I was lucky the last time I was pregnant to not have a single cold, despite the fact that the Meester had about 77 colds during my gestational period.

Of course this time I had two in a month.  And of course having a cold when you can’t medicate yourself to your eyeballs, really fucking sucks.  There’s just no better way to put it.   I was researching whether or not it was safe to eat mentholated cough drops (everything I’ve read has been inconclusive), but while in my travels, I came across this link.

I can’t believe that there are people out there who are that stupid.  And that’s putting it nicely.

Upon hearing the toilet lid being opened and shut, I dashed into the bathroom before “the bad quiet” had a chance to settle over the master bathroom.

Rounding the corner, I see the Mini with the “uh oh” look on his face as I see the toilet brush sticking out from a closed lid.

Of all the habits we’re teaching him, this one is by far the best.   Kids.  They’re so useful.

Every single parent out there practices some “no no” parenting skill.  Whether to keep the peace or just because the task of dealing with it just seems too daunting.  Most of the time we’re embarrassed to admit that we still do, whatever it is, because parents love to be  judgemental of other parents habits.   Naturally I find this amusing, when people say to another parents, “oh you’re STILL breastfeeding, cosleeping, letting them have a pacifier, whatever whatever?”  Because when someone says something to me about my parenting skills (and believe me, Mother of the Year?  It’s being passed over me this year) I usually ask them what sort of embarrassing huge no no do they let their kids get away with.   If they’re bitches, they’ll never admit it, but it shuts them the hell up.

One of my not proud parenting issue was bottles.   This was my daunting task.   The Mini still got two bottles a day.  One when he woke up, and one when he went to bed.  It’s the only time he really ever asked for milk, and the meltdowns that would ensue when I tried to wean him were just not worth it.  Not when his communication skills were kind of lacking.  So I just let it go.  I’m not proud of it, but there it is.   I recently sought out a special cup for his milk and started the process all over again, and with no fanfare or anything, he took the cup.  Nighttime milk happens well before bedtime, and I thought for sure the change of the iron clad bottle before bed would me met with a smidge more resistance than none at all.   I can officially say we are done.  At nearly 21 months, we are DONE.   And now my shame is out there on the internet for everyone to see.

So spill it, parents of the year.  What’s your secret shame?

While the Mini’s language is exploding and he’s becoming a little parrot (which was really excellent when the Meester dropped the f-bomb only to have a tiny little voice repeat it.  I am SO glad that wasn’t me), his language is a lot of times still hard to understand.  But he’s stringing two and three words together.   However,  the most amazing thing, at least to me, is the fact that he knows his ABC’s and can count to 10 (in both English and Norwegian) and even identify some of the English letters.  Maybe that’s not a big deal, but I don’t know many kids at 20 months that can recite the entire alphabet, even if it is hard to understand.   Sure there are the rocket science babies, that are speaking 7 different languages and can tell the difference between a noun and a pronoun, but that’s not the norm.  This is a kid that four short months ago, had the skills of a 8-9 month old.

While, his language will remain somewhat behind for awhile, due to being a bilingual house, I think I have every right to brag about his abilities.