My friend Molly had a bad day this week. She took over-tired kids to the grocery store and they had a meltdown, which is what happens when you bring over-tired kids to the grocery store. Sometimes you just need to buy some damn milk, you know? And sometimes your kids are happy, well-rested, well-fed, and total angels right up until 20 seconds before you hit the checkout counter and THEN they have a total meltdown. Weathermen – who are wrong like, 80% of the time! – are better at predicting stuff than parents. At least if you walk outside and get wet you can reasonably assume it’s raining. Ask a 3-year-old how they feel and you’ll get a response like PEANUT BUTTER TICK TOCK PIRATE SHOELACES. That is not helpful in judging store meltdown likelihood threat levels. (It’s basically always threat level double red anyway.)

Your children having a meltdown in a store doesn’t make you a bad mom. It makes you a MOM. Not getting everything one hundred percent right one hundred percent of the time doesn’t make you a bad parent. It makes you a PARENT. That’s why parenting is a THING. If kids came out of the womb as fully functioning human beings they wouldn’t be kids, they’d be turtles. Miniature versions of adults left alone to fend for themselves. God, I bet being a turtle mom is the BEST. No one hangs around the sunny log at the pond judging that one turtle whose offspring always have dirty shells and swim in circles screaming “Poop! Butt! Fart!” all the time. No, we get the grocery store full of judgement and withering looks and people laughing at us while we struggle and plead and do the the very best job we can to not raise monsters who set your house on fire some day.

Remember this: every single person who is judging your parenting used to be a baby. They crapped their pants. They threw up on themselves. They ate something disgusting off the floor. They drove their parents crazy in all the ways your kid is currently driving you crazy and probably 4,365 other ways your kid hasn’t even thought of yet. Even if that dude laughing at you while you wrangle a vicious rabid badger disguised as a toddler into your cart never has kids of his own, he used to be a little shit too. He still is kind of shit for laughing. Someone should go laugh at his mother.

NEVER FORGET: You are doing the best you can with the incredibly raw materials you (or someone else) grew in their very own human, imperfect body. Go easy on yourself. Go easy on other parents. Go easy on your kids, even if it means you have to lock them in their rooms for 20 minutes while you bang your head against a wall. Just be sure to teach them to go easy on each other. And remember – no one will die if your kid screams the whole time you’re buying that damn milk.

I asked her to smile for a photo – something she’d been doing for the past 20 minutes.

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I have instituted a no-falling-behind-in-the-housework rule for myself over the past week, therefore I have no energy left for the words.

Sunday:

Please notice the nice healthy cheese snack and ignore the cookies.

Dual couch nap! On a Sunday! Nirvana!

You know that commercial about doing two things at once? This is Evan’s version.

Monday:

Macaroni necklace making

Caroline is fake-napping because she is fake-sick so Evan is fake-doctoring her

Hey, you’re not allowed to sit like that. Stop. Immediately. Stop.

Tuesday:

I sleep in a drawer!

Gym warm up

We stopped at the boat store so I could talk to the boat guy & I found them “fishing”

Wednesday:

Spider walks

Practicing her beam/dunking skillz

I made a lot of dip this week

Thursday:

This is how I get to stay in bed an extra 30 minutes

Waking up to this instead of the dishes from last night is nice

Trying to climb onto the cutting table at the fabric store

Friday:

I can tell she’s my kid because she loves Home Depot

ATTACK OF THE GIANT CAROLINE

I got to eat about 30% of this – Caroline ate the rest

Saturday:

An ominous start to a road trip

Caroline’s favorite toy everrrrrrr

Tiny slumber party

That was exhausting. Only EVERY OTHER WEEK OF MY LIFE left to go!

Did you take iPhone photos of your week? Link up with one or several below! Please consider joining, even if you haven’t done it before – it’s really fun!

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The list of skills Caroline has mastered is pretty long, but the list of skills she THINKS she has mastered is hilarious. She’s like a walking internet meme. Eating yogurt? NAILED IT (as long as you don’t mind that she’s covered from head to waist in just as much yogurt as she got in her mouth). Dressing herself? NAILED IT (even though both her legs are in one leg-hole of her pants and her shirt is on backwards). Reading books? NAILED IT (all our books go like this: “One day…kitty, uh oh, look! The end.”) Torturing her brother? NAILED IT. For real. Every. damn. time.

Because of the snow plus more snow, this is only Caroline’s second week at school but so far she loves it. When I picked her up today she told me she loves her teachers and loves baby school and wants more. I’m thrilled she is happy there and thrilled I don’t have to even pretend to feel bad about enjoying my childless mornings twice a week. My hope is she has the opportunity to be a leader in her class, since at home she get bossed around when it comes to play time. I’m trying to make sure she gets to develop as her own little person (especially since the brother-copying at home as gotten OUT OF CONTROL in both good and terrible ways).

As well as Caroline tolerates winter (she is a true New England December Baby) I am so looking forward to the adventures we’re going to have when the weather warms up. Now that she’s big enough to walk/eat human food/drink from a regular cup/stay out all day without a nap we can go on longer and more interesting day trips. It’s like hanging out with an adorable little friend instead of dragging around a reluctant baby. She can still be a major handful (Confidential to the people at Target the other night: SO SORRY. AGAIN. SORRY.) and is by no means an angel but she can be reasoned with 75% of the time. And by reasoned with I mean bribed, mostly. Some weeks are better than others but there are whole entire days where I don’t have to scold or put her in time out because she listened to my requests and followed through. I suspect this is just an up-phase and we’ll be back in a down-phase of listening soon – but at least in a few weeks we won’t be trapped in the house anymore.

I think she’s finally gone through a growth spurt, since her 18 month clothes are officially too small. We’re moving up to all 24 month stuff but even some of her 2T clothes fit. She’s still squeezing her feet into her size 5 sneakers, but I think they’re probably too small. Don’t tell her that though, because girl NEEDS her ” pink ‘parkly shoes!!”

Likes include apples, oranges, grapes, strawberries, peanut butter, noodles, drinking from a straw, The Backyardigans (she knows all their names), singing, dancing, shouting, Brutus, Blushes, her brother (mostly), Daddy, splashing, reading, puzzles, swimming, princess skirts, eating snow, rock’n'rolly music, school, Monsters Inc, cuddles and pretending to be a kitty cat named Ninja who meows instead of talks.

Dislikes include nightmares, cleaning up, wearing hair clippies, being hungry and not getting her way.

26 Month Milestones (from BabyCenter, as usual)

Mastered Skills (most kids can do)
Stacks six blocks – Piece of cake.
Walks with smooth heel-to-toe motion – She’s too busy skipping, running and dancing to do much walking.

Emerging Skills (half of kids can do)
Uses pronouns (e.g., I, me, you) – Me me me me me me mine me mine allll day.
Washes and dries own hands – Like a champ.

Advanced Skills (a few kids can do)
Speaks clearly most of the time – Other parents can understand her. Childless grown ups less. Her teachers understand more than I do.
Draws a vertical line – She’s must more interested in coloring in the entire page blue (ALWAYS BLUE) than drawing a stupid old line.

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*Giveaway now closed*

I am blond-haired, blue-eyed, very freckled and of Swedish and English decent…but compared to the rest of my family I have a fantastic tan. E isn’t so much “pale” as “transparent” and the kids definitely take after him. With all that paleness comes the usual complaints – dry itchy skin, sensitivity to all sorts of soaps and additives and cleansers, and chapped cheeks from runny noses and cold air. On top of that, my husband has a mildish case of rosacea (I say mildish, since it doesn’t bother him much – “vain” is not a word in his vocabulary – but it is persistent.)

So when Aquaphor emailed me and was like “Hey, can we send you some Aquaphor to try?” I was like “You mean send me MORE Aquaphor? Since I already buy it in the giant tub since we ran out of the giant tub the Navy prescribed to E for his face? Yes, yes you can.”

They sent me the Aquaphor Baby Healing Ointment and the Aquaphor Baby Gentle Wash & Shampoo, both of which are favorites already in our house. The Healing Ointment is great on diaper rash, itchy spots and especially on the chapped skin on Evan’s face:

7:30 pm, right after bath. Poor baby. His nose runs and he wipes it with his right sleeve so the right side of his face is always the worst (We’re working on using tissues, I promise).

I used a teeny tiny bit of the Aquaphor Healing Ointment right before bed and…

8:00 am the next morning. Still a little dry but SO much better. Luckily a tube of Aquaphor lasts a long, long time so I just dabbed some more on throughout the day.

It even worked wonders on my thumb last night, after I burned myself lighting E’s birthday candles at 1 am (free tip: don’t play with fire when you’re really, really tired).

The Baby Gentle Wash & Shampoo is tear-free, fragrance-free and washes out really easily – all very important factors when trying to wash two squirmy kids who FREAK when you get water in their eyes or ears. Now that Caroline has hair long enough that I need to Deal With It regularly I appreciate that the Aquaphor Wash & Shampoo leaves it soft and shiny. It also took the marker right off both kids hands (and arms and knees and faces…) without drying or irritating their skin. We are Aquaphor devotees and I couldn’t imagine going through a whole winter without it.

To help YOU and your family enjoy your winter, Aquaphor wants to send one of my readers this amazing prize pack:

Bundle of Joy Package 

•  $50 Visa Gift Card
•  “Warm Buddy” to cuddle with
•  Ice Age Continental Drift (2012) DVD to watch with your family
•  A Pottery Barn kids picture frame to keep and share your memories!
• Godiva hot cocoa mix, perfect after a cold day
• Aquaphor Baby Healing Ointment  is a dermatologist and pediatrician trusted product that helps protect and relieve dry, cracked skin. It provides effective soothing relief for dry skin and its mild formula is safe for external use on your baby’s delicate, sensitive skin.
•  Aquaphor Baby Gentle Wash & Shampoo is a mild, fragrance free cleanser that gently cleanses both skin and hair. Enriched with soothing chamomile and provitamin B5, the tear-free formula is specially designed and clinically proven to be gentle for baby’s sensitive skin.

To enter, just leave me a comment on this post sharing something you’re excited about this month!  I’ll pick a winner on February 19th and notify them by email, so be sure to enter one when you comment! The giveaway is only open to US Residents who are 18 years of age or older.

p.s. The Warm Buddy in the prize pack is fantastic – it has a bean bag in the middle you can microwave and then tuck inside. Both kids love cuddling it after we’ve been playing outside and I swear it leads to extra couch naps. Exhibit A:

If you find that Aquaphor #WorksWonders, we’d love for you to take and share pictures of how your family is able to enjoy time together with us on Twitter and Facebook!

I was provided with the prize pack listed above as part of my review but no other compensation was received. All opinions are my own. 

And the winner is…Comment #1! (I love when Random.org choose #1)

Congrats to straderspiel for winning the prize pack! Watch for an email!

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I don’t know if I’ve ever said this out loud before but we are officially a no-nap household. Neither kid – the 3 and a half year old or the just-turned-2 year old – naps anymore. It a) SUCKS and b) isn’t so bad.

Back in November I took ALL the advice I got on my post about Caroline refusing to sleep if I gave her the iPad, which was the only way to get her upstairs and into nap-time mode without a fight. I tried putting a time limit on it, which was about as effective as just punching myself in the face. I tried just taking it away and letting her cry/play on her own, but she responded by murdering several library books and a stuffed rabbit. I tried lying down with her, which lead to being actually punched in the face.

None of it really helped and fighting about napping is even more exhausting than not napping – so I gave up. I let her win. We went from 3 hour naps to no naps, which also means Evan almost never gets a chance to nap on the couch or floor so there is NO SLEEPING in my house between the hours of 6:30 am and 7:30 pm.

(Well, unless I turn on some Mickey Mouse Club House and leave the snack drawer open and let the kids fend for themselves while I lie on the couch and periodically shout “Stop jumping on your sister! We do not ride Brutus like a small horse! No, markers do not go in your nose!” with my eyes closed. That’s not exactly restful, although it does save me from going totally insane at least once a week.)

Since they’re not napping anymore other than an occasional car nap between errands, bedtime is almost always cake. Delicious, quick, easy cake that involves me sitting on Caroline’s bed playing on my phone for 30 seconds before she passes out. Mornings are also pretty good, unless a certain ginger wakes me up at 5 am by staring at me silently until I jump up mumbling “OMG I’M UP WHO WHAT TACOS”.

I’ll also admit it’s sort of awesome not to schedule our day around naps. Blocking off 3 or 4 hours a day really put a cramp in our activities, especially in the winter when nothing is open until 10 am and it gets dark at 4 pm. OK kids, let’s go have fun for exactly 43 minutes before we have to head home for lunch and Caroline’s nappy nap! I now have the freedom to lounge around in my fleecy pants all morning, take a shower and noon and THEN drag the gingers out to the totally deserted (no seriously, we were the ONLY people there at noon on a Wednesday) Children’s Museum or to run errands or whatever.

On the “SUCKS” side of the no napping is everything else you would expect. Yesterday Evan fell asleep in the car in the 15 minutes between the museum and his super quick second flu shot (NOT EVEN A SHOT just the nose spray) appointment and he turned into a monster. Thrashing, screaming, throwing himself down in the parking lot, trying to kick me, trying to kick the nurse, shouting “I DON’T WANT A POKE!” etc etc someone please bring me a large bottle of wine etc forever. There are meltdowns. Sooooo many meltdowns. Not to mention the amount of TV the kids are watching some days. It’s disgusting. I’m ashamed. But not quite ashamed enough to cancel Disney Junior and declare us a screen-free household. Nope.

To sum up: I love my kids, I love spending time with them, and I am absolutely signing them both up for preschool over the summer.

p.s. New blog header!! I’m going for clean and modern, although I’ll probably go back to copious ginger photos in a few months. I can’t help myself.

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