He's Sexy (and So Smaht)

Giant Four Year Old: can little kids have boyfriends?

Me: no, i don't think so.

GFYO: well that little girl up the street keeps saying i'm her boyfriend.

Me: well, she probably just means you are a boy who is her friend.

GFYO: i am a little kid and i do not have a girlfriend.

Me: but you have lots of friends who are girls.

GFYO: not really. but i am all sexy.

Me: Giant Four Year Old! please don't say sexy so much!

GFYO: but it is not a bad word like--

Me: like nothing. It is not a bad word but it's not really a good word for a giant four year old to be saying.

GFYO (thoughtfully): well, i'll just tell YOU i am sexy. SEXXXXY!

Me: PLEASE! No more!

GFYO: sexxy sexxy sexy sex!

Me: GIANT FOUR YEAR OLD! enough! (mumbled to self) where does he get this shit?!

GFYO: shiiiiiiiiit!

Me: NO!

GFYO: mama, you're my boyfriend.

Me: yes i am. now eat your lunch.

Everyone Can Touch Our Noodle

Vacation day three. Or is it four? Whatevs.

The kids have been mostly great but the fancy-pants pool club has me kinda stressed out. I am doing that awesome whisper/scream (the kind that implies you are calm yet stern) with a rapid fire list of demands kids hate: no running, don't drink the pool water, don't blow your nose in the pool, your dolphin noises are wonderful but could you please make them quieter, pull up your pants BEFORE you leave the bathroom, no more fart jokes, no more throwing flip flops at your brother.

Ah, the brother. The Giant Four Year Old is like a soaking wet bull in an elitist country club shop. His favorite holler in the pool, despite my nearly constant protests (for obvious reasons) is "help me I can't breathe I'm dying" about which I have now twice said to concerned onlookers, "he's ok, he just has an active imagination."

Mostly he just monitors the use of our pool toys. Should any poor kid dare touch our prescious crap, he alerts them (and everyone else in ear shot) that THOSE ARE OURS! And so I find myself in the awkward position of whisper-screaming unfortunate statements like the one referenced in the title. Because in case these strangers don't know, we are nothing if not good sharers.

Why I Married Him

Long weekend. Lots of rain. St. Patty's party. Do the math.

Giant FOUR Year Old in love with ride-on vehicle. Zooms from room to room. All the freakin' time.

It makes a horrible, terrible noise.

The girls are rehearsing a "show" for us with music so loud -- and bad -- it just sucks the air out of the house.

At countdown-two-hours to Sunday night bedtime, That Man erupts:

"OK" he says (very kinda calmly mind you).

"OK!" he says, a little louder, a little less calm: "I'm just done. We're all done. I think we've had enough."

Girls get it -- long rainy weekend and all -- and turn the speakers down. They know that the show is the bomb and why rehearse any more any way? It'll change a thousand times when they perform it.

But that boy? He zooms in on his car.

"You want quiet?" he says.

Giant Four Year Old screeches the "car" to a halt. He looks his giant dad in the eye with an amazing beyond-his-years sneer, makes a three-point painfully noisy turn and kicks ass outta there, tucking his heels up to zoom the whole incredibly cool way out, not before saying, over his shoulder, defiant chin up:

"I'll GIVE you quiet."

That Man, he looks at me, and he's laughing.

I know in that instant that he loves us more than I could ever have imagined, but I also know that he wishes that the Kid would've added, for comic perfection: "motherfucker."

And That Man is right: that would've been way more funny. Totally wrong and really bad, we'd both agree, but yeah, way more funny.

Her Pictures

Her Self Portrait

R stole my camera. I am thrilled she did. Her 6 year old self portrait here is better than anything I could take (or pay to take). This shot sums her up, and frankly, it sums up the me I want to be too, and actually, it sums up our whole damn week. Her other pics, hidden until I got home -- are from a 6 year old wack-job eye, but an eye, a way of SEE-ing, nonetheless.

(Is she not lovely? God. I swear, her childhood is such a fortune cookie to me.)

So now, we move on. Teeth or no teeth.

Homing Device

You know those things they sell in the Brookstone catalog, those little doodads you affix to your keys or remote control so that when you can’t find them, you click a button on the homing pigeon doodad and then those lost items beep-beep-beep until they’re located?

I need that.

I need that for library books, blankets, beloved tiny toys, American Girl doll hair brushes, and everything else that gets lost at bedtime. (Why does it seem that all this crap/really important stuff gets lost at bed time? WHY?)

Somebody invent that stupid thing right now. RIGHT. NOW.

And Then She Said

B: Hey, mom, is it weird when your feet hit your butt when you run?

Me: Um, no.

Me: Let me see.

(I tried it; running through my ktichen trying to make my heels hit my ass. Couldn't do it. Not even close.)

Me: It's not weird.

B: Is that why I was so slow running the laps at school?

Me: No! I think it was just 'cause you were talking too much, remember?

B: Oh yeah. HaHa, that was funny ---

Me: Not that funny.

B: (Pause). Yeah. (Pause.) You looked funny running.

How Not To Raise A Pacifist

That Man came home after three weeks in posh hotels with really hip people. He was home less than 24 hours before he left again, but this time, he left with us -- for a long weekend away to his inlaws he had no part in planning. It was the ultimate kid and family culture shock.

When the weekend ended and we returned to the picket fence again (after 11, yes eleven, combined hours in the car), he was accosted by my middle daughter's begging to find a "cool" game on the internet. He was tired, worn out, but he relented. (She's 6; he isn't.) I was happy that he was happy to do it: after all these days and endless hours, he still was willing to be involved. I dug into the piles of mail, boiled the water for more mac & cheese, and felt satisfied and good.

Not fifteen minutes passed when my gut got the better of me.

That Man: I'm not so sure you should play this game.

He shields the screen; he giggles nervously.

R: Why, Daddy? It's good you found this game! It's fast and it has BLOOD

More Teachable Moments (Not)

Early evening. Unseasonably warm night. Sitting on steps outside, breathing fresh air, sipping ice cold beer and recouping from the day at Jury Duty (more on that later). Giant Three Year Old bursts outside, animated and excited.

He: Mom! Mom! The moon!

Me: I know, I see it. Say hi!

Silence.

Me: He sees you. He’s seeing you! Say hi.

He: But he doesn’t have a face.

(Wait? Not everyone sees the face in the moon?)

Me: Sure there’s a face. See the two eyes and his mouth. See it?

(Thoughtful silence while looking at the moon.)

He (sheepishly): Hi moon.

(Pause.)

He: But, he’s – he’s not talking to me.

Me: Well, he’s too far away. Maybe he is talking to you and we just can’t hear him. But he can see you and you can see him. So it’s good to say hi.

He: Maybe he’s sleeping.

Me: Well, maybe.

He: Why is he sleeping?

Me: Well, I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know if he’s sleeping. Maybe he’s awake and not talking. Just say hi moon! Goodnight Moon!

(B & R clamor outside. Simultaneous chatter about who-knows-what, all urgent and extreme.)

Us: BLAH BLAH YADA YADA.

(Back inside to clear plates, pick up noodles off the floor, explain long a’s and long o’s, negotiate bedtime vs. TV time. etc.)

(Then, later...)

He: Is he snoring?

Me: What? Who? What? Who’s snoring? You mean the moon?

He: Is he snoring? LIKE YOU.

Me: I don’t hear it.

(He pokes head outside.)

He: OK. WAKE UP! WAKE UP ... DAMMIT!

Me: Nooooo, K, nooooo. Not niiiiice.

He (running away): HAHHAHHAHAHHHAAAAAAA!

Me (plaintively): But, but, it's the mooooon. We like the moon.

(Deep breath.)

Me: TIIIIIMMMMME FOR BEEEDDDDDDDDDD!

Ode to Teachable Moments

Late afternoon. SUBURBS.
My three children, discussing a group of foreign women:

B: They are not Spanish! They are Pork-e-gese.

R: They are wha? Por --? They are… what? Chinese?

B: No! Pork-e-gese.

R: Oh. Well, they sure are from another world!

B: Yep.

Giant Three Year Old: THEY ARE FROM PORK-E-GESE WORLD!
(Sword slashing for effect.)

R: Maybe that’s why they are brown.

Me: No! Wait! They are many people of all kinds of colors who are from this world, I mean, American -- people who were born here. All kinds of people, you know?

Silence. Awaiting meaningful teachable moment. More silence.


B: Well anyway, all I smell right now is grass. I think I might fart.

I Don't Want To Stay Here

As in, “Mama, mommy, ma – Idunnawannastayheeere!”

This has been the perpetual complaint, the perpetual wail in fact, of the Giant Three Year Old today. Apparently, time alone with me has lost its luster for him. His sisters were both out with friends; one will even be gone until morning on a sleepover. The extent of his adventures were a couple of neighborhood visits and a trip to the library. Apparently, it wasn’t enough. My face and this place are intolerable for him now.

(Just ask the neighbors: they were victim to his vocal opinion most of the day. I am grateful to live on a street where this nonsense passes with some sympathy. Afterall, the sight of me chasing the screaming wailing kid down the sidewalk, screaming “Idunnawannastayheeere!” might have alerted the authorities in some ‘hoods.)

His displeasure is nothing new really. In the past, he has found our car to be insufficient. He would prefer any giant truck, and since I would prefer a Mini Cooper, I feel his pain. Our house has also not met his needs – it is “old” he says, which is true, more than 100 years old in fact, but I think by old he is not expressing his genius in antique architecture, but instead implying that hanging out within these walls is passé. He’s over it.

He is a classic third child. He was born into a house of siblings – they were barely three and four when he was born – so naturally, he has grown up used to the constant presence of people in his life. As a result, he alternates between loving the game-playing and chatter of us and wanting to escape from it all. When the girls were home only three days after the end of school, he implored, “Why are they still here?”. Now, five weeks later, it destroys him when they leave.

He’s my riddle, such a funny joke, and I never know what to do or what to make of him. He can play for hours making voices for a million inanimate objects alone and wanting no one, or switch to the raging social monster of today, incapable of finding anything worthwhile that involves being here, alone with me or himself.

“Idunnawannastayheeere!”

That Man suggests a nap for him, which almost makes me choke on my ice coffee. I have considered locks on his door and used a host of bribes, but for the last few months that Big Boy will only snooze when we are in the car, about ten minutes away from Target or the grocery store or wherever it is that I cannot legally or ethically let him stay alone. Since I do prefer him alive actually and would rather not be splashed across the front page of the Globe or in jail, I haul his half-asleep ass out and carry on.

(Still, don’t you believe the world would think more kindly of the parent who left her sleeping baby or toddler outside the grocery store than the one who left her kid outside the Casino? Neither is good people, I get that. But c’mon: priorities.)

I digress, and that’s a good thing (and the strange and welcome benefit of writing it all down…)

I concluded this wretched day the way… well, maybe not the way some Professional Mother would, but the way I would. I threw some ravioli in a bowl and sent him to watch TV in another room. His eyes were still puffy from his most recent distress (having to leave the neighbors at 6:00pm – late by any standards I think) but he was quiet. In that moment, he was the beautiful green-eyed, long-haired, long-lashed hunk of a Giant Three Year Old that I love. He said “sanks Mom” for the grub, sniffled, and then squeezed my leg. It wasn’t quite sorry, but for now, with him gone and not screaming in my ear, I’ll take it.

I don’t care if he spills the food or if he eats any of it. Also, if he returns, food uneaten and whining for ice cream, I will, just for today, give it to him.

Sue me. I don’t fucking care, because today, after this day and the way I feel now, when I don’t really want to be here either, his ice cream eating might buy me the ten minutes I’ll need – to breathe, to remember he’s just three, to remember he is the last baby I will ever have.

It’ll be the ten minutes I need to find my way back to loving this shit.

Summer Bummer: In Six Acts

ACT ONE:
Morning, hot, approximately seven days into summer:

Me: We’re going to the pool today. After lunch, after errands.
Him: Where are we going?
Me: To the pool. Later.
Him: What pool?
Me: Same place you had swimming lessons, but outside.
Him: Oh.

ACT TWO:
During errands aka: wailing, whining, throwing-self-on-floor hour:

Me: You know, none of us will go the pool if you can’t pull it together.
Him: IWANTTHEPOOL!
Me: Get up then and let’s pull it together.
Him: Alright. I want the pool. (Sob.)

ACT THREE:
In the car, headed home for lunch and pre-pool prep:

Him: When are we going to the pool?
Them: After lunch.
Him: It’s MY pool.
Them: No it’s not; it’s for everyone.
Him: NO! MY POOL!
Them: No, K, everyone’s.
Him: MY POOOLLLLL!!
Older Them: Listen, it was your pool inside where you had lessons, but this is the outdoor pool and i’ts for everyone.
Him: Oh. I want it.

ACT FOUR:
Home, lunch which he doesn’t eat because he is too busy doing this:

Him: When are we going?
Him: I want to go.
Him: Are we going now?
Him: Let’s go now.
Him: IWANTTHEPOOL.
Him: Now?
Him: NOW! (sob.) POOL!
Him: Is it my pool?
Him: IT'S MY POOL.
(Them: Whatever, dude.)

ACT FIVE:
In car, packed with towels, sunscreen, tabloids:

Him: WHERE ARE WE GOING????
Me to self: Oh for fuck’s sake, I taught him to talk for what reason?

ACT SIX:
Ten minutes at pool:

Him: I want to go home. I’m hungry.

Happy summer all.

They're Wicked Smaht, My Kids

R to B: I watched a movie in art today.
B: What was it about?
R: Um. Art.
B: Oh yeah? Mozart?
R: Yep.
B: I loved that one.

After They Come Home

Why does this shock me every time?

Why does it it amaze me in fact that within ten minutes of all three coming home, after seven hours STRAIGHT of all three being gone (the miracle of the post-pre-school playdate), in which I was so wonderfully accomplished, polite and cheerful, crossing off the items on my list with an upward, gleeful brushstroke, folding all their tiny clothes with love and ahhh, smells so sweet -- why does it amaze me that it is not only the silence of my house that evaporates (the kind of silence that I hate to shatter even with the sound of my own stinking voice), but also out the window goes any idea of order, of clean, of me being the woman I just was, NICE and SWEET and KIND and CALM.

But there I am in some kind of slo-mo dizziness each time they re-emerge from their lives without me, there I am in the middle of countless VERY IMPORTANT school papers (ie: recyclables) and gooey tops of fuschia yogurts, water gun damage dripping from the seat I just sat in, shouting the things I wouldn't have dreamed of shouting ten minutes before: "Speak one at time!" "You will know I am ready to talk to you when I look at you and am not shaking my hand in your face!" "No you can not do that -- probably ever," "Does anybody pay attention to anybody else in this house? I said never!" "Put it down; it's a knife!" "FLUSH THE DAMN TOILET!"

There I am, hands on hips, hands on forehead, hands making that shoo-shoo sign which is shorthand for leave me the hell alone for two seconds, in my twilight zone episode of motherhood, experiencing this which I have experienced so many times before as if I were experiencing it all for the first freaking time. Was the house really clean? Quiet? Was I ever nice to anyone ever? Was it all just a... a... dream?

On Boys: From Annie

She hasn't really met R yet, so I forgive her for the semi-sexist ending, but nonetheless, I found this reassuring -- my son, just three, has already broken two windows in my house -- and I feel for our poor neighbors almost every day:

"I have a lovely new neighbor across the street. His name is S.; he's around 50, single, n/d (no dogs) n/k (no kids).

We are a family w/d and w/k. S. very pleasantly informed me this morning that something was dangling from my third floor window, wrapped around a telephone wire and hanging over the street. "Just a parasoralophas (editors note: a dinosaur with a horn from the back of the head that made a trumpet type sound)" I said. "Batman's hanging out the back window and in fact, he doesn't fly. Just in the movies."

I make these matter-of-fact statements like I'm simply breathing. I've become oblivious to the faces of persons with n/d and n/k.

My middle son has intense curiosity for all around him. Why don't chickens bury their eggs like turtles do? What is different and what is the same? Beats me. All I know is that when I went to make breakfast there were no eggs in the fridge. Not ONE. They were indeed, buried in the garden and being watered everyday. I don't know what his hypothesis is, but I do know my yard is going to smell like hell at some point, probably soon (sorry S.).

There was the day I thought my son had head lice. I took him to a hairdresser/lice specialist, disinfected my home, laundered every single piece of bed linen, had all the dogs groomed and slathered all heads in pesticides. It was an unhappy day. Next morning, a girlfriend on the playground (in "the yard" as we call it) says, "So...how was it washing all that grape soda out of your sons hair? He was tossing it up like peanuts at the baseball field and trying to catch it in his mouth...sooo funny."

(Crystallized sugar looks like lice. Boy was under husband's care).

Boys LOVE my house. It is full of critters and the backyard is full of things you can just pick and eat in the summer. Beans and peaches and raspberries. Blueberries and tomatoes. There's a working well here and a hen house we haven't quite crafted for foul but it is great to lock other kids inside.

Other moms say, "They like HER house because she has no rules", but I do have rules starting with the Golden Rule. But I don't have rules about micro waving a marshmallow until it becomes the size of a loaf of bread. I don't have rules about rolling every inch of tin foil in a 200 square foot package to see how big it is, how much it weighs, how it dents when it is airborne. The experiments are endless. The curiosity is endless. Labrador retrievers, notorious for their appetites, will even eat a sandwich after you've urinated on it (hypothesis proved; please do not try at home).

My boys hate girls because they have to. They hate everything about them: Barbies, pink, ballet, dress-up, painted nails (all the things I am wistful for), but they secretly adored the girls who moved from Scott's house. My boys did not want them to move. I apologized in advance before he and the Home Inspector were hailed with mud-balls, and after, when coins (lots) were adhered to his driveway with bubble-gum.

S. picked up the coins, goo-be-goned them off and so, I guess, the jokes on them. Boys will be boys."

Doing Something

Today my son had a friend over, an official play date. My motherhood calculus worked like this: one three year old boy (in diapers) + one three year old boy (in diapers) = a small taste of the apocalypse. As it turned out, it was a marvelous day, one in which I got more done (and by that I don’t mean cures for disease or essays on philosophy, but organizing closets and drawers) than I have on any other day over the last three weeks.

The date concluded with a conversation between those two small boys, hands entwined, as follows:

C: “Do you like my new poos (shoes)?”
K: “I do, I do, sure. I love them.”

My two daughters never played with their friends like these cats. The boys needed no guidance from me. They listened to me. They listened when I said don’t crack the hockey stick against the glass door, or don’t drink the bubbles, or don’t smack each other’s heads with water guns on the trampoline. Every time I asked them to stop, they did. Like when I said don’t take apart the train table and don’t chew food and spit it out and laugh, because I get that that can be funny, but it’s not THAT funny.

It’s a new world for me with boys. When I pulled up to his driveway, C said “tanks for takin’ me home.” Like a drunken soldier, he was polite to the end.

My girls were so busy today – in the ‘hood and at Brownies, it almost made me miss them. I even had time, while discussing who would pick up who with a neighbor, to inquire as to the laundry detergent I sniffed on her kid: it smelled clean and good and I wanted some of that. We both admitted this was an utterly lame and embarrassing conversation, but I swear if we were ballsy enough we might have shared coupons.

I let all three stay up a little later tonight (7:30) as if they had earned some collective reward for not entirely pissing me off me today. When they were packed off in bed, I sent off another update about my 22 year old cousin with leukemia: it’s only been one week and two days, yet the list of people who care and want to know swells so huge. Her parents send me updates daily, which I add to in my own way and then pass along. I feel gratified to “do something” and am completely aware that there is little I can do.

It occurs to me that this feeling, this idea, this thought, sums up my life completely. I push “send” on the email button and I hope for the best.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

B is at her first sleepover tonight. She spent 45 minutes packing her bag, including a washcloth with a ballerina on it (wha?) and slippers. She literally fell out of the car, and then again over the strap of her bag, smacking flat on her face in their driveway, leaping up to announce: "I'm okay!"

Have you ever seen the movies with the pretty-spazzy-clutzy girl? She's her.

For the first time in 7 1/2 years, we don't have a crib in our house. Tonight, K is attempting to sleep in a real bed, rocket ship sheets and all. I would have kept him in the crib until he was 8, but I am hoping this move to a "big boy" bed will be the psychological push he needs into "big boy" underpants. Wishful thinking perhaps and the kiss of death to a good night's sleep, but while I am wistful for 7 1/2 years straight with a crib, I am not so much for 7 1/2 years of poopy diapers.

R has worn the same camo cargo shorts (from the Boys section of the Gap) for three days, changing into her shiny black soccer shorts only to sleep. Problem?

My in-laws came to visit today for an 8-hour "lunch". They wanted to see the kids, which I appreciate so much, but the girls spent most of the day running through the neighborhood, under-dressed (by their grandmother's standards, and mine too, I suppose, if I chose to wage that war) and were completely unimpressed by the visit. Gummy worms from Gramma lured them back inside, to which B said "Mom, you were right -- she always brings candy." And then the grandparents paid them for their report cards, and they wondered why we hadn't.

It is raining. P is leaving for a week tomorrow as I count down the days to the school auction I am running (on Thursday) and for which I have been insanely busy for most of the last 3 months and for which he will not be present. I wish I didn't have the "see ma! see me!" mentality still at 37 but I do, and it makes us both feel a little sad: I wish he could witness what I am trying to do. He wishes he could be around more. He is a good guy nearly always, despite consistently thinking my big event is on Wednesday instead of Thursday, and I know if he could he would be there.

So tonight while he coaxes a three year old ninja and five year old jock into bed for what will be the first time in at least three weeks and the last time in at least one more, and while my sweet little seven year old girl jumps on the bed at someone else's house, I sit downstairs, with the rain and the dishwasher pounding away, just trying to acknowledge it all, trying to act in the moment, so to speak.

Life is moving so fast! Does writing it down slow it at all? Probably not, probably no. But for five minutes, I do think about it, and maybe that's the most you can expect to get from life when you're living it. Five good minutes to realize that in the midst of change and chaos and everyday crap, while the world swirls on and your kids grow up despite you or because of you, you've got your five minutes, need to have your five minutes, to listen to your dishwasher and the rain alone and nothing else but your heart.

Bad Day

Raining, sleeting, awful -- exactly at the time I need to pick up R and her pal. I pack B (home sick day three) and K (we almost all three fall down the stairs) into the car and off we go. Drive around the school block a couple times, no parking and most of the downtown is flooded. It is now pouring.

I illegally park in the hill-y school lot, fuck it. There are about 12 spaces and I am happy to get the last one. Put on parking break, leave on car, leave kids there and go get Rory and her pal. Feet soaking before I get in the building (Uggs suck). Truck back out with R & A; wind now whipping, hair sopping.

Car not where I left it.

Has slid down hill and is lodged in snow bank. WITH KIDS IN IT.

Minivan has no oompf and won't reverse. No one helps. Cotton mittens useless when it comes to digging out wheels. Water freezing on my face. NO ONE HELPS.

Ease off parking break, tell 5 kids to be quiet, and gun it over snow bank, swerve down winding, one lane, ancient road and off we go.

Safe and sound.

Get home, go online, order two pairs of Sorel boots from Zappos and consider SUV.

Mac and cheese poured into bowls. Kids dig in. R says, "Mom almost killed us today."

These are the days I freaking live for.