Tag: chaos

children, humor, mommyhood

I Forgot

WFAM

I had wrangled the boys up from school and we were on our way out. The receptionist is a kind woman and since I am constantly craving adult conversation, when she made a comment about the weather I was more than happy to chit-chat with her. It seems that I forgot myself for a moment. I guess I thought I was an independent entity that can make my way in the world (or chit-chat) without consequence.

Before I realize what is happening (believe me this happened in a matter of seconds), Full Speed has T.Puzzle in a chokehold, leaps up with T.Puzzle in his arms and lands artfully on top of him. Hence, a crazy, out-of-control wrestling match in the school’s entryway has begun.

The receptionist is stunned into silence. Eventually, she manages to say, “Whoa, guys. Sure is a lot of testosterone on the loose here.”

A semi-circle of spectators has formed around them and I believe even some surreptitious wagers took place (i.e. – ‘my money’s on the little guy!’).

I shrug my shoulders. It was my own fault to think my boys could exhibit the comportment of well-mannered children without my constant supervision.

I never did get to finish my conversation with the receptionist but I made twenty bucks. I’m not telling who won the match, but dinner was on him that night.

kids, mommyhood, self-discovery

Life Balance

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The boys had been home all day. This is a recipe for disaster. Mad Dog had wanted to watch his Steelers in the afternoon and I went to see a movie. When I returned home, swords were flying, T.Puzzle was crying in spurts and the energy level within our home had reached a dangerous level. Since the football game was winding down I suggested we take them to dinner.

We decide to take them to the recently opened Panera. The boys are wild once we are inside and I have to drag them to a booth so Mad Dog can order in peace. They are boisterously loud with their assorted cars and train engines. I try to shush them to no avail.

“Mom, it’s the CARS that are being loud, not US,” explains Full Speed.

Whatever.

The food comes and T.Puzzle decides he hates his food and his drink. He is shimmying up and down and all around the booth. I’m trying to breathe deeply to cope. All I really want to do is staple him to his seat and force him to eat his overpriced grilled cheese. Alas, no stapler is handy so,……deep breaths instead.

“Mom, I have a surprise for you when we get home,” says Full Speed.

“Is it a nanny?” I ask.

“No, it’s my soccer game,” he replies. I know that sounds adorable but the soccer game is one that he got in his stocking and he doesn’t like it. It frustrates him because he can’t master it. Therefore he is constantly “giving” it to me and his brother.

I had that moment in the booth where I wished my life was different. I wished my boys were calm and mild-mannered. I wished that I could eat a meal from start to finish without having to pay a babysitter or wait until nine o’clock at night to do so. I wished that my boys shared their thoughts and emotions in quiet tones and only cried because they were genuinely sad and not genuinely throwing a manipulative tantrum (such as the one T.Puzzle was currently presenting to me).

Those wishes are far off and possibly may never happen. All I have to survive on is the hope that someday I will find my equilibrium in motherhood and that the personal sacrifices I have made (and they are different for every Mom and every caretaker out there) are worth it. Keep reading and let’s hope that together we find that balance in all our lives….

children, kids, mommyhood

I’ll Second That

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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.

humor, mommyhood

Next Time

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One major perk of writing a mommyhood blog is that when my boys are acting completely out of control, I know I will have some good material. It doesn’t necessarily help in the heat of the moment but it does give me a slight, intellectual step back from the insanity. That can be helpful. Especially for a late afternoon like the one we had.

T.Puzzle and I had a relatively uneventful day. He took an extremely long nap which could mean one of two things: the heavens were smiling on me or he is coming down with something. Either way I didn’t question my good fortune, I enjoyed my break and felt refreshed as we headed to get Full Speed from school.

Pick up was fairly normal until we came back out to the lobby. There was a folding table off to the left that had the final product of the boys’ recent school portraits. Of course I didn’t have my wallet and today was the last day I could purchase them (yes, I let that one slip right by me). So, I’m standing there feeling the pressure. I want to make a quick decision and then in all likelihood run home (which is only couple miles away) and return with my wallet in hand. I stumble upon two obstacles. The first is that my children are fantastically photogenic (no bias on my part of course) so their pictures are adorable. We just had a family sitting that was the bomb, too. How can I justify buying more photos of these guys? Shouldn’t I at least run this by Mad Dog?

 

The second hurdle is, well, you know my boys. It gets to the point that I can’t even think straight. They are running around and start beating on each other. Soon one is crawling over a chair about to leap and the other is on his heels. The energy level in the small, confined space of the lobby is reaching a fever pitch. I make a hasty apology to the picture people and promise my return. I grab the boys, head to the truck and it goes from bad to worse.

T.Puzzle is feeling sassy. He tells his brother there are ‘no pictures’ at all of Full Speed. This hurts Full Speed’s feelings and he melts down screaming. He can’t believe T.Puzzle would say such a thing. I strap them both in and before you know it, Full Speed is whaling on his little brother like there is no tomorrow. At this point I have Mad Dog on the phone to explain the picture dilemma but I can barely hear him over the hysteria. They are screaming in stereo.

I say, “Could you hold on for a moment?” into the phone and proceed to threaten them. “The next person that speaks will immediately go to their room when we get home!” It works enough that I can get us home with a tenuous air of peace in the truck. They know I’m serious.

When I pull in the driveway and take the keys from the ignition I slowly and deliberately turn around. “I’m glad you were able to be quiet for the remainder of the ride home. However, your behavior in the lobby was unacceptable. You do not behave that way. You show respect for each other and listen to what your Mom says.” I feel very confident I have turned a horrible episode into a watershed, teachable moment. My boys have learned their behavioral lesson.

Full Speed looks dubious. I sit back and wait for his contrition. Instead all I get is, “Mom, what’s a lobby?”

Oh well, maybe they’ll learn something next time because as we all know, there always is a next time with these two guys.

children, marital blissishness, parenting

Take It Down A Notch

WFAM

T.Puzzle, Full Speed and Mad Dog are all home with me. T.Puzzle because it’s his day to be home, Full Speed because of his projectile vomiting last night and Mad Dog because he is taking a work-cation day (he’s home but has to take a couple calls).

Full Speed woke up in an excellent mood and seems to have completely recovered. He has a fantastic appetite and is playfully energetic. He told me that he does feel better but will only be able to go back to school by next Thursday. He’s quite serious. I’m quite serious that he will be back at school tomorrow and not six days from now.

We decided to run some errands and then pick up lunch (are you sensing my lack of cooking motivation in recent posts?). Blockbuster was the first stop. Mad Dog and I thought the boys could pick out something to help entertain them for the day. As we enter the doors Full Speed announces, “I’m sick!” Not great timing I must say and Mad Dog and I pretend he isn’t talking while quietly chuckling to ourselves.

smackAs with all outings, it rapidly turns into a frenzied whirlwind of ‘don’t touch that’, ‘please put that down’, and ‘where did your brother go’? The boys are touching everything at their eye-level. Finally after much calamity, they both reach a decision and walk to the front of the store with their chosen movies in hand. When we take the DVDs and place them up on the counter, T.Puzzle loses it. He can’t believe the cashier would take it from him. I try to tell him that she will hand it back as soon as we pay for it. He can’t hear me over his wailing and moaning. I sigh a deep sigh and wish I was somewhere else.

After T.Puzzle has his ‘Thomas the Train’ DVD safely returned to his clutches, we pile back in the truck and head to Wendy’s (no Chick-Fil-A for Full Speed). As we pull up to order, Full Speed declares that he is never eating a chicken nugget again for the rest of his life. That’s fine by me, especially after yesterday’s unfortunate incident. We order him a cheeseburger and then nuggets for T.Puzzle (chicken nuggets are still the bread and butter of T.Puzzle’s life).

On the drive home, Mad Dog is feeling his work-cation day. He is hyper and full of energy (you can see where my boys get it from). The boys are feeding off his crazy energy and I am on edge. I am not a happy camper when I’m hungry and I’m already at my limit after our outing to Blockbuster. I asked Mad Dog to take it down a notch hoping that will shift the whole energy in the vehicle. Instead of calming down, he starts talking in an obnoxiously low-toned voice. He keeps talking like that and I’m ready to smack him. “You are hysterical, keep it up,” I say through gritted teeth. I eventually laugh despite myself. He thinks he’s the cat’s meow because now I’m laughing. The energy never subsides. I can’t win today.

Once home and the food is spread before us, Full Speed looks at his cheeseburger and then at his little brother’s chicken nuggets. “Can I have one of T.Puzzle’s nuggets?” Is this coming from the same boy who moments prior proclaimed his lifetime ban of all things nuggets? High, low or indifferent, the tone of my voice matters little. “No,” is all I say and that says it all.