't open. Immediately, I knew what was blocking it. I tried as gently as I could to wedge it open enough to squeeze my arm through. I rolled him over a few times. He slept right through it. He was all cuddled up next to the door with his blanket (Wubby) and his pacifier (nee-nee). I walked over to the crib and picked up Sam as smoothly as I could (she is a very light sleeper). I tucked her into her bed. I scooped my infant child off the floor and laid him in his crib with his favorite blanket, his favorite stuffed toy, and his favorite book on his favorite pillow. It really is the most wonderful place in all the world.

Be What You Are

Sam: Mommy, I want to be an artist.

Me: You want to be an artist when you grow up?

Sam: I don't have to grow up. I can be an artist right now.

What I've Learned on Twitter

In my brief few weeks on Twitter, I have learned a lot of things:

• If you don't have a website denouncing God, you are not a good atheist.
• If you don't go to church four times a week, you are not a good Christian.
• If your daughter likes Barbies and pretty pink dresses, you are not teaching her strong feminist values.
• If she is in the treehouse hurling spitballs at the neighbors' kids, she lacks composure and discipline.
• If your son plays with cars and trains and footballs, you are not teaching him to be sensitive.
• If he takes a pretty little doll into a public place and demonstrates interest in it, you are setting him up.
• If you don't publicly bash OWS, you are not a good conservative.
• If you are not camped on Wall Street, you are not a good liberal.
• If you didn't have your children before the age of 22, you are contributing to generation gap clashes.
• If you didn't wait until 40 to have your first child, you lack the wisdom and resources necessary to do so.
• If you made your first million before 30, you were lucky.
• If you haven't made your first million by 33, you weren't focused enough.
• If you choose to stay at home with your children, you are hindering their growth and being overprotective.
• If you go to work and send your young children to daycare, you are an absentee mom.
• If your Christmas meal is a double-quarter-pounder with cheese, you are lazy.
• If you prepare a large feast for your family served on your holiday tableware, you are a show-off.
• If you have money, you buy art.
• If you dedicate your life to creating art, you are a pathetic looser that can't handle a real job.

But the most important thing I've learned is: If you are going to shoot yourself in the face, wear these. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGXoTAJB_IU

/unfollow everyone except The Bloggess

Not a Parrot. Yet.

This is me talking with my son about the members of our family.

Mommy.

Momma.

Daddy.

Dadda.

Sissy.

Cee-cee.

Peggy.

Bee-cess. (Princess)

Peggy.

Bee-cess.

Dugu.

Easy.

Dugu.

Easy.

PEGgy.

BEE-cess.

DUgu.

Easy.

For those of you who don't know, Peggy is my 3-legged weenie dog, and Ndugu (or Dugu) is my mutt.

Jumping In

I am a capable mother. Friends and family often compliment me in this context.

"You are such a good mother."

"You are a GOOD mother."

"You are the best mom I know."

"You are an exceptional mother."

I am a capable mother. But this woman you describe, she does not exist.

You see what I post. I see what you post. On facebook, twitter, and often in our blogs, we are ALL perfect mothers.

"[my child] said [insert antic] today!"

"i love my babies so much!"

"my life is so much better with [my child] than it was before!"

How often do we post things like:

"I have dishes in the sink that have been there for two days."

"I gave [my child] the dirtiest look today when she was demanding attention from me."

"I fed my kid chicken nuggets and sliced apples for dinner because I was too lazy to cook."

We don't.

Well, some of you do. Some of you do and you are my favorite mommies. I hope to be more like you one day. I hope to cast aside my fear of the "Mommy Shark Pool" and jump right in, knowing whatever bite I take will heal with time. I know I need to. I'll never be myself or be comfortable around other moms until I do.

So here it is. This is me.

• I hate doing the dishes.
• I'm a terrible cook.
• I only recycle about half the recyclables in our home.
• I spend too much time on facebook.
• I walk in to cover up my kids before I go to bed and secretly hope my son will wake up so he can sleep with me (although it has only happened a few times).
• I have OCD.
• I'm completely flustered when our routine changes.
• My kids don't eat enough vegetables.
• Neither do I.
• I let my children watch Caillou.
• I let my children watch too much PBS and Nick Jr.
• I teach my daughter to farm resource nodes on MMORPGs.
• I have beer in my fridge.
• I have cobwebs on my ceiling fan.
• I'm too harsh on other moms because I fear the same judgments myself.

Oh God, this could go on forever. You get the idea. I'll do another mommy purge. Someday.

I'm in the pool. My eyes clenched tight. I'm ready. Bring it.

Dance Moms

Its a terrible show. Really bad. I rarely watch television, but when I do, it is often the worst kind of reality TV that captures my attention. This is one of them. I'm fascinated with the Dance Moms. The level of snobbery and elitism far exceeds anything anyone could possibly justify.

My daughter is in a ballet class at Velocity Dance Studio on the other side of town. Its a bit of a drive in traffic to get her there in time, but it runs about half the price of the dance studio near our house. And she loves it. LOVES it. She wears a beautiful white leotard with a flowing tutu skirt, her hair in a perfect ballet bun, and just a little bit of chap stick for good measure. For that half hour, she is a ballerina princess dancing through life with nine other ballerina princesses just her age.

The experience is a bit different for me. Waiting in the lobby for thirty minutes while she dances has become one of my most dreaded weekly routines. Enter: The Dance Moms.

I admit, its an unfair assessment, but its what I call them. Three mothers that sit huddled in the middle of the floor where our daughters like to play together, chatting with each other like no one else is there (while the rest of us find our places on one of the benches lining the room, trying to stay out of the way). Harmless, right? It should be. To be completely honest, their conversations are harmless. They mostly talk about church, sometimes school. The problem arises when another parent or child tries to interact with them (or their children). No matter what is said, however relevant it is, the comment is reciprocated with a look of complete disdain and a prompt turning of the head to the other moms and changing the subject. If one of our children tries to interact with one of theirs before class, they pull their little girls into their laps and wrap their arms around them like they are protecting them from dangerous beasts. Not once has any one of them made a single statement to anyone else in the room.

To be completely honest, it makes the rest of us pretty uncomfortable. We don't really talk about it, but we look at each other when it happens, and sometimes comment lightly among ourselves. I mean, really? This is Velocity Dance Studio. You're going to be snobby here? Really?

Last night was "Bring a Friend Night". The Dance Moms huddled in their usual spot with two new potential recruits. All of the sudden, I found myself inspired. I'm not going to pretend to know why. I just felt like being funny.

After the girls went into class, I walked over and sat down right in the middle of them with my son dangling from my hip and (unintentionally, of course) kicking them in their heads on the way in. I just started talking. I didn't give them a choice. I talked about Housewives of New Jersey (which Selina and I discovered on a marathon event one night) and pretended I knew all about it. I talked about the internet. I talked about the ballet class itself. Nothing was off limits. I didn't LET them change the subject, and reveled in the shock on their faces. (They don't WATCH television or surf the web. They have QUALITY family time ONLY. Bla, bla, bla.....) I probably wouldn't have lasted more than a few minutes, but I could hear snorting from the benches and that was all the cheer-leading I needed. At one point, I got a text and I handed one of them my son while I dug my phone out of my purse.

When the girls were let out of class, the Dance Moms scraped their jaws off the floor, quickly scooped up their toddlers, and scrambled out the door. I waved excitedly and said "See you next week!" as they left.

One of the "bench moms" met me outside as I was getting in my car. "Next week, its my turn" she says with a smile bigger than I've ever seen on her.

One point for the ladies on the bench!