children, marital blissishness, parenting

Good Work!

WFAM

Mad Dog and I surprised the boys by both of us picking them up for school. From there we went out for pizza. Afterwards we walked across the parking lot to the natural foods market. This is so we could stock up on frozen eggless waffles and pancakes for T.Puzzle. As we were loading in the car, Mad Dog and I got into a slight verbal tussle over who should help whom with their seatbelts (if you are married with small kids you know what I’m talking about). For Full Speed to buckle his own seatbelt is much like his journey to being fully potty-trained, nearly impossible and a long time overdue. While Mad Dog and I are sparring Full Speed attempts to do his own seatbelt to no avail.

“I can’t buckle myself in if you guys are arguing!” he says.

Once we are all tucked safely in the truck, I have to agree with Full Speed.  I lean over and give Mad Dog a smooch and we manage to get along for the rest of the ride home.

Flash forward to the early pre-dawn hours and I am awakened with a start. I am groggy and not sure what has stirred me from sleep. That’s when I hear the tell-tale thud of T.Puzzle launching himself out of his crib. I wake Mad Dog and get him up to speed and he heads into T.Puzzle’s room.  T.Puzzle is determined to join us in our bed. That’s not our policy. We believe in our kids sleeping separately from us as much as possible.

Instead of threatening him or letting him ‘cry it out’ Mad Dog comes up with an interesting and efficient solution. He plops T.Puzzle down next to his brother in the big boy race-car bed and calls it a night (or should I say early, pre-dawn morning?).

We didn’t hear a peep until it was actually a reasonable time to rise. Good work, Mad Dog! Good work.

children, kids, mommyhood

I’ll Second That

WFAM

Lately I have begun to feel a shift in the behavior of my boys. They are less like crazed, wild animals and more like human children. I could attribute this to the passage of time, maturity (on my part and theirs) or my mental state has slowly shifted to delirium-laced denial. Any way you look at it, I am quite simply enjoying their company more and more. I am even doing spontaneous things like taking them to the movies or out to dinner during the week AND actually looking forward to it.

That’s not to say we don’t have our setbacks. For example, when I’m locked in a bathroom stall with a screaming T.Puzzle and Full Speed is on the toilet insisting I face away from him for ‘privacy’. That happened yesterday. We were at the gym and I was giving the boys a snack before I headed to my BOSU (if you don’t know what that is, don’t bother finding out because it is torture) class and Full Speed announces he has ‘to go poopy!’ for the whole gym to hear. We race to the bathroom and I throw him in a stall and put T.Puzzle on the toilet in the stall right next door.

After ten seconds I hear Full Speed say, “Mom, I did it again. I locked myself in.”

I didn’t panic like I did at Tae Kwon Do because I know Full Speed was perfectly capable of unlocking himself once his business was finished (in fact he unlocked it mid-business without disaster). I brought T.Puzzle and myself into Full Speed’s stall to ensure there would be no more accidental locking. That’s when the maelstrom of events took place. T.Puzzle’s yelling, Full Speed’s directing and the familiar slow burn of embarrassment creeping up my stomach and expressing itself as a scarlet hue on my cheeks. Two steps forward, one step back I suppose.

Once that twenty minute bathroom production is over and they are off to the gym daycare (Full Speed loves it because now that he is five he gets to do the climbing wall there), I head to my class. I think that even though I left part of my lung on the floor of the class and my heartbeat has yet to stabilize, I’m glad I did the class (I think). I pick the boys up and as we put on coats they tell me they are hungry.

“Oh, good,” I say. “Mom’s going to make chicken when we get home.”

“I don’t like chicken,” Full Speed says. “I’m not going to eat it.”

“Great. Then you can sit in your room while T.Puzzle and I eat it.”

By now T.Puzzle is also upset because I’m making him wear a sweatshirt and Full Speed  has a sour face because he apparently hates chicken (which is lie, he’s just being contrary).

“The next person that gives Mommy attitude will be sitting in time-out. And, Full Speed, if you cannot adjust your attitude about dinner you will be going to bed the same time as your brother (Full Speed sometimes gets to stay up a little later but it is a PRIVILEGE).”

Even though I’m feeling sassy myself I try to shift the negative energy of my clan as we head to the truck.

“Hey guys, check out your shoes in the night. They light up so nice when it’s dark out. I love your shoes, T.Puzzle and I love your shoes, Full Speed.”

“Mom,” Full Speed says, “your shoes are beautiful.”

My shoes are three year old, dingy gym shoes that have certainly seen better days. However, I appreciate Full Speed’s strategy of buttering up old Mom. And just so you know, he finished all the chicken on his plate and asked for seconds.

gratitude, humor, kids, life in pictures, mommyhood

Supermarket Miracle

WFAM

This was my morning. First I got T.Puzzle up and dressed. I said, “What would you like for breakfast?” I was full well anticipating an answer like ‘pancakes!’ or ‘waffles!” Instead he said, “Cupcakes with sprinkles!”

I promise you I did not give him that for breakfast. At least the cupcakes I had baked for his birthday made an impression on him. I guess I will have to Betty Crocker it out for him on future celebratory occasions. Let’s hope he outgrows his egg allergy because store bought cupcakes are a beautiful thing.

When it’s Full Speed’s turn to start the day I ask, “What would you like to wear today?” He responds, “My Santa shirt.” This confuses me. He doesn’t have a shirt with a Santa picture on it or even a holiday themed one.

“What shirt do you mean?” I ask.

“The red one I wore when I met Santa,” he explains. His tone implies that pretty much everyone on the planet except his Mom knows this. Red polo shirt it is then.

I love that in the first ten minutes of my day that my boys are so entertaining. I think that means we are off to a good start.

After T.Puzzle and I drop off Full Speed, we head to the grocery. In the past I have dedicated entire posts to his legendary meltdowns and unpredictable behavior. Today, I changed my game plan. It was risky but it paid off. I had to survey the area and make a hasty choice. On this particular weekday morning the place was dead with only a handful of staff and customers sprinkled about.

I let him out of the cart.

I know as you let that concept sink in, you have a great deal of fear and admiration for me.

He helped me pull the cart and placed (more like plunked and thunked) items in the basket. It went slowly but it went well. I even knew I had a spare fruit snack in my purse to bribe him to sit in the cart during checkout. It worked like a charm.

My morning started off as slightly humorous like any other and then it turned into a supermarket miracle. God bless us everyone!

children, kids, life in pictures, mommyhood, Uncategorized

I Spy

WFAM

I am trying very hard to get my house back in order after all the visitors. This morning I was clearing floors and decided to put T.Puzzle’s new Thomas the Train track on our dining room table. Per our morning routine (as we are extremely routine oriented here), the boys were dressed, fed and had their teeth brushed. If this goes smoothly it allows time for a cartoon viewing before school. I use that time to sneak back upstairs and change out of my pajamas and occasionally focus on my personal hygiene. I do mean occasionally. When I come back downstairs what do I find but this:

Oh, well.

After the boys are dropped at school and my morning workout is complete, I take a few minutes to phone my sister. She is getting back in the routine of her everyday life and so am I. We both agreed seeing each other helped our hearts tremendously and maybe we will survive this first Christmas without our Mom after all.

I told her Mad Dog is traveling and that overall the boys and I are doing well. She told me to thank Mad Dog for all he did to make the trip to Florida happen and all the other ways that he was generous to her family. I told her I would but when he is traveling, I rarely get a chance to speak to him. He is usually incredibly busy and often times meets with colleagues for dinners out at night. I told her it’s hard sometimes to hear that he is on his way out as I am in the lonely process of shutting my house down and tucking the boys in bed for the night. She said that she understood.

“It’s probably hard to think of Mad Dog eating steak when you are at home eating chicken nuggets with the boys,” she said.

“How did you know I had chicken nuggets last night (I really did!)? Did you put cameras in my house while you were here?” I asked.

This made both of us of laugh. Of course a Mom would eat chicken nuggets. It’s just what we do.

children, gratitude, mommyhood

Stick With You

WFAM

An eerie silence has fallen over my house. We’ve had such a bustle of visitors and activity that now it almost seems like we are living in a library. I’m having a hard time cleaning up all the baby toys and baby stuff. I’m missing my family terribly.

Full Speed was in caretaker mode this morning (it helps because he got about 13 hours of sleep). He takes his role seriously as ‘man of the house’ when Mad Dog is out of town. He noticed Baby D’s high chair was still at the table this morning (I didn’t have the heart to fold it away yet). I told him I sure felt sad that his cousins had left and that I would miss them.

“Mom,” he said, “T.Puzzle and I are still here and you can see us everyday so you won’t ever miss us.”

“Thanks, Full Speed, that makes me feel better. I’m glad I get to see you both every day,” I responded. I love when threads of empathy come through Full Speed’s words. It makes me feel like maybe I’m doing my job right.

Another life skill we are working on in our house is ‘sticking with it’. That means whatever Mommy gives you, you say “thank you, ma’am, it’s exactly what I wanted.” For instance, I’ll give the boys a couple choices for snack and if they can’t decide, they have to be happy with whatever Mom puts in front of them. Same goes for toys, clothes, tv shows, etc.

As I was preparing breakfast (frozen pancakes gourmet delight), Full Speed asked his little brother if he could remember what Full Speed told Santa he wanted for Christmas. A dutiful T.Puzzle shouts, “Guns and swords!”

Full Speed was impressed he remembered. “Give me a double high T.Puzzle.” T.Puzzle jumps from his chair and slaps his brother’s hands.

Now, as a mother, you can sense that Santa actually giving Full Speed guns and swords for Christmas would be an accident or a gravely endangered T.Puzzle waiting to happen. I tried my best to offset the weaponry violence.

“Hey, Full Speed, what if Santa isn’t able to bring you guns and swords for Christmas? What if he brings you something else but is certain you would really like it?”

“I’d stick with whatever Santa gave me, Mom,” is his automatic reply.

“I’m sticking with you, kid,” is mine.