Put down the book and step away from the self-loathing

I've decided to stop reading parenting books for a while. Not because they don't have useful information, because some of them do. Like the one I just read that told me I was a "pleaser parent" because I read too many parenting books. (Why you would antagonize someone who reads parenting books in a parenting book is beyond me, but I'm no expert - just a parent). Or the one that let me know that the reason my children suck their thumbs is because there is a serious flaw with my parenting methods. (Because really, what mother doesn't need an extra dose of guilt about her children? Not me, that's for sure. Bring on the heartache.) Or the one that taught me to offer dessert at the same time as the rest of the food. (In theory, it's a good idea. In practice, well, let's just say we abandoned that idea pretty quickly.)

I think the real problem is that I have delayed critical reading skills. See, every time I read a parenting book, I end up thinking, oh, that's what I'm doing wrong. And then I implement every single thing the book has instructed me to do, all the while feeling like a great big loser of a mother because I haven't been doing these things the whole time. When my critical reading skills finally decide to show up a week later, I'm already frustrated, discouraged, mean, and bitter (all of which are not conducive to good parenting, oddly enough). And then slowly, ever so slowly, I once again realize that if this one book had all the answers, there wouldn't be thousands upon thousands of parenting books out there. So I pick up my battered soul, pick out the tidbits of information that I think might come in handy, and I add them to my collection.

I'm not a perfect mom. I'm not even close. But I know my kids and I know myself. And most importantly, I love my children. I love 'em like crazy. And I didn't even have to read a book to figure it out.

Therapeutic Thursday

For those of you who've been with me for a while, you probably remember Therapeutic Thursdays. I haven't done one since November, but in these troubled times (and by troubled times I mean February, the third worst month of the year) I think that a Therapeutic Thursday would do us all a little good.

Today we'll be discussing SAD. (Yes, this does happen to be the acronym for seasonal affective disorder, but that's not the SAD we'll be talking about, even though it is still the middle of winter and I would probably sell my soul for some direct sunlight.) The SAD I'm referring to is sibling animosity development. Today we'll figure out what it is, if your children have it, and how to beat it out of them without actually beating it out of them.

What is SAD?

Sibling animosity development is a condition in which siblings who normally have kind, loving feelings towards one another begin to quarrel with, snap at, and generally make life a living hell for each other. SAD can occur at any age, in any gender, and in any environment, though documentation has shown that the most violent forms of SAD often occur in public places, where others have the opportunity to point and judge.

Do your children have SAD?

Signs of SAD include dirty looks, snide remarks (or growls, if a child does not yet possess the gift of speech), and extreme possessiveness of one's personal belongings. In addition, children with SAD may begin to wail at the mere sight of a sibling, even if said sibling is six feet away and minding his or her own business.

Many children with SAD have the tendency to plan out a course of action so as to get parents on their side. For example, an older brother may snatch a toy out of his younger sister's hands while there are no parents in the room. He may then begin to "cry" just as the younger sister snatches the toy back and a parent arrives on the premises, making it seem as though the younger sister is the one with poor behavior while he himself is completely blameless. (Please remember that these are merely hypothetical situations. I personally do not know any children with SAD, though I have heard many sad SAD stories.)

How do you deal with SAD?

There are several options to consider if your children suffer from SAD. The first option is to ship your least favorite child off to live with grandparents until he or she is eighteen. This is a difficult option for many parents, since it is nearly impossible to decide which child drives you the craziest.

Option number two is to forbid your children from any further contact until they learn how to treat each other respectfully. No looking, no talking, no touching. Again, this is a very difficult option as it requires constant monitoring from you, the parent, for anywhere from five to forty-five years.

Option number three, my personal favorite, is to arm each child with a secret weapon, if you will. Consider the children from the previous scenario. If you teach the older brother how to build a impenetrable fortress out of couch cushions, that can be his line of defense when little sister gets to be, in his words, sploggy. Conversely, encouraging the little sister to scream like a banshee every time older brother nears will discourage older brother from getting near enough to bother her to begin with.

I wish you well in your endeavors to cure your children of SAD. If you'd like to make a donation to the GRSADLHL (Get Rid of Sibling Animosity Development and Live a Happy Life) Foundation, I will gladly accept checks, all major credit cards, and cold hard cash.

Reality used to be a friend of mine

Have you ever fallen into the I'll-be-happy-when trap? Like I'll be happy when I get married, or I'll be happy when I'm out of debt, or I'll be happy when my neighbor's obnoxious dog dies (or perhaps more accurately, when my obnoxious neighbor learns that if he can't devote the proper time to caring for a dog he shouldn't have a dog in the first place). I think we've all been there at some point and I think we all know that the trick is learning how to live in the moment and be happy now and blah blah blah... blah blah.

Well, I believe that I've fallen into the lesser known but equally dangerous when-I-have-a-house trap. You've never heard of this, you say? Well, let me explain. For some reason, every time I picture myself in our future home, the house is always clean. There are always cookies in the oven and the laundry is always done. My kids have wonderful behavior, they consistently sleep through the night, Adam and I never disagree on anything, and it's Christmastime all year round. If that weren't enough, I'm also a better dresser in our soon-to-be house. My hair looks fantastic, I'm thinner (which is strange, considering the abundant cookie supply), and my nails are always polished. I'm a freakin' Stepford wife.

Luckily, I've discovered the key to this tricky little problem, and it's much easier than figuring out to to be so blasted happy all the time. I just strategically time my daydreams. If I'm standing in a pile of dirty socks with a fudgsicle in my right hand and the phone in my left, listening to my husband tell me that he'll be late for dinner, it tends to keep me grounded. And if the kids are screaming in the background, well, that's just icing on the cake.

In which a pair of nail clippers destroys my faith in Google

Last night I dug through two pails of garbage, peeled the blankets off the bed, disrupted some shelves, dumped out at least three containers of random stuff, and ransacked the coat closet looking for my missing nail clippers. (What can I say? I have a problem letting things go.) You know what all my hard work got me? Dirty hands and a whole lotta nothin'. I did however, learn something important. I learned that there are not five, but six stages of grief, the sixth being defiance. Hence my query to the almighty Google: where are my nail clippers, jerkwad?

Alas, Google failed me. Instead of lighting the path to the finest nails clippers I've ever had the privilege to own, it directed me to a forum about regulations for air travel.

Jerkwad indeed.

Oh, yeah! I have a blog...

Hi, friends! How the heck are ya? Sorry I took off last week with no warning; I know that must have been really hard for you. I mean, not knowing where I had gone or if something had happened to me or if you'd ever hear from me again - talk about scary. And devastating. And heartrending! But no worries, I'm back, and bigger than ever! No seriously, I think I gained three pounds from all the cake balls I ate while I totally stalked your blogs.

You've heard of cake balls, I assume. And if not, where the heck have you been!? Living under a rock? Cake + frosting + a chocolaty shell = love (and thunder thighs). I used a dark chocolate cake with orange frosting. Mmmmm. I wonder if there are any left? I may have missed one...

Um, anyway, whatcha been up to lately? I spent last week being lazy and hanging out with my kiddos. I don't do that as much as I should, you know? Obviously we're together. A lot. But we're doing chores or running errands or going to appointments or all that other stuff that has to get done. Last week we just hung out. That's actually why I took a break from blogging. I knew we didn't have many must-get-done items, so I decided to eighty-six the would-like-to-get-done items too. (And also it hit me that my boy will be starting kindergarten in the fall and I kind of panicked about all that time that I could have been hanging out instead of cleaning or scheduling or blogging.) For the most part, it was a fun, slow-paced week full of trains, cars, tag, hide-and-seek, and laughter. I highly recommend it!

And now let's pretend I had a great one-liner to succinctly and wittily wrap up this post. Thanks so much.

What love really means

I'm a day early, but I wanted to share my opinion of what honest-to-goodness love looks like:



Doesn't look like much, does it? Well, let me tell you a little something. I get bed rage. My husband could tell me to get over myself. He could request that I get professional help. He could ask for separate bedrooms. He could find a new wife, one who doesn't need professional help or a separate bedroom in the first place.

Know what he does instead? He lets me wear earplugs. If the kids are up in the night, he deals with them. Bathroom needs, crying, a drink of water - he's all over it. Maybe it's because he can fall back asleep in .78 seconds. Maybe it's because he knows that if I'm up, he'll be up too. Maybe it's because he's scared of me. Or maybe it's love - the true kind.

Happy Valentine's Day to the best guy I know.

If I only had HTML skills

I don't know how to do strikethrough. You know, like when someone is being clever and they write something, then strike through it and write something else, but you still know what they wrote beforehand so it makes it funny? You know? You know, right? And you're just not telling me because you know that if I had that tool at my disposal I'd be unstoppable, right? I'd be funnier and cleverer and popularer and greater than any blog anywhere EVER! (Go ahead and imagine sinister laughter here.)

Listen, it's no use hiding. I know I saw instructions on how to use strikethrough on somebody's blog recently. And now I know that you know that I know. I just don't remember whose blog it was. Fess up now and save yourself the drama that will inevitably ensue if I have to come looking for you. (Unless, you know, you live in Utah and I totally insulted you the other day and you're never coming by again. In that case, I'll just learn to live a life in which I don't know how to strikethrough.)

There's something wrong with my sniffer!

A few of you asked about my anosmia yesterday - how it happened, how it affects me, how it might be a good thing as a mother - and wanted to know if I'd posted about it before. And I have, but not in detail. So here are some details.

I've never been able to smell, or if I could at one point, I have no recollection of it. And no, there was no head injury or traumatic incident. I just can't smell. Until about a year ago, I almost never told people that I had anosmia. I just thought there was something fundamentally wrong with me. And also, I figured it was an isolated case (oh, the egomania!). Turns out, lots of people have it! I should start a club or something.

There are good things and bad things about it, of course.

The good:

• I can't smell stinky diapers.
• I can't smell stinky people.
• I can't smell cigarette smoke.

The bad:

• I can't smell stinky diapers. When Riley was a newborn, I always forgot to check for messy diapers. If he was upset, I'd feed him or rock him or try to get him to sleep, but since I had recently changed his diaper, it never occurred to me that that might be the problem. My poor husband would come home, take a whiff of the apartment, make a good-gravy-what-died-in-here face, and gently explain that Riley had probably been sitting in his own filth for at least forty-five minutes. Not my finest mothering moments. So now I do the squish test. And I'm right probably 95% of the time.
• I can't smell stinky people. Subsequently, if I stink, I don't have any idea. And if the lotion I'm wearing smells like cow dung, I don't have any idea. Bad breath? No idea. (Unless it's death breath, when it's so bad I can taste it. Neat visual, huh?)
• I can't smell cigarette smoke. So it should go without saying that I can't smell regular smoke either. If someday, my husband is out of town or something, and I wake up in the middle of the night and the house is on fire, it better be on fire in my bedroom or I won't have a clue and we'll be dead. Dead, dead, dead.

As for the good smells, well I can't honestly say that I miss them, since I've never experienced them to begin with. The only thing I would really like, as I mentioned in the other post, is to experience that new-baby smell people rave about. Other than that, I'm pretty okay with the whole thing. It saves me a bundle on perfume.

It's always funny to hear people's reactions. Some people are devastated for me. Some people wave things under my nose just to make sure I'm not a big fat liar. Some people are shocked and wonder how something like that could happen. And everyone wants to know if I can still taste things.

Yes. And no. Contrary to popular opinion, the sensory receptors for smell and taste are completely separate receptors. But a person's sense of smell can greatly enhance their sense of taste. If you handed me a glass of Koolaid, I could tell your that it was sweet, but I probably wouldn't be able to tell your what flavor it was. I have a fantastic pumpkin bread recipe that people ask for all the time. I love it because it's so moist, but other people love it because of the combination of spices. Hmm... maybe I'm not at all a picky eater because of being anosmic. On the other hand, I sometimes waste food that may still be edible. I will always through something out the day after the expiration date because I can't tell if it has gone bad. It drove one of my college roommates crazy.

Anyway, there you have it. My name is Becky and I'm anosmic.

(If you'd like to read some more about it, you can go here or here.)

A few of my unfavorite things

Whenever I read a post that begins with the words, "I don't normally do memes, but..." I chuckle a little. If you don't normally do memes, then why are you doing one now? I mean, where's your backbone? Have you no pride? Are you really so hard up for a topic that you'll stoop to memes? What kind of person are you?!

Whew! Glad I got that off my chest. So, hey, I don't normally do memes, but...

Alright, alright! I admit it. I have no backbone and yes, I'm that hard up. Have you been reading my posts lately!? Even I'm bored with me. But like I told Sue Q, the lovely lady who tagged me, I'm all full of rage lately, so this meme is right up my alley.

25 things I love to hate:

1. Memes. (Hello! Here's some crap you never wanted to know about me. Please leave a comment.)
2. McDonalds. (It's the Walmart of fast food. I can still like Egg McMuffins though, right?)
3. When children who can't even pee in the toilet yet "bear their testimonies" on Fast Sunday.
4. Landlords who've been promising you a new door for a year. Then when they finally deliver, you have to put towels on the floor to prevent the very noticeable flow of air coming in through the six-inch gap. (I might be slightly exaggerating on the six-inch gap part. Only slightly.)
5. Bad customer service.
   
6. Bad drivers.
7. Bad hair days.
8. People who don't have bad hair days.
9. People who don't have bad hair days and complain about bad hair days.
   
10. People who say, "Well, can you smell this?" after they learn I've got anosmia.
11. When kids don't listen.
12. When kids turn the bathroom floor into the Great Lakes region.
13. When kids beat on each other. (Well, that can actually be amusing sometimes.)
14. Flip, I'm only on number fourteen?
15. Fifteen?
16. Will this ever end?
17. Hayden Christensen. (No offense, Hayden. I'm sure you're really a lovely person.)
18. The name Traeh.
19. Utah. (Oh, I'm gonna get some serious crap for this one, I can feel it.)
20. Ingrown toenails. (I've never had one, but I hear they're a bi---, uh, they're really bad.)
21. Reading a really great book, only to find out it's just the first in a series and the next book won't be out for another year.
22. Debating with your husband about whether the shoes you borrowed three years ago so you could help clean out the garage belonged to your mother-in-law or your father-in-law and being wrong. (Oh, wait. That wasn't me, that was my husband.)
23. Having really big feet.
24. Public restrooms so disgusting that you opt to hold it for three hours.
25. Unsharpened pencils.
    

I really am full of rage this week so if you're horribly offended by my meme, well, I'm not sure I can bring myself to care. But if you'd like, pretend I tagged you and then you can put me at the top of your list. Toodles.

Tax season - hooray!

I told my husband last night I was boycotting the blog this week. Ha! That lasted all of ten hours. I will, however, make this particular post short and sweet.

When we lived in Virginia, the first counselor in our bishopric (who was an accountant or a financial adviser or something) made the comment that you always want to owe the government come tax season. If you're getting a refund, you're not getting that money throughout the year when you really need it. Of course, if you just don't feel like paying, go see Debbie and she'll solve that pesky little problem for ya.

Does anyone know if this is true or have any opinions about it? Obviously, I could ask someone who does accounting-y financial-ish things for his or her job, but that takes time and foresight and time and possibly one more appointment in my already crazy life and, you know, time. And also, I'm afraid that if I go in to discuss tax issues, they'll convince me that I'm not smart enough to be doing my own taxes. I'm not gonna lie, people. Sitting down with all those forms, my trusty calculator, and a few freshly sharpened pencils gives me a bit of a buzz. Seriously.

Anyway, enlighten me please.

Winners and winners

A few months ago, we started putting our kids to bed at the same time. Before that, Riley would go to bed first and we'd keep Millie up longer so she'd quit waking up at five in the morning. But they've got decent (not to be confused with great) sleeping habits now, so unless there are special circumstances, the two of them are in bed around seven-ish. (And let me tell you, that it a great thing for my marriage!)

Now, because of the early bedtime, we get Riley up to use the facilities right before we go to bed so that he won't wake up at five in the morning. And sometimes it's a source of contention. We know it needs to be done, but neither of us is willing. So like any normal couple, we solve our disagreements with an age-old technique: paper, rock, scissors. Having employed this problem-solving method many times before, I have come to learn that 75% of the time, Adam will open with rock, which is what happened three nights ago. I chose paper. Becky - 1, Adam - 0. The next night, I figured he wouldn't be quite so predictable. I took my chances and picked scissors. Score! Adam went with paper. Obviously, on the following night I went with rock and smashed the life out of Adam's scissors. Unfortunately, I ended up smashing a little life out of Adam as well. He got perturbed that I always win everything. (Did he not get that memo in his taking-a-wife booklet or what? I could've sworn I saw it on page 3. Whatev.)

Luckily, the universe smiled down upon him. As we were conversing, Riley poked his head out of the door and told us he needed to pee. I was already in the bathroom, so I helped him out. Guess Adam dodged that bullet. And that's the end of the story. What, you were expecting a life-altering moral or something? Gimme a break - it's Friday.

And speaking of Friday, I have great news for two of my readers. You are winners! Congratulations to Erin, who will soon be the owner of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and Social Graces, and Lara, who I hope will enjoy Seabiscuit and Animal Farm as much as I did. If you lovely ladies would let me know where to send them, I'll get these books in the mail soon.

P.S. Even with my raving review of the What to Expect books, nobody wanted them! Shocker, I know.

Big girls

I was wasting time on the computer yesterday and noticed an ad for plus size party dresses. I was curious as to which sizes were considered plus sizes, so I looked it up. In some stores, plus sizes begin with 12 or 14! What the...? Maybe I'm in denial, but 12 or 14? Not a plus size, in my opinion.

It got me thinking about how so many women (and men) have such skewed images of themselves. For example, I have seen myself as a "big girl" ever since my first pregnancy. It's partially because I'm tall-ish, but I feel like this giant thing whenever I'm in a room with other women, even when they're not size twos. But then I had a lady tell me last month that I was skinny. Skinny! Can you believe it? She must be crazy, though, because I already "know" that I'm a big girl. My mirror says so. And yet, if I saw another woman who was my size, there's no way I'd assume she shopped in the plus-size section. It's all me and my warped body image. I guess I figure if I don't look like Jennifer Aniston or Kate Hudson, there's no hope for me.

But, hey, as long as there's at least one lady who thinks I'm skinny, it must be okay for me to have dessert with breakfast.

I like what I like... I think

You know how I've mentioned two or three or forty-eight times that we're having a house built? Well, I may have given the wrong impression about how things are going. In fact, things aren't going at all right now. I mean, we have a great realtor, a builder we like (so far), and a floor plan, so we do have some things taken care of. But we're in a lease; we're stuck in our apartment until July, which means that the ground breaking and building won't even commence until late March or early April. We're just waiting. And waiting some more.

The timing actually works out very well for a lot of reasons: Adam will be out of school, there shouldn't be any snow on the ground (though you never know here), we won't ever have a month where we're paying rent and a mortgage, and it gives us lots of time to figure out what we want. But that's also the problem: we have lots of time to figure out what we want. Of course in my case, it means I have lots of time to figure out what I want, change my mind, change it back, go a little crazy, see more samples, go back to the original plan, ask other people their opinion, decide my taste is horrible, change my mind again, wish we'd never thought of building, and then decide I still like my first idea the best anyway. You'd think after repeating this process three times a day for the last two weeks, I'd learn to skip all the in between stuff and trust my instincts.

A friend of mine, who had a house built a few years ago, gave me a piece of advice. She said that every decision - lighting, flooring, carpet - would feel like the most important decision in the world and that I needed to realize it wasn't. When she told me this, I nodded as though I understood, while inwardly vowing I would not be that way. Well let me tell you, I'm that way. I have spent more time this last week looking at color schemes and sinks and faucets and virtual design tools than, well, blogging, if you can believe it.

And then yesterday, I nearly lost it. I was even ready to let my husband take over the whole project (this is the man who still asks me every morning which shirt matches which pants, so you can see how frustrated I had become). I say nearly because I have found an anchor in the tumultuous sea of choices. Would you like to see what's keeping my sanity hanging on by a thread?


Crystalline Onyx, baby. Sample 1835-45.

I have made a decision and I'm going to stick with it. I don't care how many other colors I see, this is the color I like for my kitchen counter tops. I liked it last month, I liked it last week, and I will like it in July, so help me Formica.

Easy come, easy go?

A while ago I deleted three or four blogs from my blog roll. It wasn't because of the bloggers themselves - they were all nice, friendly, funny ladies (or at least they came across that way; they could be crazy grasshopper killers for all I know) - and it wasn't because I never commented on their posts and they never commented on mine (though I do love me some comments). I think it was simply a matter of style.

Why then, did I feel so friggin' guilty? I felt like I needed to justify myself, email each of these women a sincere apology, and repent of my wicked ways. And maybe throw in some homemade goods just in case.

My own dear mother has never read Harry Potter. She's just not into fantasy books, and that's okay. Crazy, but okay. Do you think J.K. Rowling is lamenting the fact that she has one less reader in the world? Probably not. Adam hasn't made it past the first few pages of Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, which I adore. I bet Phil doesn't care. And I can't wade through the Lord of the Rings books. That Tolkien is a wordy fellow! Think he would have given a flip? Nope.

So I doubt these women shed tears over losing a follower. But if they did, please don't tell them it was me.

Is there a Joseph in the house?

I had a strange dream a few nights ago and I'm having a little trouble interpreting it. A little help would be appreciated.

In the dream, our lovely house was all finished, only it wasn't where it was supposed to be. It was connected to Home Depot. We had to walk through the Home Depot entrance, take two rights, and there was our door. Except it was being guarded by a Home Depot employee. I suppose that wouldn't be too bad, as long as he were there to ensure the safety of the house and its occupants, but that would just be too easy, wouldn't it? No, he was there to ensure that we were using our money wisely so that we could pay the mortgage every month. And whenever I would ask my family what they wanted for dinner, he would very politely pipe up with, "Peanut butter and jelly is always a good way to go!" In addition to the weird location and security guard, the house was yellow. Not the pretty, pale yellow that I've been contemplating, but school-bus yellow. Zoiks!

So what do you think this means?

1. I spend too much time worrying about our house.
2. I spend too much time at Home Depot.
3. I spend too much time making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
4. I need therapy. And Valium.
5. Who cares!? You're thinking about a yellow house???
   
6. Other. Please explain.

And don't worry, if your interpretation is wrong, I won't have you beheaded. I'm nice like that.