Day 18: 100 Little Lies

When Mr. KK was little, he would go to Friendly's with his mother. They would sit at the stools at the counter and order ice cream. Naturally, any child's first instinct was to spin around in the stools.

Mr. KK's mother would point to the menu of ice cream flavors and tell him, "'I would let you spin in your chair, BUT it says right here that children are not allowed to spin on stools. I'm sorry'."

Luckily, Mr. KK was too young to read, so he believed what his mother told him. Sucker.

Before you have children, you like to think you'll never lie to them. I told myself that. I believed I'd always be upfront and honest. Tell them how it is. But then, you're in the middle of a crowded parking lot and your toddler is screaming and won't get into his car seat, and he's causing a scene. And you have no choice but to tell him about the parking lot police who patrol the parking lot for boys who don't get get buckled into their car seats. 

It's nice to think you won't lie to your child. But then, you are only lying to yourself. Because if you don't lie to your child, you will never survive Toddlerhood.

(And by lie, I mean small untruths, naturally)

On any given day, I tell Little Mister at least 100 lies. it's how we get through the day. And every single one of them is for his own good.

It goes something like this:

In the grocery store. "If you don't sit in the seat in the carriage, the store manager is going to come by. If he sees you trying to get out and being unsafe, he's going to yell at you and put you in time out."

In the car. "If we don't buckle your car seat then the car won't start. Then we can't get home to eat lunch."

At home. "I wish I could give you more ketchup, but we can only eat a certain amount of ketchup a day so we don't run out."

Before lunch. "Let's go wash our hands. If we don't, the clean hands fairy will look at them and if they are too dirty she will eat your sandwich."

Before bed. "We can't have a cookie right now. Do you see the big clock? We missed cookie eating time. It's too late now. Maybe tomorrow."

I'm a big believer in the little white survival lies. 

I think they build character.

Hopefully in a few years when Little Mister is old enough to catch on, he thinks so too. 

Day 13: The Most-Heard Word in Our House

We are going through what I hope is a short-lived toddler phase in our house. It's called, "Say 'No!' to everything that is asked of me". Oh, and do it loudly. 

As adults we are conditioned to try and rationalize. However, if you've ever tried to rationalize with a toddler, you'll find yourself wanting to run from the house, ripping your hair our crying. It's probably one of the most frustrating things you'll ever attempt, and it's not for the faint of heart.

In commemoration of our toddler saying "No!" to everything from 'Let's brush our teeth' to 'Time to go to school' to 'Let's finish our dinner', I have rewritten the lyrics to Meghan Trainor's popular song "No".

Parents of toddler, let me hear you sing along (to the same tune):

[intro]

I think it's so cute and I think it's so sweet!
How you try to rationalize and try and talk to me
But let me stop you there
Oh, before you speak...

Nah to the ah to the, no, no, no!

[chorus]

Bedtime? No!

Bath time? No!
Eat my veggies? No?
You need to let it go
You need to let it go
Need to let it go
Nah to the ah to the, no, no, no!
Clean up? No!

Use the potty? No!
Listen to you? No!
You need to let it go
You need to let it go
Need to let it go
Nah to the ah to the, no, no, no

[verse 1]
First I gotta say I won't eat brocco-lay
I want pasta on my plate
I don't want a coat, it's not even cold
Let me wear whatever I want
I don't need to brush, why you in a rush?
Don't you know I'm the one charge?
Blah, blah, blah
I be like nah to the ah to the no, no, no

[chorus]

Bedtime? No!

Bath time? No!
Eat my veggies? No?
You need to let it go
You need to let it go
Need to let it go
Nah to the ah to the, no, no, no!
Clean up? No!

Use the potty? No!
Listen to you? No!
You need to let it go
You need to let it go
Need to let it go
Nah to the ah to the, no, no, no

Original lyrics to Meghan Trainor's song here: https://genius.com/Meghan-trainor-no-lyrics

Day 11: If I Were to Write a Potty Training Manual...

As a mother, by far my least favorite thing I've had to deal with in 3 years is potty training.

I hear you, mothers of teenagers, laughing at me because it's going to get A LOT worse. But right now I'm chained to a toilet, so it feels a little like rock bottom.

I attempted to potty train the Little Mister back in March, when he was 2 1/2 years old. I skimmed read the books about the 3-day Potty Training Boot camp Weekend. I was ready. I took a day off from work, loaded up on paper towels, and put LM in a short shirt and nothing else. Surprisingly, he did really well. For a few days. Then, not so much.

So we let it go.

Recently, however, as we approached the magic age of 3 and the transition to the Pre School room at daycare, it was time again.

Crotch Watch 2017 was about to begin again.

This time, however, I wasn't as prepared. 

We were embarking on vacation, and LM would start in the Big Boy room right when we got back. His teacher said, "No diapers in this room. When you get back from vacation, bring him in here in his undies."

Excuse me?

Me: "Are you sure? You want him to go into undies cold turkey?" Because I sure as hell wasn't going to start potty training my kid on vacation.

She assured me it would be fine and that she'd take him to the bathroom every 30 minutes.

On that first day back to daycare we dressed LM up in his new Lightning McQueen undies. "You need to keep Lightning DRY," we drilled into his head.

And here we are, two months later, and LM is more or less potty trained. He still wears a pull-up at night, but 99% of the time, we are keeping Lightning dry.

I know someday I'll look back and not even remember potty training. These two months will be but a blip in the amazing memories we have with our child.

However, living through the 2 months, that's a different story.

If I were to write a Potty Training Manual, it would be less about how to potty train your child and the psychology behind it (because, let's face it, your child will start using the toilet when s/he is good and ready, not because you're camping out in the bathroom), and more of preparation for parents on what is going to happen to their normal, everyday lives.

The Only Potty Training Manual You'll Need by kk

1. Potty Training sucks. Sure, go ahead and try and make it fun. You're just fooling yourself. At your lowest low, you will find yourself trying to rationalize with a toddler. You'll ask moronic questions like, "Why didn't you tell Mommy you had to go pee pee?"

2. Stock up on your adult beverage of choice. Because when the clock strikes 8pm and you can FINALLY put a mother-loving pull up on your kid for bedtime, you will need a drink.

3. Say good-bye to doing anything. Ever. All those chores and errands you need to get done on a weekend? Forget it. Why? Because you can't be more than 3 feet away from a potty for longer than 30 minutes. And the thought of packing everything you'd need to venture out of the house and be prepared for accidents? No thanks. House arrest is easier.

4. You will start to hate the sound of your own voice. Why? Because you'll hear yourself asking, "Do you have to go potty?" 4,739 times a day.

5. You will learn self restraint. Especially when your toddler stands in front of you in a fresh pair of undies, looks you in the eye and says, "I'm going pee pee right now." In the kitchen.

6. Get used to cooking. Because you won't see the inside of a restaurant for months.

7. You will start to resent your partner (just a little) for having legitimate reasons for leaving the house and being away from a potty-training toddler. Like they have to go to work. Or mow the lawn. Or go to the grocery store for toilet paper.

8. There's no point in getting dressed beyond sweatpants or yoga pants. A. You'll spend most of your day on the bathroom floor, wiping up pee or reading books to get your toddler to poop and B. You're not leaving the house anyway

9. Your hands will chap. Whether it's because you're constantly washing your hands with your toddler teach good bathroom etiquette, grabbing for skin-drying baby wipes, or once again grabbing the tub of anti-bacterial wipes to clean up the floor, your hands will be a mess. Don't even bother with a manicure until he's 4 years old.

10. Get used to the fact that your child will be much better at potty training when they are with anyone except you. Our child would have dry undies all day at school and when he was with his grandmothers. When he'd get home, he'd play and then tell us, "I made Lightning a little wet." Even though we'd been asking him a million times if he had to go.

11. Accept the fact that will have to bribe your child. It's the only way it's going to work, folks.

Day 6: The Words No Mother Wants to Hear

One night the three of us were out at a restaurant for dinner. I had my usual bag of tricks, entertaining our toddler before our dinners arrived. He was struggling to open a toy, so I naturally reached across the table to help him.

He immediately pulled the toy away from my reach.

"No, Mommy," he said. "I don't need you."

And my heart broke a little bit.

How could this little boy – my baby – not need me? 

Please stop growing up.

Growing up an only child, independence came naturally to me. 

I would entertain myself for hours playing with Barbies or Cabbage Patch dolls. I could spend an entire afternoon drawing and writing in notebooks in my room. And by the age of 8, I could hang with the adult set with the grace of a college graduate.

Now that I'm raising an only child, I'm watching this little person come into his own. And each and every day, I'm in awe of something new that he does or says.

He wants to take off his pajamas on his own. He wants to dress himself. He wants to strap himself into his car seat. And all of this is awesome, if we had 6 hours to get ready in the morning and leave the house.

I understand that he needed to grow and learn, but selfishly, I wanted to freeze time to these moments when my little boy wanted his Mommy.

I want him to never stop asking for me to wake him up in the morning, when we play our little game where I cover him in stuffed animals and pretend to look for him. 

I want him to always answer the question "Who's your best friend?", with "Mommy".

I want my toddler, who will pretty soon be too big for me to lift, to still want me to carry him, so he can wrap his body around me like a little spider monkey and bury his face in my neck.

I don't know if I can handle it if he doesn't need me anymore.

Because I still need him.

Day 3: Eating Out With Toddlers. And Living to Tell About It.

Every so often I see an article pop up in my social media news feeds about a certain restaurant taking a stand and banning kids from eating at their establishment.

As someone who loves to eat out, who also owns a kid, I find this really hard to accept. Banning kids from restaurants? What's next? Telling the elderly they can only eat at your establishment between certain hours?

I LOVE going to restaurants. Since Mr. KK and I got together, discovering new places to eat and drink has always been our thing. 

And then we had a baby.

And you know what happened?

We still went out to eat.

How? Because we raised a restaurant baby.

Our Little Mister (LM for short) made his first sojourn to a restaurant for lunch when we he was 3 weeks old. (Unless, of course, you count the lunch pit stop at the McDonald's outside of Andrews Air Force Base on our drive home from the hospital when he was 4 days old.)

A few years ago during NaBloPoMo, I wrote a post about bringing a baby to a restaurant. 

Now, two years later, here's an update with 15 steps of eating at a restaurant...the Toddler Edition.

1. Get excited over the fact that you're going out to eat. The set the bar for the evening really, really low.

2. Location, location, location. Find a neighborhood joint and make it your own. People who see you often are more likely to seat you quickly/accept your toddler/have pity on your with free drinks.

3. Pick a place with a decent noise level. It will help mask those lovely moments when your Toddler is "expressing himself".

4. Have a bag of tricks that won't quit. Bag should include – but not be limited to – snacks, stickers, crayons and coloring book, random rubber bands and paper clips, an iPad, a change of clothes, wet wipes, gum wrappers and miniature toys.

5. Order your adult beverage the minute you sit down. You may only have 10 minutes in which to drink it. If you can call and order your cocktail ahead, you should.

6. Embrace the high chair. At home your Toddler sits on a regular chair? Awesome. At school, he sits independently? That's cool. In a restaurant, where you want 7 minutes to eat your dinner without your child up and abandoning the table? Strap that kid in a high chair. Our motto: if he fits, he sits (strapped in).

7. Accept the fact that your toddler's dinner will be a carb fest. Order the grilled cheese and french fries, and ask them the bring the bread basket. Give him double veggies tomorrow.

8. Channel your inner Boy Scout and be prepared. Read the menu online, and know what you're going to order. Calculate the timing so that there is always food on the table.

9. Make sh*t up. One day at breakfast, our food was taking an crazy long time to come out, so I improvised the old 'shell game', and hid a straw wrapper under one of three creamer containers and had LM guess where it was.

10. Play the "it's still too hot to eat" game. One time, a grilled cheese needed to cool for twenty minutes before we could eat it, which allowed Mommy and Daddy to finish their appetizer and have their entrees arrive.

11. Recognize the meltdown before it happens. You know that hitch in their voice just before they are going to lose it, better than anyone else. Deploy master skills when a tantrum is on the horizon: Detect. Distract. Deflect.

12. Pretend it's no big deal. Toddlers are smart, in that they are learning to sense the situations in which you want them to behave. And then the do the opposite. When LM acts out loudly in a public place, I simple turn my head and start talking to Mr. KK. LM calls my name incessantly for two minutes, then finds something with which to busy himself. We drink and relax, he entertains himself. Win-win.

13. Don't be above the electronic babysitter. Just put the iPad on and enjoy your dinner. People may judge you, but they'd do worse if your toddler was screaming and ruining their dinner.

14. Be ready for the haters. Because you'll encounter them eventually. The dirty looks, the whispers under their breath, the requests to be seated at tables far away from you. Don't take it personally. Some people are just assholes.

15. Just let it go. He's going to yell. There will be food on the floor. People will look at you. Who cares? YOU are eating at a restaurant. 

But perhaps the best part about eating early with a Toddler, is that once they are in bed, you can enjoy cocktail hour part 2.

Cheers!

Day 7: Bedtime with a 2-year-old

Setting: our house, oh, every single night

ME: “In five minutes we’re going to put our jammies on.”

MAX: “NO.”

Five minutes pass.

ME: “Ok, bud, time for pajamas. We can COME RIGHT BACK AND PLAY when we’re done.”

MAX: “No!”

Max jumps up and runs to the counter, pointing at a canister.

MAX: "Animal cacka! Animal cacka!"

ME: "Max, we're not having animal crackers right now. It's time for bed."

MAX: "MY animal cacka!"

ME: "Yes, they are your animal crackers. We can have some tomorrow. Right not, it's time for bed."

Max runs over and grabs me by the hand. He looks deep into my eyes, very serious. "Animal cacka," he tells me solemnly.

ME: "How many animal crackers did you ask for?"

MAX: "Two."

ME: "And how many animal crackers did Mommy give you?"

MAX: "Two."

ME: "So you ate all the animal crackers for tonight. Tomorrow, we'll have more."

MAX: "O-tay."

Max then runs over to his little kitchen.

ME: "Let's go, Max. It's time for bed. Come on."

Max ignores me and takes our his broom and dust pan and starts sweeping.

Part of me doesn't want to stop him, as the floor could use it a cleaning.

ME: "Max, let's put the broom away and go put our pajamas on. It's time for night night."

Max drops the broom and dust pan, and runs over to his trucks. He drops the floor and proceeds to play with his tractor.

ME: "Max..."

MAX: "My Daddy!"

ME: "Yes, your Daddy can put you to bed."

I move towards Max, and he immediately turns into a limp piece of spaghetti on the floor. 

I don't know how toddlers do it, but they know EXACTLY how to lie down so you can't grab them anywhere.

ME: "Max..."

MAX: "ANIMAL CACKA!"

ME: "No, jammies."

MAX: "My Daddy!"

ME: "You want Daddy to put your jammies on?"

MAX: "No. My Vito!"

Um, okay.

I finally wrangle all 35 pounds of him up off the floor and start moving towards the bedrooms.

ME: "What jammies do you want to wear tonight?"

MAX: "Fire engines," he cheers happily. "And animal cackas!"