Bum ba bum ba bum bum, ba ba bum ba bum (to the tune of Itsy Bitsy Spider)

Itsy Bitsy Spider is sung quite frequently.

We also hear parts of Jesus Loves Me and an almost gibberish version of This Old Man.

My favorite part about this singing – he’s applying a particular line of Jesus Loves Me to real life situations – and it strangely works (not theologically of course), whether he means to or not.

Example 1: While climbing the stairs for bedtime, he is fascinated with how high up the banister is above him as he crawls.  He tells me

It too high up.  I can’t reach it.  I too little.  I can’t reach it for the Bible tell me so.

Example 2:  After stuffing his face full of cookies he made with his cousin, aunt, and Nana, he proclaims

I NEED MORE COOKIES!  For the Bible tell me so!

Not sure if I should be proud or worried at how strong the Bible’s influence is on his life at this point in time.

Either way, it’s absolutely adorable and we are cracking up.

Merry Christmas from the Keos

But there is always quite a process to get to that end point.  Of course, it’s never the last photo.  It’s one somewhere in the middle of a hectic photoshoot that makes it on the yearly Christmas card.

Luckily for us, Hubby’s brother has delved into the world of professional-like photography (I add the -like because he’s not a professional by any means but he has the fancy lights, the fancy camera, and tries all the fancy techniques).

Unluckily for us, Buggy prefers to be on the side of the camera where you take pictures, not where you are in them.  This photoshoot started at 6:30 and lasted until 7:10 (Buggy’s normal bath and bed time – I know we are crazy).  The bottom string of lights on our tree went kapoot as my brother-in-law was setting everything up.  Hence the seated shots in front of the tree, with presents blocking the other dark, unhappy spots on the tree.

Here’s a few scenes to truly enlighten those of you that have yet to try and take a family photo with a toddler.

I'm running away!

I'm going to run away again!

I'm making a weird face and Mommy's hair is covering hers.

I want my close up. Or really just touch the camera.

Buggy got in on the photography action.  I’d say most of the pictures taken (not the ones above) were by him.  It was really cute, even if it drew out the process longer than necessary.

“Ready take pictures?  Close you eyes.  OK.”

Truly a pro

He mostly snapped off blurry photos of the Christmas tree and me sitting in front of it (I’m 5 months pregnant, I didn’t move from  my photo spot the entire time).  But there were a few to consider for a frame… except that our heads were almost cut off.

Buggy's best work

Can’t wait until next year when there will be 2 kiddos to wrangle.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year friends!

~ I barfed daily.  Without medicine, I would have barfed way more than daily.

~ Some of my pants are held up and together with rubber bands. (For those of you who don’t know, loop around the button, loop through the button hole, loop back around the button.  Wah-La!)  Others are held up with maternity waist lines.

~ I am asleep on the couch or in bed by 9:00 each night.  Sometimes earlier.

~ I ate 12 packages of fruit snacks in 3 days.

~ I have unsuccessfully “sucked in” for the past 10 weeks.

~ Only one room of the house is clean at any given time.  Usually, no rooms are clean at any given time.

~ I want food and half way through eating it I really don’t want it anymore.  Or I decide I want something else entirely.

~ My husband has to run to the grocery store while I make dinner because I have forgotten at least 2 main ingredients necessary RIGHT NOW.

~ I peed 3 times between 8 and 12 today.

~ I haven’t slept through the night in 16 weeks.

~ I must eat every 2 hours or I gag.

~ The smell of your chili you are eating for lunch makes me gag.  Sometimes it also makes me want to eat your chili.

~ My sciatic nerve is killing me.  And I’ve only gained 6 pounds.

~ My doctor told me I was pregnant, and I have to see her every month.  We talk about pregnancy.  I assume this is a sure sign.

~ I saw a baby wiggling around.

~ My insurance company did not cover the one above.  (Thank you crappy health insurance.)

~ I’ve been told I’m due mid-April.

Yes, we are expecting an addition to our family.  It is extremely exciting and joyous, while nerve-wracking at the same time.  We are blessed beyond belief.

Me: Yes sir, just a moment.

PO: Where you headed in such a hurry?

Me: We are going home.

PO: Ma’am, do you realize you were going 15 over the posted speed limit?

Me: I’m so sorry officer.  I really don’t usually speed.

PO: Why are you in such a hurry?

Me: Um… do you really want the truth?

PO: Ma’am.

Me: I’m trying to see if I can make it home with singing only 20 rounds of “The Itsy Bitsy Spider” instead of 30 like yesterday.

PO: Give me a minute while I write up your ticket.

Buggy: It Bit Pider Mommy.  Pider MOMMY!  PIDER!

Me: “The itsy bitsy spider climbed up the water spout….”

PO: Your court date is December 12 or you can pay over the phone.

Me: Thank you.  Sorry sir.

PO: And ma’am, 30 times is safer than 80 mph.

Buggy: IT BIT PIDER MOMMYYYYYYYYYYY!

{I’m predicting this may be a conversation I have one afternoon in the very near future.}

I’m sure she was terrified.  I’m sure it might not have been her decision.  Not 100% at least. Parents still control much of a 17-year-old’s world, even if her sex life wasn’t within their grasp.

The single, typewritten page tucked neatly in the file cabinet noted that she wanted to go to college.  Government Administration.  One of the only specific pieces of information shared.

Maybe it was the vast potential her life still held.  Mostly it was probably being 17 – barely an adult, still a child in her parents’ eyes.

- – - – -

Two people consumed by love, marriage, a toddler, and infertility.  They examined the far corners of their heart.  There was plenty of room.  They needed more children to love.

More children needed their love.

They applied, they prayed, they cleaned, they presented, they prayed some more, but mostly they waited.

Four years officially.  Six years technically.

It was a Wednesday afternoon.  The phone call came.  “We have a little girl for you.  You can pick her up tomorrow morning.”

Neighbors and friends swarmed to piece together baby essentials.  After all, it had been 6 years since they had prepared for a baby’s arrival.

Thursday morning came.  So did their second little girl.  Exactly one month old.

They loved her before they knew her.  They loved her even more now that they had her.

She slept through her first night in her new home, with her new family.  Mom knew it was a sign that she was where she belonged.  Dad went to the crib every hour through the night, just to admire in awe that she was finally their daughter.

- – - – - -

My naked truth about love:

Love is selfless.  Never selfish.

I am the very product of two families, strangers to each other still, both giving of themselves to the very fullest.

One giving up a child.  One giving of their family to make room for another, not their blood, but theirs all the same.

I was adopted into the most amazing family God could ever have given to me.  I more often forget than remember, or even realize, that I don’t share their blood.

Their gift, my life, my family, my opportunities, my everything, is the epitome of a selfless gift born only from love.

While we may be selfish towards those we love, the selfish act is never love itself.  Selfless acts only come from love.  They are love.

They are glass always completely full, overflowing, flooding dwarfs.  Their little song about loving work.  In a coal mine of all jobs.  Ridiculous if you ask me.

I’d like to see how cheery that song would be when you throw in kids, no pretty princess to cook and clean, and actual bills waiting for you in the mailbox – not birds and squirrels sitting around smiling at you.

It’s August.  Back to school season.  Work starts VERY soon for me.  My summer break is nearing an end.  And each school year gets harder and harder to return to.

There was a time when I was excited and ready to start work again.  Eager to try out the new ideas I had gathered, pondered, and toyed with throughout the summer.  Chomping at the bit to work with new kids, new teachers, new opportunities.

Then I had Buggy.  And I really want to be a stay at home mom.  So going to work is hard.

Then last year I did the job that two people had done.  It was stressful and overwhelming.  It didn’t help.

Now there is a little more to loathe.

Buggy is old enough to realize, understand, and not like the fact that I am going to work, dropping him off with someone else, and leaving him for 8 hours.

“No mama, no” starts when familiar landmarks become clear to him on the drive to the sitter’s.  Actually, it often starts when he sees me pick up my purse, computer bag, lunch bag and enter the garage to load them in the car.

He has a great new sitter, that he loves to be with.  He’s been a few times and hasn’t wimpered a bit as he is distracted by dinosaurs and fish tanks as I pull out of the driveway.

But it’s still hard to hear the recognition in his voice that I am leaving him and he doesn’t like it.

Old sitter is going back to school.  (To be a teacher – NOBLEST of choices)  She was literally 2 minutes from our house.  On the way to and also from BOTH Hubby and my work routes.  She could only be more convenient by living next door (which I frequently made her aware of houses for sale on the street) or living in our guest room (but I’d have to take her husband and son in as well and I can’t afford that many mouths to feed.)

New sitter is conveniently located off the interstate exit just by my schools.  20 minutes from home.

At the end of last school year, I thought about how this coming year I would be the one to drop off Buggy, and Hubby could pick him up so I could have about 30 minutes to myself at home to clean, cook, be productive sans child (or veg on the couch – let’s be honest here).  Now I am the only one that is conveniently close to pick him up.

It doesn’t make sense/cents for Hubby to partake in the daycare drop off and pick-up duties.

Another convenience of this new location?  The 20-30 minutes of solitude between home and work, work and home, within which I could think, daydream, listen to the radio, and prepare myself for the destination I was driving towards, is gone.

I have anywhere from 5-10 minutes of solitude.  Then I have a babbling, singing, screaming, crying (pick a mood, any mood) two-year-old to fill my previous zen time.

Striking a few errands off the to-do list before picking up Buggy and heading home, also a thing of the past.  I will actually have to remember everything I need for the week while at the grocery store on Saturday.  Eeek!

I know the whole “I want to be a SAHM – - – I can’t believe I have to spend an extra 20 minutes with my kid in the car” thing is a bit opposite and topsy-turvy.

Here’s the thing.  I love my son more than life itself.  But working full time and trying to be the best mom and wife I can be (cooking, cleaning, playing, reading, loving, pleasing, soothing, caring) is an enormously unfair load to carry.  There has to be time in between to divide the two and try not to take the frustration or failures of one into the other.

I no longer have that ability.  I must find another way to divide, to separate, to calm, to breathe.  In 5 minutes.

Though my glass is not always overflowing like those insane dwarves, my mantra is that I am always half full.

What fills my cup half way about all of this?  My son is in a place that he is comfortable and loved even if it isn’t created by me.  For 10 months a year I love, care for, and help educate 900 children I did not birth and I do not raise, yet I impact.  My dreams of being a SAHM are not impossible and are almost within my reach.

I’d say that’s a pretty great glass to drink from.

After writing that post, some advice from friends and family shoved me led me to the realization that I needed to be looking at Buggy’s discipline as a whole, not just the hitting.

And I needed to look at how I reacted to his behaviors – all of his behaviors.

I read the book the pediatrician recommended.  It was good and we are using it.

The problem with parenting books is the constant need for the psychologist, psychiatrist, pediatrician, child expert to put the parent readers in a category.  The sleep book I read when Buggy was a mere sapling pretty much said that parents either formula-fed and had their babies sleeping in distant bedrooms or breastfed and co-slept with the child right in between.  I fell into neither of those categories but found helpful advice in spite of the near-sighted author.

The latest book I read pretty much puts parents in only one corner.  We all yell at our children, and then eventually beat them.

While I’ll admit that I have raised my voice more than I cared to.  I have no urge to beat my child.

Putting the author’s asinine (wow, I did not know how to spell that word) stereotypes aside, I do like the “1-2-3 Magic” system.  {1-2-3 Magic: Effective Discipline for Children 2-12, Revised 4th Edition, Thomas W. Phelan, Ph.D.}

Annoying behaviors (whining, pouting, anger, tantrums) get a directive (“stop blah-blah-blahing) and a “that’s 1″.  Wait a few seconds, behavior gets a “that’s 2″.  Wait a few seconds, behavior gets a “that’s a 3, time out”.

(Just so you know, the hitting is an automatic 3.  He doesn’t get chances to try and hit me or not.  Wanted to clarify that my new discipline trick does not in fact allow my son to beat me – or anyone else for that matter – to a bloody pulp before heading to time out.)

No yelling, no parental anger, no discussing the child’s behavior.  Just counting and time out.

I love it!  If Buggy wants to throw a tantrum, I don’t have to spend however long it takes to try and calm him down, appease him, or distract him (which completely defeats any attempt at correcting the behavior).  I count, he doesn’t stop, he goes to his room for 2 minutes.

Best of all, that 2 minute time out is usually the ticket.  He stops, he gives up, he forgets.  I calm down, I finish what I was trying to do, I breathe.  And we go about the day.

The positive behaviors get a lot more attention – which you’d think would be easy but is not.  It’s like it’s natural to point out the flaws in other human beings rather than congratulate them on a job well done.

Is he a perfect angel now?  No.  Does he ever stop at “that’s 2″?  Goodness no.  Has he stopped hitting his mother?  Sadly, no.

However, I feel like I am in control of the situation, instead of him.  We have the power back, right where it needs to be.

Don’t get me wrong.  My child is a great kid.  He is normally very happy, very nice, very kind.  But he is two, he is normal, and I am his mother.  If you think he is a terror and I am a horrible mother, kindly move along.  To the nearest library.  To read the book I’m describing.  Because secretly you know you need it too.

I swear that's a happy face.

I was sitting on the couch.  Hubby was right next to me.

My mother and father were sitting on the other couches in the room.

We were chatting.  About being home.

It was late in the evening, 9:00 or so, late for that particular day.  A bunch of friends had just left. They brought food.  I was too tired and too sick to eat it.

I was exhausted.  In pain.  I remember the heat all over my body.  Especially my legs and torso.  They were swollen.  They were throbbing.  I must have had a fever and been late with the pain meds.

Looking down, my precious 3 day old son lay sleeping peacefully in my arms.

What a day.  What a week.  So many events, emotions, new experiences.  Everything had been so exciting.

Today we had gone home.

Amidst our conversation, I looked down and the tears swelled in my eyes.  There was no holding back.

I can’t remember the exact words I spoke.  But I remember the feeling and the thought racing and rising inside of me.  A mixture of joy and fear.

“It is really exciting and really overwhelming to be home and on our own.”

How little I knew just how often those words/feelings/thoughts would ring true.

I love being a mother.  I wouldn’t change it for the world.

But I won’t deny that it is hard.  It is hard every day.  Always putting someone else ahead and above myself, without thinking twice.  Knowing the right thing to do at any and all given moments.  Being at my very best every moment of the day, even when I don’t have the energy or the motivation to be my best.

Don’t forget I’m still a wife and trying to be great at that too.

This is the true test of my character and my strength.  It is overwhelming.  It is the greatest experience I will ever know.

This is my Naked Truth.

Buggy celebrated his 2nd birthday last month.  While the very first and the 1st year birthday always steal the show, the 2nd is quite exciting and just as special.

Of course, you wouldn’t know it looking at me.

I’m not kidding.  I seriously spent less than $100 on Buggy’s birthday.  I didn’t mean to.  It just sort of happened.

I will never be the petting zoo, pony rides, Ferris wheel in the backyard party planning parent.  I find it ridiculous to send yourself into double mortgage debt to celebrate a birthday.  But I also think birthdays are special and it’s nice to spend a little extra money to celebrate.

I’d like to share my secrets with you all.  So whenever you need to plan a birthday for your own child, you will know exactly how to do it with style (if you can even call it that), little time or energy, and without breaking the bank.

Anne’s Top Ten Ways to Save Money on a Toddler Birthday Party:

10. Don’t buy gift bags.  Make your own!

Traced. I wish I was that good.

9. Don’t bake a cake.  Pay a lovely friend to make a cake that looks 1,000 times better than anything you could ever make.  (Shout out to Cakes By Amy)

Isn't this awesome?

I made this last year. See why I bought a cake?

8. Don’t go to too much trouble planning crazy games and activities.  Use your child’s current toys as well as their actual birthday present to entertain the guests.

Toot Toot Thomas!

7. Decorate with what’s around the house.  Rip the front off of the invitations you messed up and hang them from the doorway with butcher’s twine.  Color in Thomas coloring pages and tape them to the mantle.  Keep last year’s decorations and use them again!  Yup.  I definitely did all that.

"Happy Birthday" never goes out of style.

6. Once you realize that you really don’t have much going for this party, improvise a ball/bean bag toss using part of a box sitting in your garage and craft paint.  Be sure to stick with the party’s theme.

I'm actually quite impressed with myself.

Buggy loved it.

5. Plan such a party for a 2 year old that is happy playing with family members, balloons, and the floor.  He won’t notice the skimping.

"Boons!"

4. Forget to invite several little friends and their families.  Less people, less food, less goody bags.  (So sorry to those of you reading this that really should have been here but see number 1 as to why.)

3. Out of the 3 non-family guests you actually remembered to invite, have all but 1 be busy, working, or out of town so that only 1 comes to the party.

2. Show up to the party decoration store one minute after the lady who buys out the ENTIRE Thomas and Friends section and leaves only dessert plates, one set of napkins, one package of invitations (so really I couldn’t invite you), and pretty much nothing else.

1. Plan a family vacation the week of your child’s birthday, because you literally forgot that was the week of his birthday, leaving you no time to plan, shop, and create an extravagant, well-decorated, expensive party.  Then expect your name to be taken off the list of nominees for “Mommy of the Year” award.

After I file my new business license with the state, I will take your reservations to plan the next major event in your family’s life.  Please, take a number.  Don’t shove or trample to receive my highly desired services.

And I don’t know how to stop it.

I have a book on my bedside table that I have skimmed through and keep telling myself to read more in depth.

I’ve talked to the pediatrician.

Hubby and I have had many a pow-wow about our plan(s) of action.

But he still hits.

But my approach I feel is better than when I first realized it was a problem that needed a plan of attack.

My approach?  A mix between consistency and the rewind button.

I’m a big believer in finding the reason, the antecedent, the cause of the behavior instead of just reacting with discipline.

And let me tell you, I’ve been studying hard.

It doesn’t happen every day.  But I’ve been hit every day this week.

It doesn’t happen every time he’s upset.  It happens most every time he’s upset with me.

After the “no, you do not hit mama”; after the “you can yell, you can stomp, but NO hitting”; after the sit-in-time-out struggle; after the screaming crying yelling blubbering; after the “I sorry”; after the hug and kiss – I play back the last incident in slow motion.

That slow motion replay is quite educational.  I’m becoming more aware.

More aware of my urge to pull things from his hand.  My urge to continue typing an email or sort through receipts or prep a meal or fold the last shirt instead of heeding his call to read, to play, to go to another part of the house.  My urge to have him work on my time rather than on his time.  My part.

I think I’m getting better.  Unless it’s sharp and dangerous, we negotiate the object away (“ooh, look at this book, it’s so much better than the slip of paper with my library password that I’ve asked the librarian for 5 times this summer”), I stop what I’m doing to read the book or fix the train, and we change pace on his time or with prepping (“after this toss we are going inside”, “after this ride we are going home”).

But he still hits.

That’s the downside.  The big downside.

The upside?

Since the realization of the problem, the 2 year check-up, the first pow-wow sessions – I feel like I have a small amount of control in the situation.  And even that small amount, however miniscule or misguided it may be, makes me feel like there is light at the end of the tunnel and a future with a son that stomps his feet instead of hits his mother.

I just wish I knew that I’m doing the right thing.  I guess time will only tell.