Robin's Chicks

Nudge The Nest & Pray They Fly

Emma Said: I Meed A Guitar

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My five-year-old just said, “Momma, I meed a guitar. I haven’t played one in WEEKS.”

Me: Or ever.

Emma: I weally need one. With one of those magazines with words on it for all kinds of instruh-mints. Life flutes… or PIANOS… or GUITARS…

Me: Sheet music?

Emma: YES! Sheep music! I meed some of dat too.

Me: SHEET music. You want sheet music and a guitar?

Emma: YES!

And so it begins.

My oldest brother is a professional musician (you should follow him on twitter @matthewwiley), my dad and younger brother are total music junkies and guitar players. She comes by it honestly. Twenty bucks says she’s looking for gigs this time next year.

What things have your kids shown an interest in early?

Don’t forget to enter for a chance to win a $40 gift certificate to the online boutique, Shop Meon.

Check out – Ketchup Is A Vegetable

Game of Thrones: The Prequel

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Who is tired of reading about poop? (This a rhetorical question. Don’t answer it.) Who is tired of WRITING about poop? THIS GIRL. Right here. *Points to self*

My youngest child basically potty trained herself.

She’s really smart. 

A few months after she turned two, Sadie refused diapers and Pull-Ups and began demanding ‘Big Guhl Pan-Teez.” I was reluctant because I’m the kind of girl who would rather change a diaper than get on her hands and knees to scrub up a puddle or worse. But I let her have her Big Guhl Pan-Teez and I don’t think she had a single accident. Honestly. I’m not just saying that to be like, “Oh, yeah. It only took us ONE day to potty train. How long did it take y’all?”, while I give your five-year-old in diapers the stink eye. It took over a year with the other two before we could leave the house without an extra set of clothes. We ain’t proud, Sadie was just motivated.

Sadie knows how to potty. But here is our most recent conundrum: Dat guhl wants to potty all the time, potty all the tiii-iiiime. (Heehee, I couldn’t help myself.)

Sadie has taken the potty and turned it against me. Poop is now a power struggle. It’s a means of manipulation, mind tricks and serious procrastination.

She knows that no matter what I am telling her to do, if she yells, “I GOTTA POO-POO!”, the world will come to a screeching halt. I will sit in the bathroom floor for an hour at a time staring at her while she swings her fat little legs on her throne, openly mocking me.

One evening, while Hubs was out of town, she waited until I had her in a Pull-Up and PJs (all bets are off at night) to say, “I gotta go poo-poo.”

I was exhausted. I had been up half the night before with my middle child who had an ear infection and I had juggled my kids in the doctors office all day long. I just wanted to sleep. But if she really had to go, then she really had to go, right?

I groaned and took her to the potty where she completly undressed. Because this is what they do. Children must be completely naked to take a slam.

Then she got bossy. “I meed some pwivate-seat. TERN AWOUND. Don’t wook at me. CLOSE YOU EYES, MOMMA. I MEED PWIVATE-SEAT.”

I refused to leave the room or close my eyes and twenty minutes ticked by. She produced just enough to keep me believing she really had to go.

Recently she had a little touch of The Die-rear and I almost left that baby in the bed because I thought it was more manipulation. Once I realized she was sick, I stayed in the bathroom with her as long as she needed me. While she sat there she pointed her fat little finger at me and said, “YOU did dis. You hut my tummy. Why you do dis to Sadie, huh Momma? You do dis on puhpose!!”

How diabolical does she think I am? For the love! I can’t risk denying her but what am I supposed to do?  If I give her a time limit, how long is long enough? Ten seconds? Five minutes? And isn’t that where serial killers come from? From The Land Of My Mommy Stood Over Me At The Potty And I Had To Poop In 3 Minutes OR ELSE?

I’m at a loss, people of the interwebz.  A total loss.

I need to win back The Throne. Tell me how. 

 

Shop Meon Giveaway

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My people are making it rain DOLLAH DOLLAH BILLS YAW! This is the THIRD giveaway in two weeks for one of my peeps.

Marian at Shop Meon is offering a $40 gift certificate to her online store. Here’s what you gotta do!

1) Like Shop Meon on FB

2) Like the NEW Robin’s Chicks page on FB. (I changed it because FB “upgraded” the old page and started emailing people all the ding-dang time. NOW you just click “Like.” No annoying emails. Yay! And you can click “Share” to post articles to your wall. Yay-YAY!!) If you want to make me really happy, you will coerce all your friends to like my new page. Deleting the old group took our numbers from close to 1400 to around 200.

**If you have already liked RC’s then just like Shop Meon & follow step #3.

3) Leave a comment HERE & let me know you liked both pages. (I can’t be looking for y’all on both pages. I gots stuff to do, yo.)

As ALWAYS, you can get extra chances to win by leaving comments on my posts. Limit one comment per post per person. No 80-million comments on one post, uh-uh. Momma don’t play dat.

Three easy steps, “Like,” “LIKE,” and leave a comment HERE.

Contest ends at midnight Friday, July 22, 2011. Winner announced on Saturday, July 23.

UPDATE: The winner is Angela Hammons!!!! YAAAAAAAAAY!

Only 27 Days ‘Til School Starts

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Last week’s newspaper column, just for you. Yes. You.

Don’t be fooled by how still they are. This is a picture. That’s how they work. 

For the last seven days I have refereed no less than one million fights on less than four hours of sleep per night. My middle child has been sneaking into my bed late at night with her knobby knees and pointy elbows and I am tired. I am supposed to be editing and revising my manuscript and 90 percent of the words I wrote this week were on Facebook or Twitter in the form of SOS messages to other mothers. I also Googled, “Date calculator” to find out exactly how many days until school starts back. (Thirty-two at the time I’m writing this.)

Since the kids have been out of school I haven’t been getting a lot of work done. I decided on Thursday that I would go to bed as soon as the girls did. I set my alarm to get up two hours before the kids normally wake up so I could write uninterrupted.

The following morning, my five-year-old, Emma, came tip-toeing into my bedroom promptly one hour before my alarm went off. She climbed into the bed, on top of me and said, “Hey Momma.” I tried to get up and leave her in the bed with my husband but she followed me to my desk with crayons and a notepad and roughly 800 questions about what I was doing on my “pooter.” After 30 minutes I gave up and watched cartoons with her while I drank my coffee.

I was exhausted by lunch on Friday but as I put all three children in their beds I promised if they would let me rest for an hour that we could go swimming. I was willing to do anything to exhaust them and ensure a good night’s sleep for the whole family. I popped a few ibuprofen for a headache and laid down on my bed. I could hear Aubrey and Emma scuttling around in the kitchen and giggling in their bedroom but I was too exhausted to move.

The house was a disaster when I finally gave up and got out of the bed. I found a step stool stacked on top of a barstool in the pantry and every cabinet door was standing wide open.  We had to get out of the house. I had been awake for entirely too long and my kids needed to burn off some energy.

I got all three girls into swimsuits, loaded two pool bags into the car, including snacks and drinks and changed into my bathing suit. I got all everyone into the car, buckled into seat belts and we drove to the pool. We unloaded the car and slowly made our way across the parking lot, through the rec center building and to the pool.

These details are important because we stayed at the pool about one-third of the time it took us to get there.

I watched my kids while they swam for an entire 15 minutes before all hell broke loose. Aubrey and Emma were racing across the baby pool. Emma cheated by putting her feet down and walking in the pool while Aubrey swam. Aubrey was still winning so Emma started playing dirty. She grabbed Aubrey’s bathing suit and pulled. Emma pinched and grabbed at her sister, trying to get ahead. It took less than 10 seconds for Aubrey to fight back. Aubrey turned and jumped on Emma’s back, forcing Emma underwater.

I was pulling them apart exactly one second later.

“Get. Out. Of. The. Pool.”

“BUT MOMMA…” They chanted.

“NOW.” I growled. You don’t want to mess with me when I’m tired or hungry.

I was so mad I didn’t even pick up our stuff or put on my cover-up. I took their naughty butts straight to the car, turned on the AC and went back for our things alone.

The short ride home was a monologue dedicated to water safety, respecting each other, obedience and ended with, “And when we get home you will eat dinner and go straight to bed!”

I stuck to my guns and as I tucked Emma into bed I covered her little face with kisses and said, “How about you stay in your bed tonight? All night long and don’t wake up until the sun is up, okay?”

“But Momma, I really want to sleep with you.” Her voice cracked.

“Why do you like sleeping with me so much? You’ve got a great bed right here by Aubrey’s.”

Her chin quivered and proving that children love discipline she said, “Because you are so nice to me and I just love you.” She was so sincere, I almost felt bad after I tucked her into her own bed then promptly collapsed on my own.

Now do you see why Columbus, Ga. is my new happy place? 

Also? Free cookies. You gots a few hours left.