Meltdown of the Month

Sundays are hard, as I get an opportunity to glance into the lives of single parents. Ryan leaves very early and is unavailable to help with Clark for any sizeable amount of time until well into the afternoon. This past Sunday was especially hard, as we had to say goodbye to our beloved pastor who has been appointed to another church. 

As I started getting ready that morning, Clark woke up, too. It makes my morning much easier when I can get ready before he is awake, but giving him Benadryl so that I can have perfectly straightened hair is frowned upon, so I put my stuff on hold and got him up and fed. He is in a weird size range, where most of the clothes that fit him are between 6 and 9 months smaller than he should be wearing. He’s a little peanut. However, there are occasional items in those same size ranges that are too small. The only way to know is to try. So I pulled out a cute new outfit to put him in, undid the 84 buttons on it, and slipped it over his head. The problems didn’t start until I had one arm through, and the other one was stuck halfway in and halfway out, making him look like a baby bird with a pathetic broken wing. A few minutes were spent wrangling himout of the too small getup, and a few more were spent convincing him to let me dress him once more, as our church is not one of judgement, but clothes are required there.

After he was settled and I had a few minutes to finish readying myself, I let him play and stood in the doorway of the bathroom where I could still see him as I finished my hair. In the time that it took me to put my straightener away, grab his empty cup from his hands, refill it and return, the remote control was nowhere to be found. TV is one of my absolute favorite pastimes. Between work, personal commitments, and watching Cardinals baseball, Thursday evenings and Sunday mornings are my only 2 opportunities in a week to watch what I want, so I take those times very seriously. I asked Clark where he put the remote, and after a few halfhearted looks in the obvious places, my sweet boy looked me in the eye and held his hands up to his shoulders in a shrug signaling to me that he didn’t know. Little liar!

What wasn’t typical was that there was an ice cream social shortly after church to honor him and his family, that my family wanted to attend. Tempting fate, we rolled the dice and took Clark to a restaurant after a long morning, and right in the middle of his normally scheduled nap (he may look like Ryan, but his personality is an overwhelming 95% just like mine, and we take our sleep veryseriously!). Aside from him violently thrashing his cup onto the floor, where the lid promptly flew off and spilled everywhere, it actually wasn’t too bad of a dining experience.

Being the thrill seekers we are, we decided to just take him straight to the ice cream social, sugar him up, and immediately head home for a nap. He handled the social well, other than a few very shrill screams when we told him it was time to say goodbye to our small group friends. Ryan and I knew it was time to stop pressing our luck and to get him home for a nap. He helped us to our car, and off I drove with the baby, diaper bag, leftovers, and my personal belongings. Knowing that Ryan was a few minutes behind us, I wanted to get Bub home and settled in bed so that I could rest and wait for Ryan to return.

I get home, park the car in the street so Ryan could have the driveway (I’m super nice!), get my phone out and place it on the roof of the car along with the leftovers, put the diaper bag (which only has one good strap left…we need to ask Grandma to fix it for us!) on, unstrap Clark, and get him out of the car. Holding his hand in my left hand along with the car keys, I shut the door with my right hand and grabbed the leftovers and my phone in my right hand, and set off on our adventure to the front door. 

Walking along, I noticed that the wind was really starting to pick up and cursed myself for not wearing leggings with my dress (a lady I work with calls me Amish, so I was using Sunday to practice my nerve for maybe not wearing leggings to work one day). Everything was going fine until we made the turn from the driveway to the sidewalk. My sleep deprived toddler had thought we were walking to the backyard to play, and was displeased to learn that we were actually going inside. He expressed his disappointment in his favorite way – to immediately drop to the ground and have a little sit-in protest. After 10 seconds, I asked him to grab my hand and get up. He complied. Until I took another step.

We make it a rule at our house not to negotiate with terrorists, so I calmly explained that we were going inside and that I wanted him to walk with me. At sit-in protest #2, he thought that I wasn’t getting his point and tried to heave himself backwards onto the concrete. With one hand holding leftovers and my phone with my arm tucked tightly to the side of my billowing dress, I was able to hold him up enough that he experienced a slow, soft landing on the concrete. Convinced that this was the last time he would ever get to be outside again for his whole life, I guess he really wanted to fight for every last second, so he began a full body roll down the slanted driveway. Being a good parent, I didn’t want him to roll into the street, so I threw my phone into the grass, dropped the leftovers on the concrete, and used my feet to interfere with his rolling demonstration.

I am not sure how every kid in the world knows two universal truths: the floor is lava, and that making yourself limp while your parent tries to pick you up makes it 100 times more difficult, as your little body turns into a screaming 30 pound bag of sand, but they come out of the womb knowing that stuff! As I was trying to delicately squat and simultaneously pull the limp bag of sand formerly known as my child up off the driveway, a big gust of wind flew up my dress and blew it over my head. By this point, my give a damn was completely out of order, so I stood up, bent over at the waist, mooned my entire neighborhood, and tossed my screaming child over my shoulder.

It was at the door when I realized that my keys were somewhere in the front yard, and I had a serious internal debate about sitting on the front steps and crying until Ryan got home, or going on a scavenger hunt for my keys. My independence won out and I took Clark, still hanging over my shoulder, retrieved the keys, opened the door, promptly put him in bed and made another trip outside to grab my leftovers, phone, and what was left of my pride. 

Lessons learned:

1.   Naps > Ice Cream

2.   Hide the remote up high

3.   Wear leggings

Swimsuit Saga

With summer fast approaching, I have been planning ways to take Clark to the pool, splash pads, and any other place that has water fun for him. While browsing adorable little swim trunks for him, it occurred to me that this means that I, too, will probably need a swimsuit. And just like that, the wind was gone from my summer fun planning sails. Goodbye, coolest mom ever and hello, mom who wears a parka to the pool for fear of showing one square inch of flab.

As I Googled ‘Duggar swim suits’ knowing that those would be the only kind of suit that could hide my imperfections, I realized that they don’t actually cover their ankles. Which is unfortunate, because I have recently developed permanent cankles due to an immune disease that makes my lower limbs look (and feel) like tree trunks. Or it may have something to do with karma and the fact that I dubbed a boss I hated ‘Cankles’, but that’s probably not it, right? RIGHT?!

For me, the insecurity has little to nothing to do with the number on the scale. I am the thinnest that I have everbeen, and I have  less confidence than I did at 70 pounds heavier. It doesn’t really help that my 17 month old’s absolute favorite game is to follow me to the bedroom or bathroom where I undress, and then laugh, run over to me, and squeal with delight as he touches my stretchmarks. What they say is true…kids are BRUTAL. While fighting back tears, I made a conscious choice to smile and say ‘Do you like Momma’s tiger stripes? They’re pretty cool, aren’t they?!’ Luckily, he’s 1 and easily entertained (and he also doesn’t know that I had those marks before I was pregnant with him), so that elicited even bigger giggles. I chose to suck it up, quit sucking it in, and speak about my imperfections positively because little boys, just like little girls, develop their thoughts about their bodies by listening to how their parents speak of themselves.

Our children will have plenty of time and opportunities to critique their bodies – I (and you) really have no right to speed up that process for them. With the help of photoshop and unrealistic standards to live up to, they will someday wish that something, if not many things, was different about how they look. There are a few facts of life that I stand behind – 1. Puberty. junior high, and swimsuits are kind to NO ONE. 2. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY thinks they have the perfect body, and 3. Life is too short to miss out on a fun pool day with my son because I am worried about how big my thighs are. What does it really matter if I show up to the pool with some cellulite seeing the light of day? My 1 year old doesn’t care, and I have decided that I don’t, either. 

Besides, look how cute he is, and how much he loves water:

Morning Madness

I am blessed beyond measure that I have a husband and Clark has a dad who believes in the fact that dads are parents, not babysitters. It is one of the many reasons that I married him – I knew he would be a good, hands-on parent. His involvement has even reached a point where I am pretty spoiled by it.

On a vast majority of mornings, I have zero to do with getting our son up, dressed, fed, and delivered to daycare because Ryan handles mornings. This week for various work reasons, I have pitched in and taken over some of the morning duties. And it has given me even more of an appreciation for my husband.

Here’s how yesterday morning went:

We had to wake Clark up so that I could get to work mostly on time. As is sometimes the case, his overnight diaper couldn’t hold up for the 12 - 14 hours that our son sleeps each night, and he was covered in urine. Having underestimated the lead time I would need to make everything happen, I didn’t have time for a full bath. Luckily, our 20th percentile 16 month old still fits pretty comfortably in one side of the sink. Being that he loves baths, I thought it would be a pretty painless wash. I was wrong. He screamed bloody murder both getting in and getting out.

Cleaned, dressed, and fed, I loaded him up in the car and headed to daycare. After an uneventful hand off where he blew me kisses and signaled me to get on with my day and let him get to playing. Passing 3 or 4 other parents on the steps, most of us noticed the large truck that sped past the intersection, throwing something out of the cab. By the time most of us registered what had happened, there was a loud explosion, a few flames, some smoke, and shrapnel flying out of the object. I am assuming that it was a giant firework, but I have also been calling it a bomb. It sounded very bomb-y.

After a few screams and assessing that nobody was harmed, I made my way to my car and looked for my phone to text Ryan and tell him about all of the excitement. That’s when I realized that my phone hadn’t made it into the car from home. So I drove back and caught Ryan before he left for work. I told him my crazy story and asked him to call my phone.

We heard buzzing right away, but couldn’t locate it in time before the call went to voicemail. Two more calls and some searching later, we realized that it had fallen down into the recliner. This happens a lot, so we are accustomed to flipping the chair over, lifting the Velcro flap at the bottom, and the lost item typically tumbles to the floor. Only it wasn’t that simple this time.

Another call or two later, the cold, hard truth hit us. My phone was in the chair. Like, inside the FABRIC of the chair. There was a tiny hole in the fabric that my phone found, and was now resting in the very bottom corner of the inner workings of the chair. Armed with a kitchen knife to make the hole big enough to fit an entire arm of an adult through, Ryan helped to save my phone from the abyss.

All that being said, and a quick stop to load up on caffeine that was desperately needed, I was only 15 minutes late to work. I am calling that a win after a sink bath, roadside bomb, and a morning rescue mission. 2 more days of morning duty, and then I am going to kiss my husband, tell him how much I appreciate him, and leave the house at 5am so I never have to do drop off again!

Birthday Letter

For Clark’s first birthday, we asked people to write him a letter that we will give him on his 18^th birthday. We have those letters together in a safe place for him, but the planner in me would like to have my letter saved in the digital world in case anything ever happens to the handwritten one. So, after much deliberation on how much I wanted the world to be a part of my personal letter to him, I have shared it below.

Dear Clark,

You, Clark Scott Sloan, have been the joy of my life. I know deep in my soul that I was put on this earth to love you. You are such a joy and a blessing to our family. Happy, funny, sweet, always smiling – you have truly been the easiest kid to love. 

Your giggle is infectious, and watching you learn and grow up to this point has been the highlight of my life. Your smile truly lights up a room, and that toothy little grin has melted many hearts. I love watching your chubby little fingers communicate in sign language, and even more so when I get to hear your small, sweet voice. ‘Momma’ has been one of my favorite names to be called. You are very smart, kind hearted, and a little ornery. I hope that you never lose those qualities.

I am not sure what the past 17 years have held for our lives, but one thing I know for sure is that my love for you will never fade. Among my biggest hopes for your life are that you will be kind, you will know Jesus, and that you will be happy. As a little boy, you have loved everyone you have encountered – that’s something that seems to be very difficult for many adults, so I hope that you will remember to look for the good in everyone. Whenever you have the chance to brighten someone’s day, take it. It might be a little creepy to still be blowing kisses to old ladies you see in the store when you are 18 like you do at age 1, but keep that sentiment ;).

Each day, I make it a point to cover you in kisses. I know that you will grow tired of this someday, but it is important to me that you know how much you mean to me. You made me a mom. You taught me what it truly means to put someone else first. You showed me what truly unconditional love looks like. Thank you for all of those things.

I hope that I will be next to you on your 18^th birthday as you open these letters and read them, but the truth is, I may not be. If that’s the case, I’m deeply sorry. It will be the biggest regret of my life. Every kid deserves to have their mom. If I am not there as you dig through these letters, know that I really wanted to be, and that my love and admiration for you never wavered. If I am there with you, just let me move into your dorm with you for a little while – it will make this transition much easier on me.

Regardless of who is or isn’t there with you, I hope that you see how loved you are, and how much value your life has, and has given to so many others. It is my prayer that this life will be kind to you, that you will find true happiness – whatever that looks like for you, and that you will never question how loved you are. 

Life will not always be easy, but very few things are permanent. Learn from your mistakes, and do better the next time. Tell the truth. Know that there are many things more important than being right. Take chances. Don’t let hate or fear win…ever. Help others every chance you can. Volunteer. Go to church. Donate to charity. Rest. In addition to these things, find the good in every day, work hard, remember your manners, be kind, laugh more than you cry, and call your mom.

I love you,

Mom

 

 

 

  

 

 

Wormy Wednesday

Full disclosure: This has nothing to do with my baby, but if you’re good and pay attention to my story, I will reward you with some pictures.

My Wednesday started out like any other.  My dear, sweet, kind, smart, caring husband who I love ONLY parks at the bottom of the driveway, so no other cars (e.g. mine) can also use said driveway. I am working on being more go-with-the flow, so I happily parked by the sidewalk in front of the house.

Spring in Iowa means that it will rain for 17 days straight and create mud EVERYWHERE. So I trudged through the mud and made it to my car only to realize that I had parked directly under our tree, and there were saplings and sap engulfing my vehicle. Determined to keep my good attitude, I decided to run it through the car wash at my local gas station.

I get to the gas station, pay for the car wash, enter the car wash, run over the curb while leaving the car wash, and park up front so I can go get some caffeine and a snack. Find said things, pay, return to my car, and drive to my office.

Once at my desk, I start my day by answering emails, returning calls, and working on any unfinished projects. 40 minutes into my day, I realize that my left ankle is slightly uncomfortable, scoot back from my desk, and notice I have something cold, wet, and stringy on my ankle reaching all the way up to roughly mid-calf. Approximately 5 seconds into picking it off my leg and examining it, I realize that it looks a lot like a worm. Like, a LOT like a worm. A dead, cold, slimy, cut in half worm and worm guts were on my leg for at least an hour!

So with my own real-life horror story told, here is the story once again, as told through the many faces of Clark:

How I felt when I realized there was a worm on my leg:

How I felt while touching the worm & worm guts:

How I felt after removing a worm from my leg and realizing that I am a SURVIVOR:

Clark is...a lot older than he was in my last post!

Man. Work-life balance is a little trickier than I expected. I am learning that being a mom means being perpetually guilt-ridden. I feel guilty that I work,  I feel guilty when I have to miss work because he is sick, I feel guilty that I am exhausted when I get home during the week, I feel guilty that I haven’t posted a blog update in six months, and I feel guilty for feeling guilty.

I am juggling a full-time job, a marriage, keeping a dog alive, and trying to be enough of a super mom that my 1 year old knows that I am in fact his mom, and not his daycare provider. That crap is hard. Like, really hard. I went back to work 11 days after he was born. I was judged as a poor employee because I took so ‘long’ to return, and I was judged by people outside of work for returning too quickly. How, exactly, is a mom supposed to win here?

Aside from my society’s-pressure-to-be-perfect rant, in the last six months, you have also missed my adorable, genius of a baby’s crazy fast developments. We now have a full-on walking, talking toddler. He had a super fun birthday party where he ate Olive Garden, stuck his hand in his beautiful cake during a photo op, and opened presents that we asked people not to bring. Aunt Tammy won the trivia game that was all about Clark, and she gave me the Starbucks gift card that was her prize (this was my plan the whole time, and it came together beautifully!).

He went on his first plane ride to Las Vegas, and did remarkably well. Mom and dad learned that literally the ONLY place on earth where we don't get stopped and told how adorable our small child is, turns out to be the airport. People give you the stink eye and say a prayer that you are on any other flight but theirs.

He now spends his days walking around the house, stealing our phones, saying all sorts of words, and signing others. Among his favorite words to vocalize are: dog, momma, dadda, and ‘uck’ (his version of ‘yuck’…I thank baby Jesus every time he says it without an ‘F’ at the start). His favorite words to sign are: ‘eat’, ‘more’, ‘milk’, and ‘all done’…what more do you really need to say in life?

His favorite foods are pasta (definitely gets that from momma and her hips!), cantaloupe, and greek yogurt, and he hates avocado and spaghetti. You can tell when he dislikes a food, because he seals his mouth shut and vigorously shakes his head ‘no’ until you drop said food from the fork. Not a bad system if you’re him.

His favorite pastimes include dancing, shaking the lamp in the living room, and sleeping. That child will say ‘night night’ around 7:30pm, we put him in his bed, he puts himself to sleep, and slumbers for upwards of 12 hours. Every. Single. Night. Please refrain from throwing things at me in your sleep-deprived, zombie-like state. I know…we’re very lucky!

So with the basics covered, and yet another convincing promise to do a better job of posting more regularly, I leave you with what we all know you came here for…pictures!

The Great Poop Mystery of 2016

Parenting is tough. There's late nights, there's doctor appointments, and there's mass quantities of poop. Having kept our son alive and well for 6+ months, we feel that we have had our fair share of all of the above and have paid some parenting dues. But as we were taught last night, poop karma had other plans...

 

I had just picked Clark up from daycare and opened the front door after a long, hard day. I was greeted by the distinct aroma of a dirty diaper. It had been a hectic morning when we were trying to get everyone out the door, so I assumed in our haste, we had forgotten to throw away the first diaper of the day. After I set Bubba down and carefully scanned the living room for the culprit diaper, I realized that must be the case, as there was no diaper in sight.

 

My next best guess from my tenure as a parent was that our dog had had an accident. She has an incredibly delicate digestive system, and we were unable to get her to go to the bathroom before we left for work that day; usually a sure sign that we will be spending our evening shampooing and disinfecting a room of our house. I hadn't taken her out since I'd been home, so I was growing confident that Mia was the trouble maker. I scoured each room of the house, stopping to sniff every few moments, but I couldn't find anything.

 

Exhausted from the long work day, I settled into some pajamas and started to play with Clark. Every few minutes, I would get another distinct whiff of the foul smell. Clark has christened every article of clothing that we own with baby vomit, and on occasion, other bodily fluids, so it wasn't out of the realm of possibility that I was wearing remnants of a recent diaper change. Too tired to look any further, I lit a candle, changed pajama shirts, and relaxed.

 

Ryan came home not long after, and the moment he opened the door, he sniffed and made the same awful face I had an hour earlier. I exclaimed, 'I know! It smells like poop, but I can't find a stray diaper or wipe or even a gift from Mia!' Also exhausted, Ryan did a preliminary lap of all the places any of the above would usually be found, Febreezed the living room, and settled into the couch.

 

I handed the baby off and went to make myself a snack. Upon sitting down in the chair I had been in all evening, I looked at Ryan and nearly yelled, 'I just smelled poop again!' Feeling confident that a diaper had fallen down the back of the recliner, I leapt up, flipped the chair over, and starting taking in long, deep breaths. Hey - I smell a small person's butt several times a day, so smelling a chair didn't feel like I was stooping any lower than usual.

 

'I can't find it, but I swear there is a dirty diaper in this chair, Ryan!' The figurative lightbulb went off above both of our heads as we remembered that we had changed a dirty diaper in that very chair earlier that morning. Ever willing to help, Ryan handed Clark back to me and started digging in the chair himself.

 

A few seconds and a series of grunts that increased with intensity and disgust at each breath, my husband pulled his hand from in between the side and the cushion of the chair, and stood in the middle of our living room stoically. Mia jumped to her feet and had a sudden interest in Ryan's hand, while he stood there frozen like a statue, and the cold hard reality hit me. There was poop on his hand. Which meant there was poop in the chair. Loose, uncontained, God only knows how much poop. In the chair. Not on the chair, but IN the chair. Wedged. Smashed. Rotting even more than the original state of poop, which is awful in and of itself.

 

After Ryan unfroze and frantically washed his hands, my dear husband came back to the living room armed with baby wipes and plastic bags and heroically cleaned baby poop out from the inside of the chair I had been sitting in for hours. We deduced that a stray piece of poop had rolled out of the diaper and lodged itself between the arm and the cushion.

 

Tonight, I am thankful for a baby who is cute enough to help me forget this trauma, for a husband who isn't afraid to (literally) get his hands dirty so I don't have to, and for leather chairs. Seriously, thank you Jesus for leather chairs!