Screaming and Blowouts

The holidays have passed, we're in a new year, Valentine's Day is over and we're back from vacation in sunny FL.

That pretty much sums up our life in the last few months.

We've had plenty of muddled moments that I was just too lazy busy to write about.

The muddled times just don't get to me (as much) anymore. I sort of embrace them. For instance, on the way home from FL, Oliver decided to scream for the last 30 minutes of the plane flight.

Two things:

1. I was glad this didn't happen on the way to FL when I was flying solo with both boys.
2. If this had been my first child, I would have been a wreck.

I was completely relaxed about the whole situation. There was nothing I could do about it. For those who have/had kids, I knew they would, hopefully, understand. For those who didn't have children, it was a good life lesson for them :-)

When you're a parent, muddles happen. As hard as you try to prevent them, as much as you try to prepare, muddles will occur - sometimes without warning.

Case in point.

Evan goes to Occupation Therapy on Fridays to help with his fine motor skills, among other things. Oliver and I usually wait in the lobby and play with the toys out there while Evan attends his session. And then the thing that I think we all have experience at one point or another happens: A BLOWOUT.

But wait; blowouts are only supposed to happen with infants. Right?

Au contraire, my friend. It can happen with 20 month old children as well.

I politely asked the secretary where I could change Oliver, and she directed me to one of the therapy rooms because it had a rug. Oh how I wished there wasn't a rug.

We made our way back, I laid Oliver on the carpet and opened up the diaper to see the damage. Unfortunately when I laid him down, it squished up the back and out the sides of the diaper; and ALL OVER the carpet; and his shirt; and his pants; and his socks.

On top of that, I had closed the therapy room, so after I had attempted to clean up what I could with the last 10 wipes I had and opened up the door, the smell wafted into the hallway.

With Oliver in a clean diaper (and nothing else), he toddled after me as I sought out a garbage bag to place the mess in. Then I told the secretary of my predicament, to which she grimaced and replied, "Oh, that's OK. We work with kids, so it's expected."

So after Evan's session was over, I put Oliver in his winter coat and rushed him to the car.

Embarrassing? Yes. But after 2 kids, this incident has taught me to ALWAYS bring a change of clothes with. It doesn't matter the age, it's always smart to bring an extra change of clothes.

With ever muddle that comes my way, I have decided to simply take a life lesson away from it. Whether it be practical or amusing. There is always something to learn.

It's Just Not Me

I'm not going to even begin this post with, "Oh my goodness, it's been almost a month (again) since I've posted," but I guess I just did. It's the holiday season. That has to count for something?

Speaking of holiday season, there are a lot of cute crafts and creative project going on around me. As I peruse through Facebook and mom sites and talk with friends, it seems that everyone has their children doing something fun and creative.

That's just not me.

Is there something that other moms do that you wish that you could do or be better at? For me, it's crafting. Believe me, there are plenty of more things I could name, but I'm just going to go with crafting for now.

For instance, I just saw an adorable little painting of a Rudolph done with a foot print.

First of all, I would never end up with a footprint from either of my boys. I would end up with a painted footprint trail all over my house. Kind of like the trail of crayon scribbles I came across going from my kitchen floor to my living room floor this evening (I was cooking dinner while this one happened).

Then I have some friends that go to a pottery place every month and make these adorable little pottery pieces. I sometimes daydream of what this might be like to bring my boys in and have them sit and paint a creative creation.

Only, I am brought back to reality knowing that I could probably end up paying for many broken pieces in the shop. Thus, I have no adorable, precious hand-painted pottery pieces to call my own.

Now, there may be hope for Oliver yet. He seems to like to color. He's the one who decorated my floor. Evan has yet to ever attempt coloring on anything except paper, and that only lasts about 30 seconds before he's done.

I'm just not crafty. Do I feel like my boys are missing out on stimulating this creative part of their brain? Yes, I often have bouts of guilt about this. However, I do bake and cook. I bake a lot. And that makes me feel better about the whole creative part...sometimes.

Evan and I bake cookies, breads, cakes and other desserts together. He helps me with pancakes and waffles or muffins. I know it's really not the same, but I pretend it is.

I know that there are so many moms out there who feel guilty about not being the "crafty mom" or the "soccer mom" or the "non-yelling mom" or the "baby-wearing mom." But you know what? It really is OK.

We all have our strengths and abilities, and our kids will benefit from what we do have.

I'm just glad that Evan is in school now, no matter how short it is, so that I can have some crafty things hanging on my refrigerator now. Hooray!

Oh, and another thing that's just not me. I'm not the mom who's children always look put together.

We went to see Santa today, and although the boys weren't perfectly buttoned up with the cleanest faces, it went much better that expected.

Now, the woman behind me with the 9 children ages 2-3 had her brood looking in tip-top form. She must have been a teacher or a child care provider.

All of the children, ALL, had on matching Santa hats and did not stray from her site for a second. None of them were running around; none of them were yelling; none of them were picking their noses.

I turned to her and said, "Wow, I can't believe they are all keeping their hats on?! And they are so well-behaved!"

"I'm surprised too, and we do take a lot of outings together," was her reply.

Somehow, I don't think it would matter how often I took Evan and Oliver out, they would still have something out of place and "act up" at some point.

It was all I could do to wipe the cracker crumbs from Oliver's mouth and brush the crumbs off of Evan's shirt and get Oliver to sit on Santa's lap.

The result was the classic visit Santa photo of one of the children crying and the other looking like a deer in the headlights.

It's a memory.

I know I kind of always end my posts with, "If there's any mom who feels...", but the thing is, this blog is for other moms to relate to and hopefully make feel better. Because whether we're that crafty mom or not, we all have days where we just feel, well, meh.

I just have a lot of those muddled days, but I wouldn't change them for anything. Honestly I wouldn't.

Mind Boggling

Right now, I should be making appointments, doing laundry, folding laundry, taking Evan to school, cleaning up the kitchen, changing sheets, cleaning the bathroom, researching for my work assignments, making a grocery list, sending out a Christmas list to family, uploading photos, balancing the checkbook, helping the boys clean up the playroom, vacuuming, mopping, putting summer clothes away and getting out of my pajamas.

Mind boggling.

But somehow, I find myself sitting at my laptop writing a post. The last thing that should be on my list of "things to do," and especially since I just did a recap of our "vacation" last night; however, I thought it would be a good idea to write out everything that was going through my mind in the hopes of it all organizing itself.

The life of a mother is mind boggling muddles, if you will. That's not to say that people who don't have children don't have their fair share of muddles and craziness; but when you add the responsibility of taking care of little people, who can't take care of themselves, it throws a whole new meaning into responsibility.

Stopping for a moment to read my "list" that I typed out of everything I should be doing right now, I would want to get overwhelmed. And most of the time I do. I'm just being honest.

I used to be one of those list-makers. I took great comfort in whipping out my list pad and favorite pen and writing down everything I needed to accomplish for the day. And with each swipe of the pen, as I crossed off the item that had just been completed, I would feel a sense of pride (the good kind).

Ah, to revel in that feeling again.

Now, I barely can roll myself out of bed with my hair somehow still damp from my midnight shower to tend to the little monsters,er munchkins, for the day.

I know you all have days where you don't even know where to begin. You're so overwhelmed with things that need to be done and things you'd like to be done, but know never will, or never will until you kids are off to college.

I love being a mom. I wouldn't change it for anything. I love my boys and they bring me such joy and laughter every day. They keep my life interesting and give me an "excuse" to write musings to the endless black hole of the Internet for anyone and everyone to read.

I've tried to embody being the "Martha Stewart" mom. In other words, labeling everything, having a rigid schedule, being organized, having a spotless home, all while making everything homemade with a smile on my face.

Guess what? That's not me. 

Instead, I run around all day forgetting what I had gone upstairs to do, only to come back downstairs to remember what I went upstairs to do, to pass by something else that I forgot to do. It's a vicious cycle and, again, mind boggling.

I think the hardest thing for me, though, is balancing working from home and being a stay-at-home mom. I'm not even close to the smooth sailing point I want to be at. 

Every week, I start out with a fresh piece of paper ready to make  THEE schedule that will make everything work perfectly. Everything has its time to be completed and everything has its place. This starts on Monday, and by Monday afternoon, I can't even find the piece of paper with my "golden" schedule that was supposed to be the one to work. The one that would cut my kids TV viewing time down by an hour.

Yes, there I wrote it. My kids watch TV. I depend on it on most days in order to meet deadlines and get work done. 

She's really gone and done it now, you may think.

Coming to a place of saying, "You know what? It's OK if I'm a muddled mom and who cares what other people (really, other moms) think," is hard.

There are days that I'm right there, smack dab in the middle. But most days are me fretting over how I could be such a muddled mess.

So, enough of my musings. Just know, if you find yourself overwhelmed today or tomorrow or next week (you will at some point), it's OK. A good and organized day is bound to make an appearance at some point.

I'm counting on it. Today just isn't that day.

Mini-Muddled Vacay

So a few months ago I found this incredible deal on Living Social for a 2-night family getaway at a hotel that has an indoor water park. It included a food credit, 2 nights at the hotel, 4 passes to the water park and a massage (let's be honest, the massage is what got me).

I convinced Ryan that it was a fabulous idea and I bought it.

Maybe it was a foreshadowing or a warning of what was to come, but at first I had trouble buying the deal and then when I did buy it, I didn't realize until 2 weeks before that it had an expiration date!

I quickly called the resort and made our reservation which ended up being this past weekend.

The family packed up the car and we ventured up  to the mountains and to the water park. Oliver had no idea what was going on, but Evan was super excited to stay at a hotel (his first time) and go to this mysterious place called a water park.

We got there. The hotel was clean. We scoped out the water park, it looked fun...and clean. I was excited!

This was our first alone family vacation together. Honestly, I don't know if you can really call it a vacation when it was only for 2 nights, but we had to start out with baby steps. All other "vacations" prior had been to visit family.

Excited for the day ahead at the water park, we got the boys ready for bed and set up our sleeping arrangement. Oliver was in the Pack n Play in between the beds, and I would snuggle with Evan in one bed while Ryan took the other.

At one point we thought Evan was going to opt for Daddy, but he soon came back. After only about 45 minutes of craziness, the boys settled down and actually fell asleep by 7:30, which meant that Ryan and I would be forced to fall asleep at 7:30. Let me just tell you, it was great to go to bed that early and just relax.

But alas, not all could be peaceful and uneventful.

Evan is a terrible bed buddy. I knew the child took after me with moving around a lot in his bed. I find him flipped or hanging off his bed most nights, but nothing could have prepared me for his acrobatics. I was forced to a small section of the bed most of the night, but managed to get in some shut-eye.

Then the 5:30 wake-up call came. You guessed it, from Evan. He popped right up out of bed. No rubbing of the eyes or slowly getting up and being groggy. He was ready to rock n roll and then proceeded to wake up his brother. So we were all up at the lovely hour of 5:30 (they usually wake up at 6:45/7:00, and yes, the extra hour or so does make a difference).

The next 3 hours were used to keep them entertained and quiet so they wouldn't wake up the rest of the hotel. I don't know how well we did, but we didn't get any complaints.

Finally, after 3 long hours, we made our way to the water park to have some fun.

To summarize: we had fun. it was cold. we stayed 2 hours. we didn't go back.

The water in the indoor water park was FREEZING! We even went to stay in the wave pool to try and stay warm, but the water was so cold. Oliver's teeth were chattering and we had to keep taking him out to dry him off and dress him. He spent most of the time "wading."

Evan was not impressed. He didn't want to do any slides and was perfectly happy playing with the water hose.

Water park was a bust. Maybe when they're older?

By 10:30 we were all starving. After a few dashes to the bathroom with the boys for potty breaks and diaper changes, we finally made our way to find some food with our food/beverage credit we were given. Nothing opened until 12:00!

This did not go over well with the boys, and so we took a drive and got some snacks to tide us over and then headed back to use up our credit at the hotel's restaurant. I'm glad we had the snacks.

By this point, Ryan and I had decided that after I had my massage appointment, we were going to head home despite the fact that we had another night booked.

The water park was not an option to go back to (freezing, remember) and Mommy and Daddy had not thought ahead and didn't bring any toys for the boys to play with in the room. We tried outlet shopping, but that didn't last long either.

A snow-capped mountain peak in the distance, we made our way back home glad that we didn't plan a long far-away "vacation" to test the waters.

Can't really say we had a lot of muddles, major ones anyway, but to document a family vacation is always good to look back on.

We were all ready to be home.

But the massage was worth it. Oh, yes.

Pumpkin Patch Perils

A couple of weeks ago I ventured off to the pumpkin patch with the boys, by myself. What was supposed to be a complete family outing turned into the three of us because Ryan was gone on a business trip.

Someone told me this particular pumpkin patch was enclosed with a fence, so I took that as some reassurance that I'd be safe to go. I actually was pretty excited myself because I had heard about this awesome corn maze they had and other fun activities for the boys.

I decided to tackle the hay ride first and get our pumpkins before going off to do the other fun things. We made it through that without any major incident. The boys ran into the field, picked a pumpkin and were ready to get back on the hay ride. They loved it! Besides a little muddy patches, we made it.

Then the corn maze.

Oh, the corn maze. An activity that would normally have me filled with anticipation for the adventure of finding my way out of the twists and turns. This maze was good. That was the problem. It was TOO good.

That day I had put Evan in his "fall" jacket which is beige corduroy. In other words, he blended in quite nicely with the corn stalks. My oldest son, who takes after his mother when she was a child, always looking for an adventure, decided that he could navigate the maze without me and Oliver. Who, by the way, wanted to walk himself through the maze as well.

I "lost" Evan a few times, and thankfully there were many families there who kept him where he was until I followed his voice. But I learned that it just isn't a good idea to take a 3 year old and a 1 year old into an state-of-the-art corn maze. Everyone at the pumpkin patch knew Evan's name by the time we left.

I was very grateful to get to the point in the maze that had the sign that read, "Congratulations! You made it through the easy part. Turn right to really be challenged or turn left to finish."

We turned left, and Evan whined, "But I don't want to find our way out, Mommy." Yeah, right kid.

I was sweating by the time we were done and we still continued to play afterward on the bounce pillow, feed the animals, and took a "train" ride.

The culmination of the day came to a point when we left and Evan, yet again, ran away in the parking lot. It's like he's reverted back to his 2-year-old self again. He hasn't run away in a parking lot in such a long time. I freaked, of course, and yelled his name over and over.

"Evan! Stop right now! Evan!"

My voice got more panicky with each shout. Cars stopped, people came to my aid, and he just laughed like he was having the time of his life.

"Got your hands full there, don't ya," someone says as they walk past me with their well-behaved child smiling so angelically holding their parent's hand like an obedient child.

"I get that a lot," I replied with that fake laugh where I really want to be sarcastic and say, "Hmmm, ya think. I didn't know. Thanks for pointing that out to me."

We all have our bad days as parents. Our kids have bad days and good days. Some struggle with an area that another doesn't, but as a  parent, you will face a muddle in your life, at some point. It's inevitable.

You can plan, plan, plan, and still things will not go according to, well, plan. And you know what? That's OK, really it is.

I used to be that planner and perfectionist. Disciplining my little cousins or kids I taught, and would think the key was to just be consistent and lay down rules and they'd be respectful and well-behaved little ones. I wasn't one to ever judge parents or think that I could do better, but I definitely had an opinion about a lot of stuff.

But each child is different and each parent has their obstacle to face with raising their kids.

I'm sure there were many at the pumpkin patch who judged me that day or though my kids were unruly and thought that they could do better or their child would NEVER do that. That's OK. It used to really bother me and I'd be embarrassed. However, now I take it all in stride and do my best. I'm not saying there aren't days when I'm frazzled and mortified by muddles I find myself in, but I do my best to "laugh" it off and remind myself that one day I'll look back and miss the mayhem that is now my life.

If you're a parent, I hope you will too. Whatever muddle you find yourself in today.

Revised Scheduling

Before my oldest started school, someone told me that once he went, things would be different. Well, that ended up being true.

My little family's schedule has changed now because of those mere 2 1/2 hours, two days a week that Evan is at school. I  plan my grocery shopping and other errands and tasks during that time because it's a lot easier to handle with one than two in tow.

I didn't learn this right away though. In fact, this week is when it dawned on me that I should take advantage of the time. And after last week's trip to Trader Joes, I'm glad I had the epiphany.

What is it with Trader Joes? Two words - child's cart.

Evan loves the child's shopping cart and "shopping" with me. Last week didn't end up as well as previous trips. It involved 3 deliveries of Evan back to me by store employees, and Evan and I echoing back to each other from opposite ends of the store:

"Mommy, where are you?"

"Evan, get over here!"

Repeat this multiple times. Kind of like Marco Polo.

But this trip ended, well almost, on a happy note when one of the employees whisked Evan away to pick out flowers for me...on the house! Can you said great customer service? However, I asked myself, "Did I really look so frazzled that I needed flowers?"

We made it through the check-out line and to the exit when Evan took off, flowers clutched tightly to his chest as he ran toward the parking lot. Again, another employee grabbed him for me and assisted me to the car and unloaded my groceries.

Trader Joes, you rock!

This latest incident has made me get my schedule back in order. Somewhat, anyway.

Now it's just Oliver and I, and as of right now, he just tries to get out of the cart unless I occupy him with food. It's all about food with that one.

The blogging thing has been hard to juggle among my other responsibilities. I write for my job, and sometimes my brain is so tired, that I don't have it in me to sit down and type my latest mommy muddle.

So I apologize for the lapse in time and the inconsistency of it all. Let it just be an example of what motherhood is like sometimes: unpredictable, inconsistent and at times, overwhelming. Oh, and let's not forget there are moments when it doesn't make sense. kind of like this post.

I have a fun pumpkin patch story, that was quite the muddle, to share; however, that will have to be continued. My brain is not at full working capacity at the moment. I know many of you can relate. At least I hope.

Muddle Mayhem

So you may be wondering where on earth have I been...or not. But I'll tell you anyway.

I couldn't even remember what my last post was, and then when I read it I realized why I hadn't blogged in almost a month. I was getting over "flying solo." And guess what? It's happening again this weekend.

I hope this isn't another indication of a long blogging break. Honestly, I've been in a muddled funk of a mess. Between switching schools for my oldest son and getting into a new routine and work and, let's face it, pure exhaustion, I just haven't had it in me to pour out my hear on my blog and let the world know about the muddlesome messes that were going on.

With my blogging break, I was hoping to come back and not really have any stories to tell or anything to report. I was really wanting to just share some insightful thoughts of motherhood and life in general. Daily musings from a mom that I'm sure so many of you are eager to hear (eye roll).

But alas, I do have mishaps that have happened. So here it goes.

The first being my first experience taking Evan on a field trip. We went to the apple farm and I had Oliver with. Two mobile kids running around an apple farm, that just so happened to have gigantic  pigs behind an electric fence, didn't give me any peace of mind.

Then came the port-a-pottty. Oh yes, I do not joke.

As we were transitioning from picking apples to visiting the pigs to getting on the hayride, I noticed Evan doing the "dance." I don't remember now, but at the time, I somehow convinced him that he had to go potty before getting on the hayride. Seeing his classmates in the distance getting on didn't help the issue.

With our apple totes in hand and discarded coats that they got too hot to wear, I stuffed the three of us in one of those glorious rectangle germ-pools and hoisted Evan up to go potty; but then I had to go.

Let me just tell you, trying to corral a 3-year-old and a 17-month-old in a port-a-potty and then keep them in there while you are balancing ever so carefully so as not to touch anything, while at the same time, yanking your said 3-year-old back so he won't open up the latch for the whole world to behold you squatting over a plastic whole in a box, is quite the ordeal.

I zipped up my jeans while simultaneously tumbling out of the "closet" with the two of them and hoisting all our belongings as we ran to the hayride with Evan yelling out, "Don't leave me, don't leave me."

I was so tired by the end of that field trip. I was kind of, secretly, relieved that the pumpkin patch field trip was cancelled today due to rain. Who knows what kind of narrative I would have had for that one. Don't be too disappointed, I have another one.

This one also involves bathroom discussion. Hey, I'm a mom, would you expect anything else?

I ventured out with the boys last week to Sam's Club. I had 5 things to get. Five, no more and no less. I was anticipating a quick in and out trip; however, I wasn't expecting it to downpour the way it ended up doing.

Thankfully, I got a close enough spot to the front and all three of us in our rain boots clomped into the store and I shoved both of them into the front of the cart.

If I may digress for a moment. Why do Sam's Club carts have the smallest openings for the legs in the carts. I always end up having to pull their shoes off before yanking them out in order to get them out. This always involves lots of protest and tears because I'm taking their shoes off.

OK, back to the story.

As  we began our quick trip, I had already place 3 of the 5 items in the cart and Evan started wiggling.

Uh oh, I thought. Did he have to poop?

"Um, Evan. Do you need to go potty?"

"No Mom. Wait, yes. I really have to go. Get me a pull-up"

Great. There is no way I am schlepping them back out into the pouring rain to put a pull-up on Evan so he can poop in my car, in which case I know he'll demand privacy forcing Oliver and I in some cramped corner in the Highlander because it's raining outside. Things were starting to look strangely familiar. (See one of my first posts about the movie theater parking lot pooping incident)

"Evan, let's go to the bathroom like a big boy!" I tried to show as much excitement as possible.

"No. Pull-up" The kids will not poop in the potty. Still.

I debated if I should risk grabbing the last few items and going through the line, but beads of sweat started to appear on his forehead. The kid had to go.

I raced to the front, mumbled something to someone at the front desk that we had a bathroom emergency and if they could just keep our cart there, and then ran them out into the rain as we all cramped ourselves into the passenger seat.

Why I did this, I don't know. I just wanted us out of the rain. I got Oliver into the back seat to "walk around" and then got to the task at hand.

No pull-ups in the diaper bag. Size 5 Pampers it was.

"Evan, you're going to have to wear Oliver's diaper to go."

"I'm not a baby. I want a pull-up"

I took a deep breath, knowing that to go into the discussion that there is no difference between pull-ups and diapers and it was still being like a "baby" to go in a pull-up, would be futile at this moment.

It was raining, I was about to be stuck in a stuffy vehicle with a pooping 3-year-old who I needed to get a diaper on.

I just went for it. Got the diaper on him, crawled into the back seat with Oliver and told Evan he had privacy.

He did his business, I took care of it and we made our way back inside.

The inconveniences and adventures as a mother are so numerous, that sometimes you, or at least I do anyway, get overwhelmed with the stories you could share or tell people.

These past 4 weeks were filled with many, but these are the only two I remember at the moment because I didn't get any sleep last night.

That 3-year-old I have, yeah, the one who likes to poop in pull-ups in cars, he decided to get up at 2 a.m. and stay awake the rest of the night. Coincidentally, I went to bed at 2 a.m. because of a story I was writing. No sleep and utter exhaustion is the result.

With that said, I will not be going back over this posting to check grammar or spelling or if any of this makes sense.

I wrote a post, and hopefully will write one tomorrow after I get some sleep. Maybe, just maybe, I'll be hit with some inspiration. It's been very few and far between.

You'll never know what you'll read here because I never know what I'm going to post. It could be a muddle or a reflection or experience that can maybe help another mom.

Good night!