Hee hee hee

Funny things the boys said today that keep me smiling:

Nate: (imitating a pirate) "AAAARRGH Ladies!"

Nate: "What's the news Bubbie? I'm listening."

Nate: "Let's not call Jacob Toasters anymore, let's call him Chocolate Jacob!"

Jacob: "Chocket, chocket!"

Linda: "New rule! All bathroom doors, must remain shut since Jacob is now sticking his body in the toilet."
Nate: (2 hours later) "New rule! No Driving into other cars! All in favor, raise your hands! New Rule! No driving on the sidewalk!"
Jacob: "nooo nool! noo nool!"

Responsibility part deux

It occured to me that I sounded sanctimonious about responsibility and how great I am for not getting drunk or putting on my iPod too loudly. Let me share some dirty little (and not so little secrets):

1) I have no Will- if something were to happen to me & my husband, it's a toss-up as to who gets the boys and what money they will have.

2) I have no life insurance and neither does my husband (this is not actually our fault, as we have applied several times and were refused based on a minor heart condition)

3) I have no emergency provisions packed despite living less than a mile from the White House, Capitol and NORAD back-up site.

4) I have no house alarm despite 5 robberies, 1 murder and 3 escaped mental patients occuring on my street, and my husband travels about 2 weeks of every month. (if you are a person with evil intent, let me assure you, I do have a black belt in karate and a raging case of herpes**)

I am sure there are other horrible things that I am irresponsible about, but those are the biggies that come to mind easily. Yikes! I am making it a goal to get those resolved, cause I do often wake up in a cold-sweat, panicking.

And speaking of that kind of responsibility and loss of freedom, there was a HORRIBLE story in the news yesterday about a father who threw his children off a 15 story balcony then jumped himself. It is hard for me to formulate complete thoughts and sentences about this. I get physically nauseated even thinking about it. Obviously something triggered a breakdown in this man to be able to hurt his children in this way.

To me, it seems suicide is the ultimate cop-out on responsibility if you are a parent. In some ways I understand though and can see it as a medical issue. Some people can die of cancer or heart attack, and some die of suicide caused by a mental disease. It is hard for me though to see murder of your children in this light. My heart just goes out to this mom; how does one ever recover from something like this. I know she never will, but how does one even get up and out of bed in the morning?

OK, now I am sad, and I promise something more lighthearted next time.


**I will send stickers to anyone who can name the movie that quote is stolen from.

Freedom

Two nights ago I laid down in bed with my iPod on, earplugs in. My boys were barely sleeping, but I needed to rest my eyes after Lasik. I didn't turn my music up very loud. It was not a nod to any fear of noise-induced deafness, but a sense of responsibility to my children that kept the volume low.

I realized that in the three plus years since becoming a mom, I don't ever just let go anymore. I don't turn my music on full-blast. I don't get rip-roaring drunk anymore (mainly due to a fear of dealing with 2 toddlers and a hangover). In fact, nearly everything I do is with one ear, eye or brain cell in tune with my kids.

It is hard to just let it all go, knowing that 2 little people are depending on you. If I turn my music on too loud, I may miss a cry for help after a nightmare. If I get silly drunk, I may have impaired judgement in the unlikely event one of the boys wakes up and needs me in the middle of the night for something more critical than a hug.

I think this is truly the loss of freedom that scares couples discussing the possibility of having kids. Sure there are the mentions of the little superficial things like movies, dinner dates, travel, sports cars etc..., but it is the more subtle loss of freedom that is much more profound in my book and it is also not quite understood until you are a parent.

You can hire a babysitter and go out for dinner for an hour or two, but you can't ever go back to being the person you were before parenthood. I am and always will be (at least legally for the next 15 and 17 years) responsible for two other lives.

Auto Reply: Out of Office

I am getting Lasik tomorrow, so it may be a few days before I am up to staring at the screen and typing. Check in later!

Did I say that out loud?

I was at the pediatrician this afternoon getting my baby checked for strep or an ear infection. Just a bronchial infection that 10 days of antibiotics should clear up. I always find the waiting room at the pediatrician interesting for people watching, because parents tend to be on their hyper-vigilant behavior.

Today for example, a mom left the bill-paying counter to snap at her two sons who were engaged in a very minor dispute, "let go of each other now or we will get in the car and go home now!" Uhm, Mom, hate to break it to you, but you're at the doctor's. Your boys want to go home!

Don't think that I am criticizng the mom though. She was simply caught in an "oops, did I say that out loud" moment. We all have them. On days when I don't get enough sleep, I find myself babbling idle threats to the boys about losing pajamas or toys or park days. I eventually shut up when Nate's eyes glaze over and he treats me like white noise.

Positive discipline is all about words that count and have meaning that your children believe. I think, and this is a total generalization, that husbands are very guilty of the bad, idle threats. I know my husband can get so frustrated after a build-up of misbehavior, and blurt out ridiculous consequences. They are such poor choices, I usually end up lauging. Come on sweetie, are you really going to remove his shoes and make him walk barefoot forever? Or, never ever read him a bedtime story again.?

It is so hard when you are caught in the heat of the moment not to shout out the first punishment that comes to mind, but worth it when you come up with the right, logical consequence and you can positively modify behavior.

What are some of the worst/ridiculous things you have said aloud to your kids while disicplining them?

Thanks for the memories...

My son brought home a portfolio last week from school holding several pieces of his artwork. Apparently he is not as prolific at school as he is at home, as there were only 3 pieces of art from the entire year. At home he goes through 3 pieces of paper in a minute.

I never know which art and projects to keep. Should I keep the ones that look the best or the ones with holiday meaning , like a Passover seder plate? Or, should I keep just the ones that mark milestones, like the paper that has nothing on it but three Ns, marking the first time he started to write his name?

So far, I have kept most of the art, but in a cleaning frenzy last year, I threw 99% of it away. I find though that it is not the art that I want to hold onto but the special and silly moments that happen and are gone before you can mark them. For example, my 3 year old is obsessed at the moment with his little brother's cheeks. He keeps kissing & poking them saying, "I can't help it, he has the cheekiest cheeks."

It drives the baby bonkers, but I just want to keep hearing Nate's voice saying "cheekiest cheeks!" Or this morning, when he came into our room for our AM wakeup call, he bypassed my side of the bed; went straight for Matt and said, "Daddy wake up. It's Mommy's day off. It's Mother's Day." It happened too quickly to get a camcorder out, and it won't resonate as nicely in his baby book.

It is these memories and moments that don't fit into a portfolio but hold so much meaning for me, because they come and go so quickly.

OMG it's a MEME

Anyone new to blogging may not know that a meme is a silly thing bloggers do that is reminiscent of a questionaire / survey we did we were tweens. (not that we were called tweens way back when). Anyway, here goes a MEME with a DC slant. The idea is that you fill it out too.

Number of Kids: 2
Gender of kids: boys
Ages: 3 1/2 & 1 1/2
SAHM/WFT/WPT: WPT (does blogging count?)
Fave clothing store for play clothes: Children's Place, Target
Fave clothing store for dressy: Janie & Jack, Full of Beans
Which Whole Foods: Tenleytown
Toy Store: Childs Play or Whirligigs & Whimsys in Wyldwood shopping center
Library: Chevy Chase or New Bethesda Arlington Rd.
Park: Chesapeake (they have 3 backhoes in the sandbox), I like Macomb too.
Museum: National Building Museum
Monument: Korean
Best zoo moment: watching orangutans on the O line, picnicking in the rest area of the Lions den with the Lion roaring at us
Favorite kid friendly restaurant- Matuba all u can eat kaitan sushi bar on Sunday nights, then Ben & Jerry's after. Or Kotobuki in the Palisades for $1/piece sushi (no high chairs though)
Rainy Day activity: library, Montgomery Mall, Ikea
Best Class with kid: Musikids or Silverstars with Coach Mark
Favorite Trail for hiking/biking: Roosevelt island or Rock Creek park leading into zoo


Ok, that's it. Lame, I know. I promise never to indulge again.

Houston, we have a p-r-o-b-l-e-m

I used to be a teacher. I hated it, but I loved teaching reading. I adore children's books in general and am thrilled to have an excuse to hangout in the children's section of the library now that I have kids. I have also been conducting a pseudo experiment with my three-year old. Before he was born, I wondered if I could teach him to read at an early age. I set rules for myself though. I would not use any high-pressure tactics, do any phonics drills and I would instill a love of reading as well as the ability to read.

So here's the kicker...it's working. Through a variety of techniques, which I will document in a book I am planning on writing (someday), my 3 1/2 year old is reading several words, writing several words, loving to read, and generally demonstrating a keen understanding of literacy.

The problem is that his understanding of the alphabet is leading to a problem for Matt and me. I know this happens to all of us eventually but it has hit full-force this week. We can't spell out secrets to each other anymore. For example, if I ask Matt, "What are you thinking for dinner? How does s-u-s-h-i sound?" Nate immediatly jumps in with, "YES!!! I want sushi! SUSHI!!!!!"

I know lots of kids do this based on memorization, but Nate is putting the letter sounds together when we spell & making very reasonable guesses. So now Matt & I need a new language to use in front of the kids. Unfortunately, he took high school French & I hablo espanol. You may see us at a Berlitz soon.

Flying the friendly skies

I am almost too exhausted to write this, but I will give it the old college try. About 2 hours ago, my family arrived back in our house after 6 weeks on the road. Yep, you read that correctly. Our itinerary looked something like this:

March 3-5 NYC (airplane, taxi)
March 24-27 Miami (Plane)
April 1-3 BF New Jersey (Road Trip- flat tire in Delaware!)
April 14 - 25 Miami (plane)
April 27 - 29 Miami (Metro, Marc Train, Plane, rental car)
May 6-8 Atlanta (plane, rental car)

That is a lot of travel for any road warrior, now keep in mind, we did all of that with a 1 & 3 year old! Why so many trips you may ask. Well, all of our family and friends decided to get married. There was not an event we could reasonably skip and no family to leave the kids with, so they came along, and along, and along. Though, my travels aren't the point, traveling with kids in general is.

Airline Travel: Getting through security can be a nightmare. Everyone has their tales of TSA incompetence and confusion. For the most part, I have found the TSA agents to be very nice and helpful when traveling with kids. They always give high-fives to the boys after they pass through the detector. They are patient as we take 10 minutes to disassemble our stroller, carseat, 2 backpacks, laptop bag, insulated lunch bag, pockets full of change, shoes, and coats. On a few memorable occasions, awesome agents have helped carry all of our stuff to another table so we could reassemble our gear. However, despite the assistance, it is very dificult to disassemble all the gear with 2 children, mainly due to the 40 Lb car seat. which leads me to my main point.

We would not bring a car seat at all if not for the incredibly stupid airline rules about baby seating. It makes NO sense to me that EVERYONE on the plane MUST keep seatbelts fastened at all times, unless you are under 2, in which case, feel free to bounce around the cabin. We always spend the money to buy a seat for our baby. First of all, it is a safety issue, secondly it is a comfort issue. How can anyone sit on a place for more than 40 minutes with 25 wriggling pounds and hands grabbing at hair, glasses, water glasses etc... So we make the effort to lug the car seat through the airport and onto the plane.

Once my older son turned two, we stopped bringing the car seat & just buckled him in. This is where I really find fault with the airlines. If my son were 5"10", 300 Lbs, the flight attendants would hasten to bring him a seatbelt extender. However he is 3'6", 35Lbs and they come over to chastise and make sure his seatbelt is fastened. The answer is yes, it is fastened, but he is so skinny, it just slips right off. Why can't they design a 5-point harness, or seatbelt reducer, or allow booster seats on the plane?

I am debating internally whether to start a campaign much like the ADA compliance act, except for children and little persons. Restrooms, with more than 3 toilets must make 1 of them low enough for a child to reach and provide a stepstool for hand washing at the sinks. Public transportation should have some available seatbelts. Airlines should have safe seating for people of ALL sizes. TIVO should be required in every household. Wait, that is from a different wish list. Seriously though, what bothers you when traveling either around town or farther a field with your little ones?

The dreaded conversation

One of those dreaded moments came a few days ago. My beloved Grandma died. She had been sick for a short time, and in true Bobbie fashion, she went out in her own way, refusing to linger in a sick bed.

Her death meant that we had to face the decision of telling our 3 year old son that his Great-grandmother had died. He was only 22 months when his other great-grandmother died, so we never bothered telling him. We figured he would never ask, but he had a real relationship with Bobbie and had spent the previous week playing in her apartment with her.

I consulted the director at his preschool who gave us a packet of reading and ideas for ways to have the conversation. We discussed putting it off till I was feeling less grief, but I felt it was important to tell him right away. (no idea why)

We figured the conversation would go something like this:

"Nate, we have sad news to tell you."
"What?"
"Remember how Grandma Bobbie went to the hospital because she was sick? Well, the doctors did everything they could to help her, but her body was very sick and her heart stopped working and she died."
"Oh, can we visit her? Where is she? in our backyard? Linny the Wonderpet is a hamster."

That was pretty much how it went, except he focused on it a bit more than expected and asked us to repeat the sad story. Then he told us a Superman story instead of a Wonderpets moment. He saw that I cried as I told him, but it didn't seem to scare him; it just attached a bit more importance to the news I think.

Later in the day, he wanted to hear the sad news again. We told him again, and that we could always remember Bobbie by thinking of a something we had done with her or looking at a picture of her. He then requested to watch our wedding video to see her and wanted drawing paper to draw a picture of her. He did an amazing job on the picture and even captured her earrings that she was never without.

It has been a week since she died and 2 days since we told Nate, and I miss her terribly, but my grief has been eased by being so busy with the boys, I can't stop to focus. But, I dont feel like I am missing a grieving process, because I am sharing with Nate. Just today, he and I baked banana bread, and I told him that Bobbie was the person who taught me how to bake. He replied, "Now we remember her in our minds!"