Baby, baby

My baby isn't so much of a baby anymore.

She walks, talks, uses the potty... however, she still sleeps in my bed AND she still nurses, so, for the time being, she still fits in the baby category!

Every once in a while, I consider starting a real-true-weaning program rather than just casual suggestions to her that someday she'll be too big to grood (that's a code word, since my kids nurse all the way up through being able to verbally ask for it -- hopefully, people who hear them yell for grood simply figure the childspeak is lost on them).

This post was going to be about how each of my babies has gone through the weaning, and it keeps happening in other ways.

But instead, I want it to be about how my baby is a KANGAROO now!

That's right -- she was given a beautiful Cinderella dress for her birthday, but when it came time to choose a costume, she picked the ol' Kangaroo one... and she won't take it off!

She has worn it day and night for two days already!

Something funny: someone asked her if she was a kangaroo and she gave them a puzzled look and said, "No, I'm Cinderella!"

Here she is: a Kangaroo for All Occasions:

Sleeping Peacefully (nevermind that tail)

Eating normal kangaroo fare: noodles

Storing Halloween Loot in her Kangaroo Pouch!

BOOK REPORT

I keep books on my bedside table. I suppose that's not unusual.

What IS unusual is that they are far LESS likely to get read if they are there... because I tend to fall asleep before I get around to reading them.

If I really, really, really, really want/need to read a book (like for the awesome book club I belong to), I have to carry it around with me all day long.

Well, one book that has sat on my bedside table for months, maybe even years, is called The Entitlement Trap, by Richard and Linda Eyre. I have finally gotten around to reading it! Not because I carried it around the house, but because my baby, whom I still nurse to sleep in my bed, has started to ask -- or rather demand -- that the light stay on.

As much as I love to sleep, now that I have read this book, I kick myself that I let sleep take priority over this PHENOMENAL book -- I should have read it AGES ago and solved all of my parenting problems!

The Eyres have been writing parenting books for decades. They have nine children of their own, all of whom have at least a bachelor's degree and have served missions for our church. I have read several of their books and have had the pleasure of meeting the authors more than once. In fact, that very book that lay ignored on my bedside table is signed by them!

Anywho, their credentials are significant, and I probably could have endorsed this, their 46th book, even before I read it. However, I am so glad that I read it. It is simply incredible in its value! It is a succinct summary of their best and most important parenting practices, all compiled in this book for the purpose of helping our children recognize entitlement for the trap that it is rather than being tricked into believing it solves problems.

The authors are so experienced in many ways -- not just with the raising of their nine, but also with the writing of their many books, that this one is like the culmination of all of that invaluable experience, ready for me to put the plans into action.

That's the hard part. Unfortunately, metaphorically speaking, sometimes the ideas and ideals I learn through reading stay on the bedside table of my brain while I opt to sleep instead of making the effort to behave differently based on the book.

Well, this book report is my first step in choosing to act! One of the major themes of the book is goal-setting, and teaching our children to do it by doing it ourselves. So I am putting in writing the goal to write a blog post daily! Hooray! I did it today!! I pledge to do it again tomorrow!

E in SMILE... should be for eating...

For the first time in my life, I joined a book club! Having never belonged to one before, I'm not sure if the potluck part of it is normal or not... but it's sure great! Such a delight to get together with other mothers and discuss uplifting and interesting material. And eat. Yum!

Interestingly, the woman who started the book club ten years ago shared her story of how it started. She had been trying to get one going for two or three years and only got sparse attendance. Then she added the potluck element... All of a sudden, she had so many moms showing up that she had to limit the number to 25!

So, I admit, the "E" in S.M.I.L.E. really should be for eating. It makes me feel better to remember back to when I was hosting the convention for which I originally made up the S.M.I.L.E. acronym, I did make sure that a hot catered lunch was included in the price... I wonder how many women signed up just for that?!

Eating makes me happy. (The Clueless Mama's baloney-face)

Alas, the "E" is NOT for eating. It is for Education. And that works out in the end... After all, similar to nourishment for the body, education is essential to feeling healthy in the brain.

I've noticed that my brain does, indeed, get hungry! No, no, no, not in a weird zombie-eat-your-brains kind of way.... You know the saying: "She has a real appetite for learning!" That was written about the Clueless Mama herself! I happen to know that if my gray matter isn't getting fed every once in a while, it gets very mushy and starts leaking out my ears and I serve it to my kids for breakfast on oatmeal day. Oooohh, gross, sorry... I guess I did end up talking in the weird zombie-eat-your-brains kind of way....

The fact is, I don't like being clueless. I don't like being in a situation with my kiddos that I don't know how to handle. I don't like feeling inadequate and inexperienced. And I KNOW that there are MILLIONS of mothers out there who HAVE a clue! They have been in exactly the same situations with their children and they have figured out how to handle it! They have experience and adequacy that I want to beg, borrow, or steal -- and feed to my starving brain!!!

Mothering is not something colleges offer a Ph.D. program in. Graduation from high school isn't even necessary before you can bring a baby into the world. The lack of education required for motherhood simply does not match the job description... we cradle-rockers need to know what the heck we're doing because the next generation will be affected by our actions whether we want to admit it or not.

I will now climb down off my soapbox and go on my date with my husband. TTFN!

The "L" in S.M.I.L.E.

The above video is two minutes and 51 seconds long. If you don't have time to watch all of it, just skip to the last 30 seconds or so and see if you can find out WHY it is appropriate for this post...

CONFESSION:
In my mothering life, I AM TOO MUCH LIKE MARY POPPINS, and for heaven's sakes, I need to just let up, let loose, and LAUGH!!!! Too often I cop the 'tude of seriousness displayed so well here by Ms. Poppins (though I don't think I've ever had such a distaste for laughers. ... She comes off quite disturbed, doesn't she? Keeping the children from laughing, even!).

Come on, Mary, let's you and me lighten up! Unlike you, I'm not going to leave my kiddos when the wind changes, so I'd better learn to enjoy the time I have with them.

Laughter has become one of the instruments in my Mom-Sanity Tool Kit. I've learned that hitting myself over the head is a sure-fire giggle-maker!

It makes sense, doesn't it, for one of the letters in the word SMILE to mean Laugh? Laugh and smile aren't really synonyms -- they aren't completely interchangeable... I often smile without laughing. Yet if I laugh without smiling, I find that it's a poisonous kind of laugh -- the kind that hurts me or the people I'm around... ya know, the kind of laughing bullies do on the playground. I have to make a conscious effort not to allow that kind of laughter in my home. Period.

And sometimes I have to make a conscious effort to create the right kind of laughter -- the kind that bonds us all together, like Uncle Albert and the children. It doesn't quite seem right that laughter sometimes feels like a duty, but hey, at least it's a fun duty! And it's worth the effort!

When I'm having a hard time being motivated to laugh, it helps to think of it as multi-tasking, because somewhere I heard that laughing burns calories...

So, let's end with a joke! How about a good old-fashioned knock-knock joke.

You start it...

There is no I in SMELL

Today I will share a birth story.

Are you thinking: "Man, this Clueless Mama sure is GRAPHIC -- she writes about poop, vomit, and now blood and private body parts!"

Allow me to calm your fears by specifying that I will share the story of the birth of...

 the S.M.I.L.E. acronym

                                        ... and luckily, there was no blood or birth-related-body areas involved.

Back in 2005, when I was organizing a mothering convention, I decided I needed to be able to articulate the purposes of the convention, so that when I asked speakers to come, I could give them a clear vision of how/why/what, etc. The four words that I boiled it down to were Support, Motivation, Education, and Laughter.

Being an unabashed acronym lover, I could "SMELL" the start of an acronym, but it was obviously incomplete -- and a little bit embarrassing. Yes, I confess, as a mother, I do smell. I smell dirty diapers, I smell dinner burning... and I sometimes smell LIKE dirty diapers... but that just was not going to promote the convention in the right way...

So I moved some letters around and realized that if I could just add an I-word, then labor would be over and the acronym would be born! Puuuuuuuushhhhhhhh...

INSPIRATION!

Originally, I thought that "motivation" and "inspiration" were redundant, but a Clifford CD-ROM taught me there is a difference. (Yes, I strive to learn new things in any situation, even while helping my three-year-old play on the computer with his favorite Big Red Dog).

Motivation is about forces (innies or outies) that get us to ACT, to DO something that needs to be DONE.

Inspiration is about wanting to improve and enjoy what we already are doing.

I can be motivated to do the laundry because it's neither comfortable nor socially acceptable to be naked (oh, no, another questionable graphic)... but I can be inspired to do the laundry because I love the smell of my fabric softener or because seeing my children in stain-free clothing is a feeling of triumph!

© Fotokolosov | Dreamstime Stock Photos & Stock Free Images

Do you see the difference? Being inspired puts a touch of glory into your duty. (Don't tell my daughters that I just used the word "duty" -- the Wreck-It Ralph movie has forever made that a potty word... and my apologies to those of you who have not yet been affected!)

Reader friend, can I ask you about cooking? What motivates you to get it done, and what inspires you to do it well?

The "M" in the SMILE acronym... it's like a belly-button

Motivation is like Bellybuttons

For today's post, my one-year-old was willing to bear her belly-button as a visual for us as we discuss the "M" in the S.M.I.L.E. acronym -- the M for Motivation.

What Motivates the Clueless Mama, you may ask... and what in the world could it have to do with belly-buttons?!

Well, I've discovered that my motivation comes from two places: outside forces and inner voices. Navels, as you know, come in two kinds: outies and innies. So, there you go!

An example of an outside force that motivates me is a stinky diaper. Don't worry -- I won't go into too much descriptive detail... Suffice it to say that the scent of poop in the air gets me up out of my chair. (I'm married to a poet so that poopy rhyme is dedicated to him!)

An example of an inner voice that motivates me is the Coach in my head who is constantly rallying me to win. I know I can't win if I choose to sit out of the game... so I get up and go do what needs to be done ***even when I don't feel like it.

"But I don't feel like it" is my inner whiney voice that gets smacked around severely scolded by my inner Coach. I have to chant "I'm doin' it ANYWAY" ten times loudly to make my inner Coach happy... and it works! Try it sometime!

Amidst all of the repetitive tasks of motherhood, the mundane day-to-day ins-n-outs of running a household, this Clueless Mama needs some motivation. Sometimes the outies are more effective than the innies... but either way, it's something that gets me moving when the moving needs to happen.

Gimme an "S!" (the SMILE acronym)

As I was mulling over what I might say about the first letter in my "SMILE" acronym -- "Support," -- a greeting card came to mind about how good friends are like good bras... yeah, well, I suppose talking about over-the-shoulder-boulder-holders shouldn't be beneath me. I've talked about vomit! I'm a mom! Is there anything off-limits?

Actually, this little bantering in my own head about "what will people think?!" really gets to the root of reasons why we moms might NOT reach out and give *or get* the Support we need... We're too worried about judgements of our co-workers!

Think how nice it would be to come together after a long week of being in charge, running a household... We'd pile up a plate of refreshments (plenty of chocolate), hug each other and do that little kiss-in-the-air-near-your-cheek thing that's so endearing. We'd introduce ourselves, a little apprehensively:

"Hi, I'm Regan, and I'm a mom. It's been 12 years now. And I... still... make mistakes." The rest of you wonderful mom-friends would make sweet little noises that were like verbal pats-on-the-back.

Then we'd talk about one of the twelve steps...

Oooooohhhh, I just hit on another way to extend this blog! I'll make up a Momaholics Anonymous program! (Not that I ever worried I'd run out of material about mothering -- but this is BONUS that I'm creating *more* material as I go!!)

I pledge (repeat after me) to allow myself and the mothers in my life to learn from our mistakes in the safety and comfort of unconditional love in the no-judgement zone of my Mothering Support Group.

© Racnus | Dreamstime Stock Photos & Stock Free Images

I am so blessed to be able to list off several wonderful women (and the Main Man in my life) who make up my personal Mothering Support Group. Please, as you ponder the people who support you in your motherly role, list me, the Clueless Mama! I'm here for ya, gal!

And yet another acronym...

Well, I've taken time to briefly introduce you, friendly reader, to each element of my happy C.L.A.P. acronym! QUICK QUIZ: can you remember what each letter stands for??? Here are some hints:

C - we would rather say "Bless Our House" but it doesn't work with the acronym
L - innate from birth, yet a sad distaste grows for it as the child grows...
A - one of the few things over which we truly have complete control
P - why calendars were invented

How did you do? Well, C.L.A.P. for yourself!

Now that I've put forth the foundational aspects of C.L.A.P. for kids, I'll just cycle through and add things as they come up in my household. If I get bored of that, I can also write about Moms R Us (Remember that acronym? -- It's actually TWO acronyms together -- I've really outdone myself this time...) and each element of R.A.I.S.E. and so on and so forth.

Oooohhh, I have another acronym that I made up some years ago when I was Chairmom of the Motherboard of the Successful Mothering Convention. The purposes of the convention were neatly wrapped up in a S.M.I.L.E.

You're just wondering, aren't you.... what could those five letters have hiding behind them???

How about  that be today's blog post?!

Remember my goal to K.I.S.S. -- well, that means I will simply reveal what those letters stand for without going into great detail... in THIS post, anyways! Hopefully the anticipation for more information will keep you coming back!!!

S - Support
M - Motivate
I - Inspire
L - Laugh with
E - Educate

Hmmmm, all this KISS and SMILE stuff is getting my brain thinking about what other activities we do with our lips that could become acronyms...