A Pig, A Cat, and a Midget or Two

I am SO tired.

Like - I would KILL for the energy of an 80 year old tired.

The girls just yelled out,
"Mama! Pretend that you're the Mama and we're the babies and when we cry you come over and say, 'What's the matter?"

Pretend?
How is THAT a game?

Uh.
How about we play MOMMY'S favorite game of:
'Pretend you're trained masseuses and you rub my back and feet while I listen to soft music and then you go to bed?'

That's a good one.

Today wasn't a bad day.

It was actually pretty easy.

Well, as easy as it CAN be when you wake up before 7 and do daycare all day, change 15 diapers, cart all the kids to the preschool to pick up the four year old, work until 5:30 and then go grocery shopping before cooking dinner.
Oh yeah. While pregnant.

To truly understand what this sort of day is like,
I have created a training course.

What you will need to complete this course is:
An alarm clock, extensive weight training, multiple Legos and other small jagged toys, a pair of wild pigs, 6 cats,
and a death wish.

The night before training begins,
set your alarm to go off every two hours then drink 16 gallons of water.
You will now strap a 20 pound bag of dog food to your front.
This bag will not be removed.

Lay on a bed of nails. Flip side to side 60 times.

When the alarm goes off each time, get up and go to the bathroom.
In between those two hours, hire a midget to wake you up and tell you they had a bad dream and then carry said midget and hoist them into a top bunk because they are supposedly too tired to climb the ladder.
THEY are too tired.
Start to leave the room, then have the midget ask for "Itchy medicine."
Slather the midget with cream.
In the dark.
Take care to not get any cream on the midget's pajamas.
This midget has OCD and would require clean pajamas.

Place Legos along the path to get back to your bed and step on at least 3 with bare feet.
Suffer in silence.
Any hint of so much as a breathing sound will awake the midget and re-hoisting will be required.

After a combined total of 5 hours of actual sleep, get up for good.

Gaze for 2 minutes at your husband peacefully sleeping and wonder how it must feel to miraculously have night time hearing loss that allows for deep sleep no matter what the emergency.

Think about upping his life insurance policy.

But not for long,
because you must now immediately make a full breakfast for 6 to custom order.
This must be done no later than 3 minutes after waking and with your eyes taped closed.

Have aforementioned midget and two of his friends stand on your bare feet while you do this.
They will be asking for juice.
When you hand them the juice, they will ask how much longer till they eat.
While you are mid sentence answering that question, they will ask where their cartoons are.

Have a secret agent hide the remote the night before.
Search for the remote till you are sweaty.

Have one midget tell you you look gross.

Set the stove timer and microwave timer to simultaneously go off at the very second the midgets get angry because their cartoon is the wrong cartoon.

Now it is time to plate up.
Each plate is slightly different than the last.
You must have made a mental lists of who gets their waffle cut with syrup and who gets theirs with jam.
Think about which midget is allergic to peanut butter.
Think about where the Epi-pen is.

Have the midgets wrestle to determine their seating chart.
Check for bleeding.

After breakfast, release a pair of wild pigs into the house.
Attempt to capture both pigs at once with one hand, while wiping up a war torn table with the other, and bathe them.
Do this while resting your nose on cup of rotted milk.
Do not vomit.
*Vomiting = an F in the course and you will need to repeat your training.*

This is to simulate toddler diaper changes.

Have one pig roll in the rags you used to clean the other pig.

Re-wash this pig.

Repeat all pig steps up to, but not less than 15 times.

Now it is time for the cats.

Using only voice commands, guide all six cats at once into the family van.
It is time to get the preschooler from school.
There will be hissing and growling, but pay this no mind.
You are on a time table.

Spray all the cats with water, and then you must successfully strap all cats into the van in 1.5 minutes.
Warning: You may be injured.
Be strong, soldier.
The time is more important than possible Toxoplasmosis infection.
This 1.5 minutes is the amount of time left before you will be charged a late fee at preschool.

*Late fees = an F in the course and you will need to repeat your training.*

As you drive to preschool, you will be tested on which CD track is which.
Chim Chimney?
That's number 11.
It's a Small World?
That's good ol' 15.
You will be required to rapid fire off these tracks the entire way while being careful not to hit pedestrians and crossing guards.

Once you arrive at the school, release the cats into what is unfamiliar territory and again, using only voice commands, keep all cats together as you herd them, wide eyed, into the school.
Release a dog at the doors.
Attempt to keep cats cool and collected in the presence of said dog.
Have someone hide one cat in a classroom and carry all other 5, still soggy cats in your arms while you search for that cat.

Punch in your code to check out the preschooler with one hand while now holding all 6 cats in the other.
Allow one cat to poop.

Oops!
You forgot to pay tuition.
Write a check with your teeth.
Make the signature convincing.

Now go home.
Once home, run in a tight figure 8 pattern for a solid 3 hours.
Sort, correctly, several small items in 3 plastic bins without breaking your gait.

The moment you are done, have one of the midgets dump the bins out and then let a cat cough a hair ball on the mess.
Pretend you don't see the hairball and place your hand in it.
Sit with the feeling of warmth in your palm.

Never show frustration.

Remain in this mode until dark.

People will come to retrieve the animals.

You must now recount, in accurate detail to those picking up, everything each cat ate, licked, and looked at all day long.

Wish for death from exhaustion,
but only for a moment because now it's time to SHOP!

Gather 2 of the most angry midgets to go with you to the store.
For the best training possible, pick midgets who can't stand each other.

Place them in the cart and concentrate on a list while they box and bite and cause a scene.

Attempt to ignore the stares aimed at the angry boxing midgets.
Avoid all eye contact with other shoppers.

Write another check with your teeth.

Once home,
you will repeat breakfast procedure while all midgets scream and cry and stab at each other with pens.

Now yell something even YOU don't understand.

This course is complete when your third chunk of hair falls out and you have contracted a nervous twitch.

Now take a luxurious 12 minute break and then repeat all steps for 3 years.

Congratulations.
You have now graduated the course.

Your diploma will be mailed to you.

And yes.
It will be signed with my teeth.

Parenting Paxil

I had visions of lots of blogs while I've been pregnant.
I thought I'd really DOCUMENT this one.
Yeah right.

I Don't know who I was kidding.
She'll probably be lucky if she ever gets her picture taken.

Between daycare kids 40 hours a week and Alena's homework that practically requires a degree and breaking up cage matches over which Calliou episode to watch, I haven't had a moment to breathe.
Unless I look down, I sometimes forget I'm pregnant.

It's led to seven months that have flown by and an upcoming baby that I currently feel totally unprepared for.

I have ten weeks to go and whenever I think about how soon it's all happening, I almost have a mini stroke.

By baby four I'd imagine this is usually the case, though.
At least that's what I tell myself to feel better.

I remember with Alena I was on constant red alert.
I read all the books.
Googled everything.
It all had to be perfect.
Clean clothes at all times.
Stuffy nose?
911.
Crazed hyper-sanitization.

If her pacifier dropped for a split second, I would pull out a pot and boil it immediately.
If I was in public, I'd buy a new one.

By the time Tessa came around 10 years later,
as long as it wasn't covered in dog hair, I'd just lick it off and shove it back in her mouth and just keep right on going.
I didn't even blink.
As long as the stains on the clothes were clearly not poop or blood, we were all good.

Oh how things change....

I guess with natural progression, that means this one will get the pacifier back regardless of the dog hair situation.
She may be mistaken for an under-bridge dweller.

Maybe I should have a onesie printed that reads,
"No need to call CPS. I'm baby number four."

I guess it's normal that I still don't have any bottles or pacifiers or actual necessities.
Right?

Please tell me I'm right.

She'll probably come home wrapped in one of Justin's hoodies.
Her diaper fashioned from a sandwich baggie with holes for legs.
Car seat? Nah. We've got bungees in the trunk we use for camping.

I have not bought one solitary item for her.

When I see first time moms now, I just sit and smile at the neurosis.
It's the same knowing smile I give when a first timer says, "I plan on delivering naturally."
Uh huh. Sure you do, Hon.

I see the panic over every noise and gurgle.
The concern over dry skin patches and mystery bumps.
The bags packed to the nines with everything short of an emergency flare.

In my mind, the only things you ever really need for a baby are:
Three rags
Something wet - be it wipe or rag with water or rag with Mother's spit
Gas drops,
and a pacifier. Oh thank GOD for pacifiers.

And possibly some duct tape.

Anything else you need can be fashioned from a combination of these items.

We over complicate it.

I feel lost sometimes when I browse the isles of Target and see some of the stuff they have for babies.
The same babies who would rather eat cat food than sweet potato puffs.
The same ones who would rather play in toilet water than with their $70 Baby Einstein mat.

Einstein.
Yeah right.

When Alena was an infant, her very favorite thing in the whole wide world was a quilted watermelon patterned place-mat my odd aunt gave as a Christmas gift.
It went everywhere with us.
We'd be leaving the house and ask each other, before the door was latched,
"Did you grab the place-mat?" People overhearing probably thought it was code for something.

My friend Beth and I laughed the other day over how we'd morphed.
Both of us currently have 3 kids.

We'd come from late nights listening to rap music and being out late dancing to late nights walking the floor with feverish toddlers in just a few years.

We talked about how it is taking our nervous Nelly husbands a little while to catch up with us on the concept of just relaxing with the helicopter parenting a bit.

She said the other day her husband came home to find her on the couch watching TV with not a kid in sight.
He said, "Where are all the kids?"
To which she answered,
"I don't know. They're SOMEWHERE in the house. I'm pretty sure I locked all the doors."

I told her that sometimes Justin will say,
"Aren't you going to check on them?! I hear Chloe screaming."
After which I tell him,
"Chloe is ALWAYS screaming. It's practically her regular speaking voice. If I got up every time someone was screaming, I'd never rest. If they're bleeding I'll check. And not just bleeding the microscopic amounts that they say needs a Hello Kitty band-aid. I mean REAL bleeding. Tourniquet style."

I guess I've just mellowed out.
If we don't have the bassinet set up by the time the baby is born, she can just sleep in Justin's spot.
That dude's practically Narcoleptic already. It doesn't matter where you put him.
I can only imagine how it'll be come February.
Me, shooting bitter glares in his direction in the dark room as he snores while I hold Paige for hours wishing for just a 10 minute stretch of rest.
If he falls asleep on the couch after dinner, I'll just leave him there instead of calling his name 8 times and shaking the couch to get him to come to bed.

What has happened to our culture as parents?
No wonder so many mothers are on anti-anxiety meds.
We're told we need ridiculous things like these:

I mean - WHAT THE HECK?!
and this:

For when the 60 squares of toilet paper your toddler pulls from the roll just aren't quite enough.
Or how about this:

Because, frankly, who has ALL that TIME it takes to labor over cutting up a frank?
Or this:

Because we'd rather people think that our child had a life threatening condition than that they EVER get a bruise on that precious little head.

Just see how many play dates you get invited to when you bring THAT thing.

RELAX, people.
You're losing it.
And that's saying a lot coming from me.