Hairy Lumberjacks

One of my favorite/inappropriate friends, Christie, came to visit a few weeks ago.  Now that I've moved back to Utah, she has moved away. Of course. Her husband is in Med school in Missouri. She really needs to get her priorities straight and move back to Utah, so we can have playdates.

I thought it would be fun to roll out a huge paper and let the boys paint nicely. Instead, Christie's cute little boy, Issac, was like "What in the Stay-At-Home-Mom-Hell is this?"

 

 

Clearly, I may have a kid-crafts pinterest addiction that I take out on any child near me. Issac was not even impressed by my huge roll of paper or amazing paint brush collection.

While Christie and I painted cute pictures, The boys dumped a whole bottle of water on the paper and spread it around to ensure our masterpiece was ruined.

After that disaster, we punished our kids by making them dress up like hairy lumberjacks.

My kids are used to being dressed up and peacefully submitted when I painted their beards on.

Once again, Isaac was not amused.

He was disgusted that Christie and I had the audacity to paint his cute little face. He smeared it everywhere while Christie expertly snuck the brown paint on here and there. It may have looked more like poop than like a beard, but we just went with it.

Of course Isaac managed to make a dookie beard look adorable:

 

 

 

Man-beard Ryan stares off into the distance: 

 

 

Tyler looks suggestively into the camera:

 

 



 

 

"What's up? My name is Christie and I like to look cute all the time so you look like a dump next to me! Hee hee hee!!!!!" - what Christie was thinking as we took these pictures:

 

 



 

 

Screw you for being a hot mom Christie. Screw. You.

 

 

 

 

Potty Training 2.0

I started potty training my 3 year old, Ryan, a couple of weeks after Titty Monkey was born in March. No, he is still not potty-trained and  yes, we started almost 6 months ago.

I began with the "chill parent"/lazy-as-crap approach, which means I bought him Pull-Ups and every few hours I asked him if he wanted to take a dump in the toilet.

He would always answer, "no, Ryan like a poo in his pants..." and then he would happily go squat in a corner somewhere.

 

Obviously, this method wasn't producing results (except in the corner). I did the whole sticker chart and reward system. I gave him stickers for pee and handfuls of marshmallows for poo. He got sick of the rewards after one day.

I tried other rewards. Candy, toys, trips to the park, watching Netflix and letting him run around naked.... I even let him play with that brown play-dough hoping he would be inspired.

Our most problematic times came when I would want him to try going in the toilet at set intervals. Apparently, little boys do not appreciate being snatched from their toys every 20 min.

Every time I made him go, one of is would end up in tears... and by that I mean HE would end up in tears since I hate crying.

Finally he sort of starting to get the hang of it, but still preferred to convenience of going straight in his pants.
We had a road trip coming up, so I made an executive (read: lazy) parenting decision. Ryan would wear diapers on the trip. I didn't want to mix Ryan's inevitable accidents with his cloth-covered car seat.

Bad Parenting Decision #56845

Fast forward to after the trip.....
He basically wants nothing to do with the toilet.

I know my parenting recorded is not pristine but I really don't need another testament of my crappy mothering skills.

I just really, really, really hate poop.

As for now i'm using the excuse that I can't potty train him until we get settle in a house, and his bowel can move in a consistent environment.

 

 

Oh yes.

Here is a picture of my diaper-clad kid pretending to be a tortoise. ("Not a turtle, mom!!! I is a tortoise!!!!!!)

 

 

Proud moments all around.

 

 

 

P.S. Ryan pooped in the bath last night

 

P.S.S. If you ever need parenting advice, let me know.

 

 

 

 



Baby Anger Management

One of my favorite friends (out of the four that I have) came to visit last week.
Lisa is super lame because she moved to South Dakota and had a baby boy. We totally could have been boy-momming together, but apparently her husband is more important than play dates with me.

Get your priorities straight Lisa.

Let me start out by saying how proud I was of Titty Monkey Tyler's development. He is about 4 1/2 months and started rolling over. I don't really know the approximate age babies start rolling, but since he is my kid, I was pretty smug about his abilities.
Also let me just state that normally my kids are perfect and behave like happy little angels....

Anyway, Lisa brought Baby Caleb out to California for the first time. I have been wanting to see him since he was born in February.
He was born Feb. 14, so he is about 2 1/2 weeks older than Tyler.

First of all, Lisa looked all hot after having a baby a few months ago. What a ho.
I look like a tired, sweaty rat and she looked fresh and pretty. Great.

Baby Caleb slept like an angel for 1/2 an hour after she brought him in.
Then he woke up sweetly and had smiles for everyone.
During his cute smiling, Cryin' Ryan was running around desperate for Lisa's attention and Tyler was pooping his pants. Great Again.

Lisa laid Caleb down on his monogrammed blanket. The little punk rolled over and quickly got up on his hands and knees.

So much for being proud of Tyler's nervous, wobbly roll overs.

So as Baby Caleb is being happy and laughing, my kids were acting a fool.
Titty monkey cried the entire time. Ryan was showing off his 3 year old ninja moves and peeing his pants.

Then Caleb had the nerve to lay by my entitled baby and continue to be giggly and sweet.

 

I don't even want to think about the fact that he happily drank a room temperature bottle. 

If there is one thing I love, it's when other people's kids are clearly well behaved and mine act like caged animals.
I am honestly surprised Ryan didn't bite anyone. 

Lisa swore that Caleb is not a happy adorable baby all the time. I hesitate to believe her.
I think she was just trying to make me feel better. 


What would make me feel better is if there was a Baby Anger Management class offered at our community center.

P.S. Yesterday, Ryan got kicked out of his church nursery class. Twice.

May Stuff

I don't really blog much when I have a new baby because I am literally doing this all day:

Besides maniacally staring at my baby, here's some of the less embarrassing things we've been up to:

Every once in a while, I decide to pay attention to Cryin' Ryan. I drew him a farm mural to paint.

Ryan is way to good for a lame farm picture, so he made me add a family of corn-dogs.
Yes. A family. Of corn-dogs.

Tyler smiled at Grandma Annette, while Terror Child rode his tricycle around in his underwear.

White Trash REPRESENT!!!!

 

 

We also let him ride his tricycle in Santa Barbara ... this time fully clothed.

 



Then Jared took Ryan on a Treasure Hunt while I fed baby #2.

I never realized breastfeeding in a bikini was so convenient.

1st trip to the dentist. Minimal crying.

We disregarded all safety concerns and let Ryan crawl all over our friend's excavator. (It's hard to believe but yes, I have friends..... 4 of them.)

Then we went to their pool.

Have you ever swam in a saltwater pool? Its not all chemical-ly and it's amazing. It's not all salty and it leaves your skin soft afterwards. Amazing.

After dragging Pee-toddler through the mall, I let him play in the kiddie cesspool.

He cheated on his girlfriend, Finley, with a mysterious dark-haired girl.

More beach days. Ryan is preparing to make himself a human churro:

Other than that I skipped around my newly remodeled house in my underwear and ate candy.
Amen.

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.

Toilet Realizations

Cryin Ryan has NO interest in potty training.
He tells me, "no thanks mom, no thanks."

I can't blame him. I'm not that excited about it either.

The only sign of bodily function awareness came at Christmastime when a worried Ryan ran up to me and questioned:

"Momma! I toot by my penis?!?!"

Yes Ryan. You toot by your penis.
This realization seemed like an important milestone, so I noted it in his baby book.


I had lofty goals of potty training him before baby #2 comes.

I bought one of those kid seats that fit on top on an adult toilet. I really didn't want to be cleaning out one of those nasty potty chairs all the time.

What I didn't prepare for was Ryan's complete disgust with the toilet.

His whole life I have drilled it into his head that "we don't touch or play in the toilet, it's gross". In hindsight, maybe I should have been a little less extreme, because now he is too grossed out to use it.

I was forced to buy one of those dumb child-size potty chairs.

Our only dollop of success

 



Ryan was more open to sitting on a toilet his own size, but still preferred squatting in a corner and dumping in his diaper.


After an honest conversation with myself, I gave up.
Fighting a toddler to poop in his potty chair is no fun when I am throwing up in the toilet next to him. The disgustingness outweighs any convenience.

I was surprised a few days ago to learn that Pee-toddler was, again, more aware of his body than I assumed.

He brought me a diaper and disgustedly told me:

 

"Moooomm! Ryan poo shapes out his butt. Eeeww, yuck!!!!!"

Once again, I duly noted it in his baby book.