Thursday, July 22, 2010

More Unrelated Thoughts...

Oh, what a difference 24 hours makes. After yesterday's semi-confident post, Luke had a fussy afternoon and a wakeful night, so now I'm feeling like I can't do this after all. Seriously, can I jinx myself that quickly? Ugh...

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And the Fall brochure that was supposed to come in the paper yesterday...didn't. (I know, cry me a river)

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Katy has two things that she says over and over again about Luke, and they crack me up. The first is that she calls him "Mr. Baby," which is actually so cute that I hope it sticks. Also, every single time she sees him with his eyes open, she proclaims, "Mommy! He has his eyes opened! He looks like a baby!" Huh? So apparently sleeping babies don't look like babies?

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Katy also informed me in a very serious manner that she wants to be a boy. When I asked her why, she gave three reasons:
1) They get to stand up to go potty.
2) They can go swimming without a shirt.
3) They don't have to brush their hair all the time. (She hates having her hair brushed. Ironically, that is one of my worst childhood memories, too, crying while my mom combed my hair. Which means I had a pretty sweet life.)

So I told her that there are lots of good things about being a girl. But when she asked, "Like what?" I had trouble communicating what came to mind. (How do you explain the bond of girlfriends, sisterhood, and the joy of being a mom?) All I could come up with was wearing dresses - lame.

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Does anyone else feel overwhelmed trying to keep your children's clothes clean? And not just washing loads of laundry, but cleaning countless stains out of their clothes? Not a single day goes by that they aren't spilling food & drink, smearing mud, missing with markers, etc. (not the mention the baby blow-outs) I've tried Oxi Clean, Shout gel, concentrated detergent. It's exhausting! What do you do to get stains out?

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Yesterday I took the kids to the library for a storytime because we haven't been in months. We had to bail out early and guess who was the problem? Not my newborn or even my two year old, but my eldest child. She had a total freakout because the librarian said there was a surprise at the end of a song. So I carried her crying on my hip, pushing the double stroller with the other hand to get out of there (and no other parent offered to help? just watched me struggle). I got her calmed down and they were starting craft, so I convinced her to go back in. Within 30 seconds of re-entry, he said the word "scary" and that was the end. Every once in a while, Katy's fears still rear their ugly head. You have to feel badly for her, she is sincerely completely terrified.

5 comments:

Weed said...

On the subject of stains...I work so hard to get the stains out. It drives me crazy if I can't get it out. I use Dawn (if the stains are greasy), Totally Toddler (available at Meijer and Toys R Us...don't know where else) for formula and poop stains, and Felz-Naptha (sp?) soap for pretty much everything else, which is available in the laundry aisle--my mom always used it growing up. It's a yellow bar of soap in a paper wrapper. I scrub with an old toothbrush. I also have spray and wash, which is sometimes successful, and just regular detergent, but not too often. The first three work the best, usually.

Oh, and Rachel's right there with Katy about getting her hair combed. She hates it. I'm almost at the point of getting it cut chin length, because the snarls drive both of us crazy!

bluedaisy said...

Oh poor Katy (and you)! And I know what you mean about others not helping. As long as I am able, I always offer to help other parents!! I would have been dripping with sweat by the end of that (and not just due to the excessive heat).
Stains- I use either Dreft spray or regular spray/wash pretty much immediately on stains & while it's not perfect, I am sometimes surprised at what comes clean. But I have to spray it right away (and that's not always possible). I also still wash the baby's clothes in some kind of 'baby' detergent (Purex, Dreft, Ivory Snow) & it seems to do the trick. Or else I just don't look that closely anymore and I imagine that everything is fine ;) Praying for a return to your easy sleeping baby!

Pam said...

Shout pre-wash and sometimes a drop of bleach with the whites. If it's too bad I chuck it away. Life it too short ;-)
Oh, and I would have helped a struggling mom at the library!

Weed said...

Oh, I forgot to message that I use the Clorox bleach pen on white stuff. It works pretty well.

Weed said...

oops...that's supposed to say "mention," not "message!"