The Mommies' Diaries…Parenting, One Blog at a Time.

I bet this is going to come as a complete and total surprise to you, but we’re having sleep issues in our home…..again.  Of course I am being sarcastic, as anyone who has read even a handful of my blogs will know that I write about sleep (or lack thereof), almost constantly (in between subjects like poop, tantrums, and my crazy phobias).  I often feel really alone in this little corner of the parenting world because I seem to be surrounded by parents, and kids, who have this sleeping thing down pat.

We are fortunate to live in a wonderful neighborhood….like, the best ever.  There are kids everywhere – including right next door.  Our neighbors have two little girls, with a third on the way.  I often tap the mom’s brain for wise tidbits as we’re both unloading groceries, or watching our girls overturn rocks in the front yard looking for snails.  Our conversations are always so brief, but I have come to look forward to our short visits because they are always so real. I would guess that once you’ve got three kids under the same roof, you’re pretty much past sugar-coating, which I so appreciate.

A few days ago, we coincidentally met up at the end of our driveways.  We were talking about her pregnancy, and all of the home projects on their radar in preparation for baby.  She mentioned being tired, and went on to say that her three year old will no longer fall asleep unless she has someone laying beside her.  My eyes beamed with thoughts of, “So, you totally understand my world?”  I immediately felt a wave of self-forgiveness wash over my shoulders.  Just a second prior to her effortless admission, I had been beating myself up for “causing” the same behavior in DJ as of late.  My neighbor mentioned that their household has been playing musical beds…..their three year old sleeping in their bed, and her husband sleeping in the three year old’s bed.  Gosh, it sounded all too familiar.  I could hardly say “US TOO!” quickly enough.

While I am sure she didn’t understand why I felt so enthusiastic about their suffering, I know she felt compelled to conclude our conversation with, “Just when you think you have something right, they will wake up with new needs, new insecurities, new fears and new wants – and you’ll be right back to where you started.”  This was a mom with a lot of experience under her belt, and she was reassuring me that this is just how parenthood goes, especially toddlerhood.  Phew. I wasn’t alone.

Yesterday we took DJ to the Gilroy Gardens.  As we were standing in line, there was an insecure dad behind us (trust me, I can smell this all-too-familiar character).  He kept asking his toddler to behave, and kept apologizing for the kid’s erratic behavior.  I felt badly for him, because I know how it feels to worry that those around you will blame you for your kid’s inherently terrible behavior.  As in perfect timing, another child just a few places behind us in line, threw himself onto the cement in a full-blown, hysterical tantrum.  His mother, who also had an older child by her side, made no apologies and just went about her business – paying no attention to the fact that her child was rolling around the pavement in old gum and stale popcorn.  The apologetic dad took one relieved look at her and said, “So, I see we’re not alone.”  And just like that, blissful camaraderie filled the line wrapping around the carousel.

What I have learned about parenting these past 21 months is that the absolute greatest gift (to both give and receive) is the gift of safety in numbers.  The more people we can relate to, the easier this gig gets.  Feeling like we’re not the only one to be drudging through the trench-of-the-moment, gives us the confidence to keep on crawling.  As parents, let’s pledge to just keep being honest about the things happening under our own roofs.  You just never know who has been dying to shout, “US TOO!”

I don’t need the calendar to tell me that the school year is almost over.  I merely look to the slow deterioration of my children, home and what little is left of my mind to know the end is near.

The kids are down to one frayed strap and a piece of dental floss holding their backpacks together. Since I refuse to buy any new pants until the day before the fist day of school next year, my kids are getting sunburns on their calves at recess.  We’ve got one sock left between us, and they are alternating days wearing it based on the bunion flare ups from their too-small shoes.

And we’re tired of homework. Specifically, the never-ending projects which somehow require me carrying the bulk of the workload. I’ve used so much glue this past semester that all my fingerprints have been cast in Elmer’s skeletons 10 times over. I truly hope I’ve made my last late-night trip to Target for supplies to recreate the Eiffel Tower in popsicle sticks.

We could use a little break from the book reports as well.  While I certainly appreciate a healthy appetite for books, I could do without another story about childhood angst written with a plethora of italics and exclamation points!!!  The only things I want my eight year olds reading are Interstate signs and my lips when I whisper to them to fetch me another lemonade because their little brother has fallen asleep after an afternoon playing on the beach.

But it’s the waking up early that’s killing me.  I’ve noticed that we’ve gradually pushed our wake-up time later and later each week with the snooze button forsaking some new element in our morning routine for a few extra minutes of blessed sleep. First we gave up making beds and then reading the paper. This week we’re lucky if we leave the house without shampoo still in our hair and breakfast of Tic Tacs and Chapstick.

So if you think that I am dreading the end of the school year – that somehow my workload will increase with all three kids at home 24/7 – you would be wrong in that assumption.

I look as summer as my 2.5 months to undo all of the good habits their teachers have instilled the rest of the year. We need some mornings to sleep through the alarm. We need mid-week sleepovers. We need lunches on plates, not scrunched up in brown paper bags. I need to smell sun block and chlorine not industrial janitorial cleaner and sweaty gym socks.

Feel free to remind me of this nostalgia in August when I’m complaining of walking into the grocery store for yet another package of hot dogs in unmatched flip flops. But until then, the only number 2 pencils we’ll be using will be on the miniature golf course.

Its the time of the year again when the though of having weeks and weeks of unscheduled time makes this mamma’s blood run cold. Bored children = whiney children in my house. I have grand memories from my childhood of being able to run out the door in the morning and showing up sometime around dinnertime. That sort of free range kids mentality is hard to come by these days, but I want to preserve some of that unstructured joy for my little people.

What is the solution? In the past summers we have kind of gotten a break because we have had lots of therapies to attend to. Most of those feel like playing anyway. This year, we are taking a break for the summer from all that stuff (mostly for my sanity, but also because that is just the way it works with the school district). My older daughter is excited to do sewing camp, drama camp and tennis/swim camp. She will make new friends each week and have a grand time. My two little ones are pretty easy to manage. A few princess dancing classes, a few swim classes and they will think that they have the world at their feet. We will be sure to throw in some field trips as well; Giants games, beach days and an aquarium or two. My son is going to be more tricky (shocking, I know). He is not quite able to manage regular camp. When he gets overwhelmed he tends to get aggressive, and that is not good for the other campers. Having no schedule is a terrible idea as well. This child needs a routine, both to get us through the summer and to ease the transition in the fall. Summer school is not an option.

I have a few ideas. I might do “mamma camp” with him. If I farm out the other kids, I can get some better one on one time, with him. We can do a little bit of school, a little bit of art and a lot of physical activity and keep it on schedule. I am sure his teachers will help me set up a summer schedule that looks the same as the school one. I might be able to talk one of his aides into putting in a few hours this summer and act as an aide at a camp from the parks department. They can just shadow him and jump in if necessary (but that gets expensive). I would give anything to live on 20 acres and just kick him out the door in the morning and see him at dinner time. I actually think he is the kind of kid that would thrive on all that outside time and hard work.

What do you guys do in the summer? Are their any camps that are a “must do” in your area? Anyone have, ehm, ENERGETIC kids and have found a great place for them to get their energy out and have fun at the same time? I’d love your ideas.

I recently started reading through all of my blogs since I was first pregnant with DJ.  I have long known that I wanted to bind all of the entries into a book, documenting the first two years of DJ’s life.  I figured that I will do this every 2 years, and she will have volumes upon volumes of stories about her life as she grows.  I have to admit, when I first settled in to begin my proof-reading process, I wasn’t quite prepared to relive the rollercoaster these first 21 months have been!

I was actually cracking myself up as I read entry after entry!  One week I would be absolutely certain that I’d never do this or that, and a few weeks later – I was doing that very thing.  I wasn’t going to have drugs through my labor and delivery, and I did.  I wasn’t going to EVER give DJ formula, but I had to.  I never intended for her to sleep in our bed, but she has.  I have embraced my new body, my new identity, and my new life just as passionately as I have shaken my fist at all of those same things.  I have surrendered, and I have adamantly fought for control.  I have fallen head over heels in love, and I have broken down in tears over how.stinkin.hard.this.is.

For a moment, I thought, “I can’t ever let anyone else read this, they will think I am long overdue for on getting some meds.”  And then I realized that I have always promised to be real. I have also realized that there are likely more parents out there who can relate to my schizophrenic moods than parents who can’t.  I’ve come to accept that parenting, in general, is a rollercoaster.

Which brings me to today……a few entries ago, I was bragging about my “big girl” attitude in canceling one of DJ’s follow-up doctor appointments.  Because she is so tiny, the doctors have wanted to monitor her growth a little more closely than they might otherwise.  Terms like “Failure to Thrive” sickened my stomach for weeks before I got all brave and decided to put my fears to rest and accept that DJ is absolute perfection in a little package.  She is totally thriving.  Totally.

Well……yesterday, out of nowhere, I broke down.  I started Googling “Failure to Thrive” again, and had created this huge story in my mind about DJ’s health. I was an absolute emotional disaster (it did NOT help that DJ hasn’t been sleeping well, which means I’ve been sleeping even worse).  Anyhow, my poor darling woke up puking at 3:30 this morning, and hasn’t stopped since.  I rushed her to the doctor, convinced there was a link between her “failing to thrive”, and this new bout of illness.

I am relieved to report that while she is teeny, the doctor has absolutely NO concern that she’s failing to thrive……and, as you all know, since DJ is a genius, I should have known not to get all worked up.  And, her vomiting is likely due to something she ate yesterday because she has no fever or other flu-like symptoms.  Phew!  She’s just trying to keep some water and crackers down….which, unfortunately, has turned into quite an undertaking (insert ‘sad face’ here).

Like I said, ups and downs – and stomach-dropping dips along the journey.  Yesterday, I was planning an early bedtime, followed by a lazy morning and afternoon at the park.  Today, my morning started at 3:30 am with projectile vomit all over my hair and two loads of sheets already washed and dried.  The only constant is unpredictability.

Now, if I can just remember to take deep breaths along the way, I am certain that I’ll be able to survive with only the occasional prescription for Ativan.

DJ, at almost 21 months, has a bit more sass than most of the teeny-boppers that I see parading around the mall. This scares me. I find myself zeroing in on pre-teen and teenage girls wherever I go these days, studying their behaviors and most often thinking, “Please God, don’t let DJ turn out like that,” knowing full well that DJ is going to turn out exactly like that.  She will talk back to her mother, she will giggle obnoxiously loud to ensure those around her are fully aware that she’s having the time of her life, she will attempt to wear age-inappropriate clothing (which will not fly in this house), and she’ll think she knows everything.

DJ and I have started a little routine.  After I get out of the shower, I set her on the bathroom counter.  While her sweet little feet dance about in the sink, her curious hands are busy inside my makeup bag.  It’s the perfect set-up as I’m able to get both my hair and makeup done while she explores brushes, pencils, eye shadows, and lipstick.  Oh yeah, lipstick.

Yesterday morning, right after DJ jammed her entire index finger into my daring bright red Mac lipstick, she repeatedly BEGGED to have some put on her lips.  I cleaned up her beeswaxy hands, and totally caved to her whiney pleading.  As soon as I smeared the super thin coat on each lip, she looked at herself in the mirror and smiled a very, very coy smile – while ever-so-slightly placing her chin flirtatiously in the direction of her shoulder.  She was so pleased with her new look.  So pleased, in fact, that she began crying.  What?  Crying?  Yes, crying.

At first I wondered at what had gone wrong, but as I’m learning to do with her ever-present tantrums, I took a deep breath and stepped back for a moment.  And then it hit me….she wasn’t actually upset, she had effortlessly taken on the role of leading lady in this year’s best drama.  DJ began acting.  She was literally watching her red lips quiver as she changed the volume and tone of her cry.  I couldn’t believe what I was witnessing.  She was, inherently, letting all that “girl” seep right out of her pores and into the bathroom mirror.  She was being totally and completely d r a m a t i c.

The saga in her mind carried on for only a few moments, but they were intense moments.  She was good.  Totally nailed the part.  When she was all done performing, she quickly morphed back into my less-than-two-year-old toddler and asked for her Elmo toothbrush so she could legitimately suck on toothpaste.  I quickly obliged, and then dressed her in an “I Love My Mommy” t-shirt (while I can still control her wardrobe).  I am realizing that we’re running out of time.  Sooner than I think, DJ will be marching head first toward teeny-bopperdom.

Before DJ was born, people were constantly encouraging me to savor every moment.  “Time goes by so quickly,” they’d say with a distant gleam in their eye.  And I have to admit, when the tantrums started to kick into high gear – I kept repeating  “it goes by so fast, it goes by so fast, it goes by so fast,” with so much hope in my little, exhausted, worn out heart.  But then, time does go by, the moment passes, the tantrum ends, and my sweet baby girl does something amazing like crawl up into my lap and twirl my hair through her fingers – and my stomach sinks a little.  She won’t always think I’m this amazing.

Someday, DJ will be galloping through the mall, and some mom of a toddler will take one glance at her and think, “What kind of mom let her daughter out of the house with that bright red lipstick on?”

I have been a stay at home mom now for almost nine years.  Most days I am completely at peace with the way things are in my life.  I freely chose to stop working and stay at home with my kids.  I feel incredibly lucky to be able to do so and even on my worst days, I don’t take it for granted.

But with accepting my life the way things are, that means accepting that the bulk of the domestic related tasks rests upon my often over-tired shoulders.  I do the laundry, sign the kids up for summer camp, pick up the errant shoes that get left all over the front hall.  I plan and shop for the majority of our meals, I know when we are out of goldfish crackers, shampoo or Dijon mustard.  These aren’t necessarily bad or unfair responsibilities, but things that occasionally make me feel bitter and overworked.

My husband really likes his job.  While his job allows me to stay home and put us in a nice neighborhood in a home custom made for us that we all love, his job requires long hours and lots of travel.  He is up and gone before any of us wakes up and sometimes makes it home for dinner, and sometimes not.  After the kids are in bed, he is either on a conference call or sitting on the couch with his laptop finishing up work.  That is just the way it is, someone has to keep the world safe for capitalism.  I often feel like he is an occasional visitor in our weekday lives and jumps back in as Dad on the weekends.  But it is this way because we chose this life.  He chooses to stay at a job he succeeds at in an industry he truly has a passion for.  I choose to stay home and manage our home and look after our children.    But those choices do not come without sacrifices.  School plays, family dinner, kisses before school for him.  Drinking my coffee while it’s still hot, dressing in something other than yoga pants and having some help a bedtime for me.

My husband has been unusually busy at work lately and has had to work late.  He also had some business associates in town this week and wanted to have dinner with them.  On each of these days, he didn’t need to worry about childcare for his three kids.  Of course, I’ll be home to take care of them, that’s what I do.  I stay home and make sure our kids are fed, do their homework and get to bed on time.  But when I have something in the evening I would like to attend like my book club or a soccer club meeting, I have to make sure my husband will be home or arrange for my mom to be here to watch the kids.  I also have to trust that my husband will actually make it home at the time I ask him to, which didn’t happen last night.  I don’t get to just make plans and go and be free.

I don’t mean to make it sound like my husband in a modern day neanderthal that comes home, pounds his chest and demands dinner.  It isn’t that way at all.  If I weren’t generally happy with the way things are, he’d be fine with me pursuing my career, though I doubt the household responsibilities and childcare arrangements would change if I were working outside the home.

This is just one of those days when I have a hard time feeling content with my chosen lot in life, despite it being exactly what I always wanted.

About 4 years ago is when we started down the path of really understanding what it meant to have a child with special needs. In the short term, that meant lots and lots of appointments. Doctors, teachers, evaluations, physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, early intervention classes……get the idea? I had three kids and one on the way and was trying to juggle the normal mom stuff with all the therapies and places I needed to be each day. I literally ran all day long. Every second was a learning opportunity, every set of stairs was a chance to practice our PT, every interaction was done with the multiple goals lurking in the back of our minds and wondering how we could incorporate those goals into the daily life of our family. Without the help of our OT/Nanny Maria, I am sure none of us would have made it.

Today I took Tiny to her kindergarten assessment. This is my child that at the age of two couldn’t talk, wouldn’t walk and very rarely engaged with us. We got very little eye contact and very little voluntary body movement. I think that I described her at the time as a “lump on a log”. When she started early intervention classes she would talk so quietly that one of her goals became to speak NOT in her ‘fairy voice”. She was so small, she was still wearing 12 month sized clothing and was trying really hard to pass the 22 pound mark. Every doctors visit we got the same answer; she was considered “failure to thrive”. Sounds ominous, huh? But she wasn’t thriving, it kind of felt like she was disappearing. Since her brother (only 19 months older) was such an enormous force of nature it made the contrast seem even greater.

Today she confirmed what we already really knew. She was all caught up. All those hours of working on Tiny’s body to make it strong have turned her into a little dancer. All those exercises to help her with her balance have helped her be able to swim and kick a ball and ride a bike. The hours and hours of speech therapy have helped her become a chatterbox, and many days we pray for her “fairy voice” to make a reappearance. The eating therapy has helped produce a child that is still tiny and impossibly picky about food, but is thriving and growing and is healthy. The early intervention classes showed us ways to help her learn in her everyday life and instill a love of school and playing with other children. She is right on target developmentally and at this point she won’t even need any pull out help. There are still things we need to watch out for as she gets older, but so far she is right on track. For a tiny girl who had such a rough start, I am pretty amazed and thrilled at how well she is doing. It feels like all that hard work has paid off.

Not all parents who have kids with special needs with be able to graduate them from that world to the world of “typical”. Most of them won’t. And we work just as hard with those kids, we just don’t get to see so much black and white progress. My other two kids that do all the same therapies will never be on that typical list. Today we graduated from being a family with three special needs kids, to a family with just two. There are no IEP’s in her future. No more therapy appointments. No more extra doctors. It feels strangely sad. Mostly it feels exciting. It feels like I have more time in my world and I can shift my mom worry’s to another set of issues. Things like whether she will make friends and if she will be too scared to raise her hand for the hall pass.

Congratulations to my funny, strong and spicy Tiny. And best of luck to her teachers.

Come on people, what sort of spell did you cast on me?  Last week I announce that I have officially graduated from New Mommy to Preschool Mommy, and you sprinkle a bunch of Toddler Voodoo over me?  Just wanted to make sure I had a proper induction into the Hall of Tantrums, did ya?  Well, be proud of yourselves – I have arrived.

This has been one heck of a week. DJ caught her first tummy flu ever – and man, what an experience. The worst of it it only lasted for 36 hours, which I understand makes us pretty lucky considering the vicious bug that seems to be going around.  The poor kid woke up puking out of a dead sleep at 11:00 pm on Friday night, and didn’t stop until Sunday morning.

If you’ve never experienced a vomiting child, let me tell you – it’s as heartbreaking as it is dramatic.  My husband and I have never felt so totally helpless in our parenting lives.  There was nothing we could do beside comfort her – and clean up after her.  Poor thing.  Needless to say, my Mother’s Day wasn’t what we had planned it to be…..trust me, wearing DJ’s barf wasn’t high on the list of celebratory ideas.

But oh, what a difference a few days make!  DJ, feeling remarkably better – and clearly suffering from pent up energy, has taken “tantrum” to a whole new level.  She was TERRIBLE yesterday.  Terrible.  Now, I absolutely adore the pants off my daughter – but I dreamt of Calgon taking me away at least a dozen times yesterday.  She rebelled against every single thing that we requested of her, and literally laughed in the face of discipline.  You know it’s a bad day when your kid answers with a resounding “YES,” when asked if they want another timeout.

DJ was placed in three timeouts throughout the course of dinner.  For quite some time now, she has been out of her highchair and using a booster seat.  Because she was sick all weekend, she had quickly gotten used to eating her popsicles, toast, rice and applesauce on the couch – in the comfort of her favorite blankie, or our arms.  Last night, she wasn’t so stoked to be back at the table – and she definitely let us (and any neighbor within 1 square block of us) know.  She screamed.  She wailed.  She threw herself onto the ground.

The picture above is how we ended dinner.  Don’t let the inability of a photograph to translate sound deceive you – she wasn’t resting peacefully, she was screaming.  At this point of the evening, we decided there was absolutely no reasoning with her, and that timeouts were somehow becoming a welcomed game.  Oh. My. Gosh.  What do you do when timeouts lose their power?  (Oh, and notice the owl fabric covering the chair?  Yeah, that was my brilliant attempt at making DJ’s chair something super special that I was sure would make her want to sit in it.  Lets just say this – it only inspired loud owl sounds to abound throughout the house as she stomped from room to room).

Fast forward to bath time.  The words “Be careful with your vagina,” actually came out of my mouth. Seriously.  As I watched DJ contort her body, and her girl parts, in an effort to get a closer look – I was half afraid she was going to hurt herself, and half relieved that she was finally, quietly concentrating on something……anything.

In the moments that followed – putting on PJ’s, reading a bedtime story (which, apparently, I did all wrong tonight), brushing teeth and getting into bed, my husband and I shared knowing looks of defeat, sprinkled in with a few giggles.  I mean, as frustrating as DJ’s behavior was – it was also so totally and completely ridiculous.  Was this really happening?  What on earth are her teenage years going to look like, and how in the world are we going to prepare for that?

Once we finally got her into bed, I suggested we say our prayers.  As I was saying something like, “PLEASE Dear Lord, take the devil out of this child,” I opened one eye and saw DJ with hands clasped together in front of her, and eyes closed tightly.  My prayers softened, my muscles relaxed, my jaw unclenched and DJ ever-so-sweetly reached out her hand and clasped it around one of my fingers.

In that moment, I decided I wouldn’t be selling her to the gypsies after all.

Well, it’s Mother’s Day this weekend.  And I’m heading out to visit Mom tonight.  She just had cataract surgery on Wednesday.  My sisters spent a couple of days with her and I’m going to go take care of her for a day or two.  She’s worth it.  After all, she’s my mother.

Without bragging or putting my mom up on a pedestal or anything, I have to tell you about a memory of her.  The entire time I was in elementary school, my mother was the classroom mom.  Hand picked by all the other students in my classroom.  Some kids today might think that”s a horrific thought.  Having your mother come and work with the teacher in the classroom whenever the teacher needed her.  Holidays.  Birthdays.  Special events and fundraisers.  My mom was there.  I didn’t see it like a lot of other kids – as a chaperon, a spy, an embarrassment.

On the contrary.  My mom was a patient saint when I look back.  I loved having all the other kids tell me how cool she was.  I never got jealous that they hogged her to themselves whenever we went on field trips.  I rarely sat with her or walked with her.  She was holding hands of the other kids, making them laugh, and showing them by example that it paid to be honest, have integrity, and compassionate.  My mom made me proud.  I was her son.

When we all graduated to junior high school – no elaborate elementary school graduations here – almost the entire class cried when the teacher gave my mom some flowers.  For all of her years of service.  We had grown up in front of her and she was beside us the whole way.  Only the girls cried though.  Okay, a lot of the boys did too.  See?  My mom still weighs down on me to tell the truth!

My mom has been through a lot.  Thrown from the back window over 100 ft from her car when she was hit in a high speed unmarked police chase in 1979, she was in a coma with a broken neck, hip, arm for 5 days and she came back to us, she burped, and said “Excuse me.”  That’s my mother.

I could go on and on about how she beat cancer, how we were broke when I was a child and on Christmas Eve, she was determined to give us a Christmas, so she drove us, my sisters and myself, in the pouring rain, and at midnight, hopped a cyclone fence at a nursery in San Carlos, and threw a tree headed for the shredder over the fence and on top of the car.  We decorated that tree with popcorn strands and one string of lights and it was one of the best Christmas’ ever!!

I could go on, but I won’t.  My mom may not be proud of some of those moments because they may not have been the right thing to do, but that determination to do what moms do best – deliver the goods – every time; well, that’s who she is.  And always has been.

What makes up my mother is now part of my makeup.  I learned I will always provide.  I will always survive.  I will try to show my children by example.  I may not always be proud of the ways in which I do things, but…

but, I know, my mom always will be.

Happy Mother’s Day to all of the Mommies!!

When you first find out that you are going to be the parent of a child with Down Syndrome, you will get a variety of responses. The most common one will be to tell you how loving and sweet they are and how their disposition is easy and mellow. The second thing you will hear is about any job that any one with Down Syndrome ever has had. Mainly grocery store baggers and office cleaning staff. (That used to really bug me, but since I now have the pleasure of being friends with BOTH grocery baggers and office cleaning staff who have Down Syndrome, I can calm down about it. They like their jobs. They are good at it. Amen). The last thing you will ever be told is about the inherent, mile wide stubborn streak that many kids with Trisomy 21 can possess. In my case, it was pointed out to me yesterday during a school field trip for one of the older kids. Let me paint a picture; we have just left the elephants at the Oakland Zoo and I am trying to convince 8 kindergarteners that they don’t REALLY want an Slurpee right now, they want to go look at the zebras! In the 90 degree weather. Where we can still smell the elephants.

Me — “Ace, please get your finger out of your nose”

Her — She fixates on me with a stare that is a perfect combination of disdain and boredom that only a three year old can perfect. The finger is still in the nose. And by the way she isn’t even DOING anything with the nose. There is no search and rescue operation happening. It is an idle finger, shoved up her nose. For effect.

Me — “Seriously Acie, get that finger out of your nose. That is ka-ka”.

Her — The look continues, but she might have actually rolled her eyes at me.

Me — I pull her finger out of her nose and say “No, Acie”

Her — The finger goes RIGHT back to the nose. Lips are pursed

Me — “ACE, no thank you. Stop it with the nose”

Her — Finger. Back. In. Nose. Then the other one too.

Continue off and on for the next 25 minutes (the stamina on that child is impressive).

Beyond the obvious question of why I was having an argument with a three year old, I was mentally marking how she is turning into a real toddler who has an opinion and personality. The special ed teacher walked up to me after observing our nose issues. “So, you are starting to see the stubbornness, huh?”. I just thought this was an off comment, lots of kids are stubborn. Most of mine, actually. She continued “that is the biggest challenge with them during the next few years, trying to manage that stubborn streak and not turn things into issues while still showing them that they have to use the correct behavior”. Wait a minute. Them? They? It suddenly occurred to me that she was referring to something that is a DOWN SYNDROME thing, and not a MY KID thing.
I am not sure if someone TRIED to tell me about stubbornness being something that is a big hallmark of T21, but in between all the talk of angelic sweetness and grocery bagging I missed that one. As I walked around the zoo with a toddler who had two fingers shoved up her nose, I was not impressed. If the nose thing is any indication, the tween years are going to be a treat. And since I am already doing the tween thing with a fairly stubborn girl, I don’t even have ignorance to get me through it.

So here is to you mom!! Remember all those times you wished (either secretly or out loud) that I would have the pleasure of raising a child just like myself? Bwua-ha-ha-ha. I hope that 37 years wasn’t too long to wait. How is that revenge? Is it really better served cold? In all fairness, I have long since accepted that I will ever be as kind and loving and PATIENT as my mom was. And she had twice as many kids. I had a great example in my mother on how to be an invested and present mother. I need to do better on that one. At least I can send my tweens to her and let her work her magic on them.

Happy Mother’s Day to all you mamma’s. Even to the ones who have stubborn, nose picking daughters. Especially to those moms.