wisdom.

I was talking to die frau today, and we briefly discussed our hatred of anyone's having a sense of entitlement. I think I may have expressed my disgust with the whole idea previously. Maybe not. Who cares. I'll tell you now.

One of my least favorite things in the world is people feeling like they are owed something just by virtue of being alive. I think it's important for everyone to value the idea of working for what they want.

Thinking about it made me start making a mental list of all the things I want to teach my kids and the rules they must follow on the road to adulthood. I will share with you now...

• Working hard is important. In fact anything worth having is worth working for.
• You should never expect anyone to hand you anything, but don't miss an opportunity.
• Always, always respect your fellow humans. They can be your teachers, your parents, your friends, or your friends' parents. Respect them. Even if they are idiots. Human beings deserve respect, and I will expect you to dish out heavy helpings of it.
• No one gets anywhere by being a jerk. Even when you're mad, be nice. Don't yell. Don't make obscene hand gestures. Do not use swear words to try to express anger. You'll look like an idiot, and you won't get anything accomplished.
• But you have to stand up for yourself. Because I won't always do it for you. If you have a problem with a friend or a teacher or a coach, I will expect you to try to work it out for yourself first. But I'll always back you up because I'm your mama.
• Do as I say, not as I do. (If I have to stand up for you, I might not observe all the aforementioned rules. You will be instructed to cover your ears.)
• T, you must always go to the door when picking up a girl for a date. And you will shake her daddy's hand and be nice to her mama. You will have her home on time, and you will walk her to her door. Otherwise, you will answer to me.
• S, you will not be allowed to go out with boys who do not observe those rules.
• S, your panties and bra will never be allowed to hang out. You will not go out of my house looking like a skank. In addition to respecting others, you will respect yourself.
• You should always be honest, but you shouldn't be mean. Sometimes bending the truth is okay if it keeps you from hurting someone.
• You will not backtalk. (I know someone who has created a concoction called "sassy juice." It is some abhorrent combination of spices and liquid that she keeps in a squirt bottle, and if her kids backtalk, she makes them open up and she hits them with the nasty stuff. I think it is brilliant parenting.)
• When you break rules, there will be consequences. You will learn this from me because I don't want you to learn it from a court of law.
• You will be grateful for gifts, and you will write thank you notes. (Utterly tasteless and tacky joke: Why don't southern girls have orgies? Too many thank you notes to write. Bada-bing.)

That's all for now because S is wanting to make more aliens from play dough, and I can no longer resist her.

What do you want to teach your kids?

trusting your gut.

I think this might be my final post on the intangibles that get you through having a baby. I know you're saddened. Tremendously.

The thing you've got to do is trust your gut. You have to have confidence in what you're doing. Babies are like dogs. They smell fear. I'm not saying that you have to know everything about everything when it comes to babies because you can't, I'm saying that you just need to believe in yourself. Really, I think that's true of life. Period. I truly believe that if I make a choice and have to hem and haw over it, it's not the right decision. A good decision is a good decision, and 99% of the time, you'll know it in your bones. If you'll just listen to your bones.

You need that with kids. There are so many people who will tell you so many things, and lots of those things are good and helpful. But so many of those things might not work for you or your family, and you have to be able to realize that and go with it. Frankly, there are very few things in life that you can't do over, so it's okay to be wrong. Just be willing and able to keep moving forward.

It's like our sleep insanity right now. When I posted on Facebook that I needed opinions on Babywise and Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, I think I got more comments than I did about T's birth. Everyone who has kids has an opinion, and they all want to help. I ended up picking up a copy of Babywise, and all it did was confirm what I already knew...that I am going to have to let my baby cry. I'm okay with needing that book to give me a nudge, but I've generally found that all parenting resources are like that. Reading them doesn't tell you how to be a parent, reading them shows you that you already know how.

Here's to trusting your gut.

laugh and the world laughs with you.

Number three on the newborn survival list? A seriously healthy sense of humor/ability to laugh at yourself.

Image from Flickr.

When your child pees on you, you have to be able to laugh.

When your child vomits in your mouth, you really have to be able to laugh after you gag.

When you change your newborn's diaper and they immediately poop, you have to laugh, and then you have to laugh harder when they do it again. Forty-three seconds later.

You have to laugh because if you don't, you'll cry buckets. And really, it is all pretty comical. Living with a newborn is a bit like living in a sitcom...without makeup and wardrobe and craft service.

For the record, your sense of humor will carry you nicely through the toddler/preschool years, too. Trust me, if I didn't laugh regularly at S, I'd have to lock her in a dungeon.

i get by with a little help from my friends.

The next intangible for getting through the newborn days? It's significantly more important than yoga, but I had yoga on the brain yesterday and thus wrote about it instead of this one. Can you guess?

Image from Amber Dawn Photography

It's friends. Real friends. The kind of friends who bring you a half gallon jug of apple juice when you've consumed every drop of juice that the hospital has available. The kind of friends who bring you food. The kind of friends who check on you regularly but understand that you've got a baby and might not be available to answer the phone or emails for awhile. The kind of friends who will hold your baby while you nap or shower or get a cup of coffee or just sit still.

When the baby gets older, these same friends will continue to be invaluable. They will listen to your inquiries about sleep issues. They will try to help you just by listening. And they'll still hold your baby while you get a cup of coffee/nectar of the gods.

They'll also reassure you a lot. Like when you're afraid you're going to strangle your older child because she's pushed you to your limit and you think you might be the world's worst parent...they'll remind you that you aren't. They'll let you know that it's completely normal and that no one will be the worse for wear.

They will also remain your friends despite the fact that you will talk about poop all the time. And naps. And nursing. And how huge your butt is. You should thank them for it.

The point is that you need a support system. At least I do. I need it for my sanity. I highly recommend it.

walk the plank.

The other day, Heather posted a list of her favorite baby things. I started making my own list, but it got a little extensive, so I temporarily gave it up. Instead I'm going to start talking about some of the intangible things that are getting me through newborn land.

Today, it's the plank.

One of the things that was hardest for me to deal with when S was a baby and now that T is a baby is the blob that is a postpartum body. Granted, a lack of sleep and hormonal insanity is more difficult to deal with, but that's a whole different issue. The blob is bothersome to me. When I was pregnant and my body looked like it was inhabited by aliens, I was understanding because it kind of was inhabited by an alien. I understand all too well that your body is different after giving birth, and it should be, but the blob makes me feel wretched.

I am never going to be a person who exercises excessively. It's not in my DNA. And I'm not horribly vain, though I am slightly. I just can't feel good about myself if I look like I ate another human. It affects every part of my life when I feel bad about myself physically. I get stressed when I have to get dressed and nothing fits properly. I want to cry when I look into a mirror and see a lot of extra fluff. I want to barf when I curl up on the couch and my body doesn't curl up properly because there's too much stomach.

Are you grossed out yet? I am. I was.

Enter the plank. Someone mentioned to me once that the only way to get your midsection back after you've had a baby is yoga, and I believe it. I'm still carrying around a few more pounds than I'd like, but yoga is helping a lot. As my muscles, especially my core muscles, get stronger, I can feel things changing. I feel leaner even if I'm not. And my arms are looking better from all that hanging out in plank position, too. Beyond the core and arm benefits, forward folds and wide leg forward bends release a lot of tension that I apparently store up in my hamstrings, and focusing my attention on my breath helps me calm down. Basically, it's a win-win situation for me.

Yoga allows me to fit in a little exercise throughout the day, and even small amounts of breathing and stretching make a big difference in how I feel.

So there it is. One of the things that's helping me feel human in my sleep-deprived state. An added bonus: yoga pants. Swoon.

and miles to go before i sleep.

Oh, my child. My youngest child, that is. He is all over the map. All over it. Allow me to explain...

I am one of those parents that believes with every fiber of my being that kids need lots of sleep. Lots of it. They need lots of time for their little brains to catalog all the new information they're exposed to daily. S was always amenable to that belief. And T agrees with it, but he can't seem to agree with it in any sort of organized, predictable way.

He generally takes two good, long naps during the day. Somewhere between 2-3 hours. Only there is no way to know what time those naps are going to happen. The first one always happens about an hour and 45 minutes after he wakes up in the morning, but sometimes he wakes up at 530, and sometimes he wakes up at 730. Then sometimes, after the morning nap, he can stay awake for a little over 2 hours, but usually it's another hour and 45 before he needs another nap. Most days he even takes a third little catnap in the late afternoon. And he's fussy by 6pm.

So back this all up with me. If he wakes up at 530, he's ready for a nap before 730 in the morning. That's ridiculous, and needing a nap that early tells me one thing: that he needed to sleep longer before he woke up in the first place. But sometimes he just can't get himself to stay asleep. And that's what I don't get.

Let's continue our exploration of a 530 start time. If he takes a nap by 730, then he's usually ready for the second nap by noon. And that nap is over by 3. The child is apparently incapable of being awake for longer than 2 hours, so that makes him fussy by 5 at the latest. Then what do you do?? Do you let him take a third nap at 5, or do you sacrifice your sanity by keeping him awake until at least 6?

Then there's his inability to self-soothe. So some nights we're upstairs with him a half-dozen times, but other nights, he's blissfully calm for about 6 hours. His issue is that if he's unswaddled he body jerks himself awake and/or smacks himself in the face and wakes up. He tries constantly to get his hands to his mouth, but he can't keep them there, which makes him mad. So, we keep him swaddled and he fights. I ordered a Halo Swaddler, and I am hoping that helps...but maybe he needs to be unswaddled and get used to it.

I am quite beside myself honestly. He sleeps enough. I can wrap my head around a 6am-6pm evening from him until he gets older and we are comfortable moving his bedtime back to 7...then 8. (Please note that we will be utterly incapable of any sense of a social life as long as T has to be in bed at 6pm. We'll have to divide-and-conquer.) I just need a little consistency. Maybe I'm expecting too much.

Someone, please, give me some advice. Or a valium. Or a nanny.

overachieve.

When did it become necessary to be the penultimate at everything? When did "good enough" become not good enough? Maybe I'm the only one who feels pressure to do more/be better, and that is an odd statement when I've commented before on not wanting to lower my standards. My standards are pretty high. I expect to cook for my family. I expect to keep my house clean enough for company at all times. I expect to fulfill all my creative needs and grow children who are thoughtful, polite, and creative in their own right. But sometimes I feel that there is more that I need to learn and accomplish, and yesterday, I asked myself why.

For example:

• I constantly think that I should raise chickens. I've got more than enough space, and I love fresh eggs. Love. There is no comparison between really fresh eggs and grocery store eggs. It is not apples-to-apples. However, I am afraid of birds, and these are birds that are guaranteed to try to peck my fingers. Also, I have a perfectly wonderful granddaddy who has perfectly fine chickens, and he is perfectly happy to share their eggs. Somehow, though, I expect myself to raise chickens. It makes no sense whatsoever.
• I have spent hours obsessing over my camera manual this week. Mr. Ouiser bought me a really nice camera a few years ago, and I've never bothered to learn how to take it out of it's automatic mode. The other day, I ran across this tutorial on Pinterest, and I decided that enough was enough...that I was too smart and too artistic to settle for automatic photos. But, why? When I was growing up, just having a photograph that was in focus was good, but now? Now I feel the need to take really, truly excellent photos. Why?

Stop the insanity! There are so many other examples of there being too much pressure on people to live up to unattainable standards, and I believe wholeheartedly in many of them. I believe in breastfeeding and homemade baby food. I believe in composting and gardening and ditching disposable products and so many other things. And I am grateful that I am able to do all of those things because I am fortunate enough to be a stay-at-home mom. But there is pressure for working moms, too.

When will it end? Does anyone have the answer? Can we just be good enough and be happy? I really don't know.

overachieve.

When did it become necessary to be the penultimate at everything? When did "good enough" become not good enough? Maybe I'm the only one who feels pressure to do more/be better, and that is an odd statement when I've commented before on not wanting to lower my standards. My standards are pretty high. I expect to cook for my family. I expect to keep my house clean enough for company at all times. I expect to fulfill all my creative needs and grow children who are thoughtful, polite, and creative in their own right. But sometimes I feel that there is more that I need to learn and accomplish, and yesterday, I asked myself why.

For example:

• I constantly think that I should raise chickens. I've got more than enough space, and I love fresh eggs. Love. There is no comparison between really fresh eggs and grocery store eggs. It is not apples-to-apples. However, I am afraid of birds, and these are birds that are guaranteed to try to peck my fingers. Also, I have a perfectly wonderful granddaddy who has perfectly fine chickens, and he is perfectly happy to share their eggs. Somehow, though, I expect myself to raise chickens. It makes no sense whatsoever.
• I have spent hours obsessing over my camera manual this week. Mr. Ouiser bought me a really nice camera a few years ago, and I've never bothered to learn how to take it out of it's automatic mode. The other day, I ran across this tutorial on Pinterest, and I decided that enough was enough...that I was too smart and too artistic to settle for automatic photos. But, why? When I was growing up, just having a photograph that was in focus was good, but now? Now I feel the need to take really, truly excellent photos. Why?

Stop the insanity! There are so many other examples of there being too much pressure on people to live up to unattainable standards, and I believe wholeheartedly in many of them. I believe in breastfeeding and homemade baby food. I believe in composting and gardening and ditching disposable products and so many other things. And I am grateful that I am able to do all of those things because I am fortunate enough to be a stay-at-home mom. But there is pressure for working moms, too.

When will it end? Does anyone have the answer? Can we just be good enough and be happy? I really don't know.

to pixie or not to pixie?

Oh, Scarlet Lily, why do you do these things to me? Why must you encourage my habitual chopping of the locks? Because, it's pretty easy to convince me that the time has come to relieve myself of all but an inch of my hair. It really is. Thank goodness my husband likes me with short hair.

Of course, I'm old and wise now.

I've been thinking about a new pixie cut for a few weeks, but I told myself I'd give it a month. If I still wanted to cut my hair, I'd do it then, but time has told me that once I get an idea in my head, the only way to stop thinking about it is to do it. Then I just deal with the consequences. In this case, the consequence is spending a year growing my hair out, but I'm used to it.

So, I think I'll chop my hair off next week. In fact, I know I will because I already made an appointment, and I know myself well enough to know that when I sit in that chair, I'll say, "chop it all off."

It'll be my ode to Emma Watson since my appointment is for the opening night of Harry Potter. I'm absolutely giddy just thinking about it. The "it" being both the haircut and the movie.

tea time.

It should be noted that this post has nothing to do with my son, but I like to remind you that he exists. He just doesn't do much. Also, he's three months old today. That's 25% of a year, but I am still not acknowledging his age. He was just born. I'm sure of it. Anyway, here he is in all his adorable chubby cuteness. Oh, I do love him.
This post is really about tea. After S and I went to tea at American Girl Place, she requested that we have a tea party with some friends. Today was the day. S wore lots of jewelry and a hat, and she requested that I also wear lots of cheap plastic jewelry because...it's fancy. So, we got all decked out, busted out some old china, and had us a tea party.

S made menus and demanded that they grace the table. I was not all that pleased, but it was her party.

The Menu

First course

Banana Bread Bruschetta

Fruit Skewers

Second course

Chicken Salad on Pita Points

PB&J tea sandwiches

Dessert

Dark Chocolate Marshmallows

Strawberry Shortcake

There was also pink lemonade, not tea. Little girls don't actually like hot tea.

We (the girls and the mamas) discussed our favorite books, our favorite places to play, and where we'd like to visit. All in all, it was a pretty good morning.

This photo pretty accurately captures the personalities of these three wonderful girls. I'd like to squeeze them all. The Ouiser ladies. Check out the fancy jewels. No boobs were shown to earn the Mardi Gras beads...unless you count the eight times a day I whip out a boob for all in my vicinity to see as I feed my son. But that's another story.

Chicago, Day Three. Fin.

After S's Friday evening meltdown and subsequent hibernation, M and I made one of our better decisions ever. We were planning to stay in Chicago Saturday night and drive all the way home on Sunday. We decided that was not a great plan...we realized that S would be crazy tired again Saturday afternoon, so we abbreviated our Saturday plans and checked out of the hotel a day early.

Of course, we couldn't check out until we had recovered baby Mary.

I had intended to hit the Children's Museum at Navy Pier Saturday, cruise Lake Michigan aboard The Windy, and ride the Ferris Wheel with my girl. We skipped the museum and climbed aboard the tall ship. Clearly you know that I believe in karma. Good and bad. And our experience on the boat leads me to believe that there are a handful of people out there who would've earned it if their wallets had leaped from their pockets into the water of Lake Michigan.

The boat was scheduled, according to the internet, to sail at 1030. I went to the ticket window at 10 where I was told they were sailing this morning at 10 if we wanted to climb aboard. So we did. Only when we got onto the deck there weren't many places to sit. There was a completely empty bench at the edge of the boat, so we hauled the kids to it. We were promptly told by 78% of the passengers that we couldn't sit there. The bench wasn't secured to the deck. Okay. Then we saw what was essentially a large box behind the wheel. Easily room for three Ouiser family butts. We went to sit upon it and were again thwarted by our fellow passengers. This left zero space for a family of four...except that the one long bench under the sail was occupied by four people. There was space for two in the middle and a seat for one on each end. And all four of those people were twerps. One of them even said, "There's room for one right here," as he pointed to his right, "and there's room for two here," as he pointed to his left. I wanted to scream, "Hey, genius! If you and your lady friend moved over, we could sit down right where you are."

I really do hope his wallet got lost. Maybe not his whole wallet. Maybe just his cash. And I hope the cash got picked up by some deserving soul with good karma.

We ended up having to squeeze all three of us into the space for two, and S ended up getting those people to move down a bit by wiggling and being a four-year-old. Normally, I would be very careful to keep her contained, but they earned a couple of pink Keen kicks to the thigh.

We arrrrghhh pirates!

Once we were seated, the boat ride was great. There was a totally inappropriate pirate song. S laughed uproariously despite not knowing that the song was about a drunken sailor's man parts. There were people dressed as pirates, and they gave little mini presentations on sea/lake exploration and piracy. The best part of that was when they asked if anyone knew the names of any explorers. S whispered to me, "Mom, I know one. Dora." It was classic.

T was awake for nine seconds of the trip, and we got photographic evidence.

The water was lovely, the sky was blue, and I didn't get seasick. I did, however, get the mother of all sunburns. I'm talking about an embarrassing sunburn. One that makes you realize that not only were you an idiot for not applying sunscreen, but also you're advertising the fact that you're an idiot. Amazingly, no one else in my family got scorched. Pink cheeks, yes. Sunburned, no. I'm the one who is still molting. They're back to normal.

This face pretty much sums it up.

Also, S helped fire the cannon, and we didn't take a picture.

After the boat ride, S and I rode the Ferris Wheel and the carousel. She completely lost it because the horse she chose to ride didn't go up and down.

Right before she realized she wasn't moving vertically.

We went to a cafe on the pier for lunch, and she continued her display of whining because I'd told her that she could NOT have shaved ice for lunch.

I decided to let her have a shaved ice after lunch, and things were looking up. There were smiles. Then she dumped the entire thing. There were more tears as M scrambled back to the shaved ice stand to replace it. When she was so loaded up on sugar and artificial coloring that we thought she'd explode, we threw both of the kids into the car and left Chicago in our dust.

That's it. The whole story. Pretty exciting, eh? Now we can all move on.

Chicago, Day Two.

So it took me an entire week to sit down to write this post. Eye infection. Sinus infection. U2 concert. Husband with food poisoning. 4th of July. It's been busy. I know you're itching to hear more about Chi-town, though. Aren't you? Yeah, you are.

Day Two.

Day two started with breakfast in the hotel. Again, I'm going to recommend the Omni Hotel on Michigan Avenue because they have a parking and breakfast package. Parking at most of the hotels in Chicago runs about 50 bucks a day. And breakfast...well, all meals stressed me the heck out in Chicago, so not having to leave the hotel room was golden. Plus, when the waiter rolled our table in and made a fuss over S, it made everything that much better.

Day Two was Field Museum Day. And you already know about the insanity that was in terms of losing all of our stuff in the cab. What you don't know is that a taxi is magical to a four-year-old. Magical. Take your kid somewhere in a taxi. They will love it. They will also constantly ask you what all the pictures/bulletins/fliers on the plexiglass are. You will see the taxi driver smirk in the mirror when he realizes that your child may never, ever shut up and you're stuck with her, but he gets to drop all of your crazy off in a few minutes where you will mingle with lots of other crazies. He will continue to drink his Starbucks.

But...onto the Field.

S had already met Sue the T-Rex. She's currently on exhibit at the Space and Rocket Center, and M took her a few weeks ago because she's really into both dinosaurs and outer space right now. (I breathe a sigh of relief every time I realize she's capable of interest in something other than princesses.) Still, we saw a replica of Sue. And her actual skull because it's separate from the rest of her. It weighs SIX HUNDRED POUNDS. That's 3.25 Mr. Ouisers. About 48 of my son. And approximately 10.5 of S. Whoa. We also saw lots of other dinosaurs, and we sang the hungry, hungry herbivore song.

That wasn't the cool part, though. There were two things that utterly blew my mind.

Thing one: do you know how big a moose is?? Do you? Because, those suckers are huge. I always imagined them smaller than a horse...maybe a tall-ish cow. Wrong. They're like passenger vans. M is 6'5", and he was dwarfed. I know that moose aren't supposed to be aggressive, but just stumbling across one in the wild would cause me to drop dead of a heart attack. At minimum I would pass out...where I'd likely then be mauled by a grizzly bear. Either way, running into a moose would be a bad situation for me.

Thing two: ever seen the skeleton of a giant tree sloth? Giant is definitely an appropriate word. I mean, I know all about megafauna, but I underestimated.

Oddly, I overestimated the size of dinosaurs. I was thinking of Godzilla.

After the Field, M rested at the hotel with the kids so I could walk around Michigan Avenue a bit. While I did love my first Crate and Barrel experience, and I was overjoyed to go to the Cubs store, I did not enjoy it. I don't know why I thought I might. I am not a shopper, and I wasn't really tempted to think about shopping because I had a baby recently. I am holding fast to the belief that my body is continuing to change, and I'm not buying clothes for this mass of flesh. Also, I felt like a head of cattle being pushed down the shoot. I hated the feeling so much that when I walked back to the hotel, I walked up Rush Street just to avoid the people/cattle. Plus, it was kind of lonely.

Dinner was a disaster that night because S was flat worn out*. She cried as we walked to dinner. M had to carry her and that's no easy task as she's the giant tree sloth of four-year-olds. We bribed her to be good with a sundae from the Ghirardelli cafe, but she even ate that with tears in her eyes.

We went back to the hotel about 630, and S tried to go to bed in her clothes. The poor child literally crawled into bed fully dressed and pulled up the covers. I convinced her to potty and put on some pjs, but the child was dead to the world by 7pm. She slept for 13 hours, and I don't think she moved once.

There you have it, peeps. Day Two. It was kind of a debacle, but the Field Museum was so great that it was totally worth it.

*We came to this realization later: Usually, when a preschooler gets worn out you can pop her into a stroller with a bottle of water and a snack and things are fine. The child can recover. Unfortunately, they don't really make strollers for seven-year-olds, and that's what size my sweet girl is. So, she has to hoof it. Also, her legs are shorter than an adults, so she has to work harder to go the same distance. Of course she was exhausted after a couple of days of walking around Chicago. We should've known better. The rest of you are hereby warned. If your child is still a stroller appropriate age, use one. If your stroller-appropriate-aged child won't fit in a stroller, go to the beach instead of Chicago.