And it continues ...

"It" is the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. It's been quite a while since mommy has had consecutive days that strike fear and panic into her heart.

Mommy feels completely helpless to stop the onslaught of escapes, pilfered food and malicious woundings among siblings. Every one of them has scars from sibling inflicted wounds. Bite marks, bruises from pushes and shoves, cuts on their feet from being run over by a Big Wheel, half peeled off fingernails from door injuries. If pulled hair left marks, Girlface would be sporting wounds. Mommy feels as though she's toting a band of wounded criminals with her everywhere she goes. Mommy senses that her oldest's impending first day of school and the ridiculous July heat is affecting everyone's psyche.

Mommy's day starts at 2 a.m. when she hears The Baby "reading" books in the hallway. Reading, good. 2 a.m., not so good. By 4 a.m., she had shooed him back to his room three more times. Girlface even joined him once.

But by 6:30 a.m., the really scary part began. Her husband bolts back into the bedroom and says, "Girlface's not in her bed and she's not downstairs." Mommy frantically gets dressed. She peers out the windows in her bedroom trying to spot the child. As scary as it sounds, mommy knows in the back of her head that Foudini (one of many nicknames for Girlface) probably didn't get far. Still, that doesn't stop her from imagining the worst.

Mommy can see the 6:00 news now. Preschooler catches school bus to local high school, mother charged with child endangerment.

As it turns out, she had climbed the baby gate, pulled an ottoman to the door, unlatched the chain and let herself out. When asked how long she had been outside, she gave a wicked look and said, "Five minutes." What's so frightening is all the obstacles she overcame to get herself outside. Mommy wonders how many more obstacles she'll have to build into the Foudini containment system just so she can close her eyes at night.

Next disaster involves The Baby who is like a drunken billy goat on a suicide mission. He literally hurls himself into walls. It's like he has no sense of how his body works in space. He was pulling these stunts on the stairs and he fell. Backwards. Mommy is standing right behind him, watching as he falls on his head and neck.

Okay. That's over. Next up, mommy needs a shower. The kids know the drill. They stay upstairs and play while mommy takes a quick shower. Five minutes tops. How much trouble can they cause in five minutes?

Post shower, mommy finds Girlface in the hallway leading the 2 year old around with a belt around his neck. And it's not loosely around his neck, either. Mommy starts to shake inside. This is beyond horrifying.

Next mommy finds that Girlface has climbed up on the chest freezer to pilfer granola bars from the top shelf.  Later that same day, her and The Baby got into a container of brownies that Nana thought she had put far out of reach. There apparently is no such thing as out of reach for Girlface.
 
Oh, and it gets worse. At the park, Girlface follows a group of girls walking to the bathroom. At least there is an adult with them and it happens to be a friend of mine. I spotted her across the parking lot and thought, "Okay. At least she's with an adult I know." Is it bad that mommy is equally concerned about what her acquaintances at the park must think of a woman who can't keep tabs on her own kids?

Mommy is exhausted. She locks Girlface in her room for quiet time. Don't judge. Mommy is out of options. She hopes that once the first day of school comes and goes, things will start to calm down here. She suspects that the anticipation of it has been hovering above the kids and making them crazy.

Stay tuned for photos and stories from Big Brother's first day of school which is tomorrow. I'll write. I promise.

Lies I can't get away with much longer

My kids seem to ask questions from dawn till dusk. By midday, I'm ready to throw in the towel and tell them that I'm not taking any more questions or offering any more explanations about anything. I usually can hold out until their father gets home. Then I'm on break.  

And no question freezes me in my tracks and causes a mini panic attack like "What's in your mouth?" Here are a few of the answers that they are not buying:

 
I'm just chewing my tongue. 

No, it's not a piece of candy. 

Really, there's nothing in my mouth. 

I'm not eating anything. I SWEAR!

They're not buying it. Any of it.

Also, in an effort to have a clean kitchen at the end of the day, I tell them this: 


The kitchen is closed. My mother used to tell us this. I get it now. Totally. What she really meant was "The kitchen is closed for sticky fingered, crumb shedding urchins like yourself." But for mom and dad? Kitchen is open since we can now eat whatever we want without facing an army of beggars.

Other popular half-truths:

I'm not speeding. Okay. I kind of am speeding. But cops don't usually ticket for 5 miles over, now do they?


That's not a word you should use. At least not in public. Please. Who am I kidding? There are times when that word is totally warranted, like when you accidentally spill a full dustpan after the eighth sweeping of the day, right?

I have eyes in the back of my head. My oldest still believes this. He calls them my back eyes. One day, he sifted through my hair to find them. I told him he couldn't see them because they were closed at the time.

We don't eat before dinner. Translation: You don't eat before dinner. Mommy? She has a secret stash of jelly beans she sneaks while making dinner.

That song? It's about saving energy and keeping your doors locked. I told my kids this when they asked about the lyrics "Baby lock the door and turn the lights down low." I'm getting good at reinterpretting songs.

Do you mind? I'm using the bathroom. I'm not really. I'm reading. And eating a piece of chocolate to avoid the "What's in your mouth?" question.

The family dinner myth

My husband and I have decided not to invite the kids to dinner anymore.

Okay, people. Calm down. I didn't say we wouldn't feed them. We will; just not when the adults are eating. Eating with adults is now considered a privilege in this house.

Lately, dinner has become loud and contentious with a lot of bizarre misbehavior. They do things that haven't specifically been barred, but you'd think a 5 year old wouldn't stick his fingers in the whipped cream bowl or the 3 year old wouldn't put her fork in her milk. We find ourselves squelching every variation of a non-word noise that my son makes. We don't expect much from the youngest. We know that he's just a miniature billy goat at this point. Somehow, this is not what I had in mind when I made dinner together a priority around here.

I remember dinnertime being a fun, family time when I was a kid. My dad would do impressions and make us all laugh so hard that milk came out of our noses or someone threw up (usually me). Someone would pray, usually my dad and it was usually a low mumble leaving us wondering when it was okay to eat. My dad would say, "Time to slop the hogs" and my mother would feign offense at his reference either to us as hogs or her food as slop (most likely the latter). My baby brother would scarf down food while my other brother ate all of one item before moving on to another which earned him the nickname Mr. Single Threaded. And at least once a week, my dad would kick over the milk bottle that he'd placed on the floor next to his chair. The only argument I remember at the table was the classic,  self-incriminating "He had his eyes open when we were praying."

I don't remember what family dinnertime was like in the early years, when we were all the ages my kids are now. Recreating any of my childhood memories with my own children before they are at least the age I was in that particular memory gets me into trouble. And that may be why trying to recreate the family dinner experience of my childhood has become a frustrating exercise in barnyard management.

Here's what it looked like in my barn, I mean, home around 5:30:

Daddy gets home, hustles the kids into the bathroom to wash hands and gets them to the table while I plate up food that will just get thrown about the table and barely eaten. 

Big Brother whoops and hoots at the table, but sometimes tries to engage his father in conversation about his or his dad's day. Girlface is on a continuous whine loop. If I give her a fork, she wants a spoon. She makes one frustrated attempt after another to eat spaghetti with a spoon and then begs me to feed her spaghetti. With the spoon. When I refuse, she tries to get in on Big Brother's and Jim's conversation. And then the chorus of "I'm going to beat you" begins. Girlface makes this claim but doesn't eat a thing. Big Brother gets his undies in a bind over it and wolfs down most of his food. The Baby is the only who eats unprompted, until he decides to throw his plate and cup. There are warning signs and usually one of the adults removes the plate in time.

By this time, I usually have heartburn-induced chest pains and am taking slow, deep breaths while holding my chest and wondering if I'm about to die. I am also bitterly debating with myself whether making dinner every night is even worth the effort. See, I'm a person who like to cook and likes to feed people. And this is what I have to work with. It's depressing.

The most common phrases heard around our table?

I'm going to beat you. (from the kids, not the adults.)

Stop him. He's getting ready to throw.

EAT.

SIT DOWN.  (Seriously, people, when do children learn to sit down like normal human beings? My 8 and 10 year old nieces were here this past weekend and couldn't sit still in their chairs. I apparently have at least 10 more years of this.)

When the adults try to talk to each other, one or all of them start making random noises that would probably drown out the fire alarm. 

So much for dinner conversation and manners.

Monday night was the first night that I didn't call the kids to dinner. I just plated up some food for them and when the hungriest one of the bunch wandered into the kitchen, I fed him. It was The Baby, of course, and he came in whining, "Hungry." The others followed later. I didn't even ask them if they'd washed their hands. There were the usual shenanigans, but I did a minimum of policing. The best part was that it wasn't disturbing my dinner, which I had later with my husband in the dining room. Big Brother wandered in while we were eating and wanted to talk to us. We let him.

After a few nights of Jim and I eating in the dining room while the kids ate in the kitchen, we all somehow wound up eating together at the kitchen table. Closer quarters, less shenanigans and more food actually eaten.

It's a shift in focus. Instead of mealtime being about feeding and family time, it's just about feeding them. I spend all day with them and by dinner time, I don't need more family time. I need to talk to my husband and I don't want to wait until the kids are asleep.  Sounds harsh, I know, but it's true. I need to eat while sitting down instead of carrying my food around with me. I need to eat without a child on my lap.

If we didn't make this change, by the time they're old enough to hold conversations and behave like human beings, we wouldn't be on speaking terms. Sometimes I just need to take a break from my ideals and hit the reset button.

'Tis the season for cracking up

I'm not as wound up about the holidays as I've been in years past. I'm more wound up about my kids behavior and my complete inability to roll with it lately. Earlier this week I had a conversation with my 5 year old son that I can just hear him recalling to his therapist in 20 years. He learned the definition of a mental institution.

Now I realize that it is a few days till Christmas, but batshit crazy can strike at any time when you have three kids under the age of five or just kids of any age apparently. Batshit crazy does not care that a major holiday is coming. I don't want to bring anyone's spirits down, which is why I included a nice Christmas-y photo of the kids for you. But if you're on a polly anna Christmas high, you may want to skip this post. It's about to get really dark in here.

Currently, my three children are each in their own special little place. It's a loud, volatile, dramatic place where a slight scratch on the leg is the end of the world, being given a fork instead of a spoon justifies red-faced, tearful hysterics and being told not to throw food results in a plate being thrown across the kitchen. Anyone hear eggshells cracking? It's not the sound of mommy walking on eggshells around these maniacs to avoid any of these scenarios; it's mommy cracking up.

My husband came home from work to find me in tears at the kitchen table, head in hands and muttering, "I can't. I just can't. I can't. I can't. I can't." A few minutes earlier, I had scooped my screaming 5 year old up from a pile of leaves he had just crashed his bike into and brought him into the kitchen to survey the so-called damage. A scratch. A small scratch on his leg. And over this he was screaming in the front yard for all the neighbors to hear, screaming so loud that it hurt my ears, cursing the ground and the leaves and his bike and the universe for his misfortune.

This happens at least twice a day on top of the other two children's drama. It was that very last straw. Every meal with The Baby ends or sometimes begins with food or plate or cup thrown across the table. Tell him no or don't pay him enough attention and toys come crashing down from shelves. Nearly every interaction with Girlface ends with her telling me "I don't want to" or clenching her fists and screaming at me.

After determining that we had just a little scratch and getting some magic goo on it, I explained to Big Brother that his reaction was disproportionate to reality. Now, I know that children need validation and that, yes, this seemed like a big deal to him. However, it's time for him to start learning how to react appropriately to the severity of the situation else no one would believe him when it really mattered. I remember being a playground screamer when I was a child. The teacher told me that if I kept it up, my recess would be over. That day I screamed because I hurt my finger and she followed through on her promise, even though I tried to explain that my finger was hurt. I never forgot it. It was an introduction to the concept of self-control and the notion that perhaps I should save the screaming for true emergencies.

I told Big Brother that it was very hard for me to be a good mommy when he and his siblings scream and misbehave so often. Then I asked him if I could go away to a mental institute for a while. 

What's a menfal (sic) institute? he asked.

Well, it's a place where crazy people go to get away from the things that are making them crazy. And it's quiet there, too, I told him.

You can't go to a menfal institute. You need to be our mommy.

But why?

You need to take care of us, he said, with his lip quivering slightly.

The truth is, I didn't feel bad about saying this to him; I only felt bad because I believe that other mothers would never, ever say such things to their children. I could tell he felt sad. And that might just be the first time I've ever seen genuine sadness coming from him. Notice I didn't sense genuine concern for me, just worry over who would take care of him. On the bright side, at least he realizes that he's taken care of, because some days I wonder if I even do that well enough for him to notice.

Today and yesterday the kids were much better, and not because my threat to run away to the mental institute scared them straight. Yesterday afternoon while the older kids watched Sesame Street, I sat down and made a schedule for the next day. I've somehow gotten out of the habit of loosely planning out our week. And I've always had a let's see what the day brings approach, which works really well when the weather is nice, but not so well when it's rainy and cold. I could blame the aimless nature of my parenting lately on the absence of preschool to give a little structure to our lives, but the real reason is the unpredictability of the children coupled with the seasonal resurgence of my depression.

Depression really sucks. Mine manifests as anger first and then when the anger wears me out, I wind up like my husband found me on Tuesday. If you share this condition, you know what I'm talking about. The normal, everyday things that most people handle with aplomb, I handle with angry, mostly internal f-bombs and an intense but forbidden love affair with sleep. Even medicated, it's a challenge, especially in the wintertime. 
 
And if you've read all this, thank you. And Merry Christmas. I'm sure it will be a good one here. My expectations are low, not because I'm depressed actually, but because I know that keeping things light and fluid with small children during the holidays is the best way to make it merry.

Reading the wrong manual

It's been almost three months since our beloved dog Bob died. We've missed him. A few weeks ago, we had the chance to dog sit for my sister's dog Nigel, who is similar in size, fuzziness and temperment to our Bob.

The kids loved having him here.

Clearly. And so did I. I didn't realize how much I missed having a four-legged vacuum, foot warmer and fan club. Our floors were much cleaner, my feet were warmer and I had another warm body to snuggle.

I began to realize just how much dogs resemble toddlers, though. For instance, neither mind eating off the floor. In fact, they both come running when I get out the broom. They regard it as some magic food-finding instrument.

They're both always under your feet.

They both beg for attention.

They both fight any and all grooming measures.

They both want whatever is in your hand, even if they have no idea what it is.

They like to wipe their faces on you.

And the messes. Sometimes they poop on the floor. Sometimes they have a party. When our Bob was still young and puppyish, we would return home to find slippers and newspapers and trash strewn about.

These days, we find similar scenes after the wrecking crew has blown through the room.

Short commands work best. Long lectures don't. All they really hear and understand are their names and the words "No" and "Outside" and "Walk."

They'll run if you chase them, but chase you if you run. Important to know if you ever need them to come.

Sometimes they nip at you. (Oh yes, I've had a kid or two bite me.)

Sometimes they jump up on you or try to knock you over. (My 18 month old actually tackles my legs from behind and I have almost fallen over. I'm not even kidding.)

If you ever can't find them, simply open a crinkly bag of snacks. In 30 seconds or less, they will appear. 

When you turn your back, they steal food off of countertops.

They often try to escape cage-like enclosures such as pens, fenced yards or cribs.

Clearly, I should have been reading dog training manuals or at least taking my cues from dog behavior all these years. Anyone have a dog training manual they'd recommend?

Taking back the reins ... sort of

When it's been a while since I've written, it's usually because things feel unresolved around here. Right now, I'm waiting to learn my lesson. Waiting impatiently. I feel heavy and discouraged.  This may come out Virginia Woolf style, so try to keep up.

I've been trying too hard to make paid editing work appear out of thin air. And even as I write, I'm thinking that I should continue to beat that apparently dead horse instead of sitting here writing for nothing.

I've been trying too hard to calm my oldest's passionate outbursts. And by that, I mean I've been spending way too much time stewing about how wrong he is and how right I am.

I've been trying too hard to bend my oldest's will to mine. And he fights so hard that it makes me question whether my will is even reasonable.

I've been discouraged lately at the mess and the destruction and the crayon writing on the walls and the howling and the whining and the demanding and the meltdowns. And I've been looking at my children with resentment and thinking "Why are they such little jerks sometimes?" Then I try to ignore the small voice in my head that answers, "Maybe it's you that's being a jerk."

In the time I've been away from here, though, some wonderful things have happened. Big Brother learned to ride a two-wheeler. Girlface started riding her training wheel bike. The Baby started talking more. Jim and I went on a two-day mini vacation alone.

Jim and I went to Ocean Isle Beach and stayed at an oceanfront hotel with an indoor pool and jacuzzi. The weather was perfect, the view spectacular and the time alone was just what we needed. We rode bikes, took walks, looked for shells, fished, waded into the ocean, swam, relaxed in the hot tub, ate without anyone screaming at us and rested. We even did a little Christmas shopping at the thrift shops ...  yes, we found thrift shops at the beach. It's going beyond the shop local drumbeat of this holiday season. Gifts don't have to be brand new. So, just a heads up, if you're getting a gift from us this year, you may be getting one that helps both the environment (it's recycled!) and a charity. You're welcome.

We discovered, too, while we were there that this spot could very well be our family vacation destination for years to come. The pier, the slushie shop, two arcades, several restaurants and mini golf are all within walking and biking distance. From time to time, one of us would say "The kids would love all these shells (or tide pools or the slushie shop)" or "We could all ride bikes around here eventually." 

The kids with Nigel the dog.

It's easy to say those things about your children when they are three hours away terrorizing some other adults.

The important thing, though, is that we got away. We stopped living three inches from our face and starting seeing the big picture. And we realized that there is a light at the end of the tunnel of early childhood and it's not an oncoming train. For the first time, we could envision a family vacation. The idea of a vacation used to exhaust me. Now, I can see that by next fall we can take a short beach trip with the children and not come back completely gray and twitching. The kids may even all be riding bikes by then. They may all be able to ride go carts or play mini golf or swim independently. They may even go to bed in a strange place without having to be drugged (just kidding). Maybe they won't be fighting as much. (Hey, let me have my fantasy, people.)

And then we came home to our actual children. While we are pretty sure they will be vacation ready by next fall, the question remains whether we want to take these obnoxious little maniacs anywhere.

This week has been a bit of a reality check. I have an almost 5 year old whose favorite sports are arguing and melting down to the ground. He has ideas and they are never, ever exactly in line with or even close to what I have told him to do. And when he doesn't get his way, he screams and cries loudly like a 2 year old for several minutes. Well, that's not true. Even his sister doesn't scream and carry on like he does. I'm worried.

Yesterday morning, he had a meltdown because his father told him he couldn't just have the money in the water cooler. He did not take it well. Later that day, he and I talked about money and made a list of chores he could do around the house for money. It felt like a productive encounter.

This evening, however, he had a fit in Wal-Mart because we wouldn't buy him anything. Twice. My worst nightmare, actually, is to have the kind of kid that other parents look at and say, "At least my kid isn't doing that." Jim marched him out of the store both times. On the way home, he said his belly hurt. No doubt from all the belly aching he did in the store. 

When these meltdowns happen, every muscle in my body tenses for battle. I had to walk away tonight and let my husband deal with him. On the way home, I thought out loud, "Either we've done something seriously wrong or there is something seriously wrong with him." And I feel so guilty that it's come to this, that I think these things of my own child. I am even convinced that we're going to land in the shrink's office with him. Soon.

I heard someone share this week that he could not calmly respond to other people's emotional turmoil.

Right now, I have a complete inability to respond calmly to a raging bonfire. My instinct is to put out the flames, but in this instance, my involvement, however reasonable and justified it seems to me, is just gasoline fueling the flames.

This man went on to say that later, when that person was calmer, in a different frame of mind, that is when constructive criticism or advice or guidance can be offered to some effect.

Ah. Timing is everything, isn't it? I've been convinced that I need to change his mind and his mood before we can move on. No wonder I feel so stuck. I've been convinced that a child's memory is not sufficient enough to wait until later. But not everything has to be resolved in the moment. This feels like a breakthrough, but not enough of a resolution for me to feel comfortable.

Boo Humbug!

It feels safe to come out of my Halloween-hating closet now.  I really don't like to rain on anyone's parade, especially since this year it actually did rain on our Halloween, which made it more miserable than usual. And besides, by next Halloween, you'll forget all about my little rant.

Once a year I'm expected to hand out free candy for people who do nothing but dress up, walk around and ring doorbells. Heck, some of them don't even walk, but are chauffeured from neighborhood to neighborhood for handouts.

Every year, these things happen, without fail:

I buy candy too early, run out by Halloween and gain 10 pounds and a half dozen new pimples.

We scrounge around for costumes for boy wonder who comes up with a character not represented by any cheap, made-in-China costume for $9.99 at Target. Last year, he was a helicopter pilot and this year, a NASCAR driver.

My husband gets grand ideas for said costumes and spends ridiculous amounts of time trying to turn the wagon into a helicopter or decorating a jacket with race car stickers and reflective tape while I man the kid rodeo and he snaps impatiently at the kids. Last year, as I pondered how exactly the kids were supposed to get out of, let alone see anything, from a covered wagon he was trying to turn into a helicopter, he curtly replied, "Yeah, I'm just doing this so that no one has any fun." Right.

I unleash my fury on robocalling politicians who call back to back to back as my doorbell is ringing back to back to back. Yep, I scream at recordings. 

My husband tries to pump terrifying "music" (think chainsaws and bloodcurdling screams) into the yard while I remind him that he's going to give kids nightmares.

I rail at the lack of manners among trick or treaters, the pushing and shoving at the door, the expectant stares from these kids when I fork over merely two pieces of candy, the fact that people literally unload a dozen children from neighborhoods across town and the intimidating teens who show up after 8:00.

Someone rings the doorbell at 8:30, despite the fact that all the outdoor lights are off, and disturbs the later than usual bedtime routine, which is further exacerbated by sugared up children.

All this and trying to fit a holiday around the unpredictable whims of young children make this my least favorite holiday.

So boo humbug. As soon as my kids are old enough for me to ban trick or treating, I'm shutting off the porch lights, barricading the driveway and keeping the candy -- both bags of them.

The only fall holiday that is truly stress free for me is Thanksgiving. Christmas is stressful, for obvious reasons and New Year's depresses me. Thanksgiving is just about food, family, friends and football for me. No one expects gifts. I don't have to dress up. I don't have to come up with some way to improve myself over the next year. I can wear stretchy, comfy clothes, stuff my face from morning till night, nap, lounge by the fire, play football in the yard, take long or not so long walks and just be grateful for it all. Heaven on earth, I tell you.

November is about gratitude for me. I'm just grateful, for starters, that Halloween is over.

Get to know me

(Please tell me you get the Jon Lovitz reference here. I always loved that SNL skit. Unfortunately, SNL is pretty tight with their content and no YouTube reference has been found yet.)

This is blatant self-promotion. And I hate promoting myself, which is why I don't have a book deal yet. At least this is what I tell myself. (Ugh. There were way too many first person pronouns in just the past two sentences.) The truth is that I do want people to notice me; I just don't want to be the one drawing attention to myself. I think that I just want to be discovered and then sit there shyly, saying, "Who me? You want to give me a $250,000 advance on a book? Oh, alright."

I get jealous when I hear of other bloggers who get book deals and get angry at women who are able to put together book proposals with an infant and several small children in the house. (You know that you hate them, too.) Yet, I do believe that I've been given a gift for humor and honesty, which most of the time are the same thing. At least they are for me. It helps me take life a lot less seriously. And since I believe gifts are God-given, I feel an obligation to share my talents whether it be with a handful of people or thousands.

I always think of that parable in the New Testament about the three slaves who were given bags of money commensurate with their abilities. The two with the most bags of money multiplied it. The third man was given one bag of money and he buried it, figuring he didn't have enough money to do anything worthwhile. The master was not pleased with number three. Sometimes I'm afraid I'm burying my talents. Other times I'm afraid that any attempt to showcase my talent will be excessively narcissistic. I either fantasize about being at the top of the heap or am busy burying myself beneath the heap.

Humility is a balancing act and I have horrible balance.

All these mental gymnastics are just to let you know that a friend and former colleague of mine recently asked if I would write a get-to-know-the-blogger type article for a local parents' website. I know it ain't Oprah or anything, but I agreed. I love to write and it gave me a chance to distill just what my family and I are all about and why I write on a regular basis.

So, basically, I'm sharing with you a link on my blog to an article about ... my blog. I realize this is a little circular. Enjoy the ride.

My kids are weirdos

Why? you ask. Read on.

1. They scream when I turn on the vacuum cleaner. Yes, I know. Most kids hate vacuum cleaners. It's not a scream of terror, though. It's playful screaming laughter. It's almost as if they are delighted that something is louder than them and they are determined to have a loud-off with it. It's some kind of bizarre competition.

2. They have a similar reaction to thunder. Kids are supposed to be scared of thunder, right? Not my kids. They scream back at it.

3. We love to do puzzles with the kids. We often find large floor puzzles at the thrift shop for a buck or so. When we're done putting the puzzles together, we stand back and admire our work. And then they jump on it as if it were a trampoline. Every time.

4. My one-year-old's favorite thing on the planet right now is toilet paper. He has a Pavlovian response when he hears the bathroom door open. He shrieks and bolts down the hall. He will knock his sister over and bully his way into the bathroom, usually while I'm in there, to get a few squares of toilet paper. I can barely hold him back. Then he will do one of three things: put it in his mouth, wipe the floor with it or put it in the toilet.

5. My one-year-old also headbutts himself in the mirror. Repeatedly. And laughs hysterically each time.

6. My daughter invites people to come see her poop as if she has just downloaded rubies and pearls into the toilet. She also suspects that her brother The Baby's poop is something to behold. Whenever it's time for a diaper change, she follows us upstairs, gets her little stool and watches the whole process, asking to see The Baby's poop.

7. Whenever my four-year-old son trips on, steps on or bumps into anything, he insists that we must get rid of the offending object. Bumped into the cabinet door? It's got to go. Trip over a rug? Let's get rid of it. Step on toy? Get rid of it. Run into the wall? Get rid of the whole house. (I'm not even kidding. He has informed us that we have to get rid of our house.)  

8. My older son uses his pillow case as a sleeping bag. I'm still trying to decide if this is ingenious or just weird.

That is all.

On any given day

Walking into my house could very well be like walking into an alternate universe some days. To an outsider, much of what goes on around here makes little sense and appears to defy all the so-called rules of parenting. In fact, people have asked me, "Is it okay that the baby is climbing onto the sofa?" or "Is her shirt on backwards?" or "Is that your phone in the dishwasher?" And the answers are, respectively, yes, of course and isn't that where you keep yours?

So on any given day ...

... if the kids are running around with little to no clothes on, it's not that I haven't done laundry in a while. Making clothing optional is just easier than wrestling them, physically or mentally, into clothes.

... if the fridge or freezer door is open and the baby is gnawing on whatever he can get his hands on, it's not that I forgot to feed him. This is just the easiest way to distract him while I cook meals.  And besides the fridge has a built in timer so ...

... if you hear a beep and me, or my little shadow, Girlface, say, "Fridge time is over," then, well, Mommy is about to close the fridge and it's about to get ugly. And loud.

... if the living room looks as if it's been ransacked with sofa cushions strewn about the floor, don't worry, we haven't been robbed. The kids are just working out their energy on our 20 year old sofa set.

... if there are empty food boxes on the kitchen floor, it's not that I'm a slob. My kids enjoy playing with empty boxes, moreso than the toys we have for them, actually. They actually fight over who'll get the empty butter or pasta boxes.

... if my daughter or son are dressed in mismatched and/or backward clothing and you just have to ask about it, I will proudly tell you that my children dress themselves. Yes, she is only 2. No, I don't lay out clothes for either of them. And, no, I'm not the least bit embarrassed by this.

... if my kids are eating frozen vegetables for a snack, it's not that I'm too lazy to cook. My kids think eating frozen vegetables is a treat. (I know, they're weird. But at least they're eating their vegetables.)

... if my kids are playing with a hand-me-down ball tower that's more than a decade old, rather dirty and has been repaired using the lid from a coffee can, don't feel sorry for them. It's their favorite toy and has outlasted dozens of others with bells and whistles. (probably because mommy and daddy banished most of the toys with bells and whistles.)


... if my son is rolling cars down a book propped over a rolled up rug, it's because we're way too cheap to buy him fancy racetracks. Besides, he just ends up using them as weapons.

... if my 1-year-old is running up and down the couch, don't panic. He has never fallen. And I've just given up on the whole no running on the furniture rule. The only place I can actually restrict running is up the walls because it's physically impossible. For now.

Oh, and that phone in the dishwasher? It's actually the decoy phone -- a defunct phone that fools no one but me on a regular basis. The phone the kids are running around with? That's the real one.

If I had it to do over again

No need to grab a box of tissues. This one will not end with "I wish I'd held my babies more," because, seriously you guys, I hold my children from dawn to dusk. It's physically impossible to  hold them anymore than I do.

Regret isn't really my style. I see everything as a learning experience. You do it the hard way or the way some expert tells you and then you figure out that it didn't need to be that hard. By the third kid, you have a whole lot of AHA moments. And, then, if you're really a twisted perfectionist like me, you think, "Heck, let's have more now that I figured out this whole kid thing." Sometimes I have to rein in my desire to do it "right" the next time. In fact, I'm starting to see a bit of myself in my son who lately has taken to crying, "We've got to start over" if we skip a step or forget to do something. Like eat the animal crackers at the park. Not good enough to eat them at home. No, no, no. We brought them to the park and, by God, we were supposed to eat them there. Tears and body hurling over this, people. Really.

Ahem. Anyhow. As you can see, there's a little apple/tree thing going on here. Only I'm a bit more rational.

So what do I wish I'd done differently sooner?

A few things, like:

Ditch the bibs and make all meals clothing optional. My kids always yanked their bibs off. Now I have a dozen or so lasagna-stained onesies and tees that no amount of bleach will ever get out. I'm currently brainstorming ways to keep them out of a landfill (as if I don't have enough on my mind already). Pillow stuffing, anyone?

Ditch the fabric high chair cover. On our high chair, at least, you can attach the seat belt directly to the chair. Plastic is so much easier to clean than fabric. And our fabric cover is now moldy, to boot, from  mingling with the dirty kitchen towels in the hamper.

Make mornings alone at home clothing optional, summer or winter, to save on laundry. Underwear or diapers required, of course. Kids' bodies are a lot easier and cheaper to clean than clothing I've found.

Use my blender to make baby food. After years of making baby food in a $10 mini chopper and being dissatisfied with the resulting consistency, I found the blender gave me large batches of Gerber-consistency baby food much cheaper and fresher than the store-bought variety. The Baby's favorites: prunes/apples and baked chicken/mixed vegetables/rice cereal.

Be less stressed about which foods to feed when. With Big Brother, I had a chart with what foods were appropriate for what age. With Girlface, I followed the chart, but gave her milk when she was 10 months old. With The Baby, I didn't even wait until a year to feed peanut butter or strawberries. He stuck his fingers in my peanut butter toast when he was 11 months old (and didn't die) and strawberries came into season the month before he turned one. And he was NOT about to be left out of the strawberry feast, people.

Introduce finger foods sooner. Battling for possession of the spoon and getting more food on the child's face, hands and clothing than in his mouth while my own food got cold was just too stressful. For both of us, clearly. They're so much happier when they can feed themselves.


Ditch the kid-sized plastic utensils. All my kids hated them. They all wanted to eat off my plate with my fork.  Plastic kid stuff is apparently insulting to them. Which is probably why they raid the utensil draw and scatter these nonfunctional pieces of crap all over the house.

Ditch the kid dinnerware, bowls, etc. and just save applesauce cups. They're cheap, fit the amount of food that my children actually eat and are completely disposable, which comes in handy when toddlers discover the trash can. They even come with food already in them. It's like a two-for-one deal. I'm convinced that no kid has ever eaten anywhere near the amount that fits in these plastic kid bowls.

Serve all meals on or with a stick. My kids eat more when it's on a skewer or they can pick it up with a toothpick. They even string Cheerios on a toothpick. They are so weird.

Put a hamper on the screen porch. My kids get so dirty that it's easier to just strip them down outside, contain the filthy clothes like hazardous waste and whisk them up for bath time.

Showers. For all of them. Even my 1 year old now takes showers. This is so much easier than baths. And they're not afraid of the water, at all. The downside to this, of course, is that I rarely shower alone anymore. They wander by and suddenly decide they want a shower.

Keep the nail clippers in the car. The experts tell you to clip your children's nails while they are sleeping. But since my children were/are all horrible sleepers their first 18 months, I prefer to let sleeping babies lie. So I recently figured out that having them strapped into their car seats for this is the way to go. They can squawk all they want, they just can't go anywhere. BWAHAHAHAHAH!

Breakfast picnic. A few weeks ago, when our A/C crapped out on us, it was 10 degrees warmer inside that out first thing in the morning. So I took the kids to the airport park with a cooler full of hard boiled eggs, ham and cream cheese burritos and cantaloupe. Wouldn't you know it, the little boogers cleaned me out. They NEVER eat that way at home. The weather was glorious, the kids were happy and I wasn't begging anyone to eat or sweeping up after them. Why didn't I think of this sooner?

I'm sure that I could add more to this list if I wasn't so darn tired. Ironically, the one thing I am certain that I got right? Nursing each child through the night for as long as they needed. Sure, I've bitched and moaned about sleep deprivation for about four years now. But, somehow I knew, despite all expert opinion to the contrary, responding to their needs overnight was the right thing to do. It might have been inconvenient and difficult, but no one ever said having kids would be convenient or easy.

That's why I do what's easiest in the daily grind -- basically, to save my energy for the important stuff.

Of guns and little boys

Moms of boys will tell you that no matter how much you shield the young lad, guns always become an issue. It's almost as if gun play is written into their DNA as the self-defense and rage channeling mechanism of choice.

We don't watch a lot of television here, so he's not getting it from there. The only channel they are allowed to watch is PBS. Actually, it's the only channel they can watch; we don't have cable. When he first wielded his finger as a gun, the only group play he was involved in was our church's Parents Morning Out program. It's hard to imagine that he learned it there, but it takes only one kid and one isolated instance to activate this urge, it seems.

Or no context or incident at all, as my mother found. My two brothers used to construct guns out of Construx and wooden blocks. (My sister and I used to make furniture for our baby dolls from these toys.) And you'd be hard pressed to find a more anti-gun, anti-television crusader than my own mother. The day we all took the photo at the right was the first time my brothers ever had their hands on a "real gun." My dad says he thought they were going to wet their pants.


Our conversation about how and when and why we use guns has evolved over the years. And, yes, it's been years since he started talking about or pretending with guns.


When it began, we told him that guns are only for shooting animals that you want to eat. We didn't want to introduce the notion of shooting at people or animals in self-defense. Then he told us one day that he wanted to eat our dog. We clarified. We don't shoot our friends and Bob is our friend, we told him.

When he "shot" at his sister and Jim and I, we were very clear with him that using a gun is not how to handle anger. We realized that the issue at hand wasn't about guns. It was an opportunity to teach him how best to manage his feelings.

When he has strong feelings about a movie he is watching, he often stands on his chair and yells at and "shoots" his hands at the screen. (Don't worry, he's not watching Terminator or anything like that. He gets riled up watching Peter Pan and 101 Dalmations.) This is his way of dealing with his emotions and we feel this is healthy and normal, if not loud, annoying and somewhat amusing.

A month or so ago, we had a play date with a friend whose son chased and pretended to shoot at Big Brother. Big Brother was terrified and I wound up holding a gangly 4-year-old who refused to get down for about five minutes. The little boy's mother was apologetic, but I was happy to see his reaction. It gave me the opportunity to explain that guns are scary when pointed at people. My previous attempts at explaining this to him had fallen on deaf ears. He hasn't pointed a "gun" at anyone since.

Lately, I've been explaining to him that he can learn to use a gun when he is older. This wasn't completely unprompted. He's been asking about it. It comes up at the weirdest times, too.

"You'll be six when Girlface is four," I explained to Big Brother one day.

"Then I can have a gun?" he asks.

Sure, just in time for kindergarten, kid.

Which brings me one of the reasons we don't want to put our children in school: The black-and-white, zero tolerance attitude about guns, real or imaginary, drawn or spoken about, that exists in today's school environment. This nonsense leads administrators to suspend or expel children for drawing guns, possessing a one-inch GI Joe machine gun replica or even talking or joking about guns. These somewhat isolated incidents become fodder for local newspapers and free-range parenting discussions. The prospect of  having our child's permanent record sullied over an innocent remark or drawing, though, is the much bigger deal here for us than the so-called infraction.

The overreaction to guns recently squelched the aspirations of a handful of local students engaging in the sport of marksmanship. These high school students were poised to compete in a statewide youth marksmanship competition. These kids had learned a valuable skill, which one state agency was trying to promote to replenish the dwindling ranks of hunters in the state. A local school administrator put the brakes on their participation citing a ban on deadly weapons on campuses that also prohibits students from carrying guns on school trips. The decision to bar the team from competition wrongly, in my opinion, extended the ban to students participating in an off-campus event sponsored by a state agency, not by any school system. The school board later amended the policy to allow participation in the event, but not in time for the students who trained and expected to compete that particular year.

This black and white thinking about violence in general is also reflected in a school policy that I've always found to be unfair and, frankly, quite lazy and cowardly on the part of administrators. Most schools don't recognize the difference between the instigator and the victim when a fight breaks out on campus. A student who is beaten up by another and tries to fight back and protect himself is often punished the same as the one who throws the first punch. No where else can you be punished for being a victim. Even here, I realize there are mitigating factors such as whether the victim used sufficient force to get away or if the force was overly retaliatory. But in my day (I sound like an old woman here, I know) such factors were not taken into account.

We don't want to send our children into an environment that teaches absolutes such as all gun use is bad or everyone who is involved in a fight is responsible. We don't want our children to be subject to the arbitrary rulings of administrators with an agenda. That teaches children right from wrong only in the context of an artificial environment--school. In real life, what's right in one situation would be wrong in another. For instance, shooting a trespasser who is not threatening you is wrong; shooting the same trespasser who has threatened you with a gun, other weapon or sufficient physical force to make you fear for your own safety is justifiable. We're teaching our children to think for themselves and apply and adjust that thinking to a variety of situations.

For us, zero tolerance about guns and even violence is a grave mistake. Our job as parents is to teach the subtle nuances of living life. We don't want to teach him to fear guns or be cut off from his survival instincts. If he's hungry in the wilderness or our society one day devolves back to a subsistence economy, we want our kids to know how to provide for and protect themselves and their families. The reality is that killing animals for food or defending yourself with guns or other weaponry is a fact of life that we are cut off from in modern society. Our base instincts for self-preservation, however, still exist and we want to be sure that our children can tap into that when necessary. (Of course, we don't believe that you need an automatic or even a semi-automatic weapon to kill a deer or a duck or stop a human predator.)

We want our kids to know that guns are used as tools: tools for self-defense, tools for policemen and tools to provide food. As with all tools, you have to know how and when to use them them safely and responsibly.

And I think that message is getting through to him. This weekend, after he received a mini marshmallow gun, he cautiously wielded it and told me with some gravity, "You have to know how to use this, mom."

A few of my least favorite things

Sometimes I wonder if the people who dream up toys, clothes, books and gear for children have ever actually spent time with a child. Or a parent. Or maybe even other humans.

These products are meant to make my life more convenient or be fun for the kids. Really, they just become part of the daily irritants that send me to the candy closet to hide with a cold Diet Coke. Whenever my husband and I see a fancy kid product in a store, we consider it for a second and then come to one of the following conclusions: destroyed in a day or pieces lost or scattered so far we wouldn't find them until the kids move out. We come into quite a bit of our baby and kid products second hand. But we're also unwittingly convinced that we need many of these products before we wise up and realize how completely unnecessary and annoying they are.

Here are a few of my least favorite "kid- or parent-friendly" products:
 
Outfits with snap up legs. (or, as we call them around here, stripper pants) Whoever thought this one up never had to wrestle a very strong baby hellbent on rolling over and wiggling. It takes me at least five minutes to snap the baby back up. It's just easier to pull pants on and off.

Zip up pajamas in any size beyond 2T. Are you nuts? I'm trying to potty train my kid. Why would I make it more difficult to go to the bathroom? Although, I must say, we got a bunch of these for Christmas and Big Brother loves them and does well getting them on and off. He, much like his father, is a fan of the creature comforts and would wear these jammies all day if I let him, which I don't. I still don't like them. There's always the risk of them dangling into a toilet bowl full of pee or worse. And, besides, they look like babies in those things.

Onesie-style tops (that is, tops that snap in the crotch) in any size beyond 2T. See above. And besides, they just look ridiculous on big kids.


Books that make noise. Books should not make noise. Ever. When my parents wanted us to stop yammering at them or bickering at each other, they told us to go read a book. I get it. They wanted quiet. One day, for a fun, educational clean-up activity, I told the kids to pick up all the books off of the floor and sort them into two piles: Books that mommy likes and books that mommy hates. They did an excellent job as you can see. And now they don't bring me any of these books to read them. In fact, I haven't heard any of these books in a while. How's that for retention of a lesson? Maybe I'll make a good homeschool mom after all.



Pop up books and books with flaps. These really don't last long in our house. My kids are about as gentle as billy goats. I regularly throw these things out. The kids don't really care if the pages are torn, but it really makes mommy twitch. And lately, I find the baby chewing on the loose and dangling pieces of these books; much like a billy goat would, actually. (You know, it really does feel like I am the shepherdess of a herd of small goats some days.)

Sippy cups. I hate sippy cups. I hate cleaning them. I hate keeping up with all their pieces and parts. I hate tracking them down. I hate breaking up fights over them. I hate that they leak when I'm promised that they won't. Recently, I banned sippy cups. Now my kids drink from cups at the kitchen table. Girlface does surprisingly well. We do have a lot of spillage, but I only ever give the kids water. I had surmised that this would make our floors cleaner, but it hasn't. It just gets my socks wet and makes the floor slippery. I kept a handful of straw cups for smoothies and water bottles for traveling but have even considered bringing a thermos and cups to the park. My hatred right now is that deep. I'll probably start The Baby on a cup at 11 months or so.

Refereeing in romper room

Cabin fever has set in here.

Monday morning I took the kids to the library when The Baby decided against his morning nap. He also opted out of his afternoon nap. And didn't go to bed until 8 p.m. I had 14 hours straight of quality time with The Baby on Monday.

And Tuesday looked like this: 

yuck. ice.

Wednesday I had to get out of the house with the kids despite the icy path to the ice-caked van. My main dilemma was how to get myself and the baby to the van. Since I couldn't very well carry him while walking unsteadily on ice, I sat him down on the ice and gave him a little nudge. He slid down slowly to the bare pavement quite nicely and seemed to enjoy the ride. Next dilemma? Getting a freaked-out Big Brother to the van. He was not getting the hang of traversing the ice like his sister who was very nonchalantly shuffling along. Next up? Getting a half-inch of ice off the van windshield. A metal from the kitchen worked well.

Once on our way, it felt quite nice to have them strapped in and physically unable to reach me or each other. The only thing better would be a divider (think taxi cabs or limousines) between the front and back of the van. Why is this not standard equipment on every minivan? Then I wouldn't be questioned endlessly about the snack I was trying to sneak.

Several ice-bound days in a house playing referee among three warring parties is mind-numbingly exhausting. 


Nobody likes the referee, I'm finding. And it's not that I want my kids to like me. I'm not that mom. I would, however, like not to be "on duty" all the time. Even real referees are only on the job for up to an hour of play. At least their game ends.

My game? It starts two minutes after Big Brother and Girlface greet each other in the morning and doesn't end until after they go to bed. And even then, we get the occasional skirmish. One night this week I heard a scuffle upstairs and looked up to find Girlface lying on her stomach with Big Brother on her back. She was a little upset. Understandably so.

"She got out [of her room]," he said. Thanks, Sheriff Dan. 

Even the baby has figured out that if he screams like he's being stabbed when one of them takes his toy, he'll get my attention. And someone will get in trouble. Smart kid. He even smirks when I'm berating.

A truce, for now.

This afternoon I overheard a battle that broke out after about 10 minutes of quiet.

"Back off."

"MINE."

The problem? Big Brother had "traded" leap pads with Girlface.

"Big Brother, did you just take hers and give her yours?"

"Uh huh."

"That's not trading, that's taking. Give it back."

"OH!" And off he stomps. Girlface plays with the leap pad for two more seconds and then leaves.

Girlface the doll slayer

Speaking of Girlface, she's got an aggressive streak these days. When she's not throwing toys at Big Brother, she's hitting or biting him. Whenever The Baby screams and she's nearby, I fear the worst. She's very good at making sure I don't see whatever she's done. And her dolls ... she hits them in the face and tonight started biting them when I tucked her in. I'm a bit worried.

Some days I'm tempted to let the two of them work it out, even if it comes to blows occasionally. And I've heard that some moms do that. Is 2 and 4 years old too early to start this policy? I'm tired already. As I listen in on their "solutions," it's clear that the 2 year old is getting the short end of the stick because a.) Big Brother does not rule with fairness. and b.) she can't talk well or rationally enough to defend herself.

So I intervene. About a thousand times a day, it seems. By the end of the day, I feel like I've had not one positive interaction with them. And I'm often hoarse from yelling. I spend the day sorting out property rights, breaking up romper room brawls and explaining the nuances of interpersonal relationships. For instance, it needs to be explained that rushing to grab a toy your sister is going for is the same as taking that toy from her. Or a toy trade needs to be a mutual decision. Or taking the bigger piece because you are "bigger" is not necessarily fair. Or you can't make decisions for your sister; she'll decide what she wants to eat or play with herself (he's a bossy first born). Or people don't respond well to a demanding tone and loud voice, even if you say please. Or coughing on someone in retaliation is rather aggressive, especially if you have a cold.

I'm a big fan of natural consequences up to a point. If a kid is going to behave a certain way, he's going to learn better from his peers what is acceptable and what is not than from the authorities. And there's a good chance he'll respect that verdict more than he will an authority imposing an arbitrary sentence.

Sometimes when Big Brother is provoking Girlface and she retaliates, I don't feel like punishing her too severely. I feel like telling Big Brother to just stop bugging her. But, really, a bite or swat or shove is only a natural consequence when dealing with people who are mentally off or anyone under the age of three apparently. The challenge is getting them to understand and remember in the heat of their little battles that biting, swatting and shoving are considered a bit anti-social by most of us.

Some days, though, I wish that I had a whistle.

More dumb things I say way too often

Do you ever worry that you and your husband won't have a thing left to say to each other when the kids finally move out? I used to. But now I'm convinced that this happens not because you haven't maintained your relationship but because, after 20-some years of raising children, you just are tired of hearing yourself talk. You just want peace and quiet.

But maybe if I just save my breath and stop uttering these useless phrases at the children, my husband and I won't be completely mute by the time our nest is empty.

Get your shoes on. I say this way too often to the boy child. He does know how to get at least two pairs of his own shoes on.  But inevitably by the time we have to leave, he's wandering around aimlessly after at least five exhortations to get his shoes on. Jim suggested that I just stop saying this altogether.

Did you look? This is my most common response to Big Brother's lament "I can't find it, mom." And, of course, like most men in training, he hasn't really looked. Whatever item he's searching for is usually hiding in plain sight and I utter this next senseless phrase: 

Do I have to come up there? Yes. Yes, I do. After 50 trips up and down the stairs daily, usually toting a 20-pound infant, you'd think I'd have lost some weight by now.

Do you have to go pee? The answer is always no. Always. And he always pees a river when he's finally been corralled into the bathroom. Now Girlface is saying no to this question, but she almost always pees when she gets there.

Eat your food. I find that I have to be specific here. I still have kids who frequently stuff mulch and leaves in their mouths. Oddly, lately before nap time we have pretend lunch whereby the children fix invisible food from the kitchen set and sit at the little table in Girlface's room "eating." I also have to emphasize the "your" part as  Girlface seems to eat only when she thinks that she's eating someone else's food.

Sit down. They do everything but sit on chairs. Sitting in chairs is such a rare event that I actually go find the camera and take a picture of it when it happens. They configure chairs to make a bus, they stand on them, they sit backwards on them, one kid uses chairs as a garage for his cars. They push them over to the counter to see what I'm making. They walk around the backyard carrying kid-sized chairs that we bought them. We thought that maybe they'd be more interested in sitting on kid chairs. We were wrong. They flip the little picnic table over and sit inside it. And when they fall off of chairs during all this activity, we have very little sympathy for them. Actually, we try not to laugh, once we're sure they haven't broken any bones, of course.

Don't make a mess. Apparently, this is in the job description for kids. I can always tell where they've been and what they've been doing by what they leave behind. Play dough under the kitchen table and a mound of soft soap in the bathroom sink tells a story.  So does water streaming from the refrigerator across the kitchen floor and that trail of toilet paper in the hallway.
 
Use a napkin. I dread having to dress them or myself up for anything because they will smear something, usually snot, on my or their clothes within two seconds of getting dressed. They are both obsessed with napkins, ask for them frequently yet never, ever use them. In fact, in Big Brother's first-ever school picture, he's wearing part of his breakfast. Maybe I shouldn't have laughed at the three-year-old I saw at Big Brother's preschool wearing a bib. I bet his school picture is flawless. This is why I was hesitant to try a formal family portrait this year. I'd have to dress all of us at the studio.

Leave your sister/brother alone. I think it's in the unwritten sibling constitution that they have to agitate the living crap out of each other, which, of course, agitates me.

Because I said so. To which my son says, "Ooohhhh, don't say so."  I swore I'd never say this to my kids. They deserve answers. Real answers. After the fifth "Why?" though, I've run out of answers and feel that mommy deserves a brownie for the four somewhat coherent answers already provided.

Happy January

So it's January 4th. The holidays are finally over. Today, Jim watched sadly as the garbage truck crushed up our Christmas tree. Good thing I didn't see it or I'd have cackled with glee. We put it out on New Year's Eve. I'm still sweeping up needles and will be until our wedding anniversary. We were married on the first day of spring.

Not taken on Christmas Eve ... 

We did have a nice, low-key holiday, mostly because we were all so sick that we could have recorded a coughing version of Jingle Bells. I was in the doctor's office with a wheezing baby two days before Christmas and by Christmas Eve, my husband had a fever of 102.6 (I just love using the decimal. It makes it so much more dramatic, don't you think?) We didn't go to Mass with the little boys dressed in their matching outfits and Girlface in her finery and we didn't even have that nice Christmas Eve lasagna (from Stoeffer's. ever heard of 'em?). On Christmas Eve, I took the older two out to Wal-Greens before dinner because mommy really needed some Diet Coke bad. I popped a Digiorno pizza in the oven. It was the extra fancy kind; it came with breadsticks. And we ate in the dining room to make it even fancier. I broke down in tears before trying to chat up my sister in Japan on Facebook that night because one more holiday without the other half of my heart here felt impossible. I put the kids to bed alone, which involved quite a bit of yelling. I put the presents out alone. And I cursed my stupid luck that I hadn't gotten sick myself just so I could get some rest. It was not an idyllic Christmas Eve by any stretch of the bounds of optimism.

But Christmas Day was a better. The kids liked their gifts. They played more with the gifts we got from the thrift shop and the low-cost gifts than anything else we got. We spent the afternoon at mom and dad's house and my brother and his wife were there. I wrestled the kids into their Christmas outfits just to be sure we got plenty of bang for our buck. The boys wore theirs all day; my daughter told Nana to "take it off" almost as soon as we arrived. She's just like her mother, that one.


Christmas night was awesome. The snow started falling just before the kids went to bed. Big Brother stayed up watching it out his bedroom window and then fell asleep on the floor in his new sleeping bag from Nana . And we all woke up to this sight:

We had a fantastic couple of days sledding down our hill which Jim enhanced with a curve and a ramp built up with snow. All the kids went sledding, even the baby, and we actually caught some air going over the ramp. Sweet! The kids also really dug the hot cocoa, although Big Brother doesn't like his hot.

Come this time of year, though, I don't really make resolutions. Especially ones involving food or beverage. Here's why:


Saturday, January 1: I tell my husband that I really want to stop drinking so much Diet Coke. It may be keeping the baby up at night. But the dilemma? Saturday is always pizza night. And you can't have pizza without Diet Coke, now can you? We ordered from Randy's instead of making it at home. The baby and I went to pick it up. I theorized that I could not likely carry an 18" pizza, a 20 pound baby and a Diet Coke from the fountain. I was wrong.

Sunday, January 2:  I told my husband about how I learned that aspartame had addictive properties. This does not surprise me in the least. I still manage to down a diet drink, but at least it's just ginger ale.

Monday, January 3: I was good. Instead of Diet Coke, I downed about a quart of seltzer water from my new seltzer bottle that was a gift from my brother. I tell my husband that I think I just crave carbonated beverages.



Tuesday, January 4: I am forced by poor planning (due to extreme exhaustion) to stop by Wal-Greens on the way to preschool this morning to buy some candy for Big Brother's class. Long story short, I buy the candy (75 percent off!!) and wind up with a 20 oz. Diet Coke AND a bag of Cheetos.


To my husband's credit, he rarely ever calls me on any of this.

And to complicate matters, I found a book before Christmas at Barnes & Noble, bought it on Amazon and it arrived before Christmas. The title? Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day. Merry Christmas to me. If there's one thing I love more than Diet Coke, it's bread. Hot, fresh, crispy crusted bread. With butter. Real butter. Since Sunday, I've made three loaves from this ingeniously evil, pound-packing method of providing fresh bread on a daily basis. Actually, on Sunday, I made a second loaf after realizing that the first loaf may not make it to dinner.



I suck at self-denial, which is why I try not to make resolutions based on abstinence. I seem to do better with resolves at any time of the year to do more in some areas. Last year, I made a promise to myself to be more honest about what goes on under my roof and how exactly I feel about it. Judging by some of the comments and emails I've received this year, I'd call my resolve a success.

This year? I'm trying to be more careful (see? more!!) with the grocery budget ... details to follow. It's not as exciting as it sounds, but to me, it kind of is. It combines my love of food and my insane need to categorize and control, I mean, quantify things. I so desperately need order in some area of my life right now. 

Open letter to overwrought parents

Bringing your perfectly healthy child to the doctor's office this morning was absolutely the right thing to do. What a great example of proactive parenting to believe that a "preventative" visit to the doctor will assure you a healthy holiday. I know this is what you did because the nurse shared with me your conscientious plan. Because she knows me so well after four years and three children, she felt comfortable sharing this with harried exasperation.

Maybe if I had thought of that brilliant plan, I wouldn't be waiting for 40 minutes past my appointment time with a croupy, wheezing, squirmy infant. I wouldn't dare put him down to explore the germ-laden waiting room that your perfectly healthy child wandered around.

Maybe if I had been bringing my child, sick or not, to the doctor once a month, the front desk staff would have known who I was and rushed me back. Instead, I languished in the waiting room for nearly an hour and witnessed the arrival of a sick child whose symptoms were so alarming that she was rushed back to be seen right away. Hopefully, the very air she breathed was not contagious.

Maybe if you had just stayed home with your healthy kid, my doctor's office wouldn't be solidly booked two days before Christmas and they could actually treat sick children in a timely manner. When kids are sick, time is of the essence, as you probably know. I'm sure when your kids actually are sick you do everything short of call an ambulance, right?


I'm sure you left feeling good about yourself and your child. After all, the doctor must have allayed your fears about the miniscule risk of illness that you surely increased tenfold by bringing your perfectly healthy child in at the height of cold and flu season.

I, on the other hand, left the doctor's office an hour and a half after arriving with the knowledge that my son had a 101 degree fever and a virus and that we would be spending the holidays with a nebulizer and a humidifer and even less sleep than normal. But that's okay. At least, we'll know what's important this year--our health. And we'll slow down, enjoy ourselves and each other as much as possible and do only what our sick child can bear and nothing more.

(Oh, and by the way, I may have let your child play with a used boogie wipe from my purse.)


Merry Christmas!

Just do the opposite

Life with small children is full of paradoxes.

I'm finding that, in some cases, doing the opposite of what I want to do or think I should do is actually working out quite well. When I can remember to do this, things are a little easier around here.



Faced with a defiant kid? Don't try to be firm, stand your ground or teach them a lesson. Tickle them. (This has just defused so many situations lately.)


The kids won't eat? Don't become a short-order cook, offer lots of little snacks or insist that they eat just two more bites. Starve them. (My kids eat more dinner when they haven't been snacking all day or been forced to eat when they're not hungry.)


One of them won't stop arguing with you? Don't try to get the last word, just realize that it takes two to argue and walk away. He doesn't really think that he's right if he gets the last word. Really.


The kid who knows better becomes demanding? Don't remind him to use manners, just ignore him until he does.

And the biggest paradox of all stems from the most frequent comment I get from other moms when they find out how many and how old our kids number: "Oh, I'd never leave the house."

I quickly found that not leaving the house is the worst thing you can do with three kids under the age of four. Even if it means dressing and shoeing three kids, packing three bags, buckling three kids in the car. (I love the buckling part. It means they can't reach me to wipe their little noses on me.) 

Yesterday morning, the kids were bonkers. Big Brother woke up mad at the world. Girlface was actually fine until Big Brother woke up and started agitating everyone, though I was not pleased to find her sitting on the floor scooping ice cream out of the box with her fingers at 8:30. I thought that I had The Baby settled down for a morning nap and did a craft with the kids only to learn that he was hollering in his crib, possibly for a while, probably plotting his 3 a.m. revenge on me. I did have a plan to wrap up some errands this morning on a multi-stop tour with three kids in tow. That was a bad idea that I promptly abandoned given the circumstances.

A better idea, however, was to just take all of them—the cranky, the agitated and the napless—to Sam's Club for shopping and a hot dog.

And therein lies the paradox.

My kids are actually better behaved in public than at home. Unless we're in the library. They're always utter heathens in the library. But my assumption was that kids would try to get away with murder in public. Maybe they felt safer in their mischief since mom knew others were watching her every move. Apparently, only mom cares or imagines that others seem to be watching and judging.

That said, our trip to Sam's Club was a rousing success despite one rude shopper who berated me for holding up foot traffic while my son put coins in the Salvation Army kettle. Bravo, lady. Coal for you or better yet, flaming dog poop.

The kids happily ate their hot dogs, shared a bottle of water and took great delight, as usual, in walking over to the trash can to deposit their trash. They never wander off while eating, unlike at home where they are completely incapable of sitting down to eat. (You'd think the seats were lined with hot coals or something.)

The Baby watched us from his perch in the cart as he chewed on a plastic straw (don't worry, it was a completely sanitary, individually wrapped straw and he's smart enough not to gag himself). He's never this calm at home while we're eating.

The kids even got a little lesson in using a plastic knife. The kids took turns using it to cut hot dog bun. Big Brother cut up pieces of the bun and divvied them out. He never shares like this at home.

He even stuck with us, helped put stuff in the cart and didn't ask for too many things. Though, I had to laugh at his response when I said we couldn't buy the kids' playhouse he wanted because it wouldn't fit in the van.

"Wait a second," he says, finger in the air and eyes wide, "We can put it on top of the van."

I love the way he thinks.  He took it pretty well when I gently refused. He also never takes rejection of his ideas that well at home.

So if I ever need some proof that my kids are not monsters, I just take them out in public. Seems like a bad idea, but it's actually makes me feel somewhat successful and gives them a chance to behave well for a change. And I really need that from time to time.

One from the kitchen ...

Do you know what this is?

If you answered, "a dried apple," then give yourself a gold star.

Do you know where I found this? If you said, "Trader Joe's", then guess again. I found it ...


ON MY KITCHEN FLOOR.

(And yes, I did take a little bite out of it. I know, that was very unhygienic of me. But it was also pretty tasty, just like dried apples from Trader Joe's.) 

It occurred to me that in addition to my kitchen floor being a giant trough, it is also a food dehydrator. Go figure.

So ... if a sliver of apple left on the floor for, oh, I don't know, maybe 48 hours turns into a dried apple a la Trader Joe's, then, maybe using just the air in my kitchen and my habit of forgetting about various projects that I've started, I can make dried apples. Chances are by the time I remember the slivers of apple sitting atop my refrigerator, they'll be dried.

And this is what I got ...

Not bad. They're quite tasty, but not as sweet as the floor-dried version. I should have left them longer than 24 hours, but I'm impatient. I like to think of it as Big Brother's first homeschool science and economics lesson. Using free air in the kitchen instead of a $60 food dehydrator, decomposition and dehydration occurred, creating a tasty little snack or addition to our oatmeal or whatever. And it's a whole lot more hygienic than eating two-day old dried apples from the kitchen trough, er, floor.

Spiritually disheveled and that's okay

Shortly after Girlface's and The Baby's baptism, we began going back to mass. Partly out of guilt. After their baptism, the priest asked if we were new in the parish as he hadn't seen us around. I told him that we've come on and off for years (mostly off) and that it was hard to get here with the children.

Since September we've managed to make it about every other week. This past weekend was the first time we'd made it for the second weekend in a row. And I'm using the term "made it" pretty loosely. This past Sunday, there was not much difference between night and morning thanks to The Baby. Jim had taken The Baby out to the 24-hour Wal-Mart so I could sleep in and brought back donut holes. I managed to get the two older kids dressed and fed and myself showered. But The Baby wound up losing the getting dressed lottery and went in his pajamas. Turns out he wasn't the only disheveled one in our bunch. As I unbuckled Girlface in the church parking lot, I discovered that she had only one shoe on.


Unlike previous Sundays, the kids were restless and not able to be quiet. Girlface ran around the halls while Jim policed her (maybe giving her a donut hole was not such a good idea); I tried to console cranky The Baby while trying to listen to the homily from the hallway. Big Brother did go into the children's Mass eventually and later told us they talked about goslings (that would be the Holy Gospel). We left before hitting the host. All in all, it was the worst attempt at Mass we've had since we started going back.

When we returned home, Jim finished repairing the kids' wagon (that mommy broke about a year ago when she hurled it over the fence after breaking up one too many fights between the kids). We took a walk down the cul-de-sac, then a hike in the woods across the street. I'm pretty sure God is in the woods on beautiful fall days.

I have a pretty good grasp on how to teach our kids many, many things—reading and match concepts, most manners, getting dressed, hygiene and so on. For some reason, though, teaching and talking about Jesus have been more difficult for us. We're not deeply religious people. We don't pray much around the kids, although Jim used to do bedtime prayers with Big Brother. We don't talk about Jesus too often, although Big Brother did excitedly proclaim recently that God made gum. We hadn't gone to church regularly because our specific denomination offers little in the way of child care or even age-appropriate programs. Yet we are deeply spiritual people. We rely on God's wisdom and God's grace every minute of every day, sometimes even without consciously knowing it. And that is difficult to explain to young children.

At Big Brother's preschool, they emphasize prayer as a habit, part of their daily routine. They pray when they begin their morning, when the eat snack and when they close for the day. That's good. At home, Big Brother now sets up the snack, getting out cups and napkins and exhorting us to pray. "Let's pray for food," he says. And he folds his little hands and says, "God is great. Thank you for food. Amen." He doesn't close his eyes, though. His first introduction to prayer was at school was a bit traumatic. The teacher told the kids to close their eyes. He did. And then he freaked out, crying "It's dark. It's dark. I can't see."

Many churches introduce children to Jesus through Bible stories. I've read Big Brother a few Bible stories, but his eyes glaze over. He can probably sense that I'm not too interested myself. As a child, I knew all the stories. My understanding of them was a little odd, though. For instance, I really believed that Jesus was born every Christmas and somehow four months later he was a man who hung on the cross, was buried and then rose again.  I had a very vivid picture of these things in my head. I remember being sad and anxious around Easter time because, in Jerusalem, people were getting ready to crucify Jesus. And when you think about the imagery surrounding such stories, it's hard to explain without giving kids nightmares. Daniel was put in a lion's den and prayed that he wouldn't get eaten. Three men whose names I won't dare try to spell were put in a furnace for not bowing down to an idol. God told Abraham to sacrifice his own son on the altar and he almost did. And the man who saved all these men was hung on a cross to die for our sins. There must be better ways to teach faith, loyalty and sacrifice than through Old Testament horror stories and the crucifixion.


I certainly didn't learn those things from the stories of Jesus' life and those who followed him in the early years. Relating my life to Biblical principles came only after, well, living my life. My life experience, some of it rather rough and dark, was what brought me into the fold. The church of my youth actually caused me to flee from the fold.

Would I have known Jesus was even there without the Biblical foundation offered in church? Maybe not. But my point here is that my road back to a relationship with God was a hard one, seemingly made more difficult by church and the ideas that were put in my head at a very young age.

My son may be on to something with his aversion to closed-eye prayer. I tend to pray with my eyes open. It's then that I see what's before me. And when I see what's before me, I am grateful and when I'm grateful, I pray. Even when what's before me does not appear to be ideal. Even when life is stormy. Even when the next right thing to do is not clear.

I wrote the preceding paragraph about two months ago and really needed to be reminded of that this morning as I struggle with what to do next in a certain situation. If The Baby hadn't gotten up this morning at 4:30 a.m. (and gone back to sleep), I wouldn't be sitting at my kitchen table rereading these words, taking them to heart and praying a prayer of gratitude for the wisdom God surely gave me, for the grace He bestows and the spiritual discipline that He has imposed and I have accepted over the years. 

Spiritual discipline is a hard thing to teach to a child. But it's the only thing that makes sense in my world. We'll stumble along with the Lord as our guide, though, and hopefully, our children will see faith in all its messy action.