It doesn’t matter if your black or white February 2, 2011

We have all heard the expression, “kids say the darndest things,” but it isn’t until your own child humiliates you that you take these words to heart.  As I have mentioned before, I am beginning to believe that life was easier before Allyson could communicate with intelligible words.  Usually, when Ally says something that I find to be embarrassing, I pretend she actually said something different.  For instance, Ally once ran up to a man not too much older than I who happened to have a beard (like my dad), and called him paw paw.  Fortunately, at the time, her words were not very clear, so I  simply explained that she said baw baw in reference to his facial hair, and he seemed to buy it without taking offense to being told that she thought he was the same age as my dad. 

I can no longer do this, as most of her words are now clear as day, which was made evident today.  On our way home from the gym, we stopped at Publix to get milk.  Because we had been at the gym for a while, Ally repeatedly told me how hungry she was as soon as we got in the car.  Being the good mother that I am, I bribed her and told her that if she was good while we were in Publix I would get her a treat at the register.  Thankfully, she upheld her end of the deal, and when we got to the front of the store, I picked out a snack for her.  I was happy to see that right by the register there was a 100 calorie pack of chocolate covered pretzels.  I assumed this would be a hit, because we eat yogurt covered pretzels regularly for a treat.  I walked up to the very sweet black (this will be important to the story in a moment) girl at the register and handed her the pretzels to scan so I could give them to Ally.  She immediately gave them back to me, and I handed them to Ally and told her to tell the girl “thank you.”  Ally looked herl right in the eyes and said “No black one!  I want a white one!”  (Remember the color of the cashier’s skin).  I had no idea where this came from, as Ally has never seemed to notice a difference in skin color, much less express it!  Then it dawned on me that Ally was not talking about the cashier’s color, she was talking about the color of the pretzel, which was chocolate and not yogurt.  Once the color returned to my face, I quickly explained to the cashier that we were not teaching our 2-year-old prejudicial behaviors, but instead, she was just a picky eater.

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Pack N Play January 29, 2011

There are a few great mysteries in life.  Why does anyone think it looks good to plaster a large floral print over the entirety of a room?  How does anyone with a mullet ever look in the mirror and think “I am one sexy man?”  At what point did man (I know it is in the Bible, but it is still a mystery to me) look at a pig, the dirtiest, nastiest animal ever created, and think “I want to eat that.”  And finally, who designed the “pack n play” and decide that was the most appropriate name for the bulky, confining contraption?

When I registered for our pack n play (months before Ally was born), I envisioned a lightweight, convenient item that would give Allyson plenty of room to play.  I was wrong on three accounts.  It is not lightweight by any means.  The matter in which it must be collapsed and expanded is anything but “convenient”.  In fact, the first time we used it was when we went to the beach with my friend Katherine, and I remember telling her after 20 minutes of wrestling with the monstrosity that the fish almost got a new bed.   And for as heavy and awkward as it is, it is certainly not large.  By the time Allyson was 2, she refused to sleep in it, because she was awakend incessantly throughout the night with her face smashed so far into the mesh siding that it left impressions.

Fortunately, her time in the baby jail cell has come to an end.  This trip,our 5 day tour of the Southeast, has been the first trip we have taken without the unwelcome company.  I will admit that as I pulled out of my driveway Wednesday morning with a light trunk, I had a moment of panic, as I envisioned 5 nights of wrestling with Ally to get into an unfamiliar bed.  But my fears were, as usual, unnecessary.  Not only did my the reduced weight of my car lead to better gas mileage, but Allyson has not had a single problem sleeping in other beds.  In fact, she has been in 3 different beds in the last 4 nights, and she has been sleeping beautifully.   So the pack n play days are over, and I am relieved!  Oh wait…baby #2 will be here in 5 weeks (or hopefully less), so I guess I will be lugging it around for a while longer.  Maybe I should design a new workout revolving around the transporting and setup of the pack n play, and add that to my infant carrier workout, and sell it as a box set!

Hoo Hoo January 24, 2011

I’ve learned to pick my battles.  Today, Ally did not want to wear pants (yet she still wanted to wear her furry boots), and because we were staying home to clean all day, I allowed it.  The only person that might have seen Ally in her shirt, diaper, and fur boots would be our next door neighbors, and since they have a direct view into our kitchen and living room at all times, I am sure they have seen much weirder things (they have caught me dancing on more than one occasion). 

However, the outfit is not the disturbing part of this anecdote; the conversations that persisted all day because of the outfit were what had me so concerned.  Throughout the day, Ally pointed down the front of her diaper region and said “Mommy, hoo-hoo.”  Now I know everyone has different names for “private parts,” but Dustin and I are both very modest people, and I am certain that we have not ever discussed such names.  In fact, we call everything covered by her diaper her “bottom” when it is necessary to discuss it at all.  So all day I tried to figure out where she could have learned such a thing.  My neurosis reared its ugly head, as I thought about everyone that had conversations with Ally.  However, I could not come up with anybody outside of her sunday school teachers, her Wednesday night bible teachers, her preschool teachers (at a Christian school), and our very best friends, that would even have the opportunity to converse with Ally when Dustin and I were not present, so I was baffled by where she could have learned this new “label.”  It bothered me all day, and I almost called Dustin at work to see if he knew where she could have learned it (but I decided that was not a conversation we should have in the presence of all of the people he was meeting with today). 

It wasn’t until tonight, when I was getting her ready for bathtime, that I figured it out.  As we were getting ready to get in the bath tonight, Ally grabbed a clean diaper out of the basket and said “Mommy!  Hoo-Hoo!!” as she excitedly pointed to the monkey that decorated the front of the diaper.  I am not sure how you type the sound a monkey makes, but when you ask Ally what they say, she says “hoo-hoo.”  Boy was I relieved that she was telling me that there was a monkey on her diaper, and nothing more.

I live with a narc January 13, 2011

When you have a new baby, you get very excited whenever they do new things.  I remember being thrilled when Allyson could first sit up on her own, then when she could crawl, and even more so when she could walk.  Little did we realize at each of those moments how much easier life was when we could put he down in one place and know she would still be there when we finished whatever we were doing.  The same is true as Allyson’s vocabulary has exploded.  When she first starting saying Mommy and Daddy, we beamed with pride.  With every new word that she has demonstrated since, we have applauded with exuberance.  But again, we didn’t think about the negative attributes of these newly found skills.  Today, I realized one of the very clear drawbacks to Allyson’s vast language abilities….she is a tattletale. 

Today, I am not sure if sheer boredom or complete arrogance got the best of me, but I decided that I would brave the ice that I ignorantly thought had melted in 28 degree weather, and Allyson and I tied to get out of the ice.  Unfortunately, not 2 miles from our house, I (and 5 other people who I would rather have not met today) lost complete control of my car, slid down a large hill, spun 630 degrees, hit a curb, and came to a stop.  For those of you that aren’t Geometry nerds, that spin left me perpendicular to the road with Ally’s door facing oncoming traffic.  Thankfully, those that had just topped the hill saw what had occurred and kept any other traffic from trying to proceed down the hill, and I was able to get Ally out of the car and off the road.  After realizing my limited driving skills would never get me turned back around and the rest of the way down that slip n slide called Shiloh Road, I frantically called Dustin and told him I wasn’t moving until he got there.  That was before I met Ray, my new hero, who got my car (and Allyson) out of the line of fire before any other cars lost control (sidenote..the police called me an hour later due to a mix-up and informed me that there had been a bad accident involving a semi right in that same spot, so I am glad Ray got us out of there!!). 

I say all of that to explain how Allyson demonstrated today that she is a narc.  Because Ray got us out of there before Dustin could get all the way to us from work (one of the drawbacks to living and working in Atlanta), Dustin just met me at home.  Dustin had barely walked in the door when Allyson ran up to him and said “Mommy was crying!  Mommy broke the car!”  Now in this case, Dustin already knew of my transgression, but it made me realize that there can be no secrets in this house, because not only does Allyson notice everything, but she proudly tells us that she knows.  I truly believe that Dustin and I don’t keep anything from each other anyway, but I guess we’ll find out for sure now!!!

Debbie Downer January 11, 2011

I am officially Debbie Downer.  While I normally try to find the good in situations, I have reached the point that I can no longer find anything good in this.  I HATE snow.  I live in Atlanta for a reason (outside of the obvious reason that this is the city in which Dustin is employed), and that reason is because I like HEAT.  For about half a day on Monday, I enjoyed playing in the snow, making a nice breakfast, and enjoying the white scenery.  But it has now been 2 full days, going on 3, that we have been stuck at home, and I am OVER it. 

I think in the days BA (Before Allyson), I might have enjoyed the time to catch up on my DVR, take naps, and do a little cleaning, but now that I have to keep a 2-year-old entertained, it is no longer as enjoyable.  Allyson and I are both very set in our weekly routines, so this disruption to our schedule has put us both in a funk, and we are driving each other nuts!  So if you have any ideas for ways I can keep my sanity in tact while trapped inside a house (that is feeling smaller and smaller with each passing moment) with only a 2-year-old suffering gravely from cabin fever (Dustin gets to continue to go to work), I am open to any and all advice.  Until I find the solution to this problem, I am going to dream of days of 100% humidity, 90 + degree temperatures, swimming pools, and sunburns (just doing my part to make sure my dermatologist can continue to make his car payments), and pray that the weatherman is wrong and it won’t be the weekend before this snow starts to go away.

Christmas Miracle December 28, 2010

What is the Christmas miracle? 

Peace on Earth?  Not until the Lord returns. 
A cure for all of my lung issues?  I’m still praying for that one. 
Ally is no longer in diapers?  I gave up on that one for now.

The Christmas miracle of 2010 in the Cochran household actually has 2 parts.  First of all, after Ally’s one month stubborn refusal to drink milk from a cup, she has given in to my strength of will, and I reign victorious!  When I told our pediatrician at Ally’s 2-year check-up about the stance against milk Ally had taken (for more information on that nightmare, feel free to read back a few posts), Dr. Luk told me to only offer her milk during meals.  If she was thirsty and refused to drink it, oh well, her loss.  Since that appointment, that is what we have done.  Ally has proven in this past month that she is far more like me than I had ever hoped.  Her stubborn streak runs all the way to her core, and for over a month, she has suffered in silence (and I know she was suffering, because she eats peanut butter every morning for breakfast, and she has chosen not to drink anything at all).  Last week, as we always do, we gave Ally a cup of milk with dinner, but to our shock, she picked it up and just drank it!  And after taking a big drink, she looked at us and said, “mmmm….ice cream.”  So we are letting her believe that we are melting ice cream and putting it in her cup, because it is working, and who are we to burst her bubble?

The second part of our Christmas miracle, of course, also involves Ally.  Because we are going to need the nursery very soon, we have worked VERY hard to get Ally’s new room ready for her.  Last week, we went and picked up her “big girl bed” and put it in her new room.  Dustin and I have been mentally preparing ourselves for the battle that would ensue once we put her in a bed that did not resemble a personal jail cell.  The first night we went to put her in there, we pumped each other up with motivational words, chest bumps, and butt slaps as we prepared for the big game of getting Ally to stay in the bed.  We decided to let her stay up a little late, so she might be too tired to put up a terrible fight and then put her to bed.  We went in with out game faces on and ready to take down the little Napoleon that often is demonstrated in our precious, blue-eyed princess.  We were utterly astonished when she simply told us goodnight and went to bed.  She NEVER even tried to get out of the bed, and we have successfully gone to sleep in that bed 4 times now without a single issue (unless you count that I found her asleep in the floor this morning meaning she either went for a middle of the night exploration or fell out of bed…either way, she didn’t wake us up!). 

So this Christmas I have received two wonderful gifts.  The peace that comes with knowing Allyson is doing her part to fight osteoporosis and knowing that Anna Kate will have a place to sleep when she arrives that won’t involve Allyson kicking her in the face while she sleeps.  Now if only I could find the inner strength to work on getting rid of those diapers, but for now, I just don’t have it in me.

It’s Christmas time! December 25, 2010

Christmas is my favorite day of the year.  I love the build up, the music, the lights, the shopping, the planning, and surprising grumpy people with a smile and a “Merry Christmas.”  Furthermore, I love the holiday parties, time off work, added time with friends, time with my family, church services in December, and the candlelight service on Christmas Eve.  This year, I felt an all new excitement for Christmas, as I was able to experience it through the eyes of my 2-year old, who was amazed by every new thing that she saw.   Allyson, as most children do, delighted in all of the typical traditions of Christmas, but furthermore, she loved hearing the stories of baby Jesus and celebrating his birth, and most of all, spending time in Auburn with the Cochran clan.

Because we never want Ally to lose the true meaning of Christmas, we decided very early on that she would not be spoiled during this season.  Now those of you that know me well, know that is very difficult for me to do.  Spoiling her just comes naturally to me, because I love her so much, and I love to go overboard at Christmas.  But I also know that because I love her, I need to teach her to be kind, giving, and grateful, so I stuck very closely to the modest budget we set for her gifts.  Knowing that I only had a set amount to spend, I put a lot of thought and research into what we would get.  I researched deals, best prices, read reviews, etc to come up with the perfect array of gifts for Christmas day, and I will admit, that at the end of it all, I was very pleased with what we came up with.  Until this morning that is…for a few seconds, Allyson seemed engrossed with all of her new toys, but that lasted for just that…a few seconds.  Of all of the toys that Allyson received this morning, there was only one that she has chosen to play with all day, and it cost me a mere $3.00.  What is this treasure among treasures that has made Radio Flyer Scooters and CD players seem like rubbish you ask?  An old-school, classic Mr. Potato Head.  Who would have ever thought that a brown lump of plastic with removable facial features would transcend generations and still be a favorite toy today?  I certainly didn’t, but it has given me a new plan for next year. In 2011, I am going to set a budget of $0.00, and simply go through my parents attic and give her the useless junk that my dad has been telling us to get rid of for years..  I hope you have all had a joyous day.