Then The Planets Realigned…

Two days ago, a friend dropped off her 3-year-old girl for a few hours to play while she ran to a morning meeting.  I was ecstatic.  The boys’ bedroom needed some serious attention, and I could get it in better shape if Cameron was distracted by a friend.  It worked.  And apparently, his observation skills were in overdrive too.  You see, she’s in the middle of being potty trained right now, and I was in the bathroom with her 3 times in the space of three hours.  Two were false alarms.

As I was hoovering up the massacred juggling ball (I’ve had since I was 19) that he ripped open with his teeth and spilled the beans everywhere, a miracle occurred: He peed on his potty.  By himself.  And I missed it.  I was a mere 6 feet away.  Wow, I was ecstatic.  We mentioned it for hours. We told Daddy.  We clapped and jumped.  We sang a song.

It was a fluke, but a great fluke nonetheless.

I’ve had that potty sitting in their bathroom for the past 6 months, just so it’s always in his line of vision.  He’s never really shown much interest in it, but I’m not too concerned, boys are harder to train.  (Do they ever fully train anyway?)

I held him on a pedestal like a prodigy.

Until yesterday.  Yesterday, the planets realigned while I was drying my hair.

He climbed up on my bed and onto the headboard.  Behind the headboard on one of the window sills were my old standby glasses.  He found them.

Life has returned to normal.  The other lens, incidentally, was found on location at a second site twenty minutes later.  Now, if I ever need glasses, I have a good excuse to get new ones.

Butter wouldn’t melt….

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Thirteen Things I May Have Said to my Children

…but you can’t prove it.

1. Holding my new Supernanny book aloft, “Ian, this book is going to revolutionise your life!”

2. “You love Nicole? Well, you can date her in 12 years, but by then she’ll be 31.”

3. “One day you’re going to realise how awesome I really am.”

4. “There are starving kids in Africa who don’t get to eat over-processed cheese slices, high sodium Oscar Meyer The Cheesiest Cheese Dogs and instant mash. Just sit there and eat it.”

5. “Ian this isn’t a democracy, put your toys away.”

6. To both at any given moment, “Don’t touch that, you’ll go blind.” or “Where’s your trousers?!”

7. “Cameron, put the contraband down and step away.”

8. “This is an iPod. It plays a lot of music, all stored in this tiny device. Back in my day, we had to listen to songs one at a time on a 7-inch vinyl record or a whole album on a 12-inch. And we liked it. Of course, this was pre-1982 before CDs were manufactured.”

9. “Cameron son, don’t cry it’s okay. Just remember: It’s not how many times you fall, but how many times you get back up.”

10. Cameron has broader shoulders than Ian, and at 9 months was 2″ taller than Ian at that age. “One day Cameron’s going to be able to defend himself because he’ll be bigger than you, and when he is he’s going to beat you up. And I’ll just sit back and watch.”

11. “Ian? Stop running from me. Only the guilty run!”

12. “I’m sorry but Play-Doh is not a significant source for daily nutritional requirements.”

13. “The manual extraction from your nasal cavity is not approved behaviour at the dinner table.”

Babies Have a Sense of Humour

My life has been a lethargic haze to this point since having Cameron.  By 6½ weeks he was doing amazing and sleeping five hours all by himself.  At seven months old, we left for Yellowstone and then on to Utah.  While we were in Island Park, Idaho we slept in a trailer.  To save on space and issues, rather than put the Pack N’ Play up, we decided to let Cameron sleep with us.  Since then, it has been an uphill battle to say the least.  We essentially started over again after we returned home.

Going from self-soothing and drifting off to sleep to the other spectrum of needing us near him has been exhausting and taxing on me to say the least.  Bryan works very early shift, so I have tried not to disturb him if possible.  We kept him in our room (not in our bed) until recently, moving him into his own room (a GOOD 100 feet from ours.  Try walking it, bleary-eyed at 4 a.m.) at ten months old.  This has been very successful and I have been getting a lot more sleep than I had to this point.  Previously, he was waking every two hours like a newborn again and I had been a walking zombie on a good day.  After moving him, he was staying asleep for four hours.

I have known all-too-well that by this age, he should have been sleeping through the night.  I kept a pretty rigid nighttime routine with Ian with which I was by the book.  I had to give the book back and didn’t bother buying it (I’m totally serious!).  I figured I knew what I was doing.  It was so nice to have a little one around again that I got sucked into the I’ll-rock-him-to-sleep-til-he’s-unconscious trap and that was my (other) downfall.  Something had to change and I realised I needed help.  A friend gave me a gift certificate to an online store and I bought me some Supernanny books.  I figured I needed them for Ian too.  Last night I sat in bed until 1 a.m. pouring over its pages trying to learn all I could on techniques to remedy the situation and make everyone’s life a little easier.  The technique is:  The baby wakes, you go in after two minutes of them crying and rub his/her back and soothe them with a comforting noise, but don’t talk.  Don’t pick them up and don’t feed them.  When they have calmed down (but are not asleep), walk out the room.  Double the time increments you wait until you re-enter the room until they stay asleep.  It may be a long night, and a very long week to say the least.

The little bugger slept right through until 9 o’clock this morning.

Not a Dr. Seuss Book

I was going to touch on another subject tonight, but have decided to postpone it until I air out my brain on this one.

Bryan educated me tonight on a new phrase, acronym, if you will:  DINK.  For those feeling left out, you may be able to refer to yourself as a SINK, if it applies.  So, are you wondering what a DINK is?  (I’ll pretend you said “yes” here.)

DINK is Double Income No Kids.
SINK is Single Income No Kids.

I know that rearing children shouldn’t be delved into blindly or taken lightly, there are responsibilities to fulfill and sacrifices to make in every aspect of your new life with a little one around.  But I can’t help but feel saddened and discombobulated, empty even, that someone took the effort to coin this phrase.

Bryan and I would definitely be in better standing financially and have unrivaled security for our futures if we had decided to take our lives down a different pathway.  However, I just can’t imagine not having the boys in my life.  It brings tears to my eyes just thinking of it.  My children love me unconditionally, and hopefully always will, and they bring me so much joy and happiness.  I know I couldn’t find anything close to it elsewhere in life.  No amount of toys or possessions could make me want to revert to a life without them, and I know unequivocally that if I had the chance to go back and make the decision again, knowing what I know now, I wouldn’t change it for the world.

There were quite a few consecutive months in Layton, Utah where we could barely make ends meet, and quite frankly, sometimes we didn’t.  We had our two credit cards paid down to a very enviable amount, and they soon were going in reverse at an alarming rate — just to put food on the table.  We didn’t go out to eat, not even McDonald’s, we didn’t have a “date night” or see movies, we couldn’t rent any, not even for a dollar at McDonalds’ Red Box.  No amount of clothing was purchased, in fact, when Ian was about 9 months old he maybe had around 14 pieces of clothing total.  We just had to make do.  I had to de-snob and buy store-brand items, I even grew my hair out, just to save $22 every six weeks.  Life wasn’t easy, and sometimes barely manageable, but we survived through it.  To add to the equation, there were the work allegations and threatenings of dismissal, which ironically coincided to-the-very-day with the new pregnancy.

The offer of the new position with a different company was definitely a shock to the system.  Things would be changing, and fast!  The interview took place on 24th July 2006, and by 20th September, we had signed the papers on our new home in Montana.

I sincerely doubt that Bryan’s career circumstances would have been different in Utah, but I know that he and I would have been making a considerable amount of money.  We would have been driving newer cars and owned the things we needed in life (like a new couch), but things don’t really matter to me.  We have two beautiful sons who delight and amaze us every day.  Just tonight in the SUV heading home, Ian was asking to go back to “the hallway”.  It took Bryan a minute but he mumbled to me, “I think he means the Mall.”  It’s amazing how little minds work.  And after we got home, I held Cameron at eye level with the bird (a cockatiel).  A huge smile spread over his face and he breathed excitedly, then out of the blue he said, “Dee-dee!”

A plasma telly would be nice, but would it make me squeal with delight, bring tears to my eyes AND fill me brimming with pride like this did to me?  I doubt it.  People have their reasons for opting not to bring children into their lives, and I respect that, but I know I wouldn’t change a thing.  I’d rather be SIK any day.

I Swear the 9.5 Months Were Longer

It’s hard to believe just over a year has gone by since my little Ian first made his appearance into the world. And what a year it’s been. I have so much love for my wee man, it’s difficult to put into any kind of words. And he’s just as beautiful to me as the day he was born.

It’s amazing to sit back and watch him discover his world, and to learn things without me even showing him first. He has grown and developed so much; physically and mentally. As the days go by, I see how things connect in his brain suddenly, and all of a sudden he has ten skills he didn’t have the day before. He sings, he dances, he wrestles, he dribbles a football, he plays the maracas. He even said baby tonight. Oh, and he loves to fake sneeze – he’s strange.

Bryan and I both had a great time at the little birthday soirée we had for him. Ian doesn’t remember it at all, the ingrate. Seriously though, thanks to everyone who made it really special. It’s hard to see your little one suddenly become an infant and vie for his independence. It’ll only get worse I suppose.