Will I Ever Stop Being Tired?

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I am so fucking tired today.

Have you ever slept in the same bed as two tiny humans?  Except they are so tiny anymore and I’m not exactly sure they’re human.  How is it that children are allowed to be awake half the night and then get up the next morning as if nothing happened?  And then you ask them what their problem was the night before and they have no idea what you’re talking about?

Ugh.  This co-sleeping thing is starting to super irritate me.  It’s not bad if Husband takes Destroyer and I take Buddy in different rooms.  But both of them in bed with me when Husband is on night shift is becoming the bane of my mommyhood.

We have a king size bed and yet all of a sudden small children turn into hairy little octopuses with extra long limbs to kick you and tickle you and pull your hair.  It quickly morphs into a twin size bed in the middle of the night and the blankets become too small to cover us.

Every imaginary problem from monsters to ailments to crying for no reason starts to manifest and we get to stay up ALL NIGHT LONG.

Maybe I should just put on some Lionel Richie and give into the party.

Maybe Lionel is the answer.  Maybe if I blast him loud enough and fight them with some new ammunition besides yelling and threats they will get the hint and go the fuck to sleep.  And stay asleep.  And not wake me up every 20 minutes.  And stop monitoring my every move.

If I dare to step one foot out of the bed to use the can in the middle of the night her little four year old sixth sense jolts her awake and I hear “where are you going” before I even get one step out the door.

What is this, grade school?   Do I need to ask permission to go to the fucking bathroom?

I feel like I will never ever ever stop being tired.  Ever.

Parents, is there a time where you stop being tired?

It’s All Fun And Games Until Someone Pukes In The Bed

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The thing about having little kids is that you totally can’t plan for shit, Bitches.  I mean, you could, but it always gets fucked up.  Always.

So what I do is think about what I’d like to do, but prepare for all the ways it’s going to get ruined  and be ready to solve those scenarios.

For example, I never ever leave the house without a bag full of snacks, drinks, diapers, and at least one change of clothes for each child.  And by snacks I mean enough food to feed a small troupe of children because my kid is ridiculously friendly and offers to share a lot.  So, I better have the goods to back up her claim, right?  It’s like I have a baby bug out bag ready for the apocalypse at all times.

But on Sundays, my one day “off” I can’t seem to shake this unrealistic expectation that everyone will go to bed early so that I can have enough grownup time to eat some appetizers, drink some fancy wine ( not the boxed shit I use during the week) and watch Game of Thrones.  Or Walking Dead.  Or whatever else is on that I can’t get away with in front of the kids.

And so, by assuming that everything will be easy, I seem to jinx myself.  Every fucking week.  Sunday is the worst bedtime in the history of bedtimes.  I need to lower the bar.

Husband was working yesterday, but it was beautiful out and we kept busy putting the garden in and playing with the Destroyer’s new pony set.  Buddy was his usual happy self, following us along and copying everything his sister does.  We got muddy feet and dirty hands, a little sun kissed and had a great day.

I didn’t have to yell at anybody for the whole day.  Isn’t that amazing??

To my surprise, Destroyer wanted me to put her to bed instead of Husband, so he went off to put Buddy to bed.

It was all going perfectly.

And then Buddy puked all over the fucking bed.  My bed.  And all over the pillow.  And all over the floor.  And all over the dog bed.  How is there that much puke in one baby?  I’ll tell you how.  Let him eat a man size serving of manicotti as a bedtime snack and then gun a toddler bottle full of milk.  One big belch and its game over.

How do like Co-sleeping now, Dr. Sears?  Because I was really loving it until the puke.  Until I let my expectations of a smooth day ruin it for everybody.

Somehow despite the laundry and the cleanup and the frustration, we still had our plate of snacks and some bubbly wine.

But for fuck sake.  Just one day of not anything stupid?  Is that a thing?

10 Reasons Why Co-Sleeping Is Bullshit

It’s King size bed. Do you see any room for grown ups?

As I trudge myself back from the pits of of the stomach flu, I’ve confirmed a most important feeling about parenting:

Co-sleeping is for the birds.

Before you get all hot on the titties, hear me out.  I’ve put together a list of evidence ans clear points that will argue my case most effectively:

1.  We have a king size bed.  Every night, I end up almost falling out while Thing 1 and Thing 2 press their little bodies against me tighter and tighter until I hang on to the edge by my toes.  One end is reserved for 50 million stuffed animals and Husband is banished to the spare bed downstairs.  Toddlers take up way more than there fair share of the space.

2. Kicked in the head.  So many times.

3. When someone pees through their diaper, you run the risk of having to wash the sheets.

4.  When two of the three of us have the stomach flu, vomit ends up all over the bed.  Even with a bucket.

5.  The littlest of the tiny people roll in the vomit and end up with vomit chunks in their hair.

6. In my fevered state, I may or may not notice said chunks of vomit until husband pints them out at breakfast the next morning.

7. Do you know how many loads of laundry it takes to wash all the bedding and 50 million stuffed animals of a king sized bed?  6.  That’s all day laundry Bitches.  All day.

8.  Trying to sneak out of bed to use the bathroom or drink coffee requires the stealth of a ninja.  Stealth I usually don’t have.

9.  Nothing like waking up with a peed diaper ass in your face.

10. Co sleeping is bullshit. Because, stomach flu.

 

The truth is, I always said I’d never ever co-sleep.  Just like I swore that I would circumcise my Buddy.  I guess never say never, because it always comes back to haunt you.

Both of my toddlers slumber peacefully in bed with me every night, and the truth is, when they don’t have the stomach flu, it’s kinds nice to wake up to little smiles and cuddles from their onesie pajama’d selves.

But this week, it was bullshit.

Why The Hell Is My Toddler Crying Now? Friday

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I know its Friday, but things have been a little heated around here lately.

So instead of the usual Hot on the Titties rant, I’m going to do a special called “Why The Hell Is My Toddler Crying Now? Friday”.

Because I like to mix it up.  But also because I want someone, anyone, to rationalize the irrationality of my almost three year old.

I think she might be a little into the sauce sometimes.  Crazysauce that is.  And maybe even a little bit of bananapants too.  Crazy sauce bananapants.  Never a good thing.

Honest to God, the mood swings of a toddler make PMS and pregnancy look like nothing, bitches.  Nothing.  One second everything is fine and the next thing you know, she’s crying and carrying on so hard that language is no longer decipherable, there’s red blotches all over her face, she’s off balance and tripping and freaking out because now somethings HURTS her and seriously.

What.The.Fuck?

Last night it all started because the bathtub water did not have sparkles in it.  Now before you all go calling Child and Family Services on me, we did in fact have a sparkle bath the day before.  But I accidentally gave it to Daddy.  So Daddy (totally by accident, I swear) had the gay man’s bath with sparkles and came out looking like Edward Cullen.  It was magnificent.  But the problem is that the Destroyer saw the sparkle tub and now wanted one of her very own.

Well.  We didn’t have another sparkle bomb.  And we had already prepared the bath with the duck bubble bath she fucking asked for. Which apparently made me a terrible person.

The screaming continued.  Reasoning didn’t work.  Threats didn’t work. And then finally.  She said the only thing that would make her happy was if I got her snake costume out.

Well okay then.  Snake costumes for everyfuckingbody then.  Just please stop screaming in my ear.

Except just kidding.  That was wrong too.

And so the evening of Thursday went.   Everything was wrong. I was wrong.  The bedside light was in the wrong place.  The pull-up was the wrong one. ( don’t even ask me about potty training.  I might kill you).  The pajamas were wrong. I was wrong.  Life was wrong.

Dear sweet Jesus, when did I become such a failure?  Why does she cry for no reason?

I can only conclude that the child was over tired and slightly out of her little mind and badly needing to go to bed.

Because it took about 3 nanoseconds for her to fall asleep.  Thank goodness for the ultimate trump card:

The threat of having to sleep by herself in her dark, scary, monster infused bedroom.  That makes bedtime a breeze.

In other news, I’ll probably be co-sleeping with my child until she 25.

Happy Friday, bitches.

Torture for all Parents Who Thought They had it All Figured Out

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We’ve been having a tough couple of weeks, me and Buddy.  My tiny bestie is driving us a little crazy at night.  I am near the point of delirium and not sure how much longer I can sleep this poorly and still speak in complete sentences.

With any luck, maybe I’ll get fired and then find a job where communication isn’t a necessary skill.

Anyway, parenting these days has a lot of fancy fucking terms.  “Wonder Week 19”, “4 Month Sleep Regression”, etc etc.  I actually don’t give a shit what you call it.  It doesn’t matter.  I just want it to go away.  I want to hear the term “5 Months Old is the Bestest, Easiest, Most Blissful Sleep Time For Every Baby And It Lasts Forever”.

Right?

That’s a thing, right?

My Buddy has been sleeping through the night since he was about 7 weeks old.  Like, 12 hours at a time.  I would put him down around 8:30, and not hear from him again until the next morning unless he got a little gas bubble trapped.  A couple of taps on the back, and right back to bed.

Until last week.  First it was teeth.  Now it just blows.

Sometimes it takes 3 hours to put him to bed.  I want to die.

So you know what I started doing?

I started fucking co-sleeping again.

Pardon me, because I am the biggest hypocrite asshole person to ever live.  First the non-circumcision, now the co-sleeping.  Someone call Dr. Sears.

Seriously though, I keep thinking of the best parenting advice I ever got, and it reassures me a little.  “Do what works.  Don’t do what doesn’t work”  ( Thanks Ken.)

And you know what doesn’t work?  Everything else.  I don’t even care, he can sleep in bed with me until he’s 14 for all I give a shit.  Because otherwise I am a recipe for crazysauce.

In other news, I know that once he gets past this, he will have gone through a hugely developmental stage, and I’m seeing all of those things happen daily.  But in the meantime, fuck my life.

Someone should rename it “Torture for all Parents Who Thought They had it All Figured Out.”  Because that’s what it feels like.

In the meantime, I’m going to insert an IV to directly caffeinate myself.  Oral doses no longer work.

A Change of Heart

Do you hear that?  Neither do I.  Because it’s the sound of both children napping at the same time.

So here I am, one week post partum.  27 pounds lighter.  Can you believe that?  If you needed to know just how much water I was carrying around.

And in the past week, I have had to swallow my pride and admit that my son has changed the parent I thought I was.  Because there are no rules, except the one that says you do what is necessary for your child at the time as you see fit because you love them more than life itself.

I have had to change my mind about a couple of things I swore I would never do.  Little Buddy had to spend a little time in the NICU after birth.  And then we both spent a few days in hospital after that.  He’s okay now, but last week was stressful and exhausting.  He had some breathing troubles, his sugar crashed after birth and then there was jaundice.

Anyway, in all of this, the best medicine for him was contact with me.  Skin to skin.  Lots of snuggling.  And the dreaded co-sleeping that always terrified me.  So on his one week birthday, he is still sleeping with me, and I have to admit that I really like it.  There is nothing sweeter than waking up to his little face.  Nothing.

Then there was the whole cut versus uncut debate.  I swore up and down that we would circumcise him.  We booked the appointment.  And then, in the hospital while changing his diaper and looking down at his little armadillo, I just couldn’t bear the thought of it.  I could not even start to think about putting him through anything else in such a short period of time.  He just looked so perfect, and I no longer felt the need to change him.  So today, I cancelled his appointment.

What the fuck is happening to me?

You know, I haven’t even been able to drink.  I keep trying, but my body just won’t accept it.

One day I think I’ll get back to myself, but for right now, I hope I’m not just plain and simple crazy.  They say love does funny things to you.

It sure does.

Hot on the Titties: Crying It Out

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Hot on the  Titties Friday!  Who is ready for a healthy debate?  I’m beginning to observe that the topics that really get people talking are the ones that hit closest to home.  Often, they involve us feeling as though we need to defend our choices to others, and it can get quite passionate.  And as always, as parents, we feel the need to justify whatever choice we end up making to parent our children.

So, here is the kindling to today’s fire.  It’s sort of a lengthy article, and is written by someone with a PhD, presumably in some sort of neuroscience or child behaviour.  Basically, it spends most of it’s time explaining why letting a baby “cry it out”  is the evil of all evils.

It is a scientific, anthropological argument for attachment parenting.  Which we all know is a bit of a hot topic at times.  As usual, it explains that “giving babies what they need leads to greater independence later.”  Hmmmm.  No shit.

One interesting comment made was how the extended family unit and “village” so to speak was all involved in a child’s care and instrumental to promoting this happiness and independence in a child.  And I can totally see how the break down of these family units where the mother is doing it all by herself can be detrimental to a child’s behaviour later on.  Being a parent is really, really, tiring some days.

Anyway, the real meat of the debate today is whether or not you let your child “cry it out” sometimes.  Or all the times.  Or none of the times.

If you do, you probably won’t read the entire article because it will make you feel like shit.  There’s a lot of talk of neurons and psychological damage to the child that can’t be reversed and how neglectful it is.  How selfish it is to ignore a child’s needs based on your own and that the more you do it the more desensitized you get to the sounds.  It was a total bashing.  And even though the article had a scientific “smell” to it, it was fairly obvious to me how un-objective this scientist was when writing it.

“letting babies get distressed is a practice that can damage children and their relational capacities in many ways for the long term.”

I’m not sure there are many parents who let their babies get distressed.  Nobody wants to allow their baby to cry, or feel hurt or not try their best to comfort them.  This is not a scientific statement.  It is an inflammatory one.

“The fact is that caregivers who habitually respond to the needs of the baby before the baby gets distressed, preventing crying, are more likely to have children who are independent than the opposite (e.g., Stein & Newcomb, 1994). Soothing care is best from the outset. Once patterns get established, it’s much harder to change them.”

This statements makes the assumption that Attachment Parents respond to their babies needs and parents who do not attachment parent do not.

I can’t disagree more.

Because I’m fairly certain that babies who are fed on demand and co-sleep or are rocked to sleep or whatever cry sometimes too.  In my experience and observation they fucking cry just as often.  That’s how they let you know what they need.

As someone who did not “feed on demand” and allowed their baby to “cry it out” on occasion, I find the above statement completely fucking ridiculous.  I got my kid on a schedule as soon as possible.  And it wasn’t just about me.  It was about watching her and anticipating her needs and creating a pattern where her needs were met before she needed to get upset about shit.  And you know what?  Sometimes she cried.  And then I figured out what she needed. And as she grew and her needs changed, I shifted things around according to what she needed.  Fucking Duh. Putting a baby on a “schedule” doesn’t mean you don’t adapt to the needs of your child.

As for the crying it out, yeah, we did that too from time to time.  It’s not like we got sick of hanging out with her so we put her to bed to cry herself to sleep every night.  There was feeding, and changing, and cuddling and rocking and singing and all the nurturing things you do for your child. And then we put her in her crib, once we knew she was comfortable and all her needs were met.  And sometimes,  there was some fussing.  Most of the time she went to sleep.  But on the nights she didn’t, we let her cry for a few minutes.  And it was fine.

So.  Is my now toddler damaged from this?  Is she dependent and clingy and whiny as the article suggests she would be?  Is she full of anxiety and stupidity and lacking confidence?   She couldn’t be the farthest thing from any of this.  Honestly.

So what I think is this.  There is a great difference between methods in determining and meeting your child’s needs and child neglect.  I believe that the negative outcomes described in this bullshit propaganda  psychology article is blurring the lines between parental choices and parental neglect.  I’m sure that all of these developmental and psychological outcomes are possible, but in the extreme form of non-parenting.  I ALSO think, that if you are going to publish in a scientific magazine or journal, you should be careful to write in a scientific manner, and not an obviously biased, inflammatory, and accusatory manner.

Over to you kids.

Thoughts?

1000 Months Pregnant And Counting

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I know, I know, it’s Hot on The Titties Friday.  But the truth is I used up all my hot yesterday on Fuck You Thursday.  The other truth is that I am just really really really tired.  And getting all hot like that takes energy.  Energy that is being sucked out of me like gas being siphoned out of a fuel tank.

Do you want to know what it’s like to sleep when you are 1000 months pregnant?

So do I.

Cause the fact is, I’m not really sleeping anymore.  Now please, please, with a cherry on top and all of that shit, resist the urge to tell me how it’s a good way for my body to get used to all the sleepless nights approaching with Little Buddy.  Because I have a toddler, remember?  So been there, done that, haven’t slept all the way through the night since 2009.

There are a couple of patterns that happen these days.  The first scenario is that I go to bed, and while I lay there contemplating whether or not to read a book, I fall asleep.  This is probably the lesser of the evils.  But guran-fucking-teed, I will awaken a couple of hours later to be irritated by one of the three dogs.  Someone will need to go out.  Someone will piss on the carpet downstairs.  Someone will be pacing around, click clacking their fucking nails on the hardwood floor.  Someone will get threatened with amputation and/or the sausage factory.

I will try to go back to sleep, and discover that my feet are unbearably itchy.  Or I have this super cool thing called a hot flash.  (Yeah, preparation for menopause, thanks dickwad).

I finally doze off to hear the screaming of the Destroyer.  We are in nightmare phase right now, so I have been sharing the bed with a bed hogging toddler some nights.  I have broken my own rule of no co-sleeping.  I suck.

By 6am I just give up.  Fuck it.  I am doomed to be tired for ever. And ever.

The other delightful scenario is when I can’t fucking sleep at all.  When I am so uncomfortable that I lie in bed all night tossing and turning, needing the cool air from a fan, but kept awake by the noise of it.  When every little sound sends me into a hormonal tantrum.  When I wish someone could just sedate me until Little Buddy arrives, and I can drink a little lullaby called rum when I can’t sleep.

Rum. The difference between a dream and a nightmare is that a dream has rum in it.  At least according to Jack Sparrow.  So I guess I am living a nightmare.

So yeah.  I’m not hot on my tits today kids.  I’m resting my tired, sleepless, beached whale, pregnant head on them.

Trying to figure out what sleep feels like when you are 1000 months pregnant.

If anyone has some advice that actually works, I’d love to hear it.

Hot On The Titties: The Independent Child

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I’m not feeling the heat this morning.  On my titties, that is.  But I think I know what will spread a little warmth amongst the masses.  A little parenting debate, anyone?

I’ve spent the morning ( since 5 am because the wretched spawn  sweet little life inside me woke me up starving) perusing this article and this one too.  Both articles are similarly toned.  They discuss cultural differences in child rearing philosophies from around the world and compare them to North American habits.  Really good reads, by the way.

They both came up with the same conclusion.  We suck at parenting over here.

That’s right.  You. Me. All of us.

Why?  Because we have crawled so far up our children’s asses that they don’t even know what we look like anymore.  Get out of your child’s ass!

Here’s the  first Hot on the Titties part.  There is, in my opinion, a bit of a conflicting argument in both articles.  Both of them advocate for attachment style parenting in the early years of life.  Co-sleeping, constant contact, not introducing a scheduled feeding etc etc.   The argument is that these things provide comfort and teach the baby reassurance and confidence and comfort.  On the flip side, one of the articles states that getting a baby on a schedule and letting them cry things out doesn’t teach independence or how to self soothe.   Because they are incapable of learning routine this early.  Or at least that’s how I understood it.

Well which is it?  An infant is or isn’t capable of learning a habit or behavior at this point?  I’d like to know, because I loved pretty much everything else I read in the articles.

Anyway, moving forward to Hot on The Titties part 2, there seems to be some things that us North American parents need to address, so based on the information provided in the articles above,  Here are Cookie’s Rules of Preventing Assholism and Pussiness In your Kids:

1.  Give your child knives to play with and let them fall out of  trees.  No. Really.  Children are not made out of glass.  I know this because Destroyer regularly throws herself down stairs or other high up objects and she’s not broken yet.  She likes to play with pointy sticks and still has both eyes.  The idea is to give them situations where they learn risk assessment, I suppose.  Just keep the bandaids handy.

2.  Let.Your. Child. Play Outside.   Unstructured, free play.  Don’t play with them.   Don’t pick them up every time they fall.  Let them get dirty and tear the holes out of the knees of their jeans.  You know they are only going to fit for another 2 weeks anyway.

3.  Don’t schedule every single minute of after school life.  Your child will thank you.  Your bank account will thank you.

4. Next time you start cooking dinner, and then pull out some chicken fingers for the kids, find someone to give you a good spanking.  Make the kid eat what’s on his fucking plate.  I can’t tell you how much I love the Koreans for this rule.

5. Let your child ride his bike and bounce his ball and make ALL the noises outside.  And if someone gives him shit for making too much noise, give your kid permission to tell that person to fuck off.  And tell your kid to give that person your phone number so you can tell them the same thing.

6.  When your child is playing with other children, park your ass on the bench and watch.  Play on your phone.  Yack at the parent next to you.  If your kid wants you, they know where you are.  Where they don’t want you?  Up their ass on the play structure.  Seriously.

7. Let them solve their own shit sometimes.  Like when Destroyer can’t reach something on the other side of the table, I’m not getting up to grab it for her anymore.  She can figure out to walk around to the other side, and retrieve her heart’s desire her goddamn self once in a while.  And if she can’t figure it out, she will have to learn to cope with frustration and disappointment sometimes, won’t she?

Now, before some of the crazies out there jump all over MY tits and start calling me apathetic in regards to my child, know this:

I love my child fiercely.  God help the motherfucker that ever tried to lay harm on her, they would know what it means to regret something.  But how can she learn to be independent if I am there spooning every single thing in to her?  How can she grow up to be her own person?

I want her to experience some things in life on her own terms.  And if I do my job right, she will have the decision making skills and confidence to be safe and smart and brilliant.  And my hope is that she will come back to share her experiences with me because she knows that I am always waiting for her, supporting her and cheering her on, even when I’m not up her ass, prodding her along.  I want her to know she can do it on her own, even though she’s not on her own.

Right?