Her instructions?

“Anyone can enter, and to enter I would like you to write a blog post about an old-wives tale that has to do with raising a child, and whether or not you think it has any relevance today (you can find some here if you’re stuck for ideas).

Link to this post so I can find the posts of course and spread the word. I’ll post the books to the winner no matter where in the world they are.

And I will send something special- and not necessarily parenting related- to the person who refers the most people here, so be sure others know to tell me where they came from . Competition closes a week from today on October 29^th.”

So here’s my entry. And I have a few things I’d like to talk about:

1. Heartburn means your baby will have lots of hair. I’d say this one’s pretty much true. I had heartburn (not bad either) maybe twice in my pregnancy. My Kid was born practically bald and it took him about two years to grow a full head of hair. He has very fine, blond hair, like me.

2. If you crave sweets while you’re pregnant it’s going to be a girl. Absolute trollop. At least for me, mother to a boy. I had another reason for craving sweets. Because my morning sickness was SO bad nothing would stay in my stomach for longer than 2 minutes.

Eventually I discovered that I could stomach wine gums and jelly babies and it was all I craved. Why? Because they were digested so quickly, there was nothing that my body could push the eject button on, and I was getting some nutrients and sugar from the sweets, so they stayed.

3. Breastfeeding is easy, simple and natural. I dont know how many times I heard/read that while pregnant. What breastfeeding actually turned out to be was a whole other difficult and time-consuming mess.

Feeds could sometimes take up to an hour. I was always thirsty, tired and hungry and cranky. Bottle-feeding turned out to be so much easier, and so much less traumatic than I’d expected.

4. If your new baby is constantly crying and seems hungry your milk is too weak. I have only one word for this, and I wish I’d remembered it when people were telling me this: “Bullshit”. It means your baby is going through a growth spurt and is demanding more milk, and that your milk supply will soon adjust, if you’re patient enough. Drink as much liquids as you can, and try persist, if breastfeeding is your thing.

5. A baby should learn to soothe itself without a pacifier/dummy. I say nay, and say . Better to be a dummy sucker than a thumb sucker, I say. I know some grown ups who still suck their thumbs, but I dont know any grown ups who still suck a dummy, do you?

Now, at the ripe old age of nearly two, we’re firmly on our way to ditching the dummy successfully. We reached a point where he accepted that dummies were only for sleeping. Then we reached a point where he no longer asked for his dummy during the day at all. And now, we’re on our way to not needing the dummy at night either.

Despite old wives tales, despite having not followed the rules, and despite having been a rather bad mommy, I don’t think I’ve done a bad job thus far. Why? Because I listened to the most important wives tale of all.

Trust your maternal instinct. If it feels wrong, don’t do it. If it feels right, do it.

Photo Credit: ‘Old Wives Tales’: CafeMama on Flickr.

The other day he comes to me, holds out his Taddy and says “Mommy, Taddy made a poopie. Wipe Taddy bum. Give Taddy clean nappy.” Which I then had to do, so gobsmacked was I at this string of instructions issued forth by my toddler.

Taddy, oh Taddy. I should have bought a few more of you when I saw you sitting on the shelves of that store all those months ago. But how was I to know that The Kid would become completely and utterly smitten with you?

He eats his dinner with Taddy:

Even shares his dinner with Taddy:

When The Kid baths, Taddy baths in the empty basin. Usually. Yesterday The Kid decided Taddy needed a bath, and mommy was busy, so The Kid bathed Taddy himself.

In the toilet.

And then comes rushing to me and tells me “Mommy, Mommy Taddy wet. Taddy bathing”.  One look into the bathroom told me that the sodden bear in my hand had just come out of the facilities and was, in fact, dripping toilet water.

And that was where The Kid spent the next forty or so minutes. Waiting for Taddy to get out of the washing machine. Crying for Taddy. Yanking on the doorhandle. Throwing himself against the washing machine and sobbing for Taddy.

Needless to say, Taddy didn’t even get a chance to hang on the line, but I doubt he’ll be revisiting the toiletbath in a hurry.

And it’s usually when you’ve realised that the house has gone quiet that you realise that it’s perhaps a little bit too quiet.

So you investigate. And this is what you find:

And how can you possibly be mad with this gorgeous little devil when you ask him what he’s doing and he tells you:

“Drawing sheep, mommy. Drawing sheep and making grass“.

And even though that was a full tub of baby cream. And even though I had a lot of cleaning to do – cream is surprisingly difficult to extract from a carpet – I really couldn’t be mad.

His answer was far too cute. So I took pictures instead, with my Blackberry.

1. Climb up onto the rails:

2. Fling yourself *over* the rails and land on the mattress with a thump:

3. Grab a book and try to look inconspicuous and well-behaved when your mother peers over the rail of your cot:

4. You could try pretending to read. Just pretend that your mother doesn’t know you cant read yet. Also, you might need to pretend your book isn’t upside down:

5. If all else fails, try hiding and/or acting adorable:

So it’s time to shop for a Big Boy Bed – any suggestions on where to look or what to look out for?

1. Make sure you don’t restrict the yoghurt entirely to your face area. Why bother only putting it in your mouth when you can spread it everywhere all over your entire body?

2. That being said, don’t forget to aim for your face at least *some* of the time. After all, it does taste good:

3. When aiming for your face, don’t forget to open REALLY WIDE so as to increase the chances of the spoon finding it’s way into your mouth:

4.Admire the scenery while you enjoy your mouthful of yoghurt:

5. Then smear some down your shirt:

6. Then spill some {more} on your legs:

7. Don’t forget about the dog:

8. Take a moment to ponder on the deliciousness of yoghurt. The wonderousness that is The Batman Yoghurt. Raspberry-Mallow flavour.

9. Just when your mother thinks you’re getting the whole eating-a-yoghurt-by-yourself-like-a-big-boy thing down right, pull a stunt like this:

10. Oh my dear, sweet funny little Kid, I love you so much right now:

11. You are so your mother’s child:

The Kid is obsessed with dinosaurs. Little figurines, big ones, fluffy dinosaur toys, big battery-operated ones. He has dinosaurs of every single shape, colour and size.

He has a dinosaur that he cuddles while he’s falling asleep. His favourite game? Stomp around shouting ‘rawwwr’, pretending to be dinosaurs. If there’s anything with dinosaurs on TV, he’ll watch it.

He is starting to learn the names too:

Triceratops: he says “seratops”
Stegasaurus: he says “seggasaurus”
Pteradactyl: he says “dactyl”

Now mommy needs to learn the names too. Been far too long since school days.

As long as it’s not Barney The Dinosaur, I’m okay with it.

The Kid loves his dummy. Hardly ever lets his dummy go. Except when he goes to daycare, or I take it away from him when he’s playing. But if he needs to sleep, he needs his dummy. If we need to take him with us  shopping, he needs his dummy. It keeps his mouth shut and keeps him relatively quiet.

He’s going on 2 now, and I’m thinking it might be time to ditch the dummy. Which might prove difficult, because he asks for his dummy if I take it away. And he knows where the dummies are kept, and sometimes helps himself to more than just one.

I need help. How does one go about ditching the dummy? Kicking the habit and keeping it kicked?

So give me a shoutout if you’re still around, still lurking and still breathing!

More WW here.

“Todays guest post is brought to you by Jessica from Mommynightowl. She also writes at San Diego Toddler Days. This is all part of the TwitterMoms “blog swap.” Please don’t forget to check out my post over on their site.”

I will start with a little about myself: I am Jessica, a 22-year-old wife and mother who resides in California.  On the thirteenth I will have two years experience as a mother, so I’m just getting started.  My husband and I knew we wanted a family , we just weren’t planning to have it so early.

There were times in the first few months of my daughter’s life that I regretted my decisions and was upset about being a new mother but now I can’t even imagine my life without her.  She is my reason for everything I do, she is my whole life.  I have learned to embrace and even love being a mother.  There’s just something to say about having a sense of accomplishment that another day has went well in unplanned motherhood.  So I bring to you, the reasons I love being a mother:

-My daughter came before we were able to get on our feet, but has made us want to do so much more with our lives.  Before my daughter came into my life I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life.  When she was four months old I got really post par-tum depression, I was hospilized for three days, so I knew I had to get back to work. I’m a bad mommy in a sense that I love my daughter to death but I can’t be with her by myself 24/7/365.  I needed a break to recollect the patience I’d lost.  I’ve started to go back to school and now I’m about to graduate to be a dental assistant.

-There’s no picker upper like unconditional love.  There’s nothing almost nothing you could do to make your kids not love you. As long as you show them love, they will show they love you. It doesn’t matter if I put my daughter in time out, 30 minutes later she will be in my arms, wanting and giving hugs saying I love you mommy.

-Her smile and laugh. How can you be angry when you see your child smile or hear their laugh?

-How smart she is. I like to think I helped in some way or another to make her so smart. Maybe, maybe not, but in my mind I helped out with that, she is my daughter after all.

-This summer I really starting looking for things to do with my daughter, to get out of the house. I started researching and came across mommy group after mommy group and blogging. Being a mother lets you open easier when you find people who are mothers themselves. Motherhood makes you so much more outgoing.

-I only get better each day in being a mother. And I may not be the best mom in the world but theres always someone worse, otherwise why would therapy be a million dollar industry? And besides the world needs bad moms anyways, otherwise how would all the “good” moms know how to set their standards?

- I get to be a kid again. I get to read kiddy books all day, and sing silly songs and play with paint and color with crayons.  How cool is that?

-There’s so much to learn from kids.  Things you learn from yourself: patience,self esteem, not to worry so much .  And things you learn from them: how to share, how to be curious, happy, active and outgoing.

Photo taken by Angel. From The Kid’s Birthday Party this Saturday.