Spite Pee

Well, as usual, I am way too optimistic about the Biscuit and his early successes. It seems he's resorted back to his old ways and worse... we've now entered the phase of peeing for spite. I thought it would be fun tonight to blog during my current nighttime drama. So let me bring you up to speed.

Using our typical toddler routine, I have given the Biscuit a bath, read 2 stories, pottied, and tucked in to bed. So far, the Biscuit has already been to the potty twice and peed on his sheets once. 

Ahhhh. There he is again, going to the potty.

Now, to be fair to the Biscuit, he has had to embrace several changes in his routine this week. I let down his crib railing and introduced his big boy bed into the room (the hope was that he would choose to move from the crib to the big boy bed on his own). He typically chooses to sleep in the big boy bed now.

Last night was a humdinger for me. 

Ahhh, another flush of the toilet. I am AMAZED at how much pee he is actually able to conjure up for each of these little visits to the potty! 

First, the Biscuit flushed his pacifier down the toilet (a repeat from an accidental flush a few nights ago). The good news is that his choosing to flush it down the toilet was his way of breaking his own habit. He didn't ask for pacifier tonight as he knew he had said "bye-bye" to it last night.

So, no crib rail tonight. 

Oops, had to break to go put him back to bed. 

No crib rail, big boy bed, no paci... that's a lot to take in all at once. I decided tonight I'd try a Supernanny approach: First time I tell him to go to sleep and escort him back to bed and from then on, no words just putting him back in the bed. I, of course, have a complicated situation in that 9 times out of 10 the Underpants Gnomes have stolen his clothes so I have to wrangle a 40-lb toddler back into undies and PJ bottoms that he doesn't want back on.

It's quite aggravating not knowing how to handle these situations. Google offered little help on the subject returning primarily results related to pets. Help folks! What's a mom to do?

40 minutes in... he's still squirming in there. I imagine we have a few more episodes left before he truly settles down for the night. 

And there you have it "Ma! I pee pee on my bed." back in a few folks...

50 mins in... another sheet changing, another visit from the Underpants Gnomes. I'm running out of sheets. 

Here we go again... another pee pee.

55 mins in... obviously I am doing something wrong. How has this happened? My toddler is now taming ME. 

Well, looks like it'll be a long night folks. Got any tips for me, please share. Clearly, I need the help.

Pull Ups: Spanx for Toddlers

This week, a trusted toddler mommy gave me some advice to ditch the easy-ups/pull-ups once and for all (in response to my continuing to struggle with potty training and the underpants gnomes). She was echoing the advice I'd been ignoring from the Biscuit's teachers at daycare who refused to allow pull-ups in the door. "You can either bring in diapers or go full-on and potty train with underwear and lots of extra clothes."

I had no idea that pull-ups, easy-ups, whatever you want to call "trainers" are really just potty training failure pro-longers. It never occurred to me that Huggies and Pampers, names I had come to know and trust (and commit 30% of my paycheck to) would betray me. I guess, it makes sense. Although the trainers do get your toddler in the habit and flow of self-dressing, they still make it really easy for them to have accidents (without really feeling it like they would in a diaper) --don't get me started on the cool alert idea; that's just barbaric!

Truly, I suppose I'm to blame. Though the Biscuit is mostly potty trained, I continued to dress him in pull-ups when we went out for an extended errand run or to church on the weekends, and (of course) at night time.

Still not convinced that you should dump (or never consider) pull-ups? Stop being so hard-headed (like I was) and just take a toddler mom's word for it: skip the pull-ups and go directly to 100% cotton tighty-whiteys. If you're still wavering, check out this link for a subtle reminder of things we thought were a good idea at the time but have since come back to bite us in the butt.

So I bit the bullet and moved the Biscuit to big boy underwear 100% of the time (including night time). As I informed that same trusted mommy 2 days into the new pull-up-free Biscuitville, I was knee-deep in laundry for 2 nights in a row. And then, as if by magic: he got it! Yes, of course I heard "I need go pee pee" at least twice after I put him to bed every night since, but he does it and then Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz until the next morning (at his regular wake up time) where he awakes to dry sheets.

It just amazed me how easy it really was. Pull-ups for toddlers are like Spanx for us women. Yes, they make you feel better and you look better but, in the end, you're just prolonging the inevitable: lay off the fries and get back on the Pilates.

Biscuit: I'm sorry you have such a dense mommy sometimes, but she's learning.

Enter: The Underpants Gnomes

Over the past 2 weeks or so, the Biscuit's night time routine has taken a bit of an interesting curve. It all begins with the sounds of a screaming hyena coming from his room shortly after lights out. "MA!" "MA!" I hear echoing through the house via the baby monitor. 

If these cries go unanswered, eventually I hear "ma MEEEEN ka!" "ma MEEEEN ka!" over and over and over again. This is followed by an unusual rustling noise. So, the first night I went to the Biscuit's room to get him back to sleep, and I was amazed at what I found (or didn't find)...

I bounded over to the Biscuit's crib to find my dear son was completely naked from the waist down. Where was his underwear? I wondered. Enter: the Underpants Gnomes.

Now, you all know that I am in the process of slowly potty training the Biscuit, and I suppose that has something to do with it all. I looked at the Biscuit and asked, "Where are your pants and underwear?" No response from the Biscuit. So, I shuffled around his bed and blankets and, thankfully, the gnomes had left them there... this time. I took the Biscuit to go potty and redressed him with his pullup.

This behavior continued for several nights. I, in spite of every effort to ensure he went potty before going to bed, I was unsuccessful at stopping the underpants gnomes from paying the Biscuit a visit (well, a warning on Christmas Eve that Santa wouldn't leave presents if he took his underwear off was quite effective.)

The night before last, the scene changed a bit. I heard the cries for my attention over the monitor, the rustle. Those damn gnomes again! And then, to my surprise, something new: "I wear my underwear on my arm." WTH. I went into the Biscuit's room and, sure enough, he had a tighty-whitey bracelet adorning his arm. Uggggg.

Where is the Dear Abbey for toddlerdom and when will this wackiness end?

Sincerely,

1 befuddled, muddled, puddled, Fox in Sox untameable toddler's mommy

The Perfect Picture

I am notorious for ruining group pictures. For whatever reason, I lack that photogenic gene. I always end up with one (or both) eyes closed, with a mouth that is in an awkward position or, as evidenced in a recent national publication, I am the only person in the picture who is fuzzy.

It seems that the Biscuit has inherited (or perhaps learned) some of this anti-photo behavior from me. The Biscuit is such a handsome boy and, he does take a fantastic picture (on rare occasions). The camera LOVES his curly hair and baby blues. But (sadly) it takes about 20 crap pictures, to get 1 decent picture of the Biscuit.

A few times every year, I attempt to get "the perfect picture" of the Biscuit. Every birthday, Halloween, picture day at school, and (you guessed it) each year at Christmastime, I attempt to become an expert photog... and, every time I fail.

About a month ago, the Biscuit had picture day at school. We had been preparing for weeks: practicing smiling with a "Cheese!" The weekend before Monday's picture day we had it down to a fine science. I dressed the Biscuit in his cutest little collared shirt and sweater vest and sent him off to school absolutely sure that THIS year we would have the perfect picture (in year's past each picture conveyed a very, very serious-looking Biscuit, not at all the true nature of my fun-loving child).

I assumed that all went well with picture day. When I started seeing announcements that pictures were in, I kept waiting to see the final results sitting in his cubbie when I picked him up each night. A week passed and I saw notices of final orders for pictures. Thinking that his teachers had forgotten to put his pictures in his cubby, I decided to ask.

The Biscuit's teacher told me that the photog took some pictures, but (sadly even after several tries) they could not get the Biscuit to pose for even 1 crappy, smileless picture this year. "I guess they were all just too terrible to print." she told me. I was devastated. Will there be no memories of the Biscuit's Toddler 2 Year-Old days at school?

I decided that we at least had to get a picture of the Biscuit for Christmastime to share with family. So this past Saturday was our scheduled picture day at the house. Thankfully, the weather was agreeable.

We started the pictures inside, positioned next to the fireplace in a nice leather chair near the tree. I gave the Biscuit an ornament to hold/play with. Again, the Biscuit was not amused. So I resorted to a time-tested toddler friend: goldfish (whole grain of course). We did manage 1 semi-decent shot (though you can see a bit of gold glimmering in his mouth).

Next, we took it outside. After 20 minutes and 1 very irritated toddler who didn't want to sit on the tree stump that the squirrels sit on to crack nuts anymore "See the empty nuts Biscuit?" I managed to rake out 1 more semi-decent shot.

I don't know what the rest of you do out there to get these beautiful pictures that I often see of your kids (and I wish you would tell me), but I know that it is HARD work to tame a toddler into a perfectly posed picture. Much respect to the photogs out there who do this for a living. I would lose my mind for sure.

You Better Watch Out!

The Biscuit and I started a new game on the way home from school each night. When one of us sees Christmas lights or other holiday Griswoldy-ness outside we shout, "It's Christmas!" It's a silly little game I started to help us pass the time as I drive us home each night.

On the way home on Friday, I was feeling particularly holly jolly. We had been seeing lots of Christmas everywhere, I had the continuous Christmas music station playing in the background, and an oldie rendition of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" came on. I, naturally, started singing with the radio as I kept looking for the lovely lights of Christmastime.

You better watch out. You better not cry. You better not pout. I'm telling you why. Santa Claus is coming to town... He sees you when you're sleeping. He knows when you're awake.

So, I'm singing along and spot another sign of Christmas. "It's Christmas!" I shout. Usually, the Biscuit is always the first to spot the lights and beats me to saying it. This time, however, the Biscuit was silent.

I gave it a few seconds, awaiting the Biscuit's joyful "It's Christmas Mommy!" but nothing was coming from the backseat. I turned for a moment and said, "Biscuit?" To my surprise, the Biscuit's lip was trembling and he let out one heck of a cry. Tears started rolling down his face and he said, "Scary mommy."

Well, as much as I tried to explain that Santa wasn't really watching him at night (we're still not over the scary room problems yet) he definitely was not a fan of Santa anymore. I got him home and hugged him (a Thomas the Tank Engine Christmas yard decoration helped ease his fears too).

I remember how scared I was of all those crazy cartoon-like animated shows that come on during the holidays (and I still love them, especially Rudolph and the one with baby New Year, Happy). It's a magical (and sometimes scary) time for our little ones. I guess we just have to pay close attention to everything we show them and sing to them. You better watch out, too!

The Many Types of Coughs

10:45 last night. I was semi-awake on the couch with the Biscuit's baby monitor sitting on the floor beside me when I heard the sound no mother wants to hear: 1 quick, dry cough followed by another quick, dry cough.

I awakened from my sleepy state, grabbed 2 clean towels from the linen closet, and headed into the Biscuit's bedroom to confirm my suspicions. As I suspected, I was in for another one of "those" nights. 

Flu season is in full-swing my friends and I have been a bad, bad mommy.

While I did finally manage to get my own flu shot this week, I had been unsuccessful at getting one for the Biscuit over the past month. Each time I planned for it, he ended up with a cold or a fever (rendering a vaccination attempt idiotic).

Back to the coughing...

As most of you mommies and daddies who've been through a night with a puking infant or toddler know, there are many different types of coughs that we listen for over our baby monitors. Much like the different cries of a baby (with meanings of hunger, pain, and fussiness), there are also basic cough sounds. Let me describe:

• The wet cough = congestion that traditionally goes along with a cold or upper respiratory infection
• The standard cough = general throat clearing associated with allergies or randoms in the throat
• The quick, dry cough (hack) = in isolation, may be associated with allergies or something going down the wrong way, gagging, etc.
• The quick, dry cough = repeated more than once, almost always indicates puking

So, I have my standard response to puking, something I guess you just figure out the first time it hits (no one EVER prepared me for what to do if your child is hurling in the middle of the night thank you very much Dr. Spock), but, I thought I'd share my little tricks to help you keep your child as comfy as possible, while protecting your floors and clothing.

As I mentioned, I enter the room with 2 bath towels. I lay both across the floor horizontally in front of the crib/bed. The towel closest to the crib should be placed just slightly under the bed (to catch future overflows that certainly will come later in the night). This serves as the resting/move-to location for the puker and the staging area for later puke sessions. I immediately place the Biscuit on the towels so he is out of the primary puke zone/spill so I can strip the bed and bundle the mess-including all impacted lovies- to be laundered. I then quickly remake the bed (with another mattress protector).

Next, I strip the Biscuit of the dirtied clothes and put fresh ones on. If I had the sense to grab a wet washcloth on the way, he's all the better for it. Else, I leave him on the towels while I run the batch of ewww ikkiness to the laundry and grab a washcloth on the way back. If you're lucky, you have a significant other to get the laundry washed (b/c you will probably need that other mattress cover later). I also have several backup lovies-the Biscuit has 1 favorite monkey named Oou Ahh-so I grab a fresh one from the secret hiding place.

Returning to the Biscuit, I cuddle and rock him back to sleep (giving ibuprofen if he has a fever and applying all of my typical fever techniques). For a stomach virus, I usually spend 20-30 minutes holding him during this first session waiting for that cough to come again. When it does, I quickly move us from the rocking chair to the towels (where I often have a plastic bowl or something for him to puke into) so we can isolate the mess to this area. I try to keep it on 1 towel so I can just pick that up after he finishes getting sick and grab a new one on the way back to the laundry.

Rinse and repeat. The time between is usually consistent for the first 3 pukes, but then gets longer until he's stopped. We've been through it so much, it's like clockwork now when it happens, but I was absolutely terrified the first time (and it didn't seem fair to call my own mother at 2 AM, though she surely wouldn't have been upset).

Well, here's hoping you are all smarter than me and got your little kiddies all flu vaccined-up this year. If not, hope I help you out a bit with post-puke cleanup duty.

What The Biscuit is Thankful For?

With the Biscuit's Starenka recovering from her recent head injury, I had the honor of hosting Thanksgiving dinner at my house this year. It was a great way to get the holiday season kicked off. The tree was up and lit, the house was clean (sort of), and the air was thick with the smells of rosemary, thyme, and cherry pie.


As we all started digging in to all of the wonderful food, I thought I'd find out what the Biscuit was thankful for this year. (I knew that he had been learning about being thankful at school over the past week so the idea wasn't too grand for a 2 1/2-year old I thought). So I asked him, "Biscuit, what are you thankful for this year?" The Biscuit looked at me confused (perhaps they hadn't exactly gotten through to him on what thankful means at school after all). I asked again.


This time the Biscuit answered: "Mirrors Mommy!" I looked back at the Biscuit, shock and awe beginning to set in. "You're thankful for mirrors, Biscuit?" "Yeah, Maminka." he said.


Uh, oh. Had I really raised a 2 1/2-year old who was completely vain? Surely not. So I thought about it for a moment and then remembered that the Biscuit loves for me to hold him up in the mirror. It makes him smile so big, he often asks me to take him to the mirror.


He's not being vain, he just likes to "see" that moment in time. I guess toddlers don't quite grasp the concept of photographs that can be used to capture the moment. For the Biscuit, his trips to the mirror are times for him to get to see how happy he is.


I think maybe we all could learn from the Biscuit. I know I have happy days and not so happy days, and I am grateful to have both. In those happy moments, it would be nice to step outside and look in on me and see the love and delight... to look in the mirror for a moment. As young as they are, sometimes they are the brightest of us all. Thanks Biscuit.

When Reason Doesn't Work, Try Candy?

Raising (and taming) a toddler can be hard work, especially when they really really want to be independent.

When it's 30 minutes after the time you were supposed to leave in the morning (to make it to work on time) or 30 minutes past bedtime, I find that sometimes I give in (against my better judgment) to my very smart and crafty toddler's demands at the cost of many months of effort to develop tried and true ways of doing things.

This morning it was about 50 below outside. Well, it wasn't that cold, but it was one of the coldest days so far this year. Over the past few weeks, the Biscuit has been wearing a zip-up hoodie to school as his jacket in lieu of a proper jacket (in spite of my prodding). And not just any zip-up hoodie, but one that bears his favorite (current) cartoon character: Lightning McQueen. When it came time to get out the door this morning I knew I had to figure out a way to get the Biscuit to wear a proper jacket that would actually keep him warm on the playground so I did what any self-respecting toddler-protecting mommy would do... I took his hoodie off its hook and moved it to a secret location in the laundry room (hidden from view).

When the Biscuit went a-lookin' for Lightning McQueen and asked me where it was, I replied, "Hmmmm. We must have moved him." Now, yes, I feel terrible about it, but I would have felt worse if the Biscuit came home tonight with an even worse cold than he already has from standing outside in 20 degree weather (legs wet from going pee pee on himself). The Biscuit was visibly shaken by the change in his morning routine. I needed a distraction, else he might explode into a full-blown tantrum. Deflect! Distract! I had to think of something quickly!

And there they were... glistening in the morning sunlight: a bowl full of jelly beans.

"You want a jelly bean Biscuit?" The Biscuit moved closer to the stash of gem-like candy, reached his hand in, picked out a perfect green jelly bean, and popped it into his mouth of freshly brushed teeth. He smiled as he chewed. Mission accomplished.

In the van (oh yes folks, I do drive a minivan) on the way to school, I pumped him up and let him know that he gets to be a big boy today and show ALL his friends his big boy jacket (and yes this is the same "that scared you? jacket" that I've rattled on about before). Somehow, the magical high fructose corn syrup high stunted the typical tantrum-ish responses I'd gotten over the past couple of weeks relative to the attempts to wear the big boy jacket to school. The Biscuit instead responded with: "Okay Maminka. My yelly bean is stuck" (to his teeth).

In the end, he put on the jacket without a fuss at school (and told me that he even wore it on the playground). I truly hate lying (good ol' Catholic guilt setting in) and certainly don't want to set that example for my son, and I despise the idea of bribery or deflection tactics (such as candy), but as a working mom, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do to get to work on time. It seems all good, but I know that tomorrow morning I will be faced with how to offset the tantrum that I will see developing before me when the Biscuit demands a jelly bean. 1 day (and tantrum) at a time I guess.

We Don't Need No Stinkin' Diapers

I had such a special treat this week. On Monday, when I arrived to pick up the Biscuit from daycare, I found a stack of diapers in his cubbie with a note from his teachers that read, "Yay!The Biscuit doesn't need these anymore."

You all know how long we've been working on potty training the Biscuit. He can claim victory over the toilet (more or less) at last! The Biscuit isn't accident-free, but he certainly has more good days than bad. The last phase for his potty training at daycare was getting rid of the diaper during naptime. We had been working on this at home for a while and I finally let his teachers know that he was ready to stop using a diaper at nap time. They gave it a shot and after 2 days were convinced that the Biscuit was ready.

Now, when I say that the Biscuit is potty trained, that implies that he is level 1 potty trained. Sadly (and this was news to me as a first-time mom) toddlers potty train with #1 first. Getting trained to use the potty for #2 happens later on. So the Biscuit is still pooping in his undies EVERY DAY and Maminka still has to swish them in the toilet to get them clean after (ewww! a trick my own Maminka had to show me). I pray that he poops at daycare so I don't have to clean it up.

Well, as I said, he'd get it in Biscuit time. And so he did. Diaper Pail be GONE!

Trick or Treat, I Can't Sleep

We managed to make it through our first official trick-or-treating Halloween. The Biscuit sought treats at 3 houses (1 more than I thought we'd make it to) before we made the short trek back to the house. All in all, we walked away with a handful of candy, a runny nose (from the cool night air), 1 souped up red wagon (that served as a real-life Lightning McQueen), and the moment forever captured in video. The Biscuit ended the night with the phrase, "that was a good trick or treat" so I feel I did my job well this year.

Since Halloween was the night before the change in time, the Biscuit has spent the entirety of this week trying to catch up. So, on top of the runny nose, riding home from daycare in the dark, and eating/bathing/getting to bed later, Maminka has had little to no sleep this week.

I feel as though we've regressed back to the days of infantdom when we went through spells of crying every couple of hours (which I answered by rocking the Biscuit back to sleep). I'm not a total pushover, I don't go running to the Biscuit's room with every cry but since he is sick, I do feel compelled to answer the call when the real tears and cries start. In my head, I think that the Biscuit just knows that he's uncomfortable (from the stuffy nose and disconnectedness to time of day) and hasn't learned how to cope. The comfort of mommy's calming shoulder to sleep on seems to do the trick.

Well, it's 8:00 pm on night 5 of the latest spell of sleeping trouble... and I don't hear a whimper. Perhaps he's made it through another milestone of development (perhaps I'll be up again at 3:00 am). In this case, time truly will tell.

Wishing you and yours a happy election week. However you voted, here's hoping you voted with your little one's futures in mind as well.