MamaBlogga

In the month of October, my children threw up 17 times in 17 days. This is one of their stories.

DUNK-DUNK!

Once upon a time, I decided to take my kids out on a fun trip all by myself. Usually, I try to avoid leaving the house . . . ever, but every once in a while, I’m overtaken by this idea that I should, you know, try to expose my children to fun learning experiences. I want to be a Supermom—you know the kind, those ladies who take their kids out, dressed adorably and coordinated-ly, for the requisite hour of active play every! day! with water bottles and Craisins and carrot sticks, and then they return for hour number five of reading and mind play . . .

Actually doing this in a tiny way, especially with some small amount of forethought and planning (like making them sandwiches to eat in the car!), makes me feel like an incredibly good mom.

So to be completely honest, doing this is at least a little bit to make me feel good about the job I’m doing as a mom. Which is probably totally hypocritical.

Amazing how much three little sandwiches can lull a mom into a false sense of competence, isn’t it?

But how hard could it be? It was a place geared for kids, so it couldn’t be as difficult as, say, visiting the dentist, grocery shopping, or walking down the street.

My kids believe they’re bored and living in near-prison conditions by the end of the average commercial break, so naturally they rejoiced, especially when they realized we weren’t, say, visiting the dentist or grocery shopping—because, hey! sandwiches! Oh, and the dinosaur place.

All until we got inside.

Which was, of course, Mommy Code.

Naturally, once she got out of the stroller and played with the exhibits, she loved every minute.

But when it was time to leave, she began complaining again.

Rebecca had already complained over 12,000 times (approximately) that she didn’t wike dis p’ace, that the dinosaurs scared her, that she didn’t like the noise, that world peace was taking so long to achieve, that gravity was a cruel mistress, &c.

Having exhausted all her logical arguments, Rebecca devolved into vowelless mumbling arpeggios in the key of whine.

Being the kind, understanding mommy that I am, I’d kind of had it.

I was unprepared for the sight that I found waiting.

I’d naively assumed that because it had been four days since the last time anyone had vomited, we were puke free.

Not so. Not so.

After wallowing in the horror! the horror! for a minute, I leapt into Competent-Mommy-Mode. (If you’re counting, that’s mode #3 after spontaneous & fun and fed up.)

Unfortunately for competent-mommy me, rather than using a floorplan with flow-through to the lobby, this museum had funneled us into a closed circuit, hiding the exits to the lobby behind doors with ominous warnings, like emergency alarms were going to screech if we came too close.

Rebecca, of course, is still crying, now covered in cold puke. I’m trying to reassure her, and yet get her to remain completely motionless—because she’s sharing this stroller with Rachel who has miraculously remained clean so far. Hayden is trotting along after us as fast as he can. This stroller was not built for jogging.

After running through the same tracks about three times, I finally gave up and opened the surely-alarmed doors that were about ten feet from where we started.

Who’s doing the pleading? Oh, it’s me.

And hello, lobby (with no emergency alarms).

Finally, after cleaning up my daughter, her clothes, her hair, her shoes, her stroller, and me, using mostly my bare hands, and clothing her in the spare jackets I’d brought for her and Hayden, I plopped Rachel on my hip and maneuvered us all out to the car. And I could move into Mommy Phase Four of the day:

Two hours ahead of schedule!

But I think the real punchline came just after dinner that night. Rebecca was convalescing on the couch, until round 2 began. Hayden ran to tell me—and mid-shout . . . well, that should probably be censored, too.

Have you been through Pukeageddon? Share your war stories!

Hayden is very interested about when Rebecca and Rachel will have babies. I have tried to convince him it will not be for a long time (I’m hoping around 20 years here), but he still brings it up from time to time.

Both girls do love to play with baby dolls and stuffed animals. My in-laws just gave Rachel a stuffed caterpillar that’s a miniature version of her lovey, “Callie” (they didn’t actually know about Callie). We call the little one “Baby Callie,” because we’re imaginative like that.

But today, before and after her nap, Rachel has adopted a new favorite:

Yes, a book. But what book?

Oookay. She also bawled for twenty minutes when Rebecca took it from her (and started screaming when I took it to turn it around). I think she hadn’t quite gotten through it yet. But she does like the sound of flipping the pages.

(I don’t know why I have this book.)

I’m the oldest of four daughters. While we were growing up, my dad would often (i.e. at least weekly) encourage us to eat some portion of our dinner with the promise, “It’ll put hair on your chest!”

As you can imagine, this didn’t really motivate us.

We were just on vacation at my parents’ house (home again; feels so good not to have that trek hanging over my head!). Hayden was reluctant to eat his Venetian pasta rolls. My dad hastened to assure him, “It’ll put hair on your chest!”

My brother-in-law joined in. “You want a hairy chest, don’t you? Like Papa, right?” (My dad.) “Like Daddy?”

“Yeah,” Hayden said. “Papa has a hairy chest. So does my dad.” He dropped his voice to a mutter. “So does my mom.”

At the time, I knew anything I said would’ve made it worse. But I think I missed the obvious punchline:

“See? It works!”

What silly phrases from your childhood come back to haunt you?

It happens almost every day and almost every week. About the 18,000 sentence beginning with or consisting entirely of “Mom?”, something inside just snaps.

I know I’m not the only one being smothered with an endless chorus of requests, information, statements, status checks, questions, and, let’s be honest, stalling while a child thinks of something they wanted to say.

It doesn’t matter if there are 28 other adults in the room capable of getting that glass of water, or if Daddy is already holding the cup—seriously, I think they think every question/sentence has to begin with “Mom.” Like, it’s not grammatically complete without “Mom” in it.

(Hint: it doesn’t, and it is.)

As I’ve written this and made the lovely illustrative graphic, without exaggerating, I can safely say my kids have called my name 10 times, and asked for one nonspecific thing. My favorite was when Rebecca was sitting next to me and said “Mom . . . But, Mom. . . . But, Mom . . . But, Mom—I bettay sit atta table.”

I know they’re not purposefully trying to wear me out—it’s just a happy coincidence that I end each day three “Mom?”s away from a psychotic break.

Maybe I should stop encouraging Rachel to learn to say “Mama.”

What do your kids do over and over and over and over ad nauseam, ad infinitum, ad delirium, ad mortem?

By Danyelle Ferguson

Motherhood is a peculiar journey. We never know what our children will be like, what their future holds, nor how it will change our path in life.

I certainly never expected to have a child with mental disabilities. The last nine years have been filled with experiences I would never imagined could be a part of motherhood. But along with the frustrations and stress, there were many joyful moments of success and pride. There are a few lessons I’ve learned during this crazy journey called motherhood.

Love Yourself

The most important criteria of being a good mom is loving yourself. We give so much of our time and energy to our children that it’s easy to get burned out. Don’t be afraid to take time for a girls night out, a long soak in a hot, bubbly bath, or just some quiet time in your car with a drink and book. Whatever relaxes you or makes you happy, find a way to squeeze it in. I’ve had to pick and choose which hobbies or talents to make time for over the years.

For many years, I went once a month to a weekend scrapbooking event. Then my focus changed to writing, so I figured out some time during the week that I could take a few hours to go to a bookstore and write without munchkins pulling on me. If you take the time to decompress from the everyday routine of being a mama, then you will be a much happier person, mother, and wife.

Cross Perfection Off Your List

I used to get so discouraged after visiting a friends whose homes were always spotless. I felt like such a failure that I couldn’t keep up with all my mommy duties and housework like these other women I looked up to. But then, my Relief Society president gave a lesson one Sunday and told us that we needed to cross perfection off our lists. Our Savior Jesus Christ is the only perfect being who ever lived on Earth. While we need to strive to keep the commandments and be good Christian women, having a spotless house, perfect highlights & nails, or the kids with the best grades are not things are not requirements to get into Heaven.

It’s perfectly fine to have mountains of laundry to wade through, toys strewn across your house, and be in desperate need of a haircut. In fact, its absolutely normal! In the last four years, I’ve rearranged my housework. Every Saturday, our family works together to clean the house. Everything gets picked up, vacuumed, and scrubbed. Then during the week, I try to do one or two loads of laundry each day—taking the weekends off. My laundry baskets are never empty and the weekend is the only time my house isn’t cluttered with toys, but I have so much less stress because I’ve accepted that our house isn’t perfect. It’s lived in and the family living there is happy and loved.

Laugh Often

Be quick to laugh, rather than get upset. This is actually difficult for me and I am constantly working on it. But our family is definitely happier when mom’s not a crank. Looking back at some of the most stressful mommy moments, I can see that when my hubby cracked jokes and made me laugh, I relaxed enough to think things through better. And my shoulders weren’t constantly tied up with tension knots. Shared laughter is something the whole family will remember forever.

One of my favorite quotes is “Live, Laugh, Love.”

Remember to live your life rather than be focused on perfection, share laughter with your family, and love yourself so you can give the best of yourself to your family.

About the Author
Danyelle Ferguson is the mother of four angels-in-training and the author of (dis)Abilities and the Gospel. You can find out more about her on her website: www.DanyelleFerguson.com or on her blog: www.QueenOfTheClan.com.

Photo of girl hugging herself by Evan Long

Hayden came in my room the other morning. He held up one hand, and held his other hand in a claw shape, running his fingers up and down his upright palm. “Do you know what this is?”

I didn’t know whether he’d ever heard of “a spider doing push ups on a mirror,” but he did just hear the brain sucker joke the other day . . . but apparently I hesitated too long because he just told me.

“It’s my hand scratching my other hand.”

One of Rebecca’s favorite foods (and there are only a few she likes at all) is peanut butter. She knows where to find the knives.

The other day she brought me a butter knife and something from the shelf where we keep peanut butter. In the end, she didn’t like the prunes.

Rachel found her feet!

Things I’d hoped would never be uttered in my house:

“No, we can’t eat POOP!”

“That fly just landed on Rebecca’s diaper. Oh—then it keeled over.”

Hayden and I were grocery shopping a few weeks ago. As usual, he asked for something on just about every aisle. Twice. Three times. I unflinchingly said no.

Finally, Hayden had had enough. “Why do you always say no?”

“Because it’s my favorite word,” I quickly replied.

“Well, my favorite word is yes.”

“Great—so, if I told you to clean the whole house when we get home, you’d say yes?”

He only hesitated a second before he said, “Yes!”

Sadly, I decided quiet time was more important than enforcing our child labor contract.

Share your cute kid stories!