Mullet Baby #2

Tyler was born with a decent amount of hair (for a white baby....)

While giving birth, and yes I was drugged up and high, Jared said:
Emily! It looks like he has a lot of dark hair!

And I was all like:
I think that's just my vagina!

But it wasn't just my privates. Tyler had cute dark fuzzy hair.

Of course, after a month his hair started turning lighter and growing out in weird places.

He grew some hair on his ears like and old man. Great.

He also has long whispy strands of hair growing out randomly.... like and old man. Great again.

The best part of all was his dark, thick mullet. Accentuated by the lighter hair on top. It was very classy.

While mullets are full of class, the are also freakishly gross.
I can't have my little senior citizen looking all crazy in a mullet, so I cut it.
I just buzzed the whole thing and didn't even put the baby hair in my scrapbook because it was so gross.

Now Baby #2 can go to the community center and play bingo without all the other old people making fun.

 

 

 

 

Hooray for Mommy Wars!

You know how the new thing is to "stop the Mommy Wars"?  How we should all respect each other's parenting decisions and support each other as Mothers, blah, blah, blah?

While that's a nice sentiment, I'm secretly hoping the Mommy Wars rage on, because I love arguing and judging.

How am I supposed to feel confident as a Mother without the belief that other Mom's are screwing their kids up worse than I am?

I like when my bratty sister Feg-Feg's baby wakes up every hour at night for the entire 6 months he's been here.
I feel like I'm kicking butt because both my babies slept 8 hours at 2 months old.
Clearly I'm the better Mom.

I'm way better at breastfeeding than she is too.

See? We need to judge other mom's so we have a frame of reference.

Like when almost all my friends potty trained their kids at age 2 - 2 1/2, and my kid wasn't potty trained until after three and I had to bribe him with a bunch of toys to do it.

I needed to know that I was lacking in the peeing-in-the-potty department and veiled judgments from other Mom's put me in line.

Also, I need to be the recipient of dirty looks and judgment when I let Ryan do whatever he wants, like splash in oily puddles in the middle of a parking lot, or run with scissors.

Also, when Ryan wandered out naked at our friend's pool and tried to skinny dip, I knew the other Mom's were watching me and condoned my actions when I gave him a "thumbs up" and proud smile.

I love how different opinions and ideas keeps the world interesting.... especially when mine are mostly right.

Plus how awesome is it when you see someone doing something blatantly stupid with their kid and you know they'll be paying for it later? (Mostly because you did the same thing and you're currently paying for it.....)

Hooray for Mommy Wars!!!

Sweet Baby

Every so often we all hear a story or read something that really resonates with us. The story of Baby Maxwell has touched me.

Maybe it's because I held my newborn in my arms as I read it, or maybe because I've had miscarriages, but probably because I'm simply a Mother.

I know miscarriages pale in comparison to losing a baby after birth, but the sense of loss was so profound that I found my heart physically aching for the Sorenson fam.

Micci is Mormon, and references her beliefs throughout her postings. As Mormons we believe that families are forever connected, and though family members die, we will get to see them again, live with them, and hug them again. Life doesn't begin at birth or end in death. We come to earth to learn and obtain physical bodies. More info here.

It is still tragic and painful when a loved one dies, and I'm sure Micci and family would welcome any prayers or good thoughts on their behalf.

This story forced me to consider my Children's mortality and how life can suddenly change. I want to suck up every minute I have with my little family and be a better person for them.

I know I will be hugging my kids a little tighter.



For Max's story start here.

Cutting Logs

Ryan was uninterested in using the toilet. He was all too happy to run around with a load in his pants. I proposed the idea of potty training to him and he said, "no tanks, Ryan pee diaper. I'm little."
Yep. Little and disgusting.

My utter contempt for changing diapers has led me to put the smack down the last week and a half.
I was using Pull-Ups for a while but saw no real progress. Finally I accepted the fact that I would have to put underwear on him and embrace the foul mess that would follow.

We quickly got the whole pee situation under control after a two days and 16 loads of laundry.

I was really grateful that I have wood floors throughout my house and a leather couch because Ryan left snail trails everywhere.

I was also thankful for my industrial sized bottle of Lysol with bleach and my unreliable short term memory.

We still had a BIG problem though.
Ryan REFUSED to #2 in the toilet. He did once a couple months ago, so I knew he was capable.

I tried everything, but he preferred to hide behind the chair and poop in shame.

I really wanted to avoid buying him a bunch of toys to bribe him with, but I was getting desperate. Wiping a three year old logs that are literally spackled in his crack is disturbing. The only spackling I like to see involves drywall, not my kid's butt.

Plus, with 2 kids in diapers, the amount of Diaper Genie sausages I have been making is unacceptable.

We went to Target and I let him pick out any toy he wanted. The deal was that if he dumped in the toilet and not on his pants, that he would get to play with said toys for 15 minutes. After the 15 we would put the toys away until a subsequent #2 filled the toilet. And so on.

We went to the toy section of the store and Ryan ran around like a madman for 20 minutes before picking this out:

The Play Doh Saw Mill.

A toy that oozes out brown logs that you cut with a circular saw.

How appropriate.

P.S. Ever since I bribed him with the toys Ryan has pooped in the toilet EVERY SINGLE TIME. No accidents since.....

Little punk....

Ryan Turns 3

Little Pee-Baby is blossoming into a nice young man.

As of April 27th, he is 3 years old! He even pees in the toilet 73% of the time now! (pooping is another sad, sad, story....)

Ryan was super spoiled and basically spent the whole week celebrating himself.

For breakfast he broke into my candy drawer:

Besides singing "Happy Birthday" to himself on numerous occasions, he also thought it would be a good time to become a Ninja and practice the fine art of Karate on baby Tyler. I let him since it was his birthday.

Jared's grandma, Annette, (who is amazing and awesome and better than your grandma) lives across the street from us and takes her role as Ryan's great-grandma very seriously.
So seriously, she took him to Chuck E. Cheese.

She bought Pee-toddler the entire Birthday Celebration package.

Jared, Annette, and I showed up on a Thursday morning to find an entire table set and decorated in classy Chuck E. Cheese paraphernalia.

Ryan got 100 game tokens that he spent on a submarine shooting game.

 We ate pizza then Chuck E. Cheese/the stoned teenager wearing the costume, came out and did some birthday show with him.

Ryan was so happy he almost hurt himself doing this handsome smile:

 

 

Ryan is definitely one of my favorite boys.