100 Reasons to have a kid. 4 million not to.

100 Reasons to have a kid. 4 million not to.

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Parenting is hard

     Duh, right? But sometimes being a kid is just as hard. And on rare occasions it's equally hard for both parent and kid. Today we had one of those difficult learning moments.

     Buster is upstairs in his room crying, I am downstairs crying because my heart is breaking for him. But I know I'm doing the right thing. James hit one of his friends today with a plastic skeleton leg (which now that I have written it down is pretty funny) and she got hurt and decided (like any sane person) that she didn't want to play with someone who hits his friends with plastic skeleton legs. Buster asked me why she went home. At this point I had two choices to make and about a split second within which to make it. I could 1) lie to save his feelings and pull the "I don't know" card or the "it was time for dinner" card or I could 2) tell the truth that she didn't want to play with him anymore because she hit him. Seeing that this would be a great parenting opportunity (if not stressful and tantrum inducing) I opted for choice #2.

     Other parents might know where I'm coming from. Friends without kids might question why this was a hard decision. The last thing on Earth I want to do is cause my son harm, make him sad, or otherwise put him in a foul mood. I like my kid to be happy and go-lucky. But sometimes, we have to do the hard thing and realize that having our kid cry and having our kid be sad is sometimes good for them. Actions have consequences. This might be one of the hardest lessons for children to learn, but it's an important one. It may hurt both of us. I want to run upstairs and lick his wounds and tell him it's okay. But it's not okay. It's never okay to hit or hurt someone else. I have no doubt that a very difficult lesson was learned today and I have no doubt that ultimately he's going to be a better person for it. 

     I always scoffed as a child when my mom would say "this hurts me more than it hurts you" but now I get it. It really does.

Long time no see

Buster is getting cool again and I'm feeling inspired again. Let's blog!

Friday, January 28, 2011

Only my pride is hurt

Our neighbor girl stopped by yesterday to sell us some Girl Scout cookies (yay!). She is in 1st grade. Buster has a major major crush on her. So what do 3 year old with crushes do to impress the love of their life? They try to perform double axles (spin jumps) in our living room. "Bella look!" Of course, then he promptly did a face plant on the hard wood floor. Bella was unimpressed.

But! Another first! First bloody nose. Hooray!

Thursday, January 27, 2011

The preschooler laws of probability


If Buster has a 50/50 chance of getting his shoes on the right foot, he will get it wrong 100% of the time.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Missing you

Conversation this morning -

Jim to Buster: "Have fun at school today. I'm going to miss you!"
Buster to Jim: "And I'm going to miss my mom!"

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Reason number 867,899 not to have a kid

I'm sitting at the kitchen table this morning drinking coffee and reading the news when out of nowhere I get a thumb of poop thrust into my nasal area. "Look! Stinky on my finger!"

Now I have both barf and poop to clean up.

Thanks Buster.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Sunscreen

So, we have the 1 kid in 5000 (or whatever the number actually is) that is allergic to chemical sunscreen. Seriously. This is what happens if we put sunscreen on him -

Not good. His entire face swells up and gets huge red welts on it. Thankfully, he doesn't really seem worse for the wear through it all.

Off we went to the pediatrician to try and figure out what went wrong. Her reaction = "huh, weird. I've never seen that. I think you should see an allergist." Thanks. Off to the allergist we went to try and figure out what's wrong. Her reaction = "huh, weird. I've never seen that. There is no actual test for allergies to sunscreen or the sun so it's all trial and error. Try putting him outside without sunscreen on for a day and see what happens." See what happens!?!!? Uh...do you notice the whiteness of his skin and the redness of his hair?

Ultimately, we tried many different combinations - no sunscreen (only outside for an hour), sunscreen on a cloudy day, sunscreen on a sunny day, sunscreen for babies, sunscreen for kids, sunscreen with parabens, sunscreen without. Finally, we deduced that yes, he does have an allergy to chemical sunscreens. Now we have the kid with the white face because we have to use zinc oxide as a physical sunblock.