Ready for Parenthood?

I love my Friday mornings when I get to attend MOPS.  It is nice to have a couple of hours to chat and hang with other mommies, munch on delicious food, get encouragement/useful tips/devotionals, do crafts etc ...and all this without the kids!  Every mom (especially of small children) should have some mommy support group.


This past Friday we listened to a hilarious list of things to do to "prepare for parenthood".  I laughed so hard I had tears in my eyes.  It was as much the presentation as the list itself!  I wanted to find the list to share with my husband, so I googled it and discovered that this was actually from a blog post from 2007 by The Lactivist, Jennifer Laycock.


I especially resonate with lesson #3!!



Lesson 1
1. Go to the grocery store. 
2. Arrange to have your salary paid directly to their head office.
3. Go home.
4. Pick up the paper.
5. Read it for the last time.


Lesson 2
Before you finally go ahead and have children, find a couple who already
are parents and berate them about their…
1. Methods of discipline.
2. Lack of patience.
3. Appallingly low tolerance levels.
4. Allowing their children to run wild.
5. Suggest ways in which they might improve their child’s breastfeeding, sleep habits, toilet training, table manners, and overall behavior. Enjoy it because it will be the last time in your life you will have all the answers.


Lesson 3
A really good way to discover how the nights might feel….
1. Get home from work and immediately begin walking around the living room from 5PM to 10PM carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 8-12 pounds, with a radio turned to static (or some other obnoxious sound) playing loudly. (Eat cold food with one hand for dinner)
2. At 10PM, put the bag gently down, set the alarm for midnight, and go to sleep.
3. Get up at 12 and walk around the living room again, with the bag, until 1AM.
4. Set the alarm for 3AM.
5. As you can’t get back to sleep, get up at 2AM and make a drink and watch an infomercial.
6. Go to bed at 2:45AM.
7. Get up at 3AM when the alarm goes off.
8. Sing songs quietly in the dark until 4AM.
9. Get up. Make breakfast. Get ready for work and go to work (work hard and be productive)
Repeat steps 1-9 each night. Keep this up for 3-5 years. Look cheerful and together.


Lesson 4
Can you stand the mess children make? To find out..
1. Smear peanut butter onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains.
2. Hide a piece of raw chicken behind the stereo and leave it there all summer.
3. Stick your fingers in the flower bed.
4. Then rub them on the clean walls.
5. Take your favorite book, photo album, etc. Wreck it.
6. Spill milk on your new pillows. Cover the stains with crayons. How does that look?


Lesson 5
Dressing small children is not as easy as it seems.
1. Buy an octopus and a small bag made out of loose mesh.
2. Attempt to put the octopus into the bag so that none of the arms hang out.
Time allowed for this – all morning.


Lesson 6
1. Take an egg carton. Using a pair of scissors and a jar of paint, turn it into an alligator.
2. Now take the tube from a roll of toilet paper. Using only Scotch tape and a piece of aluminum foil, turn it into an attractive Christmas candle.
3. Last, take a milk carton, a ping-pong ball, and an empty packet of Cocoa Puffs. Make an exact replica of the Eiffel Tower.


Lesson 7
Forget the BMW and buy a mini-van. And don’t think that you can leave it out in the driveway spotless and shining. Family cars don’t look like that.
Now:
1. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment.
Leave it there.
2. Get a dime. Stick it in the CD player.
3. Take a family size package of chocolate cookies. Mash them into the back seat. Sprinkle cheerios all over the floor, then smash them with your foot.
4. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car.


Lesson 8
1. Get ready to go out.
2. Sit on the floor of your bathroom reading picture books for half an hour.
3. Go out the front door.
4. Come in again. Go out.
5. Come back in.
6. Go out again.
7. Walk down the front path.
8. Walk back up it.
9. Walk down it again.
10. Walk very slowly down the sidewalk for five minutes.
11. Stop, inspect minutely, and ask at least 6 questions about every cigarette butt, piece of used chewing gum, dirty tissue, and dead insect along the way.
12. Retrace your steps.
13. Scream that you have had as much as you can stand until the neighbors come out and stare at you.
14. Give up and go back into the house.
You are now just about ready to try taking a small child for a walk.


Lesson 9
Repeat everything you have learned at least (if not more than) five times.


Lesson 10
Go to the local grocery store. Take with you the closest thing you can find to a pre-school child. (A full-grown goat is also excellent). If you intend to have more than one child, then definitely take more than one goat. Buy your week’s groceries without letting the goats out of your sight. Pay for everything the goat eats or destroys. Until you can easily accomplish this, do not even contemplate having children.


Lesson 11
1. Hollow out a melon.
2. Make a small hole in the side.
3. Suspend it from the ceiling and swing it from side to side.
4. Now get a bowl of soggy Cheerios and attempt to spoon them into the swaying melon by pretending to be an airplane.
5. Continue until half the Cheerios are gone.
6. Tip half into your lap. The other half, just throw up in the air.
You are now ready to feed a nine- month old baby.


Lesson 12
Learn the names of every character from Sesame Street, Barney, Disney, the Teletubbies, and Pokemon. Watch nothing else on TV but PBS, the Disney channel or Noggin for at least five years. (I know, you’re thinking What’s “Noggin”?) Exactly the point.


Lesson 13
Move to the tropics. Find or make a compost pile. Dig down about halfway
and stick your nose in it. Do this 3-5 times a day for at least two years.


Lesson 14
Make a recording of Fran Drescher saying “mommy” repeatedly.
(Important: no more than a four second delay between each “mommy”; occasional crescendo to the level of a supersonic jet is required). Play this tape in your car everywhere you go for the next four years.
You are now ready to take a long trip with a toddler.


Lesson 15

Start talking to an adult of your choice. Have someone else continually tug on your skirt hem, shirt- sleeve, or elbow while playing the “mommy” tape made from Lesson 14 above. You are now ready to have a conversation with an adult while there is a child in the room.

How Contagious is Lice?

I was picking up my daughter from dance last week when I saw a sign on the door saying that there has been an outbreak of lice in the local elementary schools in the area as well as some of the kids at the gym.  Great.  I wonder if I'll be seeing some folks come into the office.  But now as a mommy of a preschooler, I'm checking her hair for any signs of lice... namely:

• intense itching of the scalp
• tiny red bumps scalp, neck, or shoulders (may become crusty)
• tiny white specks that are hard to get off (lice eggs or nits)

So here is a short 101 on lice: 

What is it?   Tiny insects that live on the skin and depending on where you can have:

• Head Lice
• Body Lice
• Pubic Lice

How do you get it?  It is very contagious!  You get it by:

• close contact with someone who has it
• touching clothing or bedding of someone who has it
• sharing brushes, combs, hats, towels with someone who has it

How do you treat it?

• lotions and shampoos either over the counter or if necessary prescription by your doctor
• remove nits with metal comb
• wash all clothing, bedsheets, etc in hot water with deteregent
• vacuum and cover furniture for 2 weeks
• need to notify schools/churches/gyms so other children can be examined otherwise infection may recur

Complications?  Sometimes you can a secondary infection from scratching too much.  You can use benadryl for itching.  Call your doctor if experience redness/pain at the skin sites and an antibiotic may get prescribed.

At the end of the day, it is harmless and it does not mean poor hygiene.  However, it is a bit of a pain to treat.  I'll be happy lice hunting for these next few days I suppose...

Flu Season

Long time no write!  It has been crazy busy at work.  Between that and trying to sleep at night when I can... I'm beat.


I just finished giving everyone in my family flu shots (not counting baby E since he is only 3 months).  Unlike last year, lots more crying this time around.  I also thought it hurt more this year.  Well.. it is better than getting the actual flu!


Like I said.. crazy busy at work and we are starting to see the flu... so get your flu shots!


I'll blog more tomorrow... maybe...

Dads are great!

Dads are great.  I don't know how single moms do it.  I do appreciate my husband's help with the kids and I definitely feel the difference when he is not around.  There are moments when I feel like I need to be the one "doing it all"... sentiments expressed in my previous "clone me" post... but overall I do have to admit that having dad around is more helpful than not.

I especially am thankful for the past two nights when he woke up for the 1am feed.  So this post is a "kudos to dads" post =)  I mean I had to shake him pretty hard to wake him and he was pretty disoriented... but he did it!  Of course, I was still awake listening to baby cry a little longer than usual... but he did it and it helped me sleep a little more.

So here are some pros and cons for me feeding vs dad feeding...

Pros to when I'm doing the feed

I usually go to the baby before he is even fully awake or crying.  I hear his little pre-crying grunts and basically stick a nipple in his mouth before he gets to an all-out scream.  Less disruptive for everyone in the house... less painful for baby... 

Cons to when I'm doing the feed

I often fall asleep in the middle of nursing and wake up unsure when baby fell asleep and how much he ate.. therefore no wonder if he wakes up an hour later hungry again!

Pros to when daddy does the feed...

He knows exactly how much baby is eating and can keep waking him until he finishes entire bottle.  Therefore, baby usually sleeps longer after the bottle feed.

Cons to when daddy does the feed...

Takes him a while to get to baby!  He first goes to the bathroom... then goes downstairs to heat up the water in the microwave... then gets the bottle out of the refrigerator... and finally heats up the bottle for a few minutes in the hot water.  By then baby is screaming pretty loudly and for quite a while.  He is now fully awake and has the potential to wake up his sleeping sisters...

After all is said and done, I'm still taking the help because I'm soooo tired.  Today I drove like fifteen minutes going the wrong direction on route 95 after picking up my mother in law from the airport.  It took me a while to figure out why my gps kept telling me to take the next exit for a u-turn... I know... scary.

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One last thought about dads.  This happened a couple of weekends ago and I thought it was pretty funny... I think...

So we're at Sesame on a somewhat rainy cloudy day.  Those are the best days to go because there are absolutely no lines!  Oh and side note and money saving tip - I waited until Aug this year and got a season pass for 2012.  Means I can use it for the rest of 2011 and then all of 2012.  Then I'd prob not buy 2013 until Aug again and get the season pass for 2014.  This way I can get a pass for basically two years of use...

Anyways, I let daddy go on the rides with the girls while I waited around with E since daddy is usually at work during the week.  Well, before one of the rides he asks me if I'm sure A is old enough to ride these rides.  "Well, yes for the ones we are going on as long as accompanied by adult, " I answer.  "Why?"

"She fell right off onto the floor during teacup ride" he tells me.  

"Um.  The whole point of you riding the rides with them is so that that doesn't happen... you weren't holding her?"

"Well, after she fell on the floor, I set her back on the chair and braced her with my legs"  

So I wasn't sure how to respond to that but as you can see... I've been playing back this conversation in my head for a while and even now I just have to shake my head and conclude that dads and moms are just different... we think differently...  we parent differently... and our instincts and responses are different... but I do still appreciate the help...