Monroe Parenting

Well, after working at the Evening News for 7 years, they decided to lay me off tonight — after my shift was over of course. No sense in not squeezing a few more hours out of me before booting me out the door. It’s funny — I always thought that the people who’ve been working at their jobs the longest would be more likely to stay at that job when there’s layoffs. I mean, wouldn’t the person who has worked there for years and year have a better chance of hanging on then a person who was, oh let’s say, hired a little more than a month ago would?? Oh, that’s right. Silly me. I forgot for a moment that I make much more an hour than a recent hire.

Anyway, sorry for the post of bitterness. But when you’ve got two kids and mortgage it’s nice to know you can at least keep a roof over their heads and food on the table.

We’ll just call this picture the “before” shot, a.k.a. “before all the happiness was sucked out of the world”:

“You’re not going to shave it all off, are you? Hey, what are you doing with those scissors??”:

“Nooooooooooooooo! Not my bangs!!! Grandma, Aunt Lauren, make it stop!”:

Keegan pretty much kept us up almost all night last night. He’s got about 6 teeth all coming in at the same time, so no amount of Orajel, teething drops or pleading to God was going to stop his crankiness. Basically all we can do is try to keep him so occupied with toys that he forgets to be fussy. That doesn’t always work, because what he really wants is to be held so he can wipe his runny nose on the back of our shirts, but it’s the best we can do.

So when my mom called today to ask Dave to fix their computer I looked him straight in the eye and said, “Take the kids with you! Please take the kids with you!” I had to be in to work at 3:30 and it was only 1 p.m. at the time, but I figured it would take me at least that long to get rid of the throbbing migraine brought on by lack of sleep.

And I was right — 2 hours of blessed silence and one sweet tea from McDonald’s later and I can at last hear myself think!! But - oh crap, wait a minute. I do have to go home again later, don’t I? lol. Once again, if you see a blue Escape cruising through your neighborhood late tonight, don’t panic. It’ll just be me and my fussy little teether.

I never thought I would say that but that’s what it’s come down to. What is it with 4-year-olds?! I swear Caitlyn has turned into a “mini-teen” over night! The backtalk, the meltdowns, the flashes of temper when she doesn’t get her way…… the threat of being sold to gypsies no longer works and timeouts are a joke to her. After much arguing back and forth she will stomp to her corner, glare at me the whole time, and then stomp away again when the time is up and go right back to what she was doing. Everything has to be her way, what she wants, and if not she just flips out.

I attribute some of her attitude to a lack of an afternoon nap. Around 1-2 in the afternoon she gets super cranky. I do my best to get her to go down for a few winks, and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. If she does nap, she if very cooperative and mushy for the rest of the day (for the most part). But getting her to nap is no easy task and when she gets no sleep, look out!

I finally told her this morning that we are going to try something new. Every time she backtalks me I will take away one of her “stuffies.” Her pink panda or one of her Webkinz will sit high on top of the frig for one whole week. And if she continues to be mouthy then more friends will join her. That got her attention really quick — now let’s see how well this works!!!

Sorry for my week-long absence, but my house has been quite the center of chaos. With my semester getting ready to wrap up in the next couple of weeks, I’ve been on project overload trying to get all the big things done and prepare for final exams. Although that isn’t easy when you have two sick children. And I didn’t even realize just how sick they really are until yesterday…..

I had a doctor’s appointment for Keegan since I had forgotten about his 18-month vaccines and needed to rectify that problem. It just so happened that he was sick as well, so I figured it wouldn’t hurt to have him looked at while we were there.

He was in a pretty happy mood, so the doctor didn’t think much was amiss until she looked in his ears and noticed some fluid and then listened to his lungs and heard wheezing and congestion. She looked at me and said “I think he may have pneumonia.” Oh lord, no. No, no, no. I knew what was coming next and I dreaded it.

“I need to send him for x-rays.”

I swear I froze inside. That poor child. First he has to get three shots in his legs and then he has to go for x-rays. And getting x-rays for a child is nothing like getting them for an adult. Keegan may be a pretty big boy (32.6 pounds, 37 inches tall), but he’s still “little” in terms of being able to understand that he has to stand in front of a board and stand perfectly still while the x-ray machine works.

So that could  mean only one possible thing — THE TUBE. Oh, how I hate that clear plastic tube of torture!!!! It’s a contraption on a platform that has what looks like a bicycle seat in a hole. You dangle your child’s legs into the hold and set him on the seat while the technician *locks* a clear plastic tube around his back. She then finishes it by securing his head with a strip of cloth that is velcored around the back. And all this time I have to stand in front of Keegan’s accusatory eyes, holding his arms above his head over the tube. I felt completely helpless as my child cried in distress.

And, oh, the screaming. Keegan got so mad that he turned purple and puffed out his chest and kicked his legs in an attempt to knock over the table. In fact, we had to do numerous x-rays in an attempt to get one that would actually work because he refused to hold still in the tube — this only prolonged the agony. By the time we were done and walked out to the car, I just lost it. I felt like I was in shock — my legs were numb and I was just bawling, probably as bad as Keegan had been but without turning purple.

But I didn’t have much time to indulge in my freak-out because it was less than 5 minutes before Caitlyn’s appointment with the doctor. I had left her at my mom’s while I took Keegan in, but I quickly made Caitlyn an appointment, too, because I knew that she had the same problems hedid and I didn’t want to mess around with possible pneumonia. Thankfully, the x-ray place is right across the street from my doctor’s, so I was able to meet my mom in the parking lot and swap kids with her. She took Keegan home and I went back into the office for Round 2.

Keegan only had congestion in one lung, but we found out that Caitlyn has it in both lungs. I was given a slip to go back to the x-ray place, but thankfully Caitlyn knows how to hold still! We were in and out in less than 10 minutes with no screaming or crying needed.

The doctor said she’ll be calling me today with the results, so until then I’ll just keep my fingers crossed hoping that both kids just have really nasty colds. They are already on antibiotics but if it does turn out to be pneumonia then we’ll just deal with it.

I have HAD IT with morning radio programs! This has been an ongoing problem I’ve noticed for the last few weeks, but this morning just drove me over the edge. … I usually leave for work at 6 a.m. to take the kids to my mom’s, and I feel that that early in the morning there should be at least something for us to listen to in the car that isn’t vulgar, profane, or grossly child-unfriendly.

I used to listen to 95.5 in the morning, but in the last couple of months they have become absolutely impossible for me to listen to with the kids in the car. This morning they were discussing girls who are being called sluts in middle school because they have large breasts (and of course, they were going into major description, especially when some woman called in to say her nickname in school was B-J Betty!). Great. I do not need Caitlyn adding the word “slut” to her vocabulary! (In case you’re wondering why I left it on that station so long that I heard all that, it only took less than 2 minutes for me to understand what they were talking about and I had the radio turned very low so I could “check” to make sure the topic was okay first.)

Anyway, I quickly flipped over to 96.3 — they were discussing women who dislike it when men lick their throats and stick their tongues in their ears. Okay! Moving on! There is no reason she needs to be thinking about that either!

To be on the safe side, I switched over to a country music station just to find something decent to listen to. The first button my finger came across was 99.5 and the Dr. Don show. The American Idol music came on and they announced they were interviewing former contestant Amanda, who was the rocker chick. Caitlyn was very excited when she heard the theme music, so I sighed in relief thinking I had found something we could listen to. That relief was short-lived when Grunwald asked Amanda if she would give them a ride on her motorcycle the next time she came through Detroit. He said he would have no problem riding on the back and being her b*tch, which Amanda then loudly repeated.

Ahh! Where could I safely turn to?! Where?! Oldies, yes the Oldies station, 104.3! Ah yes, the lovely sounds of Dick Purtan and his people. Can’t go wrong there….right? Right?! Wrong! They were talking about a news story that happened recently where airport security forced a woman to remove her nipple rings with a pair of pliers. Not only does the thought of that make ME cringe, but I definitely do not need Caitlyn thinking about sticking metal objects on her chest!

Faster than a speeding bullet, I flipped over to Radio Disney on 910 AM. The sound is tinny, the music is cheesy, but at least my kids won’t be hearing anything inappropriate!

So there’s a good side and a bad side about taking the kids to church on Easter Sunday before the sun is even up. The best part about about attending church at the crack of dawn is that it’s too early for the kids to act up. They weren’t quite awake yet and just kinda sat in the pew in a daze, looking around at all the people and taking everything in. I didn’t even have to whip out the coloring books or markers, and most of my emergency snacks stayed packed in the diaper bag.

(On a side note, usually I have to pack the bag full to the brim full for church so that I’m ready for anything — extra clothes “just in case”; magna doodles; Crayola Color Wonder markers and paper, which is great because the kids can doodle anywhere but the marker will ONLY show up on the paper; water bottles/sippy cups; snacks; diapers; etc., etc. Whatever works to keep the kids happy and quiet so that they don’t bother other people and refrain from becoming interested in drawing on/pulling pages out of the hymn books.)

Now, onto the downside of attending early church: Since the kids had to get up around 5, this meant that their whole schedules were thrown completely off. And by 10-10:30 a.m. Caitlyn had the worst temper tantrum meltdown I have ever seen. She was flailing her arms about, jumping up and down, and her voice reached octaves that would shatter glass. That definitely signaled it was nap time!! Of course, after she snoozed for three hours she was happy as a clam for the rest of the day, but boy it sure was touchy there for a while!

I’m sure I will not have a chance to blog tomorrow, so I thought I would wish everyone a Happy Easter a little bit early!! And, to continue that warm fuzzy feeling, I thought I would share the kids’ Easter pictures.

Recently, one of the people at story time was handing out fliers for a new kids play place called “Zoobilee” in Ypsilanti. I wanted to know more, so I went to the Web site and it looked like a fun place. Giant slides, tunnels to climb through, tasty looking food at a reasonable price — so I thought, ’sure, why not check it out?’

Since I was on Spring Break last week, I had lots of free time so the kids and I picked out a day and off we went. The experience that I was expecting from what I had heard and seen did not quite match up to what actually happened. When we got there, it was evident the business was brand new because the door was nothing more than a couple of pieces of wood with a banner hanging next to it saying “Yes, we ARE open!”

We did notice after we walked in that, yes, the slides in the photos were there and the climbing play structure looked like fun, but the whole thing had a kind of warehouse feel to it. The lighting back by the tables wasn’t that bright, except for the sun that shone through the front windows. There was no music or noise really at all except for my kids and a few others running around.

We really couldn’t see the kids when they ran around the front of the structure from where we were sitting at the tables, but that was okay because there was no way for Keegan to access the tunnels or slides without assistance. He was just too short to be able to climb up into it by himself. (True there was a “toddler area” but there was nothing to do in there besides climb on a few soft blocks or sit on a squishy rocking animal. Keegan quickly lost his interest in this area.)

Anyway, because he wanted to go down the slides, I had to climb up the levels with him, pushing him ahead of me as I went. Now let it be said that I have a quasi-fear of closed spaces, so this was NOT my idea of fun! Eventually, we had worked out a relay system so that I didn’t have to continually climb up the ledges. My mom would catch Keegan at the bottom of the slide and walk with him around the back of the structure. She would hand him to my sister Lauren, who was halfway up one of the ledges, and then Lauren would hand him to me. From there, he could just walk over to the slides by himself and zip on down to where mom would be waiting again. Caitlyn was running circles around us going here, there and everywhere, but eventually she got kinda bored with it, too.

The food wasn’t that bad — well, the adult menu was pretty good anyway. (I guess once you’ve eaten Chuck E. Cheese food multiple times, than you just get used to food at kid play places….). The kids food on the other hand was kinda dinky. I originally had thought that $2.99 was a fantastic price for a chicken tender kids meal — until it came out and it consisted of nothing more than THREE dinosaur nuggets and a couple of french fries. I could go to Meijer and buy a whole package of those for $1.99!! The drink was included in the price though, and a tony container of bubbles, so I guess that’s where the majority of the cost came from.

It cost $6 for Caitlyn and $3 for Keegan to get it, but we were only there for about 2 hours and there wasn’t that much to do. One other thing that bothered me was the lack of safety by the front counter. First off, there was no gate blocking access to get behind the counter. I lost count of the number of times Keegan ran around the front of the play structure and took a detour to run behind the counter and into the kitchen. Not good! That boy is way too fast and who knows what he could have gotten into!

On the other side of the counter is the door to enter and leave the building. There’s no one standing there making sure the kids leave with who they came with; the door is at kid level, and the handle is on the inside so any kid could just open it and walk on out if they wanted to. That made me a bit nervous, so I felt like I had to watch the kids like hawks the entire time we were there.

All in all, the kids had a pretty decent time, but I don’t know if it’s something we’re going to rush back to do.

Here are some pictures of the kids playing:

Caitlyn getting ready to climb into the play structure.

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!

My sister Lauren with Keegan and me with Caitlyn.

Keegan riding the dinosaur.

Caitlyn and Keegan just chillin’.

Mondays are the days that I get to spend a few hours in the early afternoon with just Caitlyn. My mom keeps Keegan while Caity and I go to story time and then out to lunch. Afterward, we pick up Keegan and settle in for the afternoon nap. …

Anyway, this past Monday Caitlyn decided she wanted to go to Applebees for lunch. So after we finished up story time in Dundee, we came back to Monroe to have lunch before we ran errands. Joining us was one of Caitlyn’s Webkinz — Rosebuddy the dog (whose photo can be seen in the birthday entry). This “dog” had been driving me bonkers all day. She had to take it to story time, where it proceeded to bark — loudly — along with the songs and would not allow Caitlyn to partake in activities without its assistance. Caitlyn thought it was just adorable the her doggy wanted to join in. I, on the other hand, was getting tired of hearing her howl.

So when we went in to lunch, it started up all over again. I told Caitlyn to tell the waitress what she wanted to order and instead of telling the waitress what she wanted, she proceeded to order “dog food” for the stuffed animal. I apologized profusely to the woman because I knew she was busy and Caitlyn would just keep going and going and going with this. She gave me an understanding look and told me that she had a little one of her own and knew how it was. She listened to Caitlyn’s every word and even wrote down the puppy’s order.

When our food came out, there was an extra plate on the serving tray. This plate held two small dipping sauce bowls — one was filled halfway with water and the other contained a mixture of croutons and bacon bits. This was “dog food” for Rosebuddy, and Caitlyn was thrilled. In fact, since Rosebuddy was so busy “eating” her own food, Caitlyn stopping lollygagging around and ate almost everything on her plate. I was so impressed that she even got to order dessert that day.

So I owe a big thanks to Sunshine, our waitress, at Applebees for indulging in Caitlyn’s imagination and helping us to have a fantastic time at lunch!