Never Shake a Baby... Even if They Totally Deserve It

This is one of those awful realizations.  Before having kids, I would hear about parents, step-parents, babysitters shaking kids and doing really terrible things in frustration.  How could anyone shake a baby?  What would be the purpose?  Obviously, it won’t make the baby stop crying!  And it’s a baby, defenseless, crying because something is wrong and needs your help.  But now, as a mother of 3, I can kinda see how in the heat of the moment, when you’ve been up for hours with a screaming kid who cannot be consoled, you would reach your limit of sanity and go to a crazy, crazy place.  I got a glimpse last night (or this morning) after being up with wee Jack until 2am. My legs were sore from leaning over the pack’n’play to pat his back, I could barely keep my eyes open.  He would get so close to singing, lulled by my singing and back rubbing and them “Waaaaaaaa!”  Just go to sleep already!!!  I know you’re teething and your mouth probably hurts like hell, but cut-it-out already!  GRRRRR….. Finally, I had to put him down and walk away for a few minutes.  He got even more pissed, but it was for his own good, and mine.  After his 4^th bottle he finally fell asleep for a few hours in my arms.  Now I just have to pray there isn’t another repeat performance tonight!!

 

For the record, I love the little bugger with my whole heart and soul, but man alive Mommy needs her sleep!

My Baby is Growing Up!

Just a few more days and she'll be THREE years old!

That's a Whole Lotta Gray

Wow, they have a lot of grandkids. From the left: Alexander, Madeline, Gwendolyn, Jack, Andrew, Henry, Sam and Lilah. All 6 and under!

He's Bringing Sexy Back

MEEE-OOOWW!

Notes from the MiniVan

I’m sure you’ve figured out by now that we survived the trip to Michigan.  Now that we’ve been home for a week, I would even say that we’ll do it again, but not more than once a year.  The trip north was ok – for the first 11 hours.  The kiss of death was John commenting (from the front seat) that it was going so well.  After that the babies reached their car seat limit and let us know for the next 5 hours.  We stayed the night in a hotel and it took about an hour to get everyone settled and to sleep.  Gwendolyn wasn’t too happy about the hotel stay (“What is this place?”), she wanted to get to Grandpa and Nana’s right away.  The second day is a blurry haze.  I rode in the backseat with the kids and was not allowed to even close my eyes – Gwendolyn cried when I fell asleep.  We arrived in Lexington about 9:30pm.  Grandpa made a welcome sign for the kids and they were really excited to have us.  We took over their house, baby stuff in every room.  We spent the week seeing family and friends, going to my cousins wedding and we even got to see a movie one evening. 

 

Note about my cousins wedding: At the reception, after they did their first dance, father/daughter dance, they had a dance for the bridal party.  It was some slow country song, I wasn’t paying much attention.  After attending wedding after wedding in my 20’s (which are almost over), the moments that are so special for the bride and groom seem very similar to me.  Anyway, all of the sudden, the music cuts to Michael Jackson’s Thriller.  The bridal party breaks into the zombie dance, perfectly coordinated and executed for about 3 minutes.  They even had smoke pumping.  It was pretty awesome.  Then they just went back to finishing their sweet slow dance like it never happened.  They must have practiced a lot!  I just hope they got it on video!

 

We also had the babies baptized.  The priest who married John and I and baptized Gwendolyn is retiring, so we took the opportunity while we could.  John’s brother, Jeremy and his wife Tara are Jack’s god parents and my sister, Jenna, and John’s sister Jennifer are Madeline’s god mothers.  We attended mass and then the baptism was after.  Gwendolyn was dreadful during mass, I think she had reached her vacation limit.  The babies did ok, but were getting tired, hungry and hot by the end of the baptism.  Afterward, my parents hosted a party at their house with lots of food and drinks.  Lots of our family came and enjoyed the beautiful weather and food.  It was great.  Grandma Mills cornered Father E and told him, what I can only assume, lots of inappropriate stories. 

 

The trip home went better than we thought.  I think everyone knew what to expect this time.  Or maybe I just handled it better.  We were all very happy to be home.  I was a good trip, but hardly a vacation for John and I.  I would be so bold as to say you cannot take a vacation with little kids.  They are just way to demanding.  Even with my parents helping there was always something that needed to be done.  I’m looking forward to John and I taking a mini-break in October when my parents are here to watch the kiddos. 

pictures updated

website is updated: www.amandanjohn.com

Everybody Poops - Just Not Always Where Appropriate

This is about poop, so if you don’t want to hear about it, move along to the weather channel.  While a friend of mine has finally undertaken putting her 3 year old in a big girl bed, I have finally gotten around to potty training.  I have a million excuses for why we put it off (pregnant, pregnant with twins, pregnant with twins and moving – twice, having the twins, being lazy, taking a road trip, lazy, fear).  But she turns 3 on Saturday and we had a 3 day weekend, so no more excuses.  It went as expected, sometimes better, sometimes worse.  We are in no way “done”, but we’re in process.

 

Friday I stayed home with Gwen all day to focus on potty training.  She had 1 pee accident first thing in the morning (no surprise there). Then around lunch, John had taken the babies out and I was making lunch.  Gwendolyn wandered into the front room (should have been my warning sign), and runs back and says “Mommy!  There’s poop on the floor!”  Like someone had snuck in the house, pooped on the floor and she discovered it.  I was really banking that if she wasn’t wearing underwear or diaper, she would not just poop on the floor!  Then in the afternoon she did it again!  Gah!  She was being punished for something, I forget what, so I put her on the stool and went into the bedroom for a couple minutes to wait for her to stop crying.  I come back and there is a terd on the stool.  She didn’t even feel bad!  She was very matter of fact, yeah, there’s poop there, what of it?

 

Saturday was better.  She actually had no accidents, but didn’t poop all day.  She even held it while we went out to lunch and Target and ran in and peed all by herself on the potty.  We were very impressed.  It helped that she gets candy anytime she pees on the potty.  A fact she never forgets (even this morning at 7:30am).  There as a block party on the street one over in the evening, we went to that for awhile and then Gwen and I walked over to see the fireworks.  She was very impressed with the fireworks. 

 

Sunday I took the babies out during lunch and went to Ikea.  At this point, we are on high alert because she hasn’t pooped in 48 hours now – DANGER!  If she poops in the potty, she gets a ballet skirt and an ice cream cake.  John and I really want to eat some ice cream cake.  We are moving the potty room to room, so it is always with her.  Emily came over to do housework, and had a long conversation, via a puppet, about Gwen’s baby bear pooping on the potty.  She talked to that puppet for a long time.  Gwen is really getting annoyed with us talking about the potty all the time.  She has 2 accidents (pee) in the afternoon, even though we asked her 22 times if she had to go. 

 

Today she went fine before school, but it has been almost three days without pooping, so if she doesn’t go at school, we will have a problem.  Now I just feel bad, she must be really backed up by now. 

 

This is definitely a stage of parenthood that I don’t enjoy.  John was said that he had never talked or thought about poop some much in one day.  We both went to the bathroom more than usual, all that potty on the brain.  All this, and I get to look forward to Jack and Madeline going through this.  Oh Joy!