Tag: SAHM

The Greatest Shower of All

bathroom selfie in a towelI showered today! And why is that a monumentous occasion? Because I wanted to take a shower and I did! I didn’t have to ask anyone to cover for me, or wait until 9PM! I even shaved! That’s a lot of exclamations! But you get the point, this is exciting stuff.

As a mom, you often feel like your basic human rights have been taken away. You no longer eat, sleep or shower on the your own schedule. So today, a tiny piece of freedom has been handed back to me. Something I used to take for granted. The option to shower when I please, as long as I can keep the kid entertained for at least 15 minutes. It was glorious.

It’s a big day we’ve slowly been working up to. Today was the first time I didn’t get out three times to check on him while dripping water all over the floor. Next time I’m going to get crazy and try to shave AND wash my hair! Whoah!

Things are looking up over here. It does get better. You do get your normal life back, piece by tiny piece. And I’ve never appreciated those tiny pieces so much!

P.S. – I contemplated titling this “the golden shower moment” but probably don’t need that kind of traffic 😂

Potty Training – Sh*t Just Got Real, Literally

poop-emojiMy life for the past few months has been a constant refrain of “Where does poop and pee go? In the potty. Poop and pee go in the potty. Are you sure you don’t want to potty? Why wouldn’t you want to put poop in the potty? I promise you can look at it all you want, just put some &%$# poop in the potty!!!”

Potty training has been tough! And then a few days ago, he FINALLY sat his butt down and pooped in his little potty. I was so damn excited I snapped a photo and texted it to my husband so he could share in the joy of the moment. I stopped short of posting it on Facebook, although I came pretty close to recording it as a “life event.”

So in all the months of begging and pleading for this milestone to occur, I hadn’t once stopped to think about what I was supposed to do with it once he actually succeeded. Suddenly I had a diaperless toddler with a dirty butt and a giant turd to deal with. I cleaned up the kid first and decided I’d deal with the turd later. He was begging to see his handiwork, so he got to supervise while I dumped it in the toilet. He looked so happy, so proud, pointing and saying “I did it! I did it!” I tried my hardest to keep smiling while gagging from the stench. It was rough, but I didn’t barf so that’s a win for me too. I let him flush the toilet and then his big reward was ice cream and going pantsless for the next two hours. And my big reward was cleaning the poopy potty bowl. And gagging some more.

I’m hoping this is a turning point in our potty training endeavors. It’s a big milestone at least! And a learning experience for me – I’m now encouraging him to sit on the real toilet with a potty seat. I’ve got enough crap to deal with already!

Gray Dawn: The First Silver Strands

This is how the conversation went in the car the other night:

Me: The blond around my face looks like it’s growing out really silvery. Like sparkly blond.

Husband: You mean gray?

Me, HORRIFIED wide-eyed, mouth open response: It. Is. Not. Gray. I said silvery dammit. It is just really light blond.

Husband: So silver? Like gray? You’re going gray?

Me: Stop saying gray! It’s not gray! Conversation over!

But yeah, it was totally gray.

going grey

For the last 20 years I’ve been various shades of blond. I kept up with it religiously, only letting it grow out a bit when I was pregnant. As soon as I hit the 2nd trimester, I was attacking those roots with a vengeance.

Now that I have a toddler, and a heck of a lot less “me time” I decided to go back to my natural light brown with highlights. I’ve always had natural blond bits around my face. Recently I discovered those parts might not actually be blond. When I let them grow, turns out I may have been going gray for years.

When I mentioned this new development to my friend Cindy, who rocks a full head of the silvery stuff, she told me they were “naturally effervescent strands of delight.” And while I love the description, I’m not sure I’m ready to be that effervescent.

I made a salon appointment for next month to go get my hair a little more blond all over and blend in those sneaky strands. I’m 42 and not quite ready to embrace the whole “aging gracefully” thing. I’m still putting up a pretty good fight, and on the forefront of that battle is my love affair with the perfect blend of blond.

So when did you discover your first strand of gray? I’m pretty sure there is a direct correlation between having children and suddenly sprouting silver! 😂

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Shhh! Baby Sleeping! Go Away or Suffer the Consequences

baby sleeping wooden signAlthough the real sentiment here is “Ring the bell, I break your face,” this is a much nicer way of putting things. My Baby Sleeping wooden sign upgrade from GiftedOccasion.com looks so much better than my old hand written sign I used to tape to the door. This one is a 3-D wooden design cut from birch and stained dark walnut. My old sign was an piece of scrap paper scribbled on with black Sharpie.

Now that my son naps only on occasion, I forget the utter panic at the thought someone might come to the door. Because we have dogs, a knock on the door, a bell ring, or even just a leaf fluttering too close to the window can elicit a series of barks and howls sure to wake any sleeping child. Any time that’s happened, I fly down the stairs and then run around like a mad woman yelling (as quietly as possible) “shush, shush, shushhhhh!”

In an effort to lessen the chance of visitors during those extremely valuable napping moments, I have been taping this sign to my front door for the last 3 years:

handwritten baby sleeping sign

In fact, sometimes just so I didn’t forget to put it up, I’d leave it there for days on end, until it finally fell off and was unusable. It worked fine, but I kept having to replace it and it just didn’t look nice on our door. We are replacing our door tomorrow with a very pretty custom front door and I did not want to tape my ugly sign back up!

So I’m excited to have a pretty sign, for our pretty front door. And this one will last longer than my son’s napping years and will most likely be passed on. Or possibly saved and put out when I just don’t want to be bothered. Yes, I totally do that, lol.

Gifted Occasion also sent me a totally gorgeous personalized family sign that I’ll be posting soon, along with a chance for my readers to win a $100 Gift Certificate to go shopping on their website! Look for details on the next week. 😁

A New Respect for Teachers

Anyone who takes on a teacher position, bless you. It takes an amazing amount of patience, imagination, ingenuity and intelligence to become a good teacher and really help others to learn. I’m only trying to teach one child and find it incredibly challenging. I can’t imagine how it is to be in charge of an entire classroom of little minds.

apple on booksMy son is about to turn three and wants to know what everything is and how it works. I’m thankful I have Google at my fingertips so I can look everything up and try and teach him new things. Every once in a while I feel completely overwhelmed by the fact that I have to teach him EVERYTHING. And I get worried I’m not doing it right, or not teaching him enough. And how do I know what exactly I should be teaching him?

I’ve been concentrating on counting, colors, shapes and letters. I try to expand on things he’s quizzical about, and I try to do it all in a way that makes it fun so he will enjoy learning. And in the middle of all that, I realized, “Oh wow, looks like I have yet another new job. Time to add teacher to the list.” (it’s a long list of mom jobs including things like chef, maid and butt wiper)

And that realization grew into a new respect for the people that actually go out and teach people every day. Their jobs are so incredibly important. A good teacher can change your life, or help shape a little life just starting out. So thank you to all the teachers out there! And to homeschooling moms…wow, that has got to take some dedication and hard work. You certainly have my respect as well. Each time I try to do some type of learning activity with the toddler my teacher respect grows…and grows…and grows…