Help me help you!

As a parent you just know your kids. You know what they are thinking and you know what they are about to say...but also, everyday your child is changing. They are learning new things and picking up new language and skills. There are times when I really think I should have been issued a muzzle after I had given birth because I do know a lot of the inappropriateness comes from me.

My kids hear me saying every morning as I get dressed, "god I'm getting so ridiculously fat", or "I need to go on a diet", or even "now if this part was gone and or flat...". I realize now that every morning after the kids are dressed they check themselves out in the mirror which is fine, but there are some days where I pick something out and either Tyler or Madi will say, "no mommy, that makes me look fat." So once or twice ok, but now I think I've created monsters. Tyler tells me he doesn't want to touch chicken skin as it will make him fat. Yet all the candy and ice cream they inhale doesn't seem to be an issue...

So please....help me help you and save yourself from some embarassment!
So we try not to talk about it. The real problem is when we go out into public. THEN there are many "I wish I was dead" moments. So we are at the beach and please ladies! just because the string bikini is in your size...doesn't mean you should be sporting it!!! Help me help you!!! My kid sees this hideous sight and will call you out on it and say, "Mommy look how fat that girl is!", or maybe "Mommy! Her bum bum is so big!", or if you are a bit too revealing you will hear, "mommy I see the girl's nip balls!" So please I beg you...check the mirror before you leave for the beach. This goes to you even if not going to the beach. If you don't want my kids to point you out, please dress appropriately!

This also goes for bodily functions. My angels will call you out. I will never forget this day...we were at Bloomingdales and Daddy actually took Tyler to the bathroom. They went into the beautifully decorated posh bathroom where there are 2 private stalls. The heat was at full blast...not sure why, perhaps men do their business in the nude? So anyways, my husband takes Tyler into a stall and then it hit. An "odor" wafted by and Tyler screams out "OMG Daddy! Someone's taking a dump! OMG I can't breathe!" So in between laughter Daddy manages to get Tyler out of the bathroom where Tyler continues to go on about someone taking a dump in there and just how badly it smells. I have to say thank goodness the "other man" if you will, did not come out the door because otherwise EVERYONE in Bloomingdales on the 2nd floor near the men's shoes would have known what he had just done in there.

If you have gas and you feel the need to release, besides the fact that it is just polite to go somewhere private, but if you see my kids around you BETTER find somewhere private. Otherwise, my kids will not only yell out, "Peeeeeeee UUUUUUUUUU! someone farted!", but they will discuss amongst themselves trying to figure out who did it. My kids are part greyhound so they WILL figure it out and then they will not ask you, but ask each other, "did he do it Madi?" or "did he do it Tyler?". No mysteries go unsolved.

Calgon...vats and vats of Calgon please!!!

7:20 AM and I am ready to commit myself. We had just dropped off Dad and it's my day to work all day and grandma and grandpa takes the twins for the day so we were on our way there for drop off. That's when it hit Madison that we will not be home today so she can not watch "Big Time Rush" on the DVR and she went ballistic. Crying at the top of her lungs and I ignored it. Went on my way, stopped to get gas and could hear my precious little monster screaming inside the car as I was pumping the gas.

Now I'm getting angry, I told her that she will not be going to the beach AND all episodes of Big Time Rush will be erased. "NO!!!! So sorry mommy! I am sooooo sorry!", "Madison, when someone is sorry for doing something they don't do it again (unless you are a man)", "ok mommy! I can't help it!" She can't help it...really? What makes these little girls tick? It has to be so exhausting to be so difficult.

I get these outer body experiences if you will and see myself trying to handle the situation and the grown up part of me knows how to handle it, but then there's the other side of me who just wants to be just as immature and throw my own tantrum and push back! So we get to my mother's house and she throws herself on the couch and begins to cry. Tyler and I ignore her and go on our way until she started kicking the wall. Today is trash day and I just wanted to leave her by the curb...I mean we JUST had the talk about tantrums and listening. She told me it's because she's hungry. This girl is for real. She's hungry. So I said hang on and we'll have breakfast soon, she gets angry because I can't just pull breakfast out of my ass at the snap of a finger and a wiggle of my nose and begins again. At this point I lost it. I had to get out of there...so I gave Tyler a hug and a kiss and left.

I felt awful leaving, but I had to get out before my head exploded. I sit here and just wonder how will I survive until she is married and someone else's problem? and you know what I really don't understand how parents are afraid of regression when there is "trauma" in a small child's life like a new sibling is introduced into the family. You hear about older siblings wanting to go back into diapers. Or something is going on in school and they start peeing in there beds. Well what about ME?! What about the "trauma" I am going through? does this mean it's ok for me to start peeing in my bed, or perhaps I started crawling so I don't have to cook, clean and work anymore? CALGON!!!

And the Oscar Goes To...

Her talent is really being wasted, I am her only audience to her inspiring performance of "dying with boredom". Not that I am counting, but only 18 days until camp for 2 weeks...we get up this morning, great morning, the kids have some quiet time and play with their legos in Tyler's room. They come down for a little breakfast and then we take daddy to the train station and we come back home for a couple of hours before my parents take them for the rest of the afternoon. That's when IT started.

We were in the car and Madi made Tyler angry and so then Tyler taunts her and says she still pee pees in her bed so she swings her arm over and hits him in the arm. He instantly busts out crying with tears the size of quarters running down his face, "Mommy! Madi hit me!" and slaps her back. Now we are at war. I sit there and wonder..."wtf?!", do I open the door get out and just run down rt 9 until I can't run anymore? I know I wouldn't get far...and I'd probably still be able to hear them. I'm numb not knowing what to do, I'm just too drained to be dealing with this so early in the morning.

So we get home. I tell them my standard, do not play, look, talk, or breathe at or near each other. Everyone to their own rooms. So Tyler runs up and shuts his door. Madi goes up and sits in her room and the slow death begins...she was screaming and crying and yelling and I really expected to walk in and see her head spinning like "The Exorcist" and green crap would be flying out at me from every direction. I "ignore" her as best I can, but of course one really can't ignore all that screaming and crying but I don't react to it. She's yelling out, "OMG! I just can't do this! I am sooooo bored! OMG! I'm done! Can I come out now? is my timeout over?!?" so I remind her calmly "Actually Madison, your time out doesn't start until you be quiet and calm down." "Wahhhhhhhhhh......what?!? I can't do this Mommy! i'm so bored! I can't sit here! MOM start the timer!!!!!" And this goes on and on and on. The tears! the drama in her voice. She totally beats out Susan Lucci as Erika Cane.

Believe it or not this goes on for an hour. Short for her...sometimes this can take a couple of hours. and I think to myself...crap this is when I become my mother. I hear her saying this to me and my brother when we were younger. "There are only the 2 of you, why do you have to fight like this?!" These are the joyous moments of motherhood when I want to just ram my head into the wall repeatedly until the pain just goes away. I look at my little angels, my bundles of joy...my miracle babies really...and they are so cute, so precious...with horns hiding under their hair!

Oh Shit?!?

It has been just insane to say the least. Work has been crazy busy and the kids have grown into these new animals. Being able to work at home a few hours with them here requires a lot of tv, toys, popsicles and/or ice cream cones, and candy. Then I would just have to deal with the sugar rush later on. Yesterday was one of the few days I had where my parents take the kids for me so I can work in peace.

So as I am working and the clock is ticking and dinner time is approaching, I run upstairs with my laptop and continue to work and field phonecalls as I am preparing dinner so that it's ready when my kids and husband get home. Sounds like a lot right? because it is! oh and did I mention there are 2 loads of laundry cleaned, but just needs to be brought up as well? Ok, so we're all home we have dinner and I go to clean the dishes...and this is when IT happened.

I am doing the dishes when I hear Tyler bawling from the bathroom. Just flat out bawling so hard, his little big head was turning red from the crying and his father...well his head looked like it was going to explode as well! I run up there to find them both in there and I'm trying to find out what the problem was, Tyler couldn't speak because he was bawling and his father was yelling and I couldn't understand. After a few minutes of this I find out that there is crap all over Tyler's hands and his t shirt...Holy Shit...literally.

His father continues to scream and yell and Tyler continues to cry. I look at this scenario and just wanted to punch him right in the face...not Tyler's of course. Ok so yeah it's gross, but our kids don't make it a habit of playing with their crap and this is the first time ever that this has happened, does he find out why? NO! Why is it that you leave a man to deal with a situation like this he just can't deal? So I finally had to scream to get him to listen to me and made him leave the bathroom. I got Tyler off the toilet, took his t shirt off and threw it in the tub and got Tyler to the sink to wash him off. Then I cleaned up his t shirt and made sure the area was cleaned. So ok admittedly, it was NASTY and I'm not sure how it really happened still, but there was crap even on the tiles on the wall!!! So I asked Tyler what happened and he told me he had to "take a dump" and there was a humungous ant on the roll of toilet paper and it scared him, and he didn't know what to do. That's all he would say, I still don't know how there was crap all over himself.

After getting cleaned up he went back out to the livingroom and his father seriously asked him if he had washed his hands with soap. Really?! So I told him no, we gave his hands a quick rinse under some cold water, it should be fine...and life goes on. Not sure what all the drama was about, but that was about 10 years off his life not mine.

Holy Gawd!!!

Today was THE DAY...I should have known something like this was going to happen. To say that this week was incredibly crazy is an understatement. I was so busy with work, my phone was ringing off the hook, not that I am complaining, but I don't have anyone to watch my kids on Thursdays and Fridays so I fend for myself. I normally manage ok, and in the past 5 years I have managed well too, but it's like all of a sudden these kids have just become these crazy kids!!!

So we start off our morning ok, we woke up, gave them our "plan" and proceeded. Had breakfast, then off to the supermarket to gather all the ingredients for our cookout tomorrow...thinking back now I should not have agreed to host a bbq for my in-laws...what was i thinking? but it's the holiday weekend, so ok, and I'm making my efforts to keep the peace...and I digress...so anyways at the market my kids were their normal crazy selves nothing out of the ordinary. Although, Madison now just talks too much, when I asked the produce man for zucchini and he was going to go get it, Madison follows and says "No, No, you don't have it!" I don't even say anything anymore...I just don't have the energy.

Then we get home. I got all the groceries unloaded into the kitchen and the kids wanted to play outside....so after stalling for a bit to put some of the stuff away, I allowed them to play outside in the backyard as long as I could see and hear them. It was a beautiful day and I had all my windows open, the kids were playing with their supersoakers getting themselves all wet and just having fun. It was beautiful. I had a call from a client so I told the kids I can see them but will be on the phone for a bit and they said ok and continued on. As I am on the phone in the kitchen with my client, I look over and realize...IT IS RAINING IN MY DININGROOM!!!!! I run over, client in tow on the phone, and shut the window. I look out and see Madison with the hose spraying the water at full force right into the house. Did she think she was a firefighter? I could not even breathe!!! I finished my phonecall, and pulled them right in the house. She was confined to her room and she didn't fight me...she knew she was in deep shit. There were PUDDLES on my diningroom table, my laptop (thank god closed) was all wet, the napkins in the napkin holder were soaked, the chairs had puddles, and the carpet was all wet. I didn't know if I should cry or laugh.

After a good 10 mins in her room she was allowed to come back out, but all tv privledges gone and absolutely no "Big Time Rush". So she lays down on the couch and takes a nap. Wonderful, so I go down to my work area and make some calls in peace. Tyler plays on the floor next to my desk quietly...wow isn't this great? Then we go up to get some lunch. AFter lunch we come back down for something and I was HORRIFIED.

My precious baby boy Tyler, who could really do no wrong had taken a black marker and decided to practice writing some letters....ON THE CARPET. He did this while I was on the phone. What is wrong with these kids?! Are they on drugs? Am I feeding them too much processed foods? What is it?!?!? I just couldn't believe all this happened all in one day.

So we are all in the car and their father had come home now, and we were running a couple of errands and he was lecturing them about how disappointed we are and perhaps Madison should go and live on Shutter Island (our new threat, she saw a commercial and it freaked her out) and Tyler gets no X Box. Then he says well i didn't buy you guys gum today because you did not behave and Madison, my lovely daughter replies, "well, anyway, I don't want gum." So my response to that was dinner. After such a day and feel like the heroine in one of those violent movies who comes away scratchfree from an explosion...well I actually probably look more like a zombie with one arm barely attached, head crooked, hair all disheveled and eyes crossed...and again I digress...so after such a day and after that answer from Madison, my response was dinner. i felt like sushi and damn it i will get sushi. The kids love sushi too...well i've only given them cooked stuff, but they got none tonight! and boy were they sorry. YES! Finally! 2 points for mommy!!!