marital blissishness, mommyhood

The Rookie

WFAM

It’s official, my blog is good. How do I know this? Mad Dog’s Nan told me so. She said I have a best-seller on my hands. If Nan says it, then it is so!

Mad Dog took yesterday off from work (and thank you to Mad Dog’s colleagues who are my regular readers; he’s a brave man to allow you this peek into a small window of our lives!). He claims it’s because my birthday is this weekend. I am inclined to believe it has a little something to do with the NFL kick-off (starring his beloved Steelers) that went late into the night on Thursday and so he can mentally prepare himself for the Ohio State vs. USC game on Saturday. He loves the Buckeyes even more than he loves the Steelers. Hey, a day off is a day off. I’ll take it no matter the circumstance.

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In theory, Mad Dog was going to make drop-off of the boys easier for me yesterday. I think Moms fall into this trap sometimes of believing that someone other than ourselves can do our job in our overly micro-managed way. This isn’t always possible. We Moms have to let go of some control and realize that if something is done a different way than our normal routine, we need to be thankful that it is done at all. Therefore, I was glad to have the extra muscle when dropping off T.Puzzle who has been challenging to get to his classroom due to his screaming and kicking.

When we get the boys to the school, we head into the lobby. I go over to the sign-in area to write in the time the boys are being dropped off. While I’m doing this, Mad Dog sees the door is open to the classrooms and holds it. He tells the boys (who are messing around) to head to their rooms. I tell him to hurry up because…. and even before I finish the sentence, the piercing door alarm goes off. You have to have lightning quick reflexes to get in the door before the whole world knows of your arrival.

I turn to the receptionist and simply say, “Rookie!” She smiles a knowing smile. She’s seen other Dads do the exact same thing countless times.

We head to T.Puzzle’s room first. He immediately starts screaming “No!” and hurls himself into a limp heap on the floor. Mad Dog tries to reason with him. I know that is not going to work.

“Pick him up and carry him!” I shout over the screaming. Mad Dog scoops him up and manages to peel him off and place him with his class. We exit as quickly as possible. Of course Mad Dog is amazed that Full Speed’s drop off is nearly flawless. He still remembers when Full Speed was in his terrible twos and the difficulties we used to have with him at drop off. Times have changed. I’m glad Mad Dog is getting to see this slice of life with the boys.

We head to the exit and before I can say ‘press the green exit button’ Mad Dog swings the door open and the alarm goes off. Again.

I look at the receptionist. She looks at me and says, “Rookie!”

We both smile. We all were rookies once.

mommyhood

Stamp Me Adorable

WFAM

Can you call yourself eco-friendly if you ride your bike four miles round-trip to the Post office, and then once you’re there decide you’re too tired to go the extra quarter-mile to Wal-Mart, come home and then drive to Wal-Mart later? It’s not easy being green.

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T.Puzzle started the day in one of his standard moods. He’s feeling contentious and surly. I’ve come to expect it. So after Full Speed was in school for the day I decided to hop on my bike to get me some exercise and to get T.Puzzle some fresh air to improve his mood. I was slightly apprehensive about how he would behave in the confines of the Post Office. The good news was that I planned on it being short and sweet. Even if he reached a level 9 or 10 the other patrons and the workers of the Post Office would only be subjected to it for a short time.

He’s quiet on the ride because he has a Toy Story snack container filled with Goldfish and Cheerios. You can’t throw tantrums with a full mouth (okay, yes you can and believe me, it is ain’t pretty). Anyway, he is munching and peaceful. So far so good.

As we enter the Post Office he immediately heads to the packing materials and points out the padded envelopes decorated with assorted Mickey Mouses. He loves the Mouse. He proceeds to say “Hello!” to each and every person in the building. Then he starts to feel emboldened and begins making wider and wider exploratory circles away from me. Soon he is leafing through various pamphlets (he must have important and specialized mailings to complete that I don’t know about to be doing so much Post Office reading) and attempting to knock down the rope-like dividers that show you where to form a line. I grab him as I am now at the service counter and plop him down next to my packages that I need to have weighed and mailed. I thought at least this would keep him in one spot and he might possibly be entertained with a higher view of the area.

He instantly turns and starts flirting with the Post Office worker. She quickly falls head over heels for him. He points out the Mickeys, tells her he’s two, that he was on a bike ride all while smiling a radiant, angelic smile at her (he has killer dimples). Pretty soon, the worker next to ours starts making over him too. T.Puzzle is so in-your-face-adorable that he earns a Post Office sticker. They can’t get enough of this guy.

sucker sticker

I can’t believe he is being so good. There is not a trace of a tantrum in his cooing, unassuming voice. I’m actually having quite a nice time and I’m at the Post Office. I didn’t know it could be like this.

“Well, you know, he wasn’t so cute this morning,” I say still disbelieving this is my surly little T.Puzzle they are fawning over. I gave the worker a Mom-to-Mom wink and a nod.

“Oh, that’s to be expected,” she pipes in. “And, you’d be upset too if you had to wear a Steelers jersey (sorry Mad Dog, she said it not me).” Everyone laughs and T.Puzzle heartily joins right in. He giggles like that is the funniest single line he’s ever heard.

We head out the door and get on the bike. We sing silly songs and he makes crazy noises which makes me burst into laughter. I’m having a blast with him.

Whoever designed two year olds is crazy like a fox. They knew enough to make sure that any two year old tyrannical attempts to overthrow parental power were equally (mostly) balanced with in-your-face adorability (I think that’s a word, right? If it’s not it should be created right here right now because T.Puzzle was that cute today).

The icing on my cupcake is when we came home; T.Puzzle entertained himself quietly with a puzzle. A puzzle of all things! No crazy car chases, no forcing me to sing the ABCs against my will (he’s very passionate about them), just quiet puzzle-play. Maybe I should go to the Post Office every day.

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PS- Giving prayers of remembrance today on the anniversary of September 11 and feeling grateful to be raising a family in a country that affords us so much freedom.

mommyhood

Me, Two

WFAM

Why does Full Speed insist on threatening his brother no matter the context, no matter the object?

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T.Puzzle had a tumultuous night. He tossed, turned and cried out for his ‘Daddy!’ on an almost continuous loop. Mad Dog and I did our best to keep him in his crib. Mad Dog took the middle of the night shift (thank you for letting me catch some sleep) and I took the early morning shift. T.Puzzle has been testing his boundaries lately and we knew if we brought him in bed with us we would be setting ourselves up for disaster.

T.Puzzle is in the hard-core terrible twos (you remember my post about the grocery). Luckily (or unlucky for me depending on your perspective), Full Speed’s second year had more than prepared me for T.Puzzle’s evil turn. It’s not to say it makes it more pleasant. At least I have some firsthand knowledge that this stage is finite. Of course, with Full Speed this stage lasted until about two weeks ago (or something like that) that we occasionally have to revisit (he’s almost five now). However, I never thought I would live to see the day that Full Speed was my easier to manage child. Well, these unexpected days are upon me.

The terrible twos come and go in spurts and never completely go away no matter where you are in the cycle. I know some parents claim their children don’t go through this stage. I pose this question, “What kind of sedative was used either for you or your child?” In all seriousness, I understand some kids kind of do skip through this stage (I’m incredibly envious of you if this describes your child) and they don’t abrasively assert their independence. They sort of slide into independence in gradual stages without much confrontation. My sister and I were like that. That’s why my Mom used to marvel at the extreme nature of my boys and their emotional meltdowns. She saw it up close with Full Speed especially. Her eyes would grow wide with wonder at the intensity of his meltdowns that would shake the foundation of our house. Imagine how fun he was to take in public!

I have a couple of theories as to why the terrible two fairy ‘blessed’ our house with more than our share. It could be because I have boys. Since boys are more focused on moving than talking and it’s difficult for them to communicate as quickly as their minds would like, tantrums seem the only route to go. The other theory is their temperaments. Full Speed is strong-willed and T.Puzzle is as well but less so (that’s why I pray his tantrum stage will be shorter). T.Puzzle is still determined to show is raw edges and I’m along for the ride.

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Here’s a typical day when you are in the dead center of a tantrum cycle. First, T.Puzzle says no to everything you ask him to do. Second, he cries and screams the entire way to school (at least he didn’t throw his shoes at my head like his brother used to do). Once we arrive at school the crying and screaming continue into the lobby, on down the hall and into his classroom. He’s getting a rep as the ‘kid with the lungs’. When I call the school later because I’m sincerely worried I’m causing him severe emotional damage, they tell me he’s having a great day. They claim the crying fit lasted only the five minutes I was there dropping him off (lucky me).

Third on the tantrum filled itinerary is Karate. He’s psyched to get dressed and when it’s time for the class to line up, he runs and hides in a corner under a table and begins to scream as if his limbs were being ripped from his body (I may have thought about yanking an arm off, but I swear, I didn’t lay a finger on him). I’m mortified, as usual. The instructor saves my butt, as usual. He grabs T.Puzzle, puts him on the mat and he proceeds to have an excellent class. Of course he is exemplary in behavior for the instructor.

We get home and he won’t sit still for dinner. He’s standing up and dancing around and hyper as all get out. Mad Dog and I had another date night lined up. When the babysitter arrives and it’s time for us to leave, you would think the tantrums would continue. They do not. T.Puzzle may very well be a little bit in love with our babysitter. The only time during the day when he didn’t fight me was when Mad Dog and I leave for the night. He grabs the babysitter’s hand and waves. He says, “Bye Mommy, see you next time,” as sweet as sweet can be. He’s grinning from ear to ear.

Of course, when we get home and here the rest of the night’s events, (peeing in the tub, screaming “No!” to everything asked of him, crying when put to bed) I began to understand that he is even becoming immune to the cute babysitter. All hope may be lost….!

mommyhood

The Tale of Two Spoons

WFAM

p8243036I have occasional bouts of insomnia. It wouldn’t be so bad if I wasn’t hell-bent on solving every last one of my existential crises. Being alone with your thoughts when you are attempting to figure out the meaning of life and death at three-thirty in the morning is not exactly a party.

When morning rolled around and I was laying in my bed I kept thinking that I sure wished the nanny would hurry up and get here to get my boys ready for school. Sadly, I realized I don’t have a nanny. I’m the nanny. Let’s just say I wasn’t my usual cheerful self (and I’m not a morning person by nature) this morning as I went to get the boys dressed.

We have been trying to lay out Full Speed’s clothes for him the night before and he now proudly dresses himself in the morning. Score one for Mommy! Full Speed dressed himself without a hitch. One dressed, one to go.

Sometimes the transition into morning for little people can be rough especially if they have inherited any of my anti-morning genes. To help ease into the day, I’ll ask T.Puzzle  what he would like to wear. Since Full Speed was already in a Transformers shirt, I asked the obvious, “Would you like to wear Transformers today just like Full Speed’s?”

“No!” he said. He said it with kind of a bad attitude, too.

“Well, Mr. Sunshine what would you like to wear instead?” I asked.

“Optimus Prime!” which sounded more like Optishmush Pribe in two year old slang.

For those of you who do not know, and count yourself lucky to be out of this loop, Optimus Prime is the leader of the Autobots who also happens to be a, … get this, Transformer. So, he won’t wear Transformers because I asked him to, but he’ll wear Optishmush Pribe? I give up little two year old. I give up.

We head downstairs and I get the boys all breakfasted up. They are munching away happily and I prepare to load the dishwasher. I notice in the sink from last night there are two spoons that I didn’t remember using. I thought it was kind of strange.

Last night as I was preparing dinner, a good friend of mine called. I haven’t talked to her in ages and being a stay-at-home Mom I basically hadn’t talked to another adult all day. While it goes against custom because I always sit with my boys during meals at home, I determined that if I ever wanted to make live contact with my friend, I would have to do it while the boys ate. My thinking (I’m so naïve) was that they would be occupied so I could form an actual coherent thought and my friend wouldn’t comment on her concern for my continued rapid decline in brain functioning (she would never say that, she is much too kind).

I get the plates on the table in the kitchen and head to the front of our house to sit in the formal living room (by formal I mean only covered fifty percent by matchbox cars as opposed to the usual one-hundred). I had a good, ten minute run on the phone before Full Speed asked me about the address of his food. What he means is what are the number of bites required of each type of food before he is allowed clearance from the table (i.e. – 5 green beans, 2 pieces of chicken and 3 scoops of potatoes). I gave him the “address”. He did a good job clearing his plate. I went back to my conversation and a couple minutes later, I hear T.Puzzle excuse himself from the table and toss his plate and food in the sink. Normally I’m a stickler for good eating and asking to be excused from the table but I selfishly wanted to finish my phone call.

After the completed call (which was divine by the way) I came in to investigate T.Puzzle’s  plate in the sink. He had eaten 90% of his mashed potatoes and maybe a bite or two of the rest. There was a lovely mound of discarded green beans and chicken that I had to toss in the disposal. Clearly, he is a potato man.

The following morning as I stared at the spoons I realized that while I was on the phone, Full Speed must have taken the initiative to get spoons for the mashed potatoes. I was impressed that he knew where to find them and he did it all on his own. This is big step towards independence and making Mom’s life a little easier. What cracked me up was that of the two spoons, one was a cool, big boy Spider-man spoon and the other was a skinny, green baby spoon. I hadn’t seen the baby spoon in ages. I didn’t even know we still had any like that left.
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I looked in the spoon drawer and saw all the other cool, big boys spoons strewn precariously about. While Full Speed was courteous enough to include his brother in his spoon gathering, he made sure the he got a cool spoon for himself and his little brother got a baby spoon. Who knew there was a hierarchy to spoons? Leave it to my Full Speed to figure that one out. And that’s the tale of two spoons.
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mommyhood

Super-Fly

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Our morning did not start out well. I had decided to be magnanimous and allow Mad Dog to sleep in on Labor Day morning. How he managed to sleep through all the racket of the boys is beyond me.

Full Speed seemed determined to dominate his little brother on this fine morning and was going out of his way to make T.Puzzle cry. He would snatch a beloved (of the moment) toy from him at every possible turn and he would block T.Puzzle from going where he wanted. I tried to let it slide and see if they could work it out. Eventually, I had to intervene as I could see that T.Puzzle was being reduced to helpless tears again and again.

“Go to your room, Full Speed. I don’t like how you are treating your brother.”

Of course in that moment Full Speed folded like a bad hand of poker. “No Mommy!! I’m sorry! I’m sorry! When can I come back down?” He even managed to have real tears as he protested his punishment.

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Begrudgingly, he made his way upstairs and then the real hysterics began. He’s crying and screaming and yelling “Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!”

Full Speed is a bit unpredictable. He can be tough as nails if he isn’t getting what he wants and will be the first to defiantly draw a line in the sand. If you ask him to jump three feet and he’s in one of his moods, he will jump exactly two feet, eleven and three quarters inches, pause give you a rebellious look and take the repercussions like a man. Then, he will promptly turn to you and wait for the next round.

I went up stairs preparing for war and to explain his options. “Here are your choices.  You can either continue to carry on and scream and cry which means you will be staying in your room indefinitely or you can come downstairs and play nicely with your brother. It is entirely up to you. If you are choosing to come downstairs then you need to say “yes ma’am” when I ask you to be kind to T.Puzzle.”

“Are you ready to be nice to your brother?” I waited an appropriate five seconds to hear a ‘yes ma’am’ and heard none. Full Speed stared at me with his arms crossed and his chin jutting up at me indicating he wasn’t ready to cave. This did not surprise me.

“Fine, then you can stay here.” I turned around and headed for the door. I actually did this all rather calmly, too.

He freaked his freak. “Yes, ma’am!” he wailed. “Yes, ma’am I’m ready to be nice, don’t make me stay up here anymore,” his distress seemed genuine.

“Too little too late,” is all I said.

As I made the turn to leave, out of the corner of my eye I could see him scramble up his bed. He raced towards the back of it. I sensed something extreme was about to go down. I held my own and continued my way out of the room. Before I knew it, Full Speed was running full throttle towards me and the end of the bed. Had I not turned my body and extended my arms at the precise moment that I did, I would have missed his hurtling, four year old body and he would have collided rather harshly with the floor of his bedroom. I was relieved that he was unhurt and also impressed with his absolute commitment to freeing himself from the confines of his bedroom. It was an act that I will forever remember as ‘super-fly’. Overall he had good form and he stuck the landing (meaning his little arms clung to me so tightly, he instantly adhered into place; he’s a tough little sucker).

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After I pried his crazed form from my limbs and after another round of discipline, Full Speed eventually acquiesced and came downstairs with a slightly (very slightly) improved attitude.

When it was time to get ready for our family bike ride (as Mad Dog was now up after hearing the calamity of the super-fly incident) I told Full Speed to help T.Puzzle get his shorts and crocs on while I put T.Puzzle’s dirty diaper in the garbage out in the garage.

I wanted to see if Full Speed was up for the challenge and if he could do it in a loving and caring manner. It took quite a while and a lot of coaching on Full Speed’s part to get T.Puzzle into his shorts (they ultimately were put on backwards). It was a cute exchange between the two of them. As I watched Full Speed proceed down the hall to retrieve T.Puzzle’s crocs I paid close attention to see if he would get the right ones. One of T.Puzzle’s Spider-man crocs has been M.I.A. for a couple of weeks now. The remedy has been that he wears the remaining Spidey-croc on one foot and then a cheap, clearance navy-blue Target croc on the other (we have to refer to it as his Incredible Hulk croc to get him excited about wearing it; good thing he hasn’t made the connection that the Hulk is green and not navy-blue like his new, clearance croc).

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Full Speed emerges with the correct crocs (one navy, one Spidey) and helps T.Puzzle put them on (the wrong feet of course). Full Speed is equal parts tormentor and caregiver to his little brother. I am thankful there is a balance of compassion thrown in with his aggression towards T.Puzzle. That’s super-fly in my book.