My dirty little secrets

When you enter the land of parenthood you also enter the land of unexplained unabashed full-speed ahead competition. The kind of competition you've never experienced in your life. Not, I must win this football game, not I must get a better grade on this paper but my child will over power yours or I will eat my own for tomorrow's breakfast. If my child is able to One-Up yours then...it is clear...there is a God.
I try to act all high and mighty like I don't entertain these parents or partake in these reindeer games but my own feminine womb powers overwhelm my very existence and I enter the ring. With Montessori on one hand and professional technical ballet classes on the other.
What's that? Gymboree is holding Mandarin Language classes? Sign us up for 2....no better yet, I'll call the teacher at home and we'll meet with her beforehand to get a head start!

So you can see when I do hear stories of children progressing before mine, I feel protective....and I also feel like I'm doing something wrong, when in the end- these so-called "advancements or progressions" have nothing to do with the child and EVERYTHING to do with the over-socialized, extremely competitive parents.

Quinn is 28 months and is not completely potty trained. By the time her 2nd Birthday rolled around I was very concerned about it. We had been practicing on the potty chair since she was 13 months old, yet she was still have accidents 9 out of 10 pee/poop times. I kept at it, pushing and pushing her to use control. In August I enrolled her in preschool and sent her with just panties to school. By the end of the first day, they pulled me aside and asked "can you please send diapers with her to school tomorrow"
"But we're potty training" I responded
Taking an audible pause then giving me a sympathetic slight smile her teacher said quite teacherly, "Quinn is a wonderful girl and verbally is really ahead of all the children in the class, but when kids are ready to be potty trained they will let you know they need to go BEFORE they start to go in their pants....Quinn has the verbal skills to do this, her body is just not quite yet notifying her.....she just not ready yet"
I was pissed. And then I was hurt.
And then I sat in my car and thought....she's not ready.......
SO WHAT?
What have I been rushing...she's not even 3....not even 2 and a half.
My dreams of her being a potty trained infant went out the window, what didn't go out the window are all the comments I've heard from parents including my own.
Apparently I was potty trained at 18 months. My niece was potty trained at 23 months....and on and on.
These comments should mean nothing to me, yet they are what I've been basing Quinn's success on.

Potty Training aside-

the 2 dirty secrets I have are by far worse than slow potty training to any parent. I don't admit these two things to anyone- not even our own family doctor....

Quinn still uses a binky or pacifier.

I try to remove it before we run into anyone we know or before getting out of the car in public places or even hide them when people come over. The comments I hear about her having a binky are just...well...whatever! We should probably take it away, get rid of all of them, but I just don't really care. If it brings her comfort every now and then, why does anyone care. I've always been a very oral person and to this day still struggle with chewing my nails. Thank GOD I never took up smoking!
And all of this crap about them ruining their teeth by having binkies is pure bullshit and I'll take the pepsi challenge on that one. It's just like people who say giving a child a bottle at night will ruin their teeth...old wives tales...

which brings me to secret #2

Quinn still has a bottle at nap time and at bed time.

There I said it.

Feels like I just went to confession...I'll now do 12 hail marys and 5 hello dollys.

Yeah..so... she does.

And she loves them.

And again, it's a comfort tool. Cort and I decided to take them away a couple months ago and she would cry at night and I was just in my first trimester with this pregnancy- feeling like shit, lying in bed listening to a sweet little girl cry for a bottle of milk and I thought..."What the fuck am I seriously doing?" Why do I give that big of shit if she has a bottle or not if it makes her feel better? But again I had all of these mothers' voices running through my head "I stopped bottles at 11 months.....18 months.....at birth". Why do I care? I know she's not going to kindergarten with a bottle-AND- for the record- there is nap time at pre-school and she does not have a bottle or Binky then and is just fine.

So there- I said it.

The reason these popped into my head today is because we have a new baby sitter coming tonight and when we interviewed her a couple weeks ago I had to come clean with these little controversial nuggets of truth and felt very dirty as I was telling her to make sure my toddler gets her 'baba' before bedtime.

BUT- in the words of Kathy Griffin "Everybody can suck it".... (a bottle or binky...suck whichever one you'd like!)



After all; who can resist this face?

Millenium Child? Child of the 2000's?

Being a child of the 80's there are several memories that mark the proof I did exist before 2000.

1. Playing Pit Fall on the Atari at the Barnharts' house
2. Spiral Perms from 9 years old on....
3. Begging my parents for a Nintendo- getting the Nintendo as a joint birthday present with my brother for my 12th birthday and his 9th...because they were so EFFING expensive.
a. Duck Hunt...woot woot!

4. Owning the Footloose Soundtrack on Cassette Tape


When having my own child in 2005 it did not cross my mind the things she would never experience in her own childhood that would mimic my own. The older she gets the more I observe her odd behavior and these little differences show up.

For example: when Quinn was born my mother bought her a blue rattle in the shape of a hand held telephone. like this .....

To this day, she has no clue what it is or what to even do with it. But give that girl an old cell phone and she's got it straight up to her ear carrying on conversations with Mickey Mouse, Papa or cousin Sage.

The other day she set up her little craft table with an activity pad on top and laid out 3 plastic Barbie playing cards. She told me to take a card and hand it to her. Then she said "I swipe card"...."okay here you go, bye!" Then I had to walk around the table and do it again. Within a few seconds I figured out we were playing 'store' and she was swiping my credit card. When I went and grabbed some coins and dollar bills off the kitchen counter and said "I'll pay with these" she said "NO- I need swipe card". She had no clue what the money was for.

This same little 2 year old won't walk 10 feet away from our car without asking if she can "Beep" it for me. (lock the doors and hear the beep). She doesn't know you can manually lock the car doors.

She also thinks we can pull up her favorite shows on TV at any given time because we have TIVO and WE CAN!

She knows the difference between my cell phone ring and her father's. "Uh oh Daddy's phone".

It's just amazing the things and experiences she'll never have. I guess my parents probably went through the same thing with my brother and I.

I remember my mom telling me about the Maxi Pads they had to wear when she was in Junior High and how they were as big as adult diapers.

Or how TV used to only have a handful of channels and the entire family made an event out of watching one show.

To look at the bright side the few things we do share are The Care Bears, Strawberry Shortcake and Jelly Shoes. I guess that has to make up for the Spice Girls songs she'll never hear and the Banana Clips she'll probably never wear.

She'll think the Nine Inch Nails dudes are old fogies...just like I of the Rolling Stones!

VS.

P.S. And what will she think of Michael Jackson????

A Tragic Ending to a Tragic Beginning....

As one of the only people to watch the show, I feel obligated to share my thoughts, feelings and overall opinion on the reality show "The Two Corey's".

Much to my surprise no one I know (or have at least talked to in the past few weeks) watched it.

In retrospect, I probably didn't have to waste precious TIVO'ing hours on it either. But still feel the need to share...afterall it's my blog (neener, neener, *sticks tongue out and pthfwt)

I know now I expected too much from it....granted it was on BRAVO and even Bravo only bought like 8 episodes before calling it quits. But once my friend Vedjen announced it on her blog, I couldn't help but anticipate it's greatness...(heavy, heart felt sigh)...

First and foremost I expected to be entertained. When that did not happen, I wanted to be informed. There were a few things that this less-than-License-to-Drive-more-like-Dream-A-Little-Dream "dramatization" made me more informed about....

1. Corey Feldman is a pussy and pussy-whipped. This is not a healthy combo my friends...you should be one or the other. Not only is he extremely particular in what he wears, taking hours upon hours to do his hair and without a shirt looks like gay Elvis Cabana Boy, but he follows his wife around like a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay (I'm convinced he's in that infamous pyramid shot). Not to mention he's like 15 years older than her, but she's bossy, bitchy and this over the top vegan! The show should have been called "The 2 Corey's and Feldman's over involved, bitchy child bride"

2a. You know, now that I think about it, she was like a stage mom. Her name is Susie and any press event the 2 coreys had, she would be there too, not like on the side lines taking pics, but as one of the guests of honor. They had a DVD signing for "The Lost Boys" because of the 20 year re-release or some shit and there they were; Corey, Corey and Susie all behind the table on director's chairs signing copies of DVDs. She had even added her name to the Display poster behind them. Who the hell is this girl?

2b. Vegan- I was not kidding- the pinnacle is when they invited the head of PETA over to their house for dinner, filmed the entire thing & Corey Haim proceeded to hit on her while answering the door to get his extra sausage delivery pizza..

3. Which leads me to my next point- the entire thing was staged from Scene 1 to Grand Finale. Corey Feldman and his wife Susie "Satan" Feldman appeared on Chelsea Lately where he said every reality show he's ever done has been staged- that was my first clue, my second clue was...well the entire season that and "The Flavor of Love" which I don't have time to get into now but if you must click on the title to learn more.

4. Where in the World was Corey Haim for the past 20 years? I would've rather left this a mystery but apparently he was a fat drug addict...exibit A

YIKES! I could've gone the rest of my life without knowing or seeing that. My teenage years seem empty and meaningless now. I want to go back and rip down every Big Bopper picture of him off my bedroom ceiling! WHERE OH WHERE is Fred Savage at a time like this? Chad Allen? Are you a chunky drug addict to? If so, please keep it in the closet until I pass on to the next world.

And just so you know, I'm not making this stuff up nor is that a doctored pic...they discuss it openly on the show that he just became sober and lost a bajillion pounds.

For someone like this...when does they're dough run out? How are they paying for all these expensive drugs? Is that why they do reality shows like this?

So long 2 Coreys....my husband will be happy he doesn't have to walk by the television and mutter "you're still watching this shit?"