LA Moms Blog

What's Your Child Wearing?

I’ve  been cringing as my daughter has made a stand about her wardrobe.  She is adamant, that she will be picking her clothes from here on out. There is room for some negotiation, as far as weather and dressiness level, but she has final call on outfits. Which means she goes out A LOT looking other than I would choose. This morning for example, when she headed off to school in black and white stripped leggings, a floral skirt, and a different floral shirt.

What won her argument in the wardrobe wars, was when she told me she was embarrassed by the other clothes. I realized then that she was spending at least some part of her day feeling her appearance wasn’t showing who she was. I have always felt that it was one of my main jobs, as a mother, to make sure my daughter feels she is an individual, and should always be herself. I made the decision if one of us had to struggle with appearances, it should probably be the 40 year old not the 5 year old.

Learning to Read

I have a little secret. I never liked reading as a child. I don’t think I ever really read a book until I was in high school. When I was assigned book reports in school I would go to the librarian and ask her what the book was about and then base my report on that. I wouldn’t even read the Cliff Notes (that’s what we used before the internet).

When my daughter came along I was worried she would inherit my early dislike of reading. Since she turned 5, almost a year ago, we’ve taken a couple stabs at teaching her to read, to no avail. What she likes is to be read to. Maybe it’s the only child thing. Why do something when you can get your parents to do it for you.

But suddenly last week she came home from school with a picture and across the top she had written/sounded out by herself the story behind the picture. I almost cried as she told me that no one had helped her. Apparently, she has now decided that she is interested in reading and writing. Probably more writing, but you really can’t do one without the other.

The next morning my daughter was reading aloud, the books she usually just flips through while we drive to school. Again I was fighting back tears. Is it possible that MY daughter likes reading. I couldn’t be more grateful to her DNA for leaving me out of this one.

Fight In Front of Your Kids

I use to think it was important for my husband and me to show a united front to our daughter. That was pretty easy to pull off when she was a baby, but now that she’s five it’s a bit challenging at times and frankly I’m not even sure it’s a good idea anymore. What kind of example of a relationship does it set for her?  Does she come to the conclusion that there is no room for individual thought in parenting?

For example, a few weeks ago I watched the movie, Food Inc, and have since decided that our already pretty clean diet needs to get cleaner. Not to point fingers or anything but my husband is the one who brings the partially hydrogenated everything into our home. So I needed to get him on board, which he was open to.  Or I thought he was.

Sunday mornings I go for a walk with a friend and my husband and daughter go out to breakfast. I had asked him to cut fast food restaurants (McDonald, Burger King, Jack in the box, etc…) out of these breakfasts. But the first Sunday of the clean eating, that’s where they had decided to go. So in front of the child we had a rather heated discussion about why it was or was not appropriate.

Peer Pressure

Lifetime sent me a screener of an upcoming movie they have coming out called The Pregnancy Pact. It was kind of like a horror movie for parents. The premise is that when one girl gets pregnant in a group of four high school friends the others all decide to get pregnant too,in solidarity and because it will be cute to all have children in the same class. I hope my daughter grows up to be wiser than that. But I have to acknowledge that peer pressure, or maybe just peer influence is a major issue for all kids.

I've seen peer pressure/influence in action in infants. I think as human beings we see someone else do something and we want to try it too. It's how we learn new things but as children we often do that to our own detriment. Hell, this past weekend I did it. I went to a bar with some friend and ordered an old fashioned, cause it looks cool on Mad Men. Thankful I'm forty, so when I realized it tastes like lighter fuel I sent it back for something more my speed, chardonnay.

Now how do we get our kids to realize when their emulating a behavior that is bad for them. Especially if the behavior is fun, like sex or drugs (not that either of those things are fun kids). Not to mention the cool factor. I don't expect my daughter to be a saint, or even close. But I would like her to know when she's crossing the line from a good time into dangerous territory.

The Perfect Christmas Storm

This Christmas has really been a struggle. I know, every Christmas is a struggle for everyone but this one really has been the perfect storm of Christmas fiascoes. It all started to fall apart about a week ago, which was right when I realized it was getting really close to Christmas.

The first thing that happened was that our credit card was stolen. That is, someone was charging things on it, so it needed to be canceled on Friday the 18th. Canceling the card meant that we would be without credit for four or five days until the new card arrived. Since all our gifts were bought I thought we'd be able to manage without it and canceled it. Not that I had much choice.

With a few minor snafus we made it through the weekend. The dryer started making some really awful sounds Saturday. We knew the machine needed replacing so we were off to Sears. We were in the car before we remembered we had no credit card.  Oh well, it could wait until the following week when the new card came. No problem...Famous last words.

Christmas Is Coming And I Am Getting Fat

I don't know about the goose that is suppose to be getting fat with Christmas, but I'm sure I'm out pacing it. Who was the genius who put Thanksgiving and Christmas so close together. Arghh.. and Halloween. Really, what chance do I have. (note: I'm writing this while eating caramel popcorn)

It's starts at the end of October with all those tiny Snickers. Then in November, Thanksgiving and it's unrelenting pies. Finally we come to Christmas which has both pies and tiny snickers, not to mention fudge. I feel like all I do from the end of October till the New Year is put things in my mouth that have next to no nutritional value. I try to rationalize my choices, but really, pecan pie for breakfast, there's just no excuse.

Schedule a C-Section

Five years ago when I was pregnant with my daughter I never dreamed I would one day be advising other women to schedule a C-section rather than go through with a natural labor. But I am.

When I was pregnant I studied the Bradley Method of delivery(a natural birth technique). I was adamant that I would have no drugs, and my child would have no drugs, and I would nurse, and it would all go smoothly. NOT!

I did not go into to labor until close to my 42 week of pregnancy, going 2 weeks past my due date. But I believed strongly that when the baby was ready I would go into labor. Not picking a green apple my Bradley teacher called it. Of course, my doctors were encouraging me to induce. But I refused thinking that it would start me down a road to a c-section. Unfortunately, by the time I did go into labor my daughter had grown so big it was impossible to deliver her, that and the fact that she had lashed herself to the figurative mast with her umbilical cord.

Kindergarten Confidential

I've been proven wrong so many times in my parenting career that it doesn't even surprise me anymore. This was most recently exemplified on our first day of kindergarten last week. I'd been saying for weeks how I didn't think it would be a rough transition for my daughter and I and I was half right. My daughter has always been pretty mellow with change. She basically weened herself at about one, basically potty trained herself around two and a half, and gave up the pacifier with little to no fuss. I'll stop there before you start pelting me with rocks and garbage for having it too easy. My point is that she was fine the first day of kindergarten and pretty much every day since.

The problem has been me. Sadly I am not as good with change as my daughter. I had thought that since my daughter had been in day care three days a week since just before she was two, it wouldn't be a problem for me to just be dropping her off five day a week at kindergarten. Wrong! I had to really fight back the tears the first day and finally just left before I lost control.

What I didn't realize going in was the sadness, at least for me, about kindergarten isn't about the dropping off for more days or longer days. The sadness is about your baby becoming a separate person who has their own day, full of experiences, thoughts, and interaction that you can not control or even fully know about. From this point on I will be less and less involved in my daughter's life, and it scares the (pardon me) CRAP out of me.

Lessons Not Learned

So many of the things I try to teach my daughter, I realize I have yet to master myself. I think many of us expect more of our children then we do of the adults in our lives, including ourselves. While I feel pretty confident about my ability to refrain from biting and hitting, at least most days, there are other areas where I am less than proficient. Sharing, temper, and exclusion come to mind.

I am forever insisting that my daughter share things with others. Everything from her toys, food, and even clothing. If I’m going to be truthful I will have to admit, that I am not a great sharer. I don’t like other people to wear my clothes, I’ll let them borrow jackets but that‘s the limit to my comfort zone. If you are one of my sisters or a very close friend I’ll do it. But I won’t like it. I don’t mind sharing food so much but I don’t like people to drink out of my glass, including my own mother. I think I’m turning into a germaphobe in my old age. I don’t have that many toys, but I wouldn’t test the theory out by trying to borrow my laptop or iPhone, like my daughter some things are just “too special”.

Controlling my temper is another thing, as my own mother, I‘d be riding me about. Too often I see parents tell their children it isn’t ok to get angry. Now come on, most of us can’t manage a minor road trip without losing our temper. Let alone dealing with the all day malay of preschool.  I would completely lose it, if I wasn’t allowed to get angry. Which probably explains a lot of the flip outs I see in my home. You know the one where your kid is inconsolable, incoherent, and irrational all at the same time?

SAHM, WAHM, Working Mom????

Some moms work outside the house, some moms work at home (WAHM), and some moms are stay at home moms (SAHM). Which kind are you? I could never choose. I started off staying home during the week and working on the weekends and at night. I’m a massage therapist, so I could make that work. Does that mean I was a working outside the home mom or a stay at home mom, even if I wasn’t 9-5 Monday through Friday?? Yeah, I don’t know either.

After a few years I started blogging. Blogging, I do all from home, whenever I can fit it in. I still do massage, but two days during the week now, and then I’m still home with my daughter the other three week days. What does this make me? I feel like I’m all three. I wonder if I should start a mommy war with myself?