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The Duggars make it an even 20

If you haven't already heard, the Duggars (of 19 Kids and Counting fame) have announced that they are expecting a 20th child.

(PEOPLE.com) "The kids were all asking, 'Are you joking or are you serious?' " says Michelle. "It was a big surprise. The little ones started jumping up and down when they realized he was serious." 

Really kids?  You were surprised? Because your mother hasn't been knocked up 20 of the past 24 years?


Today you can find several news stories on the subject ranging from feel-good articles on People.com to opinion pieces on Technorati. There is heated discussion on the subject of the Duggars' faith based reasons to reject forms of birth control or, more to the point, to use the womb for it's intended purpose which admittedly is to bear children.

I'm in no position to debate the religious aspects at play here and frankly Scribblesaurus Me isn't that type of blog. But what we can do is some damned good advocacy work. That's right. I am tossing my hat in the ring on behalf of Michelle Duggar's uterus.

Photo courtesy of People.com

Pregnancy, childbirth, raising children - all wonderful things. Any parent will (or should!) agree that having a child was one of, if not the, most important and amazing things they've ever done. I'll also accept that it is likely just as great the 20th time around which I'm basing on the fact that I'm pretty sure my parents loved my older brother and I equally and I think they were still stoked when they got pregnant with me. Right Mom? Mommy?  Right?  She'll probably get back to me later...

Where was I? Right - the uterus. Regardless of any medical reasons that might suggest many successive near to full-term pregnancies and deliveries (and a quick google search on '20th pregnancy uterus' didn't produce any readily available research) it's got to get a bit old for a poor uterus to keep doing this! Can it get a frickin' break already? Maybe that 19th baby coming out at just over 1lb at 25 weeks was its way of saying 'eff this, I am so OVER it!'

(TODAY.com) “There’s no information out there about somebody having this many babies. That, I think, makes us nervous,” says Macones, chair of obstetrics and gynecology at Washington University in St. Louis, who’d never heard of the Duggars until TODAY.com contacted him.

Anyways - the only thought-provoking part of this whole story for me is to wonder what their reasons for continuing to have children really are. If it's because they love their children all so dearly (and I'm sure they do) that they can't even fathom not having more and they are able to provide for them, then ok. If it's because they like 'doing it' (and who doesn't?) but refuse to use birth control or maybe Michelle has a hankering to figure out a tater tot casserole recipe for 25, then I'm not convinced of the validity of their reasons.

Only time will tell, likely generations down the road, how their children are being affected by their decisions. Just like it will for my family and yours.

I want to hear from you. What do you think? What is your ideal family size? Is your uterus hurting just reading about this?

The Hierarchy of the Playground - Part One

The park is the place to go if you want to see all types of parenting and children from all walks of life smooshed together in one giant heap. It's like a cold war on the playground sometimes. All the mommies trying to be friendly while keeping one nervous eye on their little ones to make sure that their own kid isn't the one who pushes little Suzie down the slide today. At the same time, they are all trying to posture to see who can come out on top of  the 'Mommy With Best Behaved Toddler' category.

Ender is actually quite mild mannered when it comes to his interactions with other kids so I don't generally have to worry that he's going to physically harm anyone at the playground. He is not slappy or pushy now (he used to straight-arm kids to the ground to claim a firetruck) but he can get very attached to certain toys and very loud when he thinks someone has taken it from him. And by 'taken' I mean started to play with it while Ender was neither using it nor aware of its existence. We're working on that :/

So we run into all kinds at the park next door and I thought it would be fun to try to define them in some way. To get started, here are some of the sub-groups that I could come up with:

1. The Aged Toddler.  Seasoned, world weary four year olds who don't like any kids less than four years old. They tend to tell the little ones to bug off whenever one strays near.
2. The Clinger.  Kids who have invisible parents. Once they spot you actively playing with your own kid they smell the compassion on you and adopt you as their own. They will talk your ear off, insist that you look at cool stuff and beg for pushes on the swings.
3. The Screamer.  These are the kids that scream so loud over random shit that their voices crack and warble. Like yelling 'THERE IS A ROCK BY THE SWING! OH MY GOD!' before taking another sip of their Big Gulp. They howl and run and smash into stationary structures with all the grace of an tiny wino.
4. The Girl Pack.  Girls who will never play by herself if there is another female child within a 40 foot radius. The girl packs will converge on a play structure and none shall enter without their permission (which is rarely granted without parental intervention).
5. The Loner.  The kids who just want to climb around by themselves or with mommy/daddy, offering up a meek smile to any random passers by and might just participate in a short, to-the-point 'look what I can do' conversation if they are feeling particularly engaging that day. Usually the two and three year old set. Ender fits in this category.
6. The Playdater.  Includes kids from any of the above categories who have arrived at the park with prior acquaintances. These kids play quite well among themselves, chatting and running and generally giving those Playdate Mommies over there on the park bench a 5 minute window to chat with another adult and drink 1/3 of a latte unfettered by tyrannical demands. Lucky bitches.

There are many variations on the above list but I just wanted to cover the groups I see the most. Feel free to comment if I've left out a major subset and I'll add it in.

In the essence of fairness I will extrapolate on the major groups of parents in The Hierarchy - Part Two (coming soon!).

Singing in the rain!
My little loner - Mickey umbrella and a bit of rain and he's good to go.

Wicked Awesome Bath Time!

I got this idea over at Ashley...Plus 3 and Ender loved it! Great way to use up those leftover glow sticks from Halloween.

Ender was already in the tub when I snuck in with the camera and handed it to Rich to get ready. Then I flipped off the lights, threw in the glow sticks and Rich caught the moment of impact on E's face!

HOLY BALLS!

This is how dark it actually was.

Well, that face says it all.

Soccer Camp & Swimming Lessons?

Ender started swimming lessons when he was just an infant for two reasons: (1) he has loved the water since he was born and (2) I believe that every kid needs to know how to swim as early as possible.  No, I did not think that he would be able to save himself from drowning at 8 months old but I wanted him to get used to the idea very early on.

1 year old in the wading pool at Grammy's.

He loved his swimming lessons as long as the pool was warm enough. It was generally daddy's job to go in the water with him and it was a really nice bonding time for the two of them. Once E was old enough to go in on his own he very much enjoyed his first round of lessons with the coach he had but after we had to change his time-slot and got a new instructor his enthusiasm quickly fizzled to nothing. We couldn't even get him in the water anymore and it had nothing to do with his joy for swimming - it was something about the new setup that bothered him. So instead of fighting him every weekend we pulled him out of the lessons and coached him on our own.

Now that it's been a nice break from any extra curricular activities (don't even get me started on soccer :/) we're thinking of signing him up for swimming again at a new location. He's got his afternoons off now as he only attends preschool in the mornings so we need something a little more structured than just winging around next door at the park or going on random sight-seeing tours of museums.

3 years old in our hot tub.

I've also been considering enrolling him for weekly gymnastics, sports, art classes or any of the other myriad of options here in San Carlos or Belmont. The problem is that these things are not cheap! Not that we wouldn't pay for any number of them IF HE WOULD GO EVERY TIME! I'm frustrated with the lack of drop-in activities out there. I don't want to pay ~$150 for a three month weekly class that he is going to hate after two visits. He's fickle like his momma even though he is a trusty Leo and I'm a flighty Gemini. (NOTE: You can blame a LOT of shit on being a Gemini. I highly recommend being one and advocate against giving birth to one).

So what to do? Anyone have any recommendations for classes in the Bay Area that your preschoolers love that aren't a three month commitment? Please comment here or send me an email or tweet with your ideas. Thanks :)

Friday Positives & Negatives

Tricia started a thing on Facebook this morning about having to be nice to win a prize or a bet or something. Good luck!  hahaha Anyways - it got me to thinking about positives and negatives. So here is what I came up with today:

Positive:  I managed to shower this morning.
Negative:  I put my sick jammy pants back on because they were already 'broken in'.

Positive:  I washed my hair!
Negative:  I shed a big hairball from my head.
Positive:  I refrained from posting a picture of the hairball here.

Positive:  There will be new Handy Mannys on all next week.
Negative:  I care that there will be new Handy Mannys on all next week.

Positive:  Biggest traffic day yet on Scribblesaurus.
Negative:  You bastards only like me when I'm sick and have a messy house.

Negative:  It's probably going to rain.
Positive:  I will  Ender will get to stomp puddles in his rain boots!

I'm No June Cleaver - Neither Are You

Looking around my house the past couple of days it's a wonder there are no small animals taking up residence somewhere among the discarded toys, coffee cups and folded laundry that has yet to be put away. It's like Fisher Price puked in my living room during an earthquake.

It got me to thinking - I can't be the only one! In fact, some of my friends have admitted that they are in the same boat. I strongly suspect ones with clean, tidy houses are single, childless and have housekeepers, but that's just my opinion. Actually, we have cleaners that come once a month and oh, for that 1/2 a day after they've been here the house sparkles and smells so fresh and clean.  They even vacuum little crosshatch patterns into the couch!  Eeee!

And then that evening comes along, the kid is home, the dog is shedding, husband is flopped out and I have 14 things that I want to work on scattered all around. And that's how it stays for the next month until the cleaners come again. But we try, you see. That's the clincher - we constantly tidy, wipe, wash, put away and sweep only to have it look like that whole time spent cleaning was nothing more than a nightmare full of lies!

Gawd Ender - Clean your kitchen, dude!

So how did June Cleaver do it? How did she cook three luscious meals a day, keep her house spotless, raise great kids and keep her husband happy and satisfied, all while wearing a prim dress and perfect hair and makeup? I'll tell you - the magic of television! I don't believe that every household in America was like that. My own mother cooked, cleaned and had a pretty spotless house. She did employ us kids to achieve that though. Scuffy little chimney sweeps we were! Ok, that part isn't true - we didn't sweep the chimney but we cleaned the damned fireplace and mowed a lawn the size of a field!

Life is too fast now - we need to take the time to slow it down a little. We speed around trying to achieve so much in so little time because that's our culture - everything at the speed of light. Who has time to worry about their home when there are things in cyber-space that need our attention? We try to spend more time with our kids I think - maybe it's easier to vacuum or cook dinner when your kids know to be seen and not heard?

Even as a stay at home mom, attending school, taking the full gamut of financial, legal, parenting and household maintenance on as my responsibilities takes a huge bite out of my time. Not to mention that since I am a stay at home mom I feel that I need to put so much extra effort into doing amazing things for my son that he probably doesn't notice or need. I HAVE to take him to the park more, I HAVE to do more activities, arts, crafts etc. because that's my job too, right?

I think it's obvious that I'm a little confused and overwhelmed, even after three years of this. Working in a law firm was easier. Yes it was. But it's also fun and I get to be a kid for a big part of the day. So my house is kinda messy today. Meh - I'll clean it up a bit later, after I play some cars with Ender :)


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Halloween Marshmallow Heads

I actually don't really like Halloween. No one in Canada cares about Halloween except little kids. OK that's probably not completely true but we Canucks don't go all out for it like these Americans do.

We're enjoying it much more this year since Ender is old enough now to be totally into it and his excitement is obviously infectious. So this year I actually bought two magazines that included ideas for homemade treats and decorations. That brings me to a grand total of, hmmm, let's see..... two Halloween magazines that I have bought in my whole life. Of course E commandeered them immediately and got his little precious heart set on these marshmallow lollipop treats decorated to look like Frankenstein, mummies, vampires and pumpkins.  They actually looked to be about the easiest thing in the mag to make, so, like a complete idiot with a WAY overestimated sense of self worth in the kitchen, said "Sure! What my baby wants, my baby gets!"

/facepalm

Rich always manages to take photos of grungy Trace.
Shout out to Empires and Allies, lol.

Half way done!

When the time came on Sunday to start dipping those marshmallows in chocolate I was still under the impression that I could handle this and whip up 28 pops in a couple of hours. Just a little dipping and piping. No big deal. Combine laundry, play time, a kid who needs to see them and wants to touch the treats every 5 minutes and it actually turned into a bit of a nightmare. Big thanks to Rich for getting E out of the house a couple times. I won't go into gory details but I ended up still piping frosting faces onto little pumpkins at 9:30 that night and my hand is still sore!

But oh they were so worth it!  They were a big hit at Ender's Halloween party and, more importantly, he himself LOVED them.

And I've already got a bunch of ideas to make some for the xmas holidays ;)

Parental Success - How is it Measured?

I always thought I would be one of those parents who doesn't give a *bleep* what other parents think of me.  Due to my *ahem* 'independent' personality I just couldn't imagine myself capitulating to the judgments of others. Not to say that I didn't peruse some books, blogs and the interwebz to learn different parenting techniques while I was pregnant with Ender, and of course there was a mountain of word-of-mouth advice passed to me by caring family and friends.

Rich and I really try not to sound all superior when talking to friends who are expecting their first babies but it's so hard to shut up. We remember what it was like, how hard it seemed, no was!, and have the best of intentions to ease the pain of not knowing something as important as, say, a rough daily schedule.  We never had Ender on a strict 'nap, eat, play, sleep' schedule but we did make sure he got enough time doing all those things to keep him happy and healthy.  Admittedly this was after we made him cry a lot for a couple weeks before our neighbors (whose little girl was 6 months older than Ender) advised us to talk to a sleep consultant.  Turns out we were sleep depriving the poor little man.

Anyways - that was just one example of where we needed help.  And boy were we glad to get it.

Where it sucks is when you have consciously made a choice to parent a particular way and then some parent throws you the side eye because they would never do that with their kid.  Here is the first of several truths as I see them in functioning as a mommy (or daddy - I'm no gender elitist):

No two kids are the same.  My kid is not your kid.  Your kid knows 4 languages.  My kid just pooped in the garden*.  My kid can climb that tree.  Your kid just faceplanted walking across a flat surface. You have to choose and alter your methods based on your kid's personality.  Never forget that they have one and they need to be treated accordingly.  

Then there are the well-meaning purveyors of child rearing advice from 'back when we were kids'.  They really do want to help and think that since it was ok to give a baby a shot of brandy to get them to sleep in the '50's, it's still ok today.  However, this is flawed logic - as with all things, humans continue to evolve and get smarter.  Sometimes dafter.  I guess I'm just saying that just because it was ok back then doesn't mean it's ok now.  Like speeding down the freeway at 70mph with your kid on your lap in the front seat.  Heck, why not let him steer too?  Second truth:

Good parenting techniques did, and will, evolve over time.  Odds are currently at around 95% that should Ender have a child I will probably try to hand over all my hard earned wisdom.  And he will be so annoyed with me! 

Last but not least - are we our own worst enemies?  Do you, like me, judge yourself far harsher than anyone else ever could?  We make a choice for our children and then question the validity of our facts and/or decision making process.  Did we consider all the elements?  Did we consider our child's particular nature?  Am I going to turn him into a serial killer because he had a popsicle before lunch?  Listen, I've come to the conclusion that most of our ability to parent comes on instinct.  It has to, we'd be done for if we had to consult a book or an 'expert' for every single thing that happened in a day.  Especially when your kid(s) move at the speed of light.  Not to mention - who ever gets a chance to read a book when you have your little one trying to remain in physical contact ALL THE TIME.  Except when out of the house - then he is off like a race horse.  My point is that if I can't go pee or take a shower without being interrupted 12 times, I'm going to have to fly by the seat of my pants on a great deal of mommy stuff.  Third and final truth:

You are probably doing a pretty decent job.  Sure you'll fuck up sometimes.  Your kid will cry, you'll get frustrated and sometimes you'll wonder if you just ruined his life.  If you make a mistake (and we all do), fix it.  Admit your faults - you'll be happier for it.  And then, and this is  *important* because a lot of us don't do this - learn from them!  Lose your pride and accept that you're not perfect even though for many of us parenting is the first thing we even wanted to be perfect at.  And if you are perfect, go away.  You're better than me and I don't like that ;)

I think I am going to need a lot more experience under my belt before I can put this plaguing question to rest:

Will my crowning parental achievement be (a) the day Ender has no more potty accidents; or (b) the day he eradicates famine?  

One step at a time, momma, one step at a time.


What is the weirdest or funniest bit of parenting advice that you've heard?  Mine involved someone telling me to bind Ender's legs together to correct his 3 days old bowlegged-ness.  Not really an argument worth having.  

* The worst part was when the dog, in a canine maneuver she clearly believed to be in defense of our hunting territory, ate the poop. True story.  

Of things my 3yr old taught me today

1. Once you put a paint brush 'away' by dropping it through a knot hole in the deck, that paint brush is gone forever.
2. "I don't see why not" is not appropriately enthusiastic when asked if you want to be a superhero.
3. The last inch of a peeled banana doesn't squish between couch cushions as much as you'd suspect.
4. Left to her own devices my dog prefers pumpkin seeds over corn cobs.
5. It really does matter if you move daddy's cup of pretend tea before he gets home 10 hours from now.
6. A long sleeved shirt and naked from the waste down with mommy's knee as a pillow is the ideal napping setup.
7. Arachnophobia could possibly be genetic.
8. Shivers, blue lips and chattering teeth do NOT mean one is cold and it is never time to leave the spray park and go home.  
9. My ponytail can hold up a 33lb toddler for roughly 1 second.
10. Siri is fun for all ages.

On Having Babies

Friends of ours just had their first baby.  Watching them travel the path to parenthood brought back so many memories of our journey to create Ender.  As happens with many couples our experience was fraught with difficulties.  We could conceive at the drop of a hat - the problem lay in getting past the 6-8 week stage.   Eventually, after much disappointment, physical pain and deliberation on whether to continue the madness, I got pregnant with Ender.  Despite developing gestational diabetes and gaining 1000 pounds* I had a comparatively easy pregnancy.  Minor morning sickness and good energy resulted in a healthy baby boy who changed our lives forever.

I still remember the exact moment when I first touched him and held him in my arms.  My reality took a sudden mind-altering explosive shift into motherhood. It was exhilarating, fulfilling and even though I was dead tired from having just endured 60+ hours of labor following by a mere 20 minutes of pushing, my purpose was crystal clear.  This little person was mine - and I would do anything for him.  Anything.

'Anything' turned out to be living with broken sleep (did you know that is considered a form of torture?), a continually disheveled appearance, a stomach that looked 6 months pregnant even after delivery (what the hell?) and a new eau de sour milk permeating my body and home.   The memory loss and lack of concentration carried over from pregnancy into motherhood.  Not once, not twice, but THREE times within a few weeks I forgot to rinse conditioner out of my hair.  My baby was a poo and pee faucet.  With deadly accuracy he shot the dog in the face with a stream of poo at an approximate distance of 3.5 feet.  On a daily basis I employed moves I'd picked up from The Matrix to avoid getting blasted.  He could fart louder than his dad but rarely puked, so I considered myself lucky.

It all seemed so intense, difficult and consuming.  Ender is now three.  I look back and laugh at my naivety.  Sometimes I wish for a few days with a kid who just lays around eating and sleeping.  But then again, I wouldn't get to see him dialog with McQueen and Finn as he plays on his car mat or show off his new dance moves and drum skills.  I wouldn't get to run bases with him at the ball field or hold his hand while we ride the double slide together at the park.  I wouldn't get to be there to enjoy his happy hot tub song or see a harvest moon and stars through his eyes.  The greatest moment of my day can be kissing him goodnight on his precious forehead and exchanging ideas about what we should dream of that night.

Yeah. It's worth it.  So we're trying for a second one, even after the heartache of a loss early this year of a 4.5 month pregnancy.  It didn't kill us, so are we stronger?  No, I don't think so.  But we'll try, try again and hopefully Ender will have a new brother or sister one day.

And then, after all my talk of 3 year olds being so much harder to parent, you'll see a post from me complaining that I have a baby who won't let me shower regularly.

*an exaggeration. It was only 60 lbs and it's gone now.  Thanks kale juice!