We are alone. Parents are alone.

Trick, or Treat? I’m seriously asking

Every day we reacquaint ourselves with our family’s ever-shifting needs. Every day we find ourselves at a place where we have to decide who we’re going to ignore, which way we’re going to triumph and which way we’re going to fail, what risks we’re willing to take for ourselves, for our kids, for grandparents who want to visit, for strangers who sell us yogurt, knowing that the best way to love our community is to isolate ourselves from it, and the best way to love our children is to let them connect, and the best way to get through this is badly and at great cost, making a fucking mess of it every day as we spin the wheel toward a harbor on the horizon between two untethered buoys that keep lurching in the swell.

Don’t Buy My Kids More Toys. Try This Instead.

Don’t Buy My Kids More Toys. Try This Instead. From ScaryMommy.

Hallelujah and Amen.

Let me give you some advice of what you can do instead: Just spend time with them. Take them out for ice cream, or a date to the zoo, or even to the park down the street. They will love that more than any toy, I promise. They will remember it longer too.

Our kids just had a birthday party and got lots of gift cards. The plan is to let them but one thing and then trade them experiences for their cards. Would you rather go to Target and get a Barbie or would you rather go to the zoo? A new Lego set or a baseball game? Fingers crossed my plan works.

Being a Good Mom is Making me a Bad Wife

A blog post on one of my favorite parenting sites, Scary Mommy. It’s like I could have written it almost word for word.

[Basically everything goes to shit 10 minutes before hubby walks in the door from work and the wife is at her limit and loses her shit and unloads on him the second he walks in the door. Read the whole post at the website to get the full effect. It’s worth it.]

My husband never sees me at my best.

At my best, I’m witty, creative, and enthusiastic. At my worst, I’m short-tempered, grouchy, and cold. I can usually be found somewhere between those two, and although my kids often get my best, and my writing sometimes does, my husband just doesn’t.

I worry that this is how marriages fall apart.

I worry that he thinks I’m always stressed out and yelling when I’m home alone with the kids. Because I’m not.

New mamas get nothing done (and other untruths)

>>> New mamas get nothing done (and other untruths)

A blog post definitely worth reading at big city moms. Here’s a snippet:

Mamas, I want to tell you the truth. And here it is: You will not get anything done when you are home with a baby. And anyone who told you otherwise is not being very forthcoming (or perhaps they just have a lousy memory). You might get yourself fed. You might get yourself dressed (then again, you might not). You might take a walk (it makes baby happy). You might have a short phone conversation or start a load of laundry, neither of which you will finish. This is your new mom normal.

So what are you doing all day? Not much that can be measured, really. You’re simply responding appropriately and with patience (through fatigue), to smiles, to tears, to hunger cues, and to drowsiness, teaching your baby how to navigate this complex and (to a baby) highly emotional and raw world. You are keeping your baby clean, which on some days involves more costume changes (for both of you) than any non-mother can begin to fathom. You are teaching a tiny, helpless person all about the world—at least the important parts, like how we treat each other and what it means to be connected to a family. You are creating a foundation of love and trust between you and your baby, one that will help you set your parenting compass, inform your future interactions, and provide a basis for the way your child relates to the larger world.

But that’s about it, really. That’s your day.

There is no greater task than the nothing you did yesterday, the nothing you are doing today, and the nothing you will do tomorrow.

The best things I did today.

The best things I did today. [Link dead as of 6/9/2016.]

Sooooo much this. Exactly.

One of my biggest pet peeves is when my hubs comes home from work and the house is messy, there’s no real plan for dinner, the kids are acting wild, and I’m stressed and overwhelmed, and he has the nerve to ask me, What did you do all day?

As if taking care of three children, one of which is attached to my breast every two hours, isn’t enough in and of itself. Thank.you.very.much.

….

It can be so frustrating. To feel like I’m not getting anything done. To look at my To-Do List at the end of the day and realize I can’t check anything off the list. To realize that tomorrow will likely be very much like today.

But here’s the thing. Life with little ones pretty much never fits into the neat little boxes we form in our minds. When you have little kids around the only thing you can pretty much plan on, is that things will not go according to plan.

And even though those plans I make are all good things, I cannot forget that the best things are what I get to do every day.

Parent Hacks

http://www.parenthacks.com/

Parenting tips from the real experts: actual parents!

Sample tips:

Denture tabs clean more than just dentures

Who knew denture tablets had so many uses? From Sarah:
I found the hack to use denture tabs for cleaning toothbrushes and teething toys, but they are also great for cleaning athletic mouth guards, night bite guards for teeth grinders, sippy cup valves, etc. I take a few with me when I travel to quickly clean pacifiers, spoons, etc. in hotel rooms. Also, a less toxic alternative to bleach products for cleaning toilet bowls is to let 2-3 denture tabs dissolve in the bowl before scrubbing. After throwing away flower arrangements, I fill the vase with water and throw in a couple to clean the scum off the inside. They are dirt cheap when you buy in bulk!

Coffee beans in the diaper pail reduce the smell

Kristine’s hack will set you back a few (Star)bucks, but may be worth it:
When our son started eating solids, the poop—and therefore the diaper pail—got a lot stinkier. A friend suggested that I dump a bag of whole bean coffee in the bottom of the pail before I put the bag in. In order to contain the beans, I put them in a zip-up mesh laundry bag. I couldn’t believe that it worked! At first it smelled a little bit like Starbucks in my son’s room, but after about a week, we really couldn’t smell the coffee, and even better, we couldn’t smell the poop either.