Anyway, one reason I really enjoy my blog is because I'm using it to get better at this. It feels like progress to me even writing this stuff down. Maybe someday I'll *GASP* say some shit like this OUT LOUD (don't hold your breath, friends and family).
Yesterday after I published that post, I felt intensely uncomfortable and...SQUIRRELLY for the rest of the day. It was simplisitic! It came out wrong! I can't ever say stuff the way I want to! I wanted to delete it. I wanted to edit it to put in a joke at the end. GAH! Do I have raging issues, or WHAT?
Anyway, thanks for playing along, and Letting It Be (weird and awk) and all that.
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Hellbeast Update!
*They are doing an egg hunt today at AD's daycare, and although that sounds cute and awesome and festive and all, I can't help but wonder how the hell you DO that with a group of toddlers. I mean, don't they all just run around screaming "MINE! MIIIIINE!" and losing their tiny little minds? Do you have to send them out one at a time, and have them tag each other in and out, or WHAT?
*Getting AD changed and dressed these days is making me want to DIE. I have to PIN HER DOWN to change her diaper, and I can barely do it. She screams and twists around and tries to run off. It reminds me of the passage in Operating Instructions where Anne Lamott says of her son, "he acts like I'm trying to BRAND him".
*AD loves wearing dresses and for some reason this shocks me. She is just SO BUCKY about stuff lately, that I guess I assumed she would not be down with anything advocated by The Man. The reason I started dressing her in them to begin with was because they minimize the Epic Dressing Battle, since all I have to do is get ONE thing over her head, done and DONE. But her daycare teachers have actually reported an improvement in MOOD when she wears them. Uh, okay. Weird and fussy, but okay (the Motto of The Toddler!)
34 comments:
I'm not surprised about the dresses. Kids like fancy stuff. The girls in O's daycare will actually occassionally exclude the girls NOT in dresses if most of them are wearing one. That and they all are in LOOOOOOOVE with Jasmine. Lord Almighty . . .
I love your comment about thinking deep thoughts and later saying something pithy to shake it off. I do that ALL THE TIME. Jason always tells me, "Stop acting like a man!"
It's so cute that AD's into dresses. Is she into princesses and stuff too or is she exhibiting tomboy characteristics?
My girls always like dresses too. I think they get more attention - lots of people telling them how pretty they are.
Maggie did that with the dressing. This is what works for me: when she starts protesting, don't fight it... plop her in the crib and walk out of the room for a few seconds. She'll scream her head off, then you can say "are you ready to cooperate now?" If she indicates yes, take her out and try again. You may have to repeat this little dance several times, but eventually she'll get it that you're not going to put up with her shit. Now when Maggie starts to squirm, all I have to say is "do you need to go in the crib?" and she settles right down.
You're actually thinking about talking about your FEELINGS?!?!?
And you call yourself an emotional cripple. COME ON!
My daughter was a holy terror on the changing table too. You will forget once she's potty trained. :-)
The toddler easter egg hunt is a freeforall of a ton of eggs and them running amok. There is usually crying and some of them stealing eggs from each others baskets.
Been there, witnessed that, stifled laughter.
P&D-She actually is pretty girly, so far. I forgot another story I was going to tell, about how my mom got her a dump truck to play with, and she put it to "nigh-nights" along side her baby doll. Nice try ma, but...no.
Lori-My problem is that I get squirrelly when time is running out to leave for work in the mornings! So that's when I take it to Brute Force, which...BAH. Makes me feel like shit.
Ugh to dressing toddlers! I totally hear ya. We had to go back to 10 minutes of the tube to get him dressed because it was becoming hellish.
Also, yeah I wonder about day care and how they manage to do anything with 300 million (okay 10) toddlers. Matthew's old day care would do tea time like with real tea, hot water and milk. I do not even do that with JUST Matthew?!?!?
Perhaps she doesn't realize yet that dresses are advocated by The Man? And soon she will and that will be the end of that? Just a thought.
Also, I'm glad you left the Let It Be post up, even if you were tempted to take it down.
I loved the Let It Be post! However, I also randomly take things down out of nervousness and feeling "unzipped." Argh.
Day care is an experiment in anarchy. However, it's also a whole hell of a lot of fun (and exhaustion). I was never in better shape than when I worked in the 1 year old room at a day care. Rock hard biceps.
I am not so good with the sharing of feelings either. I think the one or two times I have written something feeling-y on my blog, it has freaked my husband out because he doesn't expect it or know what to do with it.
We have completely moved on to changing diapers while Mimi stands up. And the only way we are allowed to wipe her anymore is by giving her one to do some wiping herself. Otherwise, the whole thing is a disaster.
I'm the complete opposite of Emotionally Crippled. I'm like some kind of Emotional Olympian or something. Being on this end of the spectrum is waaay worse, trust me.
Look, girl. Don't feel bad. I have to pin Jelly Bean, too. In fact! With both of my kids! It occasionally takes TWO people to get the diaper changed or the clothes on. So, if you are doing it all by yourself, I think you deserve a cookie. Don't feel bad about it. It happens everyday in homes across America by parents who deeply love their children. :)
PS I love how you call her the Hellbeast. Really.
omfg, my sister would throw such fits if you tried to put dresses on her. we have this classic school photo of her when she was about 4 where she'd clearly been wailing in misery 30 seconds before the picture, and then "cooperated" long enough to scowl forlornly at the camera, with sad little red rimmed eyes..
I've felt the same way about my blog recently. I'm also not so good with the emotions (as sappy as we seem, nor is Aaron).
Anyway, my mood also significantly improves when I wear dresses, so I think me and AD would totally be like BFFs!
Huh, I thought "weird and fussy, but okay" was the Motto of BR.
Hello again Tessie-
My little one (22 months old) hates dresses and anything girly. I'm really not into that stuff either so it doesn't bother me much. We will, on occassion, (like this weekend) put her into something frilly. She will be starting daycare soon so I will have to watch out for that DRESS DISCRIMINATION. LOL kids are crazy. I just wonder if your litte one is like mine. Would rather play with dirt, mulch and rocks more than ANYTHING else. We hear it's a phase (sigh).
Actually, you will miss the diaper changes, however difficult, when you have been standing in a public restroom stall for ten minutes waiting on a four year old to poo. I've never wanted to kill myself more.
Just for the record, I thought your Let It Be post was not only awesome but inspiring as well. I am certainly glad it was still here for me to see today.
When I was a child, back in the dark ages, I was NOT allowed to wear anything but dresses which I hated. My first pair of jeans was at age 15! Now, I can't STAND to see little girls in pants and if I had a daughter she would have never worn pants either!
Delurking and first comment:
Another good motto for marriage (and life) is "accept the good". I liked the "Let it Be" post. Bloggers are human too.
I love your blog and discovered it through Plain Jane.
The best easter egg hunt I attended with toddlers/small children kept the free for all to a minimum by getting the kids to only pick up an assigned color rather than just grabbing all they could. You might have 20 kids looking for pink, 20 looking for green and so on. Much saner than the mad dash.
See, I'd like to move on from my emotions faster. I'm more of a muller and over-discusser and over-internal-dialogue-er. Surely there must be balance somewhere.
You know what? I feel more cheerful in dresses and skirts, too. They feel very free, normally, and sort of fun or powerful or romantic, depending on the skirt. I love wearing them. Pants can be so restrictive.
Clothing is so restrictive!
I can't wait until the future, when we will all wear solid-color comfortable jumpers, with big pointy collars. That is going to be awesome.
The way I get through egg hunts with toddlers is to put out an inhuman amount of eggs- way more than the amount of kids warrants. I'm doing one this afternoon with 5 kids and over 100 eggs.
And it will likely be a free-for-all, although one year I had them all run outside with their baskets and look at me like I was effing crazy for making This Ginormous Mess in the yard and expecting THEM to clean it up when they didn't do anything to deserve such horrible treatment. I picked up 50 eggs myself after they left. :) So, weird and fussy? YES.
I think people underestimate how difficult it is to get a toddler to physically comply with something they have no interest in. I remember the diaper battles well!
Maybe if you put on a dress like AD then you wouldn't have to make a joke to punctuate a stated emotion?
Wait, no--that doesn't work. I'm wearing a skirt right now and am still racking my brain for something funny to say to end this comment. No such luck. I'm feeling blah. Let It Be and all that. Regardless, I love both posts, all your posts, in fact. No joke.
I bought my friend Summar that book for her birthday! her son just turned one.
Sophie is SOOOOOO picky right now about clothes - she will ONLY wear "comfy" pants. That means: NO jeans, NO snaps, zips or buttons, NO khakis - only elastic waist pants. Gah!
PS - the previous post is really sweet! And i don't know how you guys make it work either, but it seems like you actually LIKE each other, and like hanging out with each other, which is a lot more than I can say for many other married couples I know of (sad but true).
CA tells me quite a bit- "NO PANTS, TIGHTS!!" and she still wants to wear the pink boots she has outgrown. Oy, these girls.....how am I ever going to handle another one.
I liked your post yesterday.
Echoing My Buddy Mimi - the standing up diaper change trick works well for some reason.
And also, when CA turned to I put her in charge of getting herself dressed. I give her the clothes as soon as she gets up and she has to have them on before I'm out of the shower. We started practicing with PJ's when we had more time in the evening.
Of course, not wearing a diaper helps a lot. Before underwear, she managed a pull-up (only if it had Dora on it) just fine.
I can be dramatic and emotive at home with TM, but never, ever to my friends. If I'm feeling left our or vulnerable, that's my cue to pull in and ignore them for awhile because I like to pretend I'm still 16.
It has long been the joke in our family that my husband is more emotional and romantic and all of that stuff. It's ridiculous, he is always on the ball with Valentine's Day, birthdays, Christmas, I look like shit by comparison. I tell him I love him, but I'm better at showing it by doing things like the laundry and dishes - god what is this 1950? In my brain emotionally, yes, it is. I look like a woman, but emotionally I'm a man, baby!
I like ALL your posts and I find, too, that I can write things on my blog that I can't easily say to others.
WTF is up with that, though? How funny is it that countless STRANGERS are reading but for some reason it's just waaaay easier?
Maybe because they're strangers and for the most part, it's anonymous?
Ugh, don't even get me started on the hell it is to change a diaper around here. UGH.
Cute dress.
OMG. The diaper changing is a huge ORDEAL over here too. With Zoe, we use the Standing Up Tactic MBM mentioned, the Changing Dolly First Tactic and, when all else fails, the Feet/Knees/Elbows Pin Down Tactic. It's VERY tiresome.
For some insane reason, we're hosting an easter egg dyeing party this weekend with several toddlers, a few older kids and a bunch of adults. There has been some talk of using a glue gun to keep the cups of dye from being tipped over or -I'M LOOKING AT YOU ZOE- drunk.
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