Mommy Ever After » boys v. girls

Diving in (and peeing on).

Rebecca Fox Starr — Tue, 06 Jan 2015 18:58:28 +0000

So, it has been well established that my two children were very different babies.

My daughter didn’t sleep. My son sleeps.

My daughter nursed for 18 months. My son nursed for 10 weeks.

My daughter would sit and play for hours. My son eats candles.

My daughter, when taken to the pool for the first time, splashed on the stairs. My son DOVE in.

My daughter didn’t require childproofing. My son slit his wrist on my coffee table, requiring 7 stitches.

I joke about the fact that my son is more active than my daughter was and I often kid that it is because of his Y Chromosome.

The truth is, they are just two different human beings. And I love that. My daughter has always been more verbally advanced, while my son excels physically. She is more of a cuddler, while he is more of an explorer.

But they also have some similarities; they both like the sound of rain falling as their ambient noise while they sleep; they love back rubs and will stop, immediately, when I lift my hand under the back of their shirt; they adore music and dancing; they are lovers.

However, I will say that whatever you want to attribute it to, my son is fearless by nature, has seemingly boundless energy and enjoys items based on how dangerous they are (the correlation being that the more hazardous something is, the more he likes it ; e.g I give him a spoon and he throws it. He begs for the knife).

I could give you countless examples from the past several months, but I do not have to. He gave me enough examples from this morning, alone.

So, this morning:

My son opened the dishwasher and climbed in and started to play with the plastic cups on the top rack

Found lotion under the kids’ bathroom sink and the kiddie toothpaste from the counter and I couldn’t pry them from his hands.

Ate food out of the dog’s bowl.

Ate quinoa chips off of the floor.

Lifted the 17 inch Macbook Pro and carried it (I just looked it up; it’s 6.6 lbs, a quarter of his weight).

Put my Mason Pearson hairbrush in the toilet so that I PEED on it, as I didn’t look in the toilet bowl before.

Hid his single pair of unbroken glasses in a large vase in my Living Room.

See what I mean? He gives me a lot of material. But, do you know what else this little boy gives me? A whole lot of joy. Like when he walked over to me, put his right thumb into his mouth and his left hand into mine. He may not be the kind of kid who will stay in bed and cuddle for hours, but luckily, I already have one of those. I have this kid who is willing to dive into things (quite literally) and for that I am grateful.

I just really wish I hadn’t peed on my Mason Pearson hairbrush.

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Just when you think you’ve made the craziest call to the pediatrician ever…

mommyeverafter — Mon, 10 Nov 2014 21:59:52 +0000

So, back in July, I made what I thought was the craziest call to the Pediatrician’s office ever.
(We thought my son had some kind of spreading rash when it was just a stain from the previous night’s cherry water ice.)
Well, I just may have topped it.
Let me just set the scene:
Temporarily, because of some work being done in our house, our sunroom has morphed into a playroom of sorts. It has been organized painstakingly with bins of trucks and barbies and puzzles and instruments. There is a roller coaster. Enough said.

See? Toys galore. Every single thing a kid could want to play with. Or so I thought.
As I worked on the computer on the sunroom couch and my daughter played quietly by my side, I saw my son playing behind the little toy house facade we have in front of our built in shelves. I figured he was playing house.
Until my daughter said, “What is that perfume smell?”
And I went over to him and saw this:

A beautiful Nest candle that had been massacred, as the wax had softened with the heat of the radiator.
And then I looked at my son.
And he had wax on his face.
And I smelled his mouth.
He. Ate. The. Candle.
I even went as far as tasting the candle wax myself to see if it was repulsive or strong, but oh no, it was nice and mild and he eats everything, so he definitely ate the candle.
The Y Chromosome strikes again.
So I had to call the Pediatrician’s office, because, you know I had to, and the nurse said that I had to call Poison Control.
Thankfully, I have now learned, Nest candles are not poisonous to one-year-olds, but come on, man. You had to eat my candle?
I cannot even begin to imagine what his chart at the doctor’s office is going to look like by the time he is five.
So in any case, I now reek of “Blue Garden” and I can’t get the taste of the wax out of my mouth and I just offered to pay my 4.5 year old daughter to watch her brother so that I could clean up and I hear her teaching him in the other room and I really, really hope that she is teaching him not to eat candles. Especially my nice ones.
Just went you think it can’t get any weirder…
it just does.
(By the way, if your child ingests anything and you are not sure, call 1-800-222-2122 just to be safe. And hold your candles tight tonight.)

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That dang ol’ Y Chromosome.

mommyeverafter — Fri, 10 Oct 2014 18:49:45 +0000

I kid.
A little.
(*Note, if you know me, you will know that I am the last person to make gender stereotypes or, frankly, to make any judgements about a person’s behavior or character based on things such as sex, gender or any other personal feature. So I am not actually being sexist here I promise.)
But, alas, when I had my daughter I never childproofed my house. Why?
Was a negligent parent?
No, I was an anxiety-ridden freak who Purelled the straps on wooden restaurant high chairs.
But she was just so good. And dainty. And she didn’t get near the stairs, or touch any of my things like all of the decorative balls in bowls or mirrored coffee tables or fragile picture frames. She just knew to “look with her eyes and not with her hands”, almost inherently.
And then I went for round two. And round two had (has) a penis.
And I have been told, and again, this is just something that I am reiterating, that people with these organs,
whom we often refer to as little boys,
are a bit more…active.
Lively.
Destructive.
So gone are the days of my beautiful mirrored coffee table from Lambertville and crystal bowls with balls.
In fact, last month, right before my time away, I heard my little boy crying around that coffee table on a Sunday afternoon as I was reading and cooking dinner and lazing around. When I finally got around to checking on him to see what was the cause of his upset, I saw what can only be described as a murder scene. The mirrored coffee table was covered in a POOL of blood. Seven stitches later and that table is now in my basement. My crystal bowl is now out of reach. We now have soft, fabric, chevron ottomans. They are ok.
But I have been adjusting. Adjusting to the fact that my son’s favorite toys are the ipad, the remote, the computer and the toilet. The water in the toilet, to be specific.
Oh? What’s that? How many times has he fallen (dove) off of the bed or couch? Are you talking about just today?
It is a whole new world, m’friends. A whole new world.
So just now, as I was pacing the first floor, making lunch, talking on the phone with my best friend, tidying up, I was stopped dead in my tracks by what I can only refer to as yet another murder scene. Thank god this time there was no blood shed.
Only tears.
Only my own.
If you have followed me over on 511, you might recall my love affair/battle with a certain dried hydrangea arrangement in my entrance hallway.
And finally, finally, I had

Gotten it right.

So then, imagine my surprise, as I was gabbing on to my bestie about this and that when I saw THIS:

The punk. Didn’t even try to hide.
So, that is the tale of me, my beloved hydrangeas, my sweet bruiser of a son
(I still love you with all of my heart, kid.)
and a Y chromosome.

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