Even Dinosaurs Poop

We have a  rotation of favorite shows that we watch in the morning while I brush the girls' hair. Sometimes we watch Curious George, but most often we alternate between Word World and Dinosaur Train.

The cat and I prefer Word World (I think he's trying to learn to read so he can take over the running of the house, or at the very least the cat food purchasing.) the girls are very partial to Dinosaur Train.

Especially one episode.


This past week we have watched that one same episode every single morning. It's not impossible we did the same last week too.

The topic of that one episode?

Could have been something intellectual, like how dinosaurs evolved into birds, or the life and times of therapods.

But noooooooo, that would be too easy.

The episode we keep watching over and over and over again?


It's the one about how all dinosaurs poop.

Yes. Poop. All sorts of poop. All dinosaurs eat so all dinosaurs poop. Some even do the potty dance.

Little L is mesmerized.

She's been potty trained for a few months now, but something about the way the mommy dinosaur (Mrs Pteranodon if you must know.) tells her daughter to listen to her body has really struck a chord.

Last week Little L had a smattering of potty accidents. Once she was too busy playing to go pee, the next day she was just too caught up watching a TV show.

And then we saw the magic episode for the first time.

Since that day there have been no accidents and I haven't had to beg her to go pee.

So, to recap, everybody eats and everybody poops, it's important to listen to your body, and PBS rocks my world. The end.

Things I've said in the car... many times

I've mentioned before how much time I spend in the car with the kids. Between the hour in the morning and the hour in the evening, you'd think that my kids would by now know what I can and can't do while driving the car. After all, we've been doing this for over 5 years now.

And yet, here is a sampling of the things I still have to repeat each and every day.

• No, I can't reach that, my arm isn't long enough.
• No, I cannot read that book, I'm driving the car. 
• No, I cannot look at your funny face, I'm driving the car. 
• No, we cannot listen to "I'm a Little Teapot for the 16millionth time. 
• No, I cannot read that book, I'm driving the car.
• I'm sure your picture is beautiful, but I can't look now, I'm driving the car. 
• Please stop fighting over that baby doll.
• If you don't stop fighting over that baby doll I'm going to get mad.
• Seriously, that baby doll is about to fly out the window. 
• No, I cannot read that book, I'm driving the car.
• No, I can't reach your book, my arm isn't long enough. 
• Yes, I see where your doll fell, but again, my arm just doesn't reach that far. 
• I'm happy to read you that book when we get home, but right now I'm driving the car. See? My hands are on the wheel and the trees are flying by.
• You cannot have noodles for dinner if you had noodles for lunch. Did you have noodles for lunch?
• No, I cannot read that book, I'm driving the car.

One day C will be able to read for real. That day will be amazing; I'll only have to explain the issue with the length of my arm. Trust me, it'll be a relief. 

What a weekend

I'm sitting here on my couch, feet up on the table, TV blathering on the side... and I'm just blanking on words.

I had the most amazing, transformative weekend and I'm just too tired to even try to articulate it.

Just... wow.

Imagine 28 complete and utter strangers coming together, in one room, for three days. At first glance we had nothing in common except for a circumstantial interest in Life Coaching.

Then after three intense days learning the fundamentals of this coaching program - partnering up for coaching exercises, listening to each other share, open up, and dig deep to share our innermost hopes and fears - it was like a room full of best friends.

We left tonight and parted ways in the parking lot, then we drove away amidst much waving, honking, and other last minute attempts to keep the connections going a tiny bit longer.

The drive home was surreal.

When I arrived at the coaching center on Friday afternoon all I knew was that thought I could maybe see if coaching was a good fit for me.

When I left this evening I was convinced that it was so.

I'm good at this. Even better, it feels easy, natural. Like I'm finally slipping into the perfect skin.

There is so much more to share - like the massive tire blow-out on Saturday morning (no relation to the coaching training and no one got hurt!) - but I need to let it all just soak in tonight. Just bask in the moment.

That's it. I'm going to go bask. In my bed. With my eyes closed. And if light snoring ensues... well so be it. I'll be basking in my dreams of my future. Or something like that.

A lesson in maturity

My 3-year-old is a bundle of needs with some flashes of personality.
My 5-year-old is a bundle of personality with some flashes of needs.

The realization about the radical difference between the two girls came to me yesterday as we were driving home and Little L was freaking out because I told her she couldn't have noodles for dinner. She screamed about that all the way home and all the way until we handed her her dinner.

I had to send her to her room three times to cool off before she finally consented to eat her meal.

After dinner she threw a tantrum about the shower she needed to take, and once she was clean she threw another about the choice of pajamas she was given.

And when I tried to put her to bed without reading a book... well, all hell broke lose yet again.

She sobbed into my arms after I brushed her teeth and I finally was able to ask her if she'd napped earlier.

She hadn't. No nap. Which explained her two hour streak of tantrums.

When Little L melts down it's always because she's tired or hungry. Her emotions are still very much tied to her physical needs.

C on the other hand was perfectly chipper all evening. Cheerful, amiable, helpful.The antithesis to the child she was last week during her school's big play performance period. This week she's hanging out at daycare, playing with the babies, being babied herself.

When C happens to melt down it's more likely because she's had a bad day and is feeling sad or hurt.

The difference between the two was glaring today. We assume they're almost the same child because they look so much alike and play so well together. Their interests are the same, their pastimes perfectly compatible. And usually their needs are incredibly similar.

And then we have days when the differences are glaringly apparent.

At times I wonder if it's a difference in personalities. Then I remember that Little L is just 3 and a half while C is almost 6.

What I witness boils down to a difference in maturity. Pure and simple.

It's all in the delivery... and the TV

For years I've tried to explain to M how women work. We don't need men to come fix things. We're smart. We can figure it out for ourselves.

But before the solutions start to pop up, we need to vent. Just vent and be heard.

We want to come home and rant for a while about what happened. We want to analyze, go over the details, and just let it all out. And we want someone to nod, agree, and commiserate.

That's it.

No, really.

We understand the urge to fix. We feel it too. But first we need to vent.

M says I've never explained that to him. It took an episode of Modern Family for him to finally hear it.

I kid you not. We watched the episode together -- me cracking up all the way -- and at the end he turned to me and said "is that really true?"

Yes. Yes, honey, it's true, is all I replied. The next day he tried it out for himself.

Angels did not sing... but it sure felt nice to just be heard.

Social Media Moms doing their best to help kids in Japan

My kids are fast asleep in their soft, warm, cozy beds. They had a good dinner with desert. They even got to play in a tub filled with bubbles and toys. Then, when it was time for bed, they got cuddles, kisses, and M and I sang to them after turning out the lights.

My kids are blessed.

In Japan, tonight 100,000 children are displaced from their homes.


One hundred thousand. 

Because of the time of the Earthquake it's believed that many of those kids are without their parents. They would have been at school or daycare when the disaster occurred.

My kids have watched a tiny bit of the footage of the Japan disaster. On the first day I had the TV on because I was watching for our own Tsunami scare and they caught some dribs and drabs. We've been fielding questions ever since.

Over three years ago we had a minor-ish earthquake here. The house started shaking moments after we'd finally gotten both kids to sleep. M ran to get C out of her crib as I grabbed Little L, an infant at the time, out of her bouncy. We stood, all four of us huddled in the same doorway, holding tight to each other as the whole house shook around us.

That night I felt utterly helpless. For weeks I made sure we all slept with doors wide open so no one would get trapped in a room in the case of a worse incident. But we were fine. The next day we all went to work as usual. The only thing left to remind us of that quake are a few cracks in the walls.

The Japanese had an earthquake thousand times more powerful, and when it was done a massive tsunami washed over them.

Three years ago my two-year-old was traumatized by a little "shaky shaky" that ended with her safe in her own crib an hour later. I just can't fathom how terrified and traumatized those 100,000 Japanese kids are today.

It makes me want to go hug kids and sing lullabies until I'm hoarse.

Stephen McDonald, who is leading Save the Children's team in Japan, said the most pressing worries for children living in evacuation centers were lack of water and psychological problems associated with trauma and stress.

We can't all rush over there to hug little kids, but we can give up our morning coffee to send a little bit of money to help Save the Children do what they do best - help the children.

A large group of Social Media Moms and I are teaming up today to help spread the word. Come help us. Tell your friends. Tell your readers. Tell your followers and ask them to tell their friends. Send them to this link http://bit.ly/SMMJapan and let's see if we can bring some much needed water, food, and comfort to those 100,000 kids.

Between then and now nothing and everything has changed

When my babies were little every little thing felt like a massive deal. What to feed them? What diapers to use? Do we sleep train? Do we feed on demand? Dare we hire a sitter?

The details were paramount and filled our days from one end to the other. It felt like we were making massive life altering decisions one after another.

Of course now I know that those decisions were in fact tiny and inconsequential. The only people who were really affected by the outcome was us, the grown-ups, the parents. If the food we chose didn't agree with their tummies, they'd be a bit cranky for a while and we might lose a night of sleep. In the morning they'd be fine. If we chose a bad diaper, we'd just be stuck with more laundry, more sheets to change. Sleep training made our lives hell for months, but we're the ones left with the emotional battle scars, neither kid has any lingering memory of the trauma.

Now that they're bigger we're still making decisions every single moment of the day. Most are just as inconsequential as before - what's for dinner, what's for breakfast, what to wear today - but some, well some are mindblowingly big.

Instead of worrying about diapers and milk, now we worry about making sure the kids are happy, healthy, and developing good self-esteem and values. We worry about their education, their compassion, their exposure to religion and big, scary world events. These issues don't just color our day to day lives, they'll impact and color every aspect of their future.

Today making sure the kids are ok goes way beyond keeping their bellies full, their tushies dry, and a smile playing on their faces. And while I know that the decisions we were making when they were infants seemed just as important as the ones we're making now, I can't help but feel like there's more to this stuff.

They won't remember what kind of formula went into their bottles when mommy's milk ran out. They will however always have their self-esteem, their values, their ability to handles stress and everything else we can teach them during these key formative years.


When I stop to think about it I hyperventilate a bit. Luckily life never pauses quite long enough for paralysis to set in. I fit these massive, life impacting decisions between the little day-to-day ones and hope in the long-run we're heading in the right direction.

Then I comb through books like Raising Happiness and The Power of your Child's Imagination to check and recheck our course, making slight alterations, pulling myself back on track, and breathing a sigh of relief when I realize that we're actually doing pretty darn well.

Hunger is right here, and you can do something about it

Back in January I was fortunate enough to fly south, not for the winter, but to go meet some amazing people in Dallas and learn about the Cooking Matters program. (Free cooking classes that teachers people who have never learned to cook how to cook healthy meals on a budget. Brilliant.)

After a whirlwind 24 hours of touring the Dallas Foodbank, attending a Cooking Matters class for kids, and meeting a bunch of adorable children, I plopped myself down in my airplane seat, fully determined to sleep a bit before being thrown back into my usually hectic life.


Instead I started chatting with the nice lady sitting next to me.

What can I say, I'm a sucker for nice chatty people...

After she told me why she was flying to California (visit with the step-grandchildren) she asked me what I'd been doing in Dallas. Full of my intense learning experience I shared, and shared some more.

"Did you know that 1 in 3 children in Dallas goes to bed hungry at night?"

She stared at me, shock registering in her eyes, then doubt, and finally that look people get when they've contemplated an issue and dismissed it as someone else's problem.

"Well, yes, but it's those children," her voice dipped, "down by the border." She nodded knowingly, face full of self-righteous pity.

"No, it's not the immigrant children. It's the kids in your neighborhood."I corrected her as gently as I could after I recovered my voice.

I went on to explain how the face of hunger has changed over the last two years. How people in nice neighborhoods have to forgo food in order to meet mortgage payments or car payments. How they don't qualify for state or federal services because they have cars, and incomes, and other nice things that make it seem like they're doing just fine.

I'm not sure she listened or believed me. She went on to describe the decor in their new beach house, but her words stayed with me. There's a growing hunger problem in this country because we're all convinced that it's someone else's problem.

I have news for you. 

This morning, at school drop off, you saw families who are struggling to make ends meet. Their children might not get dinner tonight. Yes, you. Even if you go to a fancy school in a fancy neighborhood.

I have more news for you.

You can help.
You can call your school and see if there's any way to donate money for food for families in need.
You can call your local foodbank to see what you can do.
You can post signs at your local agencies offering to help people read and understand the endless paperwork that has to be filled out to obtain services.
You can get your children involved in running food drives or hosting bake-sales.
You can attend a Cooking Matters class to see what it's about and learn how you can help. 
You can...

Your turn:
How would you help?
How would you feel if what you did meant one more child had dinner tonight?
Let me a comment below and you'll be entered to win a neat ConAgra Foods Foundation/Cooking Matters gift pack.
But really, it's the kids who'll be winning if you help me spread the word and gain awareness for this incredibly pressing and real issue taking place in our back-yards. 

Giveaway winner will be drawn on Thursday, March 31st at 10pm PST. Comment as many times as you want with original ideas!

The ConAgra Foods Foundation flew me to Dallas and put me up overnight so I could learn as much as possible about the program while I was there. I'm also being compensated for my time. That said, I'm passionate about this cause and I'll keep raising the roof even when the money runs out.

Where's my baby?

The coughing startles me, sharp staccato burst after sharp staccato burst. I listen to see what kind of cough it is.

Pure asthma? Post nasal drip induced? Simple cold cough?

After five years of nursing two children through asthma exacerbated colds I can distinguish coughs so well that even at work I can tell when my coworker needs her inhaler even before she's noticed.

Tonight Little L's cough isn't wheezy or scary. She's reacting to a stuffy nose and some serious post-nasal drip.I try to let it go, but the bursts increase in frequency and keep me from falling back asleep.

I have a last ditch remedy, one that really shouldn't work, but for some reason does, when nothing does the trick. Vicks VapoRub... on the soles of the feet.

It's crazy. I know. But even snopes.com can't completely debunk the myth. Fact is, it works. Despite having no scientific reason behind it. And who am I to turn down a solution that allows me to get some sleep?

I tiptoe into her room and find the little jar of salve. She's curled into a tight ball, sweaty and hot to the touch.I untangle her from her blanket and loveys and smooth the hair out of her face. Then I gently ease my hand up her shirt to smooth some vaporub onto her chest. Hopefully breathing in the menthol will clear her nose a bit.

Then I turn my attention to her feet. I rub first one sole and then the next with the stuff, remembering how I used to do this when she was a baby, coughing late at night. In comparison these feet are huge in my hand. Still soft and sweet, but huge.

I ease her socks over her now sticky feet and tuck her back under her covers. In my minds eye I see her, small, feverish and sick, in her crib in our room. She was so small and vulnerable. This little girl though, in her big girl bed, with her pillow and comforter is no baby. She laughs, reasons, makes jokes, tells tales. She skips and hops, she can reach the light switch and even the sink.

Somehow, overnight, my baby stopped being a baby. And in just a few months she'll be four. A four year old desperate to read like her sister. And even as my heart bursts with pride at seeing her become her own person in vibrant technicolor... my heart also clenches.

She's my baby. My little one. It's painful to see her outgrow her babyhood.

Milestone Photos: Crawling

Now that the girls are getting bigger there are fewer milestones to document. Beyond first days of school there's not much along that vein that grabs my camera's attention.

Luckily my camera was always at the ready back when there were weekly (if not daily milestones.) Of course, since I wasn't sleeping much back then, now when I flip back through the photo-folders on my computer it's like I'm reliving it all over again.

Take, for instance, this photo series depicting C "teaching" Little L to crawl.

One arm in front...

That's right! Good job!

Where did she go? I don't know what's next!

Yeah. That wasn't right. Now I'm stuck...

Thanks man.

That's better! Now we're really moving!

You left me again?!?

Four years later and I'm still cracking up.

Eventually Little L figured out how to move on her own. Probably a mere day or two later and C moved on to teaching her other things. These days she's coaching her on the monkey bars and when I'm not looking I suspect that she's teaching her the fine art of burping on command.


Tide Baby Milestones Sweepstakes
In honor of milestone photos Tide is hosting a series of four contest sweepstakes featuring Baby Milestones. This month is all about crawling. 
Have a photo of your baby learning to crawl? Want to win a year of Tide Free and Gentle detergent? Enter here: http://community.babycenter.com/photoclubs/a6724151/baby_milestones 
Deadline to enter this sweepstakes is April 11. Winner will be chosen at random on or around April 18th.

Please note: This post is a sponsored post in conjunction with the BabyCenter Blog Network. The photos and thoughts contained here are all mine.

Stepping into myself at the old yoga studio

A few weeks ago I looked up the schedule for my old yoga studio. The chaos inside my head was begging to be tamed despite the insane schedule that I'm keeping.

Miraculously there was a class on Mondays at 9:15.

Had it been 9 I would have shrugged and told myself I couldn't make it. Had it been 10 I would have told myself it would take up too much of my morning. But 9:15 smacked of perfectly doable.

The first Monday was a holiday.

The next Monday I genuinely forgot.

And then, this morning, after showering and getting dressed, I realized that there was nothing keeping me from going today. I tried talking myself out of it. Egmos tried too. But there really was no good reason not to go and plenty of great ones in favor of packing up my yoga mat and going.

In my mind I do yoga regularly. If you asked me about my hobbies, I'd probably list yoga and then pat myself on the back for being such a healthy person. Which is why I was so shocked to pull up in front of the yoga studio and find... nothing. As in, nothing at all. Big gaping hole in the earth where the studio had stood.

I searched online and found the place a mere block away and was further shocked to learn that they had moved three years ago. So much for regular yoga. As for my last visit to the studio? 2006. Not exactly yesterday.

Granted, I've done yoga other places since, but if I'm brutally honest -- and my shrieking thighs, hips, and arms are corroborating -- I haven't sunk into downward dog since Little L was 6 months old... back in 2007.

This morning I left my phone in the car, walked away from Facebook, Twitter, email, and everything else that tethers me to work and everything that fills my brain day in and day out. I spread my mat on the hardwood floor and folded the woven blanket carefully. I sat and mindfully balanced my hips and my shoulders. Then I closed my eyes and started listening to my breath.

My mind settled down and turned inward for the first time in weeks.

I'd be lying if I didn't admit that once or twice I almost reached for my absent phone, but by the end of the class the itch had faded and I felt more relaxed and balanced than I had in days.

Of course, now I just feel sore, but it was worth it even for just those moments of peace. Next Monday I'll be back on that mat, breathing slowly and evenly, and trying again to remember that my email can wait, that the internet can function without me. And maybe the Monday after that it'll be even easier.

The difference between men and women

Men and women are different. No doubt about it. And the standing joke is that guys will never understand women, but really, it's equally challenging to understand men.

So here is my very simple explanation that will shed some light on the issue.

Picture a closet.

Savvy Sassy Closet!

You open the doors and you see clothes hanging, you see sweaters folded, you see shoes neatly lined up. (This is assuming you are not opening my closet. In fact, never open my closet. We don't have enough insurance to cover you getting hit in the head with something.)

Everything is on display so that you can decide what to wear and how to accessorize without having to open a million drawers.

That's how a woman's head works. All aspects of her life are on display at all times. Kids, work, home, husbands, friends. It's all there, visible at all times. This is why a woman can totally be "in the moment" doing something (wink, wink) and still know that there's not enough milk in the fridge for breakfast.

While a mom is at work she can still process information about school or doctor's appointments, or even plans for date night.

While a woman is at home she can be cooking dinner, doing the laundry, and thinking about a nagging work project.

Women have multi-tasking brains. 

Now picture a filing cabinet. 

Each drawer is clearly labeled "Work," "Home," "Kids," "Buddies," "Significant other."

Know what's special about filing cabinets? Only one drawer can be open at a time.

That's exactly how a man's brain works.

When he goes to work, he opens the "work" drawer and all the others remain tightly closed. When he's at work he's at work, it's not that he doesn't remember to make the doctor's appointment, it's that the doctor's appointment info is in the home drawer and that drawer is closed.

When he's with his buddies, the "buddies" drawer is open. He's with his buddies, so he's not thinking about the milk or the diapers you asked him to pick up on the way. He's not going to think of those until he pushes open the house door and slides open the "home" drawer.

Men have mono-tasking brains.

You can argue that these fundamental differences date way back to when men hunted and needed to be 100% present in the hunt so they could survive and women just gathered so they could be thinking of many things at once.

Whatever the reason, doesn't matter, fact is, you cannot expect people to be who they aren't. So getting mad at a guy for not remembering that preschool ended early today or to grab some dish-detergent on his way home from soccer practice is fruitless.

Setting calendar reminders that will ping and force the home drawer open while he's at work or placing strategic post-its on his steering wheel to open the drawer early - that's how you can be sure he's going to be where you want him to be when you need him to be there.

And before you ask, I haven't yet found the solution to getting him to pick up his socks. Sorry. The closet analogy only goes so far. You're on your own for the rest.