Candy Canes, Snowballs and Blow Me

Ryder has really been a 2 year old lately and frankly I am exhausted. 

Me to my 10 year old nephew, Holden: “We put 12 candy canes on our Christmas tree and Ryder ate them all in one day.”

Holden: “Weren't you watching him?”

Ryder walks out of preschool as it is snowing one afternoon and yells, “Ahh! The sky is throwing snowballs at my face. I must kick them!”

(And there I stood, in the parking lot of Ryder’s preschool, watching my little ninja even out the score between him and nature. Kicking and kicking the sky ….until I realized that I was the adult and could leave.)

And my personal favorite:

Ryder walks up to me as I’m reading a book on the couch and says: “Blow me.”

Me (startled): “What?”

Ryder (starting to get annoyed): “Blow me."

Me: *Crickets.

(As it turns out, Ryder realized that his breath is warm and wanted me to feel his warm breath and then he wanted to feel mine. Apparently he wanted to "blow on me" but I'm still cringing at the fact that my 2 year old asked me to blow him, no matter the context.)   

Dog-Pile, Boobs, and Ponchos

Lately, my kids have been very hard on me. And mostly because of what I wear.  And it's not like I'm wearing anything outlandish.  I'm not wear prom dresses and clown wigs around town.  I am wearing normal, weather appropriate clothing.  This fall I could not live down my favorite black jumpsuit.  Chase would honestly pray during his bedtime prayers that I wouldn't wear a jumpsuit the next day.

Now that it's chilly out, my spawns are not loving my ponchos.  I mean, what is there not to love? They are warm and fuzzy and made of all things lovely (pretty much the exact opposite of my children).

One morning Ryder woke up, took one look at me wearing a poncho and said, "Oh, yous are wearing that today?" and pulled his blanket back up over his eyes. (It seems like a lot of criticism coming from someone who wears a pull-up at night.)

Oh man, and don't get me started on my lipstick.  As soon as Chase sees me putting on lipstick he rolls his eyes and tells me how "sticky and old lady" my lips look.  (This coming from the kid who has a collection of ponytails on his wrist that he has found on the ground throughout the school year and wears as bracelets. I'm pretty sure if our family gets lice, it is going to be from one of his "lost and found ponytails.")   
 
Both of my kids are terrible, but Ryder is always a little bit more of an a**hole each and every day.... 
So, I am going to the bathroom one morning when the door opens and Ryder strolls in.  He makes eye contact with me sitting on the toilet.  He stops, starts walking backwards out of the room and whispers, while still holding eye contact, "You disgust me."

I'm not saying that having children ruined my life... but I'm not saying that it didn't.

On an unrelated note: Last night, Cory was laying on his stomach on the living room floor and the boys were having fun dog-piling on him.  Ryder gets up, looks at me and says, "You can lay on daddy, just lay your boobs on his back." :) 

An Adoption, A New Mom and Dad

It was such a great day yesterday.  My sister’s (Jess) husband, Eric, officially adopted her two children; Holden and Adam.  You see, Eric has been their Dad for quite a few years already, but yesterday it was legal in terms of the court system.  Nothing will really change with their day-to-day lives because Eric stepped up to the plate years ago but now the family gets to share the same last name and have the peace of mind that they will forever be a family.

On a side note: The judge asked Holden if he wanted to change his last name.  He said yes, and also said that he wanted to change his first name to Jeff. (F*cking Jeff, really?)

Of course, after a big day like this, we had to celebrate at the only place acceptable for a day like that- at Chuck-E-Cheese.  On the way there, Holden wanted to bring in his new Lego set but Jess told him that he couldn’t because the pieces would get lost.  Holden was quite upset and let her know that he was upset.  Meanwhile, Chase was in the backseat, observed the conversation, leaned over to Holden and whispered (not quietly), “Don’t you wish you got a new Mom today, too?”

So Holden and Adam were very happy to get a new Dad, but kinda wished they got a new Mom, too.   

Also, my kids really know how to ruin a moment for my sister's family.  Ryder refused to smile and kept repeating, "I will not smile. I will not be happy."  And he stuck to his words. Honest little man he is.


My kids also ruined their wedding photos.

Piss, Left Eye, 4 Ankles

I’m not quite sure I’m equipt to deal with a toddler.  Like mentally. And physically.

So we have been doing the whole bedtime song and dance at our house.  Ryder needs to go potty, and then he needs a drink, and then he needs to cry about something completely irrational. And then I need a glass of wine.

The other night, we put Ryder to bed.  We did our usual prayers, our usual family hug, our usual bedtime song and our usual routine of covering him up with all 1,900 blankets that we own (in a specific order- that is different every single night so of course we can never get it right on the first try).  Then we tell him that we love him and exit his room.  And secretly hope that we don’t have any more interactions with him until morning (but never mention that out loud because it makes you seem like a gigantic a**hole and apparently when you say things like that out lout to other parents they think you are the devil and hate your child.  And that’s only 50% true).

So anyways, after Ry was supposed to be sleeping, we hear him wailing from his bedroom.  We go into his room and ask him why he is crying and he says in-between sobs, “Because I have an ankle.” And continues to cry.  We calm him down showing him our ankles to reassure him that he is, in fact okay.  After a couple more minutes we hear him sobbing again and he yells from his crib. “I have four ankles.”  We, again, calm him down.  A minute later we hear him crying and yelling, “My toe is wiggly.”  This time, with less patience, Cory yells from the couch while sipping a beer, “Then stop wiggling it,” and continues watching tv.  Because you can only give a shit for so long.

Speaking of Ryder and bedtime- the other night after we put Ryder to bed he said that he had to go potty.  But this was the 17^th time I had taken him to the bathroom since laying him in his crib so I was a little less than impressed with his potty needs. And this bathroom trip was a complete shit show.  Like for real.  Ryder likes our master bathroom the most, but it is across the house so I made him use his own bathroom (God forbid).  So he was already crying about that and not being helpful.  Once we got into his bathroom I realized his stool wasn’t in there so I would have to hold him up in the air while he hovered facing the toilet and urinated.  But of course I wanted to save time and didn’t pull his pj pants or pull up all of the way down to his ankles- but just enough for his tiny little man jewels to hang out.  But then, when he was mid-stream, he wiggled.  Wiggled enough to somehow face his penis upward all while spraying into my left eye.  And apparently, when I am being shot in the eye with urine, I freeze and don’t think to move said penis out of my eye range.  I just stood there until he was out of pee.  I then set him down, wiped off my eye with toilet paper and looked to the bathroom door as if making a silent cry for help.  And there stands Cory and Chase trying hard not to laugh, but failing miserable.  All Cory said was, “You could have moved.” 

And so here I am, in my 30s at 8:30pm getting shot in the left eye with piss.  And I did absolutely nothing about it. What does that say about me? What does that say about my life goals?  Have I given up?        

But who wouldn't take a pee shot to the eye for this little nugget in red? (And then there is Chase, sitting there, not giving a damn. Story of his life.) 

Swearing Toddler

Okay, so you know how my parenting choices are sometimes questionable?  Like the time I forgot my child had a neck tat on at church or the time I accidentally bought my child a porno? Well, along with all of these terrible parenting choices, I have also decided that I don't necessarily censor my language around my children.  Instead, we try teach our children about what time and places certain language is appropriate and not appropriate.  Apparently, 2 year olds don't always understand this (Who knew? Come on kid, you're making me look bad.).

So, we took Chase and Ryder to the aquatic center in Hutchinson yesterday. (On a side note, this place is awesome. What is not awesome is that Ryder learned that no one knows when you pee in a pool. What he didn't know is that his mother knows his pee face and his "pee shiver" and will still scold him for peeing next to the newborn in the kiddie pool even if no one else sees.) 

Ryder had a blast climbing up this children's slide that sprays water and makes it super slippery as you go down.  Ryder must have climbed up and slid down a mere 19 million times.  On his millionth slide down, Ryder reached the bottom and stood up.  As he stood up a child walked past him and accidentally splashed him with water.  Ryder looked at me angrily and yelled, "That G*d damn kid splashed me in the face!" while he wiped his eyes with his wet arm.  

And now we can't show our face again at the aquatic center. 

Speaking of places where we can't show are faces anymore- Chase, Ryder and I had to leave the park one day this summer because Ryder kept yelling, "Assh*ole" over and over again for no apparent reason.  And now Chase refers to the park at Ripley Elementary School as the Assh*le Park.

I would say that my parenting is pretty stellar.  (You know, if you think stellar means terrible.  Extremely terrible.) 

Anywho, isn't Ryder cute, though? So he'll have that going for him when he is in juvie. 

The 3 P's: Potty Training, Pedophile and Penis

Ok. We have been potty training Ryder.  And he has been doing fantastic but during this whole process I am reminded that there are many, many times where potty training makes you feel like a gigantic pedophile.

For instance, one evening we were at my parents house sitting out on their patio when Ryder announced that he needed to pee.  He took a minute and picked out the best tree to pee on (because I am a lazy parent and walking inside to the actual restroom was out of the question).  My Dad walked over to the tree to help Ryder pull down his pants.  Of course Ryder was a sweaty mess from playing outside and had on many layers that included: shorts, underwear and a pull-up.  As my Dad was struggling to help Ryder pull down his pants, Chase came over and said he would help. So there they are, my Dad and Chase struggling to pull down the pants of a 2 year old.  Ryder, unimpressed with the whole process asked, "Now everyone is pulling down my pants?" 

Cory was pretty excited this week when Ryder walked into the bathroom and saw Cory peeing.  Ryder waddled up to him and said matter-of-factly, "You are peeing with your big penis."  Cory pretty much high-fived himself (and has taken every opportunity possible to tell this story to anyone with ears).

And potty training is the reason I will not have any more children.  Well, that and the sleepless nights and the ear infections, and the messes, and the zero personal space, and the ripped vagina.  Definitely the ripped vagina.

Also, I'm pretty sure after potty training I have now become a certified doula.  After all, I have spent the last 3 weeks saying phrases like, "Keep pushing."  "Do you see anything coming out?" "You can do it. One more push." (But I'm pretty sure doulas don't reward their clients with 2 fruit snacks from the gas station after their last and final push.)

Ryder's Recent Insults

Ryder is really starting to develop his own personality and it is starting to shine through in his every day activities.  And as it turns out... he has the same dry, weird personality that his big brother has and I secretly am pleased but yet at the same time, terrified.   

So, every Thursday evening we have a routine.  I get home from work, wrangle both the boys into the vehicle, pick my Mom up and we head to the softball field to watch Cory play softball.  Cory's team is pretty good.  Well, pretty good for a team that is filled with old, drunken men.  (Side note: It took me 10 years to learn that what Cory has been calling "batting practice" actually means drinking in someone's garage before the game.  I shit you not, I learned this week that Cory's batting practice requires zero bats. I'm either naive or very, very stupid when it comes to sports. And since I own more inhalers than I do tennis shoes- I'll go with the latter of the two.)  

Any who, Ryder really gets into the games and likes to cheer.  Last week, he was in full cheering stance on top of the bleachers when one of our friends, who is conveniently one of Ryder's favorite people, came up to bat.  He swung the bat and hit a pop fly.  As the ball sours high in the sky Ryder throws both hands in the air above his head and angrily yells, "That was terrible!"  

As it turns out, Ryder was both accurate and an ass (Sorry Jared). #coachRyder 

So, speaking of being an ass, Ryder was playing with his tape measure this weekend when we were camping.  Ry is obsessed with measuring things.  So here he was measuring the air (because why not?) when all of a sudden the ruler part retracted and pinched his finger.  My sister, Jess, asked Ryder if he wanted her to kiss it to make it feel better.  He returned her polite gesture with a displeased, "No."  He then proceeded to pull out his tape measure, put it up to her waist and measure her.  With a growl he announced, "Yup, same size. Lots," and walked away.  For real, this kid can't even count past 10, but can insult with math like the best of them. #furturemathteacher?

Ryder is starting to remind me more and more of Stewie from Family Guy.  Please pray for me. 

My Ryder- the A**hole

My little Ry-Ry Pumpkin Pie has been quite the 2 year old lately.  You know, I always think that I have decent self-esteem until one of my children opens their mouth and speaks to me.  I can give a 4 hour presentation to an auditorium full of professionals without a sweat but one conversation with my 2 year old can have me questioning all of my life’s decisions.

Last week after singing our usual bedtime song, I laid Ryder down in his crib, covered him ever-so-gently with his blanket and started rubbing his back.  His sweet little blue eyes looked up at me and I replied to him with a big, warm smile.  Just when I thought I couldn’t be any more grateful for this sweet little human of mine, he opened up his mouth and said, “Put your big teeth away.  Cover them with your big top cover,” and rolled the opposite direction to face the wall.

Oh, sweet Ryder, do you mean that you want me to put my top lip over my teeth and stop smiling at you?

Sweet dreams you asshole.

Licking, Strange Men and Hair

Wow- it has been a hot minute since I have blogged. (Okay, yeah. I will take a "hot minute" out of my vocabulary.  But not because I am not hip and cool and down with the hot new lingo, but because I choose not to use it anymore. How very liberal of me.) 

Anyway, my family had a great Easter weekend.  Although, I did have to add long sleeves to my children's Easter attire due to the snowstorm we got this weekend (Where is global warming when you need it?).  And to make matters worse, we had to have both of our Easter egg hunts indoors and do you know how difficult it is to hide Easter eggs in the same room that your kids are playing in? #weatherfail #firstworldproblems 

Church.  Oh Church. Why can't you be 17 minutes long (my toddler's current attention span limit) and be filled with nothing but Garfield cartoons (Ryder's current favorite.  I mean come on kid, are you growing up in the 90s?) and jelly beans? Luckily, Ryder did have a pocketful of jelly beans during church.  But instead of watching cartoons, he spent most of the hour and a half pointing to different adult men that he wanted to shake hands with (Mental note to self: keep an eye on Ryder's infatuation for unknown adult men) and saying, quite loudly, "I want to share peace with that man," over and over and over until he decided to give up and lay his face on the cool floor (You know, what most people trying to cure a hangover do). At which I didn't reject to because it was, in fact, the only thing that kept him quiet after he ran out of jelly beans and strange men to be infatuated with. 

I did spent a large amount of time at church observing other families with small children and trying to take note of why their kids were all so well behaved while 50 percent of my children were licking the cool floor and the other 50 percent were trying to stomp on the other half, laying on the floor.  But I came up empty handed.  And since it can't be because of parenting and because I didn't want to look inward and re-evaluate my parenting style, I will just say that all of the other children in church must have been drugged to sit so nicely and quietly at church.  And a special pat on the back to me for not drugging my children, especially on a holiday.  Wow, I am a great parent.  I should start teaching parenting classes, or at a minimum start a podcast about my parenting (note to self: try and figure out exactly what a podcast is.)

After killing it at church, we spent the day gorging ourselves with candy.  And when I say "we," I am including my 2 year old nugget who was too hopped up on sugar to take a nap on Easter.  We laid that little bugger down for a nap at my parent's house in his pack-n-play.  When I went to check on him a little while later, he was standing up in the pack-n-play, licking the fabric sides.  He stopped licking only long enough to say, "I all done sleeping. It not dark out."  So being the great mother that I am, I rescued my nugget from his nap and brought him back to the party to, again, gorge himself with sugar.  We did end up paying for his lack of nap time and more than adequate amount of sugar. We received this payback in the form of many, many messy diapers and not so many hours of sleep. (Which is actually super great birth control.  Fellas- if your wife is trying to encourage you to have another baby- send them my way.  One day with my sugared up tot will put an end to that.)

On a side note: Chase has decided he is over his curly hair. I have always told him that he gets to make the choices for his appearance. And we use the phrase, "Your body, your choice," a lot in our household. He wasn't afraid to belt that phrase out to me 10 minute before we needed to be at church while requesting a new hairstyle (you know because I am some sort of a hair wizard with all of the basic brushing and combing I have taught myself to do in the last three decades).  So before being a shit-show at church, I spent an adequate amount of time in the bathroom while my 7 year old, son sat on a stool in-front of the mirror while I straightened his hair.   

So pretty much this is where I am now. Somewhere between licking objects and straightening my son's hair.    

A Box, Tarzan and Blood... Oh So Much Blood

So my parenting hit an all-time low once again.  I know what you are thinking- How could her parenting get any more low? Well, it can. And this is what happened...

So my sweet Chase discovered a new toy.  It isn't one of the 1,900 dinosaur toys or Pokemon cards that I have spent my 401K on.  It was a box.  And not even a box that he found at our house.  It was a box found at someone else's house that was more appealing than any toy he owns.  (Can you tell I'm a little bitter about spending so much money on toys that never get played with?)

Any-who, this fantastic box isn't just any old box.  It is tall and skinny and Chase likes to wear it.  Now only if we had a box in the shape of underwear, might I actually get him to put some on. Well, this box goes from his shoulders down to his ankles.  But it reaches the top of his shoulders so his arms stay tucked inside the box and it forces him to waddle like a penguin.  It was all fun and games until I hear a shriek coming from my tiny box-troll. I dash into the dining room.

I look around and all I see is my 6 year old, wearing a box the size of his body, laying face down in his own pool of blood.  He must have tripped and he was unable to brace his fall.  You know, due to his hands being stuck inside the box.  There are only two ways to get him out of the box to assess his injuries.  1. I can wrap my hands around his neck (tempting), pull and hope he slides out OR  2. I can rip the box.   

I chose option 2 (only because his face and neck are all bloody and I wasn't in the mood to shower).  So here I am using all of my strength like a modern-day lady-Tarzan trying to frantically free my child, laying in his own pool of blood, by ripping this box apart one small cardboard section at a time (because frankly, I'm not Tarzan strong).

And the only thing I can think of is.... I went to college for this to be my life? I am well educated.  How is this my offspring?

About 5 minute into this fiasco, Cory slowly trots up the stairs and asks what all of the commotion was all about- because it disturbed his pooping.

Chase did take a few chunks out of his lip and had to miss his school's talent show due to his injury.

Oh also, shortly after Chase's injury and having to miss his talent show, we had to break the news to him that his dog died.  Not Chase's best day.

Christmas Cooking, Puke and Misery

So this year for Christmas, I decided to do something different.  I created a homemade dessert. (I am well aware that this doesn’t sound that spectacular for most people, but let's be honest; I am the person who brought cut up McDonald’s cheeseburgers to last year’s Christmas in a crockpot.  And I didn’t even prepare it ahead of time.  I cut up the cheeseburgers in the car with a toddler knife on the way to the celebration.)  Don’t get too excited though, I used a recipe.  But it did have more than 5 ingredients, which is something that was new to me.  I know 5 ingredients may not sound like a lot.  But it is when you don’t have normal cooking and baking items in your house like normal grown-ups do.  It is always questionable if I have unexpired milk in my house. 

So here I am at 6am using my mixer (that we got as a wedding gift 8 years ago and just opened this year) feeling pretty good about myself when my toddler walked in the room, followed by the 6-year-old. 

Ryder takes one look at the dessert I am preparing and asks, “Puke?”

To which I grumpily reply, “Ryder, not everything I make is puke.”  (Can you sense that he asks this a lot about my cooking?)

Then Chase chimes in, “Tell that to your cooking.”

They both then grabbed a bag of crackers and trotted into the living room to enjoy their morning.  Meanwhile, I stood there, completely defeated and trying to figure out what the hell it means to fold whipped cream into the mixing bowl, that is now covered in the sour smell of misery.  I never did find out what it means.

Story. Of. My. Life