the day we moved your security cereal

You ask for your favorite cereal. No surprise there, kiddo. You ask for your favorite cereal a thousand times a day. Rarely do I see you without your cup of dry cereal close by. It sits next to you in the living room when you watch Curious George on TV. It stands guard next to your plate at dinner time. It sits high up on your dresser in your bedroom while you sleep, waiting for you to wake up and claim it. We add cereal to it when you ask, which is daily. Or more, if you are having a tough day.

Maybe you don't know this, little Mishka, but we eat a lot of cereal in this family. And we have a tiny pantry, so your mommy has to be creative in how we store our food. That is how your favorite cereal ended up in a Rubbermaid cereal container. I had no idea that without the box you would think we ran out of your security cereal.

When you are older, and, hopefully, able to trust that you will never be hungry again, I will tell you the stories of how you fought me, daily, for your food. You will be amazed at how you needed to see your cereal and yogurt. I will tell you how sometimes you just opened the refrigerator to look at your cups of yogurt lined up on the shelf. I will tell you how you threw yourself on the floor, screaming and crying, when you saw the empty cereal box in the trash can. I pulled out the plastic cereal container and tried to show you how we had lots of your cereal in the house, but you were too far gone. Finally I set the cereal down and picked you up, holding you close while you threw your food induced fit.

The memories of starvation are slow to fade, I am told. When you saw that empty cereal box you lost your mind, little one, temporarily. You started thinking with the back of your mind, where the memories you cannot voice are stored. In that moment, in your mind, you truly thought you would never eat that cereal again. It doesn't matter that I buy it for you every week at the grocery store. It doesn't matter that you have never once been without it. It doesn't matter that you have been with me at the store and witnessed where it comes from. None of that matters. At that moment, you are fighting for your life, little one.

I should have known. I should have shown you how I moved the cereal from the box to the plastic container. I should have taken the empty cereal box to the trash can outside so you wouldn't have seen it. I should have just left well enough alone.

That night, after you had come out of your fit and eaten your cereal and happily gone to bed, I lay in my bed, thinking about the cereal episode. I cried for the fear you must have felt earlier that evening, when you truly thought you might not eat again. I cried for your pain, and for the first 24 months of your life when that fear of starving was not just a memory in the back on your brain, it was a real, every day issue you faced. I pushed down the guilt I sometimes feel when I think about the children left behind, the ones still hungry. I pushed off the covers and walked down the hallway to your bedroom. I sat in the rocking chair and watched you sleep. You were spread eagle in your crib, taking up all the space. You were wrapped up in the knitted blue and green blanket that was your father's when he was a baby. You were peaceful. Your cereal cup was sitting on your dresser, waiting for morning.

Oh how I wish all of your trauma could be fixed by giving you a small green snack catcher cup full of cereal.

don't you hate it when someone in another stall in the bathroom laughs at you?

My big five year old has a Cleveland Browns pillow pet named Scruffy that goes absolutely everywhere with us. This stuffed animal sees the speech therapist every week. It rides in the car with us every day to school and has eaten out with us at restaurants all over town. (And by "eaten" I mean "eaten"- the dog usually gets his own plate and silverware.) We tear the house apart at bedtime looking for the last place Scruffy was left. Because Scruffy travels everywhere with us I am constantly reminding my big five year old, "Don't forget your dog!"

I am used to this, because when he was a toddler this same boy attached himself to his sleep sheep, brilliantly named "Sheepy". This sheep had Velcro tabs to attach to the crib and a hard plastic insert where the "brains" played soothing sounds. Shortly after the sheep started traveling with us the "brains" were removed in an unfortunate middle of the night hotel room bed sharing incident. Sheepy quickly became much more comfortable to roll over onto...

After Sheepy we had "Froggy" join us for a while. The day we left Froggy in the library and didn't realize it until after we had walked 3 blocks back to the car, buckled in the tiny toddler, and stashed the stroller in the trunk was a sad day...

So now we have Scruffy. He is much larger than the other animals who have joined our family over the years. He knocks over drinks and takes up valuable real estate in the grocery cart. But he goes everywhere with us.

Which is how I wound up in a Walmart bathroom yesterday with a 5 year old, a 3 year old, a large purse, and Scruffy. I don't like Walmart and I try to never go there, but one of our banks is located inside this store so occasionally I find myself there. My boys, on the other hand, LOVE this store. They beg to visit the toy section. Yesterday my tiny toddler added the holiday section to his list of favorite places insides Walmart. He has a thing for "Ho Ho". If it were up to him our front yard would look like an elf threw up.

My entire entourage shuffled into the large handicap stall and my big five year old immediately threw Scruffy on the floor and then sat down next to him.

"Get off the floor!" "Why?" "It's dirty! And pick up Scruffy!" "His name is Huntley!" "What?" "His name is Huntley, Mommy!" (Obviously his little brother's new addiction to Curious George has rubbed off on him a little. If you don't know who Huntley is then you do not have small children addicted to curious monkeys.)

"OK, you and Huntley need to get off the floor, now!"

"Alex, don't flush the potty. No, Alex, hands down." Alex, NO!"

"Mommy, if  I have to turn around anyways and not watch you pee then why can't I just wait outside?" "Because this is a big store and you might not be safe outside the bathroom. You have to stay with me." "I'd be safe, Mommy. I would just chop anyone who tried to talk to me!" He karate chops the air, showing me the moves he is learning in his martial arts class at China school. "OK honey, I am glad you can karate chop your way out of stranger danger but you are staying here with us!"

"Pee? Me pee! Me pee!" "OK honey, you can pee in a minute." "Me pee NOW!" I know better than to get in the way of a 3 year old in the throes of potty training, so I abdicated the throne, so to speak.

"He doesn't really have to pee, Mommy. He just wants to do it because you are doing it." "Well we're not taking that chance!" "Mommy, Huntley has to pee too!" OK, now I have to draw the line there. I really had to pee, and letting the tiny toddler jump ahead of me in line was one thing, but a stuffed dog? No way!

"Mommy! He really has to pee! Uh oh, Huntley just peed all over the floor."

After helping the tiny toddler off the very high potty and sending him to the other side of the large stall to work on zipping up his pants I started the process all over again. "Turn around, honey and get off the floor! Pick up that dog!" "I have to go potty now Mommy!" oh. my. goodness.

Five long minutes later I have finished helping the tiny toddler zip up his pants. I have stood with my face in the corner in order to give the big five year old "privacy". "Mommy! I need PRIVACY!" I have picked up Huntley off the floor countless times. I have taken my wallet out of the tiny toddler's hands no less than 6 times and figured out why the toilet paper wouldn't unroll. By the time it is finally my turn to go my boys have worked together to strap the tiny toddler into the child seat hanging off the wall. Which was no easy feat seeing as he was holding Huntley, so technically both of them were strapped in. Feet swinging, no need to pee, he was obviously one happy little guy, and what do happy little guys do? That's right. "Jesus lubs me, tis me know. Fo the bible tell me so..."

"Mommy? Does Jesus like Huntley too?" "Jesus loves everyone." "Not bad guys who steal and hurt people." "Yes, honey, everyone." "Well, he likes Huntley more." "Yes, sweetie, I am sure Jesus has a special place in his heart for Huntley."

"Mommy, if I threw Huntley into those bushes in front of speech therapy do you think the bees would come out and sting me or sting Huntley? Because it was Huntley who flew into their bush, not me. So I don't think they would sting me. Do you think they would sting me? Mommy? MOMMY?" (Mind you, we haven't been to speech therapy in over a week. We haven't been anywhere near the building, and no one was talking about speech therapy, Bridget the therapist, or bees.)

"Well, I think if Huntley flew into the bushes the bees might fly out and sting you, so let's not do that, OK?" My happy tiny toddler stopped singing Jesus Loves Me  and starting buzzing like a bee. Like  a  loud bee. A loud, angry bee.

Suddenly, in a very Incredible Hulk kind of move, the tiny toddler broke free from the straps holding him into the baby seat and leapt out of the seat, landing on one knee on the floor, like a tiny little buzzing rock star. The stuffed dog, which had been strapped in the seat with him, goes flying up in the air, towards me. I catch it, prompting my big five year old to loudly shout, "Wow Mommy! I have never seen you do that before on the potty!" The tiny toddler clapped and cheered.

And then I heard it. Laughter. From another stall.

The next time I am out alone with both my boys, and Huntley, I think I'll just hold it until we get home....

life imitates art, again...

Yesterday was a rough day for my big five year old. He stayed home from pre-school to hang out with Mommy, which always seems like a good idea at first, but which often unravels quickly. Keeping my boys home when I have plans to do something fun with them = well, fun for them and for me. Keeping them home when I have nothing fun planned but need them around for something like an appointment of some kind = no fun for anyone.

The morning went OK. My big five year happily played in the office while I worked. He sat at Daddy's desk, (don't touch anything!), contemplated climbing out the window to retrieve his lost baseball, (no, no, no, no, NO!), watched cartoons on TV, (turn that down!), and even managed to put on his own shoes, (no! not the pair with the holes in them!). Then we broke the spell and headed out to the dentist.

A cleft palate and poor nutrition early on in life can lead to unhealthy teeth, so the dentist is not always a fun experience for my guy. Yesterday though, not so bad. After that, though, straight down hill...

On the list of errands to run yesterday was one to the bus garage, to sign my big five year old up for busing for school. But more on that later. Before we could do that we needed to obtain a new birth certificate for my little guy, because I somehow managed to misplace the one I obtained a few months back to sign him up for kindergarten. Why the bus garage and the enrollment office can't speak to each other about this is beyond me. Now the SWCS district has two copies of my son's birth certificate, and he won't even be attending one of their schools....

So we head to Vital Statistics. I drove straight to the address I found online, not realizing it was, in fact, not the same location I went to last time. This time it was the health department. The HUGE health department. The HUGE health department that was having a farmer's market on the front lawn and so there were people and cars everywhere. Everywhere.While it didn' take long to get the birth certificate, thank God, I found myself spewing a constant string of words to my big five year old.

"No we cannot go to the farmer's market today. Because I have to work at some point today. Because Mommy helps to pay the bills. Because Daddy shouldn't have to pay all the bills. Because we need money for things like food. Yes, and toys. Yes, and trucks. No, we can't go to the farmer's market! Didn't I just say that? Because I don't have any money on me. No, I am sure they don't take credit cards. Because I never have any cash on me. Because that is just how Mommy and Daddy work. No, you can't hang your Wendy's kid's meal basketball hoop off the back of that door. Because that is the door to someones office. No, we can't go upstairs. No, I don't think they have toys up there. Yes, I see the pop machine up there. No, we are not getting any pop. Because we don't drink pop. Yes, I know Daddy drinks pop sometimes, we don't. We- you and me! No, we can't go upstairs! That sign says they have drug abuse counseling up there, it does not say they have toys up there. Please don't touch that! No, you can't use the bathroom by yourself. Because this is a big place and we have never been here before. Yes, I will turn around. No, I am not looking, just pee!"

Having finally obtained the birth certificate we headed off to the bus garage. Since I was told to report to the Transportation Department I was expecting an office, not an entire bus garage. You would think that all those buses would have been fun for him, but instead he carried on with his sad lament about how boring it was to hang out with mommy and run errands all day. Not to mention that all these errands were for him. And true to my son's nature, the minute it was our turn at the tiny little window he announced that he had to go to the bathroom. My son- he has peed in bathrooms all over town. "Can you please hold it?" "No! I really have to go!" I look around and see no bathrooms. So now I am thinking that he can't, he just can't pee his pants right now. How will they ever let him on a bus if he has a bathroom accident at the bus garage? A nice bus driver in line behind me points us to the men's room in the large break room. And then my big five year old waits for me to take him into the bathroom. "Go on, I say, pointing to the door." "But Mommy, you said I couldn't use the bathroom by myself in big places where we don't know anybody. We don't know these people. They might not be nice." I look around and see that we are surrounded by bus drives, all listening to our conversation about how "not nice" they might be. I smile at them, trying to speak to them with my eyes. "Oh, the funny things kids say, am I right?", my eyes say. "It's OK, honey, I'll be right out here. Just go on.", my lips  to my ever truthful son.

I sit down at a table and begin to fill out the form that had been handed to be through the tiny window. I keep a watchful eye on the men's room door, but still my son managed to sneak out and find the large wall of bus keys. I look up, and there he is, standing in front of a large peg board full of keys, all numbered. And all I can think of is the Curious George book where George climbs up to the departures board at the train station and moves all the numbers around. Or the Curious George book where George tries on all the fire fighter's clothes and then no one can find their right boots when they need to leave for a fire.  And I am picturing the first day of school, when all the buses are late and thousands of students are stranded thanks to my big five year old. Just a parking lot full of buses, not one running, while all the drivers swap keys over and over again.

I don't know if my son would have touched those keys or not. But I do know that I moved faster than I had all day to get out from behind that table and pull him back to me. My life is crazy enough, it doesn't need to be a Curious George story too!