Mommy Confessions #2: Dessert is a Right?

I can see it now. Minions of tiny people, looking much more mature than their preschool age would suggest, marching in the streets. The calm and quiet of the of the idyllic suburban residential area is punctuated with cries of "WE WANT DESSERT! WE WANT DESERT!" Carrying placards with their demands scribbled in crayons, fists in the air, these kids know what they want. And what they want is dessert, not just tonight but every night. They want it unconditionally, not tied to any previous behavior. The leader of this crusade is my son, the champion of the dessert loving crew. I am reminded of the song "You gotta fight for the right to paaarty!"

Yes it is true. I have made my son accustomed to a before bed sweet treat and threats of withholding it often becomes a weapon in the fight to get Chase in bed on time.

I grew up loving dessert. It was my favorite meal of the day! (I did not eat much as I was a picky eater). But dessert, no problem. I could always find room in my stomach for dessert. I remember that many nights my mother would give us an extra treat after dessert, a Necco wafer candy. Anybody else remember the the sweet, pastel-colored discs that melted in your mouth?

The other night, caught up in the bedtime routine, I forgot to get Chase dessert. I have learned that even if he forgets, I better remind him or else he will use forgotten dessert as a reason (as if he needs more) to leave the bed after I have tucked him in.

Well, I forgot. I tucked Chase in and went to put to put little Missy asleep in her room. All of a sudden, I heard such a wailing from Chase's room! Had he fallen out of the bed that fast? Worse yet, was someone trying to abduct him? (it is hard for me to get those horrible news stories out of my head) So I went running in there to find Chase sitting up in his bed. Thank God he is OK, I thought. "What on earth is the matter?" Did he hurt somewhere, was he afraid of something I started to wonder. "My dessert! You forgot my dessert!"

This kid can not be serious! He is really this upset because of dessert?

Help! I've created a monster!

Mommy Confessions #1

I figure I better put numbers on this title because I have a lot of confessing to do! Hopefully, I will not lose track of my numbering system and hopefully the numbers will stop somewhere before infinity.

My 16-month old loves chocolate. No, she adores chocolate. No, she's addicted to chocolate! Well, it's not my fault. (Can you tell I am a little defensive on this issue?) She has been like this since before she was born.

Let me explain. I have never been much of a chocolate fiend. An occasional hot fudge sundae or brownie or a warm cup of hot cocoa was about the extent of my chocolate adventures. My husband always knew better than to buy me a box of chocolates for Valentine's Day!

But here comes little Missy in pregnancy number 2. I was craving chocolate edibles all the time, morning, noon and night. Ben and Jerry's Chocolate Brownie Fudge became my constant companion. The only reason that I did not eat chocolate for breakfast was because of my son who would wonder if his Mommy had lost her mind.

After giving birth to the little girl, I continued the cravings for the sweet taste of chocolate until that time that I could feel my pregnancy/newborn hormones dropping and my old self coming back. I will never forget getting myself a couple of scoops of my favorite chocolate brownie concoction and thinking, "This does not taste quite right."

Of course I kept eating and proceeded to have the mother of all stomachaches that lasted late into the night. What was I thinking downing that much chocolate in one sitting? So you see, she was born a chocolate addict! It's not my fault, really it isn't. (I don't want to hear anything about how I protest too much either.)

Fast forward several months. C of course has discovered chocolate by this time and anything he has, his sister wants. We tried to hide chocolate from her as long as we could but the Christmas candy presents just ruined it. I do not need to tell you how much of a struggle we had at Easter!

So I thought "I will just let her have one piece. I will just brush her 8 little teeth afterwards." Bad idea. For an addict, one is never enough. The screaming fit that ensued when I refused to grant little Missy another piece of chocolate was nothing short of fabulous. I was surprised Child Protective did not come and take her away. She has now raised a fit about chocolate every night since Easter and each night I have given her one piece.

Oh well. That's it. The first of my mommy confessions.

Stay tuned for more.

Christian Parents No Different Than Others Study Shows

It seems that the majority of parents in America, regardless of religious identification, do not place a high priority on the moral or religious upbringing of their children. Is it any wonder our kids are suffering from a variety of maladies including increased violence, increased reliance on prescription medications and increased sexual activity?

Also, it is interesting to note parents desire to "do the best that they can" versus setting definable goals of how one would like one's children to turn out. Can that really be comforting to say "I did the best that I could" if you really did not?

I am taking this study to heart as I re-evaluate my priorities for my children. I will ask God to show me where my priorities may need re-ordering.

Help! I'm Being Followed!

I hope everyone had a happy Easter. I return to blogging after a brief, yet productive break. I submitted another book proposal and have had lots of fun checking out other mommy bloggers. I will be adding more links as I find other fun, inspiring blogs.

Does anyone else feel they are being followed? Do you feel that you are never alone in your own house? I think that it has been a long winter because I do not remember being so acutely aware of this problem until recently. I can not go anywhere without being followed. From upstairs to down, to the kitchen or to check the mail, if I am not followed, the little ones make such a ruckus as if they fear I will hop a plane to Florida and never return unless they keep a careful eye on me.

And the bathroom. What about the bathroom? The one place where a woman can go for a few moments of solitude, right? Wrong. The shenanigans I have to pull to try to get some privacy in the bathroom are ridiculous. My latest trick is to sneak in to take a shower when everyone is occupied. I literally tiptoe away, quietly close the door and jump right in to the shower. Unfortunately, once I start the water running, the secret is out and my whereabouts are known but at least I had a few moments of privacy.

One problem I have noticed is that A is so small, she could be a private detective with her stealth following of people. Often times, I will try my "wait until she is occupied so I can escape into the kitchen to get something done" routine only to turn around after running water at the sink to fall over a yelping child. She is good at yelling "Ow!" by this time. She has creeped up on me so quietly and was so close that I literally fell over her, often knocking the poor girl over!

Even as I write this, though, I realize that I would not trade my life now for my previous days as a single woman when I wished that I had someone to share my space with. Now I have that and so much more.

Thank you God for sending me your precious gifts in the form of my children. From them I learn so much and for that I am so grateful. They have changed my life in ways that I did not expect and I am so much better for it.

The Tiniest Breath

I remember right after I bought Alyssa home from the hospital, laying with her in our bed while she slept soundly and peacefully next to me. I woke up some minutes later, scared, wondering if she was still breathing. (Admit it, you other moms have done that too, irrational as it is.) So I put my ear close to her mouth and what I heard was a sweeter sound than any other. Something about listening to her breathe was so soothing, so peaceful it was hard for me to stop. For just a few seconds, my muscles relaxed and I took a deep breath. Even as I realized how tired I was, I somehow felt rejuvenated and warm all over listening to that precious little breath.

Well, I still listen to Alyssa's breathing every now and then after I lay her down to sleep. And it still soothes me, or it had up until last night.

Alyssa's gums decided to grow a whole bunch of teeth at one time and no matter what I try she can not seem to sleep through the night anymore. Last night, as I lay her down for the second time, my body bone-weary, I decided to see if the calming breath would help me again. I did not think that it would- I felt too far gone.

I gingerly laid her down in her bed and instead of quickly sneaking away like I usually do, I ever-so-gently put my ear near her mouth and listened to her regular, rhythmic breathing. I was instantly soothed and I offered up a prayer of gratitude to God along with a repentant heart for having grumbled and complained about getting up with her.

I prayed "Lord, I am so grateful to have this special little girl in my life, your creation that you have trusted into my care. Thank you Lord for giving her breath and thank you for giving me ears to hear and a heart to love her. You are an Almighty God, deserving of all praise and I rejoice in your name forever."

After that, I was on a roll, could not get back to sleep and went to work writing my women's coaching worksheets and prayers. When she woke up again, I went with a grateful (although admittedly tired) heart to put her back to sleep again.

They Need More Time!

I have been busy working on articles and preparing to formally launch by parent coaching service on the Internet. There have been many glitches and groans as I have proceeded over the past few days. The glitches have been mainly technical (my website is still not up) and the groans have been from Chase- as in "Oh Mommy not again! Your not doing your work on the computer again!" he laments.

I have an internal clock also that alerts me when I have been ignoring the wee ones for long enough and I need to take a break. The problem is, I sometimes go past that point. Pushing it is not good for anybody and the whole household ends up feeling off-center for a while as I attempt to compensate. Compensating is fun as I read a silly poem to Chase or make funny faces at Alyssa.

I realize that balance is the most important characteristic that I can cultivate right now. I pray to God that I will never forget what is most important.

Cooking With Kids- Just for Fun

I have article ideas about the educational value of cooking with kids rolling around in my brain. Boosting literacy, reinforcing math, tactile immersion and parent-child bonding all seem like reasonable outcomes that I could include in my article. But I realized today that the main reason to let your kids cook (and mess up) with you is because you can really have a great time of it.

So, today was Alyssa's first true cooking experience. We decided to make chocolate chip cookies from scratch. That's right. I am becoming a frugal housewife and I decided to take a break from the refrigerated cookie dough, convinced that I could make them just as well.

Chase has known about my brilliant plan for about a week and he has been begging me mercilessly to make the "scratch" cookies and today, I ran out of excuses. I know that I said cooking with kids is fun but I did not mention that it is a ton more work for mommy and daddy too (since as you remember from a previous post, my husband is the vacuum man).

So, away we went on our cooking adventure. I assembled all the ingredients and all seemed to go well as Chase added the salt, flour and soda to a large mixing bowl. He whisked that around a bit as I was melting butter in the microwave while holding Alyssa as she became more and more curious about what was happening.

I sat down with Alyssa on my lap as Chase started cracking the eggs. Chase has been helping me cook and cracking eggs since he was about 2 so he is pretty good at it usually. (Salmonella, I know. I have him wash his hands afterwards).Today, though, half of the eggshell ended up in the bowl and he did not see it for some reason. As I leaned over to help him out Alyssa started stirring up the flour mixture with her hands. Eggshell was removed from bowl but I had not noticed that Alyssa was eating the flour mixture. I decide to let her use the whisk instead of her hand for fooling around with the flour mixture. What a mistake! Flour started flying everywhere and each time I tried to grab the wire whisk away from her, she would fling it again, wasting my precious flour mixture!

Well, finally, there was enough flour coating the kitchen table that she started to have fun with that and she calmed down. I looked up at Chase only to see him putting a fistful-and I do mean an entire fistful!- of brown sugar in his mouth. "What on earth are you doing? Don't you know that eating so much sugar like that will make you sick?" "Okay then, can I open up the bag of chocolate chips and eat those instead or will those make me sick too?"

I could not quite focus my brain to figure out the answer to Chase's question as my mind was starting to go and I had to try to remember where I was in the recipe and what I still needed to add.

"Okay, 1 teaspoon of vanilla and then the chips."

I barely got the bag of chips open before my two chocoholics were clamoring for the bag and chips were flying all over the table. Before I could say "choking hazard" Alyssa already had 2 of the dark brown morsels in her chubby cheeks and Chase again had a fistful of sweet stuff he was shoving into his mouth.

"Alright, mister, that's it for you. Just get away from this table now." So much for my sternness as Chase went to the sink with the bowl that had the discarded eggshells in it, added some of the mounds of flour that were still on the table and then ran some water from the faucet to the mixture and called it his recipe.

By this time, I could not even pay attention to Chase anymore. I just needed to end this "fun" and get the cookies into the oven. Once the cookies were in and I took a deep breath, I realized how cute Alyssa looked holding the whisk with flour all over her entire face and body.

Sam came and took some adorable pictures.

I do love being a mom.