"I've got some advice for you! Pull my finger!"

So. You’ve been a parent for a day. For a week. For a month. For EVER it seems. I have no doubt that you’ve got some advice to share! So I’m asking you now to share your thoughts. What would be the ONE piece of advice you would like to pass on to new parents? Just choose one. You know, a post-partum piece of advice. Something beyond “Whatever you do, don’t look at the placenta!” Sure, the placenta is like a huge metaphor for parenthood. It comes out after the baby. It’s frightening as all hell, but it’s also miraculous and cool!

Ah. Placentas. So distracting! OK, back to the subject at hand. So, oh fabulous bastions of parental wisdom, what advice do you want to pass down to new generations of parents? One sentence. That’s your assignment.

Send it to me via email. Reply to my Facebook page. Phone me. Twitter it. Use that Google+ thing. Or reply in comments here. I really want to hear what you have to say. And, of course, I want to selflessly share it with the rest of the blogosphere! I’ll play too! Most likely I’ll write more than a sentence because HEY, IT’S MY IDEA!

Process those horrific nightmare moments you’ve worked so hard to forget, synthesizing the terror down to a sentence. Or that unbelievable moment of epiphany, when you just… totally got that thing. Then write it down. Refine it. Craft your sentence. And then send it to me. email: terry@mothermirth.com

Bring it on!

Baby dragons in their nest

The Mommy Dragon (that’s me) apparently has to do something to, ummm, produce the little baby dragon eggs (that’s K-dragon-to-be and L-dragon-to-be). And if you use the present tense, it’s a perfectly OK and not inappropriate verb.

But Mommy Dragon is simultaneously doing the dishes and trying to get as much caffeine into her body as she possibly can before the baby-dragons’-first-meal (that’s the baby) cries and needs attention. And the dragon-eggs-to-be get a little impatient to. . . enter the world. So they yell into the kitchen with their need, pleading with Mommy Dragon to please perform the birthing ritual!

But…they use the passive past tense of that perfectly OK and not inappropriate verb.

“Mommy, PLEASE! We need to get LAID!”

“. . . *sputter* *expletive* “Just a minute!”

Mommy Dragon needs to go change, as she just snarfed coffee all down her shirt.

Allen, sounding annoyed: “Kelsey, what are you doing?

Kelsey, matching her father’s annoyed tone: “I’m looking for Mr. Sleepy Bear!!”

Allen: “IN THE REFRIDGERATOR?”

But don’t disregard that older child. Oh, no. Don’t do that. She may not win at strategizing her victories, but she’s the queen of passive aggressive. *Snf* that’s my girl!

Because, you see, the kindergartener can express herself using words. She has conquered the feat of sounding out words and using them, a secret code if you will, against her sister. Her sister who cannot yet read. Do you feel the power?  

I give you evidence of her stealth, of her victory. And the younger one? She will not know of her defeat for some time.

Kelsey Luvleeey

Laurel Stooped

I, of course, then snarfed my coffee, spilling it down the front of my shirt.

Upon recovering, I explained the cow’s apparatus for supplying us with milk, using the analogy of a mother’s breasts for the feeding of her babies. I watched her face as she struggled to match up a woman’s breasts with a baby and a cow’s udders with … a gallon container of milk. To clear up her obvious confusion, I then explained that a cow produces milk for its calf, that calves drink milk.

She took this in stride, but then made the leap to this statement: “Oh, like when Laurel hurt her leg, and she had to wear a calves?”

So I separated the discussion of Laurel’s leg injury that necessitated she wear a cast and brought it back to cows. I explained that a cow produces milk for humans AND calves to drink, just as a human mother produces milk for her baby.

And then she asked why humans drink cows’ milk, when they could drink milk from their own mothers. I replied that humans don’t NEED to drink milk past a certain stage of development, but that a lot of humans LIKE cows’ milk and all the things that are made from cows’ milk. This explanation seemed to satisfy her. I decided to let it drop.

Then, last night, while watching a horrendously insipid Disney movie called Home on the Range, my older child pointed to the main character — a very well endowed dairy cow named Maggie — and made the comment, “Look, Mommy, her vulvas are hanging down!”

-Laurel, 3 years old today

Cow to Horse:
Yeah, let’s go get a beer! C’mon, let’s go!”

Kelsey (holding up her puppy, Go-go):
“Do you want to smell my bum?”
Brandon:
“Ewwww. Smells like poo poo!”
Laurel:
“Can I smell your bum, Go-go?”
“Ewww. It smells like poo poo!”
All:
“Ewww”

Lather, rinse, and repeat. This exchange went on for no less than 30 minutes.

I put a big thirsty towel over the pee (BIG dog. BIG bladder *sigh*) and danced on it for a minute. Then, I filled the bathtub and threw the kids in, both insisting on wearing their swimsuits. I figure, sure. That’ll save me from having to rinse them anyway, right? Being the queen of multitasking, I’m all about such time-saving steps.

I took Kelsey out of the bathtub first. As I’m taking off her swimsuit, Kelsey looks into the crotch area: “There’s no more poo poo in my swimsuit!” she says, happily.

I look over, and there’s Laurel, sucking on a wet facecloth.

I FREAK out, take her out of the bathtub, contemplate washing her mouth out with bleach and then decide that’s probably not a good idea, send both drippy kids to their room. Bleach out the tub, the toys.

Ten minutes later, Laurel walks up to me, a charming smile on her face:

“Mommy, are you happy?”
“No, right now I’m not feeling very happy. I’m feeling angry at Kelsey and Tommy (the dog).”
“Mommy? Are you happy with ME?”
“Yes, Laurel, I’m happy with you.”
*grins, twirls around the bathroom*

Cloud: “Right, Pup?”

Laurel (not Pup): “No.”

Cloud: “And your name isn’t ‘Mommy’ anymore. It’s ‘Frog’.”

Cloud: “And this isn’t the green truck anymore. His name is… ‘Pogobouncer’!”