humor, life in pictures, marital blissishness, parenting

A Chili Day for Football

WFAM

It was late in our day and we made the unfortunate decision to take the boys to Chili’s for dinner. It’s not that they were being bad, they were being themselves. I wasn’t tolerating their normal hyper state as well as I usually do. I mean by this point, I know full well what I am getting myself into when we are dining out with the boys. I couldn’t blame it on not knowing what to expect. I just wasn’t in the mood. Sometimes I’m like that. Lucky, lucky Mad Dog.

When I married Mad Dog, I also had full disclosure. I knew that realistically our weekends during football season would revolve around Buckeye games. I can’t complain about it or wish it away. It is what it is.

The part that trips me up is that not only do we have to watch the Buckeyes (and dress in Buckeye jerseys every time they have a game) but we have to watch a bunch of other meaningless (my opinion) games. I don’t understand why we have to watch the Arizona Cardinals simply because the former Buckeye, Beanie Wells, is on their roster. Or why we have to make sure USC is trampled so the Buckeyes reputation can be redeemable in the land of the BCS (I don’t even know what the BCS stands for, all I know is where the Buckeyes rank in the BCS determines the mood of my husband). Can’t we only watch a nice, tidy re-cap of all these other games when it is convenient? Granted, nothing is ever convenient when raising a family. Still, I am holding out for that dream.

So, there we were. Eating our incredibly healthy fried and cheese covered meals, and I’m not having it.  T.Puzzle is especially over-the-top. He keeps running his car along the wooden blinds which I tell him not to about forty-seven times. The blinds are dusty and unstable and I keep picturing the whole of them crashing on our table and the table behind us. He keeps on doing it. Then he grabs his napkin and puts it on my head and says, “Hat, Mommy, hat.” Yes, yes, I understand it’s adorable. Again, I just wasn’t in the mood.

Almost on cue as my frustration with T.Puzzle is rising, Full Speed announces he has to use the bathroom. Mad Dog and I knew this was coming. How, you may wonder? Well, Full Speed did ask us once we were seated and strapped in our car on our way to the restaurant if they had bathrooms at Chili’s. We tried to convince him to try to go at home. He said, no, he was just WONDERING if they had bathrooms. It was no wonder to us when he needed to use them.

As Mad Dog and Full Speed leave the table, T.Puzzle is upset. He wants to go with them and dives over me and lunges towards the floor. I manage to redirect him and again, he starts with the gross blinds and the car.

When Mad Dog and Full Speed return, I am now silently praying that our waitress will bring us our check. It’s clear the boys are on the edge. So am I. I feel pretty confident Mad Dog is clued in to the situation and I am relieved when he leaps up from the table. Good, he must be going to track down our waitress and the check.

Oh, no. Oh no he is not. He is animatedly jumping up because he can see the USC game and apparently something great is happening (as if I give a damn!). He does this to me two more times. Each time he jumps a tiny part of my heart is hoping he gets the check instead of the score. Never happened. Instead, I am forced to not so gracefully escort T.Puzzle  from Chili’s as he has reached a point of no return. Ah, football and tantrums, they apparently never go out of style.

humor, life in pictures, mommyhood

This is Only a Test….

WFAM

Mad Dog recently updated the applications on my phone. I’m attempting to post a couple pictures I took yesterday with my phone that coincide with my Chik-fil-HEY! Post. These are of the boys at the park. My hope is that I’ll be able to make my blog mobile and add posts when we are out and about. I could also be clearly delusional because when I’m out and about with my guys I am barely able to keep us all safely alive. Finding time to post may be a challenge. A girl can dream, right?

humor, mommyhood, parenting

Chick-Fil-HEY!

WFAM

p8132941I realize as I begin this post, Mad Dog read my sad post yesterday and is doing what he can to help with the boys. I couldn’t understand why he was being so attuned to my needs and swooping in to save me from chaos. I think he is afraid I might break. He doesn’t know that I am unbreakable.

How do I know this? What is my proof? Sitting with my Mom in her last days, holding her hand, helping her face death with grace and dignity are my first clues. That has been the secret gem that I have acquired from this somewhat harrowing experience. If I need to be, I am absolutely fearless. You can put anything in my way, it will not knock me down. I am unbreakable.

When I came through the door today with half-crazed boys at my feet, the look of total exasperation alerted Mad Dog that he needed to swiftly intervene (while I may be unbreakable, I do have a limit of patience that had been fully attained). He said he would take the boys to Home Depot (we had some furnace leakage and such, you know the joys of homeownership and all). I looked at him and said in all sincerity, “It’s suicide, the boys are insane, you don’t have to take them.” At least, don’t take both of them; you don’t know what you are getting yourself into.”

“No, no, I can do it,” he insisted, again believing me to be on the brink of sanity, fearing I may never return.

“Okay,” I said with resignation. His sinking ship I suppose.

This is what he is going to be up against. I had taken Full Speed for his second pre-op physical (all clear so surgery will be a go this Tuesday) and he was beyond hyper. There is a balance of being silly and being out-of-control. He clearly was out-of-control.

We went back to school to pick up T.Puzzle. I thought because of Full Speed’s extreme intensity, I needed to run it out of him, so we headed to the park. The boys played like wild animals for forty-five minutes. I was still unwilling to bring them home, they were too amped up. So, we headed to Chik-Fil-A. For those of my readers from up north, Chik-Fil-A’s are a fast food franchise specializing, in yep you guessed it, chicken. Full Speed walks directly to the order counter and says “I want a cheeseburger!”. This makes the staff chuckle (the whole point is they don’t serve beef). Oh well, whatever, I managed to direct them to a table and get them their food (which did not go smoothly). They ate quickly and loudly. Then, they were off to the play area.

The play area is small. It was not containing Full Speed’s energy very well. He was doing mock Karate moves on unsuspecting children. At one point, I sternly announced that he needed to pull it together and knock off his Karate chops and kicks. I was so severe in my delivery, the roughly ten other children surrounding us stopped in mid-play and looked at me with fear in their eyes. I can be very scary. I started to crack a smile at the thought that I scared the Chik-Fil-A play area straight. You could have heard a pin drop. Too bad I don’t scare my own children as much as I scare everyone else’s.

At another point in this adventure, T.Puzzle is daring and climbs up farther on the climbing apparatus than he ever has before. I cheer him on and he proceeds to lose it. Big time.

Of course, it’s too tiny for me to maneuver where he is and I have to practically wrench Full Speed’s (who is off to the side pretending to drive an imaginary race car) arm off to get him to focus and help me. Sometimes, if it’s not directly in front of Full Speed or if he is not directly involved, he can be kind of oblivious to the distress of others. Fortunately, he was willing to help when he realized what was happening.

Enlisting Full Speed’s help backfires tremendously. T.Puzzle is angered that Full Speed is coming near him and not me (because all he really wants is his Mommy!), so he elevates his screaming another notch (which I knew to be possible but silently prayed it would not). At this point, the entire restaurant, because the play area is surrounded by a clear wall, is staring trying to find the source of the hysteria. I finally managed to pretzel myself into a position that I’m able to grab one of T.Puzzle’s ankles. This sets him screaming to a whole other level as he is feeling frightened that he might fall. I have to do what is necessary. I grab him and pull him down in the most ungraceful way imaginable. He crashes to my level in a heap of dismay and I want to crawl to the top of this monstrosity and never, ever come down.

I’m not even going to tell you what happened when we stopped at Grandma’s for a few minutes on the way home. Our intent was to cheer up Nan, instead I think we added stress instead of relieving any. So when I finally walked in the door of my own home and Mad Dog said, “I got it,” all I could think was he may very well be the bravest soul I have ever known.

good grief, loss of parent, self-discovery

The Cheese Stick and a Hug

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I have been struggling lately. I am sad more days than not. It’s been about six months since my mother’s death and I feel I am deep in the sadness part of my grief process. I have no more denial to protect me. I must move forward through this raw, biting pain that sits on my chest and weighs my movements as if I am submerged in water.

Today has been particularly rough. No rhyme, no reason. I have this overwhelming sadness that feels so powerful that it’s like carrying around another full-grown, helpless person.

I am home today with T.Puzzle. This is the first day in a long while that I didn’t have a million and one things to do. I have time to be still. I hate it. I can’t run anymore. I have to face the fact that my Mom is never coming back. She is gone forever. End of story.

I have to admit (and not proudly), T.Puzzle is watching a lot more television than I normally allow. I don’t have it in me to be ‘Mommy’ today. At least it’s stuff like Sesame Street so it will hopefully reinforce his letter recognition and won’t be a total wash.

He can tell I feel off today. He’s not fighting me at every corner. He’s been more gentle and loving which I appreciate. It’s amazing the intuitive nature that children possess. I hope he always keeps that.

I was sitting on the couch staring into nothingness and feeling downright sorry for myself. T.Puzzle came over and climbed on my lap. It’s surreal that feeling you get when you are holding one of your children. You sort of lose where you begin and they end. It’s like the physical boundaries of the world melt away and disappear into the love you have for one another. It felt good. I liked the weight of his body pressing into the sadness that sat deep in my gut. I didn’t hold him for too long. I understand that my grief is ultimately a solitary process. It’s not up to a child to fix an adult’s broken heart. I have to sit with it and come to terms with it all by myself.

I lifted him up and gave him a snack, a cheese stick of all things. He ate it with hearty enthusiasm. I went back and found my position on the couch and began my pity party all over again.p9173290

T.Puzzle finished his cheese stick, came over to me and climbed right back up on my lap. Who am I to fight the wisdom of my own child? Maybe he knows that I need him more than he needs me in this moment. Sometimes Mommies need band-aids for our hurts. Sometimes all we really need is a hug.