Tag: mommyhood

bad day, children, humor, kids, life in pictures, mommyhood, motherhood, parenting, tantrums, terrible threes

Over It

WFAM

All Moms are familiar with the phenomenon that when one of your children is out of control, your remaining children become eerily angelic.  This is helpful because having one kid lose it is more than enough.

Then, there are the special days.  The days you are convinced that your children made some sort of evil pact to share the burden of dreadful behavior equally. Those are the days where all you can hope for is that you don’t lose your cool enough that the neighbors alert the authorities in some capacity.

First, it started with T.Puzzle.  He called his brother a ‘diaper head’ and ran screaming away and hid in a corner when I punished him for the name-calling.  I took away all of his stuffed animals and Thomas blanket and he screamed, “You’re mean!” at top volume.  This was later followed by a meltdown about sharing a toy riding car.  I had to carry him kicking and screaming to his room for punishment.

I could already feel how special the day was becoming.

He eventually pulled it together.

Great, I thought.  Now we can enjoy this awesome weather with friends and look forward to our dinner out with Mad Dog.

Post T.Puzzle meltdown. Miss Cutie enjoys the calm and a ride before Full Speed's turn to lose it.

Well,.. Full Speed decided to get in to the act.  He was glorious in his sassiness, which started because he lost a game of Red Light, Green Light.  The unfortunate power struggles and tantrums that ensued culminated in him screaming, “I never want to live in this house again!”  Oh, and he also hit me.  A knock-down, oh-no-he-didn’t veritable knick-knack patty-whack across my back.

We didn’t go to dinner (foiled again!!!), they went to bed so early I’m pretty sure I heard the faint whisperings of the five o’clock news in the background, and I dropped to my knees and prayed to my God (Supernanny) for guidance.

Some days are good, some days you wish you ‘never want to live in your house again!’, and some days are better when they are over.

children, health, kids, mommyhood, motherhood, parenting, self-discovery, Taekwondo

Everywhere

WFAM

I was sitting off to the side of T.Puzzle’s tae kwon do practice.  With the help of a babysitter, and let’s be real here for a moment, a good babysitter is to a frazzled Mom what wine is to a frazzled Mom, I can take each boy to skill appropriate classes.  T.Puzzle remains in Tiny Tigers and Full Speed attends high-ranking juniors classes.

I was trying my best to blend into the background.  I’m usually exhausted at this point having wrangled all the gear, uniforms, behavior reports, etc. and all I want is quiet oblivion.

The instructor is always trying to get us parents out on the mat.  It’s not my cup of tea, it’s more Mad Dog’s style, so I try to avoid it as much as possible.  To gain more parent involvement, the instructor brilliantly uses the kids now to request help from their Mom or Dad.  No Mom in their right mind would deny their three year old’s request of, “Ma’am?  Would you please hold a target for me?”  Between his saucer-like eyes and killer dimples, T.Puzzle got me out on the mat in about two seconds flat.

I start helping him with his drills.  He’s ducking my moving target, he’s throwing punches and generally doing a fantastic job.

Then he stops.  His arms fall to his sides and he becomes motionless.   He stares up at me.

I have no idea what he thinks he’s doing.

“Mom, I want to give you a kiss,” he states.

So, he leans forward, tilts his head upward and plants a smooch.

He doesn’t skip a beat.  He immediately reverts back to his punches and his fighting stance.

I continue with the drills even though I am changed somehow.

I am reminded of the constant, indestructible nature of love.  It is whole and beautiful and if you take a moment to breathe, you will find it right beneath the surface of everything. Even under the surface of tae kwon do drills.

Love is everywhere.

children, kids, mommyhood, motherhood, parenting, rock and a hard place, Taekwondo

Fake Out

WFAM
Full Speed demonstrates a 'real' hit.

The thing about threats is that you have to follow through with them.  I mean you don’t have to follow through.  You could threaten away until you are blue in the face and the only result would be children who don’t take you seriously.

Seriously?  That would be bad.

I told T.Puzzle and Full Speed I would take them out to dinner only with good reports from school.  They both succeeded.  I was golden.  My clean kitchen would remain intact and I would get something to eat I didn’t have to prepare.

Yet…

Full Speed decided to fake hit me at some point because I made him mad.  Yeah, that’s his new thing.  Fake hitting Mommy.

This is when I imagine fake locking him in his room until he’s eighteen or stops fake hitting me.

Instead I said he blew it.  Even though both boys earned the privilege of dinner out, the privilege was now officially off the table.

When all was said and done, I tried to fake clean my kitchen after the dinner I had to prepare against my will.

Too bad that didn’t work either.

children, gratitude, happiness, kids, marriage, mommyhood, motherhood, parenting

Cupcakes and Picnics

WFAM

With Mad Dog away, in the evening I have decided to watch the Sound of Music with the boys.  Each night we curl up in our loft and watch the adventures of Maria unfold.

It seems they are enjoying it.  Full Speed woke up on Monday singing “How do you solve a problem like, Mari-aaah?”  He also is growing quite a crush on the littlest Von Trapp, Gretel.  “Mom, she’s so cute.”

T.Puzzle, well, he loves anything musical.  That is how I know we are related.

As the Von Trapp children traipsed through the fields of the Austrian mountains, Full Speed was very concerned that they left their picnic food unattended.

“Who is going to clean that up?” he wondered.  He’s not at all phased that the cast breaks into spontaneous song or that they end up in 47 different locations during the song’s 4 minute montage.  Nope.  He’s worried about the picnic.  In fact, he’d really like a picinic.

T.Puzzle wants one, too.  He would like to have chicken and cupcakes on the menu.

Do-Ray-Me-Fa-So it looks like a picnic may be in our future.

Know any good cupcake recipes?  I bet Maria would.  If nothing else, maybe I’ll break into song about it later.

Related Articles
children, humor, kids, life in pictures, mommyhood, terrible threes

Only Child

WFAM

Over the weekend Mad Dog and I had the rare opportunity to spend some time with only T.Puzzle.  Full Speed went to Grandma’s and we kept T.Puzzle home.  He had a runny nose and we thought he shouldn’t be around the dogs at Grandma’s because he is so allergic to them.

Turns out, he rather enjoys being an ‘only’ child.  He behaved like an angel at the grocery and when we purchased him some popcorn chicken (the real kind, not the Mad Dog invented version), he held it to his chest so lovingly, you could almost see a shiny aura of goodness surround him.

When we got home, he said ‘Yes, ma’am!’ and ‘Yes, sir!’ to everything asked of him.

I’m wondering if the best solution to surviving the terrible threes is to only have one child in the home during this difficult period.

Any takers on Full Speed?

Related Articles