It's Rude To Say I Told You So

If you happen to be new here, and we know your not because all I write about are my kids and my thoughts and you would have to know me to appreciate my thoughts or my wry sense of humor, and perhaps you might even need to know my kids (but they are pretty stinking awesome) to want to read about us, but just in case you are new here and don't already know this...

I have four kids. Four kids aged 5 and under. I have learned a whole boatload of lots of tons of things with those four children. And, I know you may not believe this, but I still don't know it all.

It's okay. I have dealt with this. You should too.

Chocolate therapy solves a multitude. <---that one was a freebie, people. The next Self Help nugget will cost ya.

Worse than not knowing it all, it would appear that perhaps I am not even filing away those things that I have learned.

What? You always learn from your mistakes the first time?

Good for you, Smarty-pants.

Anyway...this isn't about you. It's about me and my kids and my thoughts. So let's talk about that, hmmm?

Four of 'em. Which means I have had three opportunities to learn from this mistake. And I still made it with Anna. Well, two mistakes actually.

I hate putting shoes on babies. To encase those sweet little toes in anything other than perhaps socks or footed pajamas just seems a waste of good foot kissing time to me. About the time I decide that maybe, just maybe, those footsies need shoesies, the child in question will start trying to walk.

And I hold off on the shoes. Because I love to watch those pudgy toes dig in and learn to become the balance setters that they are meant to be. I love hearing the sweet thud, thud, ka-thump as Baby takes a step or two and lands on their bummy. But mostly, I just think it helps their sense of balance. It's the massage therapist in me.

Sooo...by the time I finally get around to putting shoes on the baby, well, it just ain't pretty. There is much screaming and jamming and jerking and wailing. And then the kid gets upset because I am trying to shove their precious foot into a leather encasement and they join me in my not-so-merry noise.

The Lesson I Should Have Learned Three Kids Ago, Or At Least Two Kids Ago - PUT SHOES ON THE KID BEFORE IT IS NECESSARY.


Oh yeah, by the time I got those sweet little Mary-Jane's strapped on my Anna Joy, there were many tears. And then she refused to walk. She stood there, lifting her leg like a cat in paper boots, and glared at me. Then she kerplunked down on her bummie and refused to stand. It was back to crawling.

She did finally give in and start walking. After a few moments, she was a Master of Walking in Shoes.

The other thing that I might could have saved myself some frustration over was introducing a sippy cup my children earlier. My kids have always been about a year old before I bother and it has taken a couple of weeks to coax them into giving up their bottle in favor of the sippy cup. Anna? She only took three months.

I must have picked up that stinking sippy cup from the floor (where she would throw it in a fit of rage upon be presented with it rather than her beloved bottle) 22,764 times. Give or take a thousand or so.

The Lesson I Should Have Learned Three Kids Ago, Or At Least Two Kids Ago - Offer the sippy cup to the child before they are old enough to create nasty habits...such as having opinions and preferences. Like, oh, four weeks before they are born. Or at least at about 7-8 months. Or not.


But now? Professional Sippy Cup User.

All this to say? Yeah, I started them out incredibly late in a few areas, but after a few temper tantrums and a bald spot or two, they are fine.

But if there is a baby number five....I am just saying I might do things a little differently. If I remember.

Which is why I am writing this down. So I will remember these things.


And you thought it was just so you could laugh at me, didn't you?