A Ponytail Holder Meltdown

The best thing about being a stay-at-home mom is that you get to be with your kids all day long. The worst thing about being a stay-at-home mom is that you get to be with your kids all day long. I mean it. The entire day. 6:30am until 8pm. Oh sure, if you’re lucky you get an hour or two of naptime. But if you have more than one kid you have to coordinate naptimes. Which pretty much only happens on the vernal equinox with a full moon or when Billy Ray is feeling proud of Miley. That was mean Lord, forgive me. It’s always worse in winter because we have to stay in the house most of the day.  And if you do go anywhere, they’re with you then too pulling things off shelves, dumping goldfish on the ground and generally making you wish you had just stayed home. I hear myself being impatient with Abi and I hate the way I sound. I don’t sound like a good mom.

So Friday’s Ponytail Holder Meltdown was a long time coming. It’s crazy cold out. We’ve been in the house for weeks. Weeks. It didn’t help that we were all sick last week. Making everyone, including me, extra whiney. The girls just follow me around all day long. They want to be wherever I am. Usually demanding to be held or wanting more milk or a snack or to be read a book. When I’m cooking. When I’m trying to vacuum. When I’m trying to fold laundry. When I’m trying to use the bathroom.

The baby sloth forcefully wraps her arms and legs around her mother's legs preventing her
from getting anything done. Only when her mother picks her up will the baby sloth release her freakishly strong grip.

And then there’s Madelyn. That child. She is the most destructive and messiest creature God ever created. She has earned herself some new nicknames: Godzilla. The Tazmanian Devil. Tornado. Everything I clean up, she follows behind me and dumps out. I put clothes away in a drawer, she pulls them all out. I put dishes in the dishwasher, she takes them out and tries to throw them on the floor. I put the books back in the basket, she throws them around the room. I try to sweep up and she stands in the middle of the dirt pile trying to pick out the food crumbs to eat. I find hot glue gun sticks in her clothes drawers. I find toys in the pantry. I find my makeup under our bed.

And then of course there’s the package of ponytail holders. Tiny little multi-colored rubber bands. Hundreds of them. She loooooves to dump them out. And then throw them everywhere. And then roll around in them. They are all.over.our.house. Everytime she dumps them we spend 10 minutes crawling around on hands and knees picking up those tiny little devil ponytail holders. Then on Friday it happened. She had dumped them and I had picked them up THREE TIMES before noon. I’m on my hands and knees picking up those gosh darned things one-by-freaking-one and Madelyn is rolling around in them and Abi is trying to help pick them up but every time she tries to put them back in the package she accidently spills more than she put in and I started crying. Crying. Over ponytail holders. Why? Why to these kids have to be so constantly messy?? Why can’t I have five minutes to use the bathroom without someone trying to stick their head in the toilet or unraveling the toilet paper roll?? Why are there always dirty dishes no matter how often I run the dishwasher? Can I go one day without having my shirt smeared with snot or peanut butter or paint? Right there in a sea of ponytail holders I felt myself coming unglued – whoa, you’re losing it sister! This is redonk and you need to get a grip.

ponytail holder plague

We made it through the rest of the day. My knight returned home to the castle saving me from crazy town. He barely had his coat off when I announced, “I’ll be upstairs, don’t let anyone come up!” And pretty much took the stairs two at a time and spent 20 minutes sitting. By myself. Not doing anything. The next morning I told Adam I wanted to get out of the house for a little bit by myself and he said ‘of course’ because he’s fabulous that way. Also, I think he could tell I was about to lose it. Even though I didn’t dare tell him I cried about ponytail holders. I went to Gramz Bakery, got a cup of coffee and read while watching it snow. Ahhhhhh.

With my batteries recharged, I returned home loving my children again and knowing I have the best job in the whole entire world. Yes, my girls are messy and needy. But they are little and they won't be little for long.  



I mean, you'd have to be crazy to not want to spend the day with that face, right!?



Arctic Vortex, Part 2

We got 4 inches of snow. Again. School was cancelled. Again. Then we had a 2 hour delay. Again. The temp is below zero. Again. To make things even more fun Madi had a nasty cold, Abi had a nasty cold that turned into a double ear infection and I have the Sinus Infection That Will Not Die. Even with antibiotics. I can't even talk about the amount of snot that has consumed this house over the past 10 days. What is most baffling is how we even got sick. We've barely been out of the house in weeks!

And now, our decreasingly enthusiastic attempts to fight cabin fever...



There's not much worse than a sick kid. Even though Abi gave up naps (yes, I know.
feel sorry for me.) about a month ago, she just couldn't help it. Poor baby.





Apparently Madi hates being stuck in the house. She went to the closet all by herself
and put on her boots and hat and kept trying to open the front door. She's a hoot.

 

Somebody's feeling better. I'm pretty in love with this picture. It totally sums her up. 



One night this week after dinner Adam and the girls were feeling really antsy. I was still sick.
We don't have tv anymore and we're kind of running out of entertaining things to do that we
we can all enjoy. So we made indoor 'smores. That's one of our favorite things to do when it's warm out.
It was actually really fun. Just don't look at my dirty oven. Eww.



The Girl Who Never Ate Anything

According to “A Christmas Story,” every family has a kid who won’t eat. In our family, that’s Abigail Grace. The hours of my life I have spent trying to get that child to eat. I did everything right. When I was pregnant I read all the articles and books. (That was back when I was an idiot) I ate a variety of foods so that even in the womb she would learn to like a variety of flavors and foods as these articles and books assured me it would. When she was a baby I made all her food. Again exposing her to a variety of foods and flavors: Squash and sweet potatoes with brown rice, turkey with cranberries and apples and so on. Store bought food never touched her little lips. I even made homemade teething biscuits. I only had one kid, ok? I had a lot of spare time. (well, I still did all that for Madi but my house wasn’t as clean)

As a toddler I started involving her in the cooking process. You know how experts always say kids are more likely to eat their dinner if they helped prepare it. I bought cookie cutters and cut her food into fun shapes. I mixed food coloring in her yogurt. And yet, here we are, three years later and the girl wouldn’t finish a plate of food for a free trip to the North Pole. The moral of this story is that books and articles and experts are generally full of it. If you have been a parent longer than a year you already know this. I digress…. We’ve tried all the tricks. “Take 3 more bites and you can be done.” “Eat half of each thing on your plate and you can be done.” “Take a bite of broccoli and then you can have a bite of pears.” “Take a bite and I’ll tell you something fun we’re going to do tomorrow.” “Take another bite and I’ll tell you who is going with us.” “Close your eyes and open your mouth, I have a surprise for you (then shove in something she doesn’t like).” “Take a bite right now or you’re sitting in time out.” “You can get up but you’ll have to finish your plate later before you can have any snacks.” “You’ll just have to sit here by yourself until you take 3 more bites.” “Hurry, take a bite, Santa’s looking in the window!” “If you don’t eat some more you won’t have any energy to play later.” “Take a bit and then show me your muscles, and I’ll see if you grew any.” “I’m setting the timer and if you haven’t finished before it goes off you don’t get a treat/dessert.” “You know what animal likes carrots? Rabbits! Can you take a bite like a rabbit!?”

We always try to eat dinner as a family. But it seems like every night we all leave the table feeling frustrated and defeated. Not closer and more connected. I refuse to feed her junk, even though I’m sure she would eat it better. We never make her clean her plate. Just take at least a few bites of everything. I worry about her not getting enough. The pediatrician says as long as she’s eating a variety of proteins, veggies and fruits she’s fine. But she barely weighs 30lbs and is in the 20^th percentile for her height and weight.

And then there’s Madelyn. Who I caught literally eating out of the trash can yesterday.



you would think she was being tortured. nope. just being asked to eat a delicious, well-balanced meal.