10 Ways How a Toddler is like a Bro

There have been a lot of these lists going around, and they're all true. But mine is more true (because I said so and I'm pregnant and do you really want to argue with a pregnant woman in her third trimester?!) because I'm living it ... IN A HOTEL.

1. They spill things. EVERYWHERE.
I honestly don't know how toddlers are so inept. Miss O likes to spill things like juice riiiiiiight beside the laptop as she watches Paw Patrol for the millionth time (so mommy can watch Food Network on TV) but then not tell me until I come over to clean up and notice that there is a little splotch of dried up OJ roughly millimetres away from the HDMI-in plug.

2. They eat things off the floor. 
There's no 5-second rule in this house - erm, hotel. There's a "Miss O noticed it on the floor so she's going to eat it" rule. On one hand, I'm okay with it because she's building immunities with all the floor germs she's eating AND this hotel is relatively new so there's logically not as many gross germs on there. On the other hand, GROSS HOTEL FLOOR. Last night she dropped some popcorn on the floor (see the above point) and then she hopped down from her chair and proceeded to eat it off the floor. Literally. As in, she acted like a puppy dog and had her mouth almost suctioned to the hotel carpet like one of those scum suckers you see in a fish tank. And like the winning mother I am, I ignored it and asked if the popcorn was good.

3. They're loud.
The concept of "inside voice" is completely lost on a 2 year old. Her whispers sound like the normal level that I talk at, and her normal level of talking is that of a screaming banshee. When we're at home, I could care less about how loud she is because our windows are closed and you can't really hear anything between the shared walls (unless you're our douchebag former neighbours who blast their music/TV so loud the glasses shake in the cabinet). Plus, it seems like she just wasn't as loud. At the hotel, however, it's like we're stuck in an eternal tunnel and everything echoes. She was coming back from breakfast this morning with my husband and I could hear her from down the hallway, laughing and screaming joyfully as she ran to our door. Sorry, hotel neighbours. My kid has no volume control.

4. They watch shitty TV shows.
Bros watch shit like reality TV or NASCAR or whatever. Toddlers watch shit like Caillou and Dora. OH MY FUCKING LORD do I hate Caillou. It is not allowed on in our house (or hotel) even though it's on Netflix. We went through phases of Super Why!, Bubble Guppies, and now it's Paw Patrol. I get why they're liked by kids... they're easy to watch, there's catchy music, and the characters are roughly the same size as a toddler. But fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck I don't know how much more I can take.

5. They wipe their mouth/nose/hand on whatever is handy.
Miss O likes to use her own clothes. If she gets food on her finger, rather than licking it off or wiping it on a cloth nearby, she'll just wipe it on her shirt and then alert me RIGHT AWAY that there's something on her shirt that needs to be cleaned off before she can continue eating. She's come up to me after I've gotten dressed and ready for work, and wiped her face on my shirt for no reason. And I was equally running late and too lazy to change my shirt, so I went to work with peanut butter smeared on it #likeaboss

6. They're both picky and not picky at the same time. 
Bros will pretend to be pretentious sometimes and require that their steak be ONLY prime rib, but then they'll eat a hot dog from a random cart by the bar and proclaim it's the best thing they've ever eaten. Toddlers are the same way. Miss O will have moments of not wanting to eat anything that we put in front of her, even if it's something we know that she's loved before, but then we plop a peanut butter sandwich in front of her and it's like it was covered in gold. She's even gone so far as to proclaim things as " so 'licious" which is both adorable and baffling.

7. They're okay to sit in dirty undergarments.
Okay. So this one might have a bit to do with parents slacking on diaper changes - for toddlers. Bros can just be lazy. After picking up Miss O from daycare, there are a lot of times that we just don't think to check her diaper or change it before bedtime comes some 5 hours later. Then we go to change it and it's like oh man.... that is one full diaper. With bros, there's no way I'm touching their undergarments wearing a hazmat suit.

8. They can nap at any time. 
This does change throughout the years, but Miss O can take a nap in the afternoon pretty much anywhere. She fell asleep at my parent's house on the couch and it was darn near impossible to wake her up, even though she decided 5pm was the good time to sleep. When she was smaller, she would take more naps pretty much whenever she felt it necessary, even if we had shit to do. Come to think of it, this point applies to my husband as well. That guy can fall asleep at any time and it drives me absolutely bonkers. Further to this, they talk in their sleep. I would have made this a point all on it's own, but... oh well.

9. Their mood can flip from amiable to angry in an instant.
Sure, with bros, their moods flip based on alcohol consumption. Toddler's change based on a number of things. It could be hungry, thirsty, bored, full diaper, you're not paying enough attention to them... the list goes on. Miss O will go from playful to shouting at me in the matter of minutes if I decide that I've had enough of her jumping all over me and ask her to stop. Seriously though, toddlers have pointy elbows and knees and when you combine that with a pregnant baby belly, it gets dangerous. But she doesn't care about that, all she cares about is playing.

10. They're adorable at the weirdest times. 
Sometimes, you just can't help hugging a bro. Their lost, absent look sometimes just strikes a chord and makes you go "awwww". I have that moment with my toddler, but usually it's when she's being nice. Such as sitting nicely and watching her shows quietly. That makes me want to just smoosh her with hugs. But then she tries to get away and we start the cycle of number 9 all over again.

Even though most of you knew that toddlers and bros were alike, you try dealing with all of the above in the confines of a small hotel room and then get back to me. Maybe a bro would actually help do the fucking dishes once in awhile...

I Done a Thing

Further to the whiny post where I claimed I was super boring (truth), I was commissioned by Message With a Bottle to write an article. He suggested I do one about gestational diabetes, as my previous posts in here have whined about it enough. 

View my entry here. 

I was so excited. And so proud. And goddamn scared because where, sure, blogging is public to an extent (I've selected to have this blog unsearchable but still public) this was a site with a lot of views. And a lot of people expecting funny things. I think I'm funny, but would random people on the internet? 

On the note of GD, I checked in with my dietician today and I think I'm going to be okay without insulin for the time being. But I managed to come across the spreadsheet I used last time to keep track of my sugars... and sweet baby Jesus, I'm about 90% sure I needed insulin last time but the dietician I was dealing with last time decided that I didn't need to or something. Like, all of my numbers were high. I had more high numbers than I did numbers under the recommended amounts. This time around, I've only had a couple overages and they're explainable by "I just didn't care what I was eating". Yes, I'm that person right now. 

Morning Sickness and Other Stories

If there is one phrase synonymous with pregnancy, it's "morning sickness". Everyone just assumes that once you become pregnant, you're going to be bed-ridden with the ante-meridian sickies but that you'll be totally fine once you pass the hump of the first trimester.

These "people" are either
a) men;
b) women who have never been pregnant;
c) women who somehow got amnesia after being pregnant before; or
d) the magical unicorns of pregnancy who just float by without any fucking symptoms and are adorable their entire pregnancy.

Morning sickness, as it is so called, is actually the biggest load of crap you'll deal with in pregnancy. And yes, I can actually say that with utmost certainty because a high percentage of women will deal with more puke coming out of them than poop. #constipation

It doesn't just last in the morning. It doesn't just last in the first trimester. It's not always just a case of feeling a little "off" and that you need some water or to lie to down. Or that crackers or dry toast or gingerale will help alleviate it. For some women, including a couple friends of mine and the Duchess of Cambridge, get it so bad that they literally have to be hospitalized. And this is how they feel the ENTIRE pregnancy.

With my first child, I was somewhat of a magical unicorn. I only had mild nausea in the first trimester, and it was always at night/suppertime. I wasn't working at the time so I was able to just lie down and take a nap whenever my body said it wanted to. And my husband didn't really care if he got home and I was comatose on the couch and he had to fend for himself for supper. This time around? I had to delve into the world of prescription anti-nausea pills (Diclectin) at roughly 10 weeks pregnant and here I am, 22 weeks later, and I'm still taking them daily. I work, I have a toddler to take care of, my husband is out of town working, and I'm dealing with all of this house re-building bullshit. My body is also 4 years older than it was when pregnant with my first, and it's like "HAHAHA FUCK YOU BITCH WHY DID YOU WANT TO DO THIS AGAIN" as I lie on the couch praying I don't lose whatever I just attempted to eat.

I told my workplace early - as in I was only like 8 weeks pregnant - because I came to work one morning with a box of junior mints, a coke slurpee, and gummy candies. At 830 in the morning. And they kind of stared at me like I was crazy. So, the cat was out of the bag and I just didn't care that they knew. If anything were to have happened, I would at least have a good explanation as to why I was moping around.

But all of that has absolutely nothing to do with why I'm writing today.

This post goes out to all of the women who willingly choose to keep going with the baby farming despite how shitty they feel.

I get it. Kids are pretty awesome, especially when you can grow them yourself. Some women (or men, for that matter) want a million kids to overpopulate the world with (shit, I sound bitter)so they just keep on doing "what God wants and allows them to do". I'm about 900% sure that God has nothing to do with you choosing to use your baby bucket so often that the kid is lucky it doesn't just fall out.

I am certainly and definitely grateful that I am able to create and carry life. But I also know that if I felt exponentially shittier this pregnancy compared to my last, that I am done with utilizing my baby bucket. I know women who have what seems like a million kids (enough to fill a Hutterite van at least) who feel like hot salty garbage every pregnancy... AND THEY KEEP GOING. Why. Why do they continue to do this to themselves? And further, why do they continue to complain about how shitty they feel?

"Ugggh. Morning sickness is so bad! How did I forget this from last time?" they moan, when their previous child is less than a year old. Sometimes I just want to tell them to shut the hell up, they did it to themselves.

But I much prefer being passive-aggressive and writing a blog post about them.

OMG Like So Boring

One of my favourite blogs... okay, that's actually factually inaccurate because it started as a FB feed, then delved into Tumblr and Instagram, THEN blogging... A Message With a Bottle put out a call over the weekend for contributors, as his life and site were getting way too busy. The guy also writes articles, has a couple books such as Thank You for Not Laughing, The New Dad Dictionary, and these two winners about being an asshole and getting away with it. 

I started following him - in the social media sense, not a literal stalking sense - when I had just had my daughter and a friend had posted some of his hilarious post-it notes on Facebook. It was kind of an epiphany, to me, that I had the same thoughts that others did when it came to the odd situations you find yourself in as a parent... not to mention a father. Where that seems a bit sexist on my part, which I freely admit it is, when you are the stay-at-home parent and your significant other goes off to work every day, you kind of fall back into sexist stereotypes. 

So Chris puts out the call for contributors, and I'm excited. I love writing, and I love being a sarcastic asshole about life. And parenting, I guess. So I skim his post and shoot off an email, being witty and carefree and all that jazz. 

Then I go back and read the original call for contributors. 

"We’re Looking For A Few Good — And We’ll Even Consider Average — Parents To Join MWAB

Leave a reply

Hey! It’s me, the guy who runs this place. Yeah, the post-it note guy.

Here’s the deal — this website is growing rapidly and it’s gone way beyond a one man operation. I can’t do this alone, and frankly, I don’t want to. So that’s where all of you come in. I’m looking for writers. Hell, you don’t even have to BE a writer. I’m looking for people to help create content.

So what’s content? Well it’s anything that moms and dads would give a crap about. Do you have an insane hobby people would want to read about? Is your regular job fascinating to strangers? Do you cook, build, destroy or do anything in the free hours not spent dragging kids from place to place that you want to share with others? Well, that’s content.

Even if you’ve already got a website, Tumblr or creative outlet for your passion, I still want to hear from you. Let’s work together! <– said like an annoying kid’s show character"

Shit. Did he just say a hobby or job that's fascinating that other people would want to read about? So I'm wracking my brain for what I do and I draw an enormous blank. I knit. I crochet. I cook. I bake. I parent. That's about all that I've got going on, and with pregnancy number 2 knocking me on my ass (why hello, 3 hours of sleep last night because of NO REASONS AT ALL) I barely squeak by on one of those options. I'll give you a hint: it's the only one that I have to do legally. 

I blatantly sucked up in my email, even made notice of it, with how I bought & read his Thank You for Not Laughing book. It was one of the first purchases I made on my Kindle, so that's saying something. I know that I said something along the lines of how I could offer a female perspective on parenting and going through the whole pregnancy and birth bullshit, but no one wants to read about that. There are already SO MANY OTHER sites that do that, like ScaryMommy, so why bog down this lighthearted site with posts about how much of a pain it is to be pregnant etc. 

All in all, even though Chris was nice enough in the response email stating that he got so many offers of contributions (I seriously don't know why he was surprised - we live in the digital age where outside is something to fear and the Internet is our best friend) so he'd reply  back with specifics later n the week, I don't think I'm interesting enough to offer something to an already incredible website. Does this depress me? Sure, at the root of it. But if anything it makes me want to find a better hobby than yarn crafts so that I can impress people. 

Or I can just say that I've literally stood elbow to elbow with the Mayor of Saskatoon (The Atch himself) as we attempt to correctly say names during a lot draw.