Lost but never found

It rained yesterday (insert shocked gasp here--it is San Diego and hasn't rained since, well, forever) and instead of going home to play, M insisted that we be out in the rain. An since it wasn't raining that hard and the day was warm anyway, I decided to oblige. After all, it's not like we get many chances, and besides that, I was having a really lousy day to begin with. Alternative fun with kids--yeah!

So we went to run a couple errands where we could walk outside and enjoy the rain. And enjoy it we did, right up until I realized I'd lost Kaitlyn's sippy cup. Her cute, girly pink sippy cup that I absolutely loved above all sippy cups. I remembered setting it down on her tray when we opened up the stroller, and then after that it was a cacophony of distracting excitement:

M: "Look--puddles! Let's run through the puddles!"
K: "Look--lots of things to pick up! And they're breakable too! What fun to scare mom!"
M&K: "Clothes! Let's pile them up in the stroller as if we're the ones doing the shopping!"

And the next thing I knew, we were back in the car and K was asking for her water. Which I no longer had. Because it was somewhere else. Where else? I couldn't tell you that. I wracked my mom-brain (which I swear gave more than a few brain cells to each adorable child), but all I could remember was setting that fantastic pink sippy cup on the tray and then letting it disappear in a loss of my own distracted doing. For shame!

We had lunch, where K refused to drink because we wouldn't let her hold the cupful of water all by herself (another shocked gasp here), and then moped back home. Where I found the pink sippy cup sitting by the sink. Because apparently she had been using it the day before. Confused, I scrounged through all the drawers trying to identify the missing sippy cup. And then I realized (gasp) that it was not the pink cup but the blue cup, M's favorite blue truck cup that he still uses in bed at night. The one that had a twin, which we also lost.

This was even worse. Instead of my own disappointment, it was going to be M's, and instead of one long drive with your kid pitifully begging for water you no longer have, it was going to be weeks of begging for the precious truck cup.

And then that night, when I was putting dishes away, I opened the drawer (which I swear I'd looked in before) to find the truck cup sitting right there on top (go ahead, gasp again. I certainly did).

"WHAT CUP DID SHE LOSE?" I cried out in exasperation, desperation, and general wholehearted confusion.

"The green one," said B calmly, who hadn't seen the cup all day but somehow managed to remember correctly.

Oh. You mean the green one that we have in three different patterns, none of which anyone particularly likes? Okay then, carry on.

You'd think I'd be happy about how everything wound up, but the whole ordeal pointed out that I've been worrying about the wrong thing all along. Who cares about the green sippy cup? I want to know where I left my mind.

There'd be a line outside the door

M: (creeping out of his room at nap time) Can I get up now?
D: No.
M: Why not?
D: Because it's still nap time. You need to stay in there for one hour. It's just a little bit longer.
M: Like three minutes?
D: Like fifteen minutes.
M: Oh. (Thinks on this) A big fifteen or a little fifteen?
D: Just a little fifteen.
M: Okay. Thanks, Mommy.

If there's a difference, it's news to me, but it was back to bed without another word. If parenting was always so easy...

The Stairmaster From Hell

Being a mom is like climbing an escalator, only it's moving in the opposite direction. The higher you go, there you are. The faster you go, there you are. There's an infinite set of stairs, and finite energy with which to climb.

For example: activity books. There are tons of activity books. Cutting, pasting, folding, drawing, tracing, and so on. Or you could just cut regular paper. Or make activities of your own. I have six separate boxes for theme activities, like play clay, foam shapes, painting, etc. Why, the artistic stimulation is endless.

But it's endless. I could do art all day and not cover everything I want to show M and K. I could do art all day every day for a month and not get there. Because there's always more.

Oh, but we can't just do art, can we? Because there's music. Let's get out those instruments and sing and dance and make merry. Or we could learn to do hand gesture to songs.

That brings up physical activity. Should we be making an obstacle course, or playing a sport? What about taking a walk? Or should we bring the tricycle instead?

I guess sometimes I'm overwhelmed. The more I do, the more there is to do, or so it seems. And I want to give them everything, at least when it comes to their development. I passed a sign on the road today that reminded me: "90% of a child's brain is developed by the age of 5." As if the pressure wasn't enough already--I am an anal, obsessive, over-achiever after all--there it was. A world of ideas, issues, activities, and only five years in which to cram in the best that I can muster. All while tackling sleep deprivation, disciplinary struggles, and a house full of chores.

No wonder moms are tired all the time. Go give yours a hug, and give yourself one while you're at it. At least we are still climbing, amidst it all. What is it we always tell our children? Ah, yes: slow and steady wins the race. Or climb. Or battle to raise the best darn children out there. Or just to make it to bed without giving up entirely. Any of those work, too.

Re: Sugar

--One small cup of ice cream contains enough sugar to keep M awake on a long car ride home, barely.

--One small churro contains enough sugar to make K very sticky when she falls asleep with the churro in her hand.

--One bite of churro and the rest of M's ice cream cone contains enough sugar to make me feel cranky for at least three hours.

--One morning with a best friend is surprisingly sweet for having no sugar at all.

How much is that immune system in the window?

Coming off a two-week cold (and still not fully recovered), I contacted some of my holistically-minded friends to see if I could come up with any natural ways to protect me and the kids from repeating this whole scenario throughout the winter. After all, it is M's first year in preschool, and K still does do a lot of finger-chewing regardless of how many times I gently drill her that there might be germies on those.

Armed with a list of supplements, I toted the kids into Jimbo's. Then, while each child was eagerly finding and playing with every breakable glass bottle in the vicinity, I quickly gathered the things I'd been suggested.

And then I added up the price.

And then I put everything back.

See, the housing market was good to B and I, and then it was not so good. So I'm busying myself cutting corners where I can. Not to mention that I'm trying to consume less, overall. The hundred-plus dollars I was about to shell out made my new principles quiver.

But what if these supplements really do keep us healthy all winter? Wouldn't it be better to spend a hundred bucks now and enjoy ourselves? Why, absolutely! But what if they don't? What if I mix them into every vulnerable food--and sometimes just plunge them down a throat--only to find that we're getting just as sick as usual?

I know there's no answer, of course. After all, if there really were an air-tight prevention for the common cold, we'd all be using it already. But that much money makes me start thinking that I ought to just plant some grapefruit trees and press my own seeds, because I really am that cheap. And then I could sell it to my friends. And then I wouldn't have to worry about money at all. Hmm...

In the meantime--you know, while the grapefruit trees are growing--I've checked out a stack of books on immunity and homeopathy from the library. Because if there's anything I love more than saving money, it's researching something until it no longer has any meaning at all.

You'll want to think I'm joking...

Television has sunk to a new low. Okay, I'll grant that it really didn't have far to drop, but from time to time I watch some recorded TV, and when the show's over, and if it's not too late, I might flip around a little. That's when I found "Hole in the Wall." Which is pretty much what it the title suggests: a trio of people who must fit themselves through an oddly shaped hole in a wall or risk being knocking into a pool full of goo. But on the plus side, a woman in a bikini helps them out! Apparently this is a knock-off of a Japanese game show, as if that somehow grants legitimacy to the whole she-bang. I only watched for a few minutes, mouth gaping in shock, but I'm pretty sure I lost brain cells in the process.

Here's a little extra tidbit, just to put you over the edge. The corn refiners association is promoting high fructose corn syrup as a natural product completely compatible with a young child's diet. Don't believe me? Click here.

There are so many things I want to say in response to the insanity of these two items, but the bottom line is that they seem to perpetuate the stereotype that Americans are mindless consumers of whatever product, promotion, or propaganda that comes our way. In the midst of a tangled election, I retain hope that we are not nearly as lemming-like as corporate American would have us believe. It's only a little hope, granted, but I hold it especially for my kids, so that maybe they can prove the world wrong.

Just in case I thought I could figure things out

So back in the day, I devoted a post to the concept of genderization, going on and on about how K ended up into trains and trucks and all things boy regardless of her gender. This put to rest my assumptions that M was into boy things because he was a boy. See, they were both into boy things.

Until now.

While K was still in utero, we did what doting expectant parents often do. We picked up a baby doll, complete with pink stroller, and gave it to M. This was meant to be our tool to practice talking about baby, until said baby arrived. No interest in the doll, of course, but pink stroller came to be the preferred mode of transportation for all animals. I took it as a boy thing, always making something into a car.

Then K discovered the doll, long forgotten in a bin of toys. For all I want to say that genderization is created by parents, or that it doesn't exist at all, I watched her pick up that doll, cuddle it, kiss it, and carry it around like I'm sure it had always expected. Bay-bee! She knew it right away, knew what to do and how to do it. And today at naptime, I could not pry baby from her fingers, even though she'd never slept with it before.

I sit again baffled, as motherhood often leaves me. Same toys, some boy stuff, some girl stuff, such mixing. And I'm just as clueless as when I started.