What can Super Nanny do for you?

You know those friends that you know online and think you would be best friends with in real life but you've never actually met?  Well, Lara is one of those friends. 

She is child-free but as you will see has some serious issues with Super Nanny and small children.  I begged her to write me a post for my blog and I LOVED this and laughed hysterically and I hope you will to.

***NOTE:  In her original writing, she referred to the child many times as "it".  I took the liberty of changing that to "he" or "she" randomly even though it was funnier the other way because it reminded me too much of having a malfunctioning robot.

So here it is:

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I don't have kids. I hardly see them. I go to bed at 5am. I am just waking up when you are picking them up from school. Let that sink in for a minute….

My diet is mostly bourbon, I play guitar six hours a day, and get angry when I can’t find my slutty-shoes.

I'm not bragging, though. My life kinda sucks. I found out in my late 20's that I have an auto-immune disorder (it’s genetic, not Super-AIDS). The label on my meds tells me that it "may cause flipper-limbs in fetal mice". I might be able to breed, but it seems risky and mean-spirited given the information I have. Mostly, I am just incredibly poor. I am like Liz Lemon without the high profile tv job. Or any job. For better or worse, the baby-ship has sailed. So why should you listen to me?

Because I am fucking addicted to Super Nanny.

As with everything I do, my tv habits are compulsive. It started with Ghost Hunters. (I'm reassured when they don't find ghosts. It makes me feel safe in basements.) Then came Destination Truth and Paranormal State (are they really still in college?). Having run out of para-normal reality TV, I started watching mega-normal reality TV, mainly Biggest Loser.

Then I panicked. I ran out of shitty reality shows to watch. I grudgingly followed Hulu's recommendation to watch Super Nanny.

I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

It was like mother-fucking Shark Week! World's Deadliest Trainwrecks! Alligator vs. Everything! The amount of shrieking, vomiting, and pool-table punching was worse than every episode of Jersey Shore combined. And these are average families with average toddlers!

I guess I'm not around kids enough to realize that this is normal, typical, kid behavior. My ovaries pretty much shriveled up and died after a half-episode.

Here's what I've incredulously learned from Super Nanny:

1. Kids are advanced manipulators by age 3. "I'll apologize for punching you in exchange for snacks." It's like Lindsay Lohan saying she'll leave jail in exchange for drugs. For real?

2. Your kid wants to control your house. Who doesn't love democracy? Well, three-year-olds, that’s who. The would-be tyrant is 3 feet tall and does not understand mechanics, fire, traffic, or nutrition, and can’t read. I would say he does not get an equal vote.

3. Kids are not idiots. While they lack information about mechanics and traffic, they are still very smart. Too smart…and sneaky. "This food is so yucky I puked. I’m sick" Really? The hidden camera shows the little shit stealing Otter Pops a half hour later. He's not sick. He's not a picky eater. He's not suffering from pre-school anorexia. He knows he can help himself to the freezer as soon as your back is turned, so he makes a show out of barfing casserole!

4. Some parents are unbelievably ghetto. One mom told her kid he "had to go into the mall because kidnappers were waiting in the parking lot." Remember points 1 through 3? They're not dumb; they know when you are lying. This just makes them lose respect and abuse you even more. Acting ghetto just proves they're smarter than you. Now they have a superiority complex!

5. Most parents want their kids to be happy. At all times. It seems obvious since I don't have any heart-strings to pull, no fondness for the patter of little feet; that I am not your kid's friend. I am an adult, and if I am out jogging and I see your kids fucking around on a thinly frozen lake, I will yell at them and tell them to knock that shit off. And then I will continue on, confident I did the right thing. I will be like "I kept that little jerk from drowning to an icy death. He should thank me if he lives to adulthood." I will not hug them or wonder if their feelings got hurt, or if they hate me. But you like your kid. You LOVE your kid. You will always remember your kid as a confused 1 year old in a bunny costume. You get sad when you have to set boundaries; who has the heart to yell at someone in a bunny costume?

This bitch will tell you what the fuck is what.

If there is one thing that anyone can learn from 22 hours of Super Nanny, it's this:

Don't fear discipline. You are not your kid's friend. You are an educator and protector. You have the wisdom to know that pouring ketchup on yourself and shitting your pants at Denny's is not the path to a successful life.

Next time your kid is sadly howling and spitting insults at you, put them in timeout and tune that shit out, and don't feel sad. I know she was a cuddly baby in a cute bear onesie just a few months ago, but right now she is an asshole who is being punished for kicking the kitty in the face.

And when they start acting up, think of them as mini-19 year olds and ask yourself if you'd accept this shit from your college roommate. Because a). your kid will soon be someone's college roommate, and b). they'll still be telling housemates that their cooking is gross and sobbing uncontrollably whilst demanding to sleep in their beds. We all know that guy.

And learn how to do the proper Super Nanny Timeout. I hear that shit is golden.

Lara watches so much reality TV because she stays up late crafting. She has a gorgeous Etsy site called SPIXI  filled with fantastic little items at unreasonably great prices.  Use coupon code MOTHERHOODSUCKS at check-out for 20% off your order.

A confession. Then a small victory. I think.

I have posted about a lot of the stupid ways that motherhood makes me hate life, but this is one that I feel somewhat ashamed of.  Because I know better. Not that it's been reason enough for me to knock this shit off until now. 

Here's my confession.  I lay down every night with my kid to make her go to sleep.  This is insane, I know.  But wait until I tell you how this evolved, because my kid NEVER slept in our bed.  It's ridiculous and even more insane. 

When Lila was an infant, she was evil and colicky (or just pure evil, if I remember correctly).  There were a lot of nights where I would get up so often that I would finally just bring a pillow and lie on her floor so that I didn't have to walk as far.  I never brought her into our bed because her room had great dark curtains that blocked out the light and in the summer in AZ the sun comes up at like 4:30 in the morning and there was NO WAY I was starting my day that early.  So she needed to be in her room so that she would sleep until a still absurd 6am.  To bring her into my bed just meant I would have to get up again to move her back and I am sure that would have been the ONE NIGHT where she slept for 8 hours straight and I would have had to get up anyways. 

I also rocked her to bed every night for a long time.  Too long by most standards. We tried the cry-it-out method and learned that the kid could literally cry for 3 to 4 hours easily.  For at least 3 nights in a row (and this was when I still gave her a bottle at bedtime).  All the "experts" swore that they wouldn't cry for more than an hour or two AT THE MOST and that they would finally tire themselves out and that by the third night the crying would substantially decrease.  Not so much with this one.  Our kid had super-human stamina.  She would scream and scream and scream and scream.  She was able to out-cry our patience and I am sure would have cried until morning had we not intervened around the 3 and a half hour mark.  Even after crying for 3 hours, half the time she still refused to go to sleep.  And so after the fourth night of traumatizing our kid by allowing her to cry for longer than she would likely even sleep, we decided that we just wouldn't do that method.  But I decided that I would not rock her to sleep anymore.  I started to put her into her bed but stayed in the room with her.

At first I simply sat in the rocking chair.  I would talk to her a little and sing to her a little and she would eventually doze off.  But honestly, it wasn't very comfortable and I began bringing my own pillow in and laying on the floor next to her crib.  Ben did it on his nights too.  It was just how we got our kid to sleep. 

When Lila got her big girl bed I really thought that it would come with a "big girl" attitude and that when I told her I was not going to sleep in there with her that she would somehow be all "mature" about it (I know how stupid that sounds...she was 2).  But instead she thought it was great because I could just get into bed with her.

(There's more to this story.  You can read the post from back then here)

First off, if you have ever seen a toddler bed, you know how stupid this was.  Here I am, a grown woman, a little overweight, in a bed that is about 4 feet by 2 and a half feet.  Here is a helpful illustration as to how that looked for those of you with poor imaginations:


I looked like this in her bed, but not as cute.

I would lie there with my whole ass hanging off the side of the bed and we would do our story that way and talk for a few minutes and then I would tell her she needs to be very still and shut her eyes and go to sleep.  About half the time, she would be tired enough to do this.  But the other half of the time I would have to tell her repeatedly and get pissed off because I had other things to do (Lost was on back then). This was also when we got rid of the bottle and tToo complicate the issue, there was an infant sleeping in the bedroom directly below Lila's.  And since HIS parents would tend to him as soon as he cried so as not to wake Lila, I couldn't be the asshole who lets her kid scream uncontrollably all night.

When we moved into our new house last October, Lila was upgraded to a twin bed.  Mostly because she was constantly flinging herself out of the toddler bed since it was nowhere near big enough to accomodate the amount of interpretive-dance style movements she seems to enjoy acting out when she's dreaming. 

It also meant that I could now COMFORTABLY do bed time and lay there and talk with her.  I thought that I would LOVE doing bedtime now because we could talk in the dark and cuddle and tell secrets.  And that truly is what it's like some nights  - for the first 15 or so minutes.  But it always seems to degenerate into me telling her it's time to be quiet and close her eyes, and her "remembering" that she needs to get a different pillow or that she didn't have a drink of water or that she suddenly had to take a crap.  And I always yell at her and say the word "NOW!" a lot. 

And she HATES going to sleep.  She fights and fights and fights it.  She will start to doze and suddenly shoot up straight to tell me "something really really important that she forgot today" but now she can't remember.  And as soon as I make her lie back down and cover her up, I try to tell her that we can talk about it tomorrow but I am interrupted by snoring because she fell asleep in the 6 seconds it took to get her to put her head back onto the pillow. 

Every night now, I find that I am yelling at her and threatening to go downstairs.  And this is shitty.  Every night I have to tell her to be still, be quiet, close her eyes, over and over and over.  And I don't want to be this parent.  It's super, overly control-freakish to me.  It feels mean for me to tell her she isn't allowed to move again or "I am going to leave her alone".  I try to explain that if I go downstairs she can stay awake as long as she wants as long as she stays in her bed but she swears she's going to be quiet.  Then about a minute later she starts singing some song or talking to her stuffed cat. 

When I do leave the room she cries like I am leaving forever.  And I usually come back.  I will come back because I think that she BELIEVES I am abandoning her.

The last couple of weeks with her have been especially challenging.  I am having a pretty bad relapse into depression regardless of the fact that I am medicated and she has been sick on and off and is totally acting up.  I blame my lack of attention and short temper for her behavior and feel guilty that I am not being the best mother I can be and I think I project a lot of my childhood insecurities onto her (like the abandonong thing above). 

And then today, I read a post by a fellow blogger (Pampers and Pinot) that suddenly made me understand WHY I feel so frustrated with the way she's acting lately.  She's manipulating me. 

Any of you who have known a kid from the time they started talking will probably know that they are expert manipulators.  I am pretty sure that I could send my kid to the CIA and they could learn some fantastic new tactics for emotionally destroying the detainees at Gitmo.  She knows EXACTLY the right buttons to push.  And although I am SURE she really hates it when I yell and scream, I also know that somehow she is purposely eliciting that exact reaction from me.  Because when I don't do it, she gets confused and has to change tactics.

A friend recommended I watch Supernanny (which I hate) and I was all negative about that suggestion at first.  Until I remembered some of the dumb parents I have seen on that show and realized how many times that womansays things like  (start cockney accent here) "Yo' chi-old is run-ning this house!  You'oo ahhh the pah-rents."

My kid is sadly mistaken to believe that she wears the pants in this family.  And I do realize that it is perfectly normal for them to try to do this.  But I will be damned if I am going to raise a kid who is a total asshole! 

So today I sat her little ass down, and said, "Mommy is going to make a deal with you.  From now on, if you are good, I will not yell at you.  And if you are bad, I will not yell at you, but I will put you in the corner for a time out.  And I am only going to warn you once.  Do you understand me?"  She nodded. 

I knew that I would need to remind her throughout the day but I was determined not to lose my cool today.

She was actually pretty good.  There were about 3 different times where I had to say, "you remember the deal, don't you?  Are you being good?" and that made her behave. 

And then at lunchtime when she threw a fit because I asked her if she wanted chicken soup and she said yes, but then changed her mind as soon as the bowl was put in front of her, I reminded her of our deal.  She crossed her arms and refused to eat and DEMANDED macaroni and cheese.  So I got down on her level and insisted she look at me.  And I said, "you are not getting macaroni and cheese...LISTEN TO ME...stop being a brat and eat your lunch or you will go in the corner for a time out."  She stomped her feet telling me she hated chicken soup.  So I picked her up and stuck her in the corner. 

She refused to stand up so I sat her on the floor.  I told her I was setting the timer for 3 minutes and she continued to scream as I walked away.  I told her that she could come out when she heard the beep, and that she should stop screaming so she didn't miss it.  She kept screaming.

She did this horrible hyperventalating-type cry that is usually reserved for real-true awful things (like when balloon pops or something) and as I scrubbed the toilet (yes, this is what I did to distract myself so that I didn't go back to get her) I realized that she has learned that it's okay to be an asshole to me.  Further, she has learned (partially from my mother never letting her cry even slightly without giving in) that the more she wants something, the bigger the dramatics.  

When the timer went off, I went over to her, crouched down and asked if she was ready to eat her lunch yet.  She said she really wasn't hungry and I told her that she only needs to eat 5 spoonfuls.  I told her that if she didn't want to do this, she could simply stay in the corner until she was ready.  Crying and sobbing she reached up to hug me (this is the hardest part for me because I DO NOT ever want her to think I am withholding affection) but I insisted that she eat her lunch.  She said ok and I asked her to say sorry for yelling at me.  She did.  Then I hugged her.  I brought her to her seat and she kept crying and wanted me to hold her (this really bothers me because I cannot tell if she is playing me or if she really desperately wants me to just love her).   I sat down with her and told her I am not mad at her, but that it is not acceptable for her to throw fits about what I make her for lunch.  EVER.   She ate exactly 5 spoonfuls.

She was good for the rest of the day.  Until bedtime.  There is no good way to do a time out at bedtime.  Bedtime IS the time out.  I am not going to get her OUT of bed to teach her a lesson so this one is more complicated.

I intended to start the "you're going to sleep on your own" thing on Friday so that she would have the weekend and then Monday night to figure out how to not be up all night.  I was planning to stay there with her tonight.  We did our regular bedtime routine and talked for a few minutes, then I told her it was time to be quiet now.

For about 4 minutes she was good.  Then she started the fidgeting.  Fingers, hands, rubbing the wall, making noises with her mouth.  I told her that I was only going to tell her one time that she needed to be still, OR she could stay awake for a while and I would just go downstairs. Not a big deal. She didn't want me to leave.  I told her that I do not want to have to yell at her, and that it is time for her to go to sleep.  I told her that she needed to be quiet with her eyes closed and that if I had to tell her again, I would simply get up because she is can stay awake without me there, but must go to sleep if I am there.  She kept "remembering" things that she needed to tell me. 

I told her once that we will talk in the morning.  She kept going.  So rather than yell at her, I got up and walked out.  It was heart-wrenching.  She kept begging me, "Mommy please come back.  I'll be a good girl.  I won't move at all!"  And I felt SOOOOO fucking guilty, not so much for walking out but for setting up this dynamic in the first place.  I DON'T WANT HER TO THINK SHE'S BAD BECAUSE SHE CAN'T FALL RIGHT TO SLEEP!  I sometimes don't fall asleep that easily.  And here I have created this awful situation where I lay in bed with her (to provide love and security) only to yell at her and make her think she's being bad when she has trouble doing something that everyone struggles with sometimes. 

This made me feel like a failure. 

I went to her room and sat on her bed and explained to her how it isn't good for her or for me for me to yell at her to go to sleep.  And since she is really big now, she can learn to sleep like big kids do, without their parents yelling at them to go to sleep all the time.  I told her that I would leave her door open and we would be right downstairs.  I told her I would come back in thirty minutes (I told her what numbers the clock would say) and check on her.  Then I kissed her and walked out. 

She cried for about 5 minutes, then stopped.  I assumed she got up to play but when I went up (as promised) she was fast asleep. 

So now tomorrow I will make a big deal about how proud I am of her and we will try this again tomorrow night, but without the option of me sleeping with her.  She has school the next morning so the stakes are higher but I am determined to stop this now.  Because I seriously cannot allow her to control my emotions or my evenings like this forever. 

(In the interest of whatever laws apply, I stole that cat pic from the Cheezburger site.  It isn't actually mine.)

The Seven Deadly Sins of Motherhood: ENVY

I was browsing the library during a break yesterday and came across a series of books exploring the philosophical representations of the Seven Deadly Sins.

Having grown up Catholic and attending Catholic School and always being kind of fascinated by the concepts of the faith (if not actually practicing any of them), I came home and began thinking about how fucked I am if there is actually a heaven and hell. 

For me, it is easy to see how the Seven Deadly Sins run rampant in my life.  And so I have decided to explore the idea of the Seven Deadly Sins and how I am guilty of each of them in relation to my imperfect mothering.  Additionally, it occurred to me just how much a role all of these things appear to play in my current mental state, which is not good. 

The easiest one for me is where I am starting.  But I intend to explore them all in more or less depth in the weeks to come.

ENVY:

Envy - The desire for others' traits, status, abilities, or situation.


I have a serious ENVY problem. Not that I don’t have enough in my life. I do. I have a roof over my head, a warm bed to sleep in and a child who is healthy and functioning. I have a lot to be grateful for and a lot that other people would love to have.

I ENVY “normal” mothers. Now, before you go yelling at me about how “normal” is subjective, hear me out. I have zero desire to be one of the supermoms. I have accepted the part of myself that just doesn’t care about having a spotless house and hosting 8 playdates a month and likes to do fantastical crafts that end up in the pages of Martha Stewart Living. I truly don’t think those mothers are the normal (and perhaps they are slightly insane) and so that isn’t what I am talking about.

I ENVY normal mothers.  I want to be normal, in that I don’t feel like I am drowning in my own self-absorbed misery all the time.  I want to wake up feeling like I can face the day without collapsing from exhaustion before dinner. I want to not snap at my kid when she’s doing normal (annoying) three year old stuff. I want to not lose my temper and break down into crying jags over spilled chocolate milk on a blanket that can be simply thrown into the wash. I want to not feel like I have to pep talk myself just to take a shower. I want to care that my legs haven’t been shaved in months and that my hair hasn’t been out of a ponytail since 2007. I want to actually have some desire to play with Lila, even when I really just sit there and let her orchestrate whatever activity we’re supposed to be doing. I want to not feel like grocery shopping takes so much energy that I literally need a nap when I come home. I want to not have to fake migraines so that I can hide in my bed as soon as her father gets home. I want to be able to do more than one thing in a given day. I want my kid to think I am okay and not to worry about whether she has done something to make me feel sad all the time.

I know that other moms out there can do these things, and that they only feel that way when they have the flu and even then they manage to at least make dinner. I have seen them and heard from them in their comments on my blog. I ENVY that they can do all these things and I have been unable to find anything that helps to pull me out of this for more than a few weeks at a time. I ENVY that their kids seem happy and look well-rested. I ENVY that they don’t have dark circles under their eyes after getting a full night’s sleep. Hell, I ENVY the fact that they sleep!

I ENVY that they know how to do a time out. I ENVY that their kids go to bed without them and without having to be told 400 times to stay still and go to sleep. I ENVY that they don’t worry excessively that they their children are going to be fucked up and insane because everyone in their families is. I ENVY that they manage to function.

More Trauma by Poop

Jesus Christ.  My kid is terrified of pooping. 

No really.

She is still refusing to poop on the toilet and is really freaked out now about going in a pull up.  EVERYONE has assured me that I should just LET HER and that she will decide when she's ready to try the toilet. 

deviantart.com

(Many of you know that several months ago I wrote about her fear of pooping on the toilet.  If you haven't read it, click here)

I've read her the books.  I have ignored it and attempted to let her "come around herself" (for almost a full year now).  I have pleaded and tried to bargain with rewards and bribe with fantastic gifts.  I have done breathing exercises with her on the toilet.  I have let her "read" for an hour in the bathroom.  She will NOT let a number two loose on the toilet.

Recently, it occurred to me that she may be actually phobic of it.  She panics when she feels it coming.  She gets scared.  She even tries to get me not to take her pull-up off because she is afraid she (in her words) "made a bad poop".  My mother believes that I have convinced her that pooping is bad because she is so afraid of being cleaned up after going in a pull-up.  I assure you, I do nothing but tell her how normal it is.

And after today, I am convinced that she will never shit again.
(WARNING: THIS IS NOT FOR THE EASILY GROSSED OUT)

Lila spent the day at my mother's house while I was at work today and apparently complained much of the day that her belly hurt her.  She told my mother that she needed to put a pull up on and as always my mother complied.  A few minutes later, Lila was no where to be found.  My mother found her playing with a flashlight in her closet (the smell was overwhelming) and told her that it was time to come out and get changed.  Lila started to panic. 

When she tried to put her down, Lila arched her back and started screaming.



Lila told her it was "a really big poop" and my mother assured her it was okay.  Lila told her it was really messy, and my mother told her it wasn't a big deal and she would just clean it up.  Lila told her she didn't want to lie down to get changed but my mother insisted because Lila is ALWAYS freaked out by pooping.  Lila immediately started screaming that there was poop on her.  My mother then realized that there was literally a SHIT LOAD of diarrhea and it was coming out of Lila's pull up and all up the back of her.  Up her back, and into her fucking hair (how did she not realize this?  I don't know...she's old).

Lila was completely fucking freaking out. 

When Ben showed up to get Lila, she was in the bathtub crying and freaking because there was now poop in the bathtub (I have no idea why my mother didnt just shower her...but whatever). 

After getting her dried up and dressed, Ben took her home and gave her a good bath with shampoo and bubbles and all that.  She was fine.  Like nothing ever happened.

Until she thought she had to poop again.  She freaked out.  She had a pull up on and suddenly remembered and asked me, "am I going to have diarrhea again?"  I said, "I don't know, Lila.  But it's okay.  Let's see." 

She freaked and told me she didn't have to go anymore.  I tried to talk to her but she got all uptight ant weird so we let it go. 

At bedtime, she told me she needed a pull up.  I put it on her and we waited.  She got really freaked out again when she started to feel like it was coming.  Then she told me she just peed a little and she was not going to poop tonight.  I knew from the smell that she hadn't peed.  And that she still has diarrhea and was now trying to hold it.  "This is going to be AWESOME tonight when she wakes up covered in shit," I thought.  But she refused to try to go more.

So what the hell do you do with a kid who is shit-phobic?  Seriously?

All images courtesy of Google Image Search. 

Annoying. (Or what it's like to be three)

"Mommy.  Mommy.  Mommy.  Mommy.  MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY MOMMYMOMMYMOMMYMOMMYMOMMY!"

She isn't paying attention.  Daddy keeps on talking to her but I need her NOW! 

"Mommy Mommy MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY!!!!"

I don't want to hang on a minute.  I don't want to wait until she's finished talking.  I have to tell her something REALLY REALLY REALLY important!  I have to tell her NOW!  I have to tell her right this minute because I really really have to tell her!

"MOM-MY.  MOM-MY!"  "MOOOOM-MY!"
Maybe if I just whine a little bit, "MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMY!" But not too much because then she won't let me tell her.  I'll just make the sad face too.  "MOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMY!"

Um...She's looking at me now. I want to tell her something but what is it? She stopped talking and she's waiting for me to tell her what.  I have to tell her something and I want her to know that....hmmm......Look!  There's my Strawberry Shortcake Doll.  I'm going to go over and get it. 

"I like Strawberry Shortcake, Mommy!"

........................................................................

From the prompt found here: