by Melissa Sullivan on February 27th, 2008
This post could also be titled, “An Exercise in Futility”:
It started a few weeks ago with menacing signs popping up at the kids daycare. “A case of strep throat has been reported in your child’s classroom…” read one. “…case of pink eye…” read another. “…bronchitis…”, …”roto-virus…”, and the dreaded “…Influenza…” At first, it was just a couple of illnesses, but now the signs are multiplying faster than wet gremlins.
Then came the cancelled playdates with their friends outside of daycare. Pink eye, fevers, and stomach flus galore.
So far, Emma and Owen have escaped with mere colds, which developed into an ear infection in Owen. I’m not sure how long we can keep dodging the germs, but I’ve made it my mission to try to avoid what seems to be inevitable.
That’s where the fun starts. Those of you who know me personally know all about my obsessive compulsive tendencies and my love of cleaning. So it’s no surprise that I’ve gone over the top with my disinfecting efforts. So far today, I’ve disinfected light switches, remote controls, doorknobs, matchbox cars, banisters, countertops, the laptop, and every other surface I can think of that gets touched on a regular basis.
This morning, the kids were begging to go to the library. All I could think was “Germs!” Oh, the humanity! I relented, but when we got home, we washed our hands immediately, then used hand sanitizer. Then, I wiped their hardcover library books with a disinfecting wipe.
Owen is so tired of this routine that he cries when he sees the hand sanitizer bottle in my hand. He doesn’t like the cold feeling on his hands while it’s drying.
My husband works with germ-infested college students, so I’m going to make him take a bath in Purell tonight before he’s allowed to touch anything in the house.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go flip the light switch exactly 53 times.
by Melissa Sullivan on February 20th, 2008
Owen is using the potty like a champ. For those of you who missed my comment on my last post, I won the battle of wills by taking away most of his matchbox cars. I left him a couple, but put the rest in a basket on top of the fridge. I told him he could have one back everytime he peed in the potty. Slightly evil, but it worked like a charm, and he has now earned all of his cars back and is still using the potty.
Since he’s my last child, I am officially done with diapers!! WAHOO! I’ve been dreaming of this day since August of 2003, and I can’t believe it’s really here. (Well, technically I’ll be buying him Pull-ups for overnight for a little bit yet, but I think it still counts).
If anyone wants to help me decide how to spend the $60 – $80 per month I was spending on diapers, post your ideas here. And don’t say ‘college fund’. That’s lame.
by Melissa Sullivan on February 18th, 2008
This post is about pee and poop, so stop reading now if that bothers you.
Owen will be 3 in about 6 weeks. We have been slowly introducing potty training for a few months. He really started doing well at daycare about two months ago, but has only peed on the potty one time at home.
He loves to wear big kid underwear, but the second he has to pee or poop, he’ll cry for his diaper. I had been giving in, but this last week was the final straw.
He wanted to wear underwear to school, so I told him that he could get a new Thomas train car if he kept himself dry all day at school. He did it! I was so excited! On the way home, we went to Target and got the Thomas car.
When we got home, he played with the car for about 15 minutes, and then cried that he needed his diaper. This time, I did not give in, because based on his performance at school, I knew he could do it if he’s properly motivated. Plus, I had just spent $20 on a flippin’ Gordon engine as a reward, and I was not going backwards after that.
So now, he’s wearing underwear all day except naptime and night-time, but still won’t use the potty. He either holds it until he gets his naptime diaper, or he just goes in his underwear.
I was starting to think I should go back to diapers and forget the whole thing, but Saturday night when my mother-in-law came over to babysit he went potty twice for her. Just like that. No big deal. So clearly, the little $%* is just playing me.
A very wise man — I think it was Dr. Phil — once said that you should never engage your child in a battle of wills; and if you do, you must never, ever lose. Well, we’re definitely engaged, and I’m not going down without a fight.
So if any of you have any ideas about how I can not lose this battle, I’d be ever grateful!
by Melissa Sullivan on January 14th, 2008
I registered my kids and I for a Toddler Time exercise class at the Y. Emma is at the upper end of the age limit, but I thought Owen would really enjoy it. Like most two-year-old boys, he prides himself on performing feats of strength and agility. (That’s my fancy way of saying he’s a real bruiser).
We’ve now gone to class twice, and each time was worse than the last. Emma does very well and has a great time, but Owen is a nightmare. He spends the first half of class obstinately refusing to do anything the teacher or I ask him to do. Any request is met with an annoying, “NOOOO!”, and any attempt on my part to force compliance results in Owen going completely limp and rolling around on the gym floor.
The second half of class is spent doing what the teacher asks, but to the extreme and with a reckless disregard for safety or social norms. Example: the teacher introduced a game where the kids were supposed to run down to the other end of the gym, grab a plastic spoon off of a table, and run back to show the spoon to Mommy. On the first attempt, Owen ran down and knocked the table of spoons over. The second time, he grabbed as many spoons as he could fit into his greasy little mitts, so there weren’t enough spoons left for the other kids. The third time, he ran so fast he knocked another kid over.
If the other kids are supposed to be sitting in a circle waiting for directions, Owen is climbing a pile of mats in the corner. If the other kids are supposed to be putting balls back in the ball rack, Owen is ramming his into another kid. If the kids are supposed to be on sitting on their scooters, Owen is riding his like a skateboard. You get the idea.
So, I think we’re going to be Toddler Time Dropouts. I think it’s better if I just stick to being willfully ignored by my children in the privacy of my own home and spare myself the public humiliation.
by Melissa Sullivan on January 9th, 2008
I’d been hearing about Facebook for a couple of years now. Since my husband works with college students and we used to live on a college campus, I knew exactly what it was. I just assumed that I didn’t need to be concerned with the whole thing. It’s for teenagers and pedophiles, much like MySpace, right? But then last week, I heard that it’s the second most popular networking site for professionals (right after LinkedIn, which I caught onto a while ago). So, I set a New Year’s Resolution to get myself on Facebook.
I excitedly asked my husband what I needed to know, and set about filling out my profile. I giddily added Shawn as my first friend, and then happily browsed for more people I know. Unfortunately, that didn’t take very long. Most of my friends are stay-at-home-moms who also assume that Facebook is for teenagers and pedophiles. Thus, they are not listed.
That’s OK, I thought. I have not four, not five, but six online acquaintances with which to interact and have loads of Facebook fun. So I added those friends and waited for the hijinks to ensue.
Cue the sound of crickets chirping…
It’s now been a whole week, and not even my own husband has written a message on my wall. I suppose he wouldn’t need to, since we live together and all. But still. No messages on my wall, no ‘add as friend’ requests from any additional acquaintances I may have missed the first time. No long-lost high school or college pals delighted to have located me in cyberspace. And I’ve never been one of those girls who is desperate to get poked, but I’m really wishing someone would just poke me already. I would settle for a pity poke at this point.
chirp chirp…
Maybe I should have left this new-fangled technology to the teenagers and pedophiles. Maybe I’m better off in the real world. In the real world, my friends email me and call me regularly, my husband talks to me over dinner, and I don’t have to feel bad about myself because I’m not getting poked regularly.
by Melissa Sullivan on November 30th, 2007
In the midst of toy recalls and recent news about dangerous chemicals in household cleaners, we moms now have something else to fear: Sesame Street. Seasons 1 & 2 will soon be released on DVD, and the set includes this warning:
“These early Sesame Street episodes are intended for grown-ups, and may not suit the needs of today’s preschool child.”
Huh? What?
Folks at the Children’s Television Workshop, the producers of Sesame Street, say that among the things parents today may find objectionable is Monsterpiece Theatre, featuring Cookie Monster as Alistair Cookie. Cookie smokes a pipe and later eats it. Also, Oscar the Grouch is “too grouchy.”
At first I thought this was pretty ridiculous. My siblings and I grew up watching these exact same Sesame Street episodes and we turned out just fine. Well, my sister did start smoking at 13 and my brother at 19, so maybe Alistair Cookie is indeed a bad influence.
I’m not sure it’s possible to argue that television does not influence kids. If it didn’t, companies wouldn’t spend billions of dollars advertising their products on television.
I’ve seen the effects of this influence firsthand. Until last month, my sweet 4-year-old has never called her brother or other children names. Then, she started watching Charlie Brown – first The Great Pumpkin, then Charlie Brown’s Thanksgiving. Suddenly, she’s prone to calling her brother “stupid” or a “blockhead.” Thanks a lot, Chuck.
I also cringe just a little every time I see Snoopy as the Great World War I Flying Ace, shooting at the imaginary enemy from on top of his dog house. Hopefully, my bazillion lectures to the kids about how guns hurt people will overshadow the image of their favorite cartoon dog committing violent, if heroic, acts of war.
So I can’t say that the warning label on the early Sesame Street episodes is entirely outrageous. Although our generation was raised on Sesame Street, our sensibilities have changed since the 70’s. As parents today, we’re much more concerned with things like car seat safety, second-hand smoke, gun violence, or back-sleeping babies than our parents were. Even methods of teaching kids to read have advanced since the days in 1980 when we were forced to work on those boring phonics workbooks day after day.
But even though much is different today, I’ll probably still let my kids watch these early Sesame Street episodes under my supervision. After all, my siblings and I managed to grow into responsible adults in spite of the poor role modeling of Alistair Cookie. Except for their nicotine habits and my own wicked cookie addiction, we’re doing just fine.
by Melissa Sullivan on November 21st, 2007
At the end, when they are seated for their Thanksgiving feast, why is Franklin (the lone African-American) seated on one side of the table all alone? All of the white kids and Snoopy are on one side, and he’s on the other. In a broken lawn chair, no less. The cartoon was made in 1973, well after the time of separate facilities for blacks and whites.
Last night when we watched it, I thought it was just a funny thing. But now it’s really starting to bother me. It’s bad enough he never gets any lines, but now this. Seriously, what is up?
by Melissa Sullivan on November 19th, 2007
Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. ~Elizabeth Stone
I heard this quote a few years ago, and since I’ve had children I think it often. Before I had children, I was pretty much dead inside. I wasn’t the emotional type at all. I could watch sad movies all day long and not even shed a tear. Old Yellar…Brian’s Song…nothing.
But now that I have children, all of the bad things in the world just seem so much worse. Sure, I worry about the Big Stuff – cancer, car accidents, etc. But I also worry about little things, like getting picked on at school.
Such worries are probably the underlying motivation for this conversation I had with a 4-year-old girl in my daughter’s daycare class last week.
(I’m not proud of this exchange, by the way):
Satan’s Spawn (Pointing at my daughter): She’s always staring at me.
Me: Really? (Not really caring – just trying to help my daughter into her jacket so we can leave. As usual, we’re in a hurry. This time, it’s to meet my husband at work for a family event at NTC).
Satan’s Spawn: Yeah, she’s always looking at me. Maybe she likes me.
Me: Yeah, maybe she just wants to be your friend.
Satan’s Spawn: Yeah, because I’m really cute. But I can’t be her friend because her nose is messy.
Me: (Looking at my kid’s runny nose – the result of a cold she’s had the past couple of weeks – then looking back at Satan’s Spawn with a withering look, and saying with a little too much attitude): Well, doesn’t your nose run when you get sick?
Satan’s Spawn (sheepishly): Uhh…no?
Me (loudly as we walk away): “Come on, Sweetie. We have to get going so we’re not late to the really fun party at Daddy’s work.”
I wasn’t often a target of meanies and bullies growing up, but it must have happened often enough to create some sort of latent anxiety that flared up when Satan’s Spawn criticized my daughter.
I do remember having trouble standing up for myself as a kid, so it is interesting to note that somewhere in the past 30 years, I have found my voice. But next time, I should probably pick on someone my size.
by Melissa Sullivan on November 19th, 2007
I’m calling this here blog ‘Mommyrazzi’, because I’m hoping to shine a light on issues facing moms in Wausau and the surrounding area. I have a 4-year-old girl and a 2-year-old boy. I work part-time as the director for a small non-profit and also run a website for local moms called CentralWisconsinMommy.com. I’ve been married to Shawn for 7 years, and don’t feel the least bit itchy. In addition to the kids, we also have a dog, two cats, and a whole cast of crazy-but-loveable extended family.
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