Jordan Sparks: Battlefield

Jorie has recently discovered her love for music. Whenever we get into the car, I hear her high-pitched little voice ask: "mama, I want moo-sic."

This summer I started watching So You Think You Can Dance, and fell in love with both Jeanine and Brandon's dancing, to separately and when they were together. One hip-hop routine that particularly caught my eye was to "Battlefield" by Jordin Sparks (yes, I know that's how she spells it.) The routine is so cool that I haven't yet had the heart to delete the episode from my DVR, and from time to time I'll watch it.

Jorie loves it now too, and will not often insist "mama, I want to watching dancing." Just yesterday we watched it four times before she went down for her nap--all at her request.

This morning when we got into the car to go to preschool, I tuned in to "Battlefield" on my iPhone. For the twenty-five minute trip each way, Jorie asked for "more "Biblefeel" every time the next song kicked in.

Since I didn't want the car ride home to turn into a battlefield, I complied.

Jor-Lo and her Cutie Pants

Jorie is a Beast

Now before you judge me, let me explain that Jorie has been obsessed with Disney's Beauty and the Beast for a couple of months. What's worse, my husband Scott put the Beauty and the Beast sound track in MY car (although that has recently backfired on him as my car is now his car).

One can only be expected to sanely listen to a kid movie and soundtrack so many thousand times before they go insane. That's where re-wording songs come in handy.

Soon, the lyrics,
Tale as old as time
Song as old as rhyme
Beauty and the Beast become


Fingers full of grime
Whining all the time
Jorie is a Beast

Jorrible Behavior

What happens when I yell at Jorie about going into the street.

Utter defiance!

Heck no, I won't go!

Oh, unless you need me to pose for pictures.

Let me show off my good side.

Cheese!

Dr. Jorkel and Misses Hi

It's another typical morning: Jorie busts into my bedroom with a list of demands.

"I'm hungry!"

"My baby, my blankie, my yillow (pillow)."

"I wanna watch Do-Do-Do Dora!"

I can't believe how willful this girl is. All I want is a snuggle and some hugs and kisses--like I usually get each morning before the demands start flying--but this morning, I get no love.

Navigating the temper tantrums of a two year old is difficult, at best, and infuriating, at worst. We've been in a stalemate over some of her typical demands.

Like the other day: the girl wants to ride her big wheel. No problem! We play in a neighbor's backyard and all is great. While I talk to the mom, Jorie holds the grandpa hostage on the swing. (Totally not my problem, by the way.)

Most people she sucks in with her charm: a flirty smile. A sweet little "hi." Dr. Jorkel only comes out for a select few. The three-foot doctor made her appearance on the way home. But I was more determined to win.

Half a block away and Jorie decides she doesn't want to walk. But this kid is almost three and I'm getting tired to carrying her chunky butt here and there just because she doesn't "feel" like walking.

Crossroads: either give in to shut her up (easy way) or have a stand off (not so easy way.)

Stand off it is as I give the stubborn little monkey two choices: walk and have dinner and a movie OR carry and go straight to bed.

She carefully weighs her options as I continually hold out my hand, indicating that I will walk with her. Arguing and demanding suck a few minutes out of our lives, but eventually she complies.

We walk home hand-in-hand and head in for dinner. Those sweet moments, however couched they are among demands and fights, are the highlight of my day.

(I want a popcicle. My baby. I can't. Alex is bad.)

Jorie is a Beast

Now before you judge me, let me explain that Jorie has been obsessed with Disney's Beauty and the Beast for a couple of months. What's worse, my husband Scott put the Beauty and the Beast sound track in MY car (although that has recently backfired on him as my car is now his car).

One can only be expected to sanely listen to a kid movie and soundtrack so many thousand times before they go insane. That's where re-wording songs come in handy.

Soon, the lyrics,
Tale as old as time
Song as old as rhyme
Beauty and the Beast become


Fingers full of grime
Whining all the time
Jorie is a Beast

The Worlds of Miss Chattyshoes, Elmo, and Me

Yesterday was a good day with the kids. I had to get Mr. Busypants up. I found him with his entire body buried inside his fish duvet. All 24? (I'm losing count) of his books--the ones he wrote, illustrated and bound--were inside. As part of our routine, we had to gather them all, put them in the order in which they were written (yes, he knows even if I lost track around book 11), and stack them safely in his Book-Truck, a little truck made of construction paper that resembled the Mail-Truck he made for his valentines the week before. He carries his Book-Truck around so much that it's practically laminated with packing tape used to mend and reinforce areas of wear.

Books 2 and 3 were missing, so I found myself crawling inside the duvet in search of those books--there would be no getting ready for school until every book was retrieved. I found them pretty quickly and we resumed our ordering. Unfortunately, Small Group book and Marco Island book were missing. After a thorough search of his room, Mr. Busypants found them under the bed. Whew! Then it was off to our morning routines until the bus showed up. Today was Hat and Sunglasses day at school for Spirit Week, so Alex wore a gigantic Mexican sombrero. He fought it a little, but when he came home later that day, well, I think we're going to have words this morning about not wearing it today (it's Crazy Hair Day today).

By mid-morning, Miss Chattyshoes was getting a little stalky. Just as I was about to call my neighbor J, she called me. MisS CS was so excited to see her best little bud M. At first, the two of them stalked us (we had food and coffee). This is still new to me. Alex never stalked. He was a pretty content-to-hang-with-himself kind of baby. You put him by the TV and he'd watch Baby Einstein. You put him by his megablocks and he'd move them from one end of the room to the other. And forget about baby proofing. He just wasn't interested. But with Miss CS, everything is fair game.

The girls did disappear after a while (the food was gone). They ended up upstairs. We heard the occasional noises and chit-chat from upstairs. The girls were clearly occupied, which can be scary. But hey, we were alone to talk, uninterrupted, and get a refill on the coffee, uninterrupted, so we took our chances.

We got the girls through lunch and right to naptime before J and M left. It was perfect timing; the Elmo DVD was in the last scene, so Miss CS and I could sit down and watch, giving her the illusion that she watched Elmo before naptime. This girl loves her Elmo. Earlier that morning when I was on the phone with Scott, I got a double dose: Miss CS was watching both her Elmo DVD and her Elmo Live doll/robot thingy. Crazy/annoying. These days it's important that Miss CS goes to bed happy because I fear with enough anger and distress, she could figure out that she can hike her chunky little foot up and climb out.

Naptime, of course, is sacred. I get caught up on all my school work, which is absolutely vital to a working SAHM. Today naptime was bookended with dates with M. J called me just as Miss CS was beginning her post-nap chatter in her crib. M was still sleeping, so we came over while J picked up her six-year-old R.

On the way over, J gave me the "never mind, she's up." We came anyway. The first thing Miss CC said to me when I got her from her crib was and emphatic "Mommmmmyyyyyyy!" The second thing she said was her version of M. And now that she knew she was going to see her little buddy again, well, I wasn't getting in the way of that.

The girls were delighted to see each other again. They spent quite a bit of time on the stairs, giggling and meowing at the family cat. Soon they made it upstairs and the first room they explored was big sis's. We made our way back downstairs just as Mr. Busypant's bus arrived, so I went and got him; he was excited to be visiting the neighbors as well. He was even more excited to hear that we were going to the athletic center for Splash and Play.

Splash and Play is a program sponsored by the Special Rec. It allows kids with special needs to partner with a volunteer, who takes them swimming for an hour. It's $30 for like 10 weeks--a total steal. I almost feel guilty because Mr. Busypants' needs aren't THAT special, but hey, it's one of the few perks that comes with having a kid with autism, so I might as well enjoy.

The week before I had promised Mr. BP that we'd go early so he could play in the playcare center. For $2 an hour and some me-time, it's well worth it. So both kids played while I worked on my book proposal, then I transferred Mr. BP to the pool and then finished my Bible study.

At the end of swimming and playing, the kids were starving and tired--just the way you like them at 6:15 at night. I sang the Miss Chattyshoes has Chubby Cheeks song most of the way home to keep her happy, then it was dinner and bed for her and dinner and play for Mr. BP.

Overall it was a great day with the kids. Got lots done and had lots of fun. What more could a working SAHM ask for?

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Say Hello Chuckie Sue

Thee You on the Thee Thaw, Thindy

Anyone who knows me knows I'm an avid Brady Bunch fan. And I can totally relate to the struggles of Cindy "Thindy" Brady. I too had a bit of a lisp, struggling to pronounce my "S's" correctly. I had speech therapy in third and fourth grade, although, to be fair, I faked in in the fourth grade, recognizing the benefits of a 20 minute break 2x per week outside the classroom and including stickers and small, motivating prizes.

Speech therapy is not a new concept to me either. My brother George had ST and my brother Nick went to an early intervention preschool. In fact, Mr. Busypants started therapy at the ripe young age of 21 months. You name it--he had it. ST, OT, DT, DT/ST play groups, ST parenting groups. From 21 months to 3 years, we had quite the full schedule.

Now Jorie is approaching 3 and although she appears to be more than normal in her milestones (although her wardrobe choices, not so normal), she stutters.

This is not a big deal to me. It is what it is. But if I can do something to help her correct this problem early on, then I'm going to face it head on like I did with an admittedly scarier diagnosis of autism.

I called the school to schedule preschool screening and I'll read up on stuttering. For now, all I can do is be patient and listen as she struggles to get her points across. Believe me, she has many points to convey!

Let's Get This Potty Started Right Now!

This morning my neighbor and I took Jorie, aka Miss Chattyshoes, and her spunky side-kick Miss Sassypants to the Wal-Mart down the street to do some serious potty shopping. Sweetie Girl, the little girl my neighbor babysits a few days a week, was also there.

Each girl excitedly picked out her dream seat: Jorie went for the princessy pink Fisher-Price royal throne, while Miss Sassypants opted for the Elmo seat. We also picked up an array of rewards ranging from bubble rings to lip gloss and nail polish to stick-on earrings to sweeten the deal.

On the way home, we stopped at the Sonic drive-thru for an enormous cup of Cherry Limeade, which we filled sippy cups with once we got back and unloaded the new chairs. I ran home to get a spare chair so that Sweetie Girl wouldn't be left out (although she's the youngest of the three--younger than Jorie by one day--she is the only one with pee-pee on the potty on her resume.

We loaded each girl up with a sippy cup and a book and sat them in a row in my neighbor's kitchen and waited for the action to begin. We even had two babies sitting on their potties among them.

Sweetie Girl was the first to go. We vigorously applauded like we had just sold a time-share to the first sucker in the room and Sweetie Girl picked out her prize--a highly coveted piece of gum.

Miss Sassypants kept announcing she'd gone, but every time my neighbor checked, she was met with an empty bowl. After she cried potty for the um-teenth time, my neighbor took her time making yet another check. We were elated to find a full bowl.

On we cheered as Miss Sassypants turned Jorie green with envy over her potty prize, a bubble ring.

Jorie jealously sat by as Miss Sassypants celebrated making pee pee with blowing bubbles.

I went into the other room and heard a faint royal chime in the background. I almost missed it. Jorie stood up to find her own full bowl. We celebrated with a bubble ring and each girl got herself a full mani-pedi for their successes.

Today Jorie attended her first day of school. She's participating in a parent's day out program near one of the colleges I teach at. I drop her off two days a week, then go to work for the morning.

So this morning I picked out her new, pink pleated Old Navy skirt and like a typical chick, tried three shirts on her before I settled on one I liked, a red Gymboree shirt with little cherries on the front. Jorie playfully pointed to her chest and said, "Look mommy. Cherwies."

I packed her Little Chatterbox backpack with all the required, labeled items and packed her princess lunch bag with a piece of string cheese, a generic blueberry breakfast bar, a princess snack cup full of goldfish, a small container of lemon parfait yogurt, and a little cup of fruit. I also included her princess wat

er bottle and a sippy cup with apple juice. I mean, the kid was gonna be in school for four whole hours!

I dropped her off at school with minimal fuss, leaving her to play with three different-sized doll houses with various furniture but not many people. The teachers assured me that my little darling would be fine. Little did they know, I'm the drop-off queen when it comes to leaving my kids with people I trust. They're fine without me! It's the adults I worry about.

Since I was at a good stopping point, I left work a little early this afternoon to see her before the crowds of mommies showed up. I bumped into one of her teachers in the parking lot.

"Jorie did great," she said. "Is she in another program?" Then she told me about how the pastor of the church visited their room. He stood behind Jorie's chair and Jorie pulled her head all the way back to see him, smiling and charming him, giggling playfully.

My one concern when I got there: I'd forgotten to warn them that Jorie's a food bandit. Sure enough, after she polished off most of her own lunch (at least the parts of it they gave her; it gets pretty busy at lunch time and I packed too many different items), she invaded her neighbor's grapes.

Not wanting to leave the day unfinished, Jorie insisted on revisiting her lunch bag and ate her little fruit cup before we left. After washing her hands--several times--splashing in the water and playing with the suds. I finally got her out of there and strapped in. Looking at her in the rear view mirror, I could tell she was exhausted, but not too exhausted to break into her fishy cup, which, it turns out, was storing two of her stolen grapes.

At home, there were no "no nigh night" protests. She didn't need her baby. She didn't need her kiki. She didn't need her music. She just needed her pillow, her bed, and a little quiet.

I was happy to oblige.