The other week my 3 year old son decided to give his 4 year old brother a shove, to which he responded by punching him square in the face. Ba boom! Smacko!

Tears galore!

A few days later on the way home from kindy Finley (the 3 year old who I might add JUST turned 3 in December) announced that he had a girlfriend.

He’s only been attending kindergarten for 3 short weeks and yet he declares proudly that he has indeed got one and they hold hands (so help me God!).

Then the conversation got going between the two boys in the backseat of the car:

Finn: I have a girlfriend Cohen
Cohen: What’s her name?
Finn: Kathryn (the name of Cohen’s ‘girlfriend’ of the last 6 months)
Cohen: No, Kathryn’s MY girlfriend
Finn: No! She’s MY girlfriend
Cohen: (Getting upset) No Finley, she’s mine
Finn: No, she wants me now
Cohen: *insert tears*
Finn: She doesn’t want you anymore
Cohen: Muuuuummy! *insert wailing*

I seriously thought I had at least 10 more years to wait before I heard this kind of conversation take place! Cos let’s be honest, at some point in time they are going to like the same girl. In this instance my 3 year old (going on 13) was just stirring the pot for the sake of it because:

1. He’s not in the same class as Kathryn and therefore he is talking absolute rubbish; and 2. He takes great pleasure in making his older brother cry.

In the meantime they just fight over me.

The next day the same thing occurred. They argue and then one ends up crying.

And the day after that.

Since Finn turned 3 he has started becoming more interested in all the things that Cohen likes and they have started to compete over friggin EVERYTHING. And I mean everything!

Here is a short list of things they’ve fought over this week:

• Who can get to the front door first
• Who can open the front door first
• Who can beat mummy to the front door first
• Who can get to the car first
• Who can get in the car first
• Who can get to the mailbox first
• Who gets the mail out of the box first
• Who can get to their bed first
• Who can splash the highest in the bath
• Who gets the tablet first
• Who gets the blue cup
• Who gets the green cup
• Who loves mummy more
• Who loves daddy more

I’m sure by now you get the gist.

Then there’s the fights over the one toy they both decide they want at the same time, the one bike of 6 bikes that they both want to ride, who’s going to hold the watering can to help me water the garden, who’s teddy bears are who’s (the teddy bears that have lain sad and neglected for months before one decides to pick one up and therefore the other wants it). They fought because Finley took the teddy’s clothes off and Cohen thought he would get cold. Because ‘he touched me!’. Because one wanted the light on and one didn’t.

About who can make the pee come out of their ‘noodle’ first (seriously?!).

The competing and fighting doesn’t bother me as much as the CRYING. Oh the feckin’ CRYING!

The crying of whichever child loses does my head in! They cry and wail and scream. You would think the world had come to an end the way the loser carries on. What’s worse than a sore loser? TWO sore losers.

Imagine if adults carried on that way!

• You gave him his coffee before me! (This to the barista at the local cafe before throwing yourself to the floor and thrashing around while wailing)
• You got more wine in your glass than I got in mine! (To the waiter as you propel your high heel at his head)
• You bet me to the frozen foods aisle! (Stand next to frozen peas bawling your eyes out)
• That milk is mine, I don’t want the other 30 milk cartons in the fridge, I want THAT one! (Attempt to snatch the milk from a strangers hands while screaming bloody murder)
• That’s MY carpark! (Oh wait, this one actually happens regularly)

Can you imagine the road rage (you probably can!) and the bitch fights in Kmart?! Holy hell, it would be a war zone! Broken crockery and the mascara streaked faces of women wailing everywhere (on second thought you could probably just visit a night club on a Friday night around 2am to see that).

And the dads be all fighting over a trolley in Bunnings or a box of beer at the local bottle shop.

I seriously give huge props to anyone who works in childcare or kindergarten the world over. Kudos to you!

Do you have kids who compete and fight over everything too? What do you do about it?

To read more like this, follow me on Facebook by clicking here!

Linking up with:

#IBOT @ Essentially Jess 

#WAYWOW @ View From In Here 

The post Friends Or Foes: When Siblings Fight. And Cry. A Lot. appeared first on Maybe Baby Brothers.

I have to confess: I have two fussy eaters.

With the prevalence of political correctness dictating that children should be eating only healthy nutritious food items, this can be a somewhat embarrassing predicament for parents who’s kids are fussy eaters – in other words, if it’s not bread, pasta, rice, chicken nuggets or processed foods (ie. biscuits, crackers, chips and cheese) then they don’t (won’t) eat it.

But are we to blame? Or are fussy eaters born this way?

Personally, I’ve never been one to pick up a chicken drumstick and chew it, I avoid marinated ribs because they’re too messy and I was often teased for eating a cream donut with a knife and fork to avoid the mess (yes, that actually happened!). So kids and BLW (baby led weaning) or kids and fruit or messy foods in general were my worst nightmare. When the boys were little I would go to painstaking lengths to keep things from getting too messy. I did a lot of spoon feeding and feeding fruit in little net pouches. I wasn’t the mum giving a big bowl of spaghetti bolognese and letting them go to town on it that’s for sure! Occasionally they got some chocolate or cake on special occasions but that was about the extent of the mess I allowed. Call it a bit of OCD or a strange phobia, I had a weird affliction to the mess food can make.

Then there is my husband. He doesn’t eat fruit. That’s right. No fruit. NO FRUIT AT ALL. In fact, I’m pretty sure there are fruits he hasn’t even tried. Like all stone fruits except perhaps tinned peaches and um, pretty much everything else! Except grapes and he only just tried those last year. And he’s never tried a strawberry. Ever. He says it’s the texture but as we all know, different fruits have very different textures! But no, to him fruit is just plain yuck.

Except fruit bursts (lollies) which are not fruit but rather they’re little balls of fruit flavoured sugar. For some reason these are delicious.

Go figure.

In any case, the kids never saw him eat fruit (because he didn’t obviously!) and because I work full time I tend to keep my fruit stash at work and so I was (and am) guilty of never really having a lot of fruit in the house. Given that kids learn from example, this was a mistake because clearly I never led by example. We had mashed bananas and apples in their weetbix (spoon fed of course!) and I’d make them apple and peach crumble with custard and the likes, banana muffins but never just fruit. I tried with them but Cohen has a thing with textures and Finn declared he didn’t like it. I also have to admit I was terrified of choking when they were little, so I avoided ever giving them things like apple or raw carrot until (surprise surprise!) it was too late and they wouldn’t even attempt to try it.

Finn will however eat every fruit known to mankind in a smoothie. Which is something right?!

As for the vegetables, they’re slightly better and have things like vegetable lasagne loaded with roast pumpkin, broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, carrots, onions and tomatoes for dinner. I make their weekly meals in advance and hide veges every which way I can in dishes that are easily freezable. But give it to them separately and they will not eat it. Like salads and the likes. Stir fry. Anything that is not disguised. This is bloody annoying (please excuse my language but it is really fecking annoying!). I’ve made a rod for my own back!

So what the hell do they actually eat?

Well, my 3 year old loves meat. He’s a real little man already! He’s my meat eater. Steak, schnitzel, corn beef, mince, sausages, chicken, fish – he loves it all. He also likes crackers, yoghurt, biscuits and pretzels (but not chips – weirdo). Oh, and chocolate! Which is unfortunate because he steals mine. And ice-cream. He’s obsessed with ice-cream.

Cohen (my 4 year old) is my potato eater. Chips, fries, hash browns, roasted potatoes. He’s also my bread eater (crusts only – no I am not kidding! He eats the crust around the edge and leaves the soft bready middle, that bit that other fussy eaters like the best after they’ve pulled off their crusts and disposed of them on the floor). He devours pasta and rice but doesn’t like other vegetables or meat (unless disguised beyond recognition). Once we forced him to eat a pea and he power chucked all over my husband and the dinner table. Literally POWER CHUCKED. It was in equal measure hilarious and disgusting! And he likes biscuits. And chocolate coins but no other chocolate, only the coins.

Needless to say we have never attempted to force feed him again but I’m not adverse to bribes! Just last night I bribed him to eat fish for the second time in his life (freshly caught snapper from the day before, it was delicious!) and he did because I gave him a chocolate coin to do so. But nevertheless he ate it!

The boys kindergarten are well aware of our food issues, in fact getting Cohen to eat AT ALL is a challenge at kindy. Never has he been a child who would eat in social situations, he was always too busy to eat. At kindy we’re lucky if we get a biscuit into him (a home-baked one! Just to redeem myself a little here!). His sensory/food issues began as a baby though where he didn’t like to touch food and would ONLY eat off the spoon (I wonder where he got that trait from!) so we knew from an early age that he had sensory processing disorder to a small degree. Sand, water, grass – he had aversions to all these things at one time or another. Even now if he gets sand in his shoes or a drip of water on his clothing they need removing immediately so if a texture of food passes his lips that isn’t pleasing he will gag.

This he was born with.

Finley just declares things are disgusting and refuses to even give them a go. This is a personality trait I like to call ‘Stubborn little tyke who is being a fussy so and so’ (coming to a home near you!). This is probably partly my doing (too lenient, didn’t enforce the rules enough or give him the foods to try from the get go!) but is still 50% fussy eater syndrome for no other reason than ‘I don’t like it!’. Also known as ‘I don’t like the look of it and it’s green so it’s yuck and it’s a fruit so it’s yuck and I don’t want it but I’ll happily eat a bowl of Twisties thank you very much!’.

With Cohen I am obviously more sympathetic as it’s something that is clearly an issue for him but Finley is just playing us! I’m feeling pretty afraid that we have left it too late to change the road we are traveling down when it comes to food and the fuss factor. Let me tell you, it’s no fun! However here are a few things that might make you feel a little better about things.

Facts on fussy eaters:

• As many of 20% of children between 2 and 5 can be neophobic (which means they have a fear of trying new foods).
• Nearly 40% of kids under 6 are fussy eaters
• A study has shown that for 72% of children’s picky eating comes down to genes (that’s right, picky eating is in fact inherited from a parent!) and only 28% of them are picky due to the environment (ok, so totally blaming my husband for this!)
• Children need to be offered the same food 10-15 times before they will eat it (never had this problem with biscuits!)
• Some picky eaters are just after wanting to be in control (never would have guessed a toddler would like to be in control! Who knew?!)
• Infants have around 30,000 tastebuds spread throughout their mouths. By the time we hit adulthood, only about a third of these remain, mostly on our tongues. Yikes!
• Most kids grow out of it by age 8 or 9 (thank god!)

So there you go! Genetics can be blamed in part for your fussy eaters! Some kids are certainly born with it and others (like my youngest!) are just being plain stubborn and unleashing their inner control freak. Yep, kids! Who’d have em?!

Are/were your kids fussy eaters? Are either of you fussy when it comes to food? What have you done about it?

Linking up with #IBOT @ Essentially Jess

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The post Fussy Eaters: Born This Way Or Made This Way? appeared first on Maybe Baby Brothers.

Last week I wrote about quitting alcohol to save my sanity and the sanity of those around me due to the fact that alcohol (particularly white wine) had the tendency to make me behave like a woman in the throes of a particularly bad bout of PMS all the time.

I pinpointed it back to alcohol about a year ago and managed to quit for a substantial length of time but as soon as summer hit I was back on the bottle (not in an alcoholic way but certainly in a I NEED A DRINK way where I craved it madly after a manic day of work, when the sun was shining and the kids were screaming at each other). Unfortunately, the end result was a mama who was relaxed for an hour but grumpy as hell for a several days to a week afterwards.

I knew I needed to quit.

So with alcohol on my mind I eagerly clicked over to a post that caught my attention on Rebecca Bowyer’s page Seeing the Lighter Side titled Quitting wine can stop your kids underage drinking cos ya know, any other positive outcome I can get from begrudgingly giving up my favourite tipple is fine by me! I can be the mum who doesn’t drink to save her kids from alcohol later in life (ha!).

To sum it up, Deakin University health experts in Australia have found that we (that would be us ‘the parents’) have a big effect on how our children view alcohol consumption.

“An evaluation of the Smart Generation alcohol education campaign aimed at parents found that children had clearer intentions not to use alcohol prior to 18 and less alcohol use if their parents opened up the conversation about why they shouldn’t drink, set household rules and didn’t provide their kids with alcohol at home or to take to parties,” Professor Toumbourou said.

They also go on to say:

It is a complete myth that providing under age children with alcohol in the home will teach them moderation. In fact research shows the opposite to be true, with children whose parents allowed them to drink more likely to be heavier drinkers later on than those whose parents said no.

This of course got me thinking about my own experience as a teenager where alcohol was concerned and is definitely something that my husband and I have discussed. What direction do we want to go in when it comes to educating our own sons about alcohol as they get older? We have two boys, so of course alcohol is going to be involved in their teenage years. I think it would be naive to think otherwise!

Regarding the study, my mum was a wine drinker and my step-dad favored a beer (though there were spirits in the liquor cabinet which I admit I may have got into a few times without their knowledge!).

I can’t remember what age we were allowed the odd shandy (beer and lemonade) or a small glass of wine on Christmas Day or other special occasions, but I grew up in a household where alcohol was casually consumed on occasion and wasn’t a big deal. To be honest I never thought much about it and can’t say as a child it enticed me to want to drink it.

I didn’t go to a highly regarded school by any means, and to be honest education was pretty far down my list of my priorities (though I managed to skate through ok and win a few awards and be deputy head girl and pass most things until my last year when I completely dropped the ball). But really, my social life was right up there at the top of the list and there was a different party to go to every other weekend of which I was allowed to attend and of which my mum was fully aware there would be alcohol.

She never provided it for me but she knew it would be accessible (I can’t even remember how we got it but it was never hard!).

I had my first beer (aside from the odd shandy, 1 part beer/3 parts lemonade!) at age 14 and promptly spewed in the bushes (yes, after just one beer!). I don’t think I touched alcohol much again after that experience until I was about 16 and I’m pretty sure I was a pretty responsible drinker for the most part (my friends may beg to differ!) but I can say that I was never afraid to tell my mum where I was going and who with and the lenience of their attitude to my attending parties meant I was actually pretty good at being open and honest with her about things.

My friends who were forbidden on the other hand were found to be climbing out their bedroom windows and running away from home occasionally! Having said that though, I don’t know who turned out better in the long run! I can’t definitively say whether my friends who’s parents didn’t drink were more likely to drink in excess or have an unhealthy relationship with alcohol as they have got older or are less likely to drink but I can say that the lenience of parents who didn’t make it taboo and were a bit more relaxed made for more open children as teenagers in the communication stakes.

At the other end of the scale, there were the ones who’s parents literally didn’t care what they got up to. This from a friend:

I think that a lot of it has to do with home stability as well. I was allowed to do whatever I liked.. Which I resented to be honest, I wished that my parents were more protective and cared what I was up to. It created for me instability, an inability to control the amount and never act responsibly and then not knowing what my boundaries were… I was a complete wreck every single time I was drunk! It led to growing up fast in an immature mindset. Without tools of mature decision making and also not knowing how to deal with bad situations in a productive way. Although I didn’t have a child until I was in my mid 20’s, I feel that my parents lack of parenting led to a dependency on broken people, bad relationships and also a problem with treating everyone like they were expendable because it felt as if life stopped after college, scrambling to figure out what I was supposed to do next. My objectivity was always defined by negative instinct so nothing ever seemed to work out and I had an unrealistic view of reality.

Let’s be honest, the majority (not all, but a good handful!) of us experimented with alcohol as a teenager.

• Did your parents drink?
• How many of you were allowed and how many were forbidden?
• Did you listen or did you disobey?
• Were you deceitful or honest with your parents about what you were up to?
• Did it shape your future relationship with alcohol?

I’m interested to know what approach you plan to take with your own kids based on your experiences growing up!

Both my husband and I were brought up with a similar approach by our parents: You’re allowed to go as long as you be honest about where you are going. If you get in trouble, call us.

My husband had a free ride everywhere with his parents so he knew he could call on his dad at any time of the day or night to pick him up and I think he would like to implement the same approach as he says it stopped him getting in cars with idiots in order to get home and avoid other dodgy situations.

Does this mean we will be encouraging it though? Of course not!

Perhaps the school we attended has given us a take on things that differed from a school where education is highly regarded and therefore students have a different attitude.

But we have boys and we know they’ll experiment (the probability will be higher with boys I’m sure, girls make more mature decisions!).

So would I rather they had a beer at home with us than snuck down the beach with a mate and a dozen? Yes I would.

What about you? Did you drink much as a teenager? Will your experience influence your decision making for your own children?

Linking up with #IBOT @ Essentially Jess

The post Teenagers & Alcohol: What Approach Will You Take? appeared first on Maybe Baby Brothers.

‘Your boys are going to grow up and leave you and you’ll end up all alone.’

……………………………………………

These were the first words that greeted me one morning at work as a regular client of mine decided to start sharing his ‘honest’ opinions about my position as an all boy mama.

This client was an outspoken regular so I tried not to take it to heart, but as a mum of two boys and no daughters, this kind of comment was becoming a regular occurrence.

‘Oh you poor thing, when are you going to try for a girl?’

‘You must be so sad to only have boys’

‘I would be so disappointed if I had only had boys’

The thing is, most mums of all boys have probably heard all of this before.

Once upon a time a baby boy was the coveted sex but it now seems that society has decided that girls are the favoured sex and boys are just too … loud. Boy like.

Boys are stereotyped as loud, exuberant and physical. It appears some in society feel sorry for those of us who have more than one and no girls to balance it out. One is considered ok (after all, you can always try again for a girl right?), two (you must be so disappointed), three (were you trying for a girl? You poor thing), four (are you going to stop now, four boys?!), five (you must be crazy!).

I’m absolutely sure it’s not only boy mums who get given flak, I’m pretty sure dads of all girls probably get the same kind of comments from the blokes at work about being surrounded by women for the rest of his life.

The difference is that all boy mums are often genuinely felt sorry for and I also believe that the current attitude in society towards us is another reason that gender disappointment is so rampant these days in women who do only have little boys.

For some reason when I imagined myself as a mother, I imagined I would have a daughter. To be honest it never really occurred to me I would have all boys! Not in a bad way, I just think subconsciously we often mirror in our heads the familial situation we grew up in ourselves which for me was one sister.

I grew up surrounded by women. My mum and I lived with my Nana until I was five years old, with two aunts close by. And later when my mum married, a ready made older sister (and if she is reading this she will probably laugh for ready made sisters were probably not what each of us had in mind and we didn’t always see eye to eye!). Ironically she also went on to have two boys and I followed suit a few years later. My mum would have been completely out of her depth with four grandsons, never was there a more girly girl than my mum, despite the fact she grew up on a farm!

I have to admit that the fact I will never have a daughter to mirror that mother/daughter relationship that I lost was at one point a source of heartache and I did suffer from gender disappointment when I found out number 2 was a boy. I cried and I mourned the fact I would never have a daughter. I even went to counselling and what I discovered was that it really has nothing to do with having the quintessence girl to play dress ups and do girly stuff with but deep down it was just another platform exacerbating that loss of a close female relationship and comments like these throughout my second pregnancy never helped.

‘What are you having this time?’
‘Another boy’
‘Oh, sorry to hear that … oh well, at least you know they’ll be good friends!’

or

‘Oh you poor thing’

or

‘Will you try again then?’

This before the poor boy was even out! No wonder we get a complex.

In my instance I was able to identify the fact that my disappointment stemmed from feeling like my mum had helped me to get pregnant, after a long journey through infertility and IVF to conceive my first son this particular pregnancy had happened instantly so I felt that the pregnancy was a divine gift and that it would be a girl (as nutty as that may sound!). It also became apparent at that time that I had not grieved her death properly and it just opened up a whole torrent of emotion and the gender scan that revealed I was carrying another baby boy became the trigger. Thankfully I was able to work it through and was well over it by that time he was born and what a very special little boy he is. Our bond is amazing and he is a total mummy’s boy, I couldn’t imagine my life without him in it but I still carry guilt for reacting the way I did, even though I know deep down that there was a whole gamut of emotions and circumstances involved.

Still, it has taught me some valuable lessons.

What I have learnt about gender disappointment:

1. People don’t choose to experience gender disappointment. It is not about selfishness or not being happy with what you have been blessed with, it is far more complicated. Emotions can be complex and sometimes there is no rhyme nor reason as to why you may be feeling the way you do but the important thing is to do everything you can to work through it before the baby arrives. Its certainly not something you want hanging over your head for the rest of your life and often there is some underlying issues that need working through like there was in my instance.
2. Once the baby arrives the gender disapointment usually dissipates pretty quickly so if you are in fear of experiencing it then not finding out the gender in advance could work in your favour. On the flip side, if you are already feeling anxious about it then finding out to be able to prepare and work through it in advance could be beneficial.
3. It’s ok to mourn the child that you will never have. Sometimes we grow up with visions of a little girl or little boy and when that doesnt happen you can feel a loss but mourn it and move on, you don’t ever want your child to pick up on this and some things are out of your control.
4. While a pigeon pair seems to be the height of success in the baby making stakes in this day and age, there is something to be said about the relationship between same sex siblings. Embrace it. Sometimes a brother to a boy or a sister for a girl can be the best gift you ever give them.
5. Boys really are no different to girls. At the end of the day I have learnt that it is not the sex of the child but who the child is that counts.

What I have learnt from having all boys:

1. When you say you have all boys many people show sympathy for you and ask you if you are going to try for a daughter. I have had so many instances of being asked by strangers if I plan to try again to get a girl. Seriously. I have heard the response ‘Oh, you poor thing’ more times than I can count. Unless they are a parent of all boys too and then you instantly feel a kinship, which brings me to point number 2 ..
2. Any other all boy mum you meet you feel an instant bond with. You share this journey with them. They get it.
3. Boys are super affectionate and loving. They are no less so than girls and in some instances maybe more so.
4. Boys love their mummy’s.
5. Boys love to go out with their dads to do boy stuff and give mum a break (yes!).
6. I love love love being an all boy mum. It is a whole new adventure and a whole new chapter in my life. I love to wrestle and play with them, I love the things they teach me about myself, I love that it makes me step outside of my comfort zone and do stuff that was never really my cup of tea before.
7. As long as I have a cup of coffee in my hand (or have recently had a cup of coffee in my hand) and wine in the fridge (or a cold beer, I’m not fussy!), I can survive all those previously thought ‘boy activities’.
8. I have learnt that I wouldn’t change my two gorgeous boys for the world, no matter how many daughters I was promised.

Linking up with #IBOT @ Essentially Jess

DISCLAIMER: I’m sure some mums of all girls have probably had there fair share of comments directed at them as well, this is just my experience as a mum to all boys and in no way am I saying that the shoe is never on the other foot.

If you are a mum of boys too then here is a more lighthearted post about parenting boys and my most popular post ever 10 Truths About Little Boys

The post The Truth About Gender Disappointment appeared first on Maybe Baby Brothers.

I found this fabulous calendar on the Friday Favourites of an awesome blog I follow called This Is Meagan Kerr. If you’ve never checked out her blog, do! As a cat lover I loved this cool quirky cat calendar and I want it!

Cats can definitely be furry little destroyers. I remember my cat as a kitten attacking my legs every time I walked in the vicinity of where he was hiding by launching himself at me and grabbing on with his claws! It was not a pleasant phase and my lounge room curtains also got the brunt of his ferocious play, to this day we have tiny pinpricks of light shining through the holes on the odd day we close the curtains during the daylight hours!

But indeed, children can be equally destructive. If I could illustrate I could totally make one of these calendars. I would call it Child vs Parent: Things Children Will Destroy.

My calendar would go like this:

You plant it, they pull it back out. Then they usually stomp on it for good measure.

Bathing little kids is like turning on a front loader washing machine without closing the door.

Little boys (I can’t speak for girls since I don’t have any but I imagine them to be much the same) think the back of the bath is a slide to be slid down. They think the aim of bathtime is to see how much water you can get out of the bath and onto the bathroom floor before it’s time to get out. They think that we need a ‘shower’ while we supervise and love to splash to see how FAR the water can go. If it hits the wall on the other side of the bathroom it is extra points. If you end up soaked from head to toe then it is a gold medal.

This is their aim, to get mummy or daddy as wet as possible.

They have no ears while in the bath. And if they are not destroying your bathroom through flooding it, they are peeing on the floor, dragging toilet paper through the house or smearing liquid soap and toothpaste over your walls. Young children should never be left alone in a bathroom unattended even when fully clothed. Do NOT trust them. They are plotting against you.

You know how we, as smart, sophisticated, health conscious mums, like to hoard our chocolate so we can daintily eat one small square of it at a time to savour that sweet sugary chocolatey goodness spread over weeks, if not months? (Ha!).

Ok, let’s try that again.

You know how we always have an emergency stash of chocolate on hand to shove in our mouths when the kids are destroying our patience and we have had a really trying day (does that sound more realistic?). Well hide that chocolate really well, because your children will destroy your stash if they find it.

I had been given the most divine looking Easter egg that I was saving for that perfect moment to eat. It was a gold Lindt egg, pure Swiss luxury. One day I come down to the kitchen and the fridge is open and the 2 year old has chocolate all around his mouth and gold foil at his feet. My heart broke. He destroyed it. He ATE THE WHOLE LOT. Learn from my mistake. Hide that chocolate really well or you too could find your stash destroyed in seconds.

Do you remember what it used to be like, to go to bed when you wanted to and lie your head on that soft pillow before drifting off into a peaceful slumber and not opening your eyes again until the sun starts to peep through the curtains amid the chatter of birds?

Now I go to bed exhausted (usually way later than I should be, staying up simply for the pleasure of that extra alone time after the kids have finally gone to sleep) and then I usually end up with a nightly visitor intruder or two.

The nightly intruder can arrive anytime between 5 minutes after I go to bed to 5 hours after I go to bed, but they always arrive (except this one time that has been imprinted on my memory forever more where they stayed in their own beds ALL NIGHT. Yes, you read that right. ALL NIGHT IN THEIR OWN BEDS!).

At this point I have two options:

1. I put them back to their own bed, thus interrupting my own slumber and endure screaming crying for an hour. Usually this wakes the other child and creates more problems and we all end up awake for varying lengths of time.

2. I drag the intruder into my bed and have a restless sleep in between being kicked and battered and bruised by a child with restless legs (Cohen) or spend all night fighting for the blankets that keep getting kicked off (Finley). This option means I get to stay in bed and sleep (kind of).

Either way, my sleep is destroyed!

Please refer to April.

I like to think I had a pretty good memory prior to children but due to a lack of sleep and a general lack of recharge time for my poor brain to catch up with itself, my memory has become like a sieve with sand running through it.

Yesterday is sand. What I did on the weekend? Sand. That message you gave me to pass on to so and so? Sand. The time of birth of my second son? Sand. The model in the latest Woman’s Day magazine who looks familiar? Solid stone. That shit won’t go through the sieve, I recognise them instantly as a contestant in the 1992 Dolly modelling competition from 23 years ago.

But to get something out of the freezer for dinner tonight? Sand.

You can see I have my priorities in order. Children destroy your memory but only the memories that actually contribute to the running of your life right now, not that useless piece of information lingering in your long term memory. Oh no no no, of course you only remember that the guy you saw on TV last night was in some obscure 90’s movie and all the names of the characters of Dawson’s Creek (go on, you still know them don’t you?!).

I envy those pictures of big beautiful houses with gorgeous furniture, I really do. One day I’ll have a lovely furnished home too but for now I will make do with the old and the second hand. Hands up who’s table has some sort of utensil gouge in it? A rip in the sofa or stain of some description? A scratched to buggery coffee table? If you don’t and you had those items through the baby/toddler/pre-school years then you should consider yourself truly blessed! Trust me. Blessed.

As fast as you can tidy up, children will destroy all your hard work. You’ve finally finished folding that last load of washing and you’re looking forward to a well deserved cup of coffee … they’ll come along in the 2 seconds your back was turned and sweep it onto the floor, gleefully unfolding every last item of clothing, they will do this in the guise of ‘helping’ you.

You’ll vacuum as they follow along behind you dropping cookie crumbs like they’re the lead star in some Hansel and Gretal production. They’ll play hide and seek in your freshly made bed, unpack your kitchen cupboards, move items between rooms and spread Lego everywhere. In my opinion, Lego needs it’s own safe to live in and should never be easily accessible.

And please refer to January for an example of how your bathroom will be destroyed by water, urine, toothpaste and liquid soap (thankfully not all together although I wouldn’t put it past them to get that creative!).

Ah, it’s been a long day, the kids are in bed and it’s time to relax at long last!

‘Mummy, I have good news and I have bad news. The bad news is that the big comet is going to come down from the sky and hit the earth and break it into 12 million pieces! The good news is the Uffy is asleep and so I can hang out with you!’

Even when you think they are asleep, chances are they will sneak back out to destroy your peace and quiet. There is no such thing as peace and quiet in your world anymore. You love peace, quiet and solitude? You’re fucked. Children do not do quiet. Peace and quiet is a foreign concept for children. You think you’ll at least get some while sitting on the toilet? Not a chance! Those days? GONE. You will hear ‘Mum! Mummy! Where are you? Mummy? MUMMY!’ over and over and over and over and over again. FOREVER AND EVER.

Have you ever found yourself rocking in a corner with your hands over your ears to block out the screaming? Not yet? It will happen! It will happen. You will be experiencing moments of deliria before you know it!

Children grow so fast! Therefore they are always needing new stuff.

They need food and books and toys and food and school fees and bikes and food and new shoes and food and clothes and food.

They need Christmas presents and birthday presents and Easter eggs and Easter presents and birthday parties and personalised Christmas stockings to put the presents in and entertainment and Halloween outfits and holidays and food and *cough* Zooming Dino’s (I’m such a soft touch!).

On the other hand, you will need alcohol and chocolate. I recommend starting that wine fund early, $20 a day week should cover it. And a coffee fund, oh dear lord, a coffee fund!

My mum used to let my sister and I decorate the Christmas tree and then overnight our mess would magically be turned into a thing of beauty. Even if you do this too (it’s ok, you can admit it! You’re in good company!) it does not mean the tree will stay that way.

This is where cats and children become one – they both love to destroy the Christmas tree!

How many of these can you relate to?

Linking up with #IBOT @ Essentially Jess

You can follow Maybe Baby Brothers on Facebook by clicking here. Thanks for stopping by!

The post Child vs Parent: Things Children Will Destroy appeared first on Maybe Baby Brothers.

Those two words that all parents dread: Toilet training.

What the hell do you do when your kid just WON’T POO ON THE TOILET! I mean, trying to train a little person to pee and poop on the toilet and not in a nappy/undies/on the grass/in the bath (ugh!) is not a fun activity for parents in any shape or form (ha!) and boys can be harder than girls to get on board with the idea.

I started my oldest just after age 3. That could be considered quite late but everything I read said that boys can take longer to be ready and forcing them to start early if they’re not ready can be a battle of wills that ends up with the unpleasant side effect of taking longer, more accidents and regression. Cohen also had a few communication issues with his speech delay which spurred me to hold off (and he turned 3 in the middle of damn winter, not an ideal TT time of year!).

In the lead up he point blank refused to sit on the potty or the toilet or the special toilet seat for little kids we bought for the toilet. Nope, no, no. He wasn’t having a bar of it thank you very much. Eventually when he was about 3 and 2 months we just put him in undies and decided that was that. Of course, he hated having wet undies because he is the kind of kid who will stand in a puddle in the bathroom and get a wet sock and it will be the end of the world as he knows it. So wet pants? Terrifying.

It took only 2 days to toilet train him for wees and he’s had only a handful of accidents in that regard since then. It was surprisingly simple in the end and I think that come back to waiting until he was old enough to understand. He started standing to pee after a week and has done ever since. Which is great when you are out and about at the beach or the likes and they decide they really need to go to the toilet, like NOW but not so great when they get complacent about paying attention to where they are aiming (ie. not aiming for anything in particular and even spinning around mid stream at the sound of a voice to see who’s there).

Poos on the other hand? Poos will be the death of me.

He is now 4 and point blank refuses to go poos on the toilet and holds it for a night nappy. We have tried bribes. Charts. Punishment. Begging. Praise. Discipline. I think I may have even yelled at him (not my proudest moment). Nothing, I mean nothing works.

I asked him the other night what he plans to do when he is my age and his response was that he was going to invent a pooper scooper out of the grass and the twigs and the leaves and the rain and it was going to be a poo catcher to catch the poos. What the … where did this child come from?!

I think the only thing left to do at this point is just take away the night nappy. On one of my particularly tired nights the other night I forgot to change him from undies to a nappy before putting him to bed and I then had a very distressed little boy beside my bed in the middle of the night who had wet himself. He was distraught as he never wets himself so I’m a bit worried that we may have a recurring theme of wet = distraught = interrupted nights of changing sheets = very tired mama at work.

Why are children so damn stubborn?! The problem is though that the more you focus on this particular problem, the more of a complex he seems to get over it and the more stubborn he becomes.

I think the main issue is that he is using it as a means to being able to get back up after going to bed at night. He goes to bed and then about half an hour later we see a silouhette in the doorway of the lounge …

‘Mummy, daddy. I have a big problem. I just did poo poos in my nappy and I need you to change it. It’s the biggest poo poo you have ever seen! And the colour is brown!’

Every. Single. Night.

The other night he was grinning ear to ear with this announcement and I told him extremely exasperated ‘Cohen, this isn’t funny, you need to do it on the toilets like a big boy!’

Do you know what he said back?

‘Mummy, it is a little bit funny’

*Pulls hair out*

He is so smart and yet so damn stubborn! And he has an amazing sense of humour so he always ends up making us laugh which does not help the cause!

I am at my wits end with this child.

UPDATE:

It is with great pleasure that I can announce that we have now sorted this very poopy problem! We had to sit in the toilet with him holding his hands and bribing while in equal parts encouraging and promising cheeseburgers and playgrounds and beaches and told him that the poos go to poo poo land where they join all the other poo poos (gross but it worked!). This of course led to a million questions ‘Are their poo poo people?’ ‘Yes’ ‘What about poo poo dogs?’ ‘Poo poo houses?’ ‘Poo poo McDonalds?’. You get the gist. 

Thankfully my second son has not had this same problem. Phew!

The post Toilet Training: Driving Parents to Insanity Worldwide appeared first on Maybe Baby Brothers.

So this last week has been an interesting one!

The boys carer has been in hospital so I’ve had to try my hand at being a stay at home mum and let me tell you, this shizz is hard work!

Here is a brief comparison of my usual work day morning vs my SAHM morning:

……………………………………………

WORK DAY

5am – Alarm goes off so I get up and have a leisurely shower while the boys are still sleeping and make a coffee, get ready for work, get the boys up and throw their shoes and jacket on, out the door by 6.15am.

SAHM DAY

Wake up to alarm for hubby at 5.30am. Kids jump on my head and start whining in my ear ‘Want bottle! Want Hugglemonsters! I’m hungry, can I play on your phone, morning time, get up mummy. GET UP MUMMY!’

WORK DAY

Get to work and have a relaxing half an hour to drink my second coffee, have breakfast and start my work day with some adult conversation.

SAHM DAY

Have coffee, bribe kids with tablet and phone in order to have a rushed shower while they stand at the door yelling ‘All done yet mummy? All done shower? Mummy! Hurry up! Get out shower!’. Get out and dress hurriedly before they use my phone to start ringing multiple people listed under A on my contact list. Spend the next half an hour being yelled at to make multiple things for breakfast (these include popcorn, pretzels, mummy’s cookies, toast with peanut butter and weetbix). Spoon feed them breakfast (hey, I don’t have time to wait for them ok! Yes, I know he’s 4. Yes, he knows how to use a spoon. No, I don’t care if I am enabling them, I need to get out the damn door!). Make C’s lunch while he dictates and gives his opinion on every item ‘Not stinky oranges! I hate stinky yucky oranges, bleugh! Yuck! I’m not eating those *insert spew sounds*’. Manage to get them both dressed and in the car with moments to spare before dropping off said older child at kindergarten.

……………………………………………

By 9am I am physically and mentally more exhausted being at home and navigating the childcare duties than I am at work for sure! This does not come naturally to me at all. I mentioned last week that I was not born maternal. Sure, with my own kids I am more natural but throw me yours and I will still be all ‘What the heck do I do with this child?!’. This also comes into play with the whole ‘being at home and doing the domestic duties while entertaining two little boys all day’ gig. Every day. In a row. Without a break.

During the past week I have tried my hand at several things that I imagine are reminiscent of some sort of domesticated goddess type things that SAHM’s do and have down to a fine art (feel free to disagree with me, maybe I am not the only inept mother in the kitchen!). Things like making mini bacon and egg pies, apple strudel, meatloaf and a roast lamb.

All turned out well bar the meatloaf which was declared disgusting. Luckily the dog liked it. I also started watching The Bachelor in Paradise during nap times. That part came naturally! I liked that part.

On Friday I decided to take the youngest on a shopping trip with me. He’d been cooped up all week with a sick brother (as had I!) and we desperately needed to get out of the house. He loves the mall so I thought this was a great idea. He’s generally very good at being my shopping companion but that day he was in a very outspoken, opinionated mood. I tried on some clothes and took him in the changing room with me and let me tell you, he was not holding back on his opinion! ‘Nope, no like it’ ‘No, yucky’ ‘Hmm … nope’ ‘No! No like that one!’. The one item he declared to be ‘Perfect!’ was the one item I bought, can’t underestimate the honest opinion of a two year old! My biggest mistake was in promising a cheeseburger at McDonalds if he was good. Trouble was we got there at 9am and they don’t start serving cheeseburgers until 10.30am! Do you know how to explain that to a 2 year old? You don’t. So I got a running commentary of ‘Cheeseburger time mummy!’ the whole way around the mall. For 1.5 hours.

Eventually he got his cheeseburger and I got a coffee as a reward.

I also rewarded myself with this gorgeous Maybelline Nude eye-shadow pallette which I am in love with.

I finished off the week by going on my work do despite not actually being at work and I spent the whole night talking to my workmates in a baby voice:

‘No no, no more beers for you!’

‘And what would you like to eat for dinnies?’

‘No dessert unless you eat everything on your plate including your veges ok mister?!’.

Ok, no I didn’t.

I don’t think …

I did however get drunk and proceed to emanate my toddler by falling up some stairs, being unintelligible for half the night, spilling over some drinks and even smashing a beer glass for good measure.

I wonder what this week of being a SAHM will have in store for me?!

Are you a working mum or stay at home mum? Does staying home and being a mum full time come naturally to you? If you work do you find that balance easier than the times you have been at home?

Linking up with Essentially Jess for IBOT today!

The post Being A Working Mum vs Staying At Home: An Unexpected Job Swap appeared first on Maybe Baby Brothers.

Have you ever noticed since having kids that what was once yours is no longer yours alone but is now also theirs?

Whether you want that to be the case or not, kids have a knack of sneaking in and putting claim to everything. Whether it is theirs, yours, their brothers, a strangers. If they see it and they want it then it’s theirs.

Here are some prime examples:

YOUR PHONE

They will follow and nag me till the cows come home trying every trick in the book to convince me that it is a good idea to let them play on my iPhone. When I do give in I end up with so many selfies and photos taken of indeterminable items (is that a finger, the carpet, up their nose?) that I am surprised my phone has any memory left at all. I also have voice recordings that drag on for hours, videos that make me feel like I have vertigo for the jumping around factor and my alarm has been known to go off at all hours of the night (Note to self: Check the alarm before going to bed!).

If you are lucky enough to be an A on my contact list then chances are you have also received a text or two (ok ok, more like 20) from Cohen. Or even a phone call if you are reeeeeeally lucky! Which is great for you, especially when you are in Thailand on holiday (SORRY!).

Here is what those texts will generally look like:

YOUR FOOD

You serve them up a meal, perhaps you give them theirs in advance or you sit down to have breakfast after they have had theirs, whatever. The likelihood is that they didn’t eat theirs but they will want yours even if it is exactly the same thing.

For some reason food that is ours and is on our plate is immensely more attractive than the food that is theirs and on their plate. Except if it is fruit or vegetables, then the likelihood is that you can keep it.

Don’t even try to understand.

(IMPORTANT: This also applies to chocolate! Be smart and hide it until they are out of sight, preferably in bed asleep. You have been warned).

THE TV REMOTE

Is it because I have boys and blokes always think that the remote is theirs, some passage to masculinity to have the remote in one hand and a beer in the other? I’m talking about my husband and other grown men now, not my boys! Just for the record. 2 and 3 is a little young yet though they have already taken on the task of delivering beers to their dad on the sofa without even being asked! My husband is living the dream.

The thing that amazes me though with the remote control is how early they learn to work the darn things! I mean, back in my day (ha!) the remote controlled the changing of a handful of channels (that would be 2 channels … now I feel immensely old!) and now they control about 80 channels on our Sky TV network and you can pause, rewind at 4 different speeds, go to the saved programme menu and select taped shows and play them, fast forward them and even check the weather! My 2 year old knows how to do all of those things with ease. They even know that 105 is their Disney channel and happily change to that every time you walk out of the room.

One night Finn got down from the table after eating my dinner off my plate, standing behind me on my chair and went in the lounge, selected his Cars movie from the taped menu and then proceeded to turn the volume way up to his liking. He’s freakin 2 years old people! At 2 I’m pretty sure I didn’t even know what a remote was!

Kids these days are too tech savvy for their own good.

YOUR COMFIEST SEAT

For my birthday this year I decided I needed a new chair. We only had couches and I wanted a reading chair, a comfy lazyboy with a lamp that I could use to snuggle into with a good book and a blanket when I needed that time out from the rat race. So I scoured the second hand auction websites until I found the perfect chair for a bargain price, bought a lamp to go with it and to make it even MORE comfy I bought myself a delectable sheepskin rug to put on it. Do you think I ever get to sit in my chair?! The second I vacate it it’s a fight between the boys, the dog, the cat and the husband (my poor husband is always last on the list these days!).

Come to think of it, even when I am allowed to sit on it it’s often me, a child on either side of me and the cat on my lap.

YOUR BOOKS

For some unknown reason Finn has taken a liking to my library books. My library must hate me because the last few books I have taken back have been, um, eaten. Literally. He keeps eating the pages. I do feed him, I promise! He eats whatever is on my plate. But for some reason he loves to eat pages in my library books! Not magazines, nor my own books or their books, oh no. Only my library ones. Luckily for the most part it’s the last page and it’s blank. If you get out a book and it looks half eaten, likelihood is it was mine first.

YOUR SLIPPERS

They won’t keep their socks or slippers (or pants) on half the time but they will happily parade around the house in my ugg boots (see photo under YOUR REMOTE – note the footwear). Go figure.

YOUR BED (AND PILLOW!)

For a loooooong time now I have had nightly visitors. I go to bed every night with my husband and wake up with my boys. Usually Finn is next to me and Cohen has made himself at home on my husbands side. They often sneak in like stealth ninjas in the night and I usually don’t even realise they are there until the morning when I wake up with a kink in my neck, one roll away from landing on the floor, no blankets and the tiniest share of my pillow. For such small humans they sure know how to take up a hell of a lot of room in my bed! Oh sorry, did I say my bed? My bad, their bed.

Might as well be. Do I sound bitter? I’m tired ok!

One small saving grace is that they have no interest in stealing my coffee! Yet.

Do your kids do this too? What do they claim of yours for themselves?

Linking up to #IBOT at Essentially Jess!

The post What’s Yours Is Mine appeared first on Maybe Baby Brothers.

I often read posts in my birth groups from mums worried about their toddlers speech and whether they should be concerned about a speech delay.

I was that mum with my first.

When he was 18 months old he was still only saying a handful of words.

Mum. Dad. Ball.

He wouldn’t repeat words back to us when we tried to prompt him like other kids seemed to do and when we would read him stories or word books he would be impatient and distracted and not really paying much attention, let alone trying to say any words back. By this stage other kids were saying sentences in my birth group and the more I read about what they were saying the more of a complex I developed over where C was on the speech scale.

By 2 years old he had added a few words to his vocabulary but lost others in the process and spent all day talking in his own language. He would yabber away in gibberish but without any real words thrown in the mix and he seemed behind in understanding the meaning of words too.

So I decided to get him assessed and I was right to. He did have a speech delay and we started to get some help.

So when do you start to worry about a speech delay?

We started to worry for these reasons:

• By the time he was 2 he wasn’t learning a new word every week and would sometimes drop words he had been saying for awhile.
• He spoke gibberish all the time without any real sounding words.
• He wasn’t trying to repeat words back to us.
• He was far off the 20 words he should have had in his vocabulary by 18 months and 50 by age 2.
• He wasn’t stringing any words together.
• He didn’t seem to understand simple commands like ‘Go and get your shoes’ or ‘Get the ball’.

If that sounds like your child, I would start seeking some advice.

So many well meaning people would say to me that it was normal and not to worry, he would catch up. But while those are all the things that we want to hear, sometimes it isn’t wise to wait.

The sooner you can get help for something if needed, the better! The worst thing that could happen would be they turn you away and say you don’t need the help (yay!) but if they do need some guidance, it is better to start early.

C started speech therapy at around age 2.5 once he became eligible for publicly funded speech therapy (he went on the list at 20 months) and came in leaps and bounds. What I learnt was that he was a slow starter but eventually he did manage to catch up to his peers.

One of the most valuable lessons in speech therapy I learnt was something so simple but it really made a difference.

When he would say something like ‘Ball’ while playing with his toy ball you should repeat that back to them by adding another word or two into it. So he would say ‘Ball’ and I would say ‘Red ball, look at the red bouncy ball!’ and so on and so forth. He would say ‘cat’ and I would say ‘Yes, big fluffy cat!’. This made a HUGE difference. Something so simple but so valuable.

EXAMPLE:

If looking at a picture book with this train Cohen would say ‘Train!‘ and I would say ‘Yes Cohen, big blue and green train!’ and repeat that several times. ‘It’s a big blue and green train isn’t it!’. Repetitiveness is the key.

My friend Melanie is a speech therapist and had this to add:

“Recurrent ear and nose infections often have a big role to play in speech delay of preschoolers. This can lead to short term hearing loss and difficulty producing speech or being understood. Your GP is your first point of contact, and if a pattern of infection occurs they can refer you to a specialist for investigation and follow up treatments. The placement of grommets or tonsillectomy and/or adenoidectomy surgery is not uncommon in youngsters in NZ and often results in these children making steady gains with their speech and learning shortly after.”

So if you are worried, don’t brush it aside. Don’t wait and hope that things will get better. They very well might … or they might not.

If your child sounds like mine, follow your gut and your mummy instincts and get some advice because the sooner you start the sooner you can put the therapy into practice and help them to catch up.

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The post Toddler Speech Delay: When To Worry appeared first on Maybe Baby Brothers.

I love my kids but OMG, they have the ability to drive me completely fecking insane at times!

Here are just some of the things they do frequently that drive me nuts!

Can you relate?

• Turning off the washing machine mid cycle. Usually you don’t realise until you think it is time to hang it out, only to find a great sopping mess and the need to do it all over again. Most of the time it is on a day when it is forecast to rain and you really needed to get it out promptly in order for it to have any chance to dry.
• Turning on the dishwasher (‘Uffy help mummy!’) just when it has finished the dry cycle and the water pours in before you get a chance to stop it.
• Doing poos right when you sit down with a hot cup of coffee (the first you have had all day usually). Or just when I have sat down for the night and a little head pokes around the side of the lounge door ‘Um, mummy, I have a teeny weeny big problem. I have done a big poo in my nappy, the biggest poo you have ever seen! And the colour is BROWN’. Yes, colour still fascinates my 4 year old. Sigh. And yes, he still refuses to do poos on the toilet even though he has been toilet trained on the wee front for over a year *pulling hair out*.
• Insist on flushing the toilet while I am sitting on it. I really should start locking the door! The youngest then applauds me for going ‘waters’ and says ‘Good girl mummy!’.
• Demand you read them a story and then turn the pages while you are attempting to read it before snatching it out of your hands and proclaiming ‘All done!’ and shoving the next one at you only to repeat the process.
• Not listen! This was a conversation that took place at our dinner table recently that sums this point up nicely:

Cohen: Where’s daddy?
Me: At work
Finn: Is this chicken?
Me: No
Finn: Mmm, yummy chicken!
Cohen: Where’s daddy?
Me: At work
Finn: Yummy chicken!
Cohen: Where’s daddy?
Finn: Is this chicken?
Cohen: Is daddy in the toilet?
Me: No, he’s at work
Finn: Where’s daddy?
Cohen: It’s chicken Uffy.
Me: Daddy’s at work and it’s lasagne.
Finn: Nummy mummy, chicken!
Cohen: Where’s daddy?

Half the time it’s like having dinner with two Alzheimer patients.

• Whip open the curtains at 5.30am while announcing loudly ‘Morning mummy! It’s morning time!’ and jumping on my head. 5.30am on a Saturday is NOT morning in my opinion but I have two little boys who beg to differ.
• Moving stuff. Ever notice how things just disappear into thin air only to be found again in the weirdest place a week later? The tongs in the bottom of their bed, the cordless phone flat at the bottom of the nappy storage bag (hence we no longer have a cordless phone!), the stray bottle outside on the trampoline … NEVER LEAVE YOUR KEYS UNATTENDED!

What are some things your kids do that drive you bonkers?

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