health, humor, mommyhood, parenting

Orange You Someone I Know?

WFAM

Since Full Speed’s surgery he hasn’t been allowed on the playground at his school. At morning recess time he heads down to the three year old classroom while the rest of his class goes outside. For the second recess in the afternoon, I have been picking him up beforehand so he doesn’t have to feel like he is missing out twice in one day. So far it’s working out great. This is good because he has a least three more weeks of no outside play assuming all continues to go well with the second eye surgery and recovery.

When I picked up Full Speed today, I was early of course and the class was running a little late. They were in the midst of finishing their afternoon snack of pretzels. Full Speed  wanted to stay longer because they had made jello with orange soda that morning and they were going to eat the finished, chilled product now. I wanted him to partake in the jello madness so T.Puzzle and I hung out with Full Speed’s class for a few minutes.

Full Speed was as proud as a peacock to have his Mommy there during snack. I appreciate at this age having Mom around is super-cool. It will be a sad day when I inevitably became super-uncool. So, I soaked in his excitement and talked with his friends.

At their tables they have their names spelled out so they know where to sit. I started to refer to them by name and they were amazed. I said, “Jacob, your jello looks delicious.” Jacob’s eyes grew wide with wonder.

“How do you know my name?” he asked.

“Well, it’s written right here on your table. See?” I leaned over to point out his name and proceeded to spell it out loud. “J-A-C-O-B.” As I said each letter I pointed to it.

I still had them all stumped. I guess when you aren’t technically a reader yet, anyone that reads, spells or says your name without really knowing you is mysterious.

“You can SPELL my name, too? How’d you do that?” he couldn’t believe my magical powers.

Eventually, I gave in to their adorable delusion and told them I was in fact psychic and knew things that no one else did. I proceeded to go around the room and work everyone’s name into a classroom discussion about orange jello. They each laughed and giggled as I said their names. Very, very cute.

Ultimately, I predicted that everyone would eat their jello and it would be delicious. Not surprisingly, I nailed it.

Garden

humor, mommyhood, parenting, terrible twos, Uncategorized

I Wake Up

WFAM

It was time to put T.Puzzle down for his nap. He immediately begins to run away from me telling me over and over, “I wake up, Mommy. I wake up.” He means he is clearly awake and he is not having it.

I manage to carry his nearly forty pound frame upstairs. Once upstairs, I have to put a fresh pull-up on for his nap. I ask him to retrieve one from the stash in his room. He goes over to the columns of pull-ups neatly aligned in a cloth holder that is blue and plaid with a baseball motif. He proceeds to start chucking them one by one all over the floor until he finds one with a picture on it to his liking. I don’t fight that right now. At least he brings me the pull-up and is mostly willing to change into it.

I ask him if he wants a story. He shakes his head vigorously ‘no’. “I wake up, Mommy. I wake up.”

I heave him into his crib (I know he is ready for a big boy bed, I can’t fathom that change until Full Speed’s second surgery is complete). I almost break my back in the process and he thumps to the mattress. I didn’t realize that you could lie down defiantly. Somehow he achieves just that.

I head downstairs to fold up some laundry and catch some peace and quiet. It had already felt like a long day dealing with T.Puzzle’s ever-changing moods and demands. I click on the monitor and then it begins.

“I WAKE UP, MOMMY! I WAKE UP! I GET UP! I GET UP!” I can barely understand him through the screams.

All Moms face this challenge. The time when your child transitions out of napping is perilous and fraught with emotional danger. I went through this before with Full Speed. He gave up naps so early that it could make a grown woman cry (and I did). How I handled it was a couple rough months of putting him down regardless of if he slept and eventually he adapted. It became known as “quiet time”. It actually turned into something of beauty once we survived the initial shock of it. Now, it is a time where he is in his room playing quietly (as quietly as Full Speed can) with cars, Power Rangers or Transformers. I think it is good because it helps foster his ability to play independently (which for Full Speed is a very rare thing) and gives Mommy a much, much needed (and deserved) break.

I’m feeling more confident that the transition to “quiet time” will be easier with T.Puzzle because he already has such a rich, inner-world of imagination. He plays independently stupendously and he loves stuffed animals. Since stuffed animals are not really his big brother’s forte, he gets all of Full Speed’s leftovers which makes his crib a veritable zoo of play. He has every stuffed animal under the sun.

So after a good half-hour of hysterics (his, not mine I promise), he sort of gives up and I can hear him start to play. Awesome. This is great. I feel movement towards the end goal of “quiet time”.

Then, we get a delivery. Oh, you Moms out there know the horror of a poorly timed doorbell chime. T.Puzzle hears the bell ring and assumes someone has come to visit. He is beside himself that he can’t come down and see who is here. He is so distraught it sounds like a pack of hyenas is trying to drag him away. I brace myself for the next round of screaming knowing full well if I go up and try to explain the concept of ‘just a delivery’ to him, it will only increase his despair.

Fortunately, he recovers quickly and after a good five minutes, he is back to playing with his animals. Great.

I decide I’m thirsty. That was a big mistake. Not that I was thirsty, but that I wanted to have ice with it. I put my cup up to the refrigerator door and push the ice dispenser. As the ice crashes loudly into my cup, guess what T.Puzzle says?

“I WAKE UP, MOMMY! I WAKE UP!”

I gave up, I couldn’t take it anymore.

T.Puzzle, 1 – Mommy, 0

mommyhood, terrible twos

Two’s Company

WFAM


<

I am so frustrated right now. In fact I was so frustrated a few moments ago that I used a word in front of Full Speed that I rarely do. And I used it repeatedly. No, no, it’s not what you’re thinking. I used ‘stupid’. Of course whatever word you were thinking probably would have captured my emotion better. However, I manage to keep the verbal environment somewhat clean when I am in the presence of my kids. Not that I don’t have the occasional slip-up here and there.

I had the day to myself as the boys were in school and I cranked on all my errands and household duties. I was non-stop from the moment my feet hit the floor this morning. I even made dinner. During that process I remembered why I hate making dinner so much. It isn’t the making per say. It is the going to the store so you have the stuff to actually make the dinner, the bringing of the groceries in the house, the putting them away and then preparing the actual meal. Even if you accomplish all that, when it’s all said and done, you have a crap-load (another one of my don’t-use-in-front-of-the-kids-words) of dishes and a dirty, grimy kitchen to boot. Why would anyone in their right mind want to make dinner? Especially if you have to take care of children in addition to all that nonsense. Stupid, right? You can see where I’m going with this.

So, even though I had ‘me-time’ today, I wasn’t looking forward to picking up the boys  from school. I felt kind of bad that I was dragging my feet in such a major way. As soon as I brought them to my parked truck it immediately clicked why I didn’t want to.

T.Puzzle is so terribly two right now that anything and everything is a huge production and a battle of the wills. You throw Full Speed’s intensity into the mix shouting things like, “If you keep acting like that T.Puzzle (meaning crying and screaming) then I WON’T INVITE YOU TO MY BIRTHDAY!” Surprisingly this does nothing to help T.Puzzle’s mood. It becomes even worse than when his tantrum started.

I get them in the door of our house and someone needs to poop, another is dying for some ice water and they both are ravenous. T.Puzzle keeps crying about puzzles because the pieces aren’t fitting right and Full Speed is shouting and jumping attempting to air-kick (that means kicking the air space surrounding your brother, not your actual brother) T.Puzzle which is making T.Puzzle explode into torrents of tears.

This vibe carries on through most of dinner. There was a slight reprieve when Mad Dog came home at 5:30 (it felt like Christmas!) and we went for a family bike ride. Once we headed into the nighttime routine it got really ugly all over again.

T.Puzzle was throwing a level 10 and nothing I could do could talk him down. Of course he needed water (which was downstairs) and Full Speed needed eye drops and his protective eye shield (which were downstairs also). I was so frustrated by T.Puzzle’s behavior and that everything of use to me was downstairs because of course we were on our second floor, that I dropped a couple angry ‘stupid thises’ and ‘stupid thats’. Full Speed looked confused by my tirade and he said “I’m not throwing a tantrum right now, Mommy.” He was trying to be a good ambassador and calm his Mom down. This is quite typical for Full Speed. And it still didn’t matter that at least one of the boys was behaving. I looked him dead in the eye and said in all seriousness, “Let’s give it ten minutes and see where we are at.” Okay, okay, I realize that I didn’t have to throw Full Speed into T.Puzzle’s crazy, tantrum category. I was so fed-up with feeling like a servant instead of an independent, thought-filled adult that I couldn’t take it anymore.

I completely understand that tantrums and servitude are a huge part of motherhood and normally I suck it up, take a deep breath and move past it. Motherhood is beyond challenging and this is balanced usually by cute, sweet, random moments that you share with your kids. However, if all you are getting is attitude it can feel pretty frustrating.

I know I will get through this stage with T.Puzzle I do not like it, I don’t want to do it and it makes me want to scream and cry. At least I’m in good company.

marital blissishness, parenting, self-discovery

Truthfully Speaking

WFAM

Are you technically having an argument with your husband if you are simply stating your case and it happens to be true? I was upset with Mad Dog this morning (I was going to say mad but since the word mad is part of his nickname; I felt it canceled out the meaning). He has been working a lot (no surprise) and I am wishing it could be different (no surprise). I was so steamin’ angry that I called him while he was on his way to work. My point was to give him a laundry list of reasons of why I was so upset. I’m sure he was super excited to take my phone call. To his credit, he did not respond with a counter-attack. Either he is an incredibly intelligent man (if you know him, you know this to be true) or he thought my rant was so off-base, he couldn’t dignify it with a response. I’m hoping for the former. He better hope it’s the former, too. That’s not a threat. Again, how could it be? It’s simply a statement that happens to be true.

My Mom used to say that if you always agree with your spouse then one of you isn’t necessary. Well apparently Mad Dog and I are both highly essential to this union.

Relationships are complicated. Look at my boys. One minute they are wrestling each other within an inch of their lives, the next they are side by side calmly watching a show. There is no pattern or way to figure which way they are going to be each day. Frick and Frack

Maybe I would be bored to tears if they were quiet, calm and predictable (that made me laugh out loud as I tried to imagine them as that – never, gonna happen!). Maybe I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if a simple outing to Wal-Mart with them was just that. Simple.

Simple is nice when making a recipe I suppose. Simple can bring a sense of comfort and practiced rhythm to the world. My world is a little different. It is full of unknowns, outlandish behavior and disagreements. It has spice and surprise. I’m curious to see what happens next especially for T.Puzzle and Full Speed. Aren’t you?