six weeks of positive parenting

 My husband and I are slowly making our way through the Positive Parenting Solutions online classes. The other day we took the class explaining the "Competent Giant". I love my kids and try not to outright scream at them, but, if truth be told, I have been known to explode now and then. This past year with our tiny toddler has taught us all about the art of the tag team. If my husband senses that I am about to lose it he tags me out and takes over. And I have rescued our big five year old from him a time or two. But after watching what a parent's tirade must look and feel like to a child, I think it will be a long time before I do it again. Hopefully I can remember how it made it feel for a very long time. I know everyone loses it with their kids from time to time, and we all know we shouldn't do it. We all know it is bad for our kids. But seeing it in action really struck a chord with me. So, another thing I have learned from Positive Parenting Solutions that I suppose I should have already known but needed someone else to point out to me. But my kids win, so it's all good.

The next class we took was all about using our "calm voice". Now, this sounds super easy, right? Don't yell at your kids and they will be happier. But here's the thing people. Not yelling at your kids isn't enough. You need to maintain a calm voice while interacting with them. Not yelling, I can do. Always using a calm voice- not as easy as it sounds. I have only been trying to do this for a few days and I can tell you it is not easy. I have found myself raising my voice to be heard. I have heard the sarcasm or sharp note in my words. Tonight at the dinner table I was working with Alex on something, who knows what, eating with utensils instead of his fingers, not purposely dropping food on the floor.... shudder.... Anyways, whatever was happening was upsetting to me and I spoke, calmly. Which didn't stop the behavior and so I spoke again, not so calmly. I then took a deep breath, looked across the table at my husband, who was smiling at me because he knows that using a calm voice all the time cannot be easy for me, and tried again, in a calm voice. This one is not going to be so easy!

Now for the good news. I have been having my big five year old help out around the house for a while now. We never called them chores and we don't pay him for them, at least not yet. But he does have "jobs". He is responsible for putting the clean silverware away after the dishwasher finishes it cycle. He makes his own bed, most of the time. He picks up most of his toys, usually. So I have switched to calling this "help the family". I had already been talking to him for about a year now about what it means to be a part of a family, and so I am hoping that this little Positive Parenting Solutions inspired change in wording will help him to truly understand what I have been saying. And the tiny toddler does his share of helping too- he occasionally will put the place mats on the table for me at meal time and he loves to run the sweeper, although he often only sweeps the same area repeatedly. But that little spot has never looked better!

I have also added a new job for both of boys- carrying their own laundry up the stairs. Why have I not thought of this before? I found two small plastic bins with easy to grasp handles and when I fold the laundry, which is done in the living room, I now just pop their clothes into their respective baskets.  Each boy is now responsible for carrying their own basket up to their rooms and the big five year old knows he now needs to put his own clothes away. We tried it for the first time last night and the tiny toddler grabbed his basket and toddled up the stairs, which, at times, was super scary because he could barely lift the tiny basket up onto each step and a few times he looked like he was going to fall backwards down the stairs. So scary, in fact, that I offered to help him, but he pushed me away saying, "Me do! Me do it!" And he did it. And then he raced back down the stairs on his tummy, his mode of stair transportation if he is in a really big hurry, and proudly accepted high fives from everyone. He was positively beaming! Seriously, I don't know why I haven't thought about this sooner- why have I been lugging their clothes up the stairs every day? Big change!

So, six weeks into my Positive Parenting journey and here is what I have learned:

• MZW & Mommy time starts our day off on a great note and makes our mornings run much more smoothly, but no amount of MZW & Mommy time is enough for MZW. He simply cannot fulfill his need for me. Which I love, of course. But it does make it hard for me to get anything done or to have any time for myself. But I can do all that stuff when he's grown, right?
• Using a calm voice all the time is going to be very hard for me.
• I need to allow my boys to help out more around the house and not get upset when whatever they've done isn't perfect. If my big five year old is getting dressed from his little laundry basket because he didn't put his clothes away, I need to be OK with that. 
• Using less consequences is a good thing!
• We have only had to use "time out" once, the other day, with the tiny toddler.Once, in weeks!
• Reminding my big five year old to use his "regular voice" instead of whining is working. slowly. 
• Patience. Sigh. 

My boys were already on the right path; adding in these Positive parenting approaches is just helping to assure they stay on that path. We are on our way to raising confident, happy, and compassionate children and we know this takes more than us. Our church, our schools, our China group friends and our extended family are all in the mix of what influences our boys. And now, so is Positive Parenting!

why I think Zhu Zhu pets are better than birth control

After a great Easter weekend spent with family in Cleveland we were heading home when about an hour away from home we ran into a serious traffic jam. With the tiny toddler asleep in his car seat and the big five year old completely entranced with his hand held game I let go of my frustration over this unplanned delay and all the work that lay ahead of me at home, like packing school lunches and unpacking the car, and I had a real adult conversation with my husband. The big five year old was playing a Zhu Zhu pet game in which he had to keep all the pets happy- feed them, put them to bed, help them use the potty. (That's right, the cute little hamsters actually climb up onto a potty and then a flushing sound can be heard.) These little hamsters require a lot of attention and my big five year old was having a hard time balancing it all. It reminded me of our pre marriage days when my husband and I would spend time together playing video games. I used to love the Sims game. Something about being in control of these people on the screen, feeding them, making them drink expresso, decorating their homes.... I loved this game. Loved it. Occasionally I would neglect them to the point where the grim reaper would show up and take my little creations away, which was always a little sad. But the ones that survived- they had a good life. I married them off and soon they started having babies. So then I had these adult Sims to get up, dressed, fed and off to work every day, and these baby Sims to keep clean and fed and find childcare for every day. Soon it all got to be too much and I grew tired of my pretend people- after all, I was living this life already, without the babies. I had a boyfriend, a home to clean, meals to cook, a job to hold down. I was actively trying to avoid the grim reaper in real life, did I really need to do it in a pretend world as well?

I haven't thought about that game in a long time. But my conversation that night with my husband made me realize that I will never need to play that game again. I have a real life Sims situation going on in my own home every day. Just like my Sims, one of my "live" people always needs something. Just when one little person is no longer hungry the other one needs a diaper change. Just when my husband finally has my attention and can actually talk to me one, or both, of the little ones need to talk to me as well. One is hungry. One is dirty. One is needing entertainment. One is needing exercise. One is wanting to talk. One needs a hug. Oh my God, I am living in a video game.

But unlike the video game, I can't turn it off and go back to real life. This is real life. And also unlike the game, the stakes are much higher. If the grim reaper takes my grown up Sims away I can hit a few buttons and create another one. If social services shows up and takes the crying Sim baby from the crib and walks out the door I can match up my adults and have another go at it. And on the plus side, all that "trying" raises their happiness meters. (Unlike the real life "trying", which can lower happiness meters in no time.) But here, in my real life, I have to get it right. And some days are easier than others when it comes to keeping all those balls of need in the air, isn't it?

I had never really thought about it until my sweet husband and I had that discussion in the car the other night. I am totally playing a real life Sims game. I am stuck in a constant loop of feeding, bathing, entertaining, and working to pay the bills. The payoff will be so much more rewarding though. Even though I can't turn the game off when I am tired or frustrated, or create a new character if I make a mistake, I am raising people here in real life. I am helping give this world two more beautiful, charming, intelligent and compassionate young men. And that makes me never want to turn off the game.

My big five year old is now up to taking care of six Zhu Zhu pets in his hand held game. He is sitting on the floor of my office playing the game right now, and I can hear him muttering to himself things like, "I'm going as fast as I can!", and "How can you ALL be thirsty AGAIN? I just gave you a drink!" Better than birth control, this game.

940 Saturdays

I read an article yesterday that I can't stop thinking about. It was in Parents magazine and you can read the article here. It is all about finding ways to spend more quality time with your children. Note I said quality. It's not about quantity. It's about having meaningful interactions with your kids. I am all about making my kids' lives happy, healthy, and memorable, so I began reading this article with great anticipation. And I did get some really good ideas out of it. But I also read something that made my heart stop briefly. The author, Dr. Harley Rotbart, says, "There are only 940 Saturdays between a child's birth and her leaving for college." WHAT?

940 doesn't seem like that many to me. If these Saturdays were dollars then we charge more than that to our credit card every month. And in my case, I lost 56 Saturdays with my big five year old and 96 Saturdays with my tiny toddler before they even joined my family. As I read the article and did the math my heart sank. I am losing time!

Maybe because we worked so hard to bring these boys into our lives my sweet husband and I already cherish our time with them. We plan fun trips to monster truck shows, outings to children's concerts, vacations to amusement parks and beaches. We frequently stop by the park after daycare/preschool to play and we work hard to spend as much time together as possible. But I get tired of the parenthood grind too.

I enjoy sitting down at the kitchen table with my big five year old, helping him with his homework, which pretty much consists of watching him write the alphabet and listening as he reads his kindergarten reading books. He is learning to read, and it is an amazing thing to watch! But I have to admit, when I have helped him sound out the difference between "pick" and "peck" for the thousandth time, I get a little tired of it. I love our bedtime routine with the tiny toddler. We read, rock, snuggle, hug and kiss, and then, when he is zippered into his crib he points to the rocking chair across the room and demands, "Mama, SIT!". And I do. And I am so pleased when he tries to say "spider", which comes out more like "Speeda", and makes the hand motions, asking me to sing his new favorite song. But by the time I am on my seventeenth chorus of "Itsy Bitsy Spider" I am done. Go to sleep already!

I love cooking for my family, when they aren't around. But when they are all home, getting underfoot, demanding snacks, asking for something other than what is on the menu that night- I don't like it so much. Sure, I get the boys involved, having them set the table or tear the lettuce for the salad, but sometimes it is just too much, always having them be literally right where I need to be. Always. But these moments will be gone, way too soon. And I knew that, of course. Every mother of young children has been told by countless mothers of grown children to "cherish every moment". And I try to, I really do. But when I am sweeping the kitchen floor for the third time in one day or mopping up water off the bathroom floor that should have stayed in the tub I start to lose sight of those days in the future when my tub will be empty and my house always clean. But this article really helped me to visualize the amount of time we truly have with our children.

At the daycare Christmas play this past Christmas my then almost five year old wanted to sit with his friends to eat his after the show cookies. He rides his bike without my help and can climb up on the counter to get the fluoride toothpaste that we have to keep up and out of the reach of his little brother. Every day there is something new that he no longer needs me for. And he is five years old- I have already "spent" over 240 of my precious Saturdays. And once they're gone, they are gone. You can't get them back.

So while I am happy with both the quantity and quality of time I spend with my children I will  always keep "940 Saturdays"  in the back of my mind. When I am bargaining with my husband over which one of us will run upstairs to check on the sleeping boys, or when I am singing show tunes in my head to stave off the boredom of watching them ride their bikes past the house for the hundredth time, or when I am just trying to get from the car to the store and home again and one of my little ones stops me to show me a bug, or a leaf, or a rock, I will try to remember that with each bike ride or each bug crawling past us the days are numbered. Before I know it my big five year old will be spending Saturdays in his dorm room, playing video games or drinking (gasp!) with his friends. In the blink of an eye my tiny toddler will have a home of his own and may be sitting in a rocking chair in his son's room, singing the same song over and over and over. Yes, the days are numbered.


I read the article in Parents magazine and I have committed to trying some of the techniques mentioned. Some of them I already do, but there is always room for improvement. I plan to work on practicing parenting meditation, take more pajama walks, and serve more ice cream with sprinkles.

Tomorrow is Saturday. How are you going to spend one of your 940 Saturdays?

this curse word is not gratuitous

My tiny toddler loves to say the word "poop". I have no idea why. Well, no idea why other than the fact that he is a 2 year old boy. He says it all the time now- adds it in to songs we sing, tells me he wants it for breakfast...

The POOP on the bus goes round and round, round and round, round and round....

The Daddy on the bus goes POOP POOP POOP...

"What would you like for breakfast, Mishka?" "POOP MAMA! POOP!"

It could be worse, I guess. While my big five year old never really jumped on the "poop" bandwagon he did choose the perfect moment to share another new word. When he was three years old my sweet husband and I took our then three year old on a weekend trip to New York City with my sister and her young daughter. It was the weekend before Christmas and the city was beautiful. We walked through Times Square, we watched ice skaters in Rockefeller Center, we visited the toy soldiers at F.A.O. Schwartz and watched the horses pull their elaborate carriages through Central Park. The entire weekend glittered with twinkly Christmas lights and sparkly snow. Holidays in New York City, right?

We didn't even mind the long, (OMG long) taxi line at Penn Station. Well, at first we didn't mind. Eventually, after what felt like hours of the line not moving, we hopped into a black car. (I don't know what they are called- the private black cars that really only cost a little more than a taxi and are so much easier to track down in a tourist laden city.) We all pile in, my sweet little cherubic son, my older sister, my impressionable niece... And one of us says something like, "Wow, it was certainly hard to get a taxi out there!" To which my three year old responded by sharing a word we didn't even know he knew. "F*#*ing taxi's!"

I have to say, I was a little proud. At least he used it the right way...

both boys have now managed to poop on the kitchen floor, or, who wants to come over for dinner?

I am totally going to give up any attempt at keeping my kitchen floor clean. I can spend 45 minutes sweeping and steam mopping the entire kitchen floor, hallway and entryway only to find that exactly 2 minutes after putting the mop away the floor is dirty again. So every night after dinner I sweep the floor and then I usually turn Bob loose to do his cleaning thing. Bob, named by my big five year old, is our robotic floor cleaner. He works great to keep an already clean floor clean, and at  least sanitized, which is important in my home seeing as my boys spend more time laying about the kitchen floor than practically anywhere else in the house. But Bob is blind. If there are spots of any kind on the floor he just rolls on over them, totally oblivious. I would say that this proves that my floor cleaning robot is a male but I got called out by my sweet husband on a previous post for not pointing out that, while he did, in fact, forget to feed the boys dinner one day last week, he was the one who made them the peanut butter sandwiches I insisted they eat before we put them into bed that night. I don't want to be called out again.

Cleaning my kitchen is a later in the week task, so the floor won't be steam mopped until Thursday or Friday. So keeping it as clean as possible every day is kind of important to me. But I give up. And here's why.

Last night my sweet husband and I were still sitting at the dinner table after the boys had been excused. The tiny toddler tends to leave the table and then wander back a few times, taking bites here and there. Yesterday he had actually eaten pretty well, except for the large amount of meat he chewed and then spit out. This happens so often that I just put a paper towel over his plate and kept talking to my husband. My tiny boy then wandered over to his brother's chair and climbed up. This chair doesn't have a booster seat so he was able to stand up, which he did. He then pointed his tiny bum bum at me, shook it, and yelled "poop!". "Poop" is his new favorite word. I asked him if he needed to go potty. He said "no". We haven't really started potty training him yet but when he walks right up to me, shows me his bum and tells me he is pooping I feel a little guilty, so I asked him.

He continued to mutter words like "poop" and "ewww", so I should have known. Then he dropped his brother's cup of red kool aid on the floor, splattering a few drops. I handed him a paper towel and asked him to get down and wipe up the floor. He climbed down, bent over, and all hell broke loose. Turns out he had, in fact, pooped. And now it was all over my kitchen floor. Panicked moves around the kitchen previously only seen by clowns riding tiny cars ensued. I yelled to my big five year old to run upstairs and get me a diaper.

Me: "Matthew, run upstairs and get me a diaper for your brother- hurry!"
MZW: "Ewww! I don't want to touch a dirty diaper!"
Me: "Why would I ask you to bring down a dirty diaper? Get me a clean diaper, NOW!"

The big five year old then runs up the stairs while I chase the tiny toddler around the kitchen, finally tackling him and holding him down on the ground so he will stop splattering, well, you know. The big five year old returns, throws a handful of wipes at me, and heads back to the living room.

Me: "Hey! These are WIPES. I asked for a DIAPER!"
MZW: "I thought you said wipes." (he makes no move to go back and get me the diaper.)
ME: "This is what I have been talking to you about, you have got to really listen when people talk to you!" (I then realize that maybe now is not the time to drive this point home with my five year old.)

I continue to hold down the tiny toddler while  my big five year old runs back upstairs and tries it again. This time he is successful. I clean up the tiny toddler and put his clothes in a plastic bag to take down to the washing machine. Then I clean up the floor, putting the disgusting diaper and wipes into another plastic bag. I then send my tiny toddler up the stairs to his waiting father, to have a bath. And then I hear: "Why is he wearing a clean diaper?" (implication being that he was just going to take it right off, so why put it on in the first place?)  Dear sweet husband. I know you didn't see the mess all over the kitchen floor but trust me, if I had sent him up those stairs without changing that diaper we would have had to replace the carpeting. Seriously. Why do you think I changed it? IT WAS GROSS.

Now we are two for two. Both boys have, at one time or another, pooped on the kitchen floor. So the real question is - who wants to come over for dinner?

Please tell me this has happened to you.

Charlie has a broken neck!

I left the house late Saturday afternoon around 3:30pm. I was gone for approximately three hours. THREE HOURS. That is an important number, so remember it. I knew that I would be gone during dinner so I had planned ahead, discussing with my sweet husband his meal options of either leftover lasagna or frozen pizza. The living room was mostly clean, with only a few toys scattered about. The kitchen floor was clean. The lunch dishes were still on the table, but I assumed my sweet husband would, at the very least, put them in the sink when it was time to sit down for dinner.

About 30 minutes before I get home I receive this text from my sweet husband: "Charlie has a broken neck!"

After a few minutes trying to figure out who the heck Charlie was I finally remembered that we had named our concrete goose the day we brought him home. He has sat on our porch for nearly eight years and now, apparently, his neck was broken.

A few moments later another text came through: We lost Alex for about 20 seconds!"

Uh, maybe you should have led with that? And, oh, by the way, DID YOU FIND HIM?

Bedtime for the tiny toddler is 7:30pm. When I got home at 6:50pm I was greeted by two bouncing little boys at the front door, one not wearing pants. I did that thing every mom does upon returning home to her children - I swept the rooms with my eyes taking it all in, making sure everything was OK. Everything was not OK.

Cupboard doors were open in the kitchen. The kitchen floor was covered in refrigerator magnets, toys, and those little post cards that fall out of magazines. (I really hate those things.) Toys littered the living room floor. And the lunch dishes were still on the table.

It took only a moment to figure out the boys hadn't eaten dinner. I could feel the annoyance just simmering down inside of me. I took charge. Every boy in my life, all three of them, quietly picked up the toys and cleaned off the table. The argument that the boys "weren't hungry" didn't fly, seeing as they devoured the peanut butter sandwiches I made for them. During dinner I learned that the goose had broken when one of the boys, not clear which one, ran into it, because they may have been riding their bikes/riding toys on the front porch. The front porch that doesn't have any railings but does have a huge drop off on one end.

So to recap: messy house, broken goose, riding bikes on porch, lost toddler, no dinner.

I think I was so upset because I really enjoy my time away from home. I love every minute (mostly) of my time with all of my boys, but I also really like my time away. I find it relaxing and recharging and when I come home I don't like to have to jump right back into the chaos. When I have to clean up, make dinner.... it unravels the recharging, so to speak.

But then my husband helped me to remember that the boys had a fun afternoon. They were unharmed and no one was still missing. I still wish I could come home to a house that at least looks as good as when I left, and that things like meal and nap schedules are at least somewhat adhered to, but in the big scheme of things, my boys got to spend quality time with their dad. Which is always the most important thing.

someone always takes a nose dive

The fact that I am surrounded by boys nearly 100% of my time is starting to wear on me. Between my husband and two sons there is a lot of testosterone flying around my home. Even the cat is male. When the boys were smaller it didn't seem as obvious as it does now. And I fear it will only get worse. I fear for what the future holds.

My tiny toddler is a 2 year old going on 10. His current favorite word is poop and I often walk into his room in the morning to find him laying in his crib, hand down the front of his diaper. The noises, the potty humor, the messes, the nose dives off every piece of furniture we own... sometimes it's a lot to deal with.

Last summer/fall my big five year old had back to back sports. Between flag football and tee ball we were at some sort of ball field two times a week. I loved watching my little guy play- especially football. He's fast and he gets the rules and truly loves the sport, which means I love watching him playing it.  But the mud on his shoes. The gross wet mouth guard being spit into my hand. The dirty uniforms. The dirt and mud everywhere- the car, the house, the washing machine. All the sports practices and everything that comes along with it- the laundry, the snack prep, the getting the whole family out the door on time, on top of the astronomical number of hours we watch sports on the TV. Backyard time is all, "Mommy play football with me. Mommy throw the ball to me. Mommy tackle me!" It's like I live inside the ESPN channel.  And when we are in the  the backyard NOT playing sports someone is taking a nose dive off the toddler slide.

 
 I have been caught by my son's doctor explaining to a stuffed sheep why we don't say the word poop. I have listened to my tiny toddler yell poop up and down the aisles of the local grocery store, with what felt like hundreds of witnesses. I have been trapped in a car while two of my boys (husband and oldest son) sing, "Under a shady tree, poop and pee", to Laurie Berkner. (The real words are "Under a shady tree, you and me...") When we leave school at the end of the day and I tell my tiny toddler to say "goodbye" to his friends he turns back to them and shouts "Bye Bye Pee Pee!". I have no idea if he is addressing the class as a whole or if there is one little friend worthy of the name "Pee Pee". When I ask my tiny toddler a seemingly innocent question such as "What is Daddy doing?" I get this response, "Daddy Poop!" or "Daddy ewwww!" (in our family, like every other family, we have our own  little language. "Make ewww" is something we just started saying to the big five year old when he was a baby, as in "Did you make ewww? Do you need your diaper changed?")

I freeze and hold my breath countless times a day as I watch one of both of my boys fling themselves off the couch onto the floor. I may be over reacting but I swear they are going to break their necks one day somersaulting off the living room furniture. I pick them up and dust them off after they catapult themselves off the top of the sofa, dropping straight down to the floor, often head first. I watch in horror as the big five year old slides down the banister and flies down a hill on his bike. They stand up in the tub, dance on the coffee table, bounce on the bed... I can see how the momma of those bed bouncing monkeys kept letting her little monkey babies fall off the bed, one after the other. Although I doubt I would have called the doctor each time. I wonder, frequently, how I would know if they one day suffer some horrible head trauma from all this boy induced craziness. I mean, let's face it, they act pretty strange on a good day. Last week I witnessed my tiny toddler run straight into a tall glass display case at church, one that he has walked up to a thousand times. He ran right at it like a bull, bouncing off and falling backwards. Yesterday he fell off his Hot Wheels motorcycle, while it was standing still. He wasn't even riding it. Took a nose dive off the motorcycle.

Every book we read in this house is about sports, or trucks, or monster trucks, or cars, or NASCAR, or wheels, or dinosaurs,  or diggers and bulldozers, or Santa. The tiny toddler has a thing for "Ho Ho". Every. Single. Book.And there is no sitting still for the reading of these books. Eventually someone takes a nose dive off the chair.

Don't get me wrong, sometimes we have tea parties. But eventually one of the stuffed animals gets tackled, tea is spilled, little tiny cups are used as weapons, cookies are smashed into the carpet. And someone takes a nose dive off the couch. Even if we are eating at the table the boys end up on the table and the food ends up on the floor. And then, one, or both, of the boys also ends up on the floor.

yes, he was just run over by that truck. another nose dive.

Someone always takes a nose dive.

just laughter, smiles, and fun

Last night we took both boys to see The Fresh Beat Band. My big five year old is a seasoned concert goer - not only has he seen the Michael Stanley Band after an Indian's game he has also seen Elmo, live in concert. And then there was that year we followed the Wiggles...

This was the first tiny toddler's concert. He doesn't like anything loud and sometimes he freaks out when around large groups, but he loves music and dancing, so it could have gone either way. He marched right into the crowded theater and climbed up into his red velvet seat as though he had done it a thousand times. When the concert started he climbed up into my lap so he could see the stage. He clapped when everyone else clapped and at one point he raised his right hand up in the air, palm out, for the entire song. My tiny toddler was testifying! He LOVED it! He bounced up and down on my lap and sang his "la la's" to the music. He didn't make it all way through the concert; my sweet husband had to take him to the back of the theater where they could stand with all the other dad's and squirmy kids, but at least he didn't cry and cause a scene... And as a side note, at least he wasn't the one in our row smelling like the diaper genie. I thought it was him, but after dragging the tiny toddler down two flights of stairs to the restroom and putting him through a terrifying diaper change on a marble ledge because there was no changing table I realized the smell was, in fact, not my baby.

As I sat there watching the concert with a child on either side of me I found myself tearing up, again. I remember sitting in a very similar theater with a small Chinese boy on my lap. He hugged his Elmo doll and clapped when Elmo and Big Bird appeared on the stage. He laughed and pointed and bounced up and down while I cried. My sweet husband cried a little too. We had waited so long, we had gone through so much to get to that moment, right there, giving the amazing gift of Elmo to this young boy that we loved so much. I am sure it is a normal adoptive parent desire to give our newly adopted children only experiences that are fun, to do whatever it takes to see our kids smile, to overcome whatever sadness their young lives had seen. (It ends, somewhat. Nearly four years home with my big five year old and I am, usually, OK with doing things here and there that make him a little sad, like limiting his screen time or not allowing him to eat ice cream and candy for breakfast.) So last night I saw my youngest son light up when the band took the stage. I looked over at my sweet husband and I was laughing through my tears. Which is pretty normal for me. For most moms, I guess. Laughing through tears...

The other thing I realized last night is how very different my two boys are. The tiny toddler is still trying to figure life out and so he spends much of his time imitating his big brother. Because of this they often seem like little mirror images of each other. But I am really starting to see a little man emerge from within the baby my preschooler used to be. He is becoming a very serious young man with a dry sense of humor. At home he acts like a clown, bouncing around and making funny faces to get his little brother to laugh. At school he loves to play basketball and soccer with his friends and he often causes trouble for the teacher with his constant chattering. (something I was often in trouble for in school myself.) At the grocery store he dances down every aisle, totally oblivious to the other shoppers watching him. But put him in a large group, like a concert, and his protection mode takes over. (again, just like mommy. I will go to great lengths to not look stupid in public.) He sat in his chair last night, hands folded in his lap, enjoying the show but not really participating. By the last few songs, when Daddy had taken his little brother off for a walk and it was just the two of us watching the show he did start to dance, just a little. I miss the no worries kid he was, the one who would have danced in the aisles no matter who was watching, but I respect the kid he is growing into. And bonus, I am really enjoying his developing sense of humor. He loves to park at the very top of parking garages and was campaigning heavily to do just that last night. We were late for the concert and traffic had been horrible and I had to pee and while the boys had eaten I had not, so it was kind of like the perfect storm. Plus I was driving a big to me SUV in a small to me parking garage, which all explains how I got to the point where I told everyone in the car to BE QUIET. I then began a conversation with my sweet husband as to where I should park, since so many of the spots in this garage are reserved and I never know if you are allowed to park in the reserved spots after hours or not. But my husband didn't answer me so I said, "WHERE SHOULD I PARK???". And a small voice whispered from the back seat, "at the top, mommy." Tension broken. No more worries over traffic or being late, or having to pee. Just laughter and smiles and fun.

things that keep me up at night

the memory of my big five year old standing in front the coin star machine at the grocery store just staring up at the screen, a la' the martians in Toy Story. it creeps me out. every. single. time.

"ohhhh, the claw!"

how a tiny two year old can create such strong feelings of love and angst at the same time.

I know I am being told it is normal, but why do such large amounts of wax pour out of my big five year old's ear every so often?


is there crack in the sweet tea at McDonald's?

totally addicting

how is that no matter where my sweet husband takes off his shoes, they wind up under my feet?



why does the toilet in our master bath scream like a little girl every time it is flushed?



both of my boys will probably need braces when they are older.


why doesn't my sweet husband take his coat off when he gets home? he wears it for a while, doing normal "just got home" things like checking email or watching TV and it drives me crazy.


why do I care when my sweet husband chooses to take off his coat?


who shot J.R.? because I can't remember.



am I being as supportive a wife as I can be?


are these matchbox cars multiplying?


why can I not get a handle on the big five year old's sock situation? he never seems to have enough socks, no matter how many I buy.


when was the last time I bought a new bra? (if you can't remember then it's time to go shopping!)


what makes Special Agent Oso qualified to be helping children? he is a mess



Why don't time outs work for the tiny toddler?



am I screwing up my kids?


how can two adults and two little people drink so much milk?


if I lived alone would I be one of those people who drink right out of the carton?



will my husband lose his job?


if we all take our shoes off the moment we enter the house, and we all leave them in exactly the same spot every time, how can we never find the big five year old's shoes?


if we know we can never find the big five year old's shoes then why don't we start looking for them before we have to rush out the door?


will my big five year old get into the elementary school we want?


is my big five year old going to need speech therapy?



is my tiny toddler going to need anger management classes?



where did all those ants in the kitchen last spring come from?



why do all of my bathrooms smell like pee?



when is the big five year old going to ask about his birth mother?



why does the tiny toddler like to rip apart books?



will the tiny toddler ever learn to count past "two"?


will I eventually be driven mad by the toy that seems to be lost under the car seat, out of reach, yet stuck "on" and constantly singing the "Toys R Us" song, over and over and over?


am I worrying too much?

too many grapes and not enough vodka

I used to want it all. The career, the husband, the house, the kids, the white picket fence, the opportunity to travel, the nice clothes. Yes, I used to want it all. Now I just want to pee alone.

My list of things I used to enjoy doing alone is getting bigger. Which means my list of things I can still enjoy by myself is dwindling rapidly.

I never used to think about getting dressed in the morning. Then a 15 month old moved into my house and learned to walk. Once he found his sea legs he toddled straight for me and never looked back. So I moved my morning dressing into the walk in  closet. Then the toddler grew taller and could open doors and it was all over. Now I have two little voyeur's tracking my every move. And I have totally given up any attempt at privacy. Which is upsetting, at times, because I have one who pays no attention and couldn't care less and one who notices absolutely everything - and laughs.

I used to be able to shower alone. When the bathroom door opened at least I knew it was my husband, and I was OK with that. Now I shower with one foot pressed against the door to prevent the tiny toddler from sliding the glass door open. Which he manages to do anyways, sending blasts of cold air into my nice warm shower. And when I am not interrupted I am still on high alert, listening for screams or sounds of trouble from  my two sweet boys. I fear I will one day wind up in the emergency room with an injury obtained from trying to shower while balanced on one foot while holding the door shut. And how will I explain that? One time, back in our home in Cleveland, I managed to somehow fling myself out of the bath tub and onto the floor, winding up with a very  large, very nasty bruise on my arm. Try explaining that without mentioning how it happened and see how many people offer you a card for a women's shelter...

I used to cook alone. My husband has the good sense to stay out of the kitchen while I am cooking, or at least to sit at the kitchen table, well out of the way. Now at any given moment while cooking I have very loud, very fast car races passing through, under my feet. I have a tiny toddler repeatedly opening the pantry door and attempting to climb the shelves in search of the one food item I have not yet offered him. I have requests from the big five year old for chicken nuggets, the only food he currently deems worthy of eating. Sometimes I have two little kitchen helpers standing on heavy kitchen chairs, tearing the lettuce or laying out the potatoes. That's kind of nice, actually. Usually I have a tiny toddler on my hip who is hell bent on flinging himself into the pot of whatever is boiling on the stove top. I am covered in bruises from his little feet kicking me as I work hard to keep him on my hip, and not as close to the stove as he thinks he should be, or from being hip checked by the dishwasher door as he grabs the handle and pulls down on it with all his weight, riding it the floor.

I used to be able to actually browse while shopping. I could pick an item up, look at it, try it on even if I so wished. Now I race through the store with a tiny toddler strapped into either a stroller or the baby seat of the cart and a big five year old dancing around my feet. I am in constant fear of running him over with the cart and/or stroller. Grocery shopping was something my husband an I always did together, we even had an older woman stop us once to tell us how sweet she thought it was that we had so much fun together doing something so routine as shopping for food. We don't do that so much any more. But yesterday we did. In a moment of total weakness the whole family piled in the Equinator and pilgrimaged to Giant Eagle. The big five year old danced his way through every aisle, helping mommy shop and "going long" for tosses of bread and such into the cart. My sweet husband wandered off numerous times. The tiny toddler spent the entire time strapped into the cart, his little body twisted backwards as he stretched to grab everything from the cart and fling it back out onto the floor, where the dancing five year old was ready to pick it up and throw it back in, often from ten feet away. It's moments like that when I look at the cart full of food and think, "too many grapes and not enough vodka."

We've all been there. We used to have clean houses. We used to wear clean clothes. We used to be awake enough at the end of the night to have sex. We used to be spontaneous with our spouses; now it takes planning, phone calls, synchronized bedtimes, pardons from the governor and locked doors.

But there are a few things that I am happy to have company for these days. I never have to color alone, or eat ice cream without a little pal. I never have to watch cartoons by myself or fold laundry without my two little men popping up out of nowhere wanting the laundry basket to play "boat". Besides, always drinking coffee while it is hot or sleeping in until my body chooses to wake up isn't that important. Some days I miss my well planned peace and quiet  life. But I'd miss the chaos more.

are my kids speaking chinese in the backseat?

I'd like to say that this afternoon was weird. But to be honest, it was just a typical day in my mixed up world. I took my big five year old to the pediatrician this afternoon for his 5 year old well visit. This is the same doctor who overheard me explaining why we don't say "poop" to a stuffed sheep a few years ago. You can read about that embarrassing moment here. Today I sat in a chair in the exam room answering questions about my son's eating habits and sleeping patterns while my big five year old sat quietly in the chair next to me. The questions then turned to television and video game habits.  I sat there trying to add up how much TV my son watches a day and how many minutes he plays video games, finally coming up with what I thought sounded like a number that wouldn't make me look bad while still being somewhat accurate. As soon as the magic number was out of my mouth my son sat straight up in his chair, looked the doctor in the eye, and said "Man, that was some sick air!" He then immediately looked back down at his lap, where his handheld game was resting. Oh yes, I sat there and told my son's doctor that he rarely played video games, with a straight face, while my son sat next to me playing a video game.  But it gets better.

A few minutes later the doctor comments on the amount of energy my big five year old was displaying. Nervous energy, I think. He knew he would be getting a handful of shots and he was sort  of a mess. If he were an adult he might have sought out a nice glass of wine to calm his nerves but as a big five year old his outlet of choice for his angst was pure adrenalin. He was literally bouncing all over the tiny exam room. So I just get done basically telling the doctor a slightly white lie about the amount of TV time my child has when suddenly my big five year old hears the word "energy" and starts reciting, word for word, the Five Hour Energy commercial. Word for word.  When he's done with that one he moves on to the AT&T commercial, where there is a world of possibilities. Clearly my son watches more TV than I let on. The doctor is now eyeing me suspisciously. Sigh.

After the epic fail at the pediatrician's office my big five year old and I  drove to pick up the tiny toddler. On the way home the older one was feeding the younger one apple slices and this is what I hear happening behind me:

Big Five Year Old: "Here's your apple, Alex. Little bites! Nyet Alex, LITTLE BITES!" (he is repeating my favorite dinner time phrase in an attempt to have a meal where the tiny toddler doesn't choke, for a change.)

Tiny Toddler: "Xie, xie, Zhao!"

Big Five Year Old: "Bukeqi for the pinguo, Alex."

Are my kids having a conversation in Chinese in the backseat? (With a little Russian thrown in?) My Chinese son is speaking Russian and my Russian son is speaking Chinese. My fear was confirmed. One day, probably sooner rather than later, my two boys will be able to talk about me right in front of me, in a language I can't understand.  Like I said, it was a weird day.

As you all know, I became a mother of two this year. My big four and a half year old was, well, four and a half years old, so he was starting to get past some of the weird and clingy  sweet and cute baby/toddler behaviors just in time for us to bring home a new baby/toddler. And the cycle started again, only this time it was a little more intense.

Being a mommy means...

you will learn eye/hand signals that rival the military and that allow you to converse, silently, with your husband. Eye contact, head jerk towards the hallway, fingertip to the lips in that universal "don't make a sound" gesture totally tells my husband my plan to sneak away from the children and lock myself in the bathroom. and if I flash my cell phone at him he knows I am not sneaking away to answer nature's call.

you will make three variations of each meal, despite your pre-children mandate that you would never do this. grown up mommys cannot live by chicken nuggets and applesauce alone! if creating child friendly versions of the grown up meals we like means extra work for mommy, it is so worth it. besides, I have yet to find a wine that pairs nicely with chicken nuggets...

never leaving the house on time. at any given moment one of your little monsters  angels will lose their hat, refuse to leave the house without their stuffed monkey, decide to use to the bathroom after the heavy coat is zipped and buttoned, or need a major diaper change.

someone is always hungry.

your view of "clean" changes. Pants that were thrown onto the bottom shelf of the changing table are certainly clean enough to wear again. Socks that were shoved into shoes and are the only pair you can find are clean enough. if the living room floor only has three matchbox cars, two stuffed animals, a handful of fruit gummies and one sippy cup half filled with pear juice you declare it clean enough.

your kitchen cabinets become storage for all those things you need to keep out of little sticky hands. Simply placing your cell phone and sharp scissors on the counter will not keep it away from tiny toddlers with super human strength who are capable of moving heavy kitchen chairs and hurling little bodies up onto counters.

you are never clean. at any given moment you have peanut butter, chocolate, glitter, snot, or something even worse somewhere on your clothes.

you eventually get to the point where you have changed so many poopy diapers that you begin to smell poop when there are no children around. this results in your looking like a maniac as you smell your fingers and try to finger out where the hell the smell is coming from.

you are never without children. even when they are not physically with you you are thinking about them.

you will never eat a snack or drink a drink you prepared for yourself again.

you can sense the fight brewing between your children in the living room and you choose to stay in the kitchen and turn up the radio.

you become a pro at "backwards math". if little johnny needs to be at school by 8:30 then we have to be in the car at 8:05 which means breakfast has to be done by 8:00 so we have to be dressed by 7:40 which means the kids need to be out of bed by 7:25 which means I need to be out of bed by 6:45 although if I don't wash my hair or put in my contacts I can sleep until 7:15. and you still wind up driving them to school in your pajamas.

every so often you realize, usually in the  middle of the crowded grocery store, that you forgot to brush your teeth/put on deodorant/comb your hair.

you are simultaneously thrilled and terrified when your kids sleep past 7:30am.

you need at least a week's notice for any "spontaneous" outing with your spouse or friends in order to secure babysitting and prepare yourself for a night out. (i.e. shave your legs.)

you have driven, alone in the car, for at least 30 minutes before you realize your son's Laurie Berkner Band CD has been playing and you continue to sing along.

you are always at least a little tired. always.

you are amazed at what you can do with a bottle of white glue, yarn and one googly eye.

your lap is never empty.

you can read your kindle/phone/laptop screen through the fingerprints.

you know what love truly is.

watching the bubble of innocence slowly dissolve

Sometimes it is physically painful to me to watch my boys learn the tough life lessons. Feelings that seem second nature to us as adults were often learned through heartache and confusion when we were small, and seeing my big four and a half year old struggle through learning these same lessons is so hard. I am proud and sad at the same time, which occasionally makes me wish I was one of those people who could just turn off my feelings. You know the kind- very little bothers them, life's lessons are just that, lessons, and certainly nothing to be feeling anything at all about. But I am not one of those people. When I was a young driver I hit a bunny on one of the winding country roads that surrounded my childhood home. When I got home I remember being so upset as I recounted the story to my mother, and I will never forget what my older sister said. "You know, that bunny probably just hopped off into the woods to die- you probably should have just backed over it again and killed it right then, to put it out of it's misery."

Now, my sister didn't believe this. She wasn't a masochistic bunny killer in her younger years. She was just being mean to her younger sister, a normal and favorite past time of older siblings around the world. But those words were devastating to me. The idea that that poor little injured bunny would drag itself into the woods to die stuck in my too sensitive brain for weeks after that day. And that is not the only snapshot of sadness I carry around. I have always been very sensitive and injustices, whether they happen to me or to someone else, have always stuck with me. Which makes it hard to watch my kids struggle to learn life's lessons. But I have to let them learn. I have to let them make their own mistakes.

Yesterday the day care/preschool held the Christmas parties for the children. Both of my boys' classes celebrated with a hot dog lunch, cookies, Jesus stickers, and a book gift exchange. I like the fact that the teachers ask for a book for the gift exchange and I took my time selecting age appropriate and fun books. My tiny toddler came home with a peek a boo type book featuring a dog, one of his favorite animals. Score! My four and half year old received a book that he likes, sure, but as he was telling me about his party in the car on the way home from school it was clear that there was another book that another child received that he would have preferred. He was sad as he told me about this other book, and I know it sounds crazy, but it broke my heart a little. He was well behaved during the party, he thanked his friend for the book he received and he didn't ask for the one he wanted. He understood that he couldn't have it. He learned a lesson about grace and thankfulness in a way that is so much better than me just explaining it to him.

But I learned a little lesson too. My big four and half year old's bubble of innocence is slowly starting to dissolve. He is aware of the news of the world. He knows that there was a "bad man" on the loose near his school once, over a year ago, and he still talks about that day every so often. He knows that something happened to the people of America before he was born that we remember every September and he went through a phase where all of his drawings included American flags for all those people who had "hurt loved ones". He has already lost his first grandparent and occasionally draws cemeteries, telling me that these are the stones we use to remember people. He still talks about his pet fish, Stewart, who swam away to the ocean through his bathroom sink. (don't judge me. we totally panicked when my husband accidentally poured the poor fish down the drain with the water from the fish bowl.)

He is such a sweet and loving little boy. I am not ready for that bubble to shatter completely. And I know, it will take time for that to happen. But he is going to be five years old in two months. He will start kindergarten next Fall. He will be riding the school bus and spending more time with older kids. I won't have as much control over his little world and who he interacts with, I won't be able to protect him as much as I do now. Which I am acutely aware of, and which made me want to drive my sweet little boy straight to the book store yesterday to buy him that book he really wanted. I didn't. But I really wanted to.

no norman rockwell around this house, and THOSE ARE NOT BOO BOOS!

I don't know what goes on in your homes. I am picturing Normal Rockwellish scenes of little ones playing with wooden blocks by a roaring fire while hubby sits in his overstuffed chair reading the paper and a large non shedding dog sleeps peacefully at his feet. You, in your apron, offer your sweet husband a drink while you scoot your clean faced children to the sink to wash their hands before you all settle in at the table for a well balanced home made meal. Very little of that happens in my home, although I do frequently wear an apron...

This is what happens in my home. I overheard this conversation this morning in my bedroom. Both boys were standing on our bed, the tiny toddler wearing only a diaper. A little back story - for the past few days my little guy has been asking for band aids because he has suddenly discovered his nipples and seems to think they are boo boos. He keeps pointing to them and saying "boo boo." No amount of explaining that those are, in fact, not boo boos has done any good.

Today I gave up and walked away to brush my teeth. When I walked back into the bedroom I see my big four and a half year old has taken off his shirt and is pointing to his own nipples. "Alex, they are supposed to be there. See, I have them too." The tiny toddler is not convinced. "That?", he says, pointing to his brother's chest. ("That" is what he says when he doesn't understand something. He points to the object of his confusion and says "that?".)

"Alex, that is how God made us. These are not boo boos."

"That?"

"Alex, I told you. You are not listening. No one knows why God gave us these. No. One. Knows. They are not boo boos."

"That? Boo boo!"

"NO ALEX! NOT A BOO BOO!"

"That?"

"I DON'T KNOW WHY WE HAVE THEM ALEX! They didn't explain that in the potty video with the naked baby who dances."

At this point in their mixed up conversation I had to walk away. never in a million years would I have thought I would one day witness my son referencing the Once Upon a Potty DVD. Not once.

My big four and a half year old then walked up to me, shook his head and said "Mommy, there is no telling that kid anything."

Yes, we are very far from Norman Rockwell around here, but we certainly have a good time!

mother of the year takes shoeless kid to Walmart to buy, well, shoes...

It was a sitcom kind of morning at the Wilkison household. I cannot shake this cold that I caught from my germ ridden  loving boys. The older I get the less my asthma bothers me, but give me a cold and it kicks right back in. I was up during the night with an asthma attack which found me rummaging around in my sock drawer for an inhaler. And before you judge me about keeping meds in the sock drawer let me tell you that I used to keep my inhaler in my nightstand, before the kids and their hands that touch everything came along.

Thursday is one of the two week days that both my boys go to daycare/preschool. Both my boys. Gone. All day. I get to be home, alone.  No diapers to change. No demands for juice. No playing with cars on the floor or singing Itsy Bitsy Spider 17 times in a row. I love my boys and this unplanned time at home with them has been a true blessing. I cherish my time with them. But like everyone else, I still need a break. So I live for Thursday. Nothing will stop me from driving those two boys to that school. How far will I go? This morning I nearly had to teach my big four and a half year old how to dial 911, and I actually dragged the boys into Walmart, one wearing only socks on his feet, to buy a pair of shoes to replace the pair missing in the sea of toys in our living room. I am exhausted just thinking about it.

In one hour this morning I managed to:

• take enough asthma medicine to feel as though I ran a marathon.
• feed my babies cheese puffs, fruit gummies, and Halloween candy for breakfast. (don't judge me. I worked hard to get them to school by morning snack time, which included apples today, so if we count that they also had fruit.)
• tear through my living room, which is covered in toys, looking for the baby's shoe. he is wearing hand me down shoes and currently only one pair of my older son's shoes fit him, so if we lose these shoes, well, that is how you end up racing through Walmart at top speed.
• race through an empty Walmart, at top speed,  with the tiny toddler in the cart seat and the big four and a half year old race walking next to me, repeating "Mommy, I can't walk this fast. Mommy slow down!". The tiny toddler must have sensed the urgency because he did not attempt to stand up in the cart, his usual trick, one time. oh, and while I was there I remembered why I dislike Walmart so. Even empty that store annoys me.
• get my boys to school before 8:45 am, with coats, shoes, and lunches. score!

I feel much better now but I'm not going to chance it. I'm going back to bed...

DINNER IS CANCELLED, indefinitely

I guess it started last week sometime. Too many days in a row of driving the kids around, doing the laundry, the cooking, the cleaning. Too many days of trying to manage the angry toddler, who goes from sweet and loving to angry and, sometimes, just plain mean, in seconds. Too many times reminding the big four and a half year old that we don't stand on our chairs during dinner. Or lunch. Or breakfast. Too much whining. Too much refereeing fights between the boys or pulling the tiny toddler off his brother, for no reason at all. It happens to every mother sometimes, right? (please say yes, please say yes.) I think I was just feeling unappreciated.

Add to all of that the fact that I wasn't feeling 100%. Which is a whole other issue I need to figure out. I usually get a little sick when the big four and a half year old brings gunk home from school, but since the little one has joined the family I have been outnumbered. And so now when they bring that gunk home it is doubly potent and I don't just get a little sick. I get full blown sick. So I was fighting something.

I think we also have to add in the possibility of my hormones being slightly off balance. I know there are opposing views on the long lasting effects of fertility drugs, but I am landing on the side of yes, they do push you into perimenopause early. I am only 41 years old and I have been experiencing some sort of slight symptoms of this since I first took the drugs, back in my mid 30's. Raising small children while your hormones are making you a little crazy is not easy.

So, to recap:

• feeling unappreciated for all the thankless work that goes into being a mother.
• saying no, get down, stop hitting your brother, don't put that in your mouth, STOP HITTING YOUR BROTHER!, over and over and over again.
• living through the "IloveyouIhateyouIloveyouIhateyou" sentiments from my newest family member.
• being sick. again.
• hormones making me crazy. oh my god, so crazy.

All of this led to what happened Sunday night at the dinner table. Getting our youngest to eat is not easy. And keeping him at the table while the rest of us finish eating is even harder. Excusing him to go play seems to be just giving him license to climb onto the table, literally up on the table, and pull everything he can reach towards him and onto the floor. So we let him out of the high chair, he runs around for a moment or two, and then the circus begins. He climbs up onto the table, my big four and a half year old says "uh oh, he's doing it again", and we all start grabbing at everything on the table and pulling it out of the baby's grasp. Sometimes we are successful, sometimes we're not quick enough and the ketchup bottle hits the floor, spraying watery red gook everywhere. No matter what we save from hitting the floor, we usually are never quick enough to stop the older one from attempting to push the younger one down. I am this close to everyone having to wear helmets to dinner.

For some reason this chaos really bothers me. I can ignore the thousands of toys on the living room floor. I can look the other way when my oldest son kicks his pull up off every morning, giggling as it hits his dresser, or the window. I don't mind the water on the bathroom floor during their shared tub time. I cannot ignore the dinner chaos. This, it seems, is my battle ground. So I try very hard to create a calm dinnertime experience. I plate the food before I call everyone to the table. I turn the lights down. Sometimes I turn on Vivaldi or Mozart. I reward my big four and a half year old with a sticker on his responsibility chart for good mealtime behavior. I take the time to research, plan, shop for, and prepare meals I think the whole family will enjoy.

Sunday I made a roast. which I knew the two year would not eat and wasn't sure if the four year old would eat or not. I calmly explained to my older son that he needed to taste the meal, at least. If he didn't like the meat he didn't have to eat it.

One bite, which wasn't even swallowed, and which was followed by "that is gross. I don't like this." deep breath.

The plate full of yogurt and fruit the two year old was presented with wound up on the floor. deep breath.

Demands for more ketchup, more butter on the bread, more drinks, more fruit. deep breath.

Toddler standing up in his high chair, attempting to fall on his head. deep breath.

Recently freed toddler climbing onto the table pulling forks, plates, food onto the floor. deep breath.

All hell breaking loose, again, at the dinner table. Piled on top of everything mentioned above. No more deep breaths. This mama lost it.

I believe I said something along the lines of: "I plan for these meals, I cook these meals, I try to make them nice and NONE OF YOU appreciate ANYTHING I do. DINNER IS CANCELLED. You can all eat cereal for dinner this week."

My husband, God bless him, had the presence of mind to keep his mouth shut. He just sat there, calmly grabbing things from the tiny toddler's sticky little grasp. I got up, grabbed a trash bag, starting clearing the table, throwing the food away, all while telling my little family that there would be no more cooking. Cereal for everyone, all week. I was totally out of my mind.

My big four and a half year old asked to be excused and ran out to the living room to play. A few minutes later he was back in the kitchen, where I was still man handling the dinner dishes but at least had stopped muttering about cereal.

"Mommy, tomorrow night, after we eat our cereal, it will be time to go trick or treating, right?"

My point had been totally lost on him. He just accepted the fact that mommy was going to force cereal on the family every night. My sweet little boy, so trusting. And best of all, he made me smile. He made me see how totally ridiculous I was being. I am not the only mother to lose her mind every so often. And this too shall pass. Before I know it I will have grown up boys busy with sports or band or after school jobs. Getting the family to sit down together for a meal might not be so easy. I should appreciate what I have. And I will.

Side note: we did, in fact, have cereal for dinner last night, just like I threatened. But that was only because we had to get our costumes on and get out there trick or treating. I do plan to make dinner tonight. One of my big four and a half year old's favorite meals, in fact. I am such a sucker.

no cats, or tiny toddlers, were harmed in the writing of this essay

When I was in college I lived in a two unit house just up the street from the center of town. For a long time it seemed to be a music majors house, as renter after renter all passed through the halls of the Hugh A. Glauser School of Music. I lived there for a few years, with a very interesting room mate and her thought he was interesting but really wasn't interesting at all boyfriend. And a very large, very loud bird. A bird that needed to go to bed every night by 9:00pm, which meant that no one could enter the living room. Not even if you paid rent. Which the bird did not. What on earth did that bird need so much sleep for anyways? Big final the next day? Tough commute to the office? Why?

Also living with us in this house were a few loving cats and a huge fish tank made of hand blown glass, (not always the best idea, as the glass occasionally broke and we had first row seats to the circle of life.) But the cats, they were cool.

One of these cats was truly not bright. Dim. Very very dim. But he loved to be outside, so my room mate would sometimes put him on a leash and let him hang out with us on the front porch. Until the day he fell off the porch rail, while the leash was attached to the front door. I'll give you a minute to get the mental picture. Basically, a cat, on a string, hanging off the side of the porch, feet not touching the ground. Thank God we were there to rescue him.

Fast forward twenty years a handful of years to this afternoon. My mother in law recently gave my tiny toddler a hand made blanket that my husband used as a baby. Doing the math we know that this blanket is at least 40 years old. I was terrified that it would just fall apart when I washed it before giving it to my son, but it held up like a trooper. So I gave it to my little guy, and he loves it. He knows it was Daddy's blanket and I think that is why he loves it so.  He carries it all around the house. I know, right? Everyone say it together, awwwwww. So this blanket is  slightly larger than your normal baby blanket, which means it drags behind him like a bridal train. Which is normally not a problem until his oh so loving big brother steps on it, causing the little guy to stop in his tracks and snap backwards. The yarn this thing is made from has a lot of give to it.

I don't think that my tiny toddler had ever encountered a set of stairs until we brought him to our hotel in Russia. Thanks to the daily rain we had the horror  pleasure of investigating every inch of the hotel, including the stairs. My little man spent hours crawling up to the top and then sliding down, on his belly, feet first. Once home he taught my big four and a half year old how to do this little stunt and it caught on. Even though he is tall enough now to actually walk up and down the stairs he still slides down at top speed. He goes so fast that one day I actually saw him hit the bottom step and fly into the front door. He rolled over onto his back, put him hand to his head, and giggled.

This is a lot of back story just to tell you this: today after his nap my tiny toddler grabbed his over sized knit green and white blanket and headed down the hall to the steps. As he rounded the corner to begin his death defying slide down the stairs his blanket trailed behind him. And then it got caught on the door stopper on the hallway side of the ledge at the top of the stairs. He didn't know this, however, so he began his slide and got halfway down before the slack in the blanket caught up with him. He stopped dead in his tracks, literally dangling on the stairs, hanging on to the blanket. The look on his face was priceless. Total confusion.

He refused to let go of the blanket so by the time I freed him he had rolled around on the steps to the point of capture. He looked like a crab in net. And you would think he would be maybe just a little bit scared, but not this tough little guy. When he was finally free he bent down, scooped up the offending blanket, and shook his tiny finger at it while loudly yelling "no, no blanket!"

So history does repeat itself. A blanket doing it's second tour of baby duty created the same scene as a leash some twenty years later, only now there was a baby hanging off the end, instead of a cat.

again with the "got dead" theme

My big four and a half year old came home from preschool yesterday with red dots and blue lines drawn, in marker, on his hand. He proudly pointed to his art work and explained that he drew the flag for "America and all the people who got dead". Again. Again with the "got dead" theme. This obsession of his has been with us since September 11th and it doesn't look like it is going away anytime soon.

We sat him down and explained, in truly preschool terms, what happened on that fateful day ten years ago. He was planning to go to the Cleveland Browns football game on the anniversary of the tragic events and we knew that the NFL would surely be putting on some sort of remembrance. We thought it best to mention it to our son before he heard it from someone else, so to speak. I don't think we even said that anyone died. But kids are intuitive. And they overhear a lot more than we think they do. So who knows where he heard the rest of the story - from us, mommy and daddy? From the day care teachers? From the news playing in the background of his life in the living room or the car?

So each day he comes home from school with a new picture he colored. Like the picture he drew of the monster trucks painted red white and blue. And the page full of butterflies - a yellow one for mommy, a purple one for love, a green one for gravedigger and a red one for the people who got dead. sigh. (don;t know who gravedigger is? concerned I am opening my child's sponge like brain to terrible things? click here.) he is bordering on obsession. And it is freaking me out.

He doesn't seem bothered by it. I ask him if he is sad about what happened, or if he is worried that it might happen again. And he says no. So maybe I just have a very compassionate little guy on my hands. And I know he is getting to that age where all the obsessions start. He can already name every monster truck. He can tell you the mascot for every NFL football team. He can quote lines from both "Cars" movies. This boy is not a newbie to obsessions. But because this newest one centers around people "getting dead" it worries me a little.

It's funny, really. I am no different than anyone else in America who wasn't touched personally by the events of September 11. I followed the news. I felt horrible - just terrible for the families who lost loved ones. I worried about the future and didn't like the thought of being in a large crowd, for fear of another attack. But eventually I turned the TV off and went back to my life. And when the 10th anniversary rolled around I registered it, I thought about where I was when I heard the news and how I was still living in my apartment in Akron where Brad and I eventually had to turn off the TV just to stop the constant barrage of coverage. Yes, I registered it. And I moved on. Life is here, in the moment. I have two small boys, one of whom is learning English and requires lots of extra patience to deal with his moods and frustrations.  I have a household to run and the mom taxi to drive. I have meals to shop for and prepare and a husband to keep track of. Oh, and I have a thousand verses of We Are the Dinosaurs to sing. That alone takes up most of my day.

But my big four and a half year old seems to have plenty of time to think about America. My big four and a half year old who is not even American by birth is currently being a better patriot than his mommy. And his desire to wave the flag, and draw the flag, and talk about the flag- he didn't get that from me. My travels around the world have made me totally appreciate my life here in this country, that much is true. But I am not over the top patriotic. So a part of me is proud of my little guy. So so proud. And maybe I shouldn't worry about this obsession with the people who "got dead". Maybe next month I'll be looking back at this obsession fondly, as I live through his next one. I have a feeling it is just beginning...

5: number of meatballs thrown on the floor

Sunday was not a great day at my house. My tiny toddler is now sweet at least 80% of the time. Which is pretty much my percentage as well. Sunday his percent went down, drastically, as did mine. The afternoon spun out of control as he hit his big brother, (who never once hit him back, God bless him), threw toys at me, and pretty much singlehandedly destroyed the living room. Wonderfully Patient Daddy took him upstairs to play at one point, which seemed to help. Problem solved! What great parents we are!

But then Daddy and my tiny toddler showed back up in the newly put back together living room and the downward spiral started again. And again. And again. And nothing worked. And that is when the countdown to bedtime began.

Here's a breakdown of the numbers:

5:   number of hard plastic toys thrown at my head before I finally started handing over plush ones.

8:   number of times I was hit in the eye, ear, or mouth by 7 sets of eyes and one shoe string on aforementioned plush toys.

1,287: number of alternative toys, snacks, beverages, music and books offered.

27:   number of times my big four and a half year old ran at me at top speed yelling "uh oh, Mommy, here he comes!", as his little brother lunged at him, yet again.

2:   number of times I was convinced I had chipped a tooth

675: number of times my sweet little boy shook his finger at me and said "no, no, no!"

862: number of time outs attempted

1:   number of time outs that actually occurred

15:  number of times I pictured the wine in the pantry

5:   number of meatballs thrown on the floor at dinner

2:   number of meatballs thrown at my big four and a half year old's head during dinner

2.5: number of projected hours between dinner and bedtime

1.5: number of actual hours between dinner and bedtime

*writers note: this list does not include the number of times I was brought to near tears during the day. Oh, and some of the numbers may be slightly inflated. But I swear, if asked in the heat of the moment, these numbers would have been my best guess.

no one wears pants to bed, not even bears

Now that I am temporarily out of work my tiny toddler is only going to day care two days a week. Because my big four and a half year old is in preschool he is still going all five days. So on Tuesdays and Thursdays when both boys are heading to school I have taken over the day care car pool duties from my husband. And because I have nowhere to be and no exact time to be there we can take our time in the mornings. So I was having a quiet breakfast with my husband this morning while both boys slept in a little when I turned around, coffee cup in hand, and screamed in fright at the sight of my creepy, stealth child standing in the doorway to the dining room in his t-shirt and pull up. That kid makes so much noise throughout the day that I am constantly asking him to take it down a notch yet he manages to get out of bed, creep down the stairs and sneak up behind me with no sound at all.

"Mommy, it's cold down here."
"Well, you're not wearing any pants."
"I never wear pants."
"You wear pants all the time."
"No one wear pants to bed. Not even bears." (what? do bears wear other clothes, just not pants?)
At this point I picked him up, sat him on the sofa and wrapped him up in a blanket. As you can imagine, not five minutes later... "Mommy, I'm too hot!"

So after breakfast I left my big four and a half year old in the living room with his breakfast and walked my husband out to the car. When I came back in the house my doodlebug was nowhere to be found. After checking all of his normal downstairs hiding places I headed upstairs. Halfway up the stairs I started to hear the giggles. Both his and the tiny toddler's. By the time I got to the two year old's room my older son had unzipped the crib tent and had climbed into the crib with his little brother. He was holding "Froggy Frog" and making him dance, which was causing his little brother to giggle and dance too. "He was crying, Mommy, so I came up to make him happy." Too. Sweet. For. Words. Oh, and "Froggy Frog" is a stuffed frog, purchased for the baby because he kept stealing his older brother's beloved frog, which is aptly named "Froggy". We couldn't have two "Froggy's", you see. And no, it didn't stop the stealing.

I left both of my boys in the crib and headed over to my room to finish getting dressed. As I was putting in my contacts I was thinking about how well my doodlebug takes care of his little brother. My tiny toddler doesn't usually like to eat anything that isn't fruit or yogurt and will frequently throw his entire meal on the floor if he is denied his precious favorite foods. My attempts to feed him by hand are often met with the aforementioned food flying across the high chair and bouncing off my shirt. Or my face. Or landing in my drink.... But his big brother can feed him. Usually the bite is way too big and the spoon is shoved a little too far into his mouth, but he eats. So my big four and a half year old is now the official baby feeder in the house.

In between bopping him on the head with the wet washcloth my oldest boy helps his little brother wash his hair in the bath tub. He peels his bananas. He gives him toys and shows him how to play with them, including teaching him how much fun it is to roll monster trucks down the stairs. (Which makes a HUGE noise and a HUGE mess at the bottom of the stairs.) He is really a very nurturing little dude.

And so this is what I was thinking about this morning as I was listening to my two boys play in the crib. I was basking in the glow of knowing that my big four and a half year old was growing into such a nurturing young boy. And then I remembered. This past Saturday we attended the baptism of our newest family member, a baby girl cousin to my boys. Then I  remembered my big four and a half year old coming up to me at the church and asking me this question:

"Mommy, can I go pet the baby?"

Pet the baby? Then it clicked. I think he thinks his little brother is the dog he has always wanted....