Seriously!? SERIOUSLY??

Really? I mean, seriously. The Gambit antics are just reaching absurdly ridiculous proportions. At least this time he didn't cause any bodily harm to himself (though I certainly wanted to cause some bodily harm). I should preface this and say that I truly love this kid. However, I do not find it fun, exciting, or remotely appropriate to clean POOP out of my carpet. Yes, human fecal matter in my carpet. I'm sorry, but that was not part of my job description when I agreed to this whole motherhood thing. Which, by the way, I'm beginning to think is all just a rouse to find out the many different ways that Mrs. Mom can lose her patience and scream and curse into a pillow. My poor children. I really feel bad for them for getting stuck with me.

Anyway, back to the wonderful world of poop. As I was cleaning downstairs (how domestic of me) I was thinking about how wonderful it was that the boys were playing so nicely upstairs in the playroom. I was enjoying dancing along to some music while sweeping the kitchen floor. You know, sort of like Mary Poppins or Cinderella. Gambit comes downstairs a few minutes later, sans any type of clothing or diaper. As I watch his little nakiness run around I see some mysterious brown marks on his derierre. "Oh Dear," I think to myself. "That looks an awful lot like poop." I immediately run to the source of said brown-ness and find a nice lump on my carpet. "Whew," I say. "Not exactly where I would like poop to end up, but at least it's a nice little lump that can be put in the toilet." Only then, to my utter horror, do I notice my staircase. After Gambit decided defecating on my carpet would be fun, he proceeded down the stairs to finish whatever devious task he had plotted in that tiny little head. Now, Gambit is very small for his age and has a hard time walking up and down the stairs because his legs are so short. He prefers to scoot down on his bottom. Do you see where I am going with this? All down my stairs are some perfectly placed poop streaks. All. The. Way. Down. This is one of those moments that I'm sure I won't be proud of in the years to come, but at the time I was seriously pissed. And a few profanities may have escaped my lips. I immediately clean up the stairs (that double as a toilet) and praise that man or woman who invented Resolve carpet cleaner with oxygen action.

Gambit did not have a very good rest of the day. Mommy was not too happy with him so he went to his Nonni's house to play. I think I scared him enough that this won't happen again. I do not deal with poop or vomit. Gross. Gross. Gross. I think the moral of the story is: if you have young kids that like to poop on carpet you need to invest in some good carpet cleaner, or perhaps an industrial strength steam cleaner and if you have young kids that like to poop on carpet, do not underestimate the power of duct tape at keeping a diaper on.

Another rousing episode of The Gambit Chronicles: I Love To Get Hurt. This child is a magnet for destruction and mayhem. We enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving with my family and Antonio's family all together. Great food, great company, great pie (thanks Mammie!) and we managed to escape the day without Gambit having some sort of injury crisis. Well, until right when we were ready to go home.

He was running down the hall and tripped. He landed right on his lip/face onto the corner of a bookshelf or table or something. I don't remember all the details of his shenanigans anymore. I was in the other room and heard him crying, but he went to Antonio for comfort. (Fine with me, I was busy playing games online...haha!) Suddenly I hear Antonio loudly calling for me. In that I'm-trying-not-to-panic-but-get-here-now voice. I run down and Gambit is bleeding profusely from his mouth. Upon closer inspection I can see that his bottom teeth have made a major cut on the inside of his mouth and just a small part went all the way through. I have to give myself major props and say that in all these crazy moments I've always stayed calm and haven't lost my cool. The wannabe nurse in me always takes over and I'm able to take care of the situation without freaking out because my kid is screaming and bloody. I decide that it's not worth it to go and get stitches (even though he probably needed them, I knew he would only get 2-3 and I didn't want to deal with the ER). Antonio held Gambit in his lap while I pinched his cut back together and held it for a bit. Not such an easy task to do when the cut is on the inside of someones mouth. It finally stopped bleeding and we headed home. Luckily the boys were going straight to bed so I thought it would give his mouth a little time to heal.

Apart from a major fat lip (it looks like someone punched him in the face) he's fine. The cut looks pretty nasty, but it's on the inside so no one can see it. I'm pretty sure it's going to leave a nice scar. Battle wounds from childhood, right? Seriously, I'm so done with all the injuries. And it's always Gambit! I figure we've been pretty lucky with only a broken bone and some bad cuts, but I don't really feel like pushing my luck any further. I'm afraid when he gets to school the teachers are going to be able to tell that he was constantly falling and hitting his head. It's got to be doing some damage! Hopefully he was born with a thick skull. If not, this poor kid is doomed.

Am I a Good Mother? Are you?

I began my journey of motherhood just over 4 years ago. I remember sitting in the hospital room with my new little baby cradled in my arm. He was born in the evening, and it was late by the time all the excitement had died down and the visitors had left. I stared at him, amazed that such a perfect little child was, quite literally, a part of me. I told how happy I was for him to have this opportunity at life. How excited I was to be his mother, and how I was going to do everything right. I would read him the right books and give him the best education. I would constantly tell him I loved him and that he was special. I would follow my doctor's advice and make sure he got all his shots and antibiotics when he got sick. In short, I was going to be the perfect mother.

I'm still in my rookie years of mothering as my oldest is only in preschool. When he was about 18 months old I realized that my dreams of being a perfect mother continued to escape me. I tried, oh how I tried. But for some reason some new situation would always arise and I would quickly run to the "experts" to figure out exactly how to ensure my child have the best possible upbringing.

Everything seemed to come crashing down when my second child was born. My first was not yet two and I now had the responsibility of caring for and raising two very different and very important little spirits. How in the world could Heavenly Father trust me to do this? Gambit was a difficult baby. He never slept, he always ate, he didn't do things like "they" said a happy baby would and I was at the edge of the cliff. I dressed my sons in matching clothes and always made sure their faces were wiped. I put a smile on my face and beamed when people asked me about my kids. I pretended to love what I was doing for fear of being labeled a "bad mother".

At one point I finally realized this game of good mom/bad mom is just absurd. Are there bad mothers? Unfortunately yes. They are the ones who shoot up while their children are starving and neglected. They are the ones who turn their backs when their children are being abused. They are the ones who intentionally and willfully inflict pain on their children. But, that is not most of us.

Bottlefeeding your child does not make you a bad mother. Co-sleeping, or making your child cry-it-out does not make you a bad mother. Giving your child a pacifier until they are 4 does not make you a bad mother. Breastfeeding them until they go to preschool does not make you a bad mother. Vaccinating or not vaccinating, circumcision or not, cloth diaper or disposible, home birth or hospital birth. The list of the shoulds and should nots are endless. We fail to adequately acknowledge that there is no right or wrong in any of these relatively minor parenting decisions.

I've found that we mothers are most judgemental with each other. Yet, we are all in the same situation of mothering our children with imperfect impulses and desires. Sure, we may do things a little differently, but we are all doing the best we can with what we have, and we all love our children fiercely. We all look for validation that how we are mothing is "right". And we give that to ourselves by pointing out different choices that other mothers have made. I think it's time we put away our judgements and notions of what makes a good mom or a bad mom. None of us will ever be the perfect mother and I think deep down our children know that. More importantly though, Heavenly Father knows it. Yet He still seems to think that we should continue on this path of motherhood. He trusts me with His children, and that's all the validation I need.

Pictures of Gambit's injury

This isn't a very good picture. He was tired and his arm hurt, but this is the sling he had to wear for 3 days. They splinted his arm with a half cast to allow time for the swelling to go down before putting it in a cast. That was really hard to deal with. He was constantly trying to take of the sling and since the splint was only wrapped with an ace bandage, we had to wrap his arm in masking tape so he wouldn't rip it off.

A little happier with his cast. It's not a normal orange color like it looks in the pictures. It's a really bright neon color. At least I won't lose him, he practically glows in the dark!

Gambit Broke his Arm....

Poor little guy broke his arm on Saturday evening. He was playing horsey rides with daddy, but apparently Gambit isn't a very good cowboy. He fell off and bumped his elbow funny. I guess he doesn't have a future in the rodeo! We took him to the urgent care clinic because I initially thought he had nursemaid's elbow (that's where a ligament between the upper arm bones and the lower arm bones gets moved to the wrong spot). The PA there tried (unsuccessfully) to pop his elbow back into place. After the fourth try, and Gambit screaming bloody murder, he suggested we go to the ER. Ugh.

Off to the ER we trot and luckily it was a quiet night and we were able to get right in. The doctor looked at his x-rays (which were done at urgent care) and found a small fracture at the head of the radius (the bigger bone of the lower arm). Because Gambit's arm was starting to swell at that point, the doctor didn't want to put him in a cast just yet. They made him a splint and put his arm in a sling and referred us to an orthopedist to see a few days later.

Sat night through today has been hell. Gambit can't sleep which makes him cranky, and I can't sleep because he's not sleeping which makes mommy very cranky. And with everyone cranky Ninja decides that he wants to be cranky too. Not a fun time in our house right now!

We went to the ortho guy today. He was really nice, and I was really hoping that he would take off the splint and see that his arm was healed enough to just let us go. As soon as the splint was removed I knew they were going to put a cast on him. His elbow and arm was still very swollen and bruised. They took some more x-rays to see how the bones were looking. I looked at the films with the doctor and was shocked to see that the fracture looked much bigger than it did on Saturday. I don't know if it actually did get bigger or if they just got a better shot of it, but nonetheless it was very easy to spot. He's now in a cast up to his armpit for the next four weeks at which point we will go in to see if he can have a splint for the following2 weeks or if he'll stay in a cast for a total of 6 weeks. Oh boy! He got to choose his color so his arm is now a neon orange color...that was pretty funny.

So far he seems to be doing okay, but we haven't hit bedtime yet so I'm bracing myself for the worst. Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised and he'll actually sleep with the cast. I'll post some pictures of him as soon as I've got them uploaded. I'm too tired and lazy to do it right now.

And HAPPY BIRTHDAY NINJA!!