I am waiting, as I type this, for him to find the 3 additional munchkin teethers that arrived today. Aiven liked the first one so much, that I though it would be best to have some extras (one for the nursery, one for the bedroom, one for the living room and one for the diaper bag). I don’t think he will find it very funny though.

We “misplace” things. Often.

Like pacifiers. I bought 8 pacifiers about 2 weeks ago. 8!!! That was after the 15 or so I have bought since Aiven was born. They just go missing. I did, however, find 6 under the bed yesterday. I have no idea how they got there. Aiven is certainly not tossing them there from the co-sleeper. Then again, maybe he is.

I stockpile other things too. Paper goods. Toilet paper, paper towels and kleenex. A couple times now, we have been at Costco and I have told Alex that we needed one of the aforementioned items only to come home and find unopened mega-packs of the item in a closet somewhere. I once acquired 40 rolls of paper towel. I was 3 months pregnant then, so I chalked it up to pregnancy brain.

I stockpile small bills. I have a $5 or $10 bill in pockets of jackets, pockets of bags, my kindle case, you name it. Because, it is not always convenient to get to my wallet. So, I like to have a couple dollars easily accessible. I don’t consider this stockpiling. My husband does though.

He likes a certain, hard to find toothpaste. So, when I found it, I bought 15 tubes of it. Of course, 2 months later, he decided he liked my toothpaste better. Stockpiling did not work in my favor that time.

My latest obsession. Pregnancy tests. We are trying to have another baby and the pregnancy tests in the drugstores are very expensive. Especially, with my OCD, it can get VERY expensive. I found some strips online.

25 for $5!!!!

I bought 50.

What, if anything, do you stockpile?

About the Writer

Cara Paiuk is a wife, mother and friend who is trying to navigate an increasingly complex life and balance it with her aspirations. She and her husband recently quit their jobs, went to Europe for 3 months with their baby and are currently in Austin, Texas trying to figure out what adventure to conquer next. You can read more of Cara’s writing at www.sweetpotatoandapples.com

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Sibling bonding starts early.

My son has always been a happy and smiley boy. His first smiles were huge, infectious and almost goofy. I knew right away that he was going to be an outgoing kid who would no doubt keep me on my toes. No one can make that boy laugh (and cry!) the way his big sister does. The sibling bond is strong with these two and it shows not only in the way they connect but the influence they have on one another.

I don’t discourage the interests of a child’s mind and I try to allow them to explore what they like rather than what I’d like them to like. I’m very open minded and encourage my kids to figure themselves out. You will never hear me say “Boy’s don’t do that,” or “Those are just for girls!” so my son tends to pick up on activities his older sister digs.

This has led to some hilarious moments that I haven’t discouraged and of course documented… which probably makes me the worst mother ever. If something hilarious happens I tend to jump for the camera first and ask questions later. I figure all the sleepless nights we are trying to survive, stressed moments, defiant tantrums that make us want to poke our eyes out are all payments for the gems I can capture.

My son may hate me and my camera one day or he may embrace his individuality… either way, he better watch his butt when he is in high school because I got this ammo:

Fierce Cheerleader: Lock Up Your Daughters

Big Sister's First Mickey Ears Look Adorable on Him

They Didn't Mind Sharing Dress-Up Clothes

He Rolls with Princesses

He Walks in Them Better Than Mommy

Fabulous Little Brother

And just in case my son one day finds this post I just want to say: Mommy loves you very much and always will. I warned you… now go clean your room.

No respect for the undead.

Recently, we had a completely new experience. My kids and I (I can’t really blame my husband, because he was collecting our drinks at the time) managed to drive another family right out of Starbucks. I noticed them when we arrived: two kids, a little older than ours. One of them, an angelic curly blonde, solemnly drank her beverage through a straw while—it seemed to me–suspiciously watching our every move. The only free table was next to them, so we piled around it, like we had twelve children rather than two, because that’s what we do.

My older son’s current obsession is, a year late, vampires. He’s behind on his trends, but what can you do? He was in his vampire cape, and attempted, as usual, to order a blood frappucino. As we started in on our regular coffee chatter (Why do vampires like blood? What does blood taste like? Could we turn our beds on their ends and sleep upside down like bats?) I did notice that the little blonde angel continued to stare, and that there was a distinct lack of response when I attempted to smile conspiratorially in her parents’ direction.When my four-year-old leaned over the table to gnaw on my, and then his brother’s, arms for a snack, there was angry whispering, a distinct “I can’t listen to this… ” and the family rose as one, unfinished drinks in hand, and walked quickly out the door.

I was bemused. I wanted to run after the parents and ask if it was the venue that they found inappropriate, or would the topic of the undead be off limits anywhere? Was it the gore level of the conversation, or vampires in particular that they found disturbing? Was it when I told my four-year-old to stop sucking his brother’s blood that truly put them off? Was it was my all black outfit highlighted by my “sleeping with a croupy, coughy, kicky four-year-old three nights in a row” pallor? My horizontally slit contacts and insanely long canine teeth? Okay, I don’t really have those. But that would have been cool.

Such a thing, to my knowledge, has never happened to us before. I’m guessing it won’t be the last time.

The children and I stand together, unified in our love for their father, as he turns the  kitchen upside down, slamming cabinet doors, whipping through shelves, tossing contents aside as he searches for any amount of it.

Mom. You did this to dad. My sweet children shoot an accusing eye at me.

My tears fall thick and fast. Yes. I know.

We listen as their father shouts to the air. “Damn it! I can’t believe there’s nothing in the house!”

“Please.” I reach for him, searching his eyes–hoping to see the man I used to know still inside. “I can go get you some. We’ll go together. You and me… it’ll be all right.”

I am the one who has done this to him. The one to blame for what the children are now witness to this weekend morning.

No one had warned this man in 1995 about striking up a conversation with a dark eyed, raven haired woman from Colombia. He had no idea all that came with a woman who as an infant was nursed on a mother’s breast milk that was equivalent to a double tall breve latte.

Before I darkened his door, this once even-keeled man’s lips had remained virgin to the roasted bean.

And now, he was hopelessly enslaved to a lifestyle he never imagined. In the same way as Robert Downey Jr’s father had been the first to place the maryjane pipe in li’l Bobby’s mouth and flip that switch; it was me who had seduced this unsuspecting man into taking the ceramic demitasse of Colombian espresso I had placed before him seventeen years ago, masking the devil’s beverage behind swirls of sweet cream and two sugar cubes.

“Kids.” I turn to my children. “Kids. Go on upstairs. Your dad will be okay. I’ll take care of it.”

“Yeah, mom, but he needs an ogre name for the days we run out of coffee.”

I shoo the children upstairs so they no longer have to see their father in his dependent condition. I take my husband’s trembling hand in mine.

“Come on!” I say as I push him out the door while shoving his coat at him. “The kids will be fine. Starbucks has this new House Dark Roast! You’re gonna love this stuff–it’ll make you feel like the back of your head is going to blow off.”

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Soul, R&B, and Pop uber-queen Rihanna remains tight lipped as to the location of the Hopeless Place she sings about in her Number One total club banger superhit, but I believe I have pieced together enough clues from the mega-song’s lyrics that I can without a doubt say I have found Rihanna’s Hopeless Place.

As the winner of multiple Billboard, Grammy, BRIT, MTV, BET, ASCAP, AMA, GED, SAT, ACT and LMNOP awards, it has gotten harder and harder for Rihanna to find any place to call her own, much less one that’s hopeless. There are so many awards she needs a warehouse to keep them all. Her albums have sold over 25 million, her singles over 45 million, and her net worth hovers close to $75 million… give or take a million.

She owns homes in Los Angeles, New York City, and Barbados.

And she’s not even 24.

How in the world is Rihanna supposed to find a Hopeless Place with all that sweet stuff going on?

I think she’s left us clues in her song:

Yellow diamonds in the light
Standing side by side
Shadow crosses over mine
What it takes to come alive

Shine a light through an open door
Turn away cuz I need you more
Feel the heart beat in my mind
It’s the way I’m feeling I just can’t denyyyyyyyyyyyy

It’s all right there: she’s singing to all those in the middle of potty-training. Specifically, all those in the middle of a 3 a.m. PT session. Yellow diamonds of urine in the night, standing side by side as we hold our little ones up, their shadows crossing over ours, as they hang on tight in the dim bathroom light, hoping at 3 a.m. that we somehow come alive. The harsh hall light shines through the open door, as our parenting partners check the score. We turn away cuz our mini-me needs us more. We feel the heart beat in our heads warning of the migraine to come from not being in bed.

It’s a feeling that we just can’t deny.

I know. So obvious. The most hopeless place. Where we find love every time we see those big eyes looking up at us, trusting us to not let them fall in.

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There’s only one problem: they’ve started bringing home three dimensional “works of art”.

Three dimensional pieces do not fit in my accordion files and I’m left to wonder, “What the hell am I supposed to do with that?”

What am I supposed to do with my daughter’s cat sculpture? You know… the one with the cracked left foot and ears that broke off while the cat made the treacherous journey from school to home. I can’t put that in an accordion file! I can’t throw it away, either, because my daughter spent several days creating this masterpiece and would drop to the floor and keen if I suggested it go to the great clay kitty condo in the sky. No, I’m stuck with the cat and it sits on the china cabinet, silently mocking my powerlessness.

What am I supposed to do with the “robot” my son created at robotics camp? It is basically a yogurt container with a small engine-like thingy inside and wires all over the place. It moves and vibrates and it will not fit in the accordion file! When I suggested to my son that we throw it away, he said, “But Mom… it’s a robot!” One kid’s “robot” is a parent’s trash. So, it sits on a shelf in his room collecting dust and angry stares from me.

What am I to do with the misshaped “bowls,” “serving plates” and “mugs” lovingly made for me by my kids? I can’t hang them on a tree, and you know what else? THEY WILL NOT FIT IN THE ACCORDION FILE!

It’s like the Island of Misfit Clay Shit up in this joint and I’m drowning in pinch pots.

I don’t know what to do. I could tell my children that they can no longer work with clay, maybe tell them we just found out that they’re allergic to clay and that their hands will fall off. Or, I could sneak into the school in the dead of night and steal all the clay.

What’s a parent to do? Do any of you have an answer, or are you all being mocked by clay sculptures of woodland creatures as you read this?

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If someone told me what I should be doing I would do the opposite. Just because.

Isn't that the face of a perfect kid? Yup, that's me. I've changed a lot.

Or if someone doubted my ability to do something, I would push myself to prove them wrong. Do you know what happens when you tell the teenage version of me that they can’t skateboard off the roof into the pool?

Thankfully my head narrowly missed the fate that my broken skateboard suffered.

But there were still many ER trips. Never let your 15-year-old own a razor sharp katana sword and not expect her to need stitches.

Some of this lingers. If someone says to me, “You should sit down!” or, “Here have my seat,” I will respectfully decline and stand.

Not because I want to stand but because I was told to sit.

There may be reasons why I’ve been single a long time…

My dad never knew how to deal with me when I was a kid… actually, he still doesn’t. I was his princess-turned-evil queen. The more he pushed me and tried to restrict me the more I would push back. He eventually gave up and I was like a feral child.

He used to joke with me that if I ever had kids then he would finally have redemption. He would say that payback of me having a child like me was going to be his only sweet victory.

He was disappointed when my princess spawn turned out to be the sweetest thing on the planet. She has always been the kid who will go out of her way to make people happy. She is the calm balance in my heart that I needed.

But, lately my daughter has been pushing limits.

She has turned in to a defiant nine-year-old with a side of crazy. Hormones, right?

She is still that sweet lovebug… but now we argue. She pushes back. She goes against me. The other day she gave me that head turn with the obnoxious eye roll that shocked me so much I thought I was going to crap my pants.

This isn’t my kid. She’s possessed!

Then my dad told me something horrible… he said that she was exactly like me and I was like him. It’s in the genes. The grin on his face made it clear that his payback was on the horizon. I’ve never seen such an elated expression on his face.

I’m so screwed.

This is eerily similar to every photo taken of me in high school. Except I had curly hair. Which somehow makes it worse.

There were two things I wanted to accomplish more than anything at sixteen: marry Keanu Reeves and have EVERYONE think I’m awesome at EVERYTHING. Hermione Granger meets Rachel Berry. So sad.

I competed in a state competition for French impromptu speaking and got third place in the whole state. My teacher told me that my third place ribbon was due solely to a lack of effort on my part and that it was very disappointing.

Dudes.

I spoke.

In French.

For fifteen minutes.

About what I like to do on Friday night or some crap.

And I was the third best at it among people who did that in the ENTIRE state of Florida.

AND I AM NOT FRENCH.

I just said, “I’m sorry” and went to my hotel room and cried the rest of the night. I would have very much liked to have been one of the kids sitting at the back of the auditorium of that competition proclaiming the utter bullshit of it all.

That girl who wanted to be good at everything grew into the woman who had to be good at everything, too.

Enter second child. Having that second kid threw everything out of whack. Maintaining a perfect house, hair, clothes, cooking, reading list (what? shut up.) would have entailed giving up sleep. Or sanity. Or one of my children. That seemed… drastic.

Epiphany: Rachel and Hermione? It’s okay to just hit “good enough” most of the time while being “absolutely great” at a few really important things.

My “good enough” today is getting the toddler to count to ten in (gasp!!) just one language. My “absolutely great” is sitting on the floor with him and building a city with a birthday cake building at the city center. “Good enough” is taking the clothes out of the dryer and putting them away… in the future. My “absolutely great” is respecting myself enough to curl up with a good book instead. Or catch up on reruns of The Big Bang Theory.

I might never make a Halloween costume or cross stitch a pillow because there are “good enough” alternatives out there, but if one of my kids (or husband) tells me they want to join the Peace Corps or become an investment banker, then I will love them and be proud of them and support them. I’m an Aiming Low Woman.

My God, I am the adult sitting at the back of the room proclaiming the utter bullshit of trying to do it all!

And I think that might the biggest “absolutely great” I have going on.