Tag: chaos

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.

terrible two

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

WFAM

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.

Frack's freak

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).

super fly

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).

Frick's crocs

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.

marital blissishness, mommyhood

The Best Train Ride Ever

WFAM

We are always looking for suitable family outings on the weekends. Since we were in the middle of a long holiday one, we were already starting to run out of ideas (at least of ideas I  wanted to participate in, I had reached my limit of arcade games and go-carts). Mad Dog came up with a lovely solution. He suggested we go to the fancy outdoor mall and check out a new eatery for dinner. His thought would be that we could check out the stores for my benefit (if I was really lucky maybe even a purchase for me), have the boys walk as much as possible (to tire them out of course) and eat outdoors (always a good choice when dining with the rambunctious Full Speed and T.Puzzle).
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As we pulled into the main complex and drove around a bit to get our bearings, we ended up behind a miniature train. Of course the boys went berserk (especially T.Puzzle who has an undying love of all things train) and I died a little inside. Let me give you some history.

This is the type of train you see at most malls. It’s a new-fangled one that doesn’t run on tiny track. Instead it peruses the ENTIRE mall. I have already ridden the exact same type of train at our nearby indoor mall dozens of times (much to my dismay). The thing I hate (I know it’s a strong word, it’s honestly how I feel) the most about these rides is cramming my adult body into a minuscule train car and then having everyone in the mall stare at me while I pretend to enjoy my discomfort and wave Miss America-style to everyone we pass. I’m a rather self-conscious person and this is utter torture for me.

With a heavy heart, I knew we were going to have to go on the train ride here. I didn’t even know they had one. I may have reconsidered this entire outing if I had full train disclosure (I blame no one but myself).

We made it through dinner and it was mostly enjoyable. There were a few tense moments with T.Puzzle and some asparagus. We got through it. Then it was train time.

Having only been to this outdoor mall once before and never noticing a train, we didn’t know where to get aboard. As we began walking, Mad Dog tried to flag down the conductor to no avail. So we began to high-tail it through the masses of people and car covered side streets. The train seemed to move slowly. It was an illusion.  The boys were frantically trying to keep pace with Mad Dog as the train slips farther and farther from view. We were dodging people left and right and I began sweating profusely. Even an early September evening in Florida can be rockin’ hot. Needless to say, I’m not happy.

We catch the train at a corner only to see it slither away and make a wide u-turn. I’m staring to get angry. The boys are beside themselves fearing all is lost. I turn to Mad Dog and say, “I’m done chasing this stupid (I know, I know, I try so very hard not to use the stupid word in front of the boys) train.”

Mad Dog is single-minded in his quest and does not hear me (he better not have been ignoring me!). He keeps pushing forward. Full Speed is now on Mad Dog’s shoulders and T.Puzzle is weaving back and forth dangerously close to Mad Dog’s legs. In an instant, T.Puzzle gets tangled in the middle of Mad Dog’s stride and falls flat on the paved side-walk with a sickening thud. He lets out a wail and I want to cry right along with him.

After some quick consolation, we are all ready for the train. We pile in the teeny-tiny caboose and I angrily announce to Mad Dog to not make any inappropriate comments about my denim skirt and the awkward angle of my legs. I wasn’t in the mood. He immediately is defensive. “Don’t you start with me,” sort of dealy is what he said. He claims he wasn’t going to say anything, I think his past behavior speaks for itself and I will leave it at that.

So, there we are, Mad Dog and I are fuming at each other and then the boys began to bicker and fight. That’s when I knew this was going to be the best train ride ever.

mommyhood

A Screaming Good Time

WFAM

p9013114You would think that Tuesdays and Thursdays with only one child would be a breeze. It’s not.

T.Puzzle’s underlying demeanor is laid-back with a big dash of happy thrown in. I’m hopeful as he grows, this will become a little more stabilized. As of now, since he is only two years old and my boys are big believers in making their second (and third and fourth, you get the idea) year truly terrible at times, yesterday’s trip to the grocery turned out to be a gem of an outing.

It started off fairly routine. I had sufficiently snacked and watered T.Puzzle down before entering the store per my normal prep for any outing. We made our way to the produce section and I innocently queried, “What kind of fruit would you like to have today?”

“Nanas,” he calmly replied.

I grabbed some bananas after scrupulously determining if they had the right balance of yellow and green in them, and placed my selection in the cart.

T.Puzzle lost it. He starts this weird, high-pitched screaming and begins to throw his body back and forth in the cart seat with so much force; I thought it was going to topple over. Through the screaming and tears I was able to deduce that he wanted to HOLD the bananas not simply choose them.

Well, I wasn’t about to let a crazy two year old hold some defenseless bananas. I did my best to ignore him (which let’s face it, was impossible), picked out my other produce and attempted to move forward. To the outside world, I may have appeared unconcerned and maybe even a little flip. Trust me, it was all a cover. I was trying to pretend that this over-the-top tantrum would subside if I could coolly ignore it. Half of me believed that maybe this was true, the other half wanted to start screaming and crying right along with him.

We proceeded stat to the section that held the fruit snacks. Under ordinary circumstances I am a Mom who does not give in to tantrums and crying. I can be as stubborn as any two year old you want to throw my way. On the other hand, T.Puzzle had recently been sick and I wanted to get out of the store with what little reason I still had in me. I didn’t go so low as to open the box, I did let him HOLD the box. Phew! That seemed to do the trick. I reduced my trip to only the absolute essentials and made my way to the check-out.

As T.Puzzle was helping (I use that term very loosely) me unload the cart (thank God he handed over the Spider-Man fruit snacks without a repeat, screaming performance), he started mock-screaming. He does that sometimes because he thinks it’s funny. It’s not very loud and only slightly annoying. I let it go.

Upon hearing this “mock-scream”, a light bulb of recognition went off for the cashier. “Are you the little guy we could hear all the way up here (produce is located in one of the farthest reaching corners from the front of the store mind you)?”

“No,” he replied. He says no to everything. I told you he was a liar sometimes.

“Actually, it was me (there I go again trying to make light of an embarrassing situation). Okay, it wasn’t me, it was him, but I really, really wanted to start screaming myself.”

The cashier and bagger both smiled and they made over him (which he adored) and we went home. Since we have reached the crossroads of napping, I still attempt to put him down for one every day whether he wants one or not. I figured he had to be tired anyway from all that screaming. I know I was. Before he headed upstairs to his room, he grabbed his brother’s doggie to sleep with (if anyone sees Full Speed, don’t mention this, he could either think it’s cool or think it’s a good reason to beat his brother senseless). I thought it was one of the most adorable things a little brother could do while he’s missing his big brother who is off at school. My heart melted and all was forgiven. That is until he started screaming again when I put him down for his nap.
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