Snarky Mommy

This weekend when we were still cajoling and convincing Emmie to pee on the potty, she was trying everything in her power to thwart our plans. But after I blocked the door to the bathroom and told her we couldn’t go to see The Wiggles until she peed in the potty, she finally sat down.

A minute later, she crossed her legs and announced, “Mommy, I keep my legs crossed. My vagina is closed. No pee can come out.”

Little girl, that better be your motto for the next 20 years. Or more.

August was National Breastfeeding Month and while I clearly participated in it myself, I meant to write a little somethin’ somethin’ about it and promptly forgot when I up and left town for most of the month.

But in better-late-than-never fashion, I am getting in just under the wire on the final day of the month. Ha! Under the wire. Underwire. I am killing myself here. Just me? OK then.

According to TheBump.com Breastfeeding Survey and TheBump.com 3rd Annual Pregnancy & Baby Study, 57 percent of women without children feel uncomfortable seeing someone breastfeed in public.

So I read that as more than half of the childless women out there don’t feel comfortable with a baby eating. Would those same women be offended if I pulled out a bottle and fed my baby? Should I cover myself and the baby up if I am spooning some pureed carrots into her mouth?

I have had this exact conversation before with my sister, who is probably reading this right now and knows exactly where this is going. She and her husband were traveling home from a vacation this spring and saw a woman breastfeeding in the Denver airport. And my sister was outraged by the fact this woman was breastfeeding — gasp — without a cover. She just whipped it out, right there in front of God and everybody. I’m surprised they didn’t raise the Homeland Security threat level right then and there.

Of course, I was amused and asked her exactly what she thought breasts were for — they’re for feeding babies. And she said, “No, they’re not.” Last time I checked, yep, they are.

My sister has never been a champion for the breastfeeding cause. Despite the fact I have breastfed three children and tried to educate her, she’s just not comfortable with it. And that’s fine. It’s her deal. I once fed Emmie, under a cover, in her closed-door office and I thought she was going to have a heart attack because “someone could come in!” Oh my God! A teacher could see a pair of legs sticking out from under a blanket-like contraption and think I was smuggling puppets — the horror!

The same study found that 1 in 4 moms actually have an issue with seeing other moms breastfeed in public; and 23 percent of new moms wouldn’t breastfeed in public at all. I am not proud to say I was one of the latter for some of my breastfeeding career.

With Jack, everything was so new and so hard and took so damn long that I just found it easier to feed him in private when other people were around. I could never get the hang of using a blanket to cover up without suffocating him and it was just awkward. So for a year, I just excused myself to another room. A handy technique if you’re trying to extricate yourself from an annoying situation as well — oh look at the time, have to go feed the baby! But I can’t tell you how many dinners I left on the table, how many parties I missed out on, how many conversations I had to listen to through closed doors because I was constantly feeding him in another room.

With Emmie, I got a little bolder and nursed her with the aid of a cover called the Hooter Hider. It’s a thin piece of material held open at the neckline with a piece of stiff wire — the opening allows you to see the baby and also provides plenty of ventilation. It’s held in place around your neck with a ring clasp, so no worrying about it falling off and exposing your boob. I fed her all over the place with that cover — out on the town, at home with guests, at restaurant dinner tables and at the playground.

With Maeve, I’ve gotten even braver. Maybe it’s because I have three kids and I can’t be bothered to keep track of all of them when we go out, much less remember to bring my nursing cover. Maybe it’s because this is my third time and I’m more comfortable with the whole breastfeeding act. Maybe it’s because I’ve gotten over my damn self and realized that if someone sees a small portion of my boob obscured by my baby’s face — less than they’d probably see in a bikini top, actually — and finds it sexual in any way, then that’s their problem.

I pretty much nursed my way through the Smithsonian, several monuments, the Air and Space Museum and the National Zoo without the aid of a cover this summer. It was just too hot to cover poor Maeve and I kept forgetting my cover anyway. And you know what, if people have a problem with it, too damn bad. She’s hungry, she’s hot and she needs to eat. I somehow think people would be more offended by a screaming, hungry baby than a quiet, satiated baby who happens to take her milk straight from the tap.

Hopefully a new nursing mom just starting out will read this and realize it’s not a huge deal if someone sees her boob. Or if the baby pulls off and the whole world sees milk shoot out of her nipple and spray the baby’s forehead — not that that has ever happened to me, not recently, certainly not at the Lincoln Memorial, my God, how unpatriotic THAT would be. Maybe that new mom will think, “You know what? F it. Babies need to eat, they can deal with it.”

As the summer comes to a close this week, I have to fill you all in on some pretty big accomplishments.

First, Jack is reading. Seriously, full-on reading short books. To say I am proud is an understatement. I love books, I love reading. I was an early reader, too, and I really hope he shares my love of reading as he grows up. As the summer went on, I realized he wasn’t just memorizing books that we read to him, but he was actually sounding words out and recognizing them on sight. This past weekend, Grandma brought a bunch of preschool readers and he read four of them to me straight out of the box.

With tears in my eyes and a huge smile on my face, I told him how proud I was and what a great job he was doing. He was equally as proud of himself, although I think a little too eager to please because when he came to a word he didn’t know in the fourth book, he flung it across the room and yelled that he was done. All righty then, drama king. Don’t sound it out, just throw it out.

Say what you want about our nation’s public school system, but my 4-year-old can read, write and do multiplication and fractions. To say I’m pretty happy with our neighborhood school in an understatement. And it makes me sad that not every school in every neighborhood in America is like his, because every child deserves excellent teachers, dedicated parents and tireless staff no matter where he or she lives. We’re lucky, lots of kids aren’t.

The second announcement is that Emmie is making progress in her potty training quest. I wouldn’t call her trained just yet, but she can hold it with the best of ‘em. We’re still working on getting her to go more often, but we’ve gotten her to the point she will at least pee on the potty without screaming and getting hysterical. Progress!

I’m still not sure what the magic cue was, but we bought her a Disney Princess reward chart with princess magnets and I think the pretty pretty princesses have more weight than M&Ms in her world. She’s still doing diapers at naptime and bedtime, but I think we’ve had a breakthrough because she’s not wearing them any other time. That’s not to say we’re not pleading and cajoling her to just sit. on. the. damn. potty. and. PEE. ALREADY. But she’s actually performing the act a few times a day, so I am thrilled.

And not to leave out little Maeve, who is working on her own accomplishments every day. She’s crawling all over the place and is now trying to figure out how to pull herself up to standing. She can get to her knees, but she doesn’t understand how to use her arms to hoist herself up while she pushes up with those chunky, delicious little baby thighs.

Not that I want her pulling herself up yet. My God, no. That would mean I would have to babyproof on yet another level and I just don’t have the energy for that. But I’ll let her work on that a little while longer because it gives her something to focus on instead of trying to eat day-old Cheerios off the floor.

Things Maeve currently babbles:
Bah
Ba-ba
Bwah
Ths
Wuh
Ahhhhh
Da
Da Da
DADADADAAA OMFGDADA!

Things Maeve refuses to say:
Mama

This kid is killing me. It’s dadadadada all damn day long. Every time I change her diaper, I smile at her and she looks right at my mouth as I say “Maaaammmmmmaaaa” and then she laughs and says “Da!”

Oh yeah? You want to play it like that little girl? Let’s see how you like it when I send Dada in to get you in the middle of the night — he who has no boobs.

I know from past experience there will be days I won’t want to hear the plaintive “Mooooommmmmmyyyyyy” from the crib when she’s on hour two of refusing her nap. But cut me a break here, Miss Maeve. I want some love too.

Maybe she’s just waiting for us to return home to unveil it. That means she has exactly 24 hours because we are going home tomorrow. Sweet pirate’s booty, we are all going home to sleep in our own bedrooms in our own beds.

All in all, Josh and I agreed it’s been a great time. We’ll certainly miss Daddy’s lunch-hour swim meets and dinnertime/bathtime/bedtime help, but we’re all ready to get back to our normal lives at home. School starts two weeks from tomorrow, and man, we are all so excited. Well, maybe just me. Definitely me.

We made a little roadtrip to Philadelphia yesterday and it was awesome. Josh and I remarked that we would love to go back again, you know, without the children. So we could actually enjoy the history instead of running out of tours because our kids are acting like lunatics.

A passing rain storm found us ducking for cover near Independence Hall. Did you know there is a Dairy Queen conveniently located a half-block from it? Well, you do now. Do you think Ben Franklin went with the oreo blizzard or the chocolate dip cone?

We spent an hour sequestered in that DQ, waiting the storm out because we were ill-prepared for rain.

The children were oh-so-excited at that turn of events. What more can you ask for than shelter from the storm that provides both cold, sugary goodness and a clean bathroom?

When the rain subsided from torrential downpour to mere sprinkles, we argued about whether to head out. Or, rather, I stamped my foot and whined that I was sick of waiting and that we could be there all damn day and what, was Josh scared he was going to melt? We argued the whole walk down the street, under an increasingly steadier rain, as we all got wet and my soaked and slippery flip-flops threatened to put me on my ass on the cobblestones. When we finally reached the entrance, there was a tour just beginning so we hopped in to the building.

The park ranger/tour guide dude assured us the kids and their level of noise excitement for our nation’s history would be fine. When he opened his mouth to speak and instead everyone heard my 4-year-old scream, “Bwaallllaaalala,” we figured that could not be true, and Josh took them into the tiny hallway while I nursed Maeve and listened to the guide ask if we thought the efforts of the founding fathers were worth it today. He sounded anti-American, but he was from Scotland, so maybe he has some issues there.

When we stepped into the actual room where the most important documents of our country were signed, everyone crowded to the front to get a good look. Inspired by the 234 years of history surrounding them, Jack and Emmie instead chose to hold their own truths to be self-evident. They showed us that all kids are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Time-Outs.

That’s right, my kids decided to do somersaults and scream echo-ing nonsense in those hallowed halls. They were quickly escorted out by the troops representing them without taxation (their parents) as everyone in the room glanced over the shoulders at Those People. You know, the Ones Who Bring Young Children To Historical Monuments And Ruin It For Everyone.

After that awesome behavior, we headed over to see the Liberty Bell. On the way, the natives were restless, but we threatened they would not be able to see the Liberty Bell and they quieted right down. Honest to God, we threatened them with the withholding of a brass bell sighting and they calmed the hell down. Apparently, they thought it would be something magical because it was quite the game-changer.

We zipped through the entire lead-up to the bell, ignoring all the cool materials that answered every question you might have ever had about the bell, and there it was, in all it’s glory. But dude, it’s cracked. The hell? I want my money back. Oh, it was a free tour you say? Well … yeah, whatever.

Jack and Emmie were clearly disappointed by the bell. I think they were under the impression it might be like a pinata, and when you ring it, the candy rains down. But they were excited to get close to it.

Right after that was snapped, Jack grabbed the rope and looked like he was going for it. I am pretty sure I saw the security guard put his hand over his weapon, but thankfully Josh escorted the children immediately to the stroller. He tried to dole out some Cheerios to stave off any tantrums, and you would think he tried to ring the damn bell.

“SIR! SIR! You can NOT have any food in here. You will need to take that outside NOW,” the security guard boomed. People looked. Seriously dude, take it down a notch. They’re Cheerios, not malt liquor. No one’s getting crazy and trying to make a run for the bell after consuming a cereal product.

While Josh was getting yelled at, I hustled Maeve over for a picture of her own, bypassing several groups of foreign tourists and their cameras. I plopped her down and she was happy to put on a little show for the assembled groups.

Clearly, she is way cuter than George Washington ever was. Not so cute that they let her make even one army-crawling move toward the rope, but that’s cool. No harm, no foul.

Josh and I are mulling the thought of cutting this little family vacation short by four days. Or rather, cutting it short by four nights. Because shockingly, children who do not share bedrooms at home do not magically share them well while on vacation.

I knew having two bedrooms for five people would be an issue, but we figured we could figure out some sort of sleeping arrangement that worked for everyone. But in the two weeks we’ve been here, it hasn’t happened yet.

The problem is Miss Emily is all Princess and The Pea and can’t sleep well in a pack-n-play. And the hotel doesn’t offer cribs, just pack-n-plays. So she wakes up between 5:45 and 6:15 every morning, no matter what time she goes to bed. Last night we went to the Orioles game and the kids got to bed after 9 p.m. She was still up bright and early at 5:40 calling for me.

We’ve tried Emmie and Jack sharing a room, but then she wakes him up and he’ll usually sleep until 6:30ish. We’ve tried Emmie, Maeve and us sharing a room, but she will wake Maeve and she always sleeps until at least 7. We’ve even tried putting Emmie in the living room area, but because there’s an open loft above where Jack sleeps, she still wakes him up.

But you know what makes me not want to leave early? The maid service.

Someone comes in every day and not only changes the sheets and brings us clean towels, but they load the dishwasher and clean both bathrooms. They vacuum. They wipe down the sticky fingerprints on the table. It’s like heaven on earth. They also have free breakfast, which the kids love because they get fresh waffles every morning and I love because I don’t have to clean up after anyone. And freshly baked cookies every afternoon. Who doesn’t love a warm cookie? And who doesn’t love using the threat of not getting a cookie to coerce good behavior from her children?

Josh is also able to come home at lunch every day and instead of using his lunch hour to work out, he can take the kids swimming at the hotel pool while I stay in the suite with Maeve while she naps. The kids love having dinner with Daddy every night and are so excited about all the fun stuff we’re doing.

Jack was out of his mind with excitement when he finally got to see “Obama’s House” as he calls the White House and was really into the Air and Space Museum and the Dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum. Emmie was really into the popsicles at the vendors outside the museums. Maeve was really excited to see my boobs came east with us.

So for all my bitching and moaning about how hard it is to be me, at the end of the day, we’re having a good time. And while they’ll likely never remember it, they are loving the swimming and the baseball games and the trips to parks and the museums and the putting their feet in the fountains. Oh, and the time-outs at the WWII monument. Because nothing says “thank you for your service to our country” like a screaming pre-schooler sitting on a bench.

Happy times, indeed.

Things I pulled out of Maeve’s mouth today:

Things I pulled out of Maeve’s THROAT today:

Oh yes, she actually swallowed the ponytail holder.

This morning, I happened to glance at a table in the living room of our suite and saw the package of wipes and Emmie’s pink ponytail holder. It’s tiny, about a centimeter in diameter.

A few minutes later, I heard what sounded like a cat coughing up a hairball and found it odd, since our cats live in Peoria at Grandma and Grandpa’s house and we sure as hell didn’t bring them to DC. I looked over the couch at her and she was rolling around with her toys, not red in the face or anything so I figured she was fine.

I heard it again and for some reason, thought to look and see if the ponytail holder was still on the table. Nope. Uh-oh. I grabbed her and fished my finger down her throat, feeling the tiny elastic. Hot damn. I hooked it with my finger, gagging her something fierce and threw it on the bed.

I held her up, searching her face for signs of distress and she kept coughing, but since she could cough, I knew she could breathe. I sank to the floor and hugged her to me, freaking out just a little. She probably wouldn’t have actually choked on it, but it definitely wouldn’t have been easy to swallow and digest and who knows what havoc it could have caused.

Once again, I lectured the big kids on not leaving small things around. In this instance, though, I think it was my fault. I must have swept the wipes off the table and sent the ponytail holder flying. You’d think it would make me more cautious, but that list of things I fished out of her mouth? Yeah all of those happened after the choking incident. Childproofing — and babywatching — fail.

I rue the day I ever taught this child to feed herself Cheerios, because now she won’t stop putting hand to mouth. And even when I am watching her, she still manages to put crap in her mouth.

Clearly, Maeve was pissed we were all eating chips and salsa, so she showed us — she started eating the table.

That’s what happens when Mommy forgets to bring baby food to dinner and instead tries to pass off some shitty plain oatmeal mixed with water.

For the record, Maeve had her first table food tonight — spanish rice — and she loved it. Have you ever given rice to a baby? Pure genius. An unsteady pincher grasp featuring a teeny-tiny finger and thumb picking up individual grains and trying to get them to her mouth kept her busy and quiet for the duration of our meal.

This trick could come in handy. Perhaps I could scatter it on the living room floor when I need a little “me” time?

This hanging out in Washington D.C. thing has been pretty cool when Josh is around. But when he’s at work? Man, what a bunch of bullshit.

Josh leaves in the morning — with the car — and I get the kids fed and dressed and whatnot. We usually have about an hour after all that nonsense before Maeve needs to take her first nap. Normally at home, we would walk down to the park for a bit or run an errand or something. But here, we’re limited to going outside in the courtyard and kicking a soccer ball around or climbing on a small set of playground equipment.

Or, we can grab the biggest sticks we can find and chase each other. And then we can take those sticks and start banging the hell out of the rain gutter downspouts. And when someone tells you to knock it off, you can bang it harder and then throw it at the reprimanding party. And then, THEN, you can throw yourself on the ground screaming when your mother tells you you are going back inside for a timeout.

And while you are screaming bloody murder, in full view of approximately 15 different hotel units, and your mother tells you to get up (get up get up GET UP RIGHT NOW), you will refuse and continue to throw yourself around kicking and screaming. The fun really starts when your mother, who is trying to also corral your willful younger sister while wearing your baby sister in a Baby Bjorn, grabs you by the arm to get you off the ground.

“MOMMY YOU ARE HURTING MY ARM,” you scream, again in full view of multiple hotel suites, “Stop it RIGHT NOW. Do not do that ANY MORE.”

Then you fling yourself into the hotel room and thrash around for a few more minutes for good measure, stopping only when you see your sister playing nicely with her Leapster. Never mind that you have your own Leapster, you want that one. Now. So you grab it, igniting WWIII and sending your mother’s blood pressure through the roof.

You end your reign of terror only when your father breezes through the door at lunch time, asking who’s ready to swim and you excitedly run off to get your swim trunks. Your mother, who should have forbid it after the morning’s behavior, is more than happy to send you out for you father to deal with.

Northern Virginia is such a beautiful place, too bad all we’ll see of it is the inside of the hotel while my children do time out after time out after time out.

You know how when you plan something it seems like an outstanding idea and then when you execute the plan you think, “What in the effing eff was I thinking?” Yeah, that’s how things worked out with the drive to Washington D.C. on Tuesday.

And I place the blame squarely on the Internet.

Google Maps can suck it. It told me the drive would take 12 hours. Google Maps is a lying little bitch. Google Maps doesn’t have a bladder. Google Maps doesn’t have three kids. What Google Maps needs is a checkbox for the number of children traveling in your party so it can add in time for the appropriate number of potty breaks, meal stops, time outs and trips back home to grab stuff you forgot.

What should have been a 12-hour car ride turned into a 17-hour ordeal that ended with Maeve literally screaming herself hoarse for two hours from midnight to 2 a.m. while I held the pacifier in her piehole. She somehow found a way to scream around it — that one, she is crafty.

Everything started out so well. I rode bitch in the backseat between Emmie and Maeve, doling out snacks and videos like they were going out of style. You can’t complain if your mouth is full of crackers and your eyes are glazed over with an endless loop of Leapfrog videos. Maeve took two very short naps, but was in decent spirits considering she was strapped in her torture device car seat and we stopped at the three-hour and six-hour mark to see friends in Indiana and Cleveland.

I took the wheel after we left Cleveland, knowing full well that Josh would have to deal with the endless chatter and nonsense that would precede anyone actually falling asleep in the car. I am such a team player. But because I was driving, I have to take full responsibility for the biggest asshole move of the trip.

We stopped so Jack could go to the bathroom around 9 p.m. ET and instead of getting gas, I stopped at a McDonalds so he could pee in a clean bathroom instead of a gas station teeming with any number of creepy-crawling ebola viruses. I glanced at the gas gauge, and never thought twice about getting right back on the highway. Probably because there was a kid screaming in my ear that he wanted a special treat RIGHT NOW because he lost the special treat privilege after sticking his hand in the toilet. You have to draw the line somewhere and for me, it was 9 p.m. in a McDonalds restroom toilet bowl.

Fast forward to midnight, and we’re on the emptiest of empty somewhere near the Pennsylvania/Maryland state line. Of course, all three kids were sound asleep. I turned off the highway at the last possible second and all three sets of eyes popped right open. I then turned the gas nozzle on myself and grabbed a match because that had to be a better alternative than getting back in the car for the final three hours of the drive.

And I was right. I became the backseat passenger because I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore, but somehow it wasn’t very restful because Maeve screamed and screamed louder and then screamed while she was screaming and screamed some more. It was super fun and a Very Special Parenting Moment that I will someday look back on with fondness. Hopefully they have premade scrapbooking pages just for this occasion because I will win awards with my mad pinking-shear scissoring skillz.

Maeve conveniently fell asleep 30 minutes before we arrived at the hotel. Of course, all three kids woke up the second we arrived — at 3:30 a.m. — and decided they didn’t want to be in Washington D.C. As we sat on the floor of the hotel room, Emmie tried to crawl back into the womb, sobbing that she wanted to go home while clinging to me for dear life, Jack sat down on the other side of my lap and cried that he didn’t want to share a room with Emmie and Maeve tried to simultaneously suck my face and wriggle free of my grasp while producing her own ear-splitting octave of displeasure. I finally settled them to sleep and they were up, chipper as hell, at their normal times.

Welcome to our nation’s capitol everyone! We’ll be the crabby ones with the dark circles under our eyes you see pulling screaming children by the elbow through the National Mall.