Declaring Victory

It's been a little crazy over the last few months, and I haven't had time to properly declare victory over the tiny diapered diva. Yes, after many frustrating months and an EPIC battle of wills, V finally shed her diapers during the day around the start of the year.

If you had asked me back in November, I would have told you V would be wearing diapers all the way to the day she graduates high school. It felt like there was nothing she wanted enough for us to dangle before her as a reward, no punishment scary enough with which to threaten her, no shame too great to inflict on her psyche. She simply wanted nothing to do with the toilet or underpants and that was the end of discussion for her.

(By the by, yes, she does display my mother's stubbornness and temper, aren't I lucky to be sandwiched between them?)

So how did we finally turn the corner? I'm not proud to admit it, but I pretty much had a melt-down in front of her. We had been trying to send her to the potty every hour to get her to pee in the toilet, and I had just returned from such a fruitless journey to the bathroom when she ran back to the play room, defiantly plopped down on the carpet and had a pee of such gargantuan proportions that it completely saturated and defeated her pull-up. So I grabbed the closest thing I could find to soak up the mess, which turned out to be one of her favorite shirts (a coincidence, I swear). And instead of cleaning it up, I threw the shirt at her and made her wipe it up. Then I screamed at her that I was done and I wouldn't be cleaning up her mess anymore, and I couldn't care less if she wore diapers for the rest of her life. I pulled off her wet pull-up, stuck underpants on her because I was too lazy to open a new pack of diapers, then I left to fume.

Probably not one of my finer moments of parenting.

But the next day, she didn't wet her pull-up at all, and the day after she started wearing underpants, and she's had nary an accident since. All in all, my momentary loss of parental dignity was well worth the results. Duh, winning!

Belated Birthday Wishes to My Kidlets!

The first half of the calendar year is pretty birthday-intensive for our family, with my father's birthday in January, my mother's and my birthdays in February, E's in March, and V's in May. It feels like every other week is a family dinner to celebrate someone's birthday.

And now that the kids are old enough for parties, it feels like I have to skip my birthday altogether and go straight from planning my dad's birthday dinner (I don't usually plan my mom's because we have always been lumped together - it's not like I don't love my mom. Mom, if you read this, it's not that I don't love you) to planning E's birthday party. The second the last of his little party guests leaves, then it's time to plan for V's birthday party. Having their birthdays two months apart was clearly a grave tactical error on my part.

In case you don't have kids or haven't gotten to the point when your kids have opinions about their parties, I need to disclose that birthday parties are monumental events that require top-notch project management skills. But that's a topic for another day; the point is that only now, about 3 weeks after V's birthday party, do I feel like I've recovered and gotten a chance to breathe.

So *inhale*, *exhale*... Happy Belated Birthday to my two favoritest kiddios!

Wearing Mom Genes

Recently, I had one of those calls with my mother. You know, the kind that starts out innocuously enough and casually takes a turn to disaster when you least expect it. Mom knows all your insecurities and exploits them willy-nilly on a whim. In this case, it began with a simple phrase that should always be accompanied by foreboding, slasher-flick music whenever my mother utters it, "Oh, I need to tell you something..."

Apparently, I have a smart mouth. And I shouldn't be dispensing advice to my cousins or siblings (or any relatives or even friends, for that matter). I guess an off-handed comment I made to a cousin caused a cataclysmic tear in the very fabric of my cousin's relationship with her parents. I didn't know I have such POWER. Neat-o.

It doesn't really matter that when I called to apologize to said cousin, she told me that my comment had nothing to do with the argument she had had with her mother and that it had already blown over. It's irrelevant that my mother blew the situation out of proportion by just a wee bit. The damage had been done, I was an emotional wreck for days. Now that's power.

It's the power of Mom, to undo someone with just a sentence or an intense glare. And it's in every mother's genes, as I discovered from E's teacher after I scolded him one day by simply telling him, "I'm really disappointed in you." E's teacher told me he was nervous and scared to do the wrong thing all day, that he didn't want to disappoint the teacher, that he hoped I wouldn't be disappointed in him anymore by the time I picked him up if he was a good boy all day. With V, if I look at her the wrong way, she spontaneously bursts into tears, not one word needed.

I'm really ambivalent about this. On the one hand, I know what it's like to be on the receiving end of a Mom-whammy, and I feel for my poor kids. On the other hand, sometimes it is the most efficient and effective way to influence their behavior. With great power comes great responsibility, but Peter Parker never had to figure out how to get his son to stop using his daughter as a battering ram. I guess there's really only one solution: save up for the kids' therapy bills when they get older.

Do you have Mom-guilt? If so, how do you cope?

Get Your Nose Out of My Baby's Ears

Over the weekend, my mother, my MIL, and I took V to get her ears pierced. For the entire week before, V had been pointing to her ears saying "pretty pretty" in anticipation and excitement. And now, she can proudly display her pierced lobes (a fine job done by Claire's at the mall).

This did not seem like a controversial thing to do; lots of babies have pierced ears. But I got a lot of disapproving looks, free advice, and unsolicited opinions from people ranging from my nanny ("she's too young, it's going to hurt her a lot") to my sister-in-law ("it's not right to do that to her when she's not old enough to make an informed decision of whether she really wants it") to random acquaintances ("the ears will definitely get infected - is that what you want to put her through?", "she's going to grow up vain"). Wow.

Thanks everyone for your kind words and obvious concern for my daughter's well-being. I need to clarify that I had her ears pierced; I did not have her labia cut off or her feet bound. I know - fine distinction, slippery slope, blah blah blah. It's just weird to me that people would have such a strong opinion about somebody else's kid's ear lobes. Has anyone encountered the same reaction?

I'm just glad I didn't tell all these people about having E circumcised, that probably would have created a maelstrom of rebukes and dirty looks.

Tales of the High Seas, or the Perils of Cruising with Small Children, Call It What You Want, Just Don't Call It Vacation

There are times when things go so inexplicably awry that there is no point in trying to assign blame or divine the underlying root cause. You just chalk it up to the universe telling you that it is your turn to - in the words of a close friend - serve as a cautionary tale to others.

So it was with our recent holiday vacation cruising in the Caribbean. Now you say, "Shut up! You're on a cruise in the Caribbean. I so do not weep for you." OK, save your tears for the end of this post.

Let us begin by reviewing that darling son E and adorable daughter V are ages three years and nineteen months, respectively. The cruise was my mother's idea, because she had already planned to cruise with my aunts and uncles and she "couldn't bear to be away from the grandchildren on Christmas." So she bought our cruise tickets back in March.

Fast forward to the week before we leave. My cousin, who lives down the street and shall remain nameless, had agreed to dog sit for us back at Thanksgiving. Lo and behold, on the Monday night before we leave, his mother calls to say he can no longer do it. Excuse me? The reason: a much better offer to go snow-boarding with his buddies. I call back and as politely as I can, light into my aunt about responsibility and giving enough notice and what are you teaching your son when you don't even make him call his own cousin back and tell her in person that you are bailing at the last minute. Thus begins the frantic search for dog-sitters. Calls are made to kennels, friends, other relatives. But let's face it, it's the week before Christmas and our friends have plans and the kennels are already booked. Then fate intervenes: a friend from our Furry Friends volunteer group offers to have the dogs stay with her. The day before we leave, we get a Christmas miracle. The dogs ended up having a wonderful time staying with their buddy Rosie.

We are duped into thinking that the dog-sitting miracle and the extremely well-behaved children on the flight out to Florida are signs that the cruise is going to be fun. I even jokingly tell my husband, "The flight out is going to be the highlight of this whole trip." Little did I know...

It would be wrong to say that the whole trip was miserable. We had some really fun moments (zip-lining in Costa Rica, hanging out with my family, shopping in Cozumel) insterspersed between:

E getting a rash over his entire body for the first week of this 12-day adventure. We never figured out what caused it, but he was itchy and grumpy. We had to restrict his diet (due to his numerous food allergies) in a vain attempt to stem the red bumps and the incessant scratching. E looked at me like I was the second coming of Hitler when I had to tell him no more Fruit Loops for breakfast or bread sticks at dinner (due to his mild wheat allergy).

In addition to the rash, E also got a yeast infection. Yes, there. Poor guy. He couldn't even walk in the Grand Cayman because it hurt so much. He strolled around in V's stroller. On Christmas Eve, I took him to the ship's doctor, who prescribed Vagisil and oral antibiotics. Total cost of visit: $100 - the most expensive tube of Vagisil I've ever bought.

E's health issues did not end there. He got food poisoning in Costa Rica (as did I and a few others), and ended up puking that night.

We tried to take E to the ship's children's program, the "Fun Factory", which had craft stations, video games, board games, a wading pool, a ball pit, slides, and a stage and costumes for pretend play. But E, being shy and adverse to trying new things, did not like it. We tried to entice him to go many times the first few days until he finally told me matter-of-factly, "Mommy, I don't like the Fun Factory. It's not fun for me, it's not my kind of fun." Well, how could I make him go back after he told me that? But don't think it wasn't the looming threat every time he acted out. One night, he was throwing a tantrum at dinner. A girl at another table also had a screaming fit, and we saw her father storm out of the dining room with the girl kicking and screaming over his shoulder. "See that? He's taking her to the Fun Factory because she's not listening to her Mommy and Daddy! Maybe we should take you, too!"

Not to be outdone by her big brother, V had issues of her own. Like screaming at the top of her lungs every night at about 3am. Sometimes for a long time. Once, she cried so long that neighboring cabins complained to Guest Services. At 4:30am I got a call from the concierge asking if we could do something about our baby. "Please pick her up or something," the lady on the other end of the phone said. Oh, picking her up? Was that the secret to making her stop? We fed her, changed her, rocked her, walked her, shushed her, sang to her, gave her her monkey buddy and turned on her music box - all we needed to do was pick her up? You can imagine how we received that feedback after dealing with her screaming for 90 minutes.

V also refused to sit in her high chair at meal times. She would take all that fancy silverware and fling it. Or scream. She's good at screaming because she gets lots of practice. My husband and I ended up having to take turns eating while the other held darling daughter, lest she throw a colossal tantrum. (The Fun Factory threat did not work on her, as they do not take kids who are not potty-trained.)

Among the things both children protested: being forced to dress up for dinner; having to eat dinner at 6:00pm, at which time they are not actually hungry; having fruit juice restricted from their diet after day 8, when we realized that the crash from a sugar high made all the aforementioned worse; having only one channel to watch on the stateroom TV (Cartoon Network - en Espanol! "Mommy, what are they saying?!"); having to wake up by a certain time to get to breakfast; and generally, having to spend all day and night with Mommy and Daddy (I heard, "Mommy, I don't love you. Go away! I want Grandma!" more times than any mother should have to hear in her life). Actually, I'm with you on that one, kids!

Where was Grandma in all of this, you may ask? The mastermind behind all of this was there, caving in to every request (candy canes and ice cream for dinner? Why not - it's Christmas time!) and winding the kids up to a frenzy so that they could be returned to us in a hyper and truculent state. She did baby sit for us, for which we were very grateful, but most of the time, she was hanging with my family (Mah Jong rules!) or going out on excursions.

Ironically, on Christmas day, my parents booked dinner at the specialty (read: fancy-pants and not suitable for kids) restaurant on-board, and we spent Christmas dinner on our own. It was a formal dinner, which the kids hated being dressed for, and I can't say that I was thrilled with dressing up either, seeing as how the clasp on V's shoes got caught on my cocktail dress and ruined it.

But I can't even blame my mom, because she really thought we would all have fun. And she paid for the tickets. I just have to look back on it and try to laugh. We laugh because if we don't, we'll cry.

So if you are thinking of going on a cruise with children under four, you may want to think twice. As for us, no more cruising until the kids are at least five. I think next time, I'd rather go stay with Rosie and the dogs. That sounds more relaxing.

Yes, You Are My Performing Monkey

Over the last month, I have seen the passing of my grandfather and the marriage of my little brother, and with those two events, a swarm of relatives come through our part of town. Many of them were meeting my kids for the first time.

Of course I am going to show them off, they are so cute! This mommy is proud of her munchkins, especially since I never thought I had the stuff to be a parent in the first place. And especially when the kids are at such cute stages in their life: E, with his adorable pre-school stream-of-consciousness non-sequitors, and V, with her flirty charm and drunken-master walking.

So naturally, when the parade of aunts, uncles, and cousins came to town, I wanted them to see all the things my kids do that make me laugh, make me proud, and make me melt. Which means of course that they did NONE of the things that make me laugh or melt. Would E shake his booty? Would V blow kisses? Not a chance. At one point, I asked E to say something in Mandarin, to which he replied with an icy glare that said, "I am not your performing monkey! Leave me alone!"

Is it wrong for a mother to want to share the joy? I guess they give private performances only.

Milestones!

It's been a busy month, and hence, I have gone AWOL on the blogging front lately. But a few things happened over the last month that are worthy of acknowledgment.

First, V is finally walking. Congratulations to my little diva for finally becoming bi-pedal! Granted, she walks like she's drunk most of the time. And she's not that steady. But having tasted the freedom of walking, nothing can deter her - not tripping on her own feet, getting knocked down by the dogs (or E), or the accidental run-in with furniture (that f**ker came out of nowhere!).

Secondly, E is pooping in the potty! I had pretty much given up, but I caught him making that tell-tale face one day and whisked him onto the potty seat. After he realized that he wouldn't fall in and get sucked to the ocean (like his Lightning McQueen undies), he became more open to putting his poo-poo in the potty. And in case you're wondering, he gets 5 stickers, "potty candy" (aka, fruit leather), and a trip to the car wash for his efforts.

Both of the munchkins are very proud of their achievements, as am I! Mommy's tired arms thank V, and the planet is happy E is putting fewer diapers in the landfill.

A Belated Happy Birthday, V!

I swore that I would not be one of those moms who lets child #2 get short-changed, but inevitably, it's hard to give undivided attention to the sweet low-maintenance baby when the high-strung three year-old is screaming his head off most of the time.

And so here I am, over a week after V's first birthday, finally acknowledging her big day. And V was as sweet and low maintenance as ever on her birthday. So low maintenance, in fact, that some people forgot she was even at her own party! That Grandma stole her away to a corner and monopolized her time had a little something to do with it, too.

A belated happy birthday to my wonderful daughter. Even though I may not get as much time with you, you have my whole heart.