Why I'm Sitting on the Couch on a Beautiful Day

Dear Parents of Little Surf-Rat Toddler,

Do you have any idea just how cute I find your baby girl? With her 18-24 months skinny jeans, her checkered vans, and her silky, pink hoody? Clearly, you know she's cute. Clearly, she knows you know she's cute. And clearly this little peanut is winning battles at home. Her wispy bed-headed hair all tricked out with hints of, "No, dat my hay-er mama." "No bwush my hay-er." I just loved her instantly.

Which is why I scooped her up from the eight-kicking-legs of four-swinging-children at varying speeds and intervals. Twice. Her little diaper-padded, skinny jeaned bottom was toddling in a game of swing Frogger, and how she survived without getting cartoon-jettisoned over the monkey bars is beyond me. Which is why I toted her on my hip for a moment while I searched for the parent who must have been having a major emergency elsewhere with her other darling children.

Searching for the owner of the toddler, and pushing my own two kiddos on the swing, I carefully placed Little Miss Surfer Baby in a kinder spot on the playground. Until, she came back to the spider legs of the swings.

Scooping her up, again as her hair is grazed by a giant pumping of the feet, where is your mommy?, I ask?

Dat. Bah. La-lee-fing, she says (or something like that).

Dude, where is this kids' mommy? I wonder.

I begrudgingly place her down again near the slide, fearful of looking like some kidnapper. When sure enough a school-aged boy playing a game of I'm not watching where I'm running smacks straight into my new little surfer friend.

And...cue concerned parent. Here you come. Racing (well, trying to race in your Victoria's Secret lace-up ankle boots) to her rescue.

And cue...dirty look. To me. WTH?

And cue...me wondering if it was your Blackberry or your stilettos in the sand that impeded your graceful parenting.

And cue...school aged kids' mom getting a mouthful of why weren't you watching your kid as he bulldozed over my baby?

And cue...jaw-dropping of school aged kids' mom.

And cue...me convincing the kids that watching Sponge Bob, at home is way more fun than swinging.

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like...CPS

This time of year can be very stressful for parents. We're shopping, and driving, and parking, and baking. We wrap, we clean, we eat, we gather, we plan, we host, we create. We keep the myth of Santa alive. We move elves from room-to-room. We forget to move elves from room-to-room. We send cards, take photos, hang cards, forget to take photos. We stand in line, entertain, buy stamps, buy wrapping paper, buy more wrapping paper, and remind children of the true nature of the season.

And all through it, we d-r-a-g our patient little ones from place to place so that we may better spread our Christmas cheer.

So when threats run out, and elves aren't watching, and you have to go back to the supermarket for the 15twentieth time...you might want to try a little trick involving, oh, say...shackling your children like the prisoners they are, and chaining their hineys to the cart.

Case in point:

Two Willing Participants

A little bit of (toy) chain.

One cart.

God only knows what they're doing here.

Voila: One happy mama (and a friendly neighbor in disgust admiration).

My mad parenting skillz worked tonight, yo.

A Birthday, A Move, and a Trip to the ER (Part II)

First, it was my husband's birthday.  Because we lived in two oddly empty houses on his birthday, I decided to pack up the kids, come to the new house, and dive in to cake-baking.  It looked a little like this:

Blowing out candles looked a little like this:

Then we moved, finally.  And it looked a little like this:

Check out the shirts, inspired by Cheri at Blog This Mom, won by Jenn and Juggling Life, and created by Trish at This is Trish's Blog.  It was a collaborative effort.

Then there was a little bit of this:

Although this time it wasn't at the beach, it was in our living room, and the landing didn't go over quite as well.  Let's just say, Patrick has never been so afraid in his life.  Tatum fell out of his arms on the landing, on her back, and her eyes rolled back.  

I was called downstairs to the scene.  I asked Tatum where it hurt.  She pointed to her forehead.  Again, she fell on her back so I was a bit worried that her brain had done a bounce on her forehead.  She whimpered, but didn't cry much, which is almost harder.  But she didn't seem too badly hurt.  More shocked than anything, like her Daddy.  

Then Tatum fell asleep.  Uh-huh.  About 5 minutes after the fall.  I know, I know.  We're not supposed to let them sleep after a head injury.  But it was extremely hot, it was around 2:00, and she may just have been truly tired.  She slept on the couch while we watched her breathe.

Then she woke up.  And vomited.  And vomited.  And vomited a third time.  She wasn't saying much more than a mumbled word here and there.

So Gran rushed over to take Chase, and we went to the ER.

Tatum vomited on the drive over as well.  

We got in.  It took over an hour to be seen.  But in that hour, our tiny little girl became much more like herself.  She sang.  She spelled words.  She went potty.  She smiled.  She talked on the phone.  We had a feeling things were going to be alright.

By the time we were seen, it had been about 4 and a half hours since the fall.  She was okay.

Here's a good lesson, besides not throwing your kids in the air anymore, (can I just tell you how utterly scared and terrible Patrick felt?), according to the ER doctor, if your child has a head injury and falls asleep and vomits, it's not necessarily reason enough to bring them in.  He said it was more important to go based on their behavior.  Are they acting abnormal, which in her case was yes.  I'm no doctor, so follow your own gut, but I had always thought falling asleep was a no-no, and then vomiting meant, holy crap, get the kid in NOW.  Tough call.  We called about 147 doctor and nurse friends and they all said, go to the ER.  Glad we did.  Even better, that she is just fine.

Ta-Da!  I'm okay!

And here they are, the next day looking, and acting as cute as ever.  Thank God.