Turning Corners?

My Dear Daughter, in all her almost-eight-years-old-ness, has developed a penchant for passive-aggressiveness, especially toward her little brother. If you're a mom, you know the kind I mean.... I'm talking about how she has this uncanny way of saying something to her brother under her breath or behind our backs or in just such a way that she knows will really get her brother's goat. The kind that allows her to follow up with overdone "innocent eyes" and an overdone, "What??!!!" followed by something like, "...all I said was that the show Zach wanted to watch on tv is a 'baby show'." And this really translates into, "You're a total stupid-head if you like to watch that show, so you'd better agree to watch what I want to watch." Dear Son knows that even if his big sister's words appear relatively innocuous, he senses that he's somehow been made fun, belittled, or manipulated. He doesn't have the verbal savvy his big sister has to express exactly WHY he gets so fed up in response to her, so he simply handles it by slugging her. Hard. Eight times in the face.

And some of the time, I confess, I feel like I really can't blame him. HOWEVER--we have been working on the hitting thing since the boy-child was about two years old. No consequence for this behavior ever mattered enough to short-circuit the brain pathway he had built around the idea that when his sister is subtly passive-aggressive or manipulative, the only way to feel better is to smack her. It's been a hard habit to break.

I've come down hard on them both this summer, deciding that it didn't matter if it cost them their entire summer if it had to; the subtle antagonizing and the not-so-subtle beat-the-crap-out-of-my-infuriating-sister behaviors had to stop.

I had long discussions with my girl-child about how she repeatedly sets her brother up to hit her. I had long discussions with my boy-child about how I know his sister knows which buttons to push, but that no matter how antagonizing she is being, it's not okay to haul off and deck her.

The kids lost a trip to play in the water fountains downtown and a trip to the water park another week, and still the rotten behaviors continued. Then one day I promised my little gamer boy-child that he could play Sonic on the Xbox after lunch that day, until I found out he had punched his sister in the face for annoying him earlier that morning. I looked at him sadly and calmly informed him that he was not going to get to play Sonic after lunch after all because he hit his sister, and that has GOT to stop. Whereas he was seemingly unfazed by the other lost privileges this summer so far, apparently this one hit home hard. He left the room silently, and a moment later I heard absolute wailing and sobbing coming from his bedroom. Even Daughter was caught off guard and ran to his side to see if he got hurt. It is not Son's M.O. to cry and wail when he doesn't get his way. He didn't throw a fit, he just sobbed like his little heart would never mend again. I stood my ground, sad as I was myself about the whole ordeal, stressing to the boy-child that he simply had to learn to stop hitting. Meanwhile his sister was impacted by how sad her little brother was and realized how she had again set him up. He asked her to stop doing something that was annoying, and she didn't. So he punched her in the face. I sternly reviewed with her how she is the older sister and how she behaves affects how her brother decides to behave, and how she repeatedly sets him up, blah blah blah blah.

Son, while absolutely devastated over losing Sonic for the day, was very well behaved the rest of the day and the next morning, and I rewarded him with an hour of Sonic that morning. Not an hour after he got to play Sonic, he hit his sister again. It was out of habit. He didn't think before acting and when I called him on it, it was like he hadn't even realized until that moment that he had hit his sister and thus blown it again. The consequences weren't pretty. The kids lost all summer privileges again for a few days. It was sobering for them. I emphasized how their summer is passing them by while they choose to treat each other rottenly.

And that was the last time such behavior happened. It's been 11 days with no bickering, passive-aggressiveness, hitting....My kids have become delightful to hang with. We've gone to the regular park and the inflatable park with friends and tomorrow we plan to have fun at the fountains with friends. Even just hanging around the house with them playing Go Fish! and Checkers has become enjoyable. I'm hoping (albeit cautiously) that we've finally turned a corner.... Hold your breath!

A New Era

I think we've entered a new era. I haven't figured out the mystery of how Time can pass so quickly and leave you feeling like you fell into a back hole...dazed and confused, spinning wildly out of control, and strung out like spaghetti noodles.

I have a love-hate relationship with FaceBook. I'm not going to go too far down that path, but just far enough to say that as I've reconnected with high school classmates that I haven't seen for 20 years, I'm struck by how...middle aged...they generally look. And you know what that means.... I obviously look middle aged as well.

As all of you already know, I have two children. Two. I clearly can't handle more than two; they kick my butt everyday. My girl-child is 6 1/2 years old. I frequently notice lately that she teeters between two worlds. In one, she is still a little girl, crying way too easily when she cannot get her winter coat to zip or when she bangs her head or stubs her toe. In this world, she still wants me to do so many things for her...tie her shoes (even though she knows how to do it herself now), hug her and kiss her when she falls down, read her bedtime stories (even though these "stories" are chapter books--currently the fifth in the Little House on the Prairie series). In the other world, she thinks she's already 13. She inquires when she will be old enough to have her own cell phone (when you are 30, Dear Child!), wants to dress fashionably, hang with her "friends," and skip off to class without giving me a hug and kiss good-bye when I take her to her homeschool c0-op.

I know that little-girl-world is going to continue to fade at breakneck speed and give way to a big-girl-world. Today, as I watched her silently from a distance, I saw the last 6 1/2 years pass in my mind's eye, and I dared not let myself consider how fast the next 6 1/2 will also go.

My boy-child is four years old now. We hold him and cuddle him sometimes like he is still a baby. I don't know how much longer we will get away with this; we know this is the last baby we will have, so I guess we are making it last. Yet I can't deny the fact that my "baby," who just turned four years old, is now writing the entire alphabet and numbers to 10. He still wants to be held sometimes even though he is nearly as big as a five year old, but his pleas to "hold ya!" are fading and becoming less and less frequent.

Watching my babies grow up so fast creates a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. Yet, in all my "middle aged" glory, I am growing tired. As much as I grieve the loss of Time to that black hole, I have moments now when I feel ready for my little ones to grow more independent. Guilt crowds my conscious as I admit that I'm ready for them to both be able to put on their own shoes and zip their own coats, dress themselves, brush their own teeth. And yet, even as I say the words, my heart aches with the knowledge that once we finally pass all those milestones (daughter has passed all of these particular ones already) they will be gone forever...like Time sucked into that block hole. Gone.

I'm ready for my kids to handle more complex chores around the house, loading and unloading the dishwasher, vacuuming the floor, heck...I'd settle for them picking up after themselves without me reminding them to! The other day I actually looked at my precious little boy child and told him how glad I am that he is my baby, and how exciting it is that one day he will be big enough to mow the lawn by himself.

I guess my girl child is not the only one with a foot in two different worlds.

Is Mommy "Special"?

"Daddy," said Dear Son last night, "is Mommy 'special'?"

Dear Husband snickered a good bit before he replied that yes indeed, Mommy is 'special.'

Last night we went with the kids and my parents to a Japanese steakhouse to celebrate my birthday. Dear Daughter likes to go "order a volcano." There's really no ordering involved; it's just part of the hibachi grilling show at your table. But let her think what she wants. She refused to use the chopsticks with the rubber band and had to hold them the "real" way. She did a better job than I did with them. Dear Son mainly just liked the noodles! He actually did pretty well eating them with chopsticks. It was nice to get my dad out of the house as he's been ill since before Christmas.

This is always a fun and busy time of year right after the holidays. My birthday comes, followed not quite a week later by our anniversary (it's going to be Lucky 13 this year!), followed less than two weeks later by Dear Husband's birthday. After all that neither one of us cares too much about Valentine's Day a few days later. Not that I remember ever caring about Valentine's Day that much before we met or got married. You may remember that I've posted my opinion on that one before: It's a "stoopid" holiday. But as "stoopid" holidays go (Halloween comes to mind), Dear Daughter loves it. That means we have to recognize it at our house.

My creative juices are rather dry lately by the time I pour all I've got in to managing the kids' schooling and my career. We are currently reading the biographies of Louis Braille and Beethoven, and we are halfway through The Long Winter. It's the fourth or fifth book of the Little House on the Prairie series. We began the series last fall, and Daughter will be sad when we complete it.

I'm also busy teaching Daughter piano and guitar. Since I never learned how to play guitar myself, we are learning together. Of course, the piano part is a no-brainer. I'm sure if we continue on the homeschooling path, Daughter will be enrolling in the local homeschool orchestra in another year and a half when she reaches the minimum age of eight. She wants to play the harp. LOL! Whatevah! We actually saw someone downtown the other day wheeling their harp, in a black case on some sort of dolly, across the street. I pointed out to Dear Duaghter that this would be her fate if she chooses the harp. As a pianist all my life, I often asked myself why didn't I learn the piccolo? Especially after moving my heavy acoustic piano across the country and back and more times between than I can count!

We are pretty well on track with our homeschool goals for the year, but it has taken discipline and creativy and, of course, time--lots of time. In addition to piano and guitar lessons, Daughter is reading Amelia Bedelia books easily now and doing triple digit addition. She can tell you about the Declaration of Independence and the Revolutionary War and the journey of Christopher Columbus. She's learning to recognize the works of Beethoven and develop respect for a musician who was deaf when he wrote some of his symphonies. She can label the instruments in an orchestra and where they are seated in a typical orchestral seating arrangement. She can explain how sound waves work and what happens between the time they enter our ears and get processed by the brain. She has learned how to draw with chalk and blend colors and become a part in a dramatic play or interpretation. She's learning how to look up scriptures in her own Bible and can even read them herself in the new Bible she got for Christmas.

And Dear Son is writing letters and numbers now. While he doesn't spell yet, he places letters together and asks me or his big sister what they spell. He loves to "do school" and play games on the computer and draw robots and Iron Man.

While I've had trouble lately finding much time to blog, or read blogs that I used to follow more regularly, I most certainly can see the evidence of what I've been doing instead, and I believe it's been time well spent.

Moment of Truth

I opened my eyes to the rising sun this morning and looked to see if the familiar yellow curly head was sharing my pillow. Admittedly, I was pleased to see that it was, and I snuggled down into the blankets and as close to his little body as I dared, lest I wake him. I lay there gazing on his angelic sleeping face for a few moments and fought the overwhelming urge to kiss his cheek. And then I couldn't resist any longer, and I kissed him every so lightly. I wondered what a little curly yellow haired boy dreams about as I thanked God for the gift of this child who turned four years old today.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

What a precious four years. And how quickly they have passed. The dear one still allows me to hug and kiss and love on him. When it gets too much he says, "MOMmy!" but his tone tells me he really isn't complaining; he just notices how very much I love him, and I'm pretty sure he rather likes it because he hugs me back as he says it.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

He sighed in his sleep and pressed against me a bit, and I felt his little hand curl around my arm. Those irresistible little hands and fingers that I can't resist kissing. My heart swelled so full that I was sure it would explode from my chest.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

"Do you know how much I love you?" I ask him regularly at random when his preciousness overwhelms me. "SOOOOO MUCH!!!!!!" he answers. And don't you forget it, sweet boy child. Don't you ever, ever forget it! Not even when you are 38 years old. And then I imagine for a second what he will look like when he is 38, but that thought is too much and makes my heart heavy with ache. When I finally came to terms with him turning two years old, I begged Time to stop right there. It didn't, and so I watched him grow to three years old and told him often how that was quite old enough. Today as I hugged and kissed him and held him tight, I whispered in his ear, "I just can't believe my baby boy is four today!" and he whispered back, "I still feel like I'm three!" Thank God," I said to us both. After all, I'm in denial as well.

Because It Makes Me Feel Better

I've been wanting to post for quite some time now, but the stuff of Life has raised barrier after barrier against my time and mental state. At times I feel like my children's lives are slipping by right before my eyes. The weather is threatening to change, and has had its moments of cooler temps. So much so that a pair of jeans has occasionally snuck back into the kids' wardrobes. First it was Dear Daughter who exited her bedroom one morning fully clothed and ready for the day. ...Except that the jeans she had pulled out of her drawer and onto her body were no less than three inches too short for her now. That very pair was actually a bit long on her early last spring.

The next week it was Dear Son who decided sport a pair of jeans. His ankles we exposed beneath the hemlines, making him look like his nickname should be "Stretch."

I looked upon them with that irritating ache in my heart and that queasy feeling in the pit of my gut. I couldn't deny the fact that it happened again: my children changed and grew and transformed yet again as if right before my eyes. And where was I when it was happening? Such big changes. Too big not to notice until the next season begins to arrive. I considered throwing all the jeans in their wardrobes away, allowing me to perhaps stay in my state of denial. They could just wear shorts all winter, couldn't they? At least I wouldn't notice their legs growing longer by the day as their hemlines crept up their ankles.

Dear Daughter loves to tell people she is six years old now. It's really not hard to tell by the gaping hole in the front of her mouth where the last lost tooth used to reside. And Dear Son. I still delude myself that he is a baby. His curly head still has that sweet baby smell. Dear Daughter lost that baby smell some time ago. Now her head just smells like hair. Ick. I don't know what happens that turns a sweet smelling baby head into stinky scalp, but I suppose whatever it is, it's a milestone marking the end of an era forever. I squeeze my little boy every day, burying my nose in his precious yellow ringlets and breathing deeply that sweet little boy smell--dreading the day that it no longer smells so baby sweet. I plead with God, please don't let this baby grow up the way You let my first baby grow up! But I know better. And so I deny it by calling them my "babies" anyway.

Dear Son asked me one day why I call them my "babies" because they are not actually babies anymore. I told him it's because it makes me feel better.

Death to Elmo!

Dear Son was into Elmo oh so briefly. The sentiment was gone by the time Son reached the ripe ol' age of 2 1/2 years. While anything and everything Elmo has generally been banished from the house, a hooded Elmo bath towel remains. I grabbed it last night after Son's bath and popped it over his head before he knew what hit him. As soon as he realized, the protest began, "Ohhhhhhhhhhhh! I HATE Elmo! I hate Elmo because he doesn't involve GUNS!"

Transformers have LONG outlived Elmo in this little boy's favor. I think Transformers have enjoyed a year on the pedestal so far. At the moment, the boy (in his 3 1/2 year old big boy status) covets a Bumble Bee helmet and blaster gun more than anything else.

I think I should have at least kept that 28" Elmo doll around for target practice!

Milestones and Random Jibberish

I dared not speak up until now for fear I'd jinx it, but Dear Son has now (finally!) successfully gone an entire month with only one or two poopy pants accidents. He had regressed back to peeing in his pants once he got the pooping in the potty thing down, but he has proven himself enough for me to now trust him wearing his superhero underpants all the time except overnight and on long outings. Who'd have thought that my second born would be three years and three months old when he finally reached this milestone after my firstborn had it down by 20 months? I've heard it's a "boy thing," so that's our excuse.

And Dear Daughter reached her own milestone today, which would be riding her bicycle without training wheels. She can make it all the way down our 250 foot driveway and back on her first day wihtout training wheels. If I can figure out how, I'll post a video. This milestone evokes a combination of pride and bittersweetness inside me. I don't remember if I was five years old like my daughter when I first rode a bicycle without training wheels, but I remember the day it first happened for me. I blogged about it a couple years ago.

I may have pics from Dear Daughter's dance recital last Saturday once I get them copied off Dear Mom's camera. We thought our camera was not working (which we discovered just before the show) and so we did not get any pictures on it. Fortunately we got some on my mom's camera. Now that the recital is over, our camera is working again. Go figure.

At five years of age, Dear Daughter has completed two years of ballet and tap dance lessons, a year of piano lessons, learned to ride a two wheeled bicycle, and completed the first grade in every area except Language Arts--in which she is working at second grade level. It's a bit overwhelming for me to remember that just 6 years ago she had not even yet exited my womb and entered this world!

I'm way behind on things like blogging, which is why my posts are so random and scattered and few and far in between these days. I've intended to post about Grandpa and Grandma M's visit from Oregon for a week or more now, but I've wanted to include some pictures with a post. The problem is, I do all my work from my laptop and most often from the upstairs level of our home even though the office is in the lower level of our home. The pictures are housed on the downstairs desktop and accessed via wireless network on my laptop. Whenever I consider getting the post done, it is usually late at night when I'm finishing some work in bed with my laptop. If I decide I can keep my eyes open long enough to do the post, I realize I still can't because the downstairs desktop is turned off. This means I cannot access the pictures. While I may have enough energy to do the post at that wee hour, I don't have the energy to walk to the furthermost room of the house on an entire different floor to turn on the desktop. I've even spent a couple hours here and there in the downstairs office a few times in the past week or two and not managed to remember to turn on the desktop and nab the pics while I'm down there. So, in the amount of time it took me to explain this, I could have gone downstairs to turn on the desktop to the get pics, but it wouldn't really matter because once again I do not have time right now to do the post. It's also getting late and I need to get the kids to bed.By the time I complete that task, I will either forget about the blog post again or I will have too many other things to cram in before I can go to sleep myself tonight, and blog posting will just not be a priority anymore.

I wonder what it's like to be bored?

I Guess He's on "Boy Time"

Before I explain, I have to admit that I got confused by the instructions (no big surprise there, huh?). You see, I was tagged by Ed at Zoe's Dad for a really fun meme. Only, I couldn't figure out what the sixth file in a person's "documents" had to do with the sixth picture. I didn't have a sixth picture in my "documents" file, and I couldn't figure out what to do with the sixth document either. Sooooo...instead, I went to my "pictures" file and chose the sixth one. This happens to be a pic that I considered blogging about a couple months ago, but decided against it. That was apparently a fortunate choice at the time, or else this post would have been redundant. First of all, here are the rules of the meme:

1. Go to your documents
2. Go to your 6th file.
3. Go to your 6th picture.
4. Blog about it.
5. Tag 6 friends to do the same.

Here we go....

I did not realize how easy my Dear Daughter made potty training seem until my Dear Son reached his own right of passage. Dear Daughter sat on the potty relatively patiently by 18 months of age. She was fully potty trained in a single day by 20 months and never had an accident. Really.

As most things go, I did not fully realize the precociousness of my daughter until my son entered the picture. Since I had not spent much (ANY) time around babies or small children until my own came along, I did not know what was "normal." Apparently whatever "normal" is, it is NOT my daughter. She spoke in clear, full paragraphs well before two years of age. She knew her entire alphabet and counted to 20 by twenty months of age. She also knew all her colors (including brown, peach, and other more "exotic" shades), and shapes (including PENTAGON and OCTAGON) at this age and could sing several nursery songs correctly from beginning to end --including Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, the ABC song, and Jesus Loves Me. Really. I am not exaggerating. I have many witnesses who will vouch for my honesty in this, and lots of video footage to back me up as well.

Dear Son is not dumb by any means, he's just not precocious like his big sister. He knew all his colors (especially BROWN, which he originally defined as "turd") by two years of age as well as all his shapes (the standard fare here...I'm pretty confident he does not know pentagon and hexagon), and somewhere around two and a half we was able to count to 10 correctly. At just-turned-three years of age, he can sing the "ABC" song and get it mostly correct. He's no dummy...but as far as I can tell, he's much more in line with typical developmental abilities.

This, I dare say, is also apparently true about the potty training thing. Around two years of age we began the training thing.... I figured we were late to the show as his sister had this mastered well before two years of age. We gave up relatively shortly with Son, realizing he just wasn't ready yet. I started reading books about how to train boys and asking LOTS of people how they trained their boys. Nearly EVERYONE told me that their boys were not trained until three and half years. "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" was my response. When the first mom told me this, I just thought her child was an imbecile. When the second mom told me this, I figured she didn't pay enough attention to her child or get involved enough in his little life to train him properly. When the third mom told me this, I began to get very worried.

At two and a half we tried training Dear Son again. He would not always agree to sit on the potty, but after several attempts one day with no luck, Daddy arrived home from work. I suggested Daddy put Son on the potty, and wouldn't you know it. Not ten minutes after Daddy walked in the door from work, there was a turd in the potty chair. Dear Son has been a die-hard Daddy's boy for the past year and a half, so it made sense that Daddy got the turd and not me.

SIX MONTHS LATER we are STILL trying to wrap up this potty training thing with him! We are at the stage now where Son will pee in his Peter Potty training urinal every time we ask him or require him, but he has only ever ASKED to go about twice. His code is usually, "My ding dong hurts." What can I say? Yes, I am responsible for teaching him to call his boyhood a "ding dong," but I didn't necessarily MEAN to. I called it that once in some conversation we were having regarding his parts, and it apparently stuck. In that split second, I just couldn't bring myself to say the "p" word to my child. I have no idea why, but it just felt wrong (not that "ding dong" feels quite right either). But I digress....

Son got into a rut. While he would pee in the potty and frequently stay dry in between, we could not seem to get him to sit through the symphony long enough to complete the second "movement." Going into Halloween we started to get all these junk mailings with costumes and Halloween paraphernalia in them. The kids loved to study them. Son loves to play dress up and has an infatuation with costumes. So I stashed a few magazines in the bathroom and bribed him with these when I wanted him to sit long enough on the potty. Sometimes it worked. Other times Dear Husband and I simply grew weary of sitting in the bathroom for long periods of time analyzing Halloween costumes while waiting for the elusive turd to finally show up to the party (it rarely did).

The picture? Don't blame me, it was the sixth one. And anyway...doesn't every doting parent snap at least one pic of their potty-training child on the potty?

Who's up on my tag list?
1. M&M at Maternal Mirth
2. CaraBee at Land of Bean
3. Serena at Zip 'n' Tizzy
4. Riahli at My Life with Boys
5. Nyssa's Mommy at Julie, Cameron, and Nyssa's World
6. Whoever reads this and would like to play along (insert your name here)

Three of the Best Years Yet!

I can't really explain where I've been lately, because it's all been a blur, and quite frankly I don't remember anyway.

BUT...I do know that since my last post we have put up the Christmas tree, a specimen that is more attractive than last year's, I have baked some Christmas cookies with the wee ones, and we have celebrated my second born's third birthday. And yet, if I thought the past several months have been a blur, I can't even begin to explain what happened to the past three years.

On the eve of my second born's birthday anniversary I reminisced the hellish experience of nine months of pregnancy during which my body packed on an extra 50 pounds, I got an average of two hours of sleep per night, and I sweated non-stop like a fat man in a sauna (even when it was 10 degrees outside). I also experienced the typical flashback memories of the three days of excruciating labor pain and three sleepless nights I endured followed by the final decision of my doc at 2:30 in the morning that my boy-child must be born via the "slice and dice" method after all. Turns out his nine pound 23 inch body was too big to enter the world the way nature intended. I began to have PTSD reactions in memory of my first c-section experience as I was wheeled down the hall to the OR. Both my husband and my mother had been at my side for every minute, but now I was alone as the ceiling tiles whizzed past me overhead. They would join me again shortly dressed in OR garbs complete with funny shower cap looking hats and shoe booties. Then I overheard my doc talking with my mom (who is a labor and delivery nurse in the same hospital) about perhaps knocking me out with a general anesthetic as there may not be time to numb me up well enough for surgery. We were waiting on the anesthesiologist to arrive, but couldn't wait any longer. My son needed to enter the world quickly.

The anesthesiologist arrived just in time and drugged me up nicely for surgery. He was attentive to my anxiety and gave me an extra little "cocktail" in my IV to help manage that. Meanwhile, I was trying to hum myself into oblivion, but it wasn't working. I couldn't remember how any tunes went, so it was just random humming fueled by nervous energy. My son came out squealing and the medical staff squealed with him with cries of how big he was. The process of stitching me back up was long one punctuated with narration from my doc about nicking my bladder during the surgery and adding another stitch to manage that, and how the scar tissue from the previous c-section slowed the stitching process. Then the flipping and twisting and turning of my body while I was numb to my neck and unable to move. I remember being turned and left a few minutes to stare at the bucket of blood that was apparently suctioned from my body. It was a nice final touch to the whole ordeal.

Then to recovery. Alone. Dear Husband went home to take a nap and tend to Dear Daughter, who was 2 1/2 at the time, and I waited for the screaming bundle to be returned to me following his bath so that I could try to forget the fact that I had been sliced across my middle an hour previously and that my body was still numb from the chest down and I still could not move my legs. The exhaustion was so intense that that alone gave me the urge to have to throw up. Somehow I had to nurse my newborn and change his runny diapers despite my own misery.

I then traversed some memories of the lasting pregnancy battle scars that are my forever evidence of what I endured to give this child of mine life. These include the extra ten pounds that have never come off, probably due at least in part to the hypothyroidism this pregnancy also left me with, and the other ongoing hormonal imbalances of too little progesterone and too much prolactin. The only good news as far as physical scars go, is that I escaped it all without a single stretch mark. Not that I'm sexy enough to sport a bikini or anything like that, so it's not much to brag on.

But the best evidence of this whole experience is the sweet boy-child that I have the privilege of holding in my arms every day. The child who tells me sweetly how beautiful he thinks I am and who tells me, "Mommy, I love you!" and offers me kisses for no particular reason. The child whose impish chubby face I wake up to every morning because he still insists on climbing into our bed in the wee hours every morning. The child whom I can't imagine my world existing without, and the child who was worth every bit of the challenge and trauma I endured to get him here. He is healthy and happy, and I'm blessed beyond words. He is infatuated with superheros (especially Spiderman and Ironman) and guns and robots. He is all boy and makes a great contrast to his Princess of a big sister.

I don't know if my wee-est child still qualifies as a "baby," but I've a feeling he'll remain my "baby" even as he turns thirty someday. He pined for a Darth Vader birthday party this year because he developed a mysterious infatuation with the character several weeks ago. And so we indulged him. We enjoyed having Grandpa and Grandma H and Great Uncle Ron and Great Aunt Pat help make it special. While we wish we could have included Grandpa and Grandma M and my children's cousins, whom they've never met, we are well aware that Oregon is a very long way away.

Happy Birthday, Sweet Boy! Thanks for being mine!

The End of a Season

I backed the lawnmower out of the garage yesterday with a tad less enthusiasm than in the recent months. The sun was warm on my skin, but not as hot as in previous weeks. This time it didn't feel like my skin was going to melt off my body. The two hours of mowing before me felt a tad more like drudgery and tad less like the escape it felt early in the season.

The sun had a different angle to its glare. It hung a bit lower in the sky and seemed itself a bit tired of the long hot summer days. There was a hint of fall in the air. I'm almost afraid to believe the dog days are gone for the year as the weather has a way of surprising around here. As soon as I believe, we'll have triple digits into October.

For now, I try to enjoy a day at a time with temps only in the 80's and the air conditioner getting an extended, and much deserved, break.

We've packed a lot into this summer. A few weeks ago Dear Daughter said, "Mommy, how come we're getting to do so much fun stuff these days?" and that made me happy to hear, as I wanted the kids to have fun and remember the days of freedom we had that I know won't always be there as they grow up and into more and more responsibility.

We discovered the fountain at the downtown city park. It's been there for a few years now; we just haven't been there to check it out. We live a considerable drive from the downtown area. While I worked downtown during the construction of this particular park, I don't anymore. And so I had lost track of the development. The city fountain was established with the intention of serving as a wading area and a place for the kids to cool off in the heat of the summer. It also serves as an outdoor amphitheater with permenent seating and the fountain area itself doubling as a stage when the water is turned off. The kids were instantly in love with the experience!

If you get there at the right time of the day, the fountain will boogie with the music every ten minutes for a two hour stretch. If you don't catch the beginning beat of the music, which serves to alert that the fountains are about to geyser, you'll still know it's time when you see all the kids flocking to the water spouts! They never seem to miss those first beats that pound out the warning of what's about to come.

We also braved the movies this summer. Or I should say, I braved the movies--WITHOUT Dear Husband, but WITH both kids in tow. A local theater does a free summer series each week. Dear Daughter had been pleading for awhile to go to the movie theater. We saw the VeggieTales Pirates movie. The theater was as I expected: a madhouse packed with whining and crying kids and mothers that all seemed quite weary despite it only being ten o'clock in the morning.

We made it plenty early, yet by the time we got our popcorn (Daughter insisted) the theater was already filling up and we had to climb over several people already seated to get to the empty seats in the middle of the row. Dear Daughter was in Heaven. She nestled into her seat with her bag of popcorn clutched in her hands and crunched and grinned her way through the entire movie. She was mesmerized by the massive screen and the sights and smells of the whole experience. Dear Son enjoyed the first fifteen minutes or so before he began saying, "I wanna go home!" It was just as I predicted. I chose this particular movie as I thought it held the greatest odds of holding his attention all the way through. He's a big Larry the Cucumber fan. We managed to make it through the entire thing. It was an experience I could have done without, but it brought so much joy to my Dear Daughter, that it was worth it.

We also discovered the new indoor inflatable fun park this summer. Dear Daughter was in Heaven again. She ran excitedly from jumpers to slides to climbers. This place was also a madhouse crawling with kids. Dear Son didn't know what to do in this environment, and it was an interesting experience to see Dear Daughter being quite independent and running here and there when it seems not all that long ago she clung to me as closely as her little brother still does.

We also made it to the "big pool" a couple times this season. They installed a new child-sized water slide, perfect for Dear Daughter's age. We went for the last time of the season last night. The evening swim times costs less and is less busy than the daytime hours. I wasn't sure Dear Daughter would enjoy herself all that much as the air has already begun to cool, especially late in the evening. I thought she would be too cold.

I staked out a lounge chair where I could watch her with an eagle's eye. She talked me into the water once, but it was too cold for me, and I don't really enjoy swimming all that much anyway. Getting in the water with her means that I follow her in circles as she walks laps around the two-foot depth area and splashes in the fountains and down the slide. So I decided to see how she did with me watching from the sidelines. I also watched the young lifeguards flirting with each other and thought how much I wouldn't trust them to notice whether my daughter was drowning or not. From the looks of things, they were too busy thinking about all the fornication they would be doing later when the pool closed than about saving lives.

And then I thought of my kiddo who took her life this summer. She had just become a lifeguard for the first time this summer and she loved her new job. It's been a month and a half now since she left the earth. I wondered again why she did what she did, and our various encounters over the weeks and months before she left flashed through my memory. I let my mind wander through those weary thoughts of what signs she gave, if any, that she would eventually take her life. A colleague once pointed out to me that hindsight is much like watching a movie for the second time. You already know what happens, so you also know to look for those things that you had no idea about the first time around.

I was glad to have my thoughts interrupted by the woman in her fifties who sat in a lounge chair on the other side of the pool from me and watched my daughter with delight. I knew what she was thinking, because I was thinking it too, as I watched my little girl splash and play and then dance to the music thumping over the speakers. She lifted her arms about her head and wiggled and then turned and stuck her rear out and wiggled it too. She didn't even seem to notice that anyone was watching her. I couldn't wipe the smile from my face or stop the bittersweet feelings as I watched her every move as she splashed and played. I thought how beautiful she is. How innocent. How happy. I studied her little cheeks, which still hold a touch of baby in their roundness. I thought of how she will be officially starting Kindergarten in our homeschool co-op group despite the fact that I've already schooled her through Kindergarten and she is academically ready for first grade. She'll still be the youngest in her Kindergarten class.

Despite her readiness to formally start Kindergarten, I'm not ready for it. It's a milestone that holds so much in its meaning. I'm not yet ready for her to know the real world, and I don't think I ever will be. I don't ever want her to know the pain of being teased or rejected by a peer. I don't want her to grow up self-conscious about her body and striving to have the impossible figure and physical appearance that the media of our culture forces on girls and women. I don't want her to learn how cruel our world can be. I want to protect her from everything bad and evil and from the kinds of things that ultimately drove my just-turned-sixteen-year-old client to take her own life. While I know I can do many things to protect my little girl and prepare her--things like instilling in her a deep knowledge of her value and worth in the eyes of her Creator, and that her Mommy and Daddy love her no matter what, and what it means to be a good friend and to respect authority, and to love Jesus more than anything else, and many other such things--I still know that I can't save her from all the pain of this world.

She's going to grow up. She IS growing up. And there's not a darn thing I can to do stop it.

When it was time for her to get out of the pool, the sun was nearly set. She was chilled as I wrapped her in her towel and then in my arms. I hugged her close and dried her off as she chattered about how much fun the "big pool" is and why were they picking up all the chairs and when would the pool be open again. I helped her pull on her terry cover-up, and I pulled her into my lap and squeezed her tighter, willing the world to just stop as I whispered in her ear how much I love her, and that she is my dream come true. And when I realized that the world hadn't stopped, and the sky was still growing darker as the sun set, we climbed in the family mobile and watched the moon rise orange in the sky and marveled at its beauty as we drove home in awed silence.

On Friday evening, we dismantled Dear Son's crib. It was time. He's been asking for a big boy bed for awhile, and even though he's been ready, I haven't. Taking down the crib symbolizes yet another milestone in his own growth and growing independence. While it's foolish to even imagine that I can control the passage of time by dragging my feet on issues like taking down the crib, I still find myself grasping like this. Dear Son was excited, and he did a little boogie around the room as we assembled the pieces that were to be his "big boy bed." The first night he lasted in his big boy bed until 4:35 am before he found his way in the dark to our bedroom and climbed into bed with us, wedging his wiggly little body between us. He hasn't spent an entire night in his new big boy bed yet.

For now, I feel that's okay as I succomb to the lie of the illusion that physically holding him close will somehow be enough to stop the passage of time.

"Boo Boy"

The bittersweet is back. Son likes to be just like his sister, and so he has recently decided that he want to play with play dough at the table while sitting in a booster seat just like "Sissy." I purchased one for him that is just like his sister's (to avoid the battles they tend to have over who gets what when) and we used it a few times when he wanted to do play dough. We've still used the highchair for meals. Tonight, however, Son asked to use the booster chair at dinner time. He looked so precious sitting up at the table in a regular chair. I asked him if he thought he was big stuff and commented wistfully that he is getting to be a "big boy." He replied, "Yeah! Boo boy" and repeated throughout the meal that he is a "boo boy." I felt that knot in my stomach that always means that I am about to be required to come to terms with how fast my babies are growing up.

Boy Stuff

Dear Son absolutely LOVES tractors. He has this Little Tikes one that he has figured out he can wedge his butt in between the bar on the back of the seat and the smoke stack on the hood and then pull himself around the house on it with his feet. We think he needs a larger one to ride on, what do you think?

It's interesting for me to watch the gender differences Son displays from his sister at this age. Son is ALL ABOUT lawn mowers, heavy equipment, power tools, tractors, dump trucks, and bugs and frogs. Daughter never thought twice about any of these things at his age. She liked to wear hats and jewelry and carry matching purses everywhere she went. I'm not aware of encouraging either of them towards stereotypical roles and have tried to encourage them in whatever they are interested in. It's intriguing to consider how they develop these gender differences in their preferences.


Here's Son on the big ass lawn mower. I'm thinking we oughta let him take on the task next spring.

Point of Reference

I've been curious lately about what life was like when Daughter was the age Son currently is. So I paged back in this blog to June '05 to see what I was writing about her when she was 22 months of age. Since she was my first child, I didn't fully realize just how precocious she was (and still is). My friends with their own children this age or nieces and nephews this age told me Daughter was a "genius." The workers in the church nursery told me she was the smartest baby they had ever seen. I didn't really know what they were talking about. The only baby I'd ever really known was my girl.

At 22 months, she was correctly labeling all the primary colors as well as orange, pink, brown, black, gold, etc. She could also consistently count to 5 correctly and some of the time count to 10 but tended to get 7 and 9 mixed up. She consistently knew that 11 and then 12 follow 10.

She knew all the major shapes (circle, square, star, triangle) as well as oval, rectangle, and even pentagon!

It was around this time that she began completing her entire wooden alphabet puzzle in a matter of minutes, though she didn't yet say all the letter names and instead referenced them by the phonetic object for which they stood (i.e. the letter "h" was called "hat").

She could sing, "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" correctly from beginning to end and excerpts from "Lullaby and Goodnight." And before turning 23 months she was potty trained.

Son is no dummy, to be sure. However, he doesn't get the same intense one on one tutoring that daughter got simply because she was the one and only at that time. At not quite 22 months, he correctly identifies and verbalizes circle, square, star, triangle. He can do about 8 letters consistently correct with this alphabet puzzle. He's just begun to speak in sentences and "near sentences" that are more like two word phrases. He hasn't begun to sing words yet, but sings little melodies of nonsense syllables (thanks to a goofy habit I have when I'm just about the house). He correctly identifies the colors yellow and orange and sometimes gets blue, green, black. He wants nothing to do with the potty except to say, "potty!" when his sister goes and to squat on his stool and pretend to potty. He won't squat on his real potty, though. If I try to place his naked buns on his toddler-sized throne, he stands rigid and screams "Britches! Britches!" until I put his britches back on.

He does have a wicked overhand throw, which is something that Daughter didn't grasp until much later, and he is trying to jump, which looks more like a squat to a quick stand followed by the stomping of his foot. He's been doing this for months.

While he is still very much on track, I feel a bit guilty like I've been neglecting him in relation to the focus Daughter got on a constant one on one basis. She always wanted to learn and chose the activities that centered around cognitive development. I just followed her lead. Son has too many distractions. There are far more toys between the two of them than there were in the house when Daughter was his age. Now I have two to chase around, and my attention requires division. I haven't failed, I know that. Daughter is a prodigy of sorts, and it's not fair to compare--not that it would be fair if she wasn't a prodigy of sorts. And I understand that girls tend to be much more verbally advanced while boys tend to excel more in the motor development at this age. Nevertheless, I have to battle the little voice in my head that says I am not nurturing his cognitive development enough...especially after reviewing the reference point that started this whole guilt trip, though a guilt trip was not at all intended.

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I got to hold Dear Son tonight until he fell asleep. I got to feel the weight of his body against my chest and feel his sleepy baby sighs. I got to feel his little toddler-sized muscles relaxing and twitching and hear his tiny breaths grow deeper. I got to smell his baby smell and feel his fuzzy hair against my cheek. His contentment to simply be held was warm and comforting for me. I couldn't help imagining a day when his tiny little body is no longer tiny, but tall and solid and larger than my own, and so I held him a little closer and a little longer tonight and focused on being thankful for such moments as these. His "little" body is now big enough that it is quite difficult to lift him, while sleeping, over the crib rail. His feet dangle low and bump against it. And he is heavy enough now that it is quite difficult to lay him gingerly against his mattress. Instead, it's a bit clumsy and awkward. Nonetheless, I cherish the moments that will soon evaporate into distant memories.

Son's Sentiments

Thanks to everyone who dropped me a validating comment or email or other communication in response to my previous post. I appreciate the support and disclosures of having "been there." Motherhood is a roller coaster. Some of the time you are chugging to get to the top of that hill all the while feeling that anxiety in the pit of your stomach that comes with knowing you are on the brink of plunging back down to the bottom. Then you are whipped around a bunch of curves at breakneck speed before you can see what's coming, only to find yourself chugging up the hill again. It's a wild ride full of thrills, you can't prepare for it, and it's never boring. It's anxiety provoking, stress instilling, and unpredictable. And once you start the ride, you can't get off until you either reach the end of the rail or plunge to your death in the midst of it. Some days it's a difficult decision: whether to ride it out or just jump.

Now, back to the monkey business.

He's talking. Really really talking. Sentences are beginning to spew from his little lips. About three weeks ago it began with an excited greeting at the end of a long day, "Mommy home!" followed by running into my arms and wrapping all his appendages around my body. It's a great way to end a long day at work. He also says, "Daddy home!" of course, but we already know he worships the ground Daddy walks on and Mommy is an okay second, so let me glory in my glories here.

Other sentences include "More choklit!" which is really not about chocolate at all, but about the dried and sweetened dates I recently bought that he calls chocolate. Of course this is generalizing to "More (you fill in the blank with endless options)." "Mommy, hold yas!" is another one, accompanied by arms held up in the expectant pose.

Vocabulary, in general, is bursting with communications such as "Happened?" which of course means, "What happened?" "Why?" which he has been asking about pretty much everything for weeks or maybe even months. Of course, this originated with his just-turned-four-year-old sister. "Aha!" is also a recent one that he got from his sister. It is used in the context of finding some neat random "treasure" lying around the house, as if he just found the single one thing that he's been searching his whole little life to find.

And Daughter? Well Daughter is 24 lessons into the Kindergarten math curriculum we just started roughly four weeks ago. She is complaining to me that this stuff is for younger kids as it is too easy for her. She is also starting to read. Am I bragging? Yeah, I guess. But only because she comes up with this stuff on her own. I don't push her, I let her lead, and I nurture her in the directions she goes. And she won't be allowed to start Kindergarten in the local public school until she's six because she misses the age cutoff deadline by three days. Not that I expect the public school system to challenge her much regardless.

So cut me some slack; it's been awhile since I bragged on my kids. If you're not doting family, you can roll your eyes and yawn.

Life Interrupted

"It's stressful being four!" Dear Daughter announced today on one of her outings with Dear Husband. Indeed. Being the parent of a stressful four year old is frequently no picnic either! I think this is payback for the fact that the two's really weren't at all terrible for us. It also explains why I've called my husband at work on at least two occasions recently and begged him to hurry home ASAP following his workday, and why when he arrived I was found curled up in a fetal position in the corner mumbling unintelligibly and appearing unaware of anything around me. Of course, Dear Son, while cuter than a bug's ear, is at a stage now that I remember being stressful when his big sis was there, too. So I get it double duty.

Amazing that in spite of the stress, I find myself waxing melancholic about the kids growing up. Last night I pulled a safety plug from an electrical outlet so that I could plug in the vacuum cleaner, and I had this overwhelming ache in my gut when I thought of how a day would come when I would no longer need to plug electrical outlets as Dear Son will outgrow his fascination with attempting to plug random objects into them.

Tonight I had my second private jacuzzi bath since moving into our new home. Usually I have to share my bath with two naked, wiggly monkeys. There I was soaking in the jets, enjoying the cranberry orange scented candle light, listening to an ocean CD while gazing at a picture poster of Heceta Head lighthouse. I felt a little home sick for a place that wasn't ever my native home. I closed my eyes, lost in the memory of my first date with Dear Husband. We sat on an ocean cliff in front of Heceta Head lighthouse and watched the sunset. Way better than dinner and a movie any night. I suddenly felt like I wasn't alone in the room, and I opened my eyes to see my four year old daughter grinning down at me, followed by her begging to allow her to join me in the jacuzzi. I convinced her to let me have my own bath time for awhile and she could have hers a bit later. I settled back into my daydreams only to have the bathroom door slowly open again and found myself greeted by my fuzzy haired, towheaded cherub of a 21-month-old son, who toddled up to the edge of the tub and started yanking at his clothes and chanting, "Bath! Bath!" Somehow I convinced him to also leave his weary mommy alone for awhile longer, and he toddled back out the door, closing it carefully behind him. I sighed with the mixed emotion of coveting those long-lost carefree childless days, years even, of wandering along the rugged Oregon coastline-just my husband and I-while simultaneously thinking that there is nothing better in this world than parenting my spirited four-year-old and adventurous 21-month-old despite the dramatic way it has altered our lives.

And with that, I'll boast a few photos of the stress-inducing darlings.

As you can see, "Princess Four-Year-Old" continues to sport her birthday crown two months later. It goes on her head at sun up and doesn't come back off until her head hits her bedtime pillow. People ask her daily if it's her birthday.

I must share a picture of Dear Son sporting his strong overhand throw. He already throws better than I do, and he loves to throw a ball and chase it and throw it again.






















And where DID he get that towhead blond hair anyway? Husband and I both sport a head full of near black.


One last photo I couldn't resist taking today. Husband was getting a little extra help changing the oil in the family mobile.

Holding His Own

Dear Daughter has a way of aggravating her brother. I catch her grabbing him and poking at him sometimes just to hear him whine and complain about it. Dear Son has figured out some ways to hold his own. I've caught him with his mouth open going for some skin--any skin--that his teeth can find on "Sissy." But a few days ago Dear Husband witnessed something new. "Sissy" was annoying "Bub," and apparently the Bubster had had enough. He went across the room and found his plastic toy bat and marched back across the room and whacked her one.

Guess he showed her!

Hanging On!

Is it just me, or is the 20 month mark a really trying age? I seem to remember this being an especially challenging time with Dear Daughter, but at the time I thought I was overstating things a bit as I was also just entering that stage of my second pregnancy where the hormones begin to RAGE!

Dear Son has always been a hot head. At five months Dear Husband and I thought Dear Son was teething something fierce as he would randomly scream and bang his head on the floor. We kept loading him up with Teething Tablets and Tylenol. Then one day my mother said to me, "Ya know, I don't think this is a teething issue. I think he's throwing little fits!" Throwing fits?!?! At five months of age?!?! And ya know what, I began to really pay attention to how these little rages came about with Dear Son. And ya know what else? I realized that my mom was right. My sweet baby FIVE-MONTH-OLD little boy was already throwing fits.

Anyone who has ever known my boy child knows he has him some strong opinions and he is entirely comfortable showing them. At twenty months his vocabulary is exploding, but he is not at all proficient at verbally expressing what it is he wants. Screaming and stamping his feet seems to be a good second option, at least as far as he is concerned. If his wants or needs are not catered to pronto, there is heck to pay. He is quite focused and does not redirect easily once he gets something in his head.

The good news is that I can end each exhausting day saying, "But at least you're cute!" And thank the Big Man for that one! His mile-wide toothy grin, infectious giggles, and slobbery kisses somehow melt me to the point of reassuring him that I'm convinced enough to keep him for one more day.

Keep bringing on the cute, Kid...it's the one thing that keeps me holding on some days.

Back to the Regularly Scheduled Program

Happy Happy Joy Joy! Happy Happy Joy Joy! (Wasn't that a line from Ren and Stimpy?) I had 18 whole hours of bliss when I caught up on my work at about midnight on Monday night. I felt lighter than I've felt since about thirteen years ago when I boasted a size 4 on my 5'9" frame. Then my Tuesday work marathon began, and I am now no longer caught up. At least now I'm just back in the routine groove that goes along with this field of work. As a colleague once said, "You can never get caught up! Especially when you are a Medicaid provider!" The paperwork is sheer madness. But I can now breathe and function again at a level that is growing closer to the normalcy I enjoyed back in the day. Did I say normalcy? Boy am I deluded!

All I have to occupy my time now beside the routine of my career are two wee ones, a couple pieces of furniture I got the bright idea to purchase at Wood You in order to save some money by finishing them ourselves (Husband's reply was "Oh good! More projects!"), making window curtains and valances, and the list of--oh about three dozen things on the "Honey Do" list that I feel the compulsive need to oversee. Husband loves being "supervised" even more than he loves the list itself. So the way I see it, that makes us a good match for each other. HA!

As for news in the world of motherhood, after lunch today, Dear Son brought an ache to my heart at nap time. We've really gotten off the routine we were in before the disruption of this move. Now I have no idea when exactly Son will be ready to eat or sleep or poop. Yes, back in the day Son even had a poop routine. Apparently he tuned in to the fact that I like to run a tight ship! At any rate, I really wasn't picking up on his cues today. I was cleaning up the kitchen after our lunch of spaghetti, applesauce, and cherries. Son insisted on having a cherry whole, which he kept calling, "ball!" He held it up by its stem and grinned at it for a couple minutes. I watched him like a hawk, sure that he would try to eat it whole and choke on it. I left the table for a millisecond to get a paper tower to clean up the spaghetti splatters that somehow made it a good 15 feet across the room. In that amount of time, Son had bitten into the cherry and smeared cherry juice all over himself and his highchair and was fishing in his bib for something. I simultaneously noticed the pit missing from his cherry, snatched it from his bib pocket and managed to distract him with the idea of an ice cream cone before he could scream about the fact that I had just stolen his most prized possession. Meanwhile, I considered hooking up the garden hose at the kitchen faucet and just hosing the whole place down.

Since I ultimately decided against the garden hose idea, it took a good amount of time to clean the kitchen up after the bright idea of serving spaghetti yet again to a 19-month-old monkey. Ya'd think I'd learn after going through this a time or two. Actually, I have learned. I'm fully aware of what I'm getting myself into when I serve spaghetti. It's just that Son LOVES him some spaghetti, and because I am a deluded and doting mommy, I continue to give it to him. By the time things were partly cleaned up in the kitchen, I had to abandon the task to deal with both kids doing the dueling poop thing again. I swear they plan these things just to plot against me. Daughter is getting good at managing her bathroom needs pretty independently, but she HATES to be alone and frequently requires an audience. If she doesn't get one, she insists on saving her trophy by not flushing and insisting that I take a look at it before we send it to septic heaven. I just knew I wasn't going to get Son's pants changed while Daughter did her business without a big meltdown. Once poop chores were completed, I decided to push ahead with Son's nap time routine of stories, but he started fussing and pointing to his crib and crying for "Lam-Lam" (his favorite stuffed animal, which is a lamb, of course). I got him "Lam-Lam" from his crib and tried to coerce him into stories. He kept pointing to his crib. I scooped him up and he put his chubby little palm to his lips and kissed it (his way of blowing kisses), which his routine these days at nap time and bed time. I felt sad because I wanted to snuggle him. Especially after his simply ADORABLE gesture of blowing kisses, which gets me every time!

I left his bedroom amazed at how easy he can sometimes be and reminiscing at how Daughter has never been easy a day of her life and would never have gone down for a nap like this. I would have to hold her until she was sound asleep or she would scream every time I tried I to put her down. If I put her down anyway, she would scream forever. Forty-five minutes into this routine, I would go into a room by myself and scream for awhile too. Many were the times I expected the neighbors to call Children's Protective Services on me and I imagined losing both my child and my license to practice therapy. You would think I would feel pure and simple relief at Son's nap time behavior, wouldn't you? While I was satisfied at the easiness of it, I felt that familiar old bittersweet ache in my heart. It felt like a preview to the day when he reaches an age that he won't want me hugging and kissing on him at all. I know that day will arrive way too quickly. I returned to the kitchen to finish cleaning up the mess with a little less indignation in my heart as I reminded myself sadly that this too shall pass one day.

"Butt-fry!"

I've been feeling like I have a permanent hangover these days, and it's not because I'm drinking a bottle of wine every night. It must be because I'm doing well to get six restless hours of sleep each night, commonly interrupted by Daughter, the Drama Queen, who cannot find her beloved Taggie Book that is twisted up in her sheets at 3 am. Or because she needs help going potty in the middle of the night. Or it could be because Son also recently came down with the barfy flu that Daughter just had a week ago, and although he did well overnight (all things considered), there were still a few incidents of waking up heaving stuff into his bed and filling his pants with poo.

Good news is that we have no roof repairs, and the sale of our house is on as scheduled. Other good news is that in addition to the profit off the sale of our current home, our new house appraised $25,000 above the sale price. We are going in with a generous amount of equity.

I'm hanging on, if by a thread these days. The packing is not going as quickly or thoroughly as it needs to. The wee ones don't make the process easy, especially when barf is involved. We sign papers Thursday morning and start moving Friday. There probably won't be any new posts for awhile.

Also, the forecast calls for MORE heavy rain for the next few days. We are already way too wet with way too much rain this season. If we do get lots of rain, I don't know how we are going to move all our stuff into the basement of our new home, including the entire room of new furniture (and a queen sleeper sofa) and the extra refrigerator. We planned on the 26' moving truck being able to pull up on the grass to make it easier to reach the basement through the basement entrance. I'm too stressed to think about the implications of what we may be dealing with if we continue to get rain.

Other dumpage...I tackled our .34 acres with the push mower last night. We always push mow. I needed some stress relief, and I figured it would be good exercise. It was really hot, and I thought I was going to completely melt away. As I pushed the mower and jammed to Casting Crowns (via Dear Husband's MP3 player--a birthday gift from me last winter), I pondered how many people we see in our subdivision riding around on tractor mowers in their postage-stamp-sized yards with their fat asses hanging over the seats. Husband and I are always appalled at this At .34 acres, I am certain we have the largest yard in the entire 350+ house subdivision we live in. Yet we may very well be the only ones pushing a mower while the rest of the neighborhood bounces around on their tractor mowers with their love handles waggling, struggling to turn around in their 10' by 10' patches of grass. Unbelievable. No wonder Americans are so fat! What happened to good ol' fashioned blood, sweat, and tears to get a job done? Part of the exchange of me mowing the lawn last night was that Husband agreed to first clean up the dog crap piles that Woolly Mammoth Dog continues to deposit. This leads me to the next "dump" (pun intended)...

This morning as I was loading up the wee ones into the family mobile to deliver them to Grandma's, I caught a strong whiff of dog poo. It's hard to know if it's just wafting over in the breeze from the crap bonanza next door, or if Woolly Mammoth dropped another doozer in our yard. I felt my blood boiling as I sighted the offending fresh pile next to our driveway. I've tried to confront The Neighbors about this, but they always run the other way when they see me (hmmm, wonder why?) I've called animal control (there's a leash law in our city). I've knocked on the door and requested them to clean up the crap piles in our yard and to keep their dog confined--to which I received a sheepish apology followed by willingly cleaning up the crap piles. Come on, people, aren't these messages strong enough? At least he finally mowed his lawn for the first time since Mother's Day.

I ended my work day feeling barely able to move. It's either all stress related or I'm getting my own turn with the bug the kids have each had. The best hope is that it's a fast-moving one. Son was back to near normal in less than 24 hours.

I'll end my brain dump with some more cutenesses, compliments of my sweet little boy. He is adding about three or more words to his vocabulary daily. Recently he added "fre fry" (french fry) in honor of the Ore Ida Crunchers I bought for the first time because I had a good coupon. He was all about them the first time he tried them. The second time he saw me get them out of the freezer, he started going nuts, "Fre fry! Fre fry!" He wouldn't stop until I stuck a frozen french fry in each of his pudgy fists. He scarfed them down frozen and pointed relentlessly at the oven while continuing to exclaim, "Fre fry! Fre fry!"

He also started to wave his little hand around and say, "Fry! Fry!" (fly). He is apparently imitating his big sister, who has a spasmodic episode every time a fly comes within 20 yards of her. She waves her hands like a child gone mad while screaming, "Shoo!" at the top of her lungs.
I don't remember if I stated previously that Son is also saying "Bloon" (balloon), shoes, "dow" (down), on, off, and most recently (and my current favorite), "butt-fry" (butterfly). That last one pretty much sums up how I look and feel these days.

Daughter also made me smile recently when we were heading home after running errands. I looked at her in the rear-view mirror, and her head was cocked to the side and her eyes closed. "You asleep back there?" I asked. Daughter responded (with eyes still closed), "Nope. I'm just thinking. I do my best thinking with my eyes shut!"

Indeed. I'm about to pop some Tylenol PM (first time in over a week), drag my "fried butt" to bed, and do some of my own "thinking" with my eyes shut.

Knee Deep

My stress levels are off the charts these days. After a solid week of being unable to sleep without assistance from artificial substances, I am now finally sleeping again. Or, I should say, I am finally falling asleep again without help from artificial substances. Only now I snap awake in the wee hours of the morning and feel as though I've gotta get up and DO something. UGH! Neither of the above sleep disturbances actually happened over the weekend, but both Saturday and Sunday morning when I finally got to bed at about 1 am, Daughter decided she needed to be up at 6:45 am (and that Mommy and Daddy needed to be up with her). On the weekdays she frequently sleeps until 8:30am, of course.

Currently, I am knee-deep in boxes and puke, but since I managed to get caught up a bit on paperwork, I'm only about calf-deep in that right now. Daughter has apparently come down with a stomach bug as she carried on the tradition last night of puking at my parent's house on Father's Day. Two of the three Father's Days that we have celebrated since Daughter's birth have involved Daughter throwing up at my parent's house. The first year was when we discovered her peanut allergy after she had a wild reaction to a taste of cheesecake that had peanut butter in it.

Daughter has not had a throwing up illness in over 2 1/2 years. She's actually only been sick about one time in the past 2 1/2 years, but the other time was a nasty cold. Fortunately, she is a neater puker now, which means she can aim, and we've caught most of it in a wastebasket. Fortunately also, we escaped having puke in the car again as we were held up at my parents' house last night while Husband worked on building them a new computer. I had wanted to leave about 15 minutes before the puke event happened (and before we had any inclination that one would happen at all). Good for us that we were not in the car. Bad for them, as it happened on their carpet...and you know that the first round of a good puke-athon is always the biggest. I'll spare you any further description and just sum it up by saying that I'll be loaning them my steam cleaner ASAP.

Meanwhile, the moving plans are going fine except that we are not finding any time to get packed. I've compromised packing in the name of catching up on some paperwork. Now I'm really feeling things starting to close in on me. Also, we just ran into some glitches in the way of house repairs that the buyers of our house want us to fix for them, per their inspection. As part of their request involves fixing apparent hail damage to the roof, we are hoping they end up being minor. *sigh* I have a hard time believing there's hail damage to our roof as we park our cars outside and there has never been any hail damage to them. We'll be getting some roof experts to check this one out. We seem to have bad luck with roofs, as a big fiasco happened with the roof of the last house we sold. But that's another story, and I haven't time to digress that far today.

Oh, did I mention that in the mix of all this stuff, Husband got rear-ended in the car by some Bubble Head? The damage is minor, but we still have to make time to have the car in the shop for a couple days and deal with all the hassle of getting estimates, making phone calls, talking to her insurance, etc. in the midst of all the other business we are trying to tend to.

Furthermore, our weather pattern is starting to reach the nasty point in terms of hot and muggy. It's been suggested (even demonstrated) that violent crimes go up with hot weather and that 92 degrees is the ideal temperature for violence. Folks, our heat indexes are running around 92-98 degrees these days. I've mentioned in previous posts that I don't like hot weather. I don't like it so much, that I've thought myself capable of violent crimes. When the weather is too hot and muggy AND my overall stress levels are soaring, I really oughta just be locked up behind bars, as the potential for committing Harry Carry is great.

I'll end the random brain dump on a sappy note. I recently posted about Son's growing vocabulary. He's added a few more words in the past few days, but the coolest thing is that he is now correctly identifying the colors "lello" (yellow) and "blew" (blue). He's also taking the edge off my stress level by playing the most adorable renditions of hide-and-seek with me, which involve crawling around on the floor and ducking behind furniture and boxes. He also seems to think that he can effectively hide by just buring his face in a pillow or a giant bean bag chair, and since he can't see you, he assumes you can't see him either. It's so cute to watch his crooked little run as he works to keep his balance and hustle behind something to hide while he squeals and looks over his shoulder at me. Then his little "chicken head" pops out to see if I am looking for him. Wish I had a picture to post of his fuzzy little "chicken head" covered with fuzzy blond hair that is getting long enough to stick up all over.

And since I started out talking about puke, this is a good place to end.