Don't wake the sleeping toddler

Spaghetti is not a sleeper. Right now, she is currently asleep in the hallway since she is not a sleeper. Ever since the Meatball left for the summer (more on that in another post), Pretty Pants and I have been struggling to get our rambunctious toddler on a sleeping routine.

It was easier during the school year as the Meatball and Spaghetti would sleep together. But now that she's all by her lone self, adding the fact that Spaghetti is a light close to non-sleeper, all free time in the evening has been lost to trying to put Spaghetti to sleep. For the last 30 days, we've tried them all: coercion, threats, routine, even falling asleep beside her... none of them seem to work consistently.

So for now, I give up. Today, I'll scoop her up off the floor after I've had my 'me' time and tuck her away in her bed. Because most times, life like an eager toddler, does not want to fit into a routine.

Parenting and loving the Lakers: teachings from a surprising resource!

Last night was a momentous night in our household! Even if you don't follow national basketball (NBA), just turn on any national news program and you will know the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Boston Celtics in a seven game series (for those not basketball savvy that's playing up to 7 straight games almost every other day until one team achieves 4 wins, whew) for the 2010 Championships!

Being a Southern California transplant, I brought my love for the Lakers with me to Northern California. It's few and far between to find another adult Laker fan in my area so I've succumbed to breeding Laker fans to share in my interest with Spaghetti and Meatball. At this point, you may giggle at the thought, you may even find it slightly amusing but if you've never experienced being a sports fan of any kind, I assure you, you are missing out.

Why, you may ask? Because at this point, for me, being a Laker fan is not just something you watch, it's something you live. For 9 months out of the year, my household is dedicated to following this team, sharing in their wins and losses, feeling the pain of their injuries, appreciating the glimpses into their personal lives and revel as they take the national championship! The best thing about it all? Someone else 'out there' that may come from a totally different lifestyle, gender, environment, socio-economic level, religious belief, whatever it may be feels the exact same way. Imagine being in a sports arena, with 19,000 other fans feeling the exact same way!?! That kind of positive energy is tremendous, infectious, and inspirational. Being a fan is also not a yearly event, I've been a part of a fan base that has had the opportunity to watch Kobe Bryant grow through tremendous pains and obstacles from his days as a rookie, to a spoiled rock star, to the scandals in the press, to his rise as a leader filled with maturity and humility. And the funny thing is I'm not even a Kobe fan but this provides an example of the many story lines that follow a basketball team.

Sportsmanship, commitment to something you believe in, the sense of belonging to something bigger that them through the camaraderie of fans are all things I have learned and felt from being a fan and enjoy it so much I'm happy to breed Spaghetti and Meatball into fans to share in the experience. Even if they don't understand the game to the fullest just yet, they enjoy the cheering, the booing, the clapping, the shouting and the special connection we have through the experience.

I can't speak enough about how I much elation I feel, so much pride in my hometown and for my home team, but I definitely can't encapsulate it all in one blog posts since there seems to be so many different aspects to why I enjoy it so much and share that joy with my girls.

(top photo: Meatball, age 3, 2005, Staples Center; bottom photo: Spaghetti, age 2, 2010, our newest fan)

Disclosure: Although Pretty Pants can appreciate my dedication to the Los Angeles Lakers and supports raising the girls as Laker fans let it be known he is a Golden State Warriors fan. Thank you.

Let's Remember

Girls Night Out reinvented

I dare go out on weeknights for any reason. It's just way too exhausting for me to have to lug around two girls (who are just as tired and hungry after a long day of school) after hours at the office and a brief commute to pick them up, all I ever really want to do is go home. Maybe because I know it doesn't end there. Once we arrive home, I've got a couple more hours until the girls are fed, bathed and put to sleep until I can exhale. Only to do it all over again the next day.

Sometimes there will be one rare yet random night, that I feel a little brave and actually take the girls out after school. Mind you, my weariness runs an extra lap around my head as I hope and pray that taking the girls out doesn't backfire to the point where I'm crossing my fingers for no tantrums during our outing.Yes, going out on a weeknight, stresses me out that much. So as we sat down for a weeknight meal outside the home the server approaches and says, "Ah, Girls Night Out I see." My eyes peered up toward her from the menu confused at her statement. Girls Night Out?!? But I'm with... oh wait... I am with my girls! I smiled and looked at my lovely daughters, who at that moment looked just as exhausted and hungry as they always do on a weekday until they felt the positive energy from my smile and mirrored it right back. "Let's order champagne!" I suggest to the server, "Oh and two milks for them, thanks." Thank goodness for that server who changed my perception on taking the girls out on weeknights. Girls night out, indeed.

The uncomfortable truth: a pet's death, revisited.

It's been over a week since our guinea pig, Tina's death and my husband, Pretty Pants still hasn't taken her cage down. Maybe he's still mourning? I'm not really sure. We finally sat down, our eldest daughter and Tina's proud owner, the Meatball, and told her the sad news over the weekend. I've been the bearer of bad news by myself as a single parent for some time before my husband came along so I decided it was his turn at bat. After a few rounds of laughing, giggling and tickling playing dogpile, toddler sister, Spaghetti included, Pretty Pants told the girls to settle down because he had an announcement.

As the girls came to attention, Pretty Pants reminded Meatball of how Tina was in the hospital. The Meatball nodded as my husband paused then stated, "Well, Tina's in heaven now." I shot a confused glance at my husband thinking why did he have to use that phrase!?! Tina's in heaven now!?! Couldn't he just have announced with more direction, "Tina's passed away?!?" The moment my glance caught my husband's eye, the Meatballs' eyes started to swell with tears as she wailed briefly. Like 45 seconds briefly. Like her expression took a 180 degree turn from an I-just-lost-everything wail to a glimmer of hope and excitement like one would see from a child passing a candy store as she squealed, "Can we get a new one?" Can we get a new what? Cue another confused glance except this time by both parents.

A few days have passed and as Pretty Pants still hasn't taken down Tina's cage, greeting Tina is still a part of our coming home routine. The Meatball will run to greet Tina only to stop herself remembering she isn't and will never be in her cage anymore. Yet, children are funny beings as displayed in the Meatball's unexpected preliminary reaction to her pet's death. We'll never know why she didn't mourn any longer or if she needed to. Or perhaps my daughter already knew of Tina's passing. Who knows? All we, as parents, can do is to prepare and of course, expect the unexpected.

The uncomfortable truth: explaining a pet death to your child

It's been three days since we decided to put Tina, the Meatball's guinea pig to sleep. Three days of the Meatball asking when Tina would be back from the hospital (veterinarian). Three days of me responding with, "I don't know, Meatball, I guess she's really sick." Three whole days of postponing the inevitable: sitting down with the Meatball and telling her, her guinea pig of a year and a half is dead. Yes, I'm guilty of lying to my child.

Lying to my child about our dear family pet has left me feeling incredibly guilty, especially since it's key to the strategy Pretty Pants and I conjured up and agreed upon regarding Tina's fate. For the past couple months, we started noticing a bald spot emerging from the little guinea pig's back. Unsure what it was and praying it would just go away, the spot just kept growing. For a creature that small, there isn't that much space to begin with. Long story short (and to avoid getting into the gory details), Pretty Pants and I finally decided Tina needed to be checked out by a professional. Two coinciding thoughts were running through our minds about this experience: 1) we sincerely hoped Tina would be okay and the veterinarian could treat her what appeared to be infected spot and 2) this better not cost a fortune for a small guinea pig. After getting the girls ready for school, my husband engaged the Meatball in helping him get Tina ready for the "hospital". He pulled out a shoe box and had Meatball poke holes in the box so Tina could breathe. As Pretty Pants placed Tina in the box, our 2 year old, Spaghetti waved at the box encouragingly, "Bye Tina, bye!", while the Meatball stared pensively at the box she was given to lay on her lap on the ride to school.

After Pretty Pants dropped the girls off to school, he took Tina to the vet. The vet told my husband of our choices. They would have to perform surgery on Tina to remove the bump ($297). They can only test the bump post surgery, meanwhile we would be given medication to treat Tina's recovery (at an additional cost of $150). Yikes. Pretty Pants and I couldn't help but agree that it would be too costly for us to move forward with this scenario, which only left us with the decision no one ever wants to make, not even for their pets. Again we were hit by a slew of costs in various packages! Package 1: Put Tina to sleep, cremate her body and have the clinic spread her ashes over the ocean ($200) Package 2: Put Tina to sleep and cremate her body ($150) Package 3: Put her to sleep ($50 and my husband was able to negotiate a complimentary disposal). Goodness. We did feel slightly guilty for choosing package 3 because we do understand the connection's one can make with their pets. Maybe if Tina were a dog and had lived with us for years we'd be dishing out thousands to save her, but she wasn't and we did the best we could with what we had. Inevitably, the risk of performing surgery on such a small animal who would probably suffer and die sooner than later made our case. But now we're faced with the consequence of telling the Meatball, the painful truth.

Growing up I had one dog. His name was Prince. We had him ever since I could remember and he moved with us everywhere: the Philippines, North Dakota, California. Prince lived a long life, about a good 15 years, to the point where he was suffering from blindness as he would run into hallway walls at my parents home. One summer, while I returned home from college, I noticed Prince wasn't there to greet me. I asked Rambo where Prince was and he told me nonchalantly, "Oh we put him to sleep about four months ago. He was already old you know."  I was devastated. My closet childhood friend gone without my knowledge for four months! But that's how my parents treated pets. Of course, they love all their pets, treated them well, kept them fed and taken care of but there wasn't that apparent attachment nor affection as one would see in the States. I knew my parents cared for their pets deeply, since they would never leave them for long periods of time, but they were also realistic about growing old and death. I will never know.

Now as a parent, I'm faced with telling my child about the death of her pet. Pretty Pants and I have danced around how to tell her for three whole days and decided that over the weekend would be the best bet. I know that Tina's death doesn't carry as much weight to us as an actual person would have been, but  to the Meatball it may be one in the same. We're still not sure how to approach it, realistically like my father had done? Come with a plan B/distraction? Tell her the truth? Or twist the truth a little bit as to not hurt her or have her blame us?  We're just going to have to wing this one and find out.

Rest in peace, Tina.

How have you approached pet deaths in your household?

Date Night. Just do it!

Pretty Pants and I have been trying to get a date night off the ground for months. Between two full time jobs, Spaghetti and Meatball, our home, our extended family, our friends, etc, it's been challenging to focus on our marriage/relationship. It's not that we haven't had any date nights or haven't scheduled anything out. But after being pulled in several different directions (aka priorities/responsibilities) on a daily basis, our date nights usually surrender to our exhaustion. Meaning more likely than not, if we had one free night that wasn't scheduled and the girls weren't with us date night would be us in our jammies by 10pm catching up on the DVR. Woo hoo date night!

Now I'm not saying that isn't fun, snuggling up to my husband and sitting in complete silence as my brain goes to mush in front of the TV BUT it's supposed to be date night, right? So then we try to change it up a little and get excited about going out to dinner. As parents to young children, eating at a restaurant without your kids is as exciting as wondering what gifts you're going to get at Christmas! It's that big of a treat. For us it almost doesn't matter where we eat, we're just happy that we don't have to feed or clean up after anyone but ourselves.With that in mind a night free of the girls ends up at a restaurant we visit regularly just because we're happy enough that we get to eat kid-free. Date night, still doesn't sound that exciting does it? How about I add a trip to the movies!?! No? Woo hoo? Goodness, I sound like an old married woman just talking about it, dinner and a movie, good times.

Not to say these two types of date nights aren't fun but they have the words lazy due to exhaustion written all over them. Over the weekend, my husband and I decided to break out of that mold. Although we were both exhausted from the week we made an effort to get out and check out a band. When we got there, I immediately went for a Red Bull and Grey Goose cocktail because I knew we were staying out past midnight (exhaustion rearing it's ugly face again). After thirty minutes and still tired, I was already thinking about when we would be going home to wake up in time for the next day's schedule. Yet, I was determined to fight off the exhaustion and have some adult fun. It seems that my husband shared the same sentiments and we ended up staying for the whole show. High fives all around for us staying out until 3 am!

The moral of my post is this: All of us get so caught up in our lives, where we tend to lose sight of experiences that matter most, which usually reside in our relationships. Whether they're planned date nights or random nights alone, make the effort to make the most of that time. Choosing to love rather than choosing to sleep (unless of course the lack of sleep makes you cranky then before you know it you're at each other's throats instead) will hopefully make for some fantastic memories for you and your partner to share.

Got a great date night idea? Do share!