The tribulations of 5 y.o. boys April 18, 2008

The boys frequently “suffer” from morning erections. It seems they do not care for the experience and, well, what do I know – it’s outside of my realm of experience. I just try to act sympathetic.

So, this morning DS2 is at the breakfast table, having significant trouble waking up (as usual).  He starts the squirming and whining which usually means he wants the under-the-cupboard kitchen light that he faces when sitting at the table turned off because “my eyes aren’t awake yet”.

Nope. When I ask him if he wants me to turn it off he says “no. I just hate it when my penis yawns.”

It was really very difficult to keep myself from laughing hysterically at his discomfort.  Well, not the discomfort as much as his interpretation.

You know that stage December 9, 2007

where the parent knows, essentially, nothing. And then sometime later on in life the parent gradually gets pretty smart again. Typically sometime not long after the child is out on their own and having to actually fend for themselves. Doesn’t every parent / child pair goes through this to some degree for a number of the teen years – maybe even into the twenties?

Well, I suspect I might reach that “gawd, Mom. Don’t you know *anything*??” stage a little sooner than I might have expected with DS1 – my little brainiac. I actually first realized this the day he came home from first grade and gave me a pop quiz on the 5 types of vertebrates. I did not do so well on that. But I was reminded of this suspicion recently when we had this conversation. Again, driving home from school – usually the time of day when all his mental circuits are cookin’ with gas and mine are mostly just fried.

Him: Mom let’s play guess the animal.

Me: OK. you think of one and I’ll guess

Him: OK, I got one. (waits for me to guess)

Me: Well, you’re going to have to give me a hint to narrow it down a bit (thinking to myself “or this is going to be one loooong guessing game”)

Him: It’s microscopic.

At this point you could just go ahead and picture me with a blank look and a big cartoon-like question mark floating over my head. An orange one.
Me: well, how about an amoeba.

Him: Nope. Guess again.

Me: Well, actually, I can’t really think of anything else it could be that would be microscopic.

Him: (big sigh) OK, well, I’m not sure if it’s exactly microscopic. It was zooplankton.

I guess sticking to something one might find at a zoo or a farm or in the jungle or the forest would just be too easy.

Reason for not going to sleep #42 December 3, 2007

DH put the boys to bed about an hour ago. I go out to the dining room to do some work at the table and hear the telltale noises of small feet that were in bed a minute ago and are now in the hall. Looking over, sure enough, there is DS3 peeking with one eye into the kitchen from the hall.

Me: What are you doing up?

DS3: I can’t sleep

Me: How come?

DS3: Because my brain is talking to me too much.

LOL

As I type this, he just appeared in my office doorway. I guess the Christmas music / glow stick / my special teddy bear that is off-limits for playing with incentive plan has failed. We will now move to “take your pillow and lay on the couch and try to fall asleep” musical sleeping spots game.

Any odds on whether this child ends up in my bed tonight?

I’m a slacker mom and I don’t care October 15, 2007

<sung to the tune of Jimmy Crack Corn>

So, it’s finally cool enough to play outdoors without coming inside every five minutes saying it’s too hot out. That, and the first day I can open the windows (without dying) are when I declare it to be the Official Best Day of the Entire Year.

It is with enormous pleasure that I announce that day to be yesterday. So, today is Monday. All the boys have homework (yes, even the 4 y.o.’s in preschool have homework. What, exactly, is this world coming to??). I sent them out “for 10 minutes” to play while I cleaned up the kitchen so we could then have everyone do homework in an environment that didn’t closely resemble shambles.

Well, it’s been 45 minutes. They are out there playing and laughing and shrieking and, most importantly, NOT fighting and bickering. It’s 30 minutes till bathtime and we haven’t eaten. Or even looked at the afore-mentioned homework. And I don’t care. I think sometimes you just gotta let the boys run. Bedtime will wait. Homework will get done at some point.

If I weren’t a slacker mom, I would care about bedtime schedules and work before play, and being consistent and making sure that 10 minutes means 10 minutes etc. But I am. So I don’t. Tomorrow I might. But right now, I don’t.

I guess twice in almost 8 years isn’t too bad October 6, 2007

That’s how many times I’ve seen a child of mine with blood running down their face. I’ve been a parent for almost 8 years (mind-boggling as that fact may be). Today was only the second time I’ve witnessed a child of mine come screaming through a doorway with blood pouring from their head / face. Horrifying as it is, I suppose with 3 boys I should feel fortunate that it hasn’t even been once per kid. Strangely enough, the one (DS2) that I’d think the most likely candidate for this sort of thing – given his general wildness and complete lack of caution, is the only one who’s never (yet) bled profusely.

This afternoon, I was summoned with “you have to come see our super-cool big weighing scale” one minute to “Moooooooom, <insert shrieking here> [DS2] hit me! <more shrieking>” 4 minutes later. Just long enough for me to get back into my bed and back to contemplating whether or not today might actually be the day I die – DH was kind enough to pass along whatever it was making him sick last week. So, I thought the complaint and shrieking was the usual sibling scrap variety of which I am disinclined to mediate – even when I’m feeling fine.

Then I hear DH mildly freaking out so I get up to go look. There is DS1 with him and DH holding their hands to DS1’s head and the blood is dripping and running down their hands and arms. Since DH has DS1 (and I don’t want to freak him out by me freaking out) I follow the trail of blood to find the perpetrator. Only he’d run away to hide on the backside of the house.

The trail of blood led to the site of the “cool weighing scale” which was a long board balancing on a toy garbage truck with just the right combination of broken pieces of concrete block on each end to make it balance with neither end touching the ground. I finally found DS2 and got the story. Apparently, despite having been told, collectively, at least 14,349 times not to throw rocks (etc.) at each other, DS2 had a moment where it seemed like a great idea to throw one of the concrete block pieces over the scale. The fact that his brother was sitting there in the line of fire, did not seem to have occurred to him. Ah, impulse control. One does not truly appreciate that quality until one deals with 4 year olds who do not possess it.

We finally got the bleeding to stop. It looked pretty bad – kinda like a hole in his head up on the “top corner” but he started to freak out in earnest when I suggested stitches so… I guess he’ll just have a scar. He seems fine now, after laying down for a couple hours. He practically passed out on me when I was getting him cleaned up. And I’m happy to report he had the good sense not to bleed on the living room rug. Also, happy to report that I have one more reason to love my Benjamin Moore Regal Matte paint. Dried blood just wipes right off it. Just like wiping it off the tile, and the tub and the counter and the laminate floor. I this we’ll need more rain to get it out of the driveway, though.

The Riding Bike on Two Wheels Fairy September 25, 2007

Yup, you read that correctly.  Apparently, the tooth fairy has a much less-well-known cousin.  This fairy, like the tooth fairy, leave money under pillows also when this important milestone is reached.   Interestingly, if two boys reach this milestone the same day but one does significantly better that the other, this fairy seems much more of the capitalist sort than it’s more  socialist cousin.   This fairy will leave 3 quarters for one boy and 1 quarter for his brother who gave up easily and went to watch tv rather than sticking with it till he could start by himself, ride the length of the drive, turn around by himself and ride back (“and I didn’t even have to put my feet down”).   The one quarter brother may then collapse in dramatic fashion while announcing the unfairness of being rewarded on the basis of what you actually do.  At least until he remembers he’s got a shiny new quarter and he should to seeing how far it will roll, how long he can make it spin, etc.

If anyone is wondering why they’ve never heard of this elusive fairy cousin, I have insider information that this fairy only makes it’s appearance in houses where there is a big brother who is entirely convinced of his role as third parent.  This, of course, leads me to believe that this said big brother knows exactly what the deal is with the tooth fairy.  Of course, being the capitalist that he is (just like the fairy that shows up where he is) he’d likely play along and great convincing fashion till he was 18 if there’s free money involved.

Right now July 10, 2007

I have 15 minutes left of paid babysitter watching the kids so that I can get some work done.  Work, which I am ridiculously far behind on.

 But I’m not going to work.  I’m going to put my feet on the desk, close my eyes, listen to the itunes and soak up all the peace and quiet before re-entering the chaos zone.

The problem with clever kids July 10, 2007

is that you may find yourself losing a game of Scrabble Junior (yeah, the one that the grownup playing really should be able to win…) to a 4 y.o. and a 7 y.o.  I like to think of myself as a reasonably smart person.  In order to preserve this idea of myself, I may need to stop playing games with them once they are in the double digits.  Or maybe I’ll just stick to the games of chance

Shh, don’t tell Daddy July 3, 2007

Tuesday is pancake morning.  No one is going to let it go by.  Well, OK, DS2 and DS3 do not generally keep track of what day of the week it is.  DS2 in particular.  He still asks me at least 4 times a week if tomorrow is a school day and he’s been out of (pre)school since June 1.

But DS1 knows.  And one simply does not cancel pancake morning.  So, this morning I realize there is no syrup.  I could swear I put the bottle in the fridge at least half full very recently but, as we’ve previously established, my memory sucks. 

We do, however, have some of that chocolate syrup meant to top sundaes.  At this moment, post breakfast, we have significantly less of it than we did about a half hour ago.  It was a hit.  I’m probably going to pay for this in the long run.  A price will be exacted for this little parenting improvisation.  The currency will be pestering.

They may turn darker shades of brown later today as I’d already given them large cups of chocolate milk when they got up because it expired yesterday and needed to be used up. 

Remarkably, there is peace in the playroom even with all that early morning (well, morning, anyway)  chocolate consumption.  Which is more than could be said yesterday after a healthy breakfast.  So, I guess chocolate really does have magical properties.  Not that I didn’t already know this.

A fun getaway with a remarkable after-effect June 21, 2007

I must try really hard not to procrastinate indefinitely a real post on our trip.  For the moment, it will have to suffice that it was a 4 day wonderful getaway to visit DH’s sister.   It served well to remind me yet again of how much easier life is with a 7 year old and two 4 year olds vs… well, vs. anything that came before in the parenthood-of-three phase of my life. 

The point, at the moment, though is just that right now, at 10:45 DS1 is still sleeping.  (Of course, I’ve felt compelled to check for breathing about 8 times already.) 

I, myself, slept till after 9:00 when DS3 – aka Mr. Earlybird – strolled in.  Nine o’clock!  That is, like, the before-kids equivalent of sleeping past noon.