motherhood – Page 50 – Writes for all Mommies

children, family, humor, kids, motherhood, parenting

Moms Like Me Want to Know

22/09/2012 WFAM

I had lunch with T.Puzzle this week at school. I wasn’t able last week because I was under the weather. That fact that I had to skip out on him didn’t phase him one bit. He told me that ‘he wasn’t going to miss me at all’ and proceeded to apparently have a perfectly wonderful lunch without me. His indifferent attitude had me questioning scheduling a lunch with either of my boys. Was it possible that only I benefitted from this weekly check-in? After further investigation, T.Puzzle admitted that yes, he would still like to have Mom come for lunch but he is okay if for some reason I can’t make it. I didn’t wait for him to change his mind and told him I would seem him soon.

As I sat at the parents’ table with him, his teacher stopped by and graciously thanked me for my emails. She said that she appreciated staying in touch. What she doesn’t know is that for every one email I send her, I’d actually like to send about a thousand more. I wish she would live tweet or video stream every significant move T.Puzzle makes. If T.Puzzle learned something, she should let me know as quickly as possible. If he gets out of line, if he exhibits outstanding behavior (we all have dreams, don’t we?), if he says something cute or funny…basically, if he does anything at all, I want to know about it. Same goes for Full Speed and his teacher, too.

Instead, I constantly coach myself to leave my kids and their teachers alone. I fill my time in other ways while always holding images of what I picture my boys doing at school (I tend to picture them doing only amazing stuff, it’s much more fun that way), and that has to be enough. It doesn’t feel like enough, but it has to be.

children, family, happiness, humor, kids, motherhood, parenting

The Happy Grocery Story

17/09/2012 WFAM

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA — Full Speed’s expression here, as T.Puzzle attempts to cause him bodily harm, aptly captures how I felt physically last week.

I haven’t been feeling up to par for a while now. Initially, I tried to stay very positive about the whole situation. After Mad Dog travelled for work and T.Puzzle came down with the same symptoms, my positivity started to slip away. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t magically manifest a stocked refrigerator through happy visualization. At some point, I had to break down and go to the grocery. I opted to take the boys with me because obviously whatever virus I had, it clearly was damaging the reasoning parts of my muddled brain.

Before we entered the grocery, I croaked out my usual round of threats to get the boys to behave. Once we were in the store, I honestly didn’t care what they did. Naturally, there was a lot of pretend fire arm action and we fell deeply under enemy fire somewhere in the cereal aisle. For the most part, we managed to get through the store unscathed. That is, until we neared the bread section. As we turned the corner, Full Speed and T.Puzzle pushed the cart into a metal display stand of antibacterial wipes. It sounded a lot worse than it actually was. The crash of the cart sent a shockwave down the aisle and about 17 Moms jumped out of their skins. I could see the panic on their faces as they turned to their own carts and quickly did a roll call to make sure all their children and corresponding limbs were accounted for.

“My bad!” I squeaked through my throbbing throat. “No worries everyone, it’s only my crazy kids, not yours.”

The relief was palpable. I cut our losses and we headed straight to the check-out. So what if I forgot to get milk? At least the dairy case that housed the milk remained safely intact to see another day.

See? Look how positive I am.

family, humor, kids, motherhood, parenting

Setting the Bar Low

10/09/2012 WFAM

Sometimes I exasperate myself wishing my boys would pay attention to me. It’s frustrating when you instruct your kid to put their dirty laundry in the utility sink (located conveniently in the laundry room), and instead, it winds up in an unsanitary heap in your kitchen sink. Yuck. The only way I can remotely relate to this lack of attention to detail, is when Mad Dog spouts off some football score that I am specifically supposed to tell the boys about in the morning. Of course, the first thing they ask me when bounding downstairs is, “Mom, did they win?” I respond with a quick, “Sure!” and then a moment later, realize that no, such and such team did not win. “Sorry, guys, but I meant to say they lost.”

“Well, what was the score, then?” they chime together.

Whoa! I’m supposed to remember who won AND the score?

I think it might be helpful if everyone took a deep breath and lowered their expectations. Then again, dirty laundry in my kitchen sink? Really?

children, family, humor, kids, motherhood, parenting

Armed with Love

02/09/2012 WFAM

T.Puzzle is now doing really well so I feel comfortable writing this. On Thursday after school, it came to my attention that he had developed a skin infection on his right bicep. He came waltzing into the dining room where I have the boys’ homework stations set up (yes, kindergartners have homework these days), and proudly announced, “Hey, look at my big muscle!” He thought his swollen bicep was hysterically funny. If my Mommy alarm hadn’t gone off at full volume, I would have thought my little Popeye was hilarious, too. Instead, by the feel of his heated, red skin, I knew it was time to head to urgent care.

He was quickly diagnosed with a soft tissue infection and prescribed an oral antibiotic. Fortunately, he seemed to act fine, didn’t have a fever and by all accounts, looked as if he would make a speedy and complete recovery (so far, so good).

Any reasonable person would probably think that T.Puzzle was in no danger. As a not-so-reasonable Mom, my mind kept going to scary, flesh-eating bacteria places, and I couldn’t get myself back. I hovered over him like crazy and kept wishing I could give him my arm to replace his infected one. T.Puzzle responded to all this over-attention by patiently allowing me to smooch him dozens of times, and saying it was okay to snuggle with him because he could still hug me with his ‘good arm’.

As I explained to Mad Dog why I had become so consumed with worry over a very typical, routine sort of infection kids get all the time, when it comes to any possible threat to your offspring, logic leaves you. It gets up, runs away and is almost impossible to retrieve.

Even with two good arms.

children, family, humor, kids, motherhood, parenting

Immunity

28/08/201212/09/2012 WFAM

At the beginning of each school year, I take the boys for a flu vaccine. T.Puzzle shared his concern that he wasn’t looking forward to being ‘shot’. Turns out, he thought the doctor was going to use a gun, and apparently shoot the vaccine at him at close range. Once I explained there were no fire arms involved, he was visibly relieved.

When it was time for the actual vaccinations, the kindly nurse determined the nasal mist was the way to go. Full Speed took his mist like a man. When it was little T.Puzzle’s turn, he began to crack under the pressure. Full Speed looked at him and stated, “Look, T.Puzzle. I just had the nasal mist and it didn’t kill me. See?” He then proceeds to flex his manly arms, stops short and fakes a violent, spasmodic death on the floor. It managed to break the tension and T.Puzzle inhaled to the best of his ability (it was rather pitiful). As we were checking out, the receptionist handed over a receipt. Full Speed snatched it away and declared rather forcefully, “I am now going to sign this as President of the United States!” The receptionist cracked up and this only worsened the tomfoolery. Pretty soon T.Puzzle joins in and the reception area quickly turned into a showcase of silliness. Naturally, another office worker pipes in, “You certainly have your hands full. What a couple of characters!”

At press time, no word of a vaccine against maddening behavior.