Friendly Advice...Rarely Friendly

I think it's quite common while on this adventure of Motherhood to encounter (or be attacked by) advice.  Okay, so at least for me it's been incredibly common.  This "friendly" advice is rarely indeed friendly and it almost always feels like torture, the slow, death-defying kind.  It's so inhumane, it should've been outlawed ages ago but because it usually comes from those of the older, wiser (cough) mindset, it's supposed to be welcomed with open arms, instead of daggers.  And you're not even allowed to defend yourself either, thus the inhumane torture...

If you know what I mean, keep reading.  If you're one of these helpful people who give me "needed" advice constantly, you can stop at any point now because you're probably going to get offended, which means later, I'm going to hear about it from you.  To avoid you having an anxiety attack and me grinding my teeth during a lecture, let's just stop now, okay?

(Honestly, I highly doubt those people even know this blog exists, but it was fun to mention it anyway.)

On Monday, I was speaking to a woman and somewhere in the conversation entered Bailey and then my mistake of saying, "No, she'll be our only child."  I think also in there was a slight insult at the fact I stay at home with my child, but she can seriously just....(okay...friendly blog, right).  She decided it was up to her superhero powers to challenge my statement that Bailey would be my only child.  That's fine, do what you want.  But in there, she made the mistake of saying, "have you ever considered what you're doing to that poor child?"  Yeah, I think I hemorrhaged at "poor child," too.

 

Now this person barely knows me, obviously.  Also, please note, this wasn't online, via e-mail, or even on the phone.  There was no ability to make hand gestures or nasty facial expressions without creating a scene.  I couldn't hold in my laughter without her seeing me do so.  I couldn't pretend to stab the phone.  I couldn't be discrete with my objections and hold tact.  I didn't even allow myself to roll my eyes.  My options were definitely limited.

She went further when telling me how cruel it is, because when both her parents died, at least she had her seven siblings, and especially the elder ones to look after her.  "Who would your child have?  Have you considered that?  And I'm not meaning other relatives."  I gave her my answer, to which she didn't like, and she made the mistake in asking me, "Are you even listening to yourself?"

Yes, this was an undeniably brave woman and had we not been in public, I'm not sure how I would've controlled what came out of my mouth.  Luckily, we were interrupted, and later, once she realized I was not the age I appeared to be, somehow, her mission to change my mind was not as high a priority.  Being older does have its advantages, even if I am just six or so more years older than she had made the mistake in assuming.

 

She did tell me though that I was ensuring "she is going to be a very bratty child."  Going to be? HA!!  I told her though when she said, "I'm not trying to change your mind," that she couldn't if she wanted to and that it is our right as human beings to make our decisions as long as we're willing to live with them and accept the consequences.  This wasn't something we went into blindly nor decided on a whim.  She acted as though I'd smacked her, and I thought to myself how she was fortunate I didn't speak out earlier.  Her proof was her ability to mention her "clinical psychologist" niece and how her niece thinks it's bad for children to be an only child, as though her niece's opinion should have startled me into changing my life completely.  (Feel free to laugh.)  She also shut up entirely and stopped questioning me when she found out Rob's age.  Suddenly, when you find out a man is 37 and he feels like he does on the topic...suddenly that opinion is strong enough? 

Believe it or not, this woman is typically quite pleasant; a gem even.  And if I could live with being berated by an aunt excessively on my decision to start weaning breastfeeding at a year (she thought I should do it until Bailey no longer wanted it, even if she's five or older), my decision to NOT cosleep, and give me hell over having a Cesarean (um...the doctor made the decision?) then I guess I can look at this woman again without considering strangling her.  As for the Aunt, I highly doubt she reads this, and if she does...she knows she did it and if she's offended, well...darn.

I had a professor at Emporia (I had him twice actually) and in both classes, he told us of a study that stated that childrne who were only children were actually more well-adjusted than children with siblings.  This goes against what most people believe, but it has a lot to do with children sharing attention, competition among siblings, and of course, most importantly, time.  Our decision wasn't based on this study, but this study did help confirm to us that maybe something was on our side, not that we needed the confirmation.  (It was mostly so we could say, "SEE!!!!!")  Of course, this woman didn't trust the study, because her niece is a CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST (and I'm laughing as I type this, okay?) and she thinks more children in a family the better.  To each their own.  You can believe what you want.  I don't find anything wrong with either setting.  I wanted one child, I have one child, my one child is pretty awesome.  I honestly couldn't handle more than one of her because that's just how awesome she is.  If you've met her, you probably understand my statement.  She has the energy of six children and the precocity of nine. Yeah, she's THAT awesome.

 

And as you laugh with me or identify with me, or just shake your head wondering what was wrong with the advice that lovely woman gave me and why I didn't change my mind...just note:  Advice...it's hardly free...and it's rarely useful, but I'm sure there's more to come.

Gross Admissions

I failed to share this while it was going on, but for a while we were going through a terrible phase where poop was becoming fingerpainting, and you can imagine, I'm sure, just how gross that was to find, let alone clean up.

A couple months ago, I overheard Bailey playing with her dollhouse and it became abundantly clear that our life was living inside that dollhouse, along with anything we said or did.  Now, while your imagination is getting the best of you, and you're making assumptions, cursing wasn't inside the dollhouse.  No, instead, the parent dolls were saying "Where does the poop go?!"  And the baby doll would say, "In the potty."  "The poop doesn't go [insert wherever the poop was instead], it goes in the potty!"  Teeth brushing has also been featured in Dollhouse episodes.  Nothing really bad, just our daily lives, and unfortunately, "where does the poop go" was part of our daily lives, because anytime the poop was being smeared, those questioning words would come from our mouths.

Getting this horrible chapter behind me has been my goal and until today, I thought perhaps it had been done so.  Well, after spending fifteen minutes scrubbing my carpet, I assure you, it's not over yet.  But my darling genius did make sure to point out later, after she scrubbed her hands completely clean that it was poop on the carpet.  She then asked, "what color is the poop?" to which she immediately answered, "GREEN! That's GREEN poop!"  I really wasn't feeling quite proud at the moment, but obviously, she knows her poop.

If only she could put her poop in the potty and not on my carpet.

 

And next time you're in our house, I just know you're trying to figure out where it was.  But whatever you will find, that's not it.  I got the stain out completely.

Choo-Choo.

 

 

Considering we decorated this cake in less than ten minutes, I thought we did pretty good.  As for the writing, it looked better in person.  Honest.

Daddy's Birthday

Well, today was (still is) Daddy's birthday.  Daddy had a not-so-fun engagement this evening, so Bailey and I decided to find a way to make his day be a little better.  We spent this morning in the kitchen preparing our version of "better."  "Better" tastes a lot like manicotti and a train cake, both which Bailey was a huge help with.

 

If I haven't shared this before, you'll now know, my Bailey loves helping in the kitchen.  It's not uncommon for me to awake and discover that she had pushed a kitchen chair to the countertops where she has reached a cake mix, pudding, or chocolate chips and was patiently awaiting a recipe.  It's also not uncommon for her to ask to bake something.  Wearing her apron is more important to her than even wearing a crown, and for Mommy to bring up the idea of baking?  Now, that's a dream come true and this morning, was exactly the case.  We woke up and I asked her if she wanted to bake a cake and off to the kitchen she ran, pushing a chair to the counters, closely thereafter.  I really don't know what I'd do without her inspiration though.  The colors in the cake we made?  She picked them all out.  She helped me design the cake.  See, I'd be lost without her.

 

The manicotti managed to stay HOT even after the long drive and a stop to get warm, fresh bread to go with it.  Daddy was quite surprised and pleased and Bailey was then even more excited because she knew afterwards, we were going to Wonderscope.

 

I haven't been sharing lately how fabulous our trips to the Wonderscope Children's Museum have been, but they've been AWESOME.  We have such a fantastic time together.  Most of the time, we're pretty much the only people there, and it's such a blast.  We were there until about 4:30 today and she knows every room by heart as she leads me around.  The "doctor room" and "art room" are her two latest favorites.  The "golf ball room" is less of a priority.  The toddler room is fun for a while. The "lizard room" is still a must-see and a lot of our time is spent in the "grocery room" as she makes pizza.  She makes the best pizza ever.  If only I could keep her from putting any part of her mouth on it when she pretends to eat it...

 

We're pretty sure Daddy enjoyed our surprise today and we enjoyed putting it together for him. 

 

Happy Birthday, Daddy!

A Tale of Two Kitties

Bailey's favorite pair of shoes are a pair of pink Hello Kitty rubber clogs (Crocs-style if you're familiar with it) we found at Payless.  Bailey had longed for them a longtime, but finding her size was hard until the same day as Tandy and Alec's wedding when Bailey and I went out searching for white shoes to match her dress  (we had no white dress shoes at the time, a tragedy since remedied).  She was so smug when we discovered those "pink cat shoes" at the top shelf in the BOYS' section, well hidden.  Luckily they had caught my eye, as it is odd to spot hot pink in the boys' section.  I'm sure some mommy out there was quite upset to discover her well hidden shoes had been found by someone else before she could buy them.  Oh woe is her, and not me.

So, Bailey loves these shoes.  A couple weeks ago, we were at gymnastics class and she started getting upset as we were ready to go and it had nothing to do with leaving.  I suddenly hear the words, "shoes," and I see that the other Bailey (yes, there are two) has an exact pair of "pink cat shoes," and our Bailey thought she had her shoes on, since we hadn't worn hers that day.  She mourned the loss of her shoes the whole drive home (a whole 2 minutes) and at home searching endlessly for her shoes.  The search was so long, I too started to wonder (ha), but alas, they were just well-hidden, and even better than their location at Payless.

 

Last Friday, Bailey and I were in Lawrence in their new, shiny Walmart and while in the clearance aisle I hear my little girl say, "those are mine."  She was sort of pointing so I'm scouring around trying to see what on earth she's talking about, and she says, "she has Bailey's shoes on.  Those are Bailey's pink cat shoes."  Sure enough, the little girl beside us also had on the same pair of shoes, but hers were much larger (at least a size 12 if not bigger).  Bailey and I then discussed how they both had the same pair and Bailey counted all four cat shoes successfully and everything was happy in the world because the world is better for all the more cat shoes.