No One Ever Tells You

December 17, 2009

I think children should come with warning labels. No one ever tells you that as soon as you clean up, they’ll find a way to make an even bigger mess. Or that it’s fun to spit food out all over the place, or go through the bathroom garbage and throw it all over. No one ever tells you that there will constantly be crunchberries crunched into the carpet, or that your pants will NEVER be clean because as soon as you wash them, something will spill or dirty little hands will be wiped on them. Or that you’ll have to buy a small enough Christmas tree that it can be put on a high stand because if you don’t, you know that every last ornament would be stripped from it in 3 seconds flat. No one ever tells you how hard it is to make a one year old understand what “sit down in your seat or you’ll fall and break your neck” means. Or how it feels when you tell a baby “NO! NO! NO!” and they laugh at you- even if you give them a spank.

I think no one tells you that because if they did, no one would ever have children. And it’s impossible to describe the feeling of a soft baby cheek against yours. Or how incredible it feels to have them touch your cheek and know that what they mean is, “I love you mommy.” Or the feeling that fills your heart when you see them sleeping so peacefully in their crib. I think it’s impossible to understand, until you have one of your own, how wonderful it feels to have his little tiny arms reach around your neck and give you a big hug. Or how sweet and perfect a big wet kiss feels, even though you need a whole towel to wipe all the drool off your face after. Or just to have that sweet little face and those perfect brown eyes look up at you and smile.

I think no one tells you all those bad things because it’s impossible to comprehend, until you have your own, how all those things aren’t even bad things. How you’ll grow to love it all because it’s part of being a mommy, and NOTHING in this world is better than that.

Gagging

As a two year old, Isabella had the most sensitive gag reflex of any one I have ever met. She would gag over anything and everything. I would be sitting next to her and eating something that she thought looked gross and she would start gagging, even if it was something she had never tried before! She would gag if she got too much food in her mouth, or if she was tired of what she was eating. She would gag over any little smell as well.

After we potty trained Bell, we always had her call for us to come and wipe her, especially if she had pooped. One day, about two months after she was officially potty trained, she decided to be independent and get off her princess fairy potty seat by herself. I found her walking into the kitchen with poop all down her leg and on her hand. I immediately rushed her back into the bathroom and made her stand by the toilet while I cleaned her up. She had made quite the mess. Not only was it on her hand and legs, but she had somehow slid off the seat so the whole toilet was covered as well as the step stool and some of the wall. It wasn’t exactly a scentless poop either. It had been a really long, tiring, frustrating day, but still, I was managing to be fairly patient with Bell. As we were cleaning her all off she yelled, “Mom it stinks!” and proceeded to gag several times in a row. I knew what was coming next and before I could stop her, she gagged so hard that she threw up all over the floor. I now had poop and throw up covering the entire bathroom. I ended up just throwing her in the bath and using almost an entire container of Clorox wipes for the bathroom.

One night Bellie and Cody were in the bathtub together. I was washing Bellie’s hair while Cody was playing nicely in the water with his bath toys. All of the sudden he laid down in the water and folded his whole body in half so the only thing that was facing us was his little bum. I couldn’t figure out why he was doing that and I told him to sit up. A couple of seconds later Bell started to gag like crazy. Then I smelled it too. We figured out pretty quick what he was doing in that position, and both of us girls were not very happy about it. Cody had been known to have some pretty rank toots, but this one topped them all. We both started yelling at him and Bellie couldn’t stop gagging. I decided I better get her mind off of it quick or she would throw up again, so I changed the subject as fast as I could. Luckily it worked, and we avoided another vomiting incident. 

Plant Killer

Some people have black thumbs. Some people have very green thumbs. My mom, for instance, could keep any plant alive and thriving no matter what. She would have the same non-flowering plant for ten years, one day decide she wanted it to blossom, the next day cast her magic, and the next day have a beautiful fragrant, flowering blossom! I, unfortunately, did not inherit this useful trait. My thumb isn’t quite black, it’s more like a dirty brownish-grey. I can keep a plant alive, but just barely. All my plants are always hanging on for dear life and preparing themselves to see their last day of sunshine, only to find themselves waking up the next morning in the same, miserable, wilting state. I think if plants really had emotions, what I do to them would be considered cruel and unusual punishment.

I’ve never mean to be a plant torturer. I try to water them faithfully and give them sunlight and oxygen, but somehow, plants never thrive under my care. I had a daisy that I kept in a happy yellow pot for four years and the little plant never bloomed once after I started taking care of it.

When Kasey and I first were married we bought a “love fern”. I got the idea from a movie I liked as a teenager. If our love fern was any indication of how our marriage would turn out, we were in serious trouble. I had to keep buying new ones because they kept dying on me. Finally I just gave up on ferns altogether.

My family always had a large beautiful garden growing up. So one summer I decided it was time for our family to try a small one. We were very transient college students so for three years our garden consisted of a few pots with one tomato plant, one parsley plant, and a basil plant. The first year I got four tomatoes from my plant. Two of them got eaten by some nasty bug before they were even ripe, one of them was spread proudly on a green salad, and the other sat in the window sill waiting for me to use it until it went rotten and I had to throw it away. The second year wasn’t much different. The fourth year we had some crazy neighbor children and they came and picked all of the tomatoes when they were just baby tomatoes so we didn’t get a single one.

The worst luck I had with plants was when Cody or Bell would come home from some activity with a little bean seed in a cup. I always dreaded seeing their little happy excited faces with a cup of dirt in their hands, because I knew they would only be disappointed when I couldn’t get the darn thing to sprout. I did get lucky one time and the seed actually turned into a plant and started to grow. Cody was thrilled, but after several days of forgetting to water it, it started to wilt and eventually was nothing more than a brown stub. A few days after we had to throw the poor little bean plant away, we were walking past our “garden”, and Cody noticed that some of the plants were looking a little brownish. He immediately stopped in his tracks and shouted, “Mom, you are a plant killer!! You have to water the flowers!” I felt so bad, but of course, he was right.

I still am a plant killer. Maybe I should just give it up, but having something green and growing under my care is very appealing to me. I’ll probably try the rest of my life, and just keep on killing things, but who knows, maybe someday I’ll get lucky and find my green thumb.

When You Can’t Hear Any Music, Dance to the Washing Machine

We were having one of those quieter, more boring days, the kind of day that sometimes made me wonder what great adventures my friends I just graduated with were experiencing. What places were they seeing, what things were they learning, and what kinds of interesting people were they meeting in their new successful careers?

Cody and Isabella were finishing lunch and I had just started yet another load of laundry. The kids were both eating and a little tired, so all was quiet for a moment.  I was standing across the counter from Cody eating a turkey sandwich. He was eating his peanut butter and jelly and staring off into space. As I watched him I noticed that he was bouncing and kind of shaking his head. At the same moment I realized that I was doing the exact same thing. I wondered why we would both be unconsciously moving the same way when no music was playing.

Our laundry room shared a wall with our kitchen and it hit me that the washing machine was chugging a little beat as the clothes swished around inside. Cody and I were both moving to the beat of the washing machine! I started to move a little more and got both the kids down from their seats. The three of us had a full-on dance party right there in the middle of the kitchen with only the laundry to accompany us. After that day, every laundry day lunch time was a party. We started dancing to other beats we heard as well. We moved to the beat as I chopped carrots or onions in my manual food processor, danced to the dishwasher, and occasionally even boogied as we brushed our teeth.

As I put the babies down for their naps after lunch that first day, I thought again about all the adventures my friends were having and realized that I was having the greatest adventure of all. Sometimes it’s hard to hear the music and see past the dull routine of day to day tasks, but maybe all we need to do is listen a little harder. Maybe the sound of the washing machine is really the best beat of all.

Sleeping Babies

There is something undeniably perfect about a sleeping baby. Maybe it’s the way their little lips set in the most kissable position, the way their fingers curl into a little fist, or their tousled hair. Even their cheeks seem a little squishier as they dream.  

My babies always seemed so close to Heaven in their sleep. It didn’t matter how naughty they were, how many times they hit and screamed, or how many “NO’s!” I heard that day. Somehow, the second they fell asleep, they turned into beautiful little angels again.

My favorite time of night was when I would go into my children’s room and watch them sleep. Each time, my frustrations from the day would quickly melt away, and I remembered how much I truly loved those sweet innocent little spirits. As I readjusted their blankets or gently kissed their soft warm cheek, I would gain renewed courage to wake up and try harder to be a better mom the next morning. 

Play Dough

Isabella was always intrigued by the idea of sticking objects up her nose. I had heard horror stories of kids sticking beans up their noses and having them sprout and other similar tales, so I was always very paranoid whenever she got anything close to her face. She had made several attempts at shoving items up her nostrils, but I always caught her and thwarted her plans before they actually made it up.

One day, Cody, Isabella, and I were sitting at the kitchen table playing a game. Isabella got bored of the game before Cody did, so I gave her a little bit of play dough to play with while we sat there. She was perfectly content for several minutes, and I didn’t pay a lot of attention to what she was doing until she suddenly shouted, “MOM! I have play dough up my nose!”

I looked up her nose and didn’t see anything so I said, “No, I don’t think you have anything up there Bellie.”

“YES I DO!” She replied in a panicked tone.

I told Cody to run upstairs and get his little flashlight. He came running back down, flashlight in hand, and I used it to see if I could spot anything farther up. Sure enough, there was a rather large piece of light purple play dough lodged in Isabella’s right nostril.

I wasn’t sure what to do at this point, so I grabbed a tissue and told her to blow. The problem was that whenever she blew her nose, she would make the blowing sound, but she was actually sucking air in through her nose, rather than out. After a few attempts with the tissue, I realized that it was very possible that she was sucking the play dough farther and farther back and making the problem worse.

I didn’t want to stick anything up there because I was afraid of pushing it farther up her nose myself. I called my sister, because I thought I remembered a nose incident she had with my little niece a couple of years before. Her advice was to call the doctor.

The second Isabella heard the word “doctor” the hysteria began. She begged me not to call the doctor and assured me over and over that she was NOT sick. Bell had always been terrified of doctors. Even when we took her with us to Cody’s doctor appointments, she would scream the entire time while Cody was happily being poked and prodded.

I called the doctor and set up an appointment. After I hung up, I called Kasey at work to see what he thought about it. Kasey usually has really good ideas, but not always. His first idea was a good one. He suggested that I get the “booger-getter-outer” as we had affectionately named it, and try sucking it out with that. The booger-getter-outer was the rubber bulb thing that is used to suck mucous out of babies noses. When that failed, he told me to try sucking the play dough out of her nose with the carpet vacuum.  Initially I thought he was joking, but he wasn’t.  I was convinced that there was not anyway a vacuum could suck play dough out of a two year old’s tiny little nose, but I decided that I would feel  really stupid if I spent all the time and effort to go to the doctor if the vacuum was all it took. 

I got the vacuum out, laid Bellie down, place the hose attachment right under her nose, plugged up the clear nostril, and turned it on. I’m not really sure how to describe the way her nostril got sucked onto the side of the vacuum hose, or the look of shock and disbelief on her face, but it was priceless. I tried twice more with no success.

I accepted the fact that we were just going to have to let the doctor take care of it and made dinner for us to quickly eat before we went. As she was eating her chicken nuggets, Isabella leaned over the side of her high chair and blew her nose. I looked down and saw a ball of play dough, mixed with some other slimy substances, sliding down the side of her seat.

“I blew it out!” Bell proudly announced. I grabbed the flashlight to see if it was all gone. Her nostril was clear. I called the doctor and cancelled the appointment.

Brushing Teeth

I snuck the toothbrush Isabella’s mouth, just long enough for the bristles to barely touch two of her little teeth before she arched her back again and yanked the toothbrush out of my hand and threw it across the bathroom. Brushing a stubborn 18 month old’s teeth has never been my idea of fun. I always wondered if it really did any good anyway because they can’t even have toothpaste until they are at least two. But, being the paranoid mother that I am, I sat Isabella on the bathroom counter every night and went through the same fight. Most of the time she won and I would finally give an exhausted sigh, sneak one more little brush in, and put the toothbrush back into its holder until the next night.

Isabella eventually got used to the idea and by the time she was two, she was ecstatic about the idea that she could now use real toothpaste to brush her teeth. It’s incredible how much thrill can come from something as simple as using toothpaste for the first time. The night of her birthday arrived and I applied a small amount of toothpaste to her toothbrush. I brushed for a moment then gave her a chance to spit. She leaned over the sink, swallowed, then made a sound like she had heard Cody making every time we brush his teeth. I tried to explain to her that she couldn’t swallow, she had to let all the spit go into the sink. “Ok mommy, I will.” She promised as I began to brush again. When we were finished I helped her over the sink, she swallowed, then made the same sound.

Throughout the next week, Isabella and I had “spitting practices”. I gave her a sip of water and then helped her let it go out of her mouth before she actually swallowed it. I showed her how I did it, I had Cody show her how he did it, we talked about spitting technique, and everything else I could possibly think of. Nothing seemed to work. I never had to do any of this with Cody. The first time we brushed his teeth, he spit out the excess toothpaste and that was that.

After several days I finally realized the problem.  I was the wrong person to teach her! I was a terrible spitter and a girl. I didn’t ever spit unless I absolutely had to. I decided the best course of action would be to turn the spitting lessons over to a much more experience and qualified teacher. That night, Kasey sat her on the counter and helped her brush her teeth. After a few moments, I heard from the other room Kasey and Cody cheering over Isabella’s first spitting success.