No one does confidence better than Piggy, oui? Oui.
This week for HuffPost, I drafted up the 5 tenets to living a full year of Moi Loves Moi…please check out my “Oui/Non” list of saying goodbye to such boring things like…mommy guilt, diets, fretting about pre-baby bodies, saying “yes” to everything..and other things parents are very guilty of..I hope you’ll enjoy this list as much as I enjoyed writing it! Please read, share, comment!
One day in the late fall, the school bus pulled up to our stop about 90 seconds early. Behind the bus peeled up 3 cars and a bunch of kids none of us have seen before piled out and into the line of kids boarding the bus.
“You are early again today!” exclaimed one of the dads leading the caravan of cars tailing the bus. “You have to quit doing this to us!”
“Another parent said the same thing to me yesterday,” laughed the substitute bus driver in response.
“Every second counts” the father dead panned.
I'm always late. Always.
I was the parent who noted this to the substitute bus driver the day before. Every minute counts. Especially in the morning. Clearly this new driver guy didn’t realize that none of us are kidding and we’re not amused. 8:06 means 8:06. Not 8:04:33.
A few years ago, I would have been puzzled over how a 90 second early bus arrival could send so many parents into orbit but no longer. Just this morning as I was still in my bathrobe and we were one minute out from the bus arriving, I was barking at my Kindergartener to stick her head out into the bitter cold morning air to make sure she couldn’t see the bus.
Kind of like it’s no surprise that Christmas is December 25 every year, why does it surprise me that I need to have the kids properly dressed, lunches packed and out the door to the bus stop by 8:06am every day? It shouldn’t but it does, especially when my husband is on extended travel and I am flying solo for several consecutive weeks. Morning routines are especially difficult when you don’t have a partner to help with the flow, which really is an art form.
Partly to blame, in my view, is the propensity to daydream that afflicts elementary school aged children. Case in point: this morning, as I’m horrified to realize it’s 7:52am and both girls are still in their PJs, I asked the older one to get herself dressed while I blow dry my hair, wisely delegating duties and using our time efficiently, I think to myself. Naively, of course.
Somehow what she instead hears is “Slowly take a leisurely walk to the other room and glance around until something sparkly for your hair catches your eye or some useless watch set to the wrong time, beckons you, and try to affix that watch to your wrist. Don’t worry about getting dressed. It really isn’t important.”
I know. I should love the day dreaming, life soaking, happy-go-lucky view of a Kindergartener. I really should.
But sometimes I don’t. Sometimes it is like nails on a chalkboard.
Like in the morning when I know there is yet another substitute bus driver who could pull up 16 seconds early and therefore wreak havoc on all of us as we come peeling out our doors and bolting down the street, barking at our kids to move faster.
One friend says she holds the gummy vitamins hostage each morning until her daughter gets herself dressed. I can see that might motivate my oldest one. And I’m sure barking orders at small children and holding vitamins hostage until they fulfill their assigned duties is what the experts would laude as amazing parenting.
But 2012 is the year of I am Awesome, right? And well, I’m not sure that always being late makes me awesome, but it certainly makes life intense. In the meantime, how to get the children to focus in the morning….and to get the new bus drivers to appreciate that every second really does count. We live by the scheduled arrival time of that creaky old yellow bus.
Frankly, I’d prefer for it to be late. Or maybe I should start using a whistle and rule by intimidation?
The Jerry Maguire scene has been on repeat in my head all week: HELP ME HELP YOU.
HELP ME HELP YOU
Is what I’ve wanted to scream at my 3-year-old innumerable times. Sure, have a raging fever and spit out the Tylenol. That really hurts me. Well, actually it does hurt me. Maybe more than it hurts her, depending on what horrible time of the night it is. But why do sick kids make it so damn difficult to help relieve their misery with pain reliever? Seriously.
Why am I asking why.
Why not, right? If they make even the most mundane task, difficult, why not make something designed to help them feel better, difficult.
After a week of having a sick 3-year-old, I have since devised and modified some strategies for my youngest that previously worked on my older child when she was younger and sick. I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you that I wondered a few times if some covert CIA prisoner training would help me learn how to trick my sick prisoner into taking her medicine and keeping it down. I’m not above questionable methods when operating on little sleep and even less patience. At one point I considered feigning a toddler dental emergency so I could get her mouth propped open and dose her up that way. Seems harmless enough, doesn’t it?
I even conducted a 15 minute intense brainstorming session with my mother on how best to dose her up during the inevitable multiple-times night wakings, crying, with fever peaking and yet still refusing the medicine. The logic behind protesting medication is something I’d pay big money for in that toddler-tell-all that I’m sure will be a best-seller if one of these damn kids would just give it up!
So today, because it is kid-sick-season, I offer you my best-of approaches and I’d love to hear what schemes and trickery work for you because we all know these tricks have an expiration date and the savvy toddler will wait until the next illness at 3am to let you know this trick ain’t working any more.
The Syringe Sneak Attack: The Element of Surprise
This particular technique works only on the youngest of the toddler set, in my experience, and requires cat-like reflexes on the part of the drug administrator and the distraction only a solid episode of the Backyardigans or Dora can provide. The drug administrator must first do some warm up stretches, loosen up the arms, the fingers, maybe a few jumping jacks. Then evaluate the seating position of the toddler. Can he see you from his peripheral vision? Then abort the mission. Can you approach him on the right angle that works best with your hand-eye coordination? For instance, a sneak attack attempt with the loaded syringe into the left side of my toddler’s mouth results in a #parentingfail. I have to get it into her right side. Evaluate their seating position and vision limitations. Are they preoccupied enough? Is it the trifecta of dosage opportunities? If so, you must approach quickly, eject the medication at warp speed accurately into the back corner of their mouth and then move quickly away from said subject. Then enjoy the rush that comes with defeating your competitor in this match. The victories are small but meaningful to a tired parent. If the element of surprise is foiled by an older sibling who rats out your approach or a show ending, forget it, the Tylenol will immediately be spit back out (hence why you move quickly away but not out of eye sight). If the toddler is closer to 3 than 2, in my experience, they are too savvy for this technique.
My neighbor tipped me off to this technique this week. I’ve mistakenly been attempting to dose up my kid quickly and just get it over with, despite how frequently she spits it right back out. Turns out, it can take 15-20 minutes to drink one tsp of Tylenol but if it gets it into her system, then I am prepared to pack my patience. The lynchpin to the success of this technique is bribery – what do you have that the toddler wants ENOUGH that they will participate in said game? In my house, as I’m sure in yours, it’s candy. Oddly, it must have something to do with the shiny lid to the breath mints, but the Icebreakers pulled up from the rear as what I would consider the LEAST appealing “candy” into the biggest motivator this week, along with marshmellows or life saver gummies. Typically we would rotate through all three, take a sip, get a piece, take a bigger sip, get another piece, and so on. This technique, while painfully long, tends to result in the least amount of drama chez moi. Another small victory but this time for both parties – kid gets candy and medicine, parent gets medicated kid.
Life savers, Icebreakers, Marshmellows & Medicine....all part of the fun
The O’Dark Thirty Slurpee: The Petri Dish of Deceit
Finally, the piece de resistance, the most brilliantly executed scam to get her to take the medicine came from my prolonged brainstorming conference call with my mom. How to best get a sick, fever-ridden 3-year-old to take another dose of medicine at 2am when mommy’s reflexes are definitely not cat-like and no one has the patience for a prolonged candy negotiation yet it is critical that they digest another dosage so everyone can go back to sleep? This requires some advance work, some strategy and organizing all the tools to execute it properly. We discussed several options when finally my mom suggested the old faithful: Popsicle. Who ever says no to a popsicle? Even at 2am? So what did I do? Carefully considering the importance of her taking the entire dose and not diluting it too much with some kind of liquid, we agreed that I should cut a tip-off a popsicle, mash it up so it has the consistency of a slurpee, then put it back in the freezer. Then in the middle of the night, when she’s crying in my room, retrieve the petri dish of deceit from the freezer, quickly squirt the appropriate amount of Tylenol into the slurpee (clearly your tools and medicine is lined up ready for you), then innocently offer her a cool refreshing slurpee sip, which in the dark and their sleepy toddler haze, seems perfectly reasonable and quite lovely. It’s a win-win. This approach worked brilliantly for me, much to my great relief. I even lined it up ready for the next night but she fortunately didn’t need it.
Please tell me I am not alone in this agony. What techniques work for you?
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Recently, I stumbled on a pretty hilarious post on Babble - they created the top 10 list of online parenting brags that basically incite rage in all of us. I felt like they hit on some of the most egregious offenses but not all of them. Am I alone – have you ever logged onto Facebook and seen what someone has posted about their kid or parenting and found yourself about ready to hurl electronics or dishes, at the wall?
Maybe I have issues. But sometimes, get me when I am cranky and sleep deprived enough, say just the wrong thing – and forget it – all bets are off. I don’t think the offenders are just on Facebook, I’ve seen it also on mom forums or listservs. So, here are WM’s very own list of parenting brags that I think Babble totally missed:
yeah..just like my house...i always have to wake my kids...
1. Why can’t my kids ever sleep until 8AM?
Ummm..really….THAT is what you are complaining about? Cause I’ve been trying to get my 3-year-old to sleep past 4:30am since September 1. When parents complain about how long their kid sleeps…hopefully they realize that if their kid gets to 6am, then that is a miracle and there’s nothing to complain about. EVER. Right? Am I alone here?
2. I can’t believe it, she just totally potty trained herself!
Uh huh.
3. I lost weight in the first half of my pregnancy.
Vomit.
4. I’m giving away all my maternity clothes, they’re all extra-small.
Vomit again.
5. I just couldn’t keep the weight on when I was nursing him. It was so hard.
Really? It was so hard to be super skinny weeks after giving birth? #firstworldobnoxiousproblem
6. I couldn’t believe Frannie wouldn’t eat the salmon I made for dinner! I was so surprised!
Yep..all smiles at my dinner table as they eagerly eat whatever I make
Why don’t you come over. Some days my children look at me like a plate of pasta is a dish of boiled brains I’ve just whipped up.
7. I’d like to think my attentive parenting is the reason Annie never throws a tantrum.
Sure. Of course it is.
8. Little Sarah is just so advanced. Of course, we read to her every night, play puzzles and never let her watch TV.
Right. Good for you. I use the TV as a co-parent when my husband travels.
What did I miss friends? I mean – parents complaining about children waking “too early” really tops my list. On Thursday, I will be giving thanks if my kids let me sleep past 5:30AM and will eat a few things on the Thanksgiving table without complaining about it. You?
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