Author Archives: Heather

Unknown's avatar

About Heather

I adore my family, writing, books, cats, lazy mornings in bed, and chocolate. I'll never say no to breakfast for dinner, long talks with friends and lazy summer days at the pool with family. My life is often crazy, always awesome and one I'm so happy to be living! My side hustle is editing and proofing work. Find out more at https://heathercaryn.com/
Sep29

Dr. Mom, Medicine Woman

Posted on by
Standard

There are days when I feel like I’m pretty damn good at this parenting thing.

Then there are days like today.

Last night the Bean woke up twice in the middle of the night saying her ear hurt.  The first time I got her to take her Tylenol without much fuss so this morning when it was time to dose her up before school I figured it wouldn’t be a big deal.

I am an idiot.

I first offered her the little cup to drink her medicine out of (grape flavored medicine she said she loved last night, mind you!). She wouldn’t have anything to do with it.  She flat out refused to even take 1 measly sip of the 1 tsp of medicine.  Fine- we’re pressed for time, so I put it into those medicine syringes and to give it to her.  It’s worked in the past- just get it in as far back as you can in her mouth and blow on her face while pushing in the plunger to make sure she’s swallowing. Easy peasy.

2 minutes later, the Bean is in the shower and I’m changing all my clothes because she spit every bit of that 1 freaking fracking tsp of medicine back out. She’s got it coating her neck and all in her hair and I’m wearing the rest of it on my clothes.  So much for getting to school on time- not happening with an hysterical 3 year old in the shower, a ticked off Mom scrounging for clean clothes and 5 year old who can’t stop laughing over the craziness.

So..the Bean finally gets showered and I’m dressed. We’re back to square 1.  I know her ear hurts because she keep cradling it, so she needs to have medicine before school. Period.  Now I just needed to figure out how to get her to drink it.

I tried explaining to her what was what- that she needed the medicine to make the boo-boo in her ear stop hurting.  She didn’t care.

Then I flat out told her- drink the medicine or else.  (Or else what, I have no idea. The kid doesn’t care if you put her in time out, take away her toys or ban her from the TV- she has no kryptonite as far as we can tell).  The Bean is not impressed.

Finally, it was time to bribe her.  Her weakness of choice? The forbidden fruit- soda. The watered-down dredges of our soda when we’re out to eat is the best thing ever according to the Bean, so I figured to be offered a few sips of her very own soda would be something she’d jump on.

I figured wrong.

It wasn’t until I sweetened the deal with the promise of donuts on the way to school that she finally, finally slugged that 1 tsp of medicine. That’s parenting at it’s finest right there.

*~*~*~*~

An afternoon trip to the doctor’s confirmed that Beaner does have an ear infection. That meant tonight before bed, I had to give her 2 medicines.  I’ll let you guess how well that went.

Sep27

Just a Girl

Posted on by
Standard

Sometimes I forget that the Bean is a girl. From day 1, Scorch’s stuff- the dinosaurs, super heroes, truck and cars- have dominated our house. That’s just the way it goes since he’s older. Most of the time it doesn’t dawn on me to buy anything girly-girl for the Bean. The only reason this child has a tea set or Barbies is thanks to friends or family.

Most of the time, that’s just fine. Beaner wants to do what ever her big brother and his friends are doing. She doesn’t want to dance, she wants to play soccer! She’s happy to wear as much pink as you want to dress her in as long as she’s got on her sneaker so she can run. Her two BFFs at school are boys- even though I see the girls in her class trying very hard to be friends with her.

So you can imagine my surprise when the Bean came home yesterday and told me she got married to her BFF. She said it was her idea, so they two of them got married on the playground during recess. So very glad I dressed her in her nicest jeans- I’m hoping someone took a few pictures for the family album.

The Hubs is just hoping it wasn’t a true shotgun wedding.

Sep25

The Big Meanie, That’s Me

Posted on by
Standard

As I type this, Scorch is in his room crying and talking trash about me (calling me a Big Meanie, he thinks he’s being quiet).  He’s mad because he lost one of his stuffed animals for a week.  Why? Because of his behavior.   Ever since our major family blow up a few weeks back, we’ve implemented a new policy.  The rules are set- there are only a 3 really big ones and when you break them you 1) go in time out and 2) lose something.  So Scorch broke one of the rules earlier (he told his sister he hated her), so he immediately lost the dessert we were sitting down to eat.  That went over about as well as you can expect. So he and I had a conversation about learning from our mistakes and making better choices.  Yet 5 minutes later, he told his sister the same thing.  I asked him to please pick one of this stuffed animals off his bed as it was now mine for the next week.

Oh, the humanity.

The funny this is, the boy has at least 20+ animal on his bed and if I had gone in and taking Froggy away without telling him, he’d never know he was gone.  Maybe this time he’ll learn?

~~~~~~~~~~

I have no good excuse for not blogging lately- just a lot of minor ones.  A fall cold (thanks, Bean!), busy evenings (including a much needed mid-week girl’s night), spending some time with the Hubs (so nice to have him home most nights), and being in bed by 9:30 every night.  A few weeks back, I started working out back at the gym. I couldn’t go while Pete was gone this summer, but now that he’s home, I’m trying to go to bootcamp class 3x a week and spinning 2x a week- all of which require me to get up before 5 am. I realize a lot of people have to do that every day, but I don’t and holy crap that is the middle of the night. But I’m trying my hardest, so that means early bedtimes so I don’t fall over mid-day.  They damn well better pay off is all I have to say.

 

 

Sep19

Finding Our New Normal

Posted on by
Standard

Today marked the first day of our 2nd full week with the kids in school.  This new normal is being worn like a shirt that doesn’t quite fit.  We don’t not like it- Scorch loves school, the Bean is starting to and I’m enjoying having the house to myself- but it doesn’t feel quite right yet.  I’m sure that’ll come with time, but right now the mornings are still a tad too rushed, I’m still trying to find the best way to work around the kid’s school schedule and the kids are flat out tired at the end of the night.

Monday’s are our most fun night and our most tiring. I work 6 am – 2:45 pm so I don’t have to work after I pick the kids up.  The weather has been great, so the kids and I go to the park for an hour before going to swim lessons.  After lessons, we get home around 5:30, the kiddos have their baths and we all eat dinner so we can start bed time around 6:45.  Tonight the kids were more cranky then usual thanks to them waking up at 5:30 am, so I did what any smart mom would do to get us though the last few minutes before bedtime.  I showed my kids YouTube videos of cats doing funny things.  This one was our favorite– Scorch laughed so hard he got the hiccups.

Then I gave them the last bits of the homemade brownies we snagged from my parents last night and read Alfred’s Nose.  It’s a book about a dog, Alfred, who doesn’t like his tiny little pug nose and the fact that his tongue sticks out, so he decided to disguise himself.  The pictures are awesome and we all laughed so hard we had to read it again when the Hubs came home from work.

All in all a great night, I just can’t wait until this starts feeling routine.

*****

Completely random and off topic, but the Hubs and I went to the movies this weekend and saw Warrior.  I didn’t know anything about it except that it’s about two brothers who are Mixed Martial Arts fighters, so I had no idea what to expected.  Both the Hubs and I were completely blown away- we loved it!  There is a fat ton of MMA action in the movie but the stories were so well down and the fighting sequences, while brutal, were amazing.  It may be the best movie we’ve seen all year and we see a lot of movies!

 

Sep15

Love Thursday: Independence

Posted on by
Standard

At least once a week either the Hubs or I will randomly throw out a name in the middle of conversation.

Jane?

Nah, I don’t like how it goes with our last name.

Neither one of us question what the other is talking about- we know.  These names are possible choices for our hypothetical 3rd child.  We’re not expecting another baby now, nor do we plan on adding to our brood anytime in the next year or so, but the thought is always there in the back of our heads.  Neither one of us know if our family is complete yet.

The hard part is, the longer we wait, the more I’m enjoying having older kids.  I was a wreck most of the past two weeks. Between Mary leaving and the kids starting school full time, I cried at least once a day. My babies- my precious babies going to school and leaving me alone in the house all day for the first time in 5 years! I thought for sure that them being gone was going to kick my baby fever into high gear and was mentally prepping the discussion the Hubs and I would have to have. But you know what? I love having the house to myself for 6 hours a day.  Flat out adore it.

Earlier this week the kids started swim lessons.  Scorch has been in lessons without me for the past 6 months, but I thought I still needed to get in the water with the Bean. Nope- I was able to sit on the side of the pool and just enjoy watching them swim.  It was heaven.

The kids dress themselves every morning. They pick up after themselves. They can tell me what they want, what hurts and why they are crying.  They are wonderful company and make me laugh with their observations and stories. I don’t have to wipe any more behinds and the only diapers in the house are here when Baby Lala is around. I don’t have to pack a diaper bag or bring my breast pump with me when I’m away from home for a long period of time.  And I’m enjoying all of that so much more then I thought I would.

The decision whether or not to have another baby hasn’t been made yet and I’m sure it won’t be for some time, but for now I’m just relishing the independence while hoping my kids don’t grow too fast!

 

Sep14

Dance Monkey, Dance!

Posted on by
Standard

I may have mentioned a time or two that the Bean has a forceful personality.  She may only weigh 27 lbs, but heaven help you if you cross her.  Thankfully, bed time has become a much more pleasant time for us after a few weeks of sheer misery.  That said, one of the ways I’ve achieved this peace is by indulging Beaner in a few of her requests.  Frankly, it’s easier to give into the little things then battle her for 45 minutes over something so tiny.  So things have been going swimmingly until this week…

You see, this week I started Bootcamp classes.  I have aches in muscles I didn’t know I had.  Getting up off the couch takes time, I groan when I walk up the stairs and I vigorously swear at the class’s instructor in my head when I get out of bed.  Of course this is the time when Beaner’s requests have gone from “Can I go potty one more time?” to “sit on my lap Mommy so I can sign you a song!”  Have you ever tried to balance your body to “sit” on a 3 year old’s lap in a moving rocking chair (because the chair has to rock because it rocks when I sing to her)?  It ain’t easy.

That wasn’t even the worst part- the kicker came when it was time for me to sing to her.  Normally she sits on my lap on the rocker while we go through our 4 song medley.  But oh no- not tonight. It’s like she knows that I’m dying and wants to put the screws to me.

“Mommy, lay on the floor so I can lay on you and you sing to me.”

I did a quick mental debate in my head- was the agony I’d experience actually getting my body on the floor worse then the agony I’d deal with when I refused and the Bean lost her mind for 45 minutes? I decided to suck it up and gingerly, slowly, got down on the ground.  I admit, I moaned a few times in the process.  But I did it and told the Bean to lay down so we could sing.

“Actually Mommy, I want to rock in the chair.”

Sometimes I think the Bean just likes to screw with me.

Sep13

Laying Down the Law

Posted on by
Standard

Over the past year, the kids have gradually started acquiring more and more bad habits. It’s all normal kids stuff, but it been building for a while.  It started with minor stuff- not listening as well.  Small back talking. Insults to each other that were thrown around in a rage.  Stuff that was really annoying and not fun to deal with, but it wasn’t constant, so we dealt with each instance and moved on.

Then this summer, those occasionally issues became more and more frequent.  Calling each other stupid stopped being the exception and started to become a commonly thrown around phrase.  Counting down to get the kids to do what I asked them to do was only working 50% of the time. The rough housing soon started to become more mean spirited and aggressive.  So while the Hubs was out of town, Mary (our awesome nanny) and I changed our approach to how we handled punishment and that helped a lot.  The kids were old enough that time outs weren’t really working anymore, so we shifted to losing privileges (dessert, the Wii, etc) and that helped a lot.

Well- then last week happened.  Mary worked her last day with us.  The kids started school.  The Hubs was working crazy hours due to the flooding in the county south of us.  Basically it was the perfect storm of confusion, change and worry for the kiddos and they exploded on Saturday.  They were nuts from the minute they woke up until the minute they went to bed.  They sassed us, the Bean called me  “stupid,” Scorch out and out ignored us, they would slug each other for no reason at all- they were a mess!  All day long we tried the combination of time out and removing privileges, but frankly, they didn’t care.  We ended up leaving Mass early that night (something we’ve never done) because of their behavior.  The Hubs and I were embarrassed, frustrated and really really disappointed in the kids.

After strapping the kids into their car seats, the Hubs and I had a quick huddle in the parking lot of church trying to figure out how to approach this.  We completely understood why the kids were losing their shit, but frankly that didn’t excuse it.  So we decided it was time for some shock and awe.  My mother in law stayed at our house last week and she spoiled my kids rotten with some of the most awesome toys ever- so we took them all away for a week.  We packed them up, loaded them in a box and put them in the car.  Before we did it, we had  Family Meeting to talk to the kids about why we did it and what we expected from them to get them back in a week.  We stressed to them how much we loved them and how we know they can make good, kind decisions and while we don’t like taking away their things, we were going to continue to do so every time they broke our family rules.

Needless to say, that went over like a ton of bricks.  Oh- the tears. The pleading. The bargaining.  But we stood firm, fed our kids dinner and put them to bed an hour early because we knew damn well that exhaustion was playing a part in all this.  Before we said good night, we held another quick Family Meeting in Scorch’s bed reiterating how much loved them and how we can’t wait to have better days going forward.

After we said goodnight to the kids, the Hubs and I came out to the living room and I got all teary.  Hearing Scorch ask me over and over if I was mad at him because he hates it when I’m mad at him just about killed me.  I told him that I wasn’t mad, that I was disappointed and frustrated and we talked about how  no matter what, I’ll always love him- but still. Knife meet heart.  I won’t even go into the Bean’s frantic little “I’m sorry’s” over and over.  I honestly felt like the worst mom ever.  Clearly we were screwing up raising these kids right and now we were monsters for making our kids think we hated them.  I might as well start a separate savings account for their therapy bills now.

Saturday wasn’t our finest hour as a family and I had been struggling with taking such a hard line with the kids. While I tend to be more of the disciplinarian in our family, I don’t like being mean and I really wondered if we crossed that line from setting boundaries to being punitive just because we were so angry.

Then I saw this video:

I so needed to hear this and am so glad I stumbled across this when I did.  It didn’t erase all the crazy guilt (I think that’ll always be there), but it reminded me that taking a strong hand with my kids won’t kill them. That there are a gazillion other ways to show my  kids that I love them- including doing my damndest to raise them to be good people.  Jury’s still out if we’ll succeed, but it won’t be from lack of trying!

Sep11

When the World Stopped Turning

Posted on by
Standard

“Hey babe- it’s me.  We just heard that a plane crashed into one of the buildings in NYC. Can you hop online and let me know what’s going on?”

I was irritated that my husband of 3 weeks was calling me the morning of 9/11.  My commute to work from Maryland to Virginia had taken me longer than normal that morning because of an accident and I was running behind.  Chasing down a random rumor that the Hubs, then working at the White House, had heard wasn’t on my to-do list.

But my curiosity got the best of me so I started checking the news sites.  It was still before 9 am ET, so most of the news sites only had a ticker across the top page stating that a plane did hit one of the World Trade Towers with scant details.  I figured some poor pilot of a small plane had a heart attack or something and didn’t think much of it.  I called the Hubs back and reported what little I knew and went about my morning.

Five minutes later, the Hubs called back. This time there was no mistaking the tension in his voice as he told me her heard that another plane hit the WTC.  I still didn’t grasp the magnitude of what was happening.  Terrorism never once crossed my mind until the plane hit the Pentagon.   If a plane hit the Pentagon, what’s to say another one wasn’t heading for the White House?

The rest of the morning passed in a blur as I tried to reach the Hubs.  I was lucky enough to connect with him a few times during the day, but it was sporadic.  During one of our phone conversations soon after the Pentagon was hit, he told me that intelligence was reporting that a plane was coming for the White House.  We did our best to say what we needed to just in case and then I prayed. There was nothing else I could do.  At 10:03 am ET, the plane that very well may have been heading for my husband and all the rest of the people at the White House went down in Shanksville, PA.

I was lucky- after a 20 hour day at the White House, my husband came home to me that night. Sadly, the families of 2,977 people can’t say the same.

Ten years later, we remember those who lost their lives on that September morning.  They were mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, brothers and sister.  Most were people going about their daily lives who had no idea what was about to happen, but others that lost their lives because they willingly went running into the disaster to try to help.  Each and every one of them were heroes and all of them are missed.

Sep9

First Day

Posted on by
Standard

After all the worrying and stress, the first day of school is over! Friends were made, lunches were had, playgrounds were conquered and the only tears that were shed were by Bean at the end of the day.

Over night I went from having little kids to having a Kindergartener and a Preschooler.  Let’s hope the rest of their year is filled with this much anticipation and excitement!

 

Sep8

Well…

Posted on by
Standard

So last I left off, I was in the midst of a small emotional breakdown.  No biggie…

Mary’s last day was yesterday and I randomly burst into tears through out the day.  Thankfully I had also started a Bootcamp class at the gym that morning, so I could blame the crying on the pain if anyone asked. Heaven forbid I look like a softie.  The hardest part about yesterday was Scorch’s reaction. My poor, sweet, sensitive boy cried for about 20 minutes while saying goodbye to Mary and then again after she left.  Thankfully my Mother-in-Law arrived as Mary was leaving, so that was a good distraction for him.

This morning, I went to Spin class and when I got home at 6:30 we had 1 hour and 10 minutes to get 3 adults and 2 kids ready for the first day of school.  We were rocking this morning- everyone ate, the kids looked adorable, they were both super excited to go to school (the Bean kept asking me not to stay today, she wanted to be  Big Girl!) and all was well.  We had just finished tying the laces to  Scorch’s brand new sneakers when my phone rang.  It was a text message letting us know that the school was on a 2 hour delay due to flooding conditions.  What the what? Within 15 minutes after that, schools were closed for the day.

Talk about anticlimactic, huh?

Thankfully my town didn’t get hit hard with the flooding but the town I grew up in and the surrounding areas did. The pictures of the water and the damage breaks my heart- it’s hard to fathom it all.

The Hubs has been down there all day helping to evacuate people- over 20,000 people have been forced from their homes and many have no idea what they’ll be coming home to.  Please say a prayer for those hit hard by this.