Motherly Musings

Why God made Moms

Answers given by 2^nd grade school children to the following questions:

Why did God make mothers?

1. She’s the only one who knows where the scotch tape is.
2. Mostly to clean the house.
3. To help us out of there when we were born.

How did God make mothers?

1. He used dirt, just like for the rest of us.
2. Magic plus super powers and a lot of stirring.
3. God made my mom just the same like he made me.  He just used bigger parts.

What ingredients are mothers made of?

1. God makes mothers out of clouds and angel hair and everything nice in the world and one dab of mean.
2. They had to get their start from men’s bones.  Then they mostly use string, I think.

Why did God give you your mother and not some other mom?

1. We’re related.
2. God knew she likes me a lot more than other people’s mom like me.

What kind of girl was your mom?

1. My mom has always been my mom and none of that other stuff.
2. I don’t know because I wasn’t there, but my guess would be pretty bossy.
3. They say she used to be nice.

What did mom need to know about dad before she married him?

1. His last name.
2. She had to know his background.  Like is he a crook?  Does he get drunk on beer?
3. Does he make at least $800 a year?  Did he say NO to drugs and YES to chores?

Why did you mom marry your dad?

1. My dad makes the best spaghetti in the world.  And my mom eats a lot.
2. She got too old to do anything else with him.
3. My grandma says that mom didn’t have her thinking cap on.

Who’s the boss at your house?

1. Mom doesn’t want to be boss, but she has to because dad’s such a goof ball.
2. Mom.  You can tell by room inspection.  She sees the stuff under the bed.
3. I guess mom is, but only because she has a lot more to do than dad.

What’s the difference between moms and dads?

1. Moms work at work and work at home and dads just go to work at work.
2. Moms know how to talk to teachers without scaring them.
3. Dads are taller and stronger, but moms have all the real power ‘cause that’s who you got to ask if you want to sleep over at your friends.
4. Moms have magic, they make you feel better without medicine.

What does your mom do in her spare time?

1. Mothers don’t do spare time.
2. To hear her tell it, she pays bills all day long.

What would it take to make your mom perfect?

1. On the inside she’s already perfect.  Outside, I think some kind of plastic surgery.
2. Diet.  You know, her hair.  I’d diet, maybe blue.

If you could change one think about your mom, what would it be?

1. She has this weird thing about my keeping my room clean.  I’d get rid of that.
2. I’d make my mom smarter.  Then she would know it was my sister who did it not me.
3. I would like for her to get rid of those invisible eyes on the back of her head.

Our two year old is terrified of Santa Claus.  I was expecting her to grow out of this fear this year just like her brother did at 18 mths.  However, whenever she see’s Santa, she gets a look of absolute terror on her face.

We’ve been to 3 Santa Christmas parties this year and each time she is completely terrified.  She will go up and get her gift as long as I carry her and I stay between her and Santa.  She will thank him, but that is basically all she is willing to do.  Even as I carry her to meet Santa, I can sense her terror.

It wasn’t until the last Christmas party we were at when I realized why she is so frightened.  At last year’s Christmas party, she was off playing when Santa burst in the room with a big “Ho Ho Ho!”.  As a one year old, she didn’t know where her mom & dad were in the room, there were tons of people she didn’t really know and a big, loud guy in a red suit, of course she’d panic.  She started running blindly & screaming.  She was at the opposite end of the room from me, so it took a minute to weave through the people to get to her, hold her and try to comfort her.

Scarred for life?  I’m not sure, but she definately is still quite scared and doesn’t want Santa to come to our home.

Until recently I thought we were doing not too bad of a job with the discipline aspect of parenting.  On the most part our kids listened and behaved well.  Usually for punishment we take away a privilege but lately the follow through on the punishment has been quite lax.  My son just doesn’t seem to care if he loses a privilege, I know it’s because he doesn’t really believe that he’s lost anything (lack of follow through).

Every time I give him a consequence for his actions (losing a privelege) I always think “What privilege can he lose that I am going to follow through with?”  Like for example, if he is misbehaving and we have an upcoming event, I could take away the privilege of him attending the event – but is that something I’m going to want to do – not attend the event?  Or do I really want to take away his toys or ground him from playing outside etc.  I guess my problem is trying to determine which privileges he’ll lose.  I guess I just have to start being a little more creative in chosing privileges and consequences.

My two year old daughter loves chocolate chips.  She gets chocolate chips for using the toilet – which is probably why she potty trained so easily!  Her favorite cookies of course are chocolate chip.  My son on the other hand, doesn’t particularly like chocolate, his favorite cookies are Snickerdoodles made by Grandma.

One day Grandma sent home a box of her cookies with Dad.  In the box were chocolate chip cookies for my daughter and Snickerdoodles for my son.  When ever I gave my daughter a cookies she would always leave behind cookie chunks and crumbs on the table.  I never really paid much attention to what she was doing, I just assumed that she didn’t particularly like this kind of chocolate chip cookie.

A little while later we were having lunch at Grandma & Grandpa’s.  Of course we were having cookies for desert.  That is when I realized what my daughter was doing.  She was breaking the cookie apart to find all the chocolate chips!  All she ate of the chocolate chip cookies was the chocolate chips!

She does this with the Crispy Chocolate Chip Squares that I make as well.

Crazy about Chocolate Chips!

Potty Training Boys and Girls

Well after potty training a boy and a girl, I would have to say that girls are easier.  However, that being said I also had two completely different approaches to potty training each child.  So you might say that either girls are easier or I’m just getting better at it.

I guess that’s the thing with parenting, some tasks get easier because you as a parent are getting better at it.  I keep telling people that my third baby was the easiest so far and they always tell me “No, you’re just getting better at it so it’s easier.”

Any way back on topic, as soon as my little girl made up her mind that she was going to pee in the toilet, she was done wearing diapers.  She kept asking to go in the toilet for about a month, so I would take her.  The real turning point though was when she asked to put on ‘real’ underwear.  I always gave her the options – diaper or underwear.  (And by underwear I mean the training underwear.)  One morning I gave her the options as usual, she said no to both and went to her dresser drawer and pulled out a pair of ‘real’ underwear.  That was it she was done training.  Surprisingly, even through naps and most night times, she wears underwear and doesn’t have an accident.

Now with my son it was a completely different story.  He was basically potty trained before his first birthday, I think around nine months.  However I went back to work and he needed to be in someone elses care during the day and had to go back into diapers.  When he was 18 months old, I was back at home full time with him and tried to get him back to peeing in the toilet.  This was however quite challenging as I had a newborn and was breastfeeding frequently.  It seemed like every time I would get the baby latched on, he would need to use the toilet.  It became quite frustrating for me.  But I was determined to get him out of diapers not matter what.  Looking back I don’t think he had made up his mind that he wanted to use the toilet, it was more me pushing him.  Which is probably why it took about 6 months to get fully trained.

So I guess all in all I can’t really tell you if girls are easier than boys, although it seemed that way.  I guess I’ll have to let you know how my second daughter potty trains and if we ever have another boy then see how that is compared to the first boy.