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?

I mean it this time

It's not you, it's me. Don't question yourself..I'm back....for good... No honey, I've always loved you, I was just going through one of those periods where I just needed to be alone to figure out what I really wanted in my life.... and that's you, I'll never doubt our relationship again. Don't you see how good we are together? I want to grow old with you and watch you crash my computer and have little baby blogs. Please trust me....and trust in our power of posting...

Mastering the art of pooping

To most of us; pooping is a daily occurence we rarely think twice about.....like breathing...breathing hard...or sometimes holding our breath to just. get. that. one. enchilada out from last night....gross ....right?

My daughter is in the midst (or light yellow mist) of attempting to potty train. She likes her potty chair, she likes wiping with toilet paper and she likes washing her hands. It's all the inbetween stuff that we're still trying to work on. In fact, we're at the point now where - when it's time to peepee, she'll get in there and sit down and go on the potty chair. Granted, halfway through the stream she's so excited she's up cheering for herself as the rest of the tinkle runs down her leg and onto my bath mats (into the wash again for the 4th time this week).
But I really don't mind the mild little yellow peepees all over my bathroom floor.
It's the poop we can't get under control.

We've talked and talked and taken several formal tours of the bathroom, potty chair and big girl panties. Yet it seems to never fail. I should probably quit loading the dishwasher or taking phone calls...because once I complete my task, there are golden nuggets trailing around the toy box through the hallway and over the dining room chairs...oddly enough it takes about 5-10 seconds to hit all 3 of these locations with your own fecal matter.....let me just throw in a side note: you may be asking yourself how this happens when she's wearing Big Girl Panties? No, we've had to delay the Big Girl Panties because when we are wearing them, that seems to be one of the steps we miss...we will get the urge, run to the potty chair sit down and go....and forget to pull down our panties...so for now they have been eliminated from the entire equation...

Thank GOD we have hard wood floors...I couldn't imagine scraping poop out of carpet, and I pretty much have the routine down of picking up all solid mass with paper towels, dumping into toilet and then bleach wiping entire dookied area. Then comes "stage 2" - Quinn Clean up. You see.. through this entire Poop dance she has ran around willy nilly pooping freely so at this point there is poop down her legs, on her hands and sometimes up her shirt on her back....this, my friends, is talent but from what I've heard from other parents....kids can get poop anywhere...I believe our little scenario today landed some here.

In conclusion; I never realized my saavy pooping skills would be used to educate others...keep that in mind the next time you waste toilet paper or wipe front to back....

Thank God for bad movies

So I'm a HUGE wuss...I can't emphasize wuss enough...seriously! I sleep with the kitchen light on, the television on and will NOT sleep if Cort is not home (do not ask Cort about his work trip to Disneyland!).
As a young child/adolescent I had several sleeping problems because my imagination would get the best of me. I could stay up all night and go to school the next day- probably why I was such a skinny neurotic kid until I started drinking...then I was drunk. chunky and neurotic, but at least I could fall asleep!
Things I'm convinced: I'm convinced I've been abducted by aliens, I'm convinced there is a serial killer stalking me with Infrared goggles at night like that sicko that killed those kids in Idaho. I'm convinced ghosts talk to me and one day will speak directly to me through the baby monitor.
Sadly, nothing here is exaggerated...I WISH I wasn't this crazy.
SO with that said, I try to shut out all of this psychotic-ness with anything I can.

Every time I watch the news or see a preview for a scary movie all of the crazy scared Randi wakes up and I can't sleep for days again. I remember when the preview for White Noise came out- I wouldn't go in the basement by myself- I looked into alternatives to a baby monitor and freaked out if the TV screen turned to snow.

I can't watch Montel Williams on Wednesdays because that's when he has Sylvia Browne on.

A few days before Halloween, Cort's morning show goes out in the middle of the night to condemned buildings around town with Ghost Hunters and they record everything they hear. I told him, I would MUCH rather you bring home a stripper than a spirit with you!

ANYWAY, back to the matter at hand.

I saw a preview for this new movie coming out called "Primeval". And after seeing the commercial several times...."World's most famous serial killer....STILL AT LARGE...Gustave". I was freaked. And Cort kept saying "why don't you Google it, so you know exactly what they're talking about?" but I told him that would be bad juju..so I couldn't.
This ate at me for days, scared when I saw the previews and ME....Randi- obsessed with killers, ghosts and what not had never heard of this person....how could that be? Jack The Ripper, Ted Bundy, Scott Petersen- I've heard of them all..who the hell was Gustave?

FINALLY I googled him; clammy hands on the keyboard with half peering eyes I read this.....

A Fucking Crocodile!!!

WOOHOO!!! I'M FREE!!! At least from this movie....

Stop and watch the snow fall

This has become my daughter's new past time. She loves to push her booster seat up to the picture window and stare out it for hours on end....well she's 19 months...so maybe a good 20 minutes...but it's hilarious. She definitely got the voyeuristic gene from me, Cort, her grandparents or .....frankly from anyone else she's related to in this nosy family.
I would love to be able to sit in front of a window for an infinite period of time; enjoy the scenery, collect my thoughts and just. plain. relax. I can't remember the last time I wasn't thinking "okay if I just finish A, B & C; I can go pee and change my shirt". I reward myself with using the bathroom, eating a meal or clipping my toenails....really.
Everything moves so quickly anymore and that doesn't upset me, but I wish there was certain times it could slow down for just a bit so I could enjoy these little moments when I catch my 1 year old rocking her monkey to sleep in her Dora chair, or putting Elmo to bed on the couch or climbing into her booster seat to watch the snow fall.

Hit me baby one more time!

It was a beautiful, freezing cold Thursday afternoon, Cort was driving to purchase T-shirts for his morning show that spelled out Cort (see side pic) and as he was making a left hand turn- a Ford Explorer running a red light T-boned him.

Luckily: a traffic cop was at the stop light right next to Cort & saw the whole thing go down. Plus 2 other witnesses.

Unluckily: our little friends that hit my husband are undocumented hispanic females with out driver's licenses or insurance. In fact, they did not own the car they were in.

SOOOOOO....our insurance has to claim it, we pay the deductible and Aide Munoz & Leticia Muniz go back to their home in West Valley and forget any of it ever happened.

I hope I don't sound bitter....I mean, I make sure my driver's license is valid, I pay my auto insurance each month but I'm starting to wonder why? Why am I following the rules only to be stuck with higher insurance and a $500 deductible?

I guess I pray to the Karma Gods or just continue to watch My Name is Earl for encouragement!!

Happy Holidays!