Best $100 I Ever Spent

Our baby, Daenerys, was born two months premature. Maybe it’s because of that, or because I’m older now than I was when I had my first two offspring, and better understand the fragility of life, but for the first four months of her life – well technically, since she came home from NICU after a 6 and a half week stay – I couldn’t sleep. I was constantly checking to make sure Daenerys was breathing. I’d watch her sleep, hold her hand, touch her belly… anything, to ensure she wasn’t going to die while I slept. Then one day, I happened upon an article talking about baby movement monitors. I began to obsess about them, reading reviews, asking for advice on them from my peers, and in those wee hours when I couldn’t sleep for fear that something would happen and I’d wake up to the worst thing a parent can possibly imagine, I realized I had to have one.

We ordered the Snuza online for $100. My husband was shocked at the price tag. I didn’t care. And when I put it to him as, “What’s $100 if we have the chance to save our daughter’s life if she stops breathing while we are sleeping?” the price tag didn’t seem to matter as much (although, he still points out it’s only a few dollars worth of parts, and the company that makes it is taking advantage of parents’ fear by jacking the price up.)

The first thing we did when we got the Snuza was turn it on and set it on a table. After 20 seconds of no movement detected, it began to alarm. Yay! It works! That night, we clipped it to Daenerys’ diaper. I’d read that the Snuza doesn’t work well with cloth diapers (which is what we use when we’re at home), so we diapered Daenerys in a disposable. I slept better than I had since Daenerys was born (when I wasn’t waking to nurse her.) A couple nights later, my mate forgot about the disposable diaper and put a cloth diaper on her for bedtime. Twice that night, the Snuza didn’t sense movement, and alarmed. It woke both my husband and I up – which was wonderful, really, as now we knew it worked to rouse us.

Now sticking that little piece of equipment on Daenerys right before bedtime is a part of our routine. And I am convinced it is the best $100 I ever spent.

http://www.snuza.com/content.php?product=go

Potty Time

A Wank By Any Other Name...

You know you're a mum when 'patting the bunny' means this:

And not this:

Don't Panic! or Teens and Towels

Technically, my eldest daughter is a young adult, now, at the ripe old age of 19... but 'Young Adults and Towels' just doesn't have the same ring.

Hopefully, I'm not the only mum who frakked up and didn't teach her offspring proper care and feeding of towels. Because my eldest kids are HORRIBLE when it comes to washing towels. They use them, then throw them on the floor all wadded up like a wet rat, leaving them to get stinky. Then we (the responsible towel users in the family, aka 'The GrownUps') can't find them when we need them. We end up using and washing the same couple of towels, over and over, even though we know somewhere there are at least a few more towels because didn't we, in a moment of desperation, hit up JC Penney for a few extra towels?

And then when we do find the towels, we end up spending hours washing load after load of towels, soaking them in baking soda and vinegar, washing them in detergent, softener, colour safe bleach, trying to get that damn stank out, cursing the day our offspring crawled from the womb and failed to learn how to hang their frakkin' towels up...

So this weekend, in a fit of towel frenzy, my mate decided to wash the towels. He requested that I rally up all the dirty towels in the house.

Me: Do you have any towels? We're going to wash a load of them tomorrow.

TheGirlWeenit (aka, my eldest daughter): Hang on a minute... I may have a few...

<drags out ginormous laundry basket, overflowing with towels>

"Just a few towels", she said.

So, what does any frustrated mum do when she realizes she's somehow failed in teaching her offspring not to horde wet, dirty towels? Photoshop, of course:

Maybe text time she'll wash her towels.

PS: Today's blog is in honour of Douglas Adams. Don't panic and bring a towel.

Can We Euthanize the Mums, Instead?

Dear Mummy Group*,

I’ve recently noticed my Cat/Dog/Bird/Fish/Turtle/Slow Loris/Whatever Pet I Own has been terrorizing my toddler. The Cat/Dog/Bird/Fish/Turtle/Slow Loris/Whatever Pet I Own has been scratching/biting/beaking/finning/bumping/staring at my toddler. Even though I’ve owned my toddler for three years, I do not want it in my family anymore, since it is causing so much stress to my Cat/Dog/Bird/Fish/Turtle/Slow Loris/Whatever Pet I Own, and making it cry. Any idea where I can send my toddler where they won’t just put it to sleep but will try to find it a new home?

TIA!

-said no mum ever

*sarcasm font warning ahead

For the third time in one month, I’ve read posts by other mums in my Mummy Group, asking where they can send their beloved, elderly pet to get rid of them because their toddler is terrorizing the pet and it is stressing everyone out. I actually throw up in my heart a bit every time I see this (and it is WAY too prevalent – not just in my mum’s group.) Don’t get me wrong, I think these pets shouldn’t EVER be terrorized by anyone, let alone a one and a half foot tall poopy-smelling human being. But for fuck’s sake. Re-homing your pet, traumatizing them further by removing them from the only environment they’ve known, plugging up our shelters, risking having that animal put to sleep – what the frak is wrong with you people?!

I have an idea. Now, granted, I’m not the smartest person on the planet, so I could be way out of line here, but hey! HOW ABOUT TEACHING YOUR TODDLER SOME FUCKING PET MANNERS?! Like, oh… not sitting on the cat, or pulling your dog’s tail, or shaking your bird’s cage, or thwacking your fish’s tank, or poking your turtle’s head, or laughing at your poor slow loris’s attempt to run a 5k. I mean, seriously. That pet that you bought/adopted/found abandoned on the side of the road, was once your ‘baby’, too, and now that you have a new, human baby, you’re just going to ditch it and lie to yourself by telling yourself it’ll find a good home or not be put to sleep? I have a better idea: let’s euthanize you, instead. Because you’re terrorizing your pets.

This bed's not big enough!

Your Toddler is a Muscle-Deficient Wuss

Every time I think I’ve seen someone hit the height of stupidity, someone else comes along and out-stupids them. I was going to write about Indigo Children – the next step in human evolution (backwards) – but then this question popped up in the mummy playgroup I belong to:

I’m going to start my toddler on a high protein diet. What foods should I feed him?

My jaw actually, physically popped open. High protein diet? For toddlers?! What the frak? So, I clicked on the discussion, thinking other mums would be all, ‘Why are you putting your toddler on a high protein diet?’ but instead, it is chock full of advice on recipes and snacks to feed your toddler.

I was still in a heightened state of disbelief. Last I heard, high protein diets were for body builders who wanted to bulk up and gain some seriously (unattractive, IMHO) muscle mass, and cats with poopy butts (my daughter [aka TheGirlWeenit] owns a Maine Coone who was suffering from… how shall we call it? Oh, hell: Shit-Arse. Come to find out, increasing their protein also firms poop up some so it won’t stick to fur.)

So, I used my GoogleFu, Luke. Come to find out, Toddler High Protein Diets are all the rage. Because years and years of a healthy, normal toddler diet isn’t healthy. Nooo… millennia of toddlers have been suffering from a lack of protein and are unable to keep up with their high protein’d peers in stumbling, climbing the couch, and face-planting. Oh, and we definitely want our toddlers to have strong hair. Because, according to one website, keratin is a protein and toddlers can’t make enough hair with a normal diet.

So, now I’m envisioning a race of toddlers with six foot hair and Schwarzeneggerish muscles. And praying Daenerys doesn’t grow up to marry one.