Show & Tell Tuesday: Momfessional Moments

Ok, so today's little link-up party is all about showing and telling your "momfessional" moments...in other words, this is an opportunity to confess or share secrets related to surviving this whole motherhood thing without losing your ever-loving mind. We can do hard things, y'all...

I did a post of these for Show and Tell Tuesday last year, and you can see that HERE. 

Soooo, let's revisit last year for a moment because not a whole lot of those have changed. I still adore preschool, although I'm teaching it now so it's not quite as much of a "break" as it was last year. I still let my son pee on trees at the park (sorry, not sorry), I still encourage my kids to watch a little TV when I need a break, and I will ALWAYS live by the five-second rule. Like ALWAYS.

The only things that have really changed from the 2015 list are that Kate is very close to dropping her nap (moment of silence, please...), and my son is now smart enough (thanks to said beloved preschool) that he realized the 5 on the Rosa's gumball machine was just part of the 25 cents sign, so he figured out my lie. Thankfully, the gumballs were older than he is, so they both immediately spit them out and realized they were gross when I gave in and let them get one. :) WIN!

Okay, so I came up four more. Here goes...

1) I SECRETLY SMILE WHEN I SPOT OTHER KIDS HAVING MELTDOWNS

Whenever we are at a restaurant or play area and someone else's kid is having a tantrum, I secretly smile and laugh because, FOR ONCE, it's not MY KID doing it. It just somehow makes me feel justified that my kids aren't the only ones who misbehave occasionally in public. Now, before you scold me, I do always give the mom the obligatory half-smile as a show of solidarity, but once we've parted ways, I do smile to myself.

2) YOU TUBE
This isn't super crazy and off the wall, but it's amazing what all I can accomplish when I let my kids watch YouTube on the iPad. I know - it's super scary to just give them free reign on there because the suggested videos can sometimes be downright ICKY. But, it's one of the few times they will watch something together without fighting, and it's pretty cute to hear them laughing together at the same dumb video, too. (As an aside, are my kids the only ones into watching the "surprise egg" videos?!! What the heck are these dumb things, and how did they get so popular?!!)


3) #1 ON MY MY ISH LIST
There are three things that I absolutely DESPISE as a parent, but loved as a kid - Playdoh, stickers, and Legos. The amount of Playdoh I have picked up off of our playroom carpet is absolutely horrifying. I cannot even handle it anymore, so it often "mysteriously" disappears overnight. And I SWEAR, if I have one more piece of furniture in this house ruined by a pirate sticker, I might just flip my lid.

But number one on my ish list HAS to be Legos. Not the duplos - those are tolerable unless stepped on (for the love, those suckers hurt!).  I'm talking about the Legos marked for ages 5 and up. They are tiny, and the toys are rendered completely USELESS if you lose one single microscopic piece, so couple that with the fact that we have a two year old tornado currently residing with us, and it's not pretty, friends. I loathe the little devils.

4) I (OCCASIONALLY) STAGE AFFECTION BETWEEN MY KIDS
Sometimes, I need to pretend that the cute and affectionate moments between my kids are a more frequent occurrence, so yeah, I ask them to hold hands for a picture. Or to give each other hugs just so I can document it. Do I occasionally catch an unprompted hug or sweet moment? Of course...but most are staged. And some end badly. Sigh.

Exhibit A - I think the prompt was, "Give her a kiss on the cheek." Oops.

An unprompted hug. (Insert all the googly eyes.)

Staged. Very staged. What gave it away?!! ;)

   

That's it for today!
Here's the series list if you'd like to join in next time! :)

Momfessionals

So, better late than never, right?!! :) Today's Show & Tell Tuesday (or Wednesday...) is all about our momfessionals - a term that basically means our mom confessionals. In other words, how we all survive this NUTTY motherhood thing without LOSING OUR MINDS. 

So, let's go!

1) I HEART PRESCHOOL

After Kate's horrific first year and surviving all of the colic, I was so desperate for a little "me" time this year that I convinced my husband to let me send the kids to two different preschools since she was too young to attend Carter's...and the cherry on top was that I somehow managed to also get him to drop off the little one on the way to work! WHATEVER IT TAKES, people!

 

2) NAP TIME NAZI

I was reading about naps one day in "Baby 411" (a must read for new parents, by the way), and I have lived by the line in the book that says, "Nap time should last at least one hour. What the child chooses to do for that hour is up to him." Let's be honest...naps are more for the parents than the kids. Yes, kids need sleep, blah blah blah. Naps are MY sanity, MY favorite part of the day, and MY time. If one of my kids only slept for 45 minutes at nap time, they sat in their beds for the remaining 15. And I felt absolutely no guilt about it. After all, it was written in a parenting book by a DOCTOR, so it MUST be true. :)

3) TV

Neither of my kids were big fans of television before about 18 months...and as much as I know it was bad for them that young, it made me SO sad! I so desperately wanted to let Elmo or Mickey Mouse babysit for just 30 little minutes a day, and neither of them had interest! I seriously didn't understand what was wrong with them...Carter FINALLY got into shows around two, and Kate is FINALLY beginning to enjoy small chunks of a few shows, and it is a blessed MIRACLE.  I can occasionally shower, cook dinner, clean up, etc without a shadow! :) 

4) FIVE SECOND RULE

Um...how about five minutes (Carter) or five hours (Kate)?!! With Carter, I usually gave it a few minutes...but he was my first child. Second child, I'm so sorry. I occasionally catch Kate walking around the playroom with something in her mouth, and when I ask her what it is, she usually says it is a Cheerio, Goldfish, etc. I will then think through when those snacks were brought upstairs, and as long as it was in the last 24 hours, I usually let her eat it. If you're mad at me reading this in 25 years, Kate, just think about all the immunity you were building at a young age! 

5) THE ROSA'S GUMBALL MACHINE

So, I lie to my kids at times. I lie and tell them the stupidly expensive rides at the mall are broken or that the toy store is closed on Tuesdays or that the ice cream store ran out of M&Ms. It makes it hard for them to argue with me...and that's always a win. One of the places I lie is at Rosa's - our usual Friday night dinner spot. They have a giant gumball machine by the exit that has a sign that says 50 cents on it. For a while, it was meltdown city every time we left the restaurant because Carter wanted a gum ball. Since I am not a big fan of putting my kids' lives in danger with candy they'd choke on, I always said no. It was always ugly. Until about six months ago when I decided to tell Carter that Rosa's had a rule that you had to be at least 5 to get gum. I pointed to the 5 on the machine, and he couldn't argue with the sign. Leaving dinner has been blissful ever since.

 6) MY KID PEES ON TREES

Yeah, I know. It's gross. It's public nakedness. He could probably get a rash. But he's 4, and when he has to go pee, he has to go NOW. So if there's a nearby tree and I can shield him, I let him "water the tree." He tells me his pee has superpowers and that it'll make the tree grow big and strong. And you know what, I tell him that's he's EXACTLY RIGHT. 

While I am certain I could list about a million more of these, those are the top six that come to mind today! This was SUCH a fun topic! Happy Hump Day, everyone!!