Supporting you in motherhood, one little blog post at a time
I don’t mean to be a whiner (or a wino depending on who you ask or what time of day it is) but I got suckered in to going to Box Seats ( a sports bar). It’s very boy-centric with arcade games and football galore. We all know (I hope) that I am not a boy. Thus, this is my source of whining which leads me to order a glass of wine. Draw your own conclusions….
Mad Dog recently updated the applications on my phone. I’m attempting to post a couple pictures I took yesterday with my phone that coincide with my Chik-fil-HEY! Post. These are of the boys at the park. My hope is that I’ll be able to make my blog mobile and add posts when we are out and about. I could also be clearly delusional because when I’m out and about with my guys I am barely able to keep us all safely alive. Finding time to post may be a challenge. A girl can dream, right?
I realize as I begin this post, Mad Dog read my sad post yesterday and is doing what he can to help with the boys. I couldn’t understand why he was being so attuned to my needs and swooping in to save me from chaos. I think he is afraid I might break. He doesn’t know that I am unbreakable.
How do I know this? What is my proof? Sitting with my Mom in her last days, holding her hand, helping her face death with grace and dignity are my first clues. That has been the secret gem that I have acquired from this somewhat harrowing experience. If I need to be, I am absolutely fearless. You can put anything in my way, it will not knock me down. I am unbreakable.
When I came through the door today with half-crazed boys at my feet, the look of total exasperation alerted Mad Dog that he needed to swiftly intervene (while I may be unbreakable, I do have a limit of patience that had been fully attained). He said he would take the boys to Home Depot (we had some furnace leakage and such, you know the joys of homeownership and all). I looked at him and said in all sincerity, “It’s suicide, the boys are insane, you don’t have to take them.” At least, don’t take both of them; you don’t know what you are getting yourself into.â€
“No, no, I can do it,†he insisted, again believing me to be on the brink of sanity, fearing I may never return.
“Okay,†I said with resignation. His sinking ship I suppose.
This is what he is going to be up against. I had taken Full Speed for his second pre-op physical (all clear so surgery will be a go this Tuesday) and he was beyond hyper. There is a balance of being silly and being out-of-control. He clearly was out-of-control.
We went back to school to pick up T.Puzzle. I thought because of Full Speed’s extreme intensity, I needed to run it out of him, so we headed to the park. The boys played like wild animals for forty-five minutes. I was still unwilling to bring them home, they were too amped up. So, we headed to Chik-Fil-A. For those of my readers from up north, Chik-Fil-A’s are a fast food franchise specializing, in yep you guessed it, chicken. Full Speed walks directly to the order counter and says “I want a cheeseburger!”. This makes the staff chuckle (the whole point is they don’t serve beef). Oh well, whatever, I managed to direct them to a table and get them their food (which did not go smoothly). They ate quickly and loudly. Then, they were off to the play area.
The play area is small. It was not containing Full Speed’s energy very well. He was doing mock Karate moves on unsuspecting children. At one point, I sternly announced that he needed to pull it together and knock off his Karate chops and kicks. I was so severe in my delivery, the roughly ten other children surrounding us stopped in mid-play and looked at me with fear in their eyes. I can be very scary. I started to crack a smile at the thought that I scared the Chik-Fil-A play area straight. You could have heard a pin drop. Too bad I don’t scare my own children as much as I scare everyone else’s.
At another point in this adventure, T.Puzzle is daring and climbs up farther on the climbing apparatus than he ever has before. I cheer him on and he proceeds to lose it. Big time.
Of course, it’s too tiny for me to maneuver where he is and I have to practically wrench Full Speed’s (who is off to the side pretending to drive an imaginary race car) arm off to get him to focus and help me. Sometimes, if it’s not directly in front of Full Speed or if he is not directly involved, he can be kind of oblivious to the distress of others. Fortunately, he was willing to help when he realized what was happening.
Enlisting Full Speed’s help backfires tremendously. T.Puzzle is angered that Full Speed is coming near him and not me (because all he really wants is his Mommy!), so he elevates his screaming another notch (which I knew to be possible but silently prayed it would not). At this point, the entire restaurant, because the play area is surrounded by a clear wall, is staring trying to find the source of the hysteria. I finally managed to pretzel myself into a position that I’m able to grab one of T.Puzzle’s ankles. This sets him screaming to a whole other level as he is feeling frightened that he might fall. I have to do what is necessary. I grab him and pull him down in the most ungraceful way imaginable. He crashes to my level in a heap of dismay and I want to crawl to the top of this monstrosity and never, ever come down.
I’m not even going to tell you what happened when we stopped at Grandma’s for a few minutes on the way home. Our intent was to cheer up Nan, instead I think we added stress instead of relieving any. So when I finally walked in the door of my own home and Mad Dog said, “I got it,†all I could think was he may very well be the bravest soul I have ever known.
If you give your child (T.Puzzle) an Elmo sippy cup against his will (as he clearly was in the mood for one with Lightning McQueen) is that considered child abuse or are you digging your own grave? Well, I guess after a ten minute screaming meltdown (on T.Puzzle’s part not mine to be clear), I had my answer. My hole was dug. It was dug deep.
Yesterday as I prepared for Tae Kwon Do, I approached it as how I could make the situation easier. I was all about streamlining. I consolidated everything we would need into one bag and had the boys snacks and drinks ready to go in the back of the truck. I was no longer going to bring food in to the gym because it’s not allowed and it was hard to make T.Puzzle understand to leave it in the diaper bag. Therefore, I was going to allow them a quick drink and snack on the way there and that was it (T.Puzzle didn’t particularly care for this new way of thinking).
I did my best to relieve my stress. After I had picked the boys up from school, I placed them in the car feeling hopeful this was going to be the easiest Tae Kwon Do class yet. I successfully get T.Puzzle strapped in and he is munching away on his snack. Full Speed is indignant because I strapped his brother in first. “Well, if you learn to strap yourself in on your own, you could be strapped in first EVERY day,†I try to make it sound as enticing as possible. He informs me he can only strap himself in when in Daddy’s car but it’s too hard in Mommy’s (of course!).
I get ready to strap Full Speed in and a look of panic fills his face.
“Mommy! I have to pee!†he blurts out.
I start to weigh my options. I already have T.Puzzle strapped in and it might take too much time to get him undone, “Could you hold it until we get to Tae Kwon Do?†I ask already sensing that we are reaching emergency status.
“No! I have to go NOW!†he looks like he is on the brink of a panic attack.
“Okay, okay. Let’s get you inside,†I say with an air of calm I did not feel.
This is where it gets tricky. All I wanted to do was get Full Speed to a toilet as soon as I could. The way the bathrooms are set up in his school, you have to get buzzed in and it can get kind of harried as the lobby is filled with kids and parents being it’s the end of the day. I make the split-second decision to grab Full Speed and run inside. I manage to kick the truck door shut and trigger the remote lock over my shoulder as I know I have to leave T.Puzzle behind. I do this all while running at a breakneck pace across a busy parking lot carrying a thirty-eight pound Full Speed. Yeah, it’s all in a day’s work.
I manage to get Full Speed buzzed in and tell him I have to run out and make sure T.Puzzle is okay. I’m imagining that T.Puzzle is upset at being left alone and sweating to death because even at four o’clock, it is 92 degrees and in the truck it is even hotter. So I frantically run as fast as humanly possible, pop open the door only to find him contentedly ingesting his snack. He looks up and says “Hi, Mommy!†I determine it’s probably in everyone’s best interest to keep him where he is and then lock him back in and run back to find Full Speed. I realize I must appear slightly schizo to the parents who are milling about. I am running (sweating my heart out) back and forth like a crazy person trying to meet the needs of my boys and keep them happy and safe. Schizophrenia in the parking lot, …. I wonder what tomorrow will bring?
PS- I have to give a shout-out to Mad Dog, he surprised us and met us at Tae Kwon Do, so it was the easiest class yet. I thank you and appreciate you!
Am I the only Mom who hates to give their children peas? I have to be in the proper frame of mind and have absolutely no other frozen veggies on hand to bust out the peas. Oh, how they roll. Those tiny suckers end up EVERYWHERE. You can find them for days and days long after a pea-based meal is complete. I am in desperate need to grocery shop…
All peas aside, I must mention that my boys are prolific poopers. I know that can’t actually be considered a talent. However, if there was an American Idol of Pooping, they would be crowned first runner-up and the winner respectively.
Since Full Speed has been successfully potty-trained for well over a year, it has helped tremendously in our ability to get out of our home in a timely manner. I have come to accept T.Puzzle where he is on his journey to being potty-trained. It still doesn’t always excuse the frustration I feel when he poops at the most inopportune times.
Like today, for example. I am rushing around in overdrive because I need to drop T.Puzzle off at Grandma’s so I can visit Nan in the hospital (she had a little fall and is being held to have a bunch of precautionary and in my opinion because she seems so healthy, mostly unnecessary testing). Of course I have this feeling that T.Puzzle is about to poop so I check his diaper seventy-seven times. Each time he is free and clear. While I am running about throwing laundry here and there and putting dishes in the washer, he proceeds to go in the formal living room. I’m guessing it’s because he is modest and he likes to be alone when he poops in his pants. I mean, wouldn’t we all? So I rush to grab him and check his pants. Still free and clear. Whatever, I have things to accomplish.
T.Puzzle is being very accommodating. He is waiting patiently for me to wrap up all my chores so we can get out the door. When I finally focus my full attention on him, he has climbed over the couch to our front window and is walking the length of the window-sill. Back and forth, back and forth. He is having a ball and is laughing up a storm. Meanwhile, I try not to have a conniption.
I manage to get us out the door and put him in his seat (still unstrapped at this point). I suddenly remember the baggie of pull-ups and eggless cookies (as T.Puzzle is allergic to eggs) that I left on the counter. In the twenty-two seconds it takes me to run back in to grab the baggie, I return to find the overwhelming scent of poop accost me as I open up the truck. There he sits, full diaper and all, smiling from ear to ear.
Of course, of course. I yank him from the seat (I was not very gentle and yanking kind of felt good) and rush in to clean him up. We have a stand-off at the doorway. He insists on playing with the door and puts his fingers in the crack that slivers open when you push the door in. “No, don’t do that T.Puzzle, that is dangerous,†I try not to shout but I don’t want him thinking that this is okay. Especially because him and Full Speed are always messing around and by a door that can be a very bad thing. He squares his shoulders and looks directly into my eyes. Then he begins to flicker his fingers in and out of the door crack like it’s a hot flame full well knowing he is defying me. And he is loving it. Okay, so I lose it a little bit. 
“T.Puzzle!” I shout, “don’t you ever put your fingers in that door again, you fingers could BREAK!†That sufficiently freaks him out. He immediately yanks his hand out and looks at it and begins to cry. Oh well, add it to the list to tell the child psychologist I may need to call (hopefully not) in the future.
We get through the door show-down and it’s time for his diaper change. The whole time I have his legs in the air and I’m wiping his tush he yells, “Stop it! Stop it!†like I’m torturing him to death. I shout back, “Stop pooping in your drawers and I wouldn’t have to do this to you!†I realize shouting at a two year old ultimately gets you nowhere. I promise, I’m adding it to the list.
As I am packing up the messy diaper, T.Puzzle (now in fresh pants) heads to the door. “You better wait for Mommy!†I warn. As I head to the garage and toss the diaper I think I hear the front door. Guess who decides to let himself out? Oh yeah, it’s T.Puzzle. I am defeated, I can’t even argue or correct anymore. All I want is to be on my way. I grab the little imp and away we go and I don’t shout once on the five minute drive to Grandma’s. I know, it was only five minutes but I guess that’s a start.