Don't Worry Mama, I Know Those Are Bad Words

We live on music in my house. We always have music playing, in the house, in the car, it doesn’t matter. I mean it makes sense because I learned how to write and read music when I was a kid, my parents always played music for us (I have awesome memories of listening to Fleetwood Mac as a kid, still love them) and encourage my brother and I to have pretty eclectic taste when it came to our jams.

Needless to say Grace has been exposed to all kinds of music from the time she was an infant. Different decades, different genres, everything we listen to, she listens to as well. Of course this means major jam out time when we’re in the car, because otherwise car rides are boring and horrible. I mean I’m just saying, a car ride with some good tunes is life for us. I’m sure you understand.

So whoops when I realized too late that the playlist rocking out in my car one day was Mommy’s playlist with the explicit language and not the censored child playlist. Bigger whoops when the song that came on was a hip hop song that Mommy loves (and Grace does too but up until this point she had only heard the censored version) with ALL the language. Like ALL of the language. Of course I realized this way too late and when I went to change the song, not that it mattered but it’s the thought that counts, Grace BEGGED me to keep the song on.

Ok so the song stays on. But so begins the conversation about bad language which pretty much was the 4 year old explanation of how there’s bad words that you don’t say out loud, but when it’s in a song you can sing along with the song in your head. Silently. I think at one point I even told her that there were words in the song that she would NEVER hear Mommy (or anyone else in her life for that matter) say out loud.

Conversation over, song over, here I am thinking maybe I dodged the proverbial bullet. Ironically, I was even thinking wow she let that go way faster than I thought she would have.

I was wrong. Of course I was wrong. So the next time we get into the car, the music comes on and Grace tells me, “Mommy, can we listen to the song with the bad language so I can sing along to it in my head?”. Whoops.

My Child is a Blank Canvas

It took me a long time to become a parent. Not because I didn’t want to be a Mama, but because I was so fortunate to have all these amazing moms already in my tribe, who were always fantastically honest with me when it came to the struggles and pitfalls of parenting. And I listened to them. In my mind, they were (and still are) experts in their fields of parenting practice because they live the life of being involved and active parents.

So it took me awhile and I don’t regret it. I wanted to be young and selfishly enjoy sleeping in on a Sunday morning or watching movies all day on a rainy day when I could. I didn’t want to have the obligations of being a parent. I knew when I could be ok with giving up that sense of freedom for a sense of responsibility, then I could become a parent.

Along this journey, the one thing that always leaves me in awe is the tremendous amount of responsibility on so many different levels you take on when you become a parent. Your child is literally a blank canvas when it comes to everything in the world and everything they learn will be a result of you teaching it to them. That always really stuck with me. That her views on people, on right and wrong, on even how to cook an egg would be the result of me teaching her. For me, this was always a HUGE thing and while I wanted it, it also made me feel like this parenting thing isn’t for the faint of heart.

We’ve hit our major developmental milestones for her age and all of that with relative ease which I seriously thank God for everyday because I know not every parent has that experience, and now we’re starting to learn more abstract ideas. Yep. The hard to explain ones because they need to be explained to a 3 year old in a way that a 3 year old can understand, when let’s be honest, some of the things that happen in the world are still difficult for my adult brain to grasp.

Nonetheless, we truck along. And we approach the idea of stealing. Well specifically, taking something that isn’t yours without permission, thanks to a Lilo and Stitch book we borrowed from the library. She was very confused why Stitch could take a bike that wasn’t his, but she can’t take something from a store (for instance) if Mommy hasn’t paid for it. I swear she understood that taking something that’s not yours is wrong and it hurts people, blah blah, all those good moral things, blah blah.

I thought wow this is really sticking because every time we read the book, she could comment about how Stitch shouldn’t have taken the bike because it wasn’t his, and it belonged to this girl, and it was mean. I thought wow maybe this has potential to be a parenting win.

Then one day we’re at the pool, because that’s her favorite place in the summer, and she was playing with this toy boat that some kid left there, totally struggling as to why she couldn’t take said boat home to play with in her bathtub. Me, being the obvious genius I am, equated it back to the bike and Stitch and taking something that isn’t yours. I told her maybe the owner of the boat would come back to get their boat and they would be so sad if it wasn’t there because in their mind, it should still be there.

I felt like she was grasping the idea, she seemed on board, she was agreeing with me and said she understood why we needed to leave the boat there. So I thought well what the heck let’s see where she’s at with all this and I asked her, do you remember the fancy word for taking something that’s not yours? I didn’t expect her to know it, just so we’re clear…and she said “Of course Mama. Unfortunate. Because he left it and I got it.”

Oh geez. Back to the drawing board I guess…

She Has NO Filter

I always appreciated the honesty of little kids. It was entertaining to me to hear the things come out of their mouths, mostly at the anguish of their parents, because there was no regard for this social construct of appropriate things to share with the world. For a kid, everything gets shared.

This was all fun and games for me until I had a kid, who like all little kids totally lacked a filter. I mean EVERYTHING gets shared with EVERYONE...even strangers.

We've lived in our house for a few years now and every year we've battled with ants to one degree or another. For the most part, we've been able to address the problem swiftly and without a TON of intervention which has been awesome. Until this year when the ants decided to battle us with a vengeance.

Long story short, after a swift battle that I thought we won, I came downstairs one morning to find a trail of ants tracking almost the length of our house. Remember that song about the ants marching one by one? This was like 50 by 50. Ew. Just EW.

My observant child of course had running commentary about said ants while I spent the better part of the morning killing, cleaning, disinfecting, bug spraying, the list goes on, to our house and I had the running commentary back about how "Mommy does NOT do ants in the house, under any circumstance EVER."

What I didn't anticipate while my Mini Me was tagging along to Home Depot for ant killing stuff and through the house as Mommy cleaned was that every person, for the next week, regardless of where we went, learned about our ant problem. It did not matter if it was her teacher at school, one of my clients we ran into at the store, her dance teacher, or a stranger at the grocery store, everyone learned that we had an ant problem. Luckily for me, everyone also learned that "Mommy does NOT like ants in our house and she killed ALL OF THEM."

At least she was paying attention. At least she knows. And at least now I know that I have to explain what situations are OK to talk about outside the house and what situations need to stay inside the house. 

Don't Judge Me...

I like wine. I just do. I like pairing wine with food, I like discovering new wines, it's just my thing. I feel like in part it's an extension for how much I love food, but that's a story for another time. So with that background, you'll be able to understand why this story is silly to me.

You also have to understand that my kiddo loves Trader Joe's. It's a thing with the little carts. she LOVES those little carts. God forbid they don't have enough little carts one day for her to have her own little cart, because the meltdown is serious.

So we get to Trader Joe's one day post swim class, primarily because we need some snacks but also because I know she'll eat her lunch at the sample counter (we have no shame in our sample food game). For some reason today the kiddo decided that Trader Joe's was NOT where she wanted to be. But she didn't announce that to the world until we got literally in front of the doors.

My kiddo in her epic glory and LOUDEST toddler voice ever announced to every shopper as well as cashier "Mommy, I don't want to go here! I don't need any wine!"

This was one of those moments when I was seriously trying to not laugh. Loudly. Because she was SO adamant, it was funny. Oh and the stunned looks from the shoppers and cashiers had me going. I'm sure they were thinking "Is this kid serious?", to which I would answer, yes she is completely and unequivocally serious.

You would think  the conversation would be over at this point. That we would be happily shopping. Nope. Not with my kid. She continues to tell me that she needs yogurt and when I inform her that yay!! this place has both, she gives me the BIGGEST hug ever and tells me "Thank you Mommy". Like it's Christmas.

I couldn't even help but laugh. Seriously. It's not a sentence I ever thought I would hear come out of a child's mouth, but it just goes to show that our kids are more observant than we sometimes give them credit for (like even noticing what items we buy at which stores), and strong enough to hold their own. With anyone. About anything.

The Chaos of the Day

I feel like every single parent can relate to this, regardless of whether or not you work outside the home. The days can be so crazy. Especially since I currently work a split shift on the days when the kiddo goes to school. So it's a rat race at its finest when work is over for the morning, getting the kiddo from school, getting the kiddo a snack, getting the dogs organized (and myself if I'm lucky), and then heading back to work. I know you get this. Making sure dinner is ready, everyone is happy, everyone has had lunch and all those things.

Needless to say most of those days, I'm exhausted. It was a random Tuesday, it was hot out, I was over it. I grabbed the kiddo from school, came home, got her a second lunch, got the dogs organized, and went upstairs to get the kiddo ready for her nap.

I don't know what was in air that day...but the energy was literally kinetic for everyone in my house except me and I was OVER IT. We were all in my room, getting the kiddo in her jammies so she could be comfy for her rest, and I remember sitting on my floor watching my kiddo run from the closet to the bed so she could jump onto the bed on one side of me, and the dogs wrestle like maniacs on the other side of me.

It was serious chaos. LOUD chaos. The child running like a banshee and screaming like a crazy girl, the dogs growling and wrestling with each other and me sitting in the middle of it. 

I took a deep breath and just sat and watched these beings in my life living their best lives and having a blast doing it. I took another deep breath and said a little prayer of gratitude that my circus is happy and healthy and able to be loud and chaotic, and said another prayer that I could let go of my poor attitude and live in the moment a little more. Because I know the day will come sooner than I want it to when the pups are older and won't wrestle, and the kiddo won't want to be running around like a banshee.

So I let go of my negativity and poor attitude, became the Tickle Monster and jumped right into the chaos.