Megaphones should be illegal.

First-time parents are ignorant. After you have your second one, this is something that you come to realize. And it's not simply because you may have bought things that you were ADAMANT that you would use when everyone told you that you wouldn't (and then end up not using) and it's not because you look back and say, why in the world did I have that viewpoint ... that is completely useless. First-time parents are ignorant because of the things that you let your children play with. This doesn't make sense? Neither does the fact that, oops ... the store doesn't have batteries anymore for your really loud and annoying toys ... that's soooo sad. I'm not the only parent that uses that excuse, I'm sure.


When our eldest, Cale, was 2 years old he had a friend that lived across the street. Cale and this little boy would play every day and his mother and I were really good friends. Were is the operative word here.


One day, this little boys mother gave Cale a special present. A megaphone. I thought that it was a fun little gift and Cale loved playing with it.


Children have these internal clocks and alarm systems. They alert the child when the parents are thinking of sleeping in so that the child can make sure that the parent doesn't get enough sleep and therefore, the child can get away with more stuff.


It was maybe 6, 6:15 in the morning and I am sound asleep. I get startled awake with a megaphone in my face and what I thought was my cute little angel saying, "MOM ... OATMEAL!!!"


I popped out of bed, scared half to death and find Cale standing next to the bed with an excited look on his face. He was so proud of himself. I'll just say this, I was proud of myself for not having an accident in the bed.


It was sad when the megaphone was lost that day.

Who is that kid?

Parents everywhere are completely different - in the way they discipline, the things they try to teach their kids, what they feed them ... everything. But there is one thing that is alike in all parents. The Fear. The fear that your children will embarrass you in public.


This also used to be my fear. Not anymore. I don't fear it. That is the first step to surviving. You have to accept that it will happen. My outlook changed after New Years this year. Now, I just hope that it will never be this bad again.


We decided that we would go to the zoo on New Years Day. Have a great day with the family. It almost ended with me leaving the little one to fend for himself.


We had walked in, we were looking around at all of the animals, just having a good time. Then we get to the monkey area. Let me see if I can explain this so that everyone understands the horror that I went through.


At the beginning of the monkey section of the zoo, there are some statues of some chimps. These statues happen to be ... let's say, anatomically correct. You just closed your eyes and said, "Oh my gosh", didn't you? My thoughts exactly.


Peyton runs up to these statues and grabs on. You can guess where. Then he looks back at me and yells, "Mom!! He has a WEENIE!!"


I was hoping that the earth would open up and swallow me whole. In the split second after he yelled that, I contemplated turning away and pretending that I didn't know him. I was horrified. And of course, he wouldn't do it when there was no one around, no. There were probably 8-10 other families close by. You know what all of them were thinking? They were praising everything holy that it wasn't their child that had done that. Just like I would have done.


There's no way I could recover from that one gracefully. I took his hand and pulled him away as quickly as I could. Sad part is, we need to find another zoo to go to. Maybe in another state.

No, really ... punish me!

In our house, punishment for small infractions gets you sent to your room. Being a parent, I think this is quite a generous punishment. The boys can go in there and play with all of the junk they have amassed in their short little lives. The point is just to separate us from them. To get a little breathing room so I'm not tempted to duct tape them to the wall for a couple of hours.


On one of our not so great mornings, Peyton had been a little mouthy or "fresh", if you will, and he was sent to his room for 4 minutes (one minute for each year that they are old). He argues up and down about being sent to his room. Now, if it was me, I would be scurrying in there as fast as possible - because of all the toys in there and if I made mom and dad mad, I'd be afraid of what punishment could come in it's place if I threw a fit. But Peyton doesn't think that way. He proceeded to kick and scream and basically act like he had a poisonous snake latched onto his ankle.


FINALLY he goes in there. Before his "time out" was up, my husband (Eric) and I walked past his room and noticed that it was dirty and said for him to go ahead and clean it up while he was in there.


Remember, he fought like a warrior to not go to his room in the first place. So when we say to clean up, what does he say?


"No! NO! I'm in time out!! I'm in time out!! I can't clean, I'm in time out!!"


Now that is quick thinking.

Beat bullies to the punch - bully yourself!

Peyton had just turned three and he was into EVERYTHING. If it wasn't nailed down he would take it and if it was nailed down, he would mess with it. Curiosity is not something new with children, so it's not like Peyton was blazing his own path but he was exploring things in ways that I never thought a child would.


I was sitting down, reading a book - in small sections, mind you - when Peyton walks up to me with a soaking wet head. It wasn't bath time yet ... what did he get into?!?


Peyton had taken it upon himself to "wash his hair". That's great! It would be a huge help if he could wash his own hair and bathe himself. But this looked too good to be true. For once, I was right.


He actually stuck his head in the toilet. And gave himself a swirlie. How he reached his chubby little arm up to flush the toilet while his head was in there, I will never understand.


Just when you think you've seen and heard it all ... you have kids and they enlighten you and prove you  wrong every single day.

It's on FIRE!

All stay at home parents have that moment. The moment when you have to go to the bathroom, or else. Cale was about three and a half and I had one of these days. You know that commercial, "Gotta go, gotta go, gotta go right now, gotta go, gotta go, gotta go", it was kinda like that.


On those occasions, you can either get the child secured in their room with a toy or occupied, so that when YOU are occupied, your kid doesn't get into anything. Unfortunately, I was in the middle of fixing Cale lunch and I didn't have time to get him buttoned down. I had just put one of those frozen burritos in the microwave for him when nature decided to call. I told him to go to his room and play and I had to run.


I'm in the bathroom and I hear beep ... beep ... beep. Well, this isn't going to be good. I started yelling at Cale to leave stuff alone and go play in his room and I hurried as fast as I could.


I am just buttoning things up when Cale starts banging on the door yelling, "It's on FIRE!!!"


I rush out and on my way to the kitchen, I smell it. It smells like a burrito with something a little special added in. Mmmm ... the smell of melting plastic.


I fling open the microwave and there it is. Cale's first homemade brick. The burrito was completely black, sitting in a nest of melted plastic plate. The plate and burrito started out as two items and ended up as one.


Cale just kept saying over and over, "It was on FIRE!!"


Turns out, Cale pushed 5 as many times as he could, then start. All I can say is that wet cat, dirty sock, industrial smell didn't leave the house for weeks. WEEKS. I don't know if that burrito ever actually did catch fire, it was sure smoking when I pulled it out though. Needless to say, now we have a microwave that has a lock button on it so the little turkeys can push buttons all they want and nothing happens.

What IS in brown sugar?!?

Cale had headed off to school and I was making Peyton some breakfast. It was one of those cold days we get maybe twice a year, so I thought that oatmeal would be a fitting breakfast. Peyton was excited and he went and grabbed his stool so that he could watch me mix in the sugar and milk.


When he ran off to get the stool I asked him if he wanted brown sugar in it this time. He yelled back yes and I grabbed it out of the cabinet and started spooning some in just as he came into the kitchen with his stool.


He latched onto the sink and hopped up onto the stool and looked into his bowl. He asked what the brown sugar was and I said it was sugar and molases mixed together.


Then he looked back down at his bowl and said, "Why did you put poop in my oatmeal?!? There's poop in my oatmeal!"


This happened a couple of weeks ago and now I can't put brown sugar in MY oatmeal because of what it makes me think of. Thanks, Peyton.

Don't forget the fifteen cents!

Cale came up to me and was saying that he wanted to be an astronaut when he grows up. Pretty normal for a 7 year old, right? Then he went on to tell me that he would need a second job if he was an astronaut.


Need a second job? Why would a 1st grader be worried about a second job? 


I asked him why he would need to work two jobs. He said, "Mom, you know that you don't make a ton of money just picking up rocks."


I started laughing and asked him how much he thought he would make.


He sighed and said, "At least 90 bucks and 15 cents."

Children do not need artistic freedom.

I am a simple lady. I don't buy expensive clothes, shoes and purses. I don't go out and get mani's and pedi's every week. I've never been high maintenence. But there is one thing that I splurge on. My makeup. It's something that I don't wear too often, because when was the last time that anyone could say that they dressed up to be a stay at home mom. I wear it on the rare occasion that my husband and I can go to a restaurant that doesn't stock up on crayons or paper menus. Keep this in mind as I tell the rest of the story.


I was making Peyton lunch - his always requested peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I called to Peyton and told him it was time to sit down. He reached his chubby little hand up to grab his cup and I noticed red marks on his stomach. They looked like bruises so I crouched down to check them.


The marks smeared when I touched them. Oh lordy. I asked him what it was and he said that he was coloring. I hadn't given him crayons or markers that morning. This was not going to be good. He said that he was coloring in his room. So ... I walk into his room and I don't immediately see anything. Then I look to his toy shelf and the brand new canvas boxes that we had gotten to store away all of his stuff. Red marks. All over.


I just closed my eyes and thanked the big guy upstairs that it wasn't too bad. The liners could be washed, disaster averted. Peyton finished his lunch and I sent him to use the potty before "rest time". And no, he doesn't need to rest, mommy needs an hour break. Hopefully, from these stories, you can understand why.


Peyton comes out of the bathroom and I see little blue footprints from the bathroom to his door. OH MY GOSH!!! Either there is a smurf loose in the house, or Peyton has done something else. I just stood in front of the bathroom door, not wanting to know what had happened in there.


When I open the door, my eyes can't focus on one particular thing. There was too much going on. Too much.


The bottle of Inspector Hector mouthwash was on the counter. Empty. This is the source of the blue everywhere. It was all over the floor, it was in the toilet, in the sink, on the shower curtain. The shampoo bottle was opened with an odd blue color seeping through the shampoo. There was handsoap squirted all over the counter and the highlight of his art display was a mauve colored spiral outlining the edges of the counter ending in a pretty little swirl around the sink all the way to the stopper. My $15 a tube lipstick. Nice. Especially since I had only worn it twice.


You're probably wondering, don't you ever watch your kids? Absolutely. I had been in Peyton's room playing cars with him right before I made his lunch. You may also ask, don't you keep that kind of stuff out of his reach? Uh ... you've read the stories. Of course I keep stuff like that away from him. But he had broken into our bedroom - which is where I keep the makeup and Inspector Hector. He broke off the child safe door handle. Child safe? I think not.


He's a quick little bugger - all of this was done in less than 5 minutes. I feel sorry for the kindergarten teacher he will have in 2012. Poor, poor lady.

What superhero is complete without a horse-field?

The boys sat down to watch an old Superman cartoon when Cale asked how Superman never got hurt. Before we had a chance to even respond, Cale jumped up, stuck his index finger in the air and said, "I know how he never gets hurt!!!"


"He has a horse-field protecting him!"




Who can argue with that logic.

No, you may NOT have a slip-n'-slide in the house!

I think that our youngest son, Peyton, has put a gps tracker on me. This sounds crazy, of course, but it is the only reasoning that I can think of for how he knows when I'm no where around him. Once again, he chose to wreck the house when I was doing laundry. Our laundry room is on the other side of the house basically and anytime I'm over there, disaster occurs.


Back in this past July, I was doing laundry, listening to his constant chattering. Any parent knows that after a while of this chattering, you kind of turn the volume down mentally on it so that you can have a moment of clear thought. This is what I must have done because I didn't hear him stomp down the hall carting all of his pillows and stuffed animals from his room. He stacked all of his pillows and various stuffed furry friends up against the wall, then proceeded to grab a bottle of cooking oil off of our bar.


Keep in mind that I had only used 1 tbsp. of this oil when I was baking something earlier that day and I had neglected to put it back into the spice cabinet. So, I guess you could say that I asked for this to happen.


So this is how it all went down. I was folding laundry and hanging things up, then I hear the trash can lid close. I looked over and didn't see anything so I had to go investigate. I walk right by his leaning tower of pillows and such without even noticing them and go straight to the trash can. I open the lid and see an empty bottle of cooking oil. Hmmm ... I actually assumed that this was the bottle that I had emptied earlier. Wrong. Way wrong.


I decide to go check on the little human tornado and see what he's up to. As I start walking down the hall, I know what he has been up to. He had emptied the entire bottle of oil down the center of the hall and mommy was walking in it. I slosh into his room and ask him what in the world he was doing and he looks at me with that little angel face and tells me nothing, but can he watch Boomerang.


Is his memory really that short term?? No. He knows what he's doing. He thinks that if he gives me that cute look and denies it, I'll forgive him. And unfortunately, that little turkey is right. I told him that we had a mess to clean first and then I would turn it on for him.


Walking back down the hall is when I saw the Peyton-made ladder. This kid is pretty inventive. How long did it take him to come up with that? Did he try it out in his room to see the reach that he would get or was it just a first try success? I guess we'll never know.

Bubba wouldn't do that. Would he?

***Warning this blog entry contains poo talk***


June 2010.


Potty training had gone well with our first child. Too well, we came to find out, because we had the same high expectations with our 2nd one. With the eldest, man it was within 2 months and we didn't have to worry about accidents during the day or at night. Then it was time to potty train the 2nd one. Yeah.


We started training him at the age of two. A year and a half later, it was still not going very well. I was starting to get worried about something being wrong with him -which there wasn't. But imagine trying to potty train for that long. It was pretty taxing on the little guy and me.


He was wearing big boy undies - we never did the pull ups, I think it's confusing to the child, but then again, what do I know, I couldn't get our second one to poo in the toilet.


We had gone almost 4 weeks with no poo accidents this last June when one day, I smell it. I hunted the little ninja pooper down and asked him if he had gone in his pants. He looked at me and as serious as he could be, he said, "No, bubba (his big brother) pooped in my pants."


Hmm ... what do I say to that? Had his big brother actually pulled off his underwear, pooped in them and then put them back on the little one? I don't think so. But the little one got points for creativity. Of course, I didn't give him the kudos for a great idea out loud. Especially when I had to spend time hunting down the squeegee to get him cleaned up.

Thank you, Disney. Thank you.

This happened in May of 2010 ... but I believe that in order for people to understand the things that happen now, we need to delve into the past. So, we are backtracking for the first few posts so that everyone can get caught up on my little hellions.


Our youngest son was 3 years old at the time of this stunt. He absolutely loved Handy Manny. For the un-parents out there, Handy Manny is a cute show on the Disney channel that shows the life of this fix-it guy, his tools talk, that whole thing. Anyway, he loves Handy Manny so much that my parents -  the wonderful grandparents that they are - gave him a little Handy Manny tool set and my little sister gave him a HM tool belt and the little hat and gloves.


So my kid gets all of this stuff out and he's just playing - and actually behaving himself, so I go to do some laundry that I am perpetually behind on. Well, after maybe 5 minutes, I notice that he is being really quiet. (When a child gets quiet, find them. They are probably using their little ninja skills to be as quiet as possible in order to do something that they know they shouldn't be doing.) So I go sniff out my little monkey and see what in the world he is doing. I go into his bedroom and I see him playing on the floor with about 10 tiny screws.


At this point, I'm really starting to get worried. Screws that I've never seen and the little one is paying me no attention. I start looking around his room and notice that the cover to the light switches has been taken off. Oh my gosh. Then I notice the little pile of the covers next to him under his tool box.


He had used his Handy Manny tools to take off the light switch covers in the hall and in his room.


Now, lets be honest. I check for excessive amounts of lead in toys, I check for choking hazards. Never in my wildest dreams would I have checked to see if plastic tool toys would actually work on a real screw. But they do.


It was really hard scolding him after this because for a 3 year old to have the hand-eye coordination to do this is actually amazing and he was so proud of himself.


I now check to see what toys might be used for - even if it sounds nuts, your kids will come up with it!

Welcome To My Blog!

I decided to start this blog for a couple of reasons. One was so that others could realize what children are capable of. Another so that I could write this stuff down and then be able to go back and read it - this way I'm not going through my day thinking that it was just a bad nightmare. No. This is real life.


Maybe some people will shake their heads and wonder if my children and I have a chemical imbalance. That's fine. Wonder. I wish I could say that all of this stuff wasn't true. But I can't. These are the real-life horror stories from a stay at home mom.


I have been a stay at home mom off and on for about 8 years - raising 2 boys - Cale, 8 years old and Peyton, 4 years old. At one time I had a job. And a life outside of the home, but no more. I don't know if I could even fit in with other people out there now. Like a lot of parents, I don't have my own stories anymore. All of my stories and experiences come from raising my two beautiful - and sometimes terrifiying - boys. I can't start a sentence with, "Last night was the craziest night at the club ..." No, all of my stories start with, "You won't believe what he did now."


I don't mean to scare parents-to-be or people without kids. But maybe I can give you a little heads up as to what you are getting yourself into. Because I sure as hell didn't know. People always say what a blessing children are - and this is completely true. They are a blessing and I love them with everything I have. But there are times when I wonder what in the world is wrong with them or what did I do to deserve this.