explicit instructions came with it

After talking with the great folks at Butt Bench my cedar bench arrived about 2 days later. I instantly opened the box and went straight into the bathroom. One thing I noticed immediately was the quality of the product. I was particularly impressed with the way the suction cups were inside a metal bracket. They were not going to come out or separate from the bench in any way.

you don't have to worry about the suction cups

looks great

I placed the bench across the back of my tub and made sure the suction cups were in place and hopped in the tub (the empty tub!) to test it out. My 4-year-old was so excited she hopped in as well to try it too. In fact, she saw me taking pictures and ran to get her kiddie camera and take pictures as well! She was the first person to test drive the Butt Bench. During her tub that night, she used it as a “house” for her tub dolls and a convenient place to place all her tub toys.

she loves the Butt Bench!

The next day I got to try out the Butt Bench for myself. During my shower I pulled and tugged on the bench and it did not come out-of-place at all. Then I sat down and bounced on it and it held firmly in place. This is a high quality product. Then it was time to shave my legs. Truly, the  reason I was so excited about the Butt Bench was for  shaving my legs. As most women know, shaving your legs is like a contortion act in the shower.  The Butt Bench makes it so much easier and much more comfortable task.

I highly recommend the Butt Bench to everyone out there. It’s great for women, seniors and the handicapped as well. Please visit their website (www.buttbench.com) to learn more about the Butt Bench and all the other great products they sell.

A good friend of ours is offering to teach in your home. He’s a loving, patient dad to 2 children and understands Mozart won’t come over night.

Please read the flyer and pass it along. We appreciate it!

Just for the record, I will not give out personal information beyond basics. And I encourage everyone to have their first few playdates in public areas…parks, indoor play spaces, McDonald’s with a play area, gym, etc. Use the same good sense you would use if you were single and meeting someone online for the first time.

Who knows…maybe we’ll set 2 kids up to be best friends for life!

Any questions or concerns, please email me at jrzfins@gmail.com

PLAYDATE MATCHING INFORMATION

Good luck, happy hunting and enjoy!

Today, however I found myself being a little judge-like. I was in Costco shopping with my 3 1/2 year old. It was morning, so she was still in a good mood and snacking her way through Costco due to the samples. Which put her in a really great mood. My kid is a happy eater, and for those few minutes a silent kid (bonus for me!).

Anyhoo…we were checking out. In the lane next to us was a mom and dad and their 3 kids. Guessing around 7, 5 and 3 from the looks of things. The youngest, a boy, was sitting in the cart screaming. Who knows why. I didn’t pay much attention to it. But the screaming kept going and going. And it didn’t seem like either parent was caring much to stop it. Don’t get me wrong, I understand sometimes you can’t stop it and the only recourse you have is to muddle through and get hell out of dodge as quickly as possible. But they didn’t. Get the hell out of dodge that is.

Photo from HERE.

Since it was lunchtime, we stayed for lunch. For some reason, a Costco lunch excites my kid like few things and is considered a big treat. Since it costs me all of $3.50 to feed us both, how could I say “no”? So, we placed our order and sat down. The family appeared to be sitting 2 tables in front of us, but then moved to a bigger table next to us. The first thought that popped into my head “ugh, why do they have to sit next to us?” And yes, sonny boy was still carrying on. He continued to carry on and scream through most of our meal, except for the few moments when food was actually in his mouth. I didn’t give the parents any sort of nasty look, but did glance at the kid from time to time trying to figure out what his problem was. Which was odd, because if his parents couldn’t figure it out what made me think I could?

That’s when it hit me. I wasn’t as non judgemental as I thought I was. I’m not naive enough to think I don’t judge how others raise their kids and vice versa. But I did think I was above this.

The realization did hit home with me, and I guess as an adult that’s a positive sign. We can’t work on ourselves if we don’t realize what we are doing wrong. So, I spent the rest of the meal not glancing over at them and focusing on my own child. I gave her kisses and told her how proud of was of her good behavior. After all, who doesn’t like to hear good things about themselves? I’m sure I also said a quick silent prayer for not letting the screaming kid be mine.

Next time, I hope to be quicker with a smile whether it be to the child or the parent and to realize we all have bad days.

What was an issue? The fact that the moment we set foot through the gates my daughter (3 ½) started in with the whining and “I’m afraid” business. Go on the spinning dragons? No! How about the little racecars? Tears. How about the airplane? No followed by tears followed by screaming (okay, the screaming was me!). Nothing pisses me off faster than wasting money and time. I’d just driven 30 minutes and spent double that to get in the door and you are going on a ride missy! So, I did what any parent running for Mother of the Year would do. I picked her up and slapped her down and belted her in a ride and watched her go round and round. No, she wasn’t sitting alone. Yes, it was evil on my part.

I believe this photo sums up my parenting skills that day.

I tried to regroup and let her select what she wanted to do. Carousel? No problem, let’s go! Helicopter? No. Hot air balloon? No. Roller coaster? Hell no! Once again, I attempted to force her onto a ride. She cried. She screamed. She begged the man going around checking seat belts to let her out. He did. Nothing made me feel worse as a mom than this moment. (In my poor attempt at defense, I would like to point out that forcing my daughter to do things usually results in her liking what she thought she was afraid of and watching her do it over and over again.)

For the rest of the time in the amusement park, we sat on a bench and watched her friends.

Okay…water park up next. This will be fine. She loves water. The pool area is, at its deepest, not even quite calf high. They had little water slides for the kids. 3 to 4 feet in length. She did one. Her face got wet. End of story.

Change of tactic. They had a wonderful lazy river and the sun had come out. What could be scary about sitting on my lap floating in an inner tube enjoying the cool water? Oh, the fountains and water falls and whatever else they had going to get you wet. It wasn’t easy, but I managed to paddle our tube to the left, to the right, to the middle to avoid all these “fun things” they added. And she thought she wanted her own tube.  Ha!

After all this, I had to step back and take myself out of the experience. Was she having fun on her own or by having her mother force her to do things she didn’t want to do? Obviously, the answer was clear. So, I sat down on the edge of the pool and let her splash around and do things on her own terms. Her enjoying the experience was more important than my perception of what I felt we should get out of the day.  Once I let it all go, I was more peaceful and she was more peaceful.

In the end, was I proud of my behavior that day? No. I’m sure my friends made a mental note not to take parenting advice from me. But, I like to think I grew as a mom from this experience and also realized I have to say “no” to trips or events that I know my daughter can’t handle. She has a high sensitivity to loud noises and is very timid/cautious when it comes to new things. I’m learning to embrace that about her even though I don’t quite understand it.

As a child, I started life (ironically) in a lake community and then always had a pool in my backyard. To say I was part fish is an understatement. By 3 I knew the basic mechanics of how to swim. By 6 I knew how to swim and swim well. I had the ear infections from never being above water to prove it. So, my history and love of the water makes it a little hard, and perplexing, to watch my 3 year old daughter have the opposite view. It’s not that she doesn’t like playing in it. She does. But that’s about it. She doesn’t want to be splashed or have any part of her head or face get wet. She won’t go out further than she knows she can stand (yes, I know that’s not a bad thing). She doesn’t like me to carry her out past a spot she knows she can’t stand. It’s puzzling to me. Especially when I watch my friends 3 or 4 year olds run in and gleefully go under and get their heads wet.

And yes, there have been accidents. She’s tripped or gotten splashed, or holy hell…had a bucket of water dumped on her head by a friend (who would love to have the same done to them). Tears followed. Screaming and tears followed. I do my best to console and point out that she’s not physically hurt or harmed and that water is expected to touch body parts above the neck when you are in water. She calms down and heads back…leaving future therapy sessions to a minimum.

To encourage, I signed her up for swim lessons. (I’m really not a throw your kid in the lake and she’ll learn to swim kind of parent. I save that mentality for things like going down the slide.) If we are going to live in a lake community where you are in water almost every day during June, July and August you are gosh darn well going to learn to swim. We had our first lesson. Not as bad as I thought. She did attempt to “float” on her tummy and back. But that head was lifted up and not touching on drop of water (I’ll spare you what hair washing night is like around here.) The poor swim instruction probably has permanent nail marks in her skin from the death grip my child had on her. God bless her. Tomorrow is lesson #2. Here’s hoping!

Yes, I do know my daughter is probably the norm given her age. Yes, I do have friends whose kids prefer playing along the shore line and think getting in to their knees is a big big deal and I see that and I’m happy that she’s not afraid of the water overall. But I want to help her not be scared and, truly my bottom line, is to learn how to swim and be safe when she’s in water of any type.

I found this article (click HERE) about helping kids overcome the fear of water. If you’re going through the same thing, this might help you. I know when she’s older my view of peer pressure will change, but sometimes it’s a downright miracle mover when it comes to the little ones.  Good luck with your little Ariel or Nemo to be!

So, here are my wishes:

1. To find a way to get paid doing what I truly love: party planning, crafting, blogging. I know there are ways, but I haven’t truly found what I want or I’m not looking hard enough. Could be a combination of both.
2. To get serious about losing weight. My weight is truly something that keeps me up at night. There is a history of heart attacks in the family, and I worry that I’m going to have one. My greatest fear in life would be not seeing my daughter grow up. It frightens me. Obviously not enough to do something about it the next morning (which frightens me even more…but that’s a subject for another day)
3. To win the lottery. Seriously. And not $50 either. But a good couple thousand. Hundreds of thousands. I don’t even want to win millions. I don’t want to be that greedy. Enough to pay off the bills and pay off the house and put a little in the bank. That would be nice. Half a mil would do it. Now, if I only played the lottery!
4. Travel. Again, not being a recent lottery winner kind of precludes me from taking a trip to one of my many dream locations. But a nice day trip. Maybe to somewhere I haven’t been. Strolling around, window shopping and enjoying family time. We’ll see. This isn’t out of reach.
5. My greatest and biggest wish always is for my daughter to grow up and be the amazing person she is. The enjoy and embrace life. To be a catalyst for change in this world. I don’t know what or where her talents lay (she’s only 3) but I hope they are immense and can bring forth something positive. And, to be happy. With who she is, with how she looks, with her life.  To smile. Nothing looks prettier on a girl than a smile.
   

If you could wish for 5 things this week/month…what would they be?

Excerpt:

When did “mom” become a swear word? The other day, I was having a conversation with friends about how President Obama, despite being a very handsome man, is a bit of a nerd. “Did you see him when he threw out the first pitch at the All-Star game?” one of my friends said. “He was wearing mom jeans.” This was just a day after I was talking to a woman who had just had a facelift. She said she had told her plastic surgeon that she wanted to look fabulous and not, as she put it, “like a mom.” Like a what?, I asked her. “Like a mom,” she repeated. “I mean, I am a mom, but I didn’t want to look like, you know, a mom.”

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/susanorlean/2011/05/mom.html#ixzz1NxHbTwGB

I will admit, I’m a lip kisser. I smack my daughter on the lips when I give her kisses. I don’t recall my mother doing that to me as a child, but I can’t recall that she didn’t either. To me, she’s my kid and why would it be weird that I kiss her on the lips?

When I greet other family members or close friends, I kiss them on the cheek (and sometimes I wonder “what’s with all this kissing business? when did this start?”). I would never think of kissing them on the lips. They are not my husband or daughter. I guess to me the cheek kiss is more casual.

And, if I’m going to put it all out there, I kiss my dog too. But not on the lips. Heavens no! More on the top of his nose. He’s cute. He’s a lover boy. He likes kisses.

So, what about you? When it’s time to pucker where does it land?

Want to see what others are saying about the topic? A Cup of Jo started a firestorm when she posted about it. Then Parenting had their say so. The nice thing is there is no right or wrong answer here. As long as you are showing that love to your kids, no matter where the kiss lands, that is all that matters.

S.W.A.K.