I’m not even sure why I would ever have to ask another human being to not urinate in a sink but here I am, asking not just my Swamp Monster to stop peeing in the sink but also The Hubs. And I fully blame The Hubs for my Swamp Monster’s need to pee in the sink, he was the original sink pisser, he now has a single follower.

You see here’s what happened one day many, many years ago. At some point in the last 11 years I made the mistake of taking too long to use the restroom, and apparently instead of holding it like a normal human or going outside and peeing on a bush like men can do (still a little bitter I can’t just pee wherever I want) he opted to pee in the sink. You know, because it was the perfect height and waking more than five steps to go outside would have been next to impossible. Fast forward through our years together and he still pee’s in the sink, even if he see’s I’m finishing it doesn’t matter, he just uses the sink like a personal urinal. And yes, I understand this is revolting. I’ve tried yelling, screaming, hitting, you name it and he still pee’s in the sink, not as much anymore but still enough to make me cringe. And yes he cleans the sink out but still, freaking gross.

I guess at some point in time in the last four years our Swamp Monster must have seen The Hubs pee in the sink. I didn’t think he had but I was alarmingly wrong. One morning, I found myself with a full bladder, new baby was sound asleep in my room and it had been a particularly long night, so I was not about to risk disturbing the newest member of the crew so that I could pee in my own bathroom. So I headed to Swamp Monster’s bathroom, and naturally he followed because heaven forbid I go to the bathroom by myself. Apparently I was not peeing fast enough, mind you I didn’t even know that he needed to use the bathroom I simply thought ‘okay we’re playing shadow today’, but apparently he really needed to go. I mean really had to go, because next thing I know I look over and he is up on the counter, on his knees, aiming for the sink. Now, if I was thinking at the time I wouldn’t have just screamed out ‘WHAT ARE YOU DOING STOP!’ since screaming at people generally startles them, but this is what I did. And in return my child reacted like any normal child and slightly jumped a little (or knee hopped?), and consequently his little stream went off course and got the counter. Of course he thought this was hilarious and of course I captured photo evidence for his future bride and to show The Hubs, but this also meant I now got to clean the kid/guest bathroom, and I loathe cleaning bathrooms.

Of course I sent the photo of Swamp Monster peeing in the sink to The Hubs, and he was quite proud of himself for rubbing off on his son. I was less than thrilled but nobody was asking me how I felt.

It’s true what they say, be careful what you do, because children soak up everything like a little sponge…..little disgusting miniature adult sponges…..

I thought that going back to work after being on maternity leave for so long was going to be the hardest thing. Now, I feel a little guilty to admit that I didn’t even cry. I mean I cried by the end of the week (because I missed a lot and it was a lot of re-learning my job)+, but on the actual first day of going back to work and the first day of dropping my newest little guy at his sitters…..nothing, not one drop. I feel like I should be tore up about this, like I should feel like a bad mom for being refreshed and excited to get out of the house.

But I don’t feel bad.

Four months. That is how long I had been off of work and home with my newborn baby and my overly energetic four year old. Because it is the time of COVID I couldn’t even use our Children’s Museum pass to get my son out of the house and to a place where he could expend all his energy. And I felt terrible because I was so tired, and this sweet boy just wanted me to read and play games with him all day, and I only had enough extra energy to give him ten minutes here or five minutes there. But I kept trying. And I still was told that me and The Hubs loved the new baby more, we didn’t love him, we never play with him, yadda, yadda, yadda. It broke my heart. I know he knows better but still, it made me sad to think my big guy might be feeling left out because I was killing myself to try and make sure he didn’t feel that way. So you can imagine the relief when I finally had to wake up and put on adult clothes and go to a space where there are other adults just pleasantly working at their desks. Nobody pulling on my clothes and stretching them out. Nobody narrating the TV. Nobody yelling at me “the baby is crying give him the titty mom!” It was like going on vacation instead of coming back from one basically.

Don’t get me wrong, I love that I had four straight months to bond with my newest son, I’m grateful I got to spend some extra time with my Swamp Monster because he is growing and maturing way to fast, I am grateful that Washington paid for three months of my maternity leave, grateful I got to take a fourth month off and not stress because we had enough money saved in the bank, grateful that my work protected my time off so I had a job to come back to. And the list goes on and on.

I am stupidly grateful.

But I am ready to be my own person again. I am ready to start the process of my children’s independence (again for the big one). I love going to work and coming home to a quiet sleeping house, because the next morning I get to hear all about their days and how much they missed me.

Going back to work for me could have been an out of hand disaster, but once I was on the road heading to town, I felt excited and giddy.

And that’s okay.

This freaking mud never ends.

In the summer I endlessly battle The Hubs and my Swamp Monster bringing in the mud. During the summer they are constantly outside (which I love, I can not stand when energetic souls want to stay inside and play when it is nice outside) having fires, riding bikes, taking the quads down into the forest, working on various projects and the list goes on and on. Now, while it is super nice having them constantly outside, because when they come in for the night they are super mellow and quiet, they are usually quite filthy. Like ‘find dirt in your belly button and buttcrack’ dirty. Which I find super impressive, because it doesn’t rain too terribly much in the summer, so the amount of mud is half of what it is in the winter. The guys deserve some kind of medal….maybe just a certificate….

Even though, by the end of the day they are covered in dirt and mud, they at least strip down on the front porch to their under-roos…actually I just lied, Swamp Monster gets straight up naked. I really need to figure out how I can keep that boy’s clothes on his body. But even with the stripping of the clothes they still bring the outdoors inside with them! Does the mud just hide in the nooks and crannies of their bodies and jump ship as soon as they find their motherland that is my floors, beds, carpets, etc??? At least for the most part usually what they track in is relatively dry and easy to vacuum up or sweep up. And it’s really only the human’s that I have to worry about in the summer. My fur-babies take pleasure in sun bathing and staying relatively clean, so at least I’m only battling half a household in the summertime and half the mud.

But fall through winter is a different beast…..fall through winter I have to activate my Endless Mud Protocol…..

Since we live in a development on a hill, and we happen to live toward the lower part of said hill, a lot of our land is very moist (if you happen to be one of the people that hate that word, my bad, moist). And it is like my whole household is conspiring against me, because like I said, summer isn’t so terrible in terms of mud getting into my house, don’t misunderstand me it definitely gets in but not at the same volume as winter mud. Winter mud is an unruly monster, the grass and yard immediately surrounding the house starts slowly turning into squishy patches of the wettest, most aggressive mud I’ve ever met. Thankfully we don’t spend as much time outside in the winter/fall as we do in the summer, so the chance for mud to hitch a ride on a human is cut down. We still go outside but we don’t want to be wet AND cold, so usually us humans only need to de-shoe before entry to the home. Sometimes my precious Swamp Monster forgets that he just went puddle jumping with his boots and trekked through the one small patch of mud right by the porch steps, and he sometimes makes it inside booted up but he usually only gets a couple steps inside the door and onto the tile before we start incoherently yelling things at him because we can’t form coherent sentences in the time of an emergency, and he sits down and flops off his boots.

But we have fur-babies….fur-babies in the form of two Labs and one Chiweenie….and I can’t keep them inside all winter/fall since they need to do the doo outside….and it would be totally fine if they were as calm outside as they are inside (the most jacked they get inside is tight little circles to let us know they need to potty), if they just leisurely sauntered outside and did their business and calmly sniffed some things, that would be awesome. But apparently I have really ticked someone off, and apparently my dogs going crazy outside when it is less than stellar weather is my life long punishment.

When my small herd of fur-babies have to go outside to go potty they get jacked, I’m talking about springting in little tight circles jacked, so naturally as soon as the front door is cracked enough where they can get out they have to tear out of the house like they are chasing down Usain Bolt. All the while making sure to go through the muddiest parts of the yard. Then, if that wasn’t enough, they feel the need to play fight, and their version is sprinting at each other and jumping around which further imbeds the mud up into those pup paws, and to top it off the newest baby, Hank, is a digger….so there’s that.

With all their muddy-ness I have been trying to get them up on the covered dry porch so that their pup paws can somewhat dry out and bring in less mess, but this is just a pipe dream. Along with the porch system, I sometimes then let them in and corral them to the laundry room and leave them in there to further dry out a little, followed by a wash cloth to the paws. And their paws turn out looking clean, they walk on the tile and nothing. Then, as soon as they are on the carpet one of them will have to shake out their fur, then all of the sudden there are perfect little muddy paw prints. How? HOW????

So, I guess me and my carpet cleaner have a hot date once our grounds start drying out a a little….how enticing….I’ll make sure to wear my stylish leggings for my hot date.

Freaking mud.

• 

So….let me start off by saying that Swamp Monster #1? He was a formula baby all the way. By the time I ramped up my human-juice production he decided it was just better if he remained faithful to his bottle….what a guy. Now, obviously, seeing as how he makes appearances throughout my blog, he survived being a formula fed baby. I hardly survived, but he came out just fine. I felt like I had failed at something; why wouldn’t my milk come in any faster? Why did he fight my breast when the milk came in (I hear guys like those things!)? Was I a bad human and this was my punishment??

Eventually after talking about it I learned that a lot of women actually struggle with breastfeeding. I took comfort in knowing that it wasn’t just me, that I was not that one person out of the whole state of Washington that just couldn’t breastfeed. And as I type that an re-read it that almost sounds selfish…finding comfort in other mom’s struggles as well? But you get what I mean. So that was that. Swamp Monster #1 was put on formula after a week or two and we never looked back.

Fast forward to my next boy; I had it set in my mind that I was going to breastfeed….or try to again. For months I was my own kind of superhero….Princess Google-Warrior! I looked up so many different things in preparation for little one; things I could do before birth to help, what I should do after birth, what I shouldn’t do, and the list goes on and on. Fun fact, Princess Google-Warrior discovered that pre-birth? Yeah there isn’t a lot you can do for breastfeeding prep. You might be able to start herbal supplements a couple weeks before your due date but that depends on what your doctor feels like is best for you and baby. If you recall in earlier posts my baby came four-weeks early sooooooo….I never had the luxury of trying to figure out if I should start my supplements or not…my sweet sweet baby decided for me. Once our newest family member made his grand entrance I immediately asked my OB and the rounding pediatrician if I could start my supplements, to which they agreed that it was totally fine to start them now that baby was out.

However, one little supplement wasn’t fixing my problems. For some illogical reason I thought that after my first little supplement and the first couple tries with baby on the breast I would magically produce gallons upon gallons of liquid gold. Turns out it still was not going to be that easy. After many visit with my lactation nurse on the Family Birth Center Floor (she probably cringed every time my nurses paged her) she advised that something that would help get my production going would be to have baby try and feed every two-hours, and then immediately after pump both breasts for 15-minutes. Sounded totally easy-peasy at the time, and boy how wrong was I. Basically if there wasn’t a baby attached to me trying to feed there was a machine just pumping away. And to boot, I was going into day four post-partum with my new pumping regimen AND taking my supplements and still….nothing. Obviously our new bundle was on supplemental formula, but my concern was that he would get complacent with formula and prefer the bottle nipple as opposed to my own. And that would just be rude.

Eventually, my milk did come in, I pumped a solid two ounces (and if you’re thinking that isn’t very much, well in breastfeeding world you would be wrong) and I celebrated by screaming at The Hubs to look at my milk. I had no idea what helped. Was it my supplement? Was it all the additional pumping? Was it all the food I was eating to try and make sure my body had enough formula producing goodness? Was it the breast massages my sister gave me while I was feeding? In honesty it was probably a combination of everything. I WON!

Well…..I thought I won…..and that first battle I did…

Shortly after round two came around. This time I was not fighting myself and trying to make milk, this battle was mommy versus baby, final show down. After a couple weeks (was it one or two weeks? Who knows the first month was a blur) I noticed that it started to hurt a little when I fed, I chalked it up to just having someone constantly pulling and tugging on me, I thought it was totally normal. I also noticed that a couple of little white spots showed up on my nipple, but again I thought it was fine and going to go away by itself. And then I started dreading feedings, my poor nips were so sensitive. Every time the baby woke up I knew I would be going through the excruciating pain of feeding my son, it was a unique kind of pain, and I honestly have no idea to describe what it felt like. But, I will tell you it was so painful my face constantly contorted into a hideous mask when my son latched and the entire time he fed I wanted to cry and punch things. Then I saw why, my poor nips had red bumps on them, they were extremely dry, and the little white bumps now morphed into ‘white stuff’ that had grown and covered half my nipples. What in the world was going on?!?!?! Again, Princess Google-Warrior rode into battle, and even though she was as vague as could be with her searches some answers had been discovered.

Apparently, unbeknownst to me, a babies latch has a huge affect on feedings, and I thought that I had my latch down perfectly because I had felt fine and baby boy was getting enough milk to be satisfied, and at first the feedings didn’t hurt, and his latch hadn’t changed in weeks. But as I watched multiple video’s on YouTube with properly latched babies and video’s on how to replicate the latch I decided to try it out on my little. And oh sweet Baby Ray’s if that was not the most magical feeling. Once I got my nipple to ‘the safe zone’ my feeding game did a 180, I didn’t secretly wish that my baby would just skip a meal, I didn’t want to cry every time he latched, things were looking up.

But what about that ‘white stuff’? Turns out it was thrush. Now, you see, a week before hand my son went in for one of his many newborn checkups and one of the things his doctor noticed was that there was the smallest patch of white that had started on his lower lip-apparently it was thrush. I literally had no idea that I would need to physically pull my child’s lip out and check for something like that, nobody told me. Something else nobody told me…..my son and I can pass thrush back and forth. So, while he was being treated I was still wondering what was causing the white on my nipples. I realize I should have put two and two together a lot sooner, but I was a wee bit tired and not all of my brain function was back. One day while sitting on the couch I thought ‘hey self, google if nipple thrush is a thing’, AND IT IS. My son’s pediatrician didn’t ask if I had white spots on my breasts which probably would have saved me an extra week of uncomfortable breast area issues. Then I researched what I could do to get rid of my thrush; did you know if you’re breastfeeding and your baby is put on oral liquid for their thrush you can put it in the pocket of their lip then immediately feed them and the medication will help you too? And luckily I was able to get in four days worth of feeds while my son was still on his medication so my thrush was going away, but it wasn’t completely gone. So back to Google I went to see if there were any home remedies, and I found one mom who used a combination of Grapefruit Seed Extract and water and applied it to the nipple area after feedings and it worked at getting the last bit of thrush gone. So, if you’re a home-remedies kinda gal look into Grapefruit Seed Extract if you get thrush, bonus, she said she used it on her little one and it even got rid of babies thrush. But obviously you might want to check with your pediatrician first.

I have to say I am glad that I get to experience breastfeeding this time around and that special bond that only me and my son share in that moment, but, if I’m being completely honest, it’s a lot of flipping work. Totally worth it, but a lot of work.

So, if you’re a breastfeeding mommy, way to go. It’s hard, exhausting work that usually goes un-thanked. I guess it’s wrong for me to think my one month old was rude for not writing a speech for me on how grateful he was for my boobs back when I was going through so much pain.

And if you know someone who is a breastfeeding mom, just tell her she’s a rock-star. Because it is seriously hard; mentally, emotionally, and physically.

I would like to end this post with a small story about my oldest son during my breastfeeding trials. When I first started feedings at home I just said to heck with every body else, my breasts are super sensitive (which I eventually fixed with the amazing breast shells I found) so I just stayed free as a baby bird for a while. Which turned out to not be a great idea with a curious four-year old in my house. As I sat feeding my newest baby one afternoon I felt a weird tickle on my other breast. I glance over and there’s the Swamp Monster!! Lips puckered trying to latch on so he “can taste baby brothers food”!! I was mortified, but thankful that he wasn’t able to latch on fully. The Hubs and I could not stop laughing and my toddler was very confused why he wasn’t able to have the same food as his baby brother. Toddler’s….they are way too curious for their own good.

So, now that I am back into my Muddy account here’s a quick little catch up on what is new at the zoo…..

My son now is the proud recipient of his very own little brother. As of September 1st The Hubs and I have added another mini-human in boy form. And big brother is obsessed. It was a hard road but I finally have my two boys. Unfortunately for me, when I am pregnant I get violently sick until the doctors can figure out what medications can help. Never have I been diagnosed with HG, the super nausea and vomiting, but that is basically what it is. In one week, I dropped 10 pounds, which, I mean yeah I want to get my weight a little down, but sweet peacocks not that way; before my doctors could find a good medication for my nausea I was not even able to keep water down. Not even at a tablespoon-a-time. By the time I told my nurse I needed to get in for my first visit to set up prenatal care, I was so dehydrated that just by looking at my lack luster lips she knew I was dehydrated and needed fluids, which landed me a fast pass to the Urgent Care for liquids….yayyyyyy. But, after trial and error they got me on some low key medications that were safe for baby and let me at least keep foods and liquid down. Was I still nauseas? You bet your sweet booty I was, all nine months. Then there was the depression. Because of COVID, with the exception of my amenorrhea visit and the anatomy ultrasound, I had to fly solo to each visit, and because I was having an unusual pregnancy I had ultrasounds out my sweet derrière and those ultrasounds earned me extra doctor visits. And all those things were hard to do without The Hubs by my side, couple that with the exhaustion from the insomnia, the anxiety that I already had before becoming pregnant being tripled, my emotions did a swan dive off the high board. I felt alone and for a while really angry. Angry that my pregnancy couldn’t just go smoothly, angry that the world is now a COVID world and that hospitals had to limit access. After being up front with my provider, and given my history of anxiety, again, I was put on growing-baby approved medication. And even though this pregnancy was, what felt like, the longest eight months of my life, I’m deeply grateful that I was able to get pregnant in the first place. Some parents aren’t lucky enough to have their own babies, so, for my obnoxiously medicated one, I am profoundly grateful. Though delivery could have gone a little differently….

First off, bundle number 2 arrived at 36 weeks, so only four weeks early which isn’t hyper critical in the sense of ‘GET THE BABY TO THE NICU AND CALL KAREV! WHERE IS KAREV!’ but it did land us in the hospital for a couple of extra days. And is a couple extra days really that bad to make sure a baby is healthy enough to go home as a pre-term? NO, absolutely not. However, my issue was this, when we checked in at the Family Birth Center we were informed that we would only be allowed one visitor and that one lucky visitor was only permitted to have a one hour visit. Finding that out I was a little excited, I fully expected, that because of COVID, nobody would be visiting my new boy. The Hubs and I fully intended on using our plus-one for our swamp monster, who during all of this, was with his Meema and Ogee and Nene. The need for my older son to come see me in the hospital and meet his new baby only magnified when my sister told me she showed him a picture of me in my hospital get up and bed and he thought I died. No amount of phone time and persuading on my sisters end really helped, do you understand how upsetting it is to know your son thinks you died and that you’re not coming to get him? My heart tore into little mommy fragments that were already on edge from being exhausted. So, when The Hubs was heading out of the hospital to go check the dogs and other animals I asked him to check with the nurses if our plus-one pass could be used for our Swamp Monster, and to let them know our visit would be short and sweet since everybody in the medical world was already on edge with COVID. This is where things for me took an emotional turn, I guess when he talked to my nurse she had to be the one to inform us that children could not be the visitor, because the new virus showed signs of being expertly transmitted by littles who are just fabulous ick carriers, he would not be permitted access. Now I understand that nobody wanted a rogue virus making its way to the birthing floor, but I about lost my cool. I was so mad and upset and just needed to see my Swamp Monster, I briefly considered breaking my new bundle out of the hospital, obviously I did not, but it was a real plan I was formulating at the time.

Eventually we did get discharged, and to boot the doctor signed off on the new bundle 5-hours early. You see, when you are a pre-term baby there are extra checks you have to make and pass, so instead of the 24-hour hold you get a 48-hour hold. With a lot of nurses feeling our pain and talking us up to the doctor doing rounds that morning, the pediatrician on call reluctantly released my new bundle 5-hours early; we definitely got a long winded discussion before we left but since baby passed all his tests without issue and our nurses felt confident she agreed there was no medical necessity to keep us longer. And let me tell you something, I already had everything packed up and as soon as those discharge papers came through we were gone; it’s possible the Family Birthing Center now thinks The Hubs and I are crazy people because as they’re yelling congratulations and well wishes our way we just power stormed right through the FBC wing, tossing back Thank You’s along the way, to the elevator to get to our freedom. I informed The Hubs to not stop walking until we were on the elevator and outside the hospital because I didn’t want the pediatrician to suddenly have a change of heart and keep us longer, and I had a Swamp Monster at home who needed to know I didn’t die. So, that was a fun new experience that I could have lived without.

So, now I am the proud owner of two boys, I’m sure once the second one gets big enough there will be even more mudding finding it’s way into my home.

To boot, we also got a new Chocolate Lab….and he’s……well he’s a puppy so we’re not best friends quite yet. We’re getting there, but I honestly forgot how much work puppies are you guys. No amount of chew toys seems to be enough for Hank, and no amount of harassing chickens and our older dogs seems to be enough for new-kid-on-the-block Hank. But, again, he’s a puppy so what can I expect? And since he is a lab he has some big freaking paws, which equals, lots of muddy dirt getting shoved up in between his toes, muddy dirt that holds onto the dog for dear life, but relaxes and falls off once the mud can sense it has reached the safety of my freshly vacuumed carpet. And I think Hank is secretly conspiring against me. Why? Well, he sits ‘patiently’ at the door, meaning he tries to jump up and open it himself which covers my door in mud, then walks in nicely on the tile and shows no signs of lingering mud. Then he makes it to the carpet and he’s off, tearing across the floor or shaking vigorously leaving behind little mud-speckled paw prints.

I’m getting real tired of this mud out here surrounding our house. And I keep having this vision that right now it’s just a hassle because the new dog is young and my bigger Swamp Monster just doesn’t know how to elegantly de-boot and pants. But I fully know that as these boys grow they’ll just keep getting muddier and dirtier, because a sandbox and laps around the house can only be fun for so long….eventually they’ll adventure down the forest paths on their quads which will chuck mud into places mud should not be in. Then they will track it into my home because they are boys and, more importantly, they are kids.

And if I have to choose between a clean, mud free, house or happy healthy kids…..then I say bring on the mud, me and my carpet cleaner will hold on for this wild ride.

Holy guacamole….I am so sorry for the huge time lapse from my last post and right now. A lot of things in my personal life started building up and I mentally took a little vacation, which in hindsight is ironic that I took a break from my blog because I started my blog to have a mental outlet and get all my beaming brilliance *rolls eyes* out.

And I had no idea that I had so many comments on previous posts, for some reason the notifications didn’t start popping into my inbox until a month ago, and if you’re wondering why I didn’t get into my blog then and address my comments, well let me tell you. WordPress, apparently not that easy to break into when you forget all your login information, and apparently no amount of password reset can save you when you, apparently, had a blog from 2016 with the same e-mail address. So, after what may be hundred of cups of coffee, ferocious typing, and a lot of cursing, I did it. I don’t exactly know what I did but I managed to get back into my blog that I started for myself. I might never log out of my blog again but gosh darnit, I’m back in so I don’t care.

Thank you for anybody who had previously commented, your words are always welcome here; whether they be encouraging or critiquing your comments are appreciated, and I deeply apologize for the break. You’re all wonderful humans.

So….with that in mind….I really hope you’re all still here, or I hope new readers join and follow along on my adventures, because things are getting interesting over here y’all.

What causes fear, anxiety and stress in someone’s life? I’d like to answer with “My mini-human”, in his defense I have a crazy brain but still, at age two you think he would be a little more understanding of my needs. God, so selfish, like he doesn’t know any better.

Before we moved onto land we had a small lot that we fully fenced in, and there were no ponds, no random wild animals that could potentially ruin his day, no way of getting lost amongst the woods and what not. But here, good lord.

Even when we were first considering moving up here I knew the woods were going to stress me out because I just keep thinking one day mini-human is going to get loose and go for a walk and get lost. And in my defense THAT ALMOST HAPPENED. However, getting lost in the woods was really the only concern on my mind.

And then we moved in. And I met my neighbor, who by the way is the best, and she has 5 boys of her own. After our almost-losing-mini-human-in-the-woods debacle (he tried to take himself for a walk) we were talking about it and she told me that the woods are her fear not that her little boys will get lost, but because of bears. Ummmm okay that thought hadn’t crossed my mind and I’m not sure why. So then I started to get anxious and I was asking what else were up here; and apart from bears, coyotes, and elk nothing too terribly harmful. Yeah, my brain was already running wildly out of control with this new information, which again I should have assumed there would be bigger critters anyways. I kept thinking that maybe one of the kids was going to ride their bike too close to the forest and a bear was going to charge out, or a little coyote was going to be feral and bite their faces off. And what about cougars??? I know they haven’t seen them up here but surely they make an appearance here and there I would think. I guess because our land butts up to the highway I thought we were exempt from experiencing dangerous animals? Turns out, not true guys.

Then we came across a small pond right up front by the beginning of the forest. Awesome. Now not only do I have to worry about rogue critters but them falling into the water or pushing each other in. In all fairness it’s really difficult to get to the pond as it is surrounded by sticker bushes and all kind of brush but surely my mini’s would find a way.

Then thinking about them falling into the pond and getting stuck made me think ‘well if they can fall in a pond what about a toilet?’. Let me explain, I watch how my mini gets up onto that seat and he puts either hand on the seat (I know gross but this is why we have soap) and then stands up to sit. What if his hand slips and he gives himself a dangerous swirly?

This is what my brain does. It can take something so benign and WHAMP! That is now the source of my fear. Forks? Eyeball skewers. Straws? Throat jabber. Stairs? Back breaker.

I could go on and on but I’m sure you see where I am coming from. And I’m sure you’re thinking “just watch your kids duh” and I do. It’s not like they are partying by themselves all day while I give myself a mani (I should do that soon my nails are ew). These are just the things that run through my brain on the daily. This is why I have Melatonin (because at night that’s when my brain really jumps into full crazy) and Theanine.

Maybe I should try yoga? Or maybe I should just tie the children to chairs for the whole day and sit on the porch so we are still getting our fresh air…..be back later I need to run to Home Depot…

So, by now I have made it abundantly clear that my mini-human (and my oldest niece) live for their “dirt bikes”. I mean people, when I have to take my child to the car in the morning to get him to family members who watch him while I’m at work I have to make sure his “dirt bike” is nowhere in sight when I head out to warm up my car. Because if his little butt see’s his “dirt bike”, game over, I have to battle him to get in the car at 6:50AM and take away his bike. My neighbor has five boys so she’s okay with the early morning battles.

Anyways, let’s get back to the post, I think I’m going to start making myself a jacket and putting little awards on it for the number of times I have had to save both mini-human’s “dirt bikes”. Or them. My favorite story involves my precious niece, just a quick background she is almost four, she thinks she’s a princess to the point that my son bows to her, she loves dresses and fun hair, she is a girls girl. But she too loves to be outside, having fun, and most of all riding her “dirt bike”. Again these “dirt bikes”? They’re Strider bikes people, and they get ridden so much I’m shocked they aren’t destroyed. Geez sorry back to the story. So my sweet little princess of a niece comes over, after the littlest of three kids goes down for her nap we get dressed, she is in some teal light pants with glitter on the sides and a pink camo jacket. I’m still not sure why my sister insists on sending anything other than black but I just keep thinking they’re old pants that don’t matter. I’m gonna have to remember to ask. She gets her hair done up in a princess bun and my son gets dressed and we journey outside. They hop on their bikes and they are off. They’re really good about staying out of the mud unless I’m down there with them (again that anxiety likes to kick in and I’m terrified they’re going to drown in the mud), they take laps around the house and fly down my driveway. We have recently gotten chickens so my first chunk of time outside I’m in the garage harassing the girls, and they usually fly by every other minute and yell something at me. Not this particular day.

On this particular day I was minding my own business trying not to follow the kids around like a crazy clingy stalker, and for a moment I felt so at ease. And then it happened. I heard the terrible sound of my niece screaming like she was dying and yelling “HELP! I’M DYING!”. So naturally me and my thick thighs drop the chicken stuff and run like the wind because of course something tragic is occurring and from how far her voice sounded I knew it was down by the mud pit and forest. As I’m running as fast as I can (which is just sooooo fast) I keep thinking I forgot my phone in the garage how am I going to call for help? I get closer to the mud pits and I can still hear her screaming that she’s dying and needs help and I can tell that when I reach her, her precious little face is going to be red and covered in tears. And I was right about her face being red and covered in tears. But I tell you what, as soon as I reached her my face turned about 10 times redder than hers. I get there, my son is standing at the edge of the mud just chilling on his bike, staring at her and not moving. First that’s rude someone is dying and you can’t bother to help? Obviously I need to get him in the Boy Scout’s or something. And then I locate my sweet, innocent, precious niece. And I don’t see her trying to keep her head above the mud (they went straight for the deep one), I don’t see in a bears mouth, I really don’t see much. This is what I see. Her bike fell over, and the stinking handle bars caught her rubber boot strap and had her hooked. She had mud on her hands and a lone hand print on her pants. She was not dying, but I’m thinking she might have wished she was after the fact. I just stared at her because I was so relieve and so mad at the same time, that’s a really awkward sensation, like I’m super glad you aren’t actually in peril but I just spent 10 seconds panicking and on the verge of vomiting. I picked her up by her arm, half chucked her in the bushes (I held on to her but it was the nearest spot to get her out of any mud) and picked up her bike, we held hands (I held her wrist and half carried her with me), and we went up front to the porch. I didn’t even have to say anything I just pointed at my front step and she sat down, still crying. I finally relaxed and tried to reason (with a nearly four year old) that that was not a good reason to scream that they were dying. Her response was fabulous, it was along the lines of the fact that she was trapped by her bike and she was covered in mud. Apparently a hand print on your pants qualifies as being covered in mud. I was then asked if I save the bike from the mud, I just walked away and told them to go play in the driveway. Toddler’s are the most precious, but they really tick me off sometimes, especially when I have to do my fast run.

Another story involves my very own miniature human creation. It also again involves the big mud pit. At some point his bike fell over and instead of continuing to straddle it and pick it back up (like he always does guys) he decided to put one foot on it and lift it up. Do you see the problem here? He then starts getting upset and yelling at me (like it was my idea for him to pick it up in the most ridiculous fashion) to save his bike because it was getting muddy. I mean apparently on this day he was going to some bike convention and he needed his bike in prime condition? I don’t really know because since he got his bike it has never been clean. Again, I just kinda stared at him and the more he yelled at me the more I got angry. I tried to explain to him to move his fat baby foot but he was beyond reason. Sooooo instead of being a calm mom and helping my child I moved him, grabbed the bike and threw it. I mean this spurred on the breakdown but I felt good for a solid 5 seconds.

I’m sick of saving these bikes. Those are only two stories. These kids got these bikes for Easter like 2 years ago. There has been a lot of bike saving. I’m over it. Save your own bike next time tiny tyrants.

I know I don’t know who I’m kidding, I’m going to have to keep saving these bikes. This is my life, muddy bikes and breakdowns. Not always, but I solid portion. And I’m okay with that.

Have I mentioned lately that my mini-human feels the need to be outside 24/7/365? If I haven’t believe me people, every single day he thinks he needs to be outside. All. Stinking. Day. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t want my child to grow up inside on his tablet all day or watching Snow Buddies (our current favorite) with his blanky and Monks. I’ll introduce Monks in a different post. But somedays, it’s just better if he does stay inside.

For example, my child could be dying of the bubonic plague during a freak blizzard storm in -100 degree weather and he would still demand that he be let outside. If it is pouring down rain and you have a heinous-as-all-get-out cough, you are staying inside. If it is 15 degrees outside and it is snowing and your nose is pouring some disgusting green mucous that you can literally blow bubbles in, you are staying inside. If you are ill chances are my mini-human, that you won’t get to go outside, sort of.

Sometimes though it’s hard to discern whether my mini-human’s cough/sneeze/runny nose is due to an actual cold or just some stinking allergies. This is when my overbearing Mama Bear decision making skills kick in. On the one hand, if it is allergies and I am keeping him inside I’m basically a demon in his eyes, but on the other hand if he is actually sick and I keep him inside….well I’m still the mean demon but it’s justified guys. Why can’t children come with a little diagnostics dashboard, we could do it like how they check your car. But I suppose that would save parents the internal struggle and self questioning and well, that just won’t do.

A lot of the times I bounce back and forth with ‘sure let’s bundle up like we’re running the Iditarod and go outside for five minutes’ and ‘go color a picture there’s no way you’re getting outside’. But, I have discovered a fun attribute of my new home. Off our living room we have a nice sliding glass door that goes onto a decent sized deck in the sky with a huge cover and no stairs to escape into swamp land (it’s weird right that the door to the back of the house goes to a deck with no stairs so you can’t actually get out back from the back right?) Soooooo….I have learned the art of compromise when it comes to the mini-humans demanding nature with regards to venturing outside in less than ideal weather. I live in Washington, and if you know anything about Washington that is that it rains, a lot. So on days when I am losing the battle, with my small child, I let him get dressed and bring his “dirt bike” on the back deck. He feels like he is playing outside (which technically he is) and I don’t have to worry about him getting soaked followed by turning into a not-so-delicious popsicle due to the wind. Everybody wins. I mean I lose when that “dirt bike” magically makes its way inside, so then I get to play herd dog and guide my sneaky guy back onto the porch.

Sometimes it’s okay to compromise, sometimes you don’t have to. I’ve learned to balance both. Some days I lose, somedays I come out ahead. Either way we both usually end up happy, because at the end of the day, if my mini-human is happy I am happy. I mean bonus fact he usually passes out hhhhhaaaarrrdddd when he’s had too much fresh air so that’s a happy side effect of raising a boy who consumes his fair share of fresh air.

Have I recently mentioned that my mini human is obsessed with the outdoors, more specifically finding any reason to be near the mud, around the mud, in the mud? Well in case you missed that part he loves being dirty, excuse me, filthy. He loves getting head to toe filthy. And I love that about him, I hate the aftermath but I love how many hours on end he can be outside entertaining himself.

Like I said though, the aftermath is awful. Even on sunny days, certain parts of our land (have I mentioned the ‘mud pits’) are so saturated with moisture they are perpetually soggy. So by the end of the day, what started out as a clean pretty little two year old boy, returns to my front door wanting to come in looking like a little swamp monster most of the time. Do you think a washing machine deserves that kind of abuse? Probably not. And honestly my washing machine and dryer is one of my top favorite Christmas presents so there is no way at all that I’m going to risk ruining them if I can help it.

So back to the swamp monster, somehow I need to pre-clean my men’s clothes when they’ve had a ‘productive’ day. Let me tell you, no matter how you lay the clothes on the ground outside to spray, it just doesn’t seem to cut it. Not to mention you’re basically making more mud underneath the clothes you are trying to semi-de-mud because you know…..water + dirt under clothes=more mud. So what to do what to do. Wellllllllll….you make the people, who destroyed their once clean clothes, keep them on and simply spray them off while still on their owners. I have no idea why this works better than laying them on flat ground and spraying them off but it does work better. Could it be it’s just fun to spray off mud monsters and hope that they figure out that getting muddy might not be worth it? Probably. Mostly. It’s really fun and evil and I absolutely condone this behavior. You’ll get to hear yelling and fighting and you think to yourself ‘they aren’t going to do that again look at how cold and miserable they are’.

Yeah, that’s not true. Because no matter how hard you spray someone with a hose, no matter how cold they are, no matter how much they hate it; they will still go out the following day and get covered in mud, head to toe.

Swamp monsters are the bane of my existence, but those disgusting, smelly, gross, vile swamp monsters are my whole world. I wish they smelled less and took less work to clean up, but I love them. All of them. From my person home grown mini-human to my partner in crime, even my oldest niece occasionally. I love you muddy little swamp monsters.