The Mommy Minutes

I can’t believe it is already August and school is right around the corner. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m looking forward to getting Charlotte out of the house for many hours 5 days a week again, but man, I am not looking forward to the school schedule. The lunches, the homework, the bedtime. Summer is just so much easier and more relaxed. When I get home from work I don’t have to worry about getting everything ready for the next day or fight with her to get in bed so she isn’t cranky the next day. There isn’t homework to do or check or whine about. I love the easiness of work nights in the summer and I’ll miss them when they’re gone. We have to buy all of her supplies and I am delaying it because I don’t want to go back to the routine and stress of the hours of 5-9 PM during the week. We are still waiting for her class assignment and every day she asks me if I know who her teacher is or if her BFFs are in her class. She had the same teacher for kindergarten and first grade so she is a little nervous about getting a new teacher. She asked me if her teacher is mean if she can just go into a different classroom and when I told her it didn’t work that way she got annoyed. “Can’t you just text them and ask them to move me?” Sorry kiddo, it doesn’t work like that! I also have to drill it into her head that she cannot continue to wear the same pair of unicorn leggings that have a gigantic hole in the knee that she has been living in since June. Lord help us.

I think next year is when I can send Mackenzie to 3K and I will probably have to pry her off my body to get into whatever building she goes to but that kid is going to school the second she can. I swear she would climb back inside me if she could. I don’t want to rush time since it goes faster than I’d like anyway, but the thought of a day off from work when BOTH of them are in a school building?? That will be HEAVEN. It will be Bravo marathons all day! Hot coffee! Full meals! What glorious times await me!

1. She asked for macaroni so I gave her macaroni.
2. She asked for cream cheese on toast so I gave her cream cheese on toast.
3. She doesn’t want a wet diaper on but doesn’t want a diaper change or to attempt potty training.
4. It’s nap time.
5. It’s bed time.
6. It’s mommy goes to work time.
7. It’s mommy has to pee time.
8. She wants to go into the pool but doesn’t want anyone other than me to go in the pool with her even though we have a pool large enough for like, 50 people.
9. She broke a crayon and I can’t put the top of it back on for her.
10. Her sister touched me in passing.

I really forgot how terrible the terrible twos are. Jesus take the wheel.

The other day I was driving home with the girls when Charlotte requested the Spice Girls. I obliged, because who doesn’t love the Spice Girls? Charlotte started telling Mackenzie all of the their names (I taught her well.) and their Spice Girl persona. I really, really wish I wasn’t driving so I could have recorded their exchange.

Charlotte: Now there is Mel B! Can you say Mel? Can you say Mel B?

Mackenzie: B! B!

Charlotte: Very good Kenz! You’re so smart! You’re the smartest baby we should put you in school right now!

Mackenzie: MEL! B!

Charlotte: MOMMY! DID YOU HEAR! SHE CAN SAY MEL B SHE CAN SAY IT!

It was the freaking cutest thing ever. Charlotte felt like a rock star for teaching her the important lesson of who the Spice Girls are and Mackenzie was excited just to be included. They went back to fighting each other when we got home, but for these 5 minutes we were all united in our love of Baby, Sporty, Scary, Ginger & Posh. Zig a zig AH!

Well it’s been quite some time since I’ve written anything. That’s not for lack of material but lack of time or mental capacity to do so. Mackenzie is capital T Terrible Two. When I am at home the kid is on me like white on rice and does not leave me alone for anything. It is a constant battle of UPPIE UPPIE, where she climbs my body until I hold her all day long, and then meltdown city over the smallest things. Yesterday she had an absolute stroke because the coffee box had a donut on the outside and she thought there were donuts on the inside and when there were only k-cups she lost her mind. You never know when she will be set off. I try to discipline her but how do you discipline a two year old? Charlotte made her a time out corner once and that lasted all of 3 seconds. She tried to block her in with box covers but it didn’t work. Charlotte suggested a dog crate and I’m no longer opposed to the idea.

We went on “vacation” last week. Mackenzie continued her trend of not sleeping anywhere that isn’t her home. She was up ALL NIGHT the first night, which meant I was up all night, which meant everyone was cranky and tired and it was a bad time. Was there fun had? Sure. Am I running out the door for another “vacation” any time soon? Absolutely not. I am a firm believer that there is absolutely no such thing as vacation with kids until they get older. When they are little it is just parenting in a different setting. Everything is the same, except you’re spending more money and trying to do fun things even though you are hot and tired and miserable. At least at home I am likely to spend less money.

Charlotte finished first grade last week (what?!) and has never been happier. She was on the Principal’s List and got the Oreo Award for being sweet on the inside and the outside so we wee very proud of her. The day she got home from her last day of school she asked me if she could do all of her summer work “to get it over with.” She started camp yesterday and had a great time. She only goes 3 days a week for 3 hours but I think that’s just enough for her. I came back to work today and she video chatted me 3 times asking when it was time for camp, so I guess that’s a good sign. She made a bracelet yesterday and told me to bring it to work so that “you never forget me.” Which is super sweet but also how could I ever forget her??? I’ll tell you what though, getting back on that Express Bus this morning felt more like a vacation than my time off work. There was nothing but my music and my book. Absolute peace. Absolute joy. I love my kids but hot damn did I need a break from them.

I hope everyone out there is having a great summer so far. We are so busy the next few weekends but with all good things. It feels like once the 4th of July passes summer just flies on by.

Dear Mackenzie,

Today you are two! We have been asking you every day, how old is Mackenzie going to be? And you would happily respond with “DOOOO” and the day is here! These two years have gone by in an instant. It feels like yesterday you were a tiny baby and now you’re running and jumping and swimming and saying new words every day. It is so fun to watch you grow and see your personality shine through. You are so very funny and always manage to get a laugh out of everyone around you. You love to march around the house, dance to Lizzo or stand by the back door and scream “aaahh pooolllll” over and over until someone takes you into the water. You have a temper and you’re stubborn, but you’re my daughter so I guess that’s to be expected. You are incredibly sweet and loving and your big squeezes and kisses are the best part of my day. You could be nicer to your sister so we will work on that this year. Just a little less screaming in her face and a little more loving, ok?

You are the perfect person to complete our family. We love you so much our Kenzie girl. Happy birthday baby! Today we will go for ice cream and pizza and Starbucks, all your favorite things! We love you forever and ever and ever our sweet, silly, curly haired baby girl.

If you’ve followed along in this blog before you’ll be quite familiar with the issues Charlotte has with clothes. They have yet to resolve themselves but I’ve gotten better with letting her wear what she wants (within reason). The child doesn’t make any sense with her fashion choices. In the winter she wanted to wear summer dresses and now that it is summer she won’t wear them. Yesterday she came downstairs in a pair of black biker shorts and a heavy fuzzy sweatshirt that she refused to wear when it was cold. I understand nothing. I’ve honestly spent a small fortune on clothes she doesn’t wear, and I have saved ALL OF THEM because I insisted they would go on her sister. Surely the second one would be easier, right? Right?!

Wrong.

While Mackenzie is no where near as difficult as Charlotte is or was at the age of 2 (remember when Charlotte refused to wear anything but a diaper and a boy’s green spring rain jacket? I sure do.) she is starting to assert her dominance when it comes to outfits. She isn’t a fan of khaki shorts (who is though?) and she doesn’t like halter top or two piece bathing suits. But the real kicker is if anything has ANY tulle on it whatsoever she won’t even let me attempt to get it on her. Example: for her birthday party I bought her the cutest little Cat and Jack dress from Target. It isn’t frilly at all so I thought it was a go. The top was a plain tank top and there was some tulle on the bottom but it was only one layer so I thought we’d be fine. We weren’t fine. I couldn’t even get it near her to put it on her head. NO NO NO came the shouts. And then when everyone was over my house and I tried again, thinking she’d be distracted, she took the dress out of my hands and THREW IT IN THE GARBAGE. Just casually walked over and TOSSED IT. I really don’t know why I waste my money. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, right? I’m insane.

Maybe it’s time I bring out the green jacket again.

Charlotte and I fight a lot. We fight over clothes, over going to bed, over cleaning up our room. But lately, our number one fight has been about freaking TikTok. I never thought I’d be fighting with my 7-year old over TikTok. I didn’t even think she would know what it is, but this is parenting in 2022 and of course these kids are well aware of social media apps even if they wouldn’t know how to use them. Eric and I will not let Charlotte have TikTok. I have TikTok but I really don’t know how to use it so I rarely open the app and when I do it’s to watch an account of two Australian brothers who fight with each other in funny ways or to watch people make cheese. If you told me my life depended on making a TikTok I would probably die. Charlotte thinks TikTok is an app where you make up dances and while this may be true, it’s not going to happen. We have allowed her to have Messenger Kids because we can monitor it (and one of my favorite things is to go through all of her conversations) and there is no monitoring TikTok. Yesterday while I was on my way home from work she used Messenger Kids to text me to fight about TikTok. “All of my friends have it! I have the meanest parents ever!” My response was “cry about it” so I’m clearly the mature one. I just didn’t anticipate these kinds of arguments would be occurring at this time in my life.

It also makes me wonder what app will come into play as she’s older that’s worse than TikTok. That’s not to say that TikTok is bad but also I just DO NOT GET IT and feel like a serious old person who can’t grasp technology. Our parents definitely had it easier raising us because they didn’t have to worry about the internet like we have to worry about the internet. I really don’t want to have this fight every day but we’re not going to cave to a 7 year old who think she’s going to make dances, put them on the internet and become famous. She’s not even a good dancer to be honest. It’s not freaking happening. So if we have to fight every day, we fight every day. Mean moms unite.

Mackenzie is at that stage of toddlerhood where if you ask her to do something or tell her she has to do something that she doesn’t want to do, she throws herself to the floor and screams as if she’s been shot. The reaction is a 0 to 100 nightmare that I’m fairly certain every parent is familiar with. Sometimes it’s funny, but most of the time we have very little patience for it. You know who has even less patience for these dramatic escapades than I do? Charlotte. Charlotte cannot stand when Mackenzie starts in with floor dropping, body flipping screams from hell. She LOSES it. Which in turn makes me start laughing because I’m a mature adult and then that sets both of them off even more because they’re pissed that I am laughing.

An example. Last night I told Mackenzie it was time to get ready for bed and she dropped to the floor like a sack of potatoes and started screaming from her very soul. Without missing a beat Charlotte starts to scream: “Mackenzie! I have had enough! You are a being a terrible two! You’re not even two and you’re a terrible two! I am DONE with you!!!!” I mean it was QUITE the performance. She has a future in Shakespearean theater if she keeps this up. So then obviously Mackenzie screamed louder and locked her body up so I couldn’t get her clothes off as Charlotte thundered up the stairs muttering how she wishes Mackenzie was back in my stomach. There is always one part of every day in which Charlotte is wishing Mackenzie was back inside my stomach. This was a very dramatic final act of our Monday night play, I’ll tell you that much. I finally got Mackenzie dressed and Charlotte came back downstairs and then they both started kissing each other and laughing out of nowhere so I guess the mood swings of girls start early? Or they just have very good dramatic range. Make it make sense.

For some reason I made two children that have a foot fetish. Charlotte’s is gone now but there was a time period, specifically during the early lockdown days of the pandemic, where she was obsessed with taking pictures of feet. Her feet, cartoon character feet, my feet. I still get memory alerts on my Alexa photos or Timehop of a random foot picture she took. Mackenzie has started earlier. The kid loves feet. She likes to put her feet on someone else’s feet. She likes to listen to a song called Stinky Feet over and over again. She pronounces it “GEET” and holds her feet in the air and wiggles her toes. There are certain feet videos on YouTube kids that she can’t get enough of, but she hits the microphone button to search for it and screams GEET at the iPad over and over and gets mad because the iPad doesn’t understand that geet means feet. When she wakes up in the morning the first thing she makes me do is take off her sleep sack, say geet and show me her toes. Yesterday afternoon I took out a coloring book for her and she went through every page to yell geet and color in ONLY the feet. I don’t know what it is with this kid. Kids are so weird.

She also has taken to copying everything Charlotte does, specifically gymnastics moves. The two of them put on a show last night after dinner.

Our home is a circus of flipping and feet.

1. Her Peppa Pig figure wouldn’t sit on top of any of her other animal figures the way she wanted it to sit. So she threw them across the room, threw herself on the floor and cried for 5 minutes straight.
2. Her sister is eating. Doesn’t matter what she is eating, the second she sees Charlotte with food she throws a fit and wants to eat it. She takes her toast for breakfast every morning. She took her spaghetti and her watermelon last night. She doesn’t even want her own she just wants Charlotte’s. Last night Mackenzie AND Charlotte were crying over spaghetti. It is madness.
3. She no longer wants the faucet on when she takes a bath, or any bath toys, or any water poured on her. She also does not want me to wash her, she wants to wash herself. This would be good if she knew how to wash herself, but considering her washing routine only includes her shouting “bup” (soap) and “geet” (feet) and then slapping the wash cloth around, I still have to wash her as she screams at me.
4. I won’t let her stand on top of her table or her chairs, or the dining room table or the dining room chairs. I won’t let her walk up or down the steps by herself. I also won’t allow her to stay upstairs alone (how cruel of me, am I right?). The kid throws a fit every time.
5. I gave her an apple when she asked for an apple. And then I wouldn’t let her eat the apple skin out of the garbage.
6. I try to brush her hair at any time.
7. I don’t allow her to run up to every dog she sees and assault them.
8. Her iPad doesn’t understand what she wants when she hits the microphone to search for a video. She screams NEIGH NEIGH for horse and the iPad thinks she means “nae nae” which just shows videos of children dancing and not horse races which she has become obsessed with. She will also shout mama or dada thinking she will see videos of me and Eric, which also doesn’t work. Meltdown city.
9. Alexa also doesn’t understand what she wants. When she wants ring a round the rosie she just screams DOWN at the Echo which obviously does nothing. Then she ends up screaming and hitting her head on the floor, which is the natural toddler reaction to not getting what you want.
10. Any time Charlotte shows me any affection. Charlotte can only touch me during nap hours or bedtime hours. We’re on a strict schedule of hugging at those times only.