Smiling Mom

A few weeks ago a doll sho­wed up at my door to review.  Need­less to say, I was thri­lled that it hap­pe­ned to appear at my house the very day that Dr. Rabitz tur­ned to eClaire and said, “eClaire, you must stop suc­king your thumb today.”

Since this blog has basi­cally tur­ned into a photo jour­nal lately…I thought I’d just con­ti­nue the theme for one more post.

“Yes Mom.  I will rise to the occasion.”

The cha­llenge: Five naps and bed­ti­mes without suc­king her thumb.

The result?: Suc­cess!!  eClaire suc­cess­fully put her­self to sleep 10 dif­fe­rent times without suc­king her thumb.  Unfor­tu­na­tely for us, her going to sleep rou­tine which use to take less that 2.5 seconds exten­ded itself to a little more than an hour each night.  Sigh.  All good things must come to an end.

eClaire’s End of Thumb Suc­king Ceremony

“Look at me, Mommy, I did it!!  I don’t suck my thumb any­more. AND I can ‘fake smile’ with the best of them!”

The anti­ci­pa­tion is killing her as Daddy takes the new doll out of it’s box.

Sweet suc­cess.

A proud Daddy with his daugh­ter and her doll.  (Notice the real smile that’s now on eClaire’s face?  Precious..)

I’d like to say that this has been 100% suc­cess­ful, but in all honesty it has not.  eClaire still often sneaks her thumb at night,  Old habits die slowly.  This daugh­ter of mine crea­ted a blis­ter on her fin­ger in utero because she was suc­king on it even then.

But the suc­cess?  Both we and eClaire now know she’s not com­ple­tely depen­dant on her thumb for sleep.  Armed with this know­ledge, I hope that quit­ting the thumb once and for all is just around the corner!

In our house we out­law words as often as we chan­ged our under­wear… almost every day.

The basics have been ban­ned. You know, “What the hell” and “Damn it”. Even “Shit,” and “Oh my God!” are out.

But DAMage…not out. As pas­sio­na­tely as BC tells me that it IS a bad word, I just don’t buy it. Yup, DAMage gets to stay.

Ya, we’re awful parents like that!

You know, the fact that our kids even know those phra­ses is a whole other topic that I pro­bably shouldn’t get into today.

Ahem. But I digress.

“Shut up” and “Stu­pid” are crowd favo­ri­tes here in the Bay Area.

But in our house? Yup. BANNED.

Poopyhead, Meany­PoopyHead, HeadyHeadyPoopyHead.

TOSSED like last night’s cookies.

A recent crowd favo­rite, “Goo­ber.” GONE.

“What the HELL??” You might ask.

I know! Goo­ber, of all words?

It was cute and all until BC got a timeout at the gym for shou­ting , “You’re such a goo­ber!!” at a sweet little girl, promptly hur­ting her feelings.

OUT.

But the word that’s crept into our family’s mains­tream voca­bu­lary as quickly as my kids’ nails grow is DUH.

It was funny, like twice, which is pre­ci­sely the rea­son that per­sis­tent little bug­ger has stuck around so long.

It’s always a soli­di­fier when Mommy laughs her head off at her dar­ling kids’ inap­pro­priate behavior.

I’m not saying I DID that…but if I were to have been such a STUPID mommy, it might explain why my kids are so attached THAT word.

Hypothe­ti­cal, of course.

Ahem.

Any­way, DUH is GONE. OUT. BYE BYE. Never to be heard from again.

…Until one day when I asked BC to put something on the sink.

“I already did that Mommy!! THE”

Excuse me??

THE??

As in DUH??

You gotta be kid­ding me!!??

So now I’m con­si­de­ring dum­ping one more word from our every­day life.

The.

But how can I get by without my the? It’s a handy stand by when I’m trying talk about THE situa­tion at hand. Or when THE play­room is a mess and when I’ve asked my kids to clean it for THE eigh­teenth time.

X-ing out THE can really F*CK things up around here.

Wait. No, scratch that last sen­tence. F*UCK is auto­ma­ti­cally pla­ced on the BANNED list of family life.

But you already knew that, didn’t you.…THE!!

OK, first of all this whole inci­dent star­ted with a voice boo­ming from our back room, “No way!! BC You CANNOT wear that!!”

I say, “Hub, I usually let BC dress himself.”

“Uh, Nette? He ‘s wea­ring tights.”

At that exact moment I was taking a sip of my tea.

My tea ended up all over my end table. Hub and I laughed until I almost peed. Then I asked BC to pose for a picture.

This is what I saw:

Just as I snor­ted, it’s the Ger­man in me-my mom says, eClaire pushed BC out of the way to say, “Ohh look at me, I’m sooooo cute.“

BC then eeked his way back into the pic­ture to show me his HUGE musc­les. And his tights. For the record, those “tights” are just long socks pulled up above his knees. His favo­rite way to wear them is with a pair of shorts and his Light­ning McQueen Water Shoes… Zexy, I know!

Then eClaire is all, “Oh but I’m not just cute. I’m funny too! Look! Look! I’m FUNNY, Damn IT.” Well, she might not have said Damn It today.

And then she was all, “BC touched me!! He loo­ked at me side­ways, and I don’t like him.”  I rolled my eyes.

And she was like, “DON’T LOOK AT ME BC!! You rui­ned my life!! Why did you have to be such a pain in the butt brother!!???” Ahem.… excuse me. I may be chan­ne­ling my own sibling angst here… I digress. Hi Uncle J… love you!

And then BC’s all, “OH NO SHE DIN’T“

And then eClaire deci­ded she had enough, “MOMMY!!!! Waaaaa! Why are you laughing?? It’s NOT FUNNY!“

Aaaand Scene.
On a more posi­tive note, when BC was asked to get a sweatshirt because it was still a bit chilly outside, he ran into his clo­set to get his favo­rite sweater.

Ya.

Bwhaahaahaa!! A future in fashion? I think not. Hey, at least he pulled his socks down, at Dad’s request!

Here’s a few high­lights of the week:

Hubby Santa had the genius idea to buy win­dow mar­kers and give it to the kids in their win­dow stoc­kings. In San Diego. At my parents house. With no less than 50 win­dows and French doors. I’m not exag­ge­ra­ting on that num­ber either!

Smi­ling Mom Mrs. Clause knew her dad well enough and, let’s be honest, her kids well enough, to know that mar­kers on a win­dow and chil­dren at my parents house made for bad juju. (You are WELCOME Dad!) She made an exe­cu­tive deci­sion not to put the those mar­kers into their stockings.

Hubby found them yesterday.

Ahem.

Then eClaire found out that not only did the pink mar­ker make for great abs­tract art, but it also made for a great lips­tick color.

Ya. So.… That was fun!

My kids are such bud­ding artists!

Oh! Oh!

And then today! My daugh­ter thought she’d “help” (quote fin­gers implied) me make cup­ca­kes for her upco­ming birth­day party! It was so much fun!! Having her help, I mean!! Look at what she did!!

Fun huh??!!

Yes. That is a bite mark. But wait there is more!

FIVE Cup­ca­kes!! Thank good­ness for fros­ting. No one will ever know the dif­fe­rence. hehehe

Fros­ting sol­ves all problems.

Well..

Except for this one.

You see, I have this inc­re­dibly cruel sense of humor. I love to take pic­tu­res at totally inap­pro­priate times.

Like just after eClaire gets off of time-out for EATING MY CUPCAKES!! Do you see the cho­co­late up on her forehead?

So funny!!

…I mean, so sad

But really, you couldn’t get a more pathe­tic pic­ture if you tried!

And to ans­wer the ques­tion that’s on all your minds, Yes. I’m already saving for her loo­ming the­rapy sessions.