Trite and Maudlin, Part Deux

I wrote this letter when Gabi was a few days old, but didn’t post it as I was afraid that my new-mom hormones were making me more trite and maudlin than usual (and also, what would a newborn do with a letter? She didn't even learn to read until she was eight months old!). Now on the eve of her first birthday, similar hormones are convincing me that this is acceptable to post. I owe you something funny. And maybe an apology. And a stiff drink.

I want to preserve this moment. Put it into my mental album so that it can be retrieved forever. My sensory album, if such a thing exists. The velvet feel of the wispy hairs on your mostly bald head against my lips. The satisfied sounds you are making as you gulp, gulp milk, the way you are grabbing at me with your tiny hands, alternately pulling my sweater between your perfectly formed miniature fingers and rubbing my chest.

I want to remember the way you are furrowing your brows above your very blue eyes that will soon turn brown, or green or hazel, and your sweet stare, wide and trusting, covered by long still-sparse lashes. I want to remember looking down at your little nose and little ears and wondering how anything that came from me could be so perfect.

I want to remember your baby smell and your baby warmth, and how it feels to hold your little hand. I want to remember the way your mouth looks, wet with milk as you lean into my arms, milk-drunk and happy. I want to be able to pull it all up in my mental Filofax forever.

Soon you will grow out of the clothes you are wearing and when I eventually put them away, I will be surprised by how small they are. I will forget how perfect and tiny your toes are, and the feeling I get when your still-new-smile makes my heart leap into my stomach.

I will not forget how much I love you. Or how happy I am to hold you. How lucky I am that you are mine. But I will forget how tiny you are, and the sound of those tiny little happy moans, even though I will be convinced that I remember.

A Mother's Prayer on the First Day of Swimming Lessons

May my baby enjoy the class

May she not be filled with gas

Let her not spit up in the water

or scream as loudly as my other daughter

And please let the class have not

Any dads who are hot

And if there is such a man who meets this description

Let him wear a very strong prescription

Big thick glasses, like a bottle

That make me look just like a model

Oh and it can't be available in a contact lens

(I am just talking about nines and tens)

I just don't want such a man

To notice my hastily-applied, blotchy self-tan

Oh and also, please no MILFs of twenty-eight

Who even wet, look really great

And finally, please don't let it be the day

To test if swim diapers are as a leakproof as they say.

The Six Stages of A Box of Chocolate

1. Denial:

These things are tasty. I have a whole box. I can eat six or seven of these babies and no-one will be the wiser


2. Anger:

There is no way I have already eaten half a box. Someone else has been eating my chocolate.


3. Bargaining:

As soon as I finish this box, I will be done. It will be the start of my healthy lifestyle. Chocolate will be replaced by kale. Caramel by spinach. I should eat more to make this happen sooner.

4. Satisfaction:

Done with you! You no longer have control over me dastardly turtles. I ate you and all of your friends!


5. Depression:

I miss you guys.


6. Acceptance:

Money can be exchanged for goods! I will buy another box. Hooray!

The Third Baby Myth (or Sleep is for Suckers)

As my last update was basically two years ago, a couple of things have changed. Shockingly, my children who were 1.5 and 3.5 are now 3.5 and 5.5. Wait, there’s more. My cat, formerly fifteen years old, is now seventeen. Also, I had a baby. Have a baby. She is seven weeks old today. I know what you are thinking, that having a baby has made me even smarter, wittier and more coherent than ever (as that was an actual attempt at humour, you can now cross wittier off the list)(and coherent)(and smarter will be taken care of by the end of this blog post).

In truth, having three kids has been the same as having two kids, but with one third more kid (thus leaving me with one third fewer brain cells) (luckily I had 9 left at the time of her birth, so there was no messy division).

There is this myth that the third baby is going to be an easy one. People with three kids come up to you and tell you things like “my third kid was so easy that we kept forgetting her places and not only did she not mind, she’d hitchhike home and bring dinner”. And frankly, I believed them. I felt like the universe owed me an easy kid after the second one, who was not easy. Not. Easy.

I have always known that my second child’s terrible sleep habits, extremely sensitive disposition and unwillingness to be anywhere other than my arms for the first two years of her life were my punishment for being a smug asshat when I had my first --ridiculously easy-- baby. And frankly, someone who says things like  “Read the Baby Whisperer. It changed my life” deserves a baby who doesn’t sleep through the night until she’s an adult. Just like someone who judges other people’s kids for screaming in public* deserves a kid who has constant, shrill, embarrassing public tantrums. And that’s what I got. And it humbled me. But then I thought we were even-- the Cosmos and me. Apparently I was wrong. So. Wrong.

My new baby will not sleep in her bassinet. She cries whenever I put her down and she is a constant spitter-upper (my second child’s one** redeeming quality as a baby was that she never spit up). Recently I took her to the pediatrician and she started screaming bloody murder when it was time to take off her clothes to be weighed. The doctor, who enjoys a spirited baby, thought this was hilarious, saying things like “you have your work cut out for you with this one!”.  Wait! No! “I thought that I was going to have an easy one after you-know-who” I finally sputtered, in a voice loud enough to be heard over the screaming. Her reply: “Nope. That one was just training you for this one.”

My new theory is that everyone gets one easy baby and you get your easy baby when you need her (or in my case, him) the most. Had I had one of my daughters first, my husband would never have agreed to continue our procreation experiment but as our son was just so easy, we presumed that we were awesome at parenting and kept going. And now I have three beautiful, challenging*** amazing children that I wouldn’t trade for anything. Not even for one of those well-behaved good sleepers you hear about****.

Postscript: If you have had more than one easy baby, I don’t want to hear about it. Really.

*”I bet that child would be much calmer if the parents followed the Baby Whisperer’s nap schedule. That poor, poor overtired baby” is literally something my husband and I would say to one another on a semi-regular basis.

**not including extreme cuteness which is a trait all of my babies tend to possess (objectively speaking)

***easy babies don’t necessarily grow up to be easy five-year-olds
****or for a frozen yogurt franchise

Who needs sleep? How could you not love these little faces?

Resolutions from an Expert

Only once have I kept a new year’s resolution but I had to make the same resolution two years in a row for it to stick. That said, because most resolutions fail and because I did manage to keep flossing long past the one year mark, I do feel like a little bit of an expert on resolution making.

While it is advisable to stick to a very small list of resolutions, I, being a resolution expert (ask my dentist if you don’t believe me), have compiled a longer list for myself.

Sheri's List of Resolutions:

• Eat less candy
• Buy less candy
• Don’t feel obligated to eat all candy that was previously bought
• Eat less chocolate
• Buy less chocolate
• Don’t feel obligated to eat all chocolate that was previously bought
• Make new and exciting meals for my family on a regular basis
• Try not to get upset when family hates new and exciting meals that I have made for them
• Stop buying every hair product on the market that promises a silky sheen
• Be willing to throw out all previously purchased hair products that do not provide silky sheen promised on the package
• Show husband that I appreciate him every day (because I do)
• Pretend that I think husband is right about something every day (because he would totally fall for that)
• Stop swearing behind the wheel (because my children will not believe that “mother trucker” is a term of affection for fellow drivers indefinitely)
• Try to do at least .4 percent of the things I pin on Pinterest.
• Blog at least once a week

I realize that this is a very ambitious list, but that’s just the kind of person I am.


*UPDATE*

The new year is about happiness (which is why people say happy new year) and happiness is very strongly tied to self-esteem. This is why it is very important not to set oneself up for failure by setting unattainable goals. As such, here is my slightly revised list:


Sheri's List of Resolutions:

• Do not miss any episodes of Grey’s Anatomy
• Try to finish all chocolate  and candy in the house in anticipation of next year’s resolution
• Blog sometime

(Happy new year!)

A Journey of Self Discovery (or Why Unpacking My Closet is Like an Archeological Dig)

We moved last week. This has been a journey in self-discovery similar to what I imagine Anaïs Nin, Thoreau, Pi and Britney went through. The following are my revelations.

Things I’ve learned about myself while unpacking:

1. I am under the impression that chain belts are going to come back in style. Also shiny spandex running pants.

2. I had no idea whatsoever that the VHS tape might one day be obsolete

3. If you and I ever dated, I probably have a pair of your socks

4. I apparently thought that labelling computer disks was for suckers

5. I have enough slightly used hair products and gifts-with-purchase lipsticks to open a specialty store

6. I have an unconscious desire to start a business refurbishing old Bic pens

7. I will eat chocolate that is older than both of my children.

8. I have never worn anything I’ve bought at H&M

9. If we are friends, there is 67% chance that I have a signed and sealed birthday card for you that I forgot to mail

10. I have a tough time throwing things out

"Mommy it's An Emergency!" or Why Potty Training is a Lifestyle Choice

When one of my Facebook friends announced her pregnancy on Facebook, among the usual congratulations in the comments section was a piece of advice from a friend of hers advising her to potty train her older child as soon as possible before the arrival of the new baby. Because I don’t know that commenter (commentator?) and because I haven’t seen the aforementioned Facebook friend anywhere other than Cyberspace in 20 years (when we were both 4), I decided not to get into it with her friend, but I have been thinking about a way to get the message across that this is a terrible, terrible idea ever since. Obviously my only choice was to write a blog post (I wish there were a way to send private messages over the interweb-- someone should really invent that).

Potty training is not the hard part. Anyone who tells you it is has not finished potty training and/or has a kid who still wears pull-ups (or one of those really smart but hard-to-train cats). I wish someone had warned me ten months ago when I made the fateful decision to throw out all of Benji’s diapers that having a potty trained toddler or preschooler is a lifestyle choice. So as a favour to my Facebook friend and to any other parent who has not yet made the terrible mistake of introducing their child to the toilet, here is a handy list of things I wish someone had told me.

1. You will never again be able to make plans that don’t involve stopping at multiple public bathrooms.  

2. You will need to find clean, reliable, stroller-accessible public restrooms near the park, public pool and halfway between your house and anywhere you plan to go in the stroller. Or the car.

3. Every sink will be too high and automatic toilets are the most terrifying things ever. Stay away from those.

4. You will never again make it to the front of a very long line-up. You will make it most of the way and then there will be a bathroom emergency thus forcing you to leave your spot. Forget Toys R Us the week before Christmas. It will never, ever happen.

5. You will spend much time kibitzing on the bathroom floor in the middle of the night as your child will soon learn that while you will say no to providing middle-the-night entertainment, you are willing to hang out indefinitely when nature is (allegedly) calling.

6. The minute you sit down to any meal, nature will call. Usually twice. Three times if you are in a busy food court.

7. Same goes for car trips and haircuts if you are foolish enough to bring your child to one of those.

8. The only thing that could possibly make having a potty trained preschooler less convenient, is having a potty trained preschooler and a baby.

9.  Seeing you nurse your baby is always a sign to your older child that it's time to use the bathroom.

10. You will be faced with the choice of whether to put your younger child on the floor of a public bathroom or force your toddler to wipe his own behind.

11. You will spend a great deal of time breastfeeding in public bathrooms while waiting for your older child to do his business (should you still to choose to leave the house).  One day you will continue to breastfeed while pulling up your older child’s pants and washing his hands. You will not care that other people are staring.

12. There is nothing more appealing to a young child than the sanitary napkin disposal.

13. Once your younger child is old enough to stand or walk, he will use this newfound freedom to crawl under the stall door. Because who wouldn’t really?

So what’s my advice? Wait. Wait until your preschooler is old enough to get onto the toilet, do his own wiping and reach the sink. If you have two kids, wait until your baby is old enough to stand up nicely while you attend to child 1. Maybe you can just potty train both of them together. Or if you wait long enough maybe they will train themselves--or better-- eachother.