Read Online Ketchup Is a Vegetable: And Other Lies Moms Tell Themselves by Robin O'Bryant - Free Book Online
Authors: Robin O'Bryant
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him sprawled in the floor or maybe he was sick, doubled over the toilet with some highly contagious and deathly strain of a stomach bug or... I skidded around the corner into our bedroom and found him — asleep. He was actually sleeping while our child screamed. He was out cold, with the baby monitor at full volume.
From that point on he had to put her in the bed with him to go to sleep and I would put her in her own bed when I came home. I found them on more than one occasion cuddled up in the bed with Daddy fast asleep and Aubrey looking at me like, “Poor little guy, he was all tuckered out.”
Once we transitioned Aubrey from the baby bed to the big girl bed, we had a whole new set of problems. My husband had been officially relieved from night duty with our kids when I heard him talking to Aubrey at six-weeks-old in the middle of the night, “WHAT is wrong with you??? Stop crying and just tell me what you want!” Her continued crying and his continued sensitivity weren’t exactly compatible with Mommy getting a full night’s sleep so we developed day and night shifts and stuck to that schedule until Emma, our second child, came along.
Emma threw a slight kink in our system because many nights I would get one child down just as the other was waking up. On nights that both girls were up, I would deal with Emma, since I was breastfeeding and Zeb would take care of getting Aubrey back to bed.
I was making Aubrey’s bed one morning and found a piece of petrified string cheese.
“Hmmm,” I thought to myself. “How in the world did that get there?”
When Zeb came home from work that evening I casually said, “I found an old piece of string cheese in Aubrey’s bed today.”
“Oh she woke up the other night and said she was hungry. She wanted string cheese so I gave her some and put her back in the bed.”
“YOU DID WHAT?!”
“I gave her some string cheese. She said she was hungry.”
“Are you kidding me? You gave a two-year-old string cheese and put her in the bed with it! What were you thinking? She could have choked to death! She only said she was hungry as a stalling tactic! And guess what? Now she KNOWS you are a SUCKER and now she’s going to come back for more! DON’T you EVER, give my baby food and put her in the bed with it! YOU are going to fix this! Do you hear me? Don’t be waking me up in the middle of the night when she comes begging you for more cheese!”
Thus began the week-long cheese fiasco. Every night around two in the morning, Aubrey would creep into our room, slip over to Zeb’s side of the bed and wail for string cheese. He would get up and put her back in the bed, minus the cheese. He was learning his lesson the hard way, or so I thought.
A couple of weeks passed and I was beginning to think the cheese fiasco was over. I was up before daylight one morning nursing Emma, when Aubrey came walking sideways into our living room and pointing to her back.
“Wook, Momma, wook,” she continued to point.
There on her Elmo pajamas was a piece of string cheese that had melted with her body heat into a circle the size of a personal pan pizza. I took her shirt off and began the arduous process of scraping the cheese off her favorite pajamas without putting a hole in them.
I called Zeb, “Dude. You are so busted.” I didn’t need to say anything else on the matter. The cheese fiasco was finally over.
Road trips are another great time to bond with your husband. We have always lived hundreds of miles away from our extended families in Alabama. We are used to loading up everything we own and taking road trips with our kids. Zeb usually drives, reluctantly I might add, while I spend most of my time turned around backwards tending to the kids, passing out snacks and picking up whatever toys they have dropped.
Usually somewhere along our route to Alabama, I will glance at Aubrey and notice that she is asleep with
From that point on he had to put her in the bed with him to go to sleep and I would put her in her own bed when I came home. I found them on more than one occasion cuddled up in the bed with Daddy fast asleep and Aubrey looking at me like, “Poor little guy, he was all tuckered out.”
Once we transitioned Aubrey from the baby bed to the big girl bed, we had a whole new set of problems. My husband had been officially relieved from night duty with our kids when I heard him talking to Aubrey at six-weeks-old in the middle of the night, “WHAT is wrong with you??? Stop crying and just tell me what you want!” Her continued crying and his continued sensitivity weren’t exactly compatible with Mommy getting a full night’s sleep so we developed day and night shifts and stuck to that schedule until Emma, our second child, came along.
Emma threw a slight kink in our system because many nights I would get one child down just as the other was waking up. On nights that both girls were up, I would deal with Emma, since I was breastfeeding and Zeb would take care of getting Aubrey back to bed.
I was making Aubrey’s bed one morning and found a piece of petrified string cheese.
“Hmmm,” I thought to myself. “How in the world did that get there?”
When Zeb came home from work that evening I casually said, “I found an old piece of string cheese in Aubrey’s bed today.”
“Oh she woke up the other night and said she was hungry. She wanted string cheese so I gave her some and put her back in the bed.”
“YOU DID WHAT?!”
“I gave her some string cheese. She said she was hungry.”
“Are you kidding me? You gave a two-year-old string cheese and put her in the bed with it! What were you thinking? She could have choked to death! She only said she was hungry as a stalling tactic! And guess what? Now she KNOWS you are a SUCKER and now she’s going to come back for more! DON’T you EVER, give my baby food and put her in the bed with it! YOU are going to fix this! Do you hear me? Don’t be waking me up in the middle of the night when she comes begging you for more cheese!”
Thus began the week-long cheese fiasco. Every night around two in the morning, Aubrey would creep into our room, slip over to Zeb’s side of the bed and wail for string cheese. He would get up and put her back in the bed, minus the cheese. He was learning his lesson the hard way, or so I thought.
A couple of weeks passed and I was beginning to think the cheese fiasco was over. I was up before daylight one morning nursing Emma, when Aubrey came walking sideways into our living room and pointing to her back.
“Wook, Momma, wook,” she continued to point.
There on her Elmo pajamas was a piece of string cheese that had melted with her body heat into a circle the size of a personal pan pizza. I took her shirt off and began the arduous process of scraping the cheese off her favorite pajamas without putting a hole in them.
I called Zeb, “Dude. You are so busted.” I didn’t need to say anything else on the matter. The cheese fiasco was finally over.
Road trips are another great time to bond with your husband. We have always lived hundreds of miles away from our extended families in Alabama. We are used to loading up everything we own and taking road trips with our kids. Zeb usually drives, reluctantly I might add, while I spend most of my time turned around backwards tending to the kids, passing out snacks and picking up whatever toys they have dropped.
Usually somewhere along our route to Alabama, I will glance at Aubrey and notice that she is asleep with
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