My kids are a disaster...again

Every night around 6:30pm my kids take a shower or a bath. For about 6 minutes after they get out, they are shiny clean. Their wet hair glistens and is combed into exactly the right spot, their freshly washed jammes are dog hair free and their newly dried skin smells of soap and lotion. 6 minutes later they are a disaster.

Jack, my oldest son, is always inexplicably rolling or crawling on the floor. A floor that no matter how many times a day I vacuum, has dog hair on it. Nicholas, newly obsessed with his electric toothbrush has his mouth covered in toothpaste. Down the stairs we go for a bit of playtime where inevitably that combed hair turns into wild, unruly messes. A bottle for Nicky results in milk all over his mouth, jammies and sometimes furniture.  The pacifier that follows the bottle traps the drool that can only come from teething and before I know it my baby's once sparkling face is now a disaster.

Tonight we didn't even make it 6 minutes. I literally got both kids out of the tub and into towels, turned them loose into the hallway and immediately heard Jack yelling "MOM, Nicky is peeing on my rug!" I ran in and sure enough there was my 19 month old, naked and taking a big ol pee on a restoration hardware carpet. Awesome. So now, I had one clean kid and one slightly wet kid that smelled like pee.

I wonder if girls are this dirty..

My 10 rules for living a good life

1. I don't care what the fox says

2. Dogs are pets, not accessories

3. If you are against gay marriage, please crawl back under your rock and leave everyone alone

4. If you have a car that costs more than 100K, you have too much money and need to start investing in truly meaningful causes

5. If you are reading a parenting book that tells you that its ok for your child not to share, please close it immediately

6. Dancing around your kitchen with your children is a necessity

7. Live as though you are always paying it forward

8. You can always find common ground with someone- know their story before you judge

9. Live with empathy

10. Go into the world with the intent to do good

Finding things to do on yet, another snowy day

I am not someone who can sit in their house for hours and days on end because its too cold to go outside. I would much rather brave the winter than listen to the repeated whine of "I'm bored". As I have mentioned before, Jack is not an independent player. If he isn't watching a video or playing a game on the iPad...he is bored. In the nice weather, my husband and I grab our coffee, our kids and our dog and head out to one of the many neighborhood parks but in the winters you have to be more creative. Most people hate the weekends that fill up with events...not us. If there is no birthday party, dinner party or get together we panic. Tim and I scan the web, the papers, anything to find children friendly events. Saturdays are usually ok between the library, the children's museums, the conservatory but Sunday is dreaded. Nothing is open until 11 and even then its usually just the shops. And by the time they are open, Nicky is close to nap time. We take them to our gym and then sit nervously outside the daycare trying desperately to formulate a plan. Last weekend the big suggestion was Menards. Taking 2 boys to Menards to look around did not sound thrilling to me, so it was scratched in favor of the conservatory. The Oak Park conservatory is free, with a suggested 2$ donation, and can fill at least an hour. Between the talking parrots, the warm rooms filled with plants and the "find the____" game that the conservatory gives your child, its a good way to get your child "outdoors" so to speak. We rounded out our morning with a trip to McDonalds play land and made it home just in time for nap. The afternoon actually turned out perfectly as we made it just in time for a free childrens concert at School or Rock and finished our day with a stop at the library where we finally scored 2 boxes of girl scout cookies. Our kids were exhausted and my husband and I high fives each other for getting through an empty weekend unscathed.
Thank God we have 2 parties net weekend!

Picky Eating...a 1st world problem

My youngest son eats almost nothing. So you can imagine my delight when our pediatrician told me that he might be lactose intolerant and to cut the cheese so to speak. Not just cheese, but milk and yogurt as well. 3 things that I am guaranteed to get my son to eat. He turns up his nose at eggs, hamburgers, most pastas (plain or sauced) and any meal that does not look like or taste like a hot dog. Sure he will happily accept a big ol bowl of crap...crackers, goldfish, pretzels, nutrigrain bars, you name it. If its artificial... its for him! He likes quesadillas but those are full of cheese. And forget about vegetables. While my now 4 year old would have to be encouraged to slow down on the veggies, Nicholas thinks they are ridiculous. He puts them to his mouth and gently touches them with the tip of his tongue and just as we are slow clapping ourselves for getting him to eat it, BOOM its been thrown to the floor. He throws it with such force that you would think he had a personal vendetta against the thing. Our dog, grateful for the snack, flinches as the food flies toward his face. Nicholas will spend most meals standing on the bench seat on one side of our table. Before you judge his table manners, please spend a meal with this kid. Spilling, throwing and refusing to eat are just a handful of his mealtime antics.

I started looking through pinterest, websites and blogs for recipes and tips for finicky eaters. They all claimed "Your child will be sure to finish his plate with zealous abandon!" They shared advice like "Never force food or trick food into your childs mouth, it will create eating issues later on". Embarrassed that my remedies and methods were obviously wrong, I tried all the suggestions and recipes and was met with minimal success. We went back to our clearly inadequate methods of threatening and trickery and at one point I could hear myself saying that age old adage...."There are starving children in India". Now a 19 month old with very limited language had no idea what I was talking about but it made me feel better to say it. Yes, Nicholas mommy may be forcing food down your gullet but I am doing it because I love you and because kids in India are hungry. The more I thought about these hungry Indian children, the more I started thinking about truly hungry kids...the ones Sally Struthers was telling us about. I bet picky eating is not a problem in developing 3rd world nations. I bet whatever I set down would be happily and gratefully gobbled up. I highly doubt that hungry children turn up their noses or complain about what you've cooked. I am positive that they eat whatever is put before them.

I think the problem is that our kids have too many choices....and not just in the food arena. We were told for so long that our kids needed to have choices, so they could express themselves. And now that advice is literally "biting" us. I think we need to return to the old method of parenting. Where kids knew their places and were polite and didn't talk back. They worked hard, helped around the house and were expected go to school and have a paper route all before they were teenagers. Look at how our grandparents generation turned out. No one was coddling those 12 year olds that came to America alone...on a boat...penniless, and they built this country. I think Im going to have to let my son be hungry if he refuses to eat. From now on I will be part of the solution instead of part of the problem. I will make nutritious meals and if my kids don't like them...too bad. When they are hungry enough...they will eat.