“I suggest a new strategy, R2. Let the wookiee win.”

Lorelai is really "into" patterns. She looks at life like a series of puzzles. Everything can be arranged into a sequence or system, organized and made sense of. One of our little patterns, or, routines, is to read through this backpack full of books she has. It's always the same books, always in order, and always in a loop until one of us, the parents, ends it and distracts her with something else. It starts with "Pinkalicious" as a warm up, and then we go to "If you give a mouse a Cookie" and we read through all of those books ("Give a Pig a Party", "Give a Cat a Cupcake" etc.). I think she loves those books because they are also a great play on cause and effect and that every action has a reaction and a consequence. They speak her language. Their rhythm is soothing and familiar to her. That rhythm, though, is catchy as hell. Since I have that nonsense stuck in my head, I decided to get it out. So, here you go.

If you give a Lorelai a juice box, chances are, she's going to ask for a snack to go with it.

So you'll take her to the kitchen, and she'll ask to go "Up in the mommy" so she can take fifteen minutes to touch everything while she tries to choose something out of the pantry.

She'll eventually choose the "circles" (Froot Loops) so you'll put her in her high chair.

When you give her the "circles" she'll want to sort them into groups. "Three red circles." "Four blue circles." "Two yellow circles." Then, she might notice that there are no purple circles.

When she notices there are no purple ones, she'll tell you purple is spelled P-U-R-P-L-E. Then she'll want you to listen to her spell the names of everyone she knows. Then she'll want to sing the Name Game.

You'll do Johnny, Johnny bo Bonny and Daddy, Daddy bo Baddy, and Oscar, Oscar bo Boscar, and Grandpa, Grandpa bo Bandpa, and Taylor, Taylor bo Baylor and Brittany, Brittany bo Bittany and eventually you'll make it through every friend and family member and start doing the names of the characters in her favorite shows.

Singing about Spongebob will make her want to watch the "Spongebob Christmas Special" (again). Then she'll want Spongebob fruit snacks.

You will be all out of Spongebob fruit snacks, and, after a brief Mommy panic attack, you will remember what Dr. Awesome tells you to try and you will give her a choice. Princess Fruit Snacks or Shark Bites? She will answer, "Spongebob". You will ask again, "Avengers Fruit Snacks or Nemo Bites"? She will answer, "Spongebob."

So you'll decide to go to the store.

She'll need to put on socks and shoes.  "First one goes on the right foot, then one goes on the left foot."

Next, she'll get "blanket and Olivia". Then she'll have to go to the car.

You'll remember that you need to try run some errands while you're out. So you'll grab a lunch bag full of nutrigrain bars, dum dums, juice boxes, raisins and goldfish, a charger for the tablet, and the visual schedule along with all the stickers you've made for the potential stops along the way. You hurriedly arrange the schedule and follow her out the door.

Before you leave the driveway you will show her the schedule tell her about her morning. "Publix, Post Office, Johnny's School." This will get the map song from Dora stuck in your head. All. Day.

Your first stop will be at the grocery store. You will have walk slow and hold hands while she spells all the words she sees. "O-P-E-N spells open." "W-E-T spells wet."

Since you chose to go to Publix, she will ask to drive in the race car. It will be "Lorelai's turn" to buckle her seat belt. It will be the only race car left and it will have a bum wheel so that it only makes smooth left turns forcing you to use all the strength in your body to keep it from veering off course and taking out the ankles of everyone you pass.

She will want to drive the race car to the bakery for a "sprinkle cookie". You will need to try very hard to see the cookie window before she does. If they do not have sprinkle cookies, you will start to really sing and dance like an off-Broadway Cookie Monster about how awesome chocolate chip is, to avoid a meltdown.

She will probably still have a meltdown.

Good thing you brought the tablet.

Playing on her tablet will calm her down and the music and games will remind her that she likes to sing. She will want to sing happy songs very loudly, because she has no inside voice. A sweet, but unfamiliar lady will hear her singing tell her she's cute and try to talk to her. This will make her instantly very nervous and very quiet and she will want to get out of the race car and crawl underneath your shirt like a creepy joey.

You'll carry her, exhausted, through the last few aisles, while struggling with the wonky race car cart and finally make your way to the check out line. There will be at least three people in front of you. She will see a bag of M&M's on the impulse rack and try to grab it and you will try as calmly and firmly as you can to tell her "No" (while hiding your terror as you brace yourself for the inevitable results). She will erupt, unconcerned with the watching eyes (she's still upset about the cookie and the strange lady). You will try to pretend you can't tell they're all staring at you while you try to distract her from the meltdown with a tablet she no longer wants.

Then, someone's phone will ring and their ring tone will be Maroon 5. She will stop and notice, and while catching her breath from her most recent meltdown, will ask you, "Mommy can we listen to Moves like Jagger?"

So you rush back to the car, where you will listen to "Moves Like Jagger". And then you will listen to "the Starfish song" (Starships, Nicki Minaj). And then you will listen to "Boom Boom Pow". And then you will listen to "We are never getting back together". This will continue for the rest of the trip.

As you are leaving Publix, you might pass a McDonald's. When she sees the McDonald's, she's going to ask you for some nuggets. "6-piece nuggets."

And chances are, if you skip the Post Office and decide to order nuggets, she's going to want a juice box to go with them.

Get the nuggets, get the juice box, you can't handle the Post Office and the grocery store in one day.

When you get home, she'll notice you left the TV on. Seeing Spongebob will remind her that she wanted Spongebob fruit snacks.

This will remind YOU, far too late, that Spongebob fruit snacks are the entire reason you left the house to begin with.

Pulling out the big guns, you will distract her with some Playdough and realize it's only 10am.

Happy Monday.

"Wonderful girl. Either I'm going to kill her or I'm beginning to like her."

Lorelai is not a princess.

She just told me so. 

Usually when I ask her who her favorite princess is, she tells me "Lorelai", which I think is awesome. She's nothing if not well adjusted. I'm sure her future husband will really enjoy the challenge. Today, however, she has refused the crown. Part of the agreement with being a princess, is that she will follow the "Princess Pledge". 

Those of you who have seen Olivia (the cartoon with the cute little pig) are probably familiar with this. My little diva has been able to recite the pledge verbatim since the first time she saw "Princess for a Day" and, I, as her queen, use that to my advantage. 

"A princess promises to be pretty, happy, smell nice, sparkle a lot, sing happy songs very loudly, and never ever be mean." 

You can see how that kind of promise could really work in my favor. Usually, when she's being particularly petulant I will gasp, "Lorelai! What does a princess promise?!" and she'll often look properly chastised and mutter, "A princess promises to be nice." Then I'll egg her on a bit, "Oh good!! What else does a princess promise?" Then she'll recite her pledge and we'll move on giggling and happy with me patting myself on the back for derailing a tantrum. 

She must really be taking this thing seriously though. This morning I noticed that her nails were about a week overdue for a trim. She was watching the Spongebob Christmas special (again) and I thought I'd catch her while she was distracted. HA! 

Arching her back and making herself VERY heavy she adamantly informed me that we would not be cutting her nails. She's really very articulate when it comes to anything she doesn't want to do. So, after I caught her (damn she's fast) I sat her in my lap and started to cut. She was complaining so I invoked The Pledge. 

"Lorelai, what does a princess promise?"

"I not a princess." (Calmly)

"Yes you are!!! You're a beautiful princess. What does a princess promise? Does a princess promise to be nice?"

"I NOT a beautiful princess." Still perfectly matter-of-factly. Then, quoting the Spongebob special she declared simply, "I a very bad bad bad bad toy." 

She's so smart. So logical. It made perfect sense! Not only is she not bound by the Princess Pledge, she's also free to be as un-princessy as she likes. 

That round goes to Lorelai....

"Twisted by the Dark Side young Skywalker has become."

It all started with Moves Like Jagger. 

Well, that's not entirely true. My daughter has always had a uniquely profound aptitude for memorization, especially when it comes to song lyrics. I guess it really all started with Yo Gabba Gabba and Spongebob Squarepants. Long before she could ever tell us she was hungry, tired, or wanted to be held, in addition to all the counting and spelling she was doing, she could sing the entire opening song to Spongebob (and Gabba, and Kai Lan, and Dora, and... and... and...).  

Recently, however, she and I were standing in the living room. It was pretty quiet in the house, no TV on. We were getting ready to go to the gym. I'm looking around for her shoes and I hear her, in her adorable little three-year-old-voice, and she's singing, clear as a bell, "I got the moves like Jagger, I got the moves like Jagger, I got the mooohooohhooohhhoooohoooooves like Jaggerrrrrrr." It was really adorable. Really, really adorable. It caught me off guard and I thought it was pretty bizarre, but we're getting used to that around here.

I sort of giggled, and looked at her funny, and then we got in the car. We were about ten minutes from the house and I realized I'd committed a cardinal sin. I forgot to bring any juice boxes. She asked, semi politely, for a juice box and when I couldn't produce one began to ask over and over again, louder and more angrily. I felt a meltdown coming on and I started to panic. She didn't want a DVD. She didn't want my Camelback with water, she just wanted a JUICE BOX, MOMMY! 

Then it occurred to me. Moves Like Jagger. Thank you, Lord Jesus for Amazon MP3. I downloaded the song, quickly, and pushed play. She quieted immediately and began singing to it. She knew a LOT of the lyrics. I, however, was listening (I mean, really listening) to it for the first time. I thought, "Wow, Adam Levine is hot."  Then I thought, "Thank God and Adam Levine for saving me from this meltdown." And then,  as I listened, I slowly came around to thinking, "Hmmm. Okay...This song is kind of adult for her. Where the hell did she hear this enough times to know it by heart?" I'm a pretty good sport, and a pretty laid back parent, but the kid is only three after all. And since she's picked up on almost every word, it seemed worth looking into.

So, I started asking around. First, I called Jedi Dad. He said, well, I've had that entire CD on repeat in my car for months since the last time you drove it, so maybe she picked it up that way? But, no, that couldn't have been it, because she was JUST now singing it as if it was new to her. I wracked my brain for weeks while we listened to the song on repeat (after switching almost immediately to the "radio edit", of course... C'mon, guys, I'm not a total heathen). Then, finally, it dawned on me. Karate!! Or, rather, Pocket Ninjas. She takes this class at the gym and she LOVES it, and I think she has a bit of a crush on her teacher to top it off. So I told Mr. K the story of how cute she was with her little impromptu performance of Maroon 5's current hit and I asked him, subtly, if they ever listened to it in class. He readily admitted it. "Oh yeah, sure all the time!" AHA! I have found the culprit! Supermom here to fix everything!

"Well," I said, probably too curtly, "isn't that a little adult for the kids?" And I'm thinking, "What the hell is wrong with this guy playing Maroon 5 to a bunch of 3-5yo kids?  So shameless, this man! Exposing our younglings to such music!"

His powers of deduction were superb, no doubt aided by the uber-bitch look on my face and accusatory tone with which I approached him, and he must have (not entirely-mistakenly) assumed that I was silently criticizing his egregious lack of judgement and inwardly cursing him for putting me in this position where my autistic daughter is now totally hooked on songs that are clearly not meant for children, because he looked at me like I have three heads and said, with a bit of a chuckle and the BEST Gosh-you're-dumb look on his face that I have ever seen, "We listen to KidzBop in class". 

Ha! KidzBop. OF COURSE. That explains why she *also* knows all the words to "Starships" by Nicki Minaj. (Well, not ALL the words, have you ever HEARD that song uncut?! Well I have. Once. Yet another song that we had to buy the "radio edit" for). *And the Worst-Mother-of-the-Year-Award goes to....* 

At least I had the decency to look embarrassed. 

Well, thanks to my exemplary parenting and the fact that KidzBop never even entered my brain, my daughter now has 6 pop songs that she's OBSESSED with. And just like anything else with her, it's a pattern she's made, a comfort zone she's fallen in, and often times the most immediate tool I have to soothe her. We start with a very sweet, "I want to listen to Moves Like Jagger, Mommy?" and then it's, "Can I hear the starfish song?" and then it's, "I want to listen to the Oooh-oooh-ooh-oooooh-oooh song, Mommy?" (Never Getting Back Together, Taylor Swift) and, well, you get the picture. It's the same sequence, the same songs, over and over and over, and none of them are KidzBop because I already paid for them once and we've been listening to them for weeks at full radio-edit-strength, so why water that nonsense down now, right?!

And we listen to the songs all the time. My biggest victories were integrating two new songs into the mix (which is what brought us up to six) and getting away with the "Shuffle" button; as long as we always start with Moves Like Jagger. Both of those achievements were the result of Jedi Dad's encouragement. I think he's worried I'll go even more bat-crap-crazy than I already am, because he was telling me stories about how they use music repetition as torture for war prisoners and that I should see if Lorelai likes Ke$ha because at least it would be something new. FYI, no, she does NOT, so far, like Ke$ha. 

I've learned to accept my minor lapse in judgement and embrace the therapeutic qualities the music has been providing. It really does calm her and I'm grateful for it. She loves to sing. And, I can assuage my guilt a bit by reminding myself that there are plenty of kid songs she's also totally consumed by and I pay my penance by also playing those often, and on repeat (Veggietales song of the Cebu, anyone?!). 

And some of this, I know is totally normal. Music is a tool we use as a part of our daily lives with any child, and especially with kids like Lorelai (hell, I grab on to ANYTHING that works and drive it until the wheels fall off). Who here hasn't sung the "clean up, clean up" song or broken out some Gabba "bath time is happy time" to help persuade a stubborn toddler? But it's escalated, in true Lorelai fashion, and I find the pop music, specifically, bleeding into the rest of our lives, and, as is true with any small child, at times that will result in optimal shame for the Jedi Mom.  

I had a friend over recently and she was doing something with my boy at the dining room table while I was playing Play-Doh (spoiler alert: Play-Doh is likely to get it's very own entry) with the girl. She was "making trains" (seriously, needs it's own blog entry) and I said, "That looks great, Lorelai" and then she looked up at me and said, very matter-of-factly, "I got the Boom Boom Pow, Mommy. These Chickens jackin' my style" and then went back to what she had been doing. True Story.

Fine, at least that evidence of my musical semi-indiscretion was private. 

If I thought I was in the clear, however, I was wrong. 

We were at Walmart two days ago and I have her parked in front of the string cheese while I comb for something that will satisfy my craving and not ruin all my hard work at the gym (it doesn't exist by the way and I got nothing) when, through the fog in my mental peripheral I hear from Lorelai, to a distinct beat,

Yeah..Yeah....Yeah....Young Money....Nicki Minaj....JUSTIIIIIIIIIN!!!!

Among all her many "Lorelai-isms".... she has some pretty serious disregard for her volume, and could care less about using her "inside voice". So of course, though she often has trouble making herself understood, her rendition of Beauty and A Beat is unnecessarily loud and perfectly articulated, drawing some pretty impressed and judgmental staring. Side note: I want to buy a shirt that says, "Put your eyes back in your head, Prissy McPerfect Pants, my kid's not weird she's just autistic." Not just for times like this, although this certainly applies, but overall I feel like it would be a big seller. Although, if we are being totally fair, I think she'd be weird as hell, even without the Autism Spectrum Disorder. She comes by it honestly (says the adult mother who celebrated turning 30 with a Quidditch match and Yule Ball). 

The best part of the whole thing is, Beiber isn't even in my "Lorelai Playlist". He's my ringtone. My little sponge has only ever heard the intro to that song in the midst of our chaos if my phone happens to ring. 

This, of course, is a pretty excellent wake-up-call (pun intended - get it? ringtone? Never mind . I finally start to really understand that her brain is always on overdrive and, even more than the average kid, she really is picking up everything that goes on around her. I can justify the music, because, like I said, we have morals, we listen to radio edits. But it's not just the music. It's me. I have a potty mouth. A lot of adults do, to be frank. With any kid you're going to get the embarrassing repeat of your own verbal gaffes, but with kids like Lorelai it's practically a gift. She forms patterns and sequences in brain and is constantly applying context to what she's hearing. So if you drop something and say "Shit" she's going to deliberately drop things and say "Shit" for days. Just ask Grandma. 

Knowing this about her, and because I'm always trying to be a better parent, I keep telling myself that today will be the day I succeed in using "Mommy" words and quit using "deployed-sailor" words. I'm making laudable progress, but I'm not perfect.

The point really drove itself home firmly though, when, this morning, I see the cat scratching the couch as I'm walking out of the room to put away laundry and I hear Lorelai say very nonchalantly from her high-chair, "Dammit, Oscar."

Well, better late than never. Somebody pass Mommy the soap. 

Laugh, or laugh not. There is no cry.

My therapist suggested I write a blog. 

Okay, she's not actually MY therapist. She's my daughter's behavior therapist. The suggestion came in an email, where Dr. Awesome sent me a link to story from another mom's blog, which was *super hilarious* and prefaced it by saying, "I know comic relief is often therapeutic, and judging by most of our sessions, I gather you probably feel the same way!" and then closed out the email with, "Once we can get you more than 5 minutes in front of your laptop without any interference, you totally need to write your own blog to keep it real too!" (Read: no pressure at all.) 

If I didn't love this woman almost more than I love my own mother and my husband combined, I may have received this suggestion like a back-handed slap. Firstly, because who likes to be told by a medical professional that their problems are funny enough to share with the entire group? But the truth is, we do spend most of our sessions laughing. I mean really laughing. Sometimes she has to break out the asthma inhaler and I start to feel a little guilty for trying to kill her (and a little proud of myself for being such a comic genius without even trying). Secondly, because when am I ever going to get "5 minutes in front of my laptop without any interference"?? I think that part was probably meant to be her own little joke. I mean, sure, we are working on it. In fact, that's probably the largest, most immediate goal of our therapy sessions. However, she, of all people should know that unless I want to wait until midnight and skip a shower, that's NOT going to happen for a pretty long time. 

But, I love our doctor and I know she loves me and wants me to be happy. And, I think she's probably right. It probably wouldn't hurt to put some of this out there (it's better than swallowing it down and processing it into ulcers, after all). But in lieu of alone time with my laptop, I'm actually writing this now with Olivia blaring in the background and my daughter physically attached to my hip. I've had to start and stop half a dozen times so she can watch the same YouTube video over and over and over (and over and over and over) again. Apparently some genius strategically set clips from Spongebob Squarepants to the Black Eyed Peas song "Boom Boom Pow".... I'll have to write him a Thank You note and offer him some more constructive suggestions for how he can use his time. 

Lorelai, my three-year-old (yes, she's three, so that should be enough of a challenge, right?!?!?) is not only equipped with a healthy diva complex (I have NO idea where the hell she gets that), but also happens to have PDD-NOS, a pretty severe anxiety disorder, and, if all that weren't enough, she's smarter than I am. She and her brother are skillful little Jedi and my daily struggle is not to be bested by my younglings. The "attached at the hip" thing is one of the main reasons (not the only reason by far, but one of the main reasons, certainly) that we visit Dr. Awesome. My daughter has decided that the only way to be happy is to be on me. Seriously. ON me. If she could do that thing where you lay feet to feet and hand to hand and have every inch of her touching every inch of me she probably would. And that's on a "good" day. On what I like to affectionately refer to as one of her more autistic days, she'd crawl all the way back up into my womb if she could find the way. 

Now, maybe it's a case of being "careful what you wish for." My son never had this problem. Johnny, who is 6, never had a "Mommy" phase. He has never wanted me "most" - except maybe the first few mornings at daycare but even then it was a quick recovery followed by a MOM-PUHLEEZE-you're-embarrassing-me-face any time I wanted a kiss goodbye, which, in a 2.5 year old, is both impressive and depressing. In fact his preferred "drugs of choice" have always been Grandma and Grandpa and I have come to find that I will always play third fiddle (Dad plays second fiddle, but I understand that, Dad is cool as hell). Let's face it, they're more fun than I am. I like their house better, too. It's like somebody took all the best food in the store, transplanted it into an arcade and then mixed in two thirds of a Toys-R-Us. Who can compete with that? Besides, I've convinced myself to look at the positive side here; without any of those pesky "mother issues" the odds are very slim that he'll end up in my basement until he's 35. Right?!

But, like any mom and true perfectionist, I like to be the best. So when my little princess came along and clearly preferred me to just about anything else, including breathing, I thought it was endearing and sweet and used to brag about how awesome I must be for her to love me SO much. Then it got kind of scary. When they're babies and they are breast feeding, fine. But it eventually got to a point where I would not have been surprised in the least to find her breath and teeny hand prints on the glass outside my bedroom window. No mom expects to go to bathroom alone, EVER, but you would think you could at least do it without having someone else on your lap. True story.

So, I go to Dr. Awesome. I word-vomit all my troubles at her, then she sifts through the spaghetti nonsense and tries to help teach me the ways of the Force and how to ultimately conquer my children and keep my title as the Master Jedi in my own home. At the very least I'm hoping for enough skills to mitigate the dysfunction. She gives me these really awesome, Supernanny-esque tips on how to run my children and my home, then Lorelai finds the loop holes and we have to start over. My constant defeat at the hands of my genius children (I know, every mom thinks her kids are geniuses, but seriously, ask the doctors, my kids really are, especially the tiny one) is a great learning tool for everyone involved, but also the source of some richly dark comedy.

Well, let's be frank, as moms we have two choices; we can laugh or we can cry. It's often times a very fine line between the two, which is what makes the comedy so dark. If you're willing to, however, laughing about it is so much more fun, and if we're being honest, people would much rather be around you when you're laughing than when you're bitching so it seems like the obvious choice... even if the laughing often sounds maniacal. 

So, I am taking Dr. Awesome's advice and inviting you to laugh with me. I welcome your own stories and anecdotes about parenting and I hope we can all have a good laugh together at each other's expense. 

Love, Jedi Mom.