My Summer of Learning. And poop. My Summer of Poop

The summer of 2013 is winding down. My super six year old starts back to first grade, (gasp!), this Friday, and my persevering preschooler starts back at his special preschool next Monday. Last night  we had the meet the teacher and drop off a huge bag of school supplies equal to one month's salary at the oldest son's school. Later in the week we have the meet the teacher and share with her everything we learned about our youngest son over the summer while he runs around the classroom as though driven by a motor at the youngest's preschool. Thursday night we will have our back to school dinner party. The menu, chosen by the back to schoolers, will be:

lasagna (one of the few foods the super six year old will currently eat)
strawberries and "icing" (chosen by the four year old, and when he says "icing" he means whipped cream)
cookies (homemade, hopefully made by the four year old)

I think I will toss in a salad and bread sticks to make it a grown up meal for my husband and myself. Each boy will have their own place mat with their new grade printed on it and they will each get a cool "pencil" made out of construction paper and candy. (Candy assures at least a few minutes of listening ears and bottoms in chairs at our home.) The back to school banner will be hung in the dining room and we will have those so important new school year talks, like how to be brave and how to always listen to your heart. And then it begins. The early mornings, the scrambling eggs, the chatting in the school drop off line, the homework.
So it all has me thinking. This has been a good summer. We didn't do everything we wanted, but we did a lot. We certainly did more than we did last year. This summer we were able to spend more time together as a family, thanks to a combination of a slowing down of the persevering preschooler's issues and a speeding up of my understanding and patience. He was able to behave slightly better and I was able to ignore much more. Win!

For me, this was the summer of eye opening experiences and learning. Here is a little of what I have learned over the past few months, amid water gun fights, wet swim suits, road trips, and thousands of Popsicles:

• My persevering preschooler is wise beyond his years. I mean, he cannot for the life of him get the days of the week straight but he totally gets the fact that sometimes, being the youngest kid in the family isn't fair. He spent the summer questioning his big brother's ability to do "way more", in his words.
• Brothers will fight. And I mean roll around on the floor, pinching, sitting on each other's faces fight.
• Brothers will love. In a "Here, you take the orange gumball because your favorite color is orange and I will take the purple one.", kind of way.
• Six and a half years old is the exact age one outgrows "baby toys". Sadly  for my super six year old, six and a half years old is still four and a half months away from Christmas.
• If you let go of your super six year old in the swimming pool he will freak out. And then refuse to swim again. But if you let him go on a trip with Grandma and Grandpa, where he sees his younger cousin swimming like a pro, he will come home from said trip being able to at least stay a float, while loudly proclaiming to anyone within earshot that he can, in fact, swim.
• Having a kid old enough to walk through a not so busy parking lot without holding my hand is kind of sad.
• Having a kid who can open his car door, hop in, close the door and buckle his seat belt is awesome.
• Change is good. Whether that be changing to a new church, letting go of preconceived ideas of how a family should look and "feel", or simply letting go of your child's hand and letting them walk alone, change is a good thing.
• Your six and a half year old calling you "Mom", instead of "Mommy", not so good. This is a change I was not ready for, but one he made deliberately. Sigh.
• Family vacations will from now on be filled with trains, planes, race cars, and monster trucks.
• My super six year old is on the right path to becoming a man of substance. Yesterday he asked his daycare teacher, twice, if he could go check on his little brother, who was in a new classroom for the first time. Protector, his name is Matthew Zhao.
• Just because the four year old often reads his letters from right to left is no cause for alarm. Amid everything else he has going on this is just not that big of a deal. I prefer to look at it this way- hey, the kid is learning his letters!
• My iPhone's sole purpose is to keep young boys quiet and still in public.
• When you take your persevering preschooler to a behavioral therapy appointment he will behave like an angel. And then throw a monumental tantrum in the parking lot, forcing you to stuff him into his car seat and slam the door before he can break free and run off to find someone more understanding about his needs to squat down in front of traffic to check out a rock.
• My persevering preschooler has increased his vocabulary. Now, along with the constant use of the word "poop", he has added "panties" and "butt". As is, "OK, Mommypanties, I pick up my shoes." Or, "Matthew is a Poopy Butt."
• A good eater can quickly become a poor eater. The hard part is remembering that this is, hopefully, just a phase, and that someday, hopefully soon, your sweet super six year old will stop whining about how nothing sounds good.
• I can now ignore whining like a champ. I am thinking of going pro.
• Adding a puppy to an already chaotic house is not such a big deal. What's a little more poop on the kitchen floor? (If you need the back story to that reference, read here. )

So both of my boys have done a lot of growing up this summer. As have I. We have laughed, loved, cried, and thrown tantrums. We have regrouped and hit the start button a few times. We are ready to move ahead and begin what just might be the best year we have had yet as a family of four. Bring it on world, me and my boys are ready!

For The Love of God, I AM A GIRL!

There are a lot of really gross things that happen in the life of a parent. We know this. We are prepared, as best we can, for the many and varied ways our children find to gross us out. I knew this, I’m sure. I mean, it’s not like I had never been around children before mine came along. I had changed poopy diapers and cleaned up projectile vomit. I had held my bare hand under the mouth of a gagging toddler to have chewed french fries deposited in it. I have a son who was born with a cleft palate; he used to be able to push all kinds of amazing foods up through the hole in his palate and out his nose. Every time this happened I was amazed. “We haven’t had peas in days!”, I would marvel. He still has that hole, but it is now much smaller, so no more peas coming through. He can still push chocolate through it, which makes it look as though his nose is bleeding. Always good to freak out a new babysitter or teacher.

But now I have two young children, both boys. And a husband, who also happens to be a boy. And the gross factor is ratcheted up past my comfort zone, on a daily basis.

I used to have a much lower tolerance for the disgusting. Then the first son came along. And I learned a thing or two. Then the second showed up and two years later it seems as though my husband has thrown all sense of decorum out the window and just jumped right in. Right in to the pool of disgusting. The poop jokes, the burps, the oozing science projects, the boogers, the mud and dirt- oh my God the dirt. The dirty underwear and the stained t-shirts and the daily mess. Oh my God the mess. I’m a little scared; my husband seems very comfortable in this gross new world. I fear that I am losing my grip on what is socially acceptable and worry that soon I will be right there with them, burping and farting and then laughing about it. Someone please pull me aside and smack me if you see this happen. I give you full permission…

So we are still, STILL, in the trenches with the potty training. Who knows why, really. Could be Sensory Processing Disorder. Could be stubbornness. Could be a simple delay due to how he arrived in our home. Whatever the reason, we are still living by the clock, the potty, and load after load of soiled underwear. I have visited bathrooms across the city, at every restaurant, park, and library we frequent. We have tried bribing. I have filled my pockets with candy and small toys and kicked my husband and oldest son out of the house for the weekend so that my youngest and I could totally focus just on the training. I have created sticker charts and elaborate reward systems. I have researched and downloaded potty training apps and games as rewards. I have handed out mini chocolate chips, M&M’s, and “big kid” candy, such as taffy. We have made more than one trip to our local Target to pick out underwear with his current favorite characters on them. Which is not as easy as it sounds, seeing as his favorites change weekly. (But who am I to complain? Who doesn’t love a reason to visit Target!)

I have read books and blogs and cried and yelled and fussed and given up a thousand times. If any of you need potty training advice, I can give it. I feel as though I know everything there is to know about the topic of potty training. That’s right. I can’t train up my own child but here I am offering you advice. How’s that for gutsy?

All of these tactics worked, for a short time. My youngest son cannot process consequences or follow through with rewards. So they work only sometimes. And sometimes they just add too much pressure and the reward is either expected and demanded, or simply tossed back in my face, defiantly. (SPD and trauma kids appear defiant when that isn’t really what is going on, but in the moment, that is sure what it feels like.)

 

So you can imagine how we praise when the potty is used. Which is frequently. Every day he gets a little closer. Well, not every day. Some days it seems all we do is change his clothes. But then there are other days when he is totally on top of the whole potty thing. So we praise. We clap and celebrate and sing songs and do all of those things you do with a toddler who is potty training. But my kid isn’t a toddler. He is a four year old. And while he is delayed in some areas he is right on target in others. He knows how to use our iPhones. He knows all about texting and being able to reach someone RIGHT NOW. Which is how I found myself standing in the middle of the grocery store the other day with my oldest son when I heard my phone ding from deep inside my purse. It was the ding of a text, so I pulled it out. I opened the text and saw the words “From Alex”.  And then I saw the photo that was attached. The photo that prompted me to text back the words “I AM A GIRL!”.  Because sometimes I feel as though my boys forget those four little words. I. am.  a. girl.

Later when we returned home I was able to get the back story on the very disgusting picture that accompanied the text from my husband. It appears that there was cause for celebration, because the potty had been used. I am imagining that there was much high fiving and cheering going on. And then, perhaps, my husband said, “Your mommy will be so proud of you!” Which, in turn, led to my youngest son saying something like, “Take a picture to show Mommy!”, which probably led to “Show Mommy NOW!”, which led to a very graphic photo being sent to me, A GIRL, in the middle of the grocery store.

I don’t know how they will top that, but I am sure they will find a way. And I am a little afraid.