Writes for all Mommies

It’s the weekend. You would think that I wouldn’t be stuck doing the same mundane activities that I have to do with T.Puzzle and Full Speed during the week. I mean sometimes these activities can be fun and I do end up having a good time if everyone is in a decent mood. However, if I don’t have to go to the Thomas the Train table at the bookstore on a Sunday, I won’t. I know I have the whole week ahead to do so.

Long story short, my hubby, Mad Dog (there is much discussion concerning my husband’s nickname in this blog- he thinks Mad Dog is cool, I think it sounds like an angry, old guy who has issues with alcohol- for now, since he’s a good sport, I’ll stick with it), was running an errand that was taking forever so I headed with the boys to the table of train-dom at the nearest bookstore. My boys are loud and energetic. They are fully committed to lively animating the wheeled vehicles around the train track. There are times when it can be quite tense. They come to a standstill at some fixed point and have to battle it out to see who takes the lead in the circular swing around and around the table. You throw some strangers and their children into the mix and it can get pretty wild.

For the most part I was managing them fairly well. That is until T.Puzzle did the tell-tale motion of stopping, squatting and turning a rosy shade of crimson. Of course a dirty diaper is inconvenient but we soldiered on. I promised them a return to the train table once T.Puzzle had a fresh diaper. Full Speed fought me at first and then loudly announced to the entire store he needed to poop, too. Great, two poops with one bathroom trip.

We headed to the restrooms and this particular bathroom is well equipped for us. There is a separate stall with a changing table, sink and a toilet. I envisioned changing T.Puzzle while Full Speed was on the potty and we would all wash our hands in privacy. Not so. This glorious bathroom was occupied. I have no earthly idea what was transpiring in this stall. The occupant was not moving. After a couple unsettling moments, I decided even if the occupant did clear out, I did not want to use that particular toilet anyway.

So, I did the next best thing. I threw my portable changing pad on the floor upon which to change T.Puzzle and put Full Speed in a stall to do his business. The entire time Full Speed  was doing so he was shouting at the top of his lungs about this and that. Full Speed  informed me he would signal he was finished by punching the stall door. I said that wasn’t such a good idea and asked if he could keep the noise level to a minimum. He didn’t comply. T.Puzzle was crying because his sense of depth perception (same for Full Speed) is often distorted because of his glasses. As I lifted his legs up from the changing pad he flayed his arms about frantically as if to regain purchase of the ground. He’s screaming, Full Speed’s a’shoutin’ and I’m ready to leave both of them in there and immediately start browsing the self-help section to find a book about finding your center in the middle of chaos.

The crazy train crashed in the bathroom. That is what life is like with two young boys. A. Crazy. Train.

I’m going to keep the details of this post clouded in fuzzy details. I don’t want to be too exact in my description because the Mom I’m calling out doesn’t know me and I would like to keep it that way. She is a friend of a friend. Even though she is a perfectly kind person, I don’t think she realized that she had stepped on my toes with her comments.

I had taken T.Puzzle for an outing yesterday morning. My hubby had taken Full Speed  somewhere else. We have learned that sometimes it is better to play them on a man-to-man defense. The zone defense can work when they are together, but a zone defense usually falls on my shoulders and my shoulders alone. That’s why the occasional man-to-man is a welcome break from the norm.

T.Puzzle and I were with a group of Moms, Dads, and kids at an undisclosed location. I will say that there was a bouncy house. I won’t say if it was shaped like a princess castle or a pirate ship. That would be too obvious.

There was a Mom there who proudly announced that her barely two year old slip-of-a-thing daughter had potty trained herself in a day a couple weeks ago. Apparently one magical morning she took her amazingly gifted and advanced self into the bathroom and went without so much as an M&M bribe. Wow, that really is something. We got it.

It didn’t stop there. The Mom continued to list the potty training achievements of one so young. It went on and on.

I understand this Mom didn’t know me from Adam, because if she did, she would have realized how highly offensive I found her comments to be. Full Speed did not potty train until he was about 4 months shy of four years old. The power struggle, accidents, tears and frustration leading up to his successful training were enough for me to pull my own hair (and his) out. Okay, I didn’t pull anyone’s hair but there were days I really, really wanted to.

As for T.Puzzle he is approaching the age of three and has shown a very fleeting and unmotivated interest in potty training. He mostly likes to sit on the pot for two seconds, announce he’s “all done!” after doing absolutely nothing, then hops down and flushes the toilet with flourish. His favorite part of potty training is the toilet flushing. That kid could flush all day long if I let him. He really does possess a lot of flourish.

I figure he’s farther along in the process than Full Speed was at this age so it’s something. I’m not about to push it because I would like to keep all my hair intact.

Never in my wildest dreams could I imagine potty training happening in one day at the tender age of two! I don’t want to hear about someone else’s kid that accomplished that. I can handle a quick, off-handed comment like so-and-so potty trained by two and then we all move on. It’s the bells and whistles of a lengthy, triumphant monologue that seems endless and grates on my nerves. A word to the wise, unless someone specifically asks you for the details of the amazing feats your wunderkind has accomplished that the average masses of children have not, please keep it to yourself. We average Moms with our average children don’t have time to listen you.

I live in Florida. This is my family’s first summer here. I’m going to tell you something that you may find shocking… it’s damn hot here in August.

I’m learning that the time to be cooped up has flipped from what it used to be when we lived in Wisconsin. In Florida, the winter months are your prime months to be outside, and the summer months are your time to be indoors.

Anyone who has boys understands that no matter where you live the months you have to be cooped up indoors are nothing short of disastrous. I have preferred suffering through it in Florida because at least it is consistently sunny, the pool or splash park is usually a good option and you can sometimes still be outdoors comfortably very early or very late in the day. That is, if you are actually motivated to take your kids out of your house which I was not yesterday. T.Puzzle and Full Speed have come to expect on the days we are home, we will be leaving the house on some planned activity. It has to be this way because of the intense level of energy that is contained within these walls. If the boys are out doing, then they are easier to manage when we are home doing nothing.

This notion is so ingrained, T.Puzzle kept running and putting his Spider-man crocs on throughout the day and saying “where we go Mommy?” Mommy was not in the mood. Mommy did not feel like doing anything kid-centric. Mommy still had pjs on at 11am. It felt like it was going to kill my soul if I went to a children’s play area at the mall or fast food restaurant for the hundredth time in a month. I simply couldn’t do it. I had to pay the consequences namely coming up with activities to keep my boys entertained so they didn’t watch 27 hours of television straight.

Boys are boys. Quiet activities are a stretch. I thought we could color with our markers, the mess free kind which are my personal favorite. I set out the markers. I set out the specially designed paper these Color Wonder markers require. I set my boys equidistance apart at our round kitchen table. Let the coloring begin.

In less than five minutes, Full Speed had figured out how to fashion his markers into nunchuks, shared this technology with T.Puzzle and a beat down of mass destruction ensued.

On second thought, maybe it wasn’t too late to pack up for the pool…

I made dinner last night. Any Mom knows to make a dinner is a Herculean task and that’s not even mentioning the clean-up.

It was the usual suspects. Me, T.Puzzle and Full Speed and Mad Dog absent because he is working. We sat down to partake and spend quality time together. Since I had already spent about 10 hours of quality time with my boys, the conversation was a little sparse. It mostly is in our house because my boys are so young. This is unless you consider my very vocal Full Speed who talks at me non-stop from morning until night to be conversing. He doesn’t always need me to respond to his questions, statements or negotiations so I don’t qualify this as actual give and take talking. This is all normal in our house.

I recently have begun to ask Full Speed if there are particular culinary inclinations that might interest him. I figure since he is nearing five years old and is a good eater; he should be rewarded with some input for our grocery list. Last week he requested cherries and popsicles. This week he said mushrooms and popsicles. I asked if he wanted me to make tacos next week. All he could say over and over again to my question was “tacos, tacos, tacos.” No excitement, no negative energy emanated from his words.

“I don’t know what that means, Full Speed.  Do you want tacos or not?” I was trying to be as direct as possible. He was so distracted about the taco question when he placed a piece of baked chicken in his gaping mouth and started to chew, it fell out of his mouth onto the floor. He jumped down and closely examined the piece of chicken. We have much discussion as the level of cleanliness of foodstuff that falls to the floor. Full Speed is kind of a neatnik perfectionist so mostly the floor food ends up in the garbage. Occasionally I can convince him that I did recently clean the floor and it’s okay to chew away. That’s what I told him tonight. He had even lent a hand when I had cleaned the floor earlier today. So, he picks it up, dusts it off and says “this piece of chicken is for you,” and proceeds to place it partially chewed and all on my plate. Yum!

He quickly moves on and a full five minutes after I asked the question, he screams “TACOS!!” at the top of his lungs. I guess we are having tacos next week. I hope they manage to stay on everyone’s dinner plate.