How I Got in Trouble

We visited good friend and frequent commenter Patty last week for a play date. In between my marveling at my kids’ fascination with her toys and scrambling to pick up the food they threw at lunch, Patty and I had some quality conversation. My ears perked up when she mentioned that she had a new set of hair cutting equipment, complete with electric clippers.

I’m terrible about haircuts. Most people measure their time between haircuts in weeks. I measure my time between haircuts in months. I grow it long, cut it short, and repeat. That routine follows my belief in cheapskateness by minimizing the number of times I have to pay for a haircut. It also adheres to my aversion to sitting idly since I don’t have to waste time sitting for a haircut. As a parent I don’t know what to do with idle time anyway.

Our children are doomed to follow the same haircutting routine as their primary caregiver. I know it’s time to cut Abbie’s hair when the collected food makes it too difficult to brush her hair, or when her bangs cover her eyes and give her the Cousin It look. I haven’t figured out when to cut the boys’ hair yet, but I knew it was too long. I don’t mind if they have the surfer look, but they need to be old enough to care for it by keeping it pulled back. Their hair was cascading down all sides of their heads, and it was developing the same curl at the ends that my hair gets when I know it’s time for a haircut.

I asked to borrow Patty’s hair clippers, and she brought them down for us. I picked up the clippers and selected a setting* while Patty held the boys. I ran the clippers all around their hair, giving them the most even haircut I could manage. Patty then took the clippers and a pair of scissors to fix the style I inflicted on them. The result is they went from this a week ago (Tory is in the foreground, Ian is in the background):


To this during Halloween (again, Tory is in the foreground, Ian is in the background):


Mommy loved the surfer look, even the unkempt surfer look they had. She did not appreciate us (specifically me) cutting their hair. She especially did not appreciate the fact that the only notice I gave her was saying, “the boys look a little different” as she walked in the door coming home from work.

I think mommy has forgiven us (me). It took several days of passed time and compliments from others about how grown up they look with their new hair, but mommy is at least speaking to me again. One of the things she’s saying to me is that I need a haircut.

* Setting #4 sounded like a good, mid-range length.

Volcano

Abbie enjoyed her Halloween candy a little too much.

Earning Partial Credit

Dora: “Who do we ask for help when we don’t know which way to go?”
Abbie: “Mommy.”

Something I Never Thought I'd Do Before Becoming a Parent, Example #1,516,859

Tory removed his diaper tonight. I watched him do this, and allowed him to run about his bedroom naked. Mommy and I were busy cleaning his room and bath time was near, so decided to save time by not attaching a diaper that one of us would probably remove in a few minutes anyway.

I was betting that he had enough control to hold his plumbing until bath time. In a stunning display of why I don’t gamble, Tory pooped in the middle of the floor a couple minutes later. Fortunately, it was one of those hard, well-formed poos that I could easily pick off the floor. I fetched a baby wipe, picked up the poo, and started for the diaper pail when mommy stopped me.

“No, don’t throw it away,” she said. “Drop it in the toilet.”

I knew her reason. The kids need to know the potty’s purpose if they’re ever going to be potty trained, and showing them their poo in the potty could help convince them to drop their poo directly in the potty.

I dutifully dropped it in the toilet in full view of all the children. They stared at it before fighting over the right to flush the toilet. Without stopping to contemplate if the lesson sunk in, I threw the kids in the tub and started their bath. It was easy to get them ready for the bath since Tory was still naked, and Abbie had joined him in nudity by this point.

Have Broom, Will Work

I have a broom and dustpan. I generally know where they are.* I don’t use them much, though. If the kids sneak dried food into their bedrooms and dump it on the carpet, I have a vacuum for that mess. If the kids dump food in the rest of the house, we have hardwood floors to catch it, and a dog to clean up every last crumb.

My dog-cleaning method is ideal for those mealtime messes. My children still tell me they’re done eating by throwing food. This is in spite of my frequent lessons and pleadings to say, “all done.” In their defense, they have learned to say, “all done,” but they usually say it while the food is en route to the floor. When the first scraps hit the floor, I know it’s time to pull the tray before the rest of their meal hits the floor. Ideally, I’d grab the broom and dustpan after every meal and clean the spilled food myself. Ideally, I’d also have morning to bedtime activities scheduled for my children that would entertain while teaching important life skills, but that doesn’t happen either. Instead, at mealtime the dog quickly goes to work on the spilled food, her speed aided by her habit of sitting under the table when the kids eat. Meanwhile, I work on other childcare duties, such as pulling another tray of food before that child can throw it on the floor, and by the time I catch my breath, I have a sparkling clean floor.

The dog has her limitations, though. She has finite stomach space, and won’t eat a large quantity of food. Also, she’s moody and slow to work in the mornings. While I can relate to that quirk, it often means she ignores those early morning messes. The boys blew past both of those limitations this morning, and had me reaching for the broom and dustpan before I could even put breakfast on the table.

I dress everyone first thing in the morning. That protects the pajamas from mealtime, and prevents the saturated overnight diapers from leaking. I opened the door to the boys’ room, and walked into Abbie’s room. Usually the boys wander into Abbie’s room to greet us after a long night of separation. Sometimes they stay in their room, also being moody and slow to work in the morning. Today they ran into the kitchen and found the half-bag of Fruit Rings I foolishly left within their clutches. As I helped Abbie dress for the day, I heard the unmistakable clatter of dozens of bite-sized food pellets tumbling to the floor. After a quick investigation to ensure they hadn’t done something dangerous, I discovered that they had dumped the entire remaining bag of Fruit Rings on the floor. I shrugged, and went back to Abbie’s room to check that her shirt was on right side out with the front facing front.

When I went back to the kitchen, the dog in her moodiness was ignoring the spill, but the boys were eagerly cleaning it. I grabbed my broom and started sweeping before the boys could ingest too much more dirt.

After spending too much time cleaning, I put the broom away, changed the boys, and started making breakfast. By now, breakfast was very late to the tray, and the boys were frantic with hunger despite their fruity floor snack. I sped the food to the trays and sat the children in their seats with cereal in their bowls, and milk in their cups. I paused to catch my breath, and saw Tory dump his entire bowl of cereal on the floor. Apparently he just wanted the milk to wash down the cereal he already ate. The dog, unwilling to meet the day, was still in her kennel, so I sent Tory to his room as punishment while I pulled the broom and dustpan back into use.

* The laundry room last I checked.

Injury Report

We added an extra step to the bedtime routine tonight. Alongside the pajamas and the reading, everyone took a dose of ibuprofen. I use medications sparingly because I’m weary of the side effects. Usually the kids only get ibuprofen when they’re obviously hurting, or when I desperately need them to sleep well. Tonight, everyone was obviously hurting, although encouraging them to sleep straight till morning sounded nice after all the screaming we endured tonight.

Tory suffered the first and most serious injury. It happened while everyone was taking a bath in the bathtub, and it’s never a good sign when the words “injury” and “bathtub” appear together. Tory was climbing on the sides of the bathtub. You can probably guess what happened from here. I certainly could guess what would happen.

The boys love to climb, and will climb on anything in the house. I always discourage them when I catch them climbing, and they always ignore my reminders not to climb on things. They climb on chairs, the fireplace, even the four-foot tall dresser in their room. The bathtub is no exception in spite of its status as wet, slippery, and hard. They like to climb on the ledge of the tub, balance their feet on that curved four-inch wide strip of porcelain, and bounce in a blatant disregard for their health. I always pull them back into water when I catch them climbing, and that’s exactly what I did tonight. Ian climbed onto the edge a split-second before Tory. While I obligingly pulled Ian into the water first, Tory lost his balance and fell chin-first into the edge. Mommy checked his mouth, and found that he’d bitten his tongue on impact, leading to an alarming amount of blood and wailing streaming from his mouth, but no real damage.

We comforted Tory for several minutes, convincing him that life was still worth living in spite of his searing mouth pain. We wound up planted on the sofa, trying to keep Tory still and his whimpering at a minimum while the other two kids roamed the living room. In front of us, Ian tripped on the area rug and fell face-first into the ottoman. The ottoman is stuffed and upholstered, which softened the blow, but his eye region landed on the edge of the wooden frame underneath the fabric. As mommy kept Tory calm, I went to work on Ian. The cheek around his left eye was swollen and might bruise tomorrow, but otherwise he seemed fine.

I kept the kids moving through the bedtime routine, and miraculously everyone survived the tooth brushings with no further injury. Reading time was not so fortunate.

You may wonder how a child could suffer an injury while reading. Sure those board books are hard, but no child age three and under could chuck one with enough force to cause injury.

It wasn’t the books I needed to watch out for; it was the dresser. Ian, in spite of his earlier face-plant on the ottoman, was climbing on the dresser. While I read to Abbie, he was hanging off the handles on the drawers. His weight finally broke the strap that anchors the dresser to the wall, toppling the dresser forward. I caught it on the way down, and Ian rolled out of the way. The dresser whacked Abbie’s thumb on its decent, though, and she was not happy that it was currently red and throbbing. It probably hurt, but her thumb clearly wasn’t badly injured. I gave her some ibuprofen anyway since we had the bottle out for the boys’ injuries anyway.

"I told you kids you were going to send your father to the crazy house!"

Ian removed his diaper tonight. He’s done that a lot recently, ever since he discovered that running around naked from the waist down is a great way to capture daddy’s attention no matter how filthy the dishes are.

Sometimes Ian has a valid reason for removing his diaper. When the weight of the liquid held in his diaper starts dragging his pants down, I consider that a valid reason for him to attract my attention. When his diaper is poopy, that’s a valid reason. When he’s bored because the television is off, I consider that reason less than valid.

Tonight was reason number two. Even though the dishes were piled high and dirty, I immediately scooped him away before I had to add the floors to my night’s cleaning chores.

Sadly, children love to imitate. When I set him on the changing table, Abbie realized she could call attention by removing her poopy diaper as well. I changed Ian with superhuman, possibly neglectful speed, and whisked Abbie onto the changing table before she could sit on something that was “dry clean only.”

Tory, who was also in the room, noticed his siblings being changed, and decided to check his diaper. While I struggled to dress Abbie, Tory thrust his hands into the back of his diaper. Sure enough, they were significantly dirtier coming out than they were going in.

I rushed Abbie onto the floor and Tory onto the changing table. As I wiped his hands clean, I caught my breath to appreciate this accomplishment. With quick action, I had averted three disasters, four if you count the heart attack I saved myself. I was about to diaper my third child, no one else had a poopy diaper they could remove or otherwise play with. I could afford to slow down, catch my breath, and make sure the nether regions really were clean this time.

“Schrip,” went the straps on Ian’s diaper. I might be overwhelmed, but Ian was apparently bored watching me work on his siblings.

Be Careful What You Wish For

The hardest part for me of the naptime routine is herding all three children into the same room. In that room, we change diapers, read, and sing our way to sleep. This calms the children and readies them for sleep, hopefully avoiding the hardest part of the post-naptime routine: Determining why the children are screaming.

The kids enjoy the reading and singing, but they realize the nap is nearing once the herding begins, and they scatter into separate corners of the house. I’ll track down one child, lead him/her into the room, and in the time it takes me to track down another child, the first one has usually found a new hiding place.

This afternoon I had the boys corralled in their room and temporarily distracted by books, and went after Abbie. She was in her room, the secrecy of her hiding place betrayed by the “sproing” sound as she jumped on the bed. I stepped into her room, and told her to come. She refused. I told her I wanted to read to her. She kept bouncing.

“Do you want to read or not?” I asked.

“Not,” she replied.

“Have a good nap,” I said as I shut her door. I walked into the boys’ room and read to them, secure that I knew exactly why Abbie was screaming in her room.

"Brains!"

I’m taking Jamee’s advice and getting to sleep tonight. If I go to sleep right now, which I won’t but I’ll pretend I will, I’ll be within snoring distance of 8 hours of sleep. I’m sure the kids will thank me in the morning.

I'm a Big Kid Now

As I was pouring out milk tonight, Abbie said, “I want a big cup, please.”

Abbie is getting good at telling me that she wants something. Her wants usually involve food, specifically Goldfish or animal crackers. Occasionally they involve something to play with, such as outside or Play-Doh. Those are fine request that help avoid a meltdown, but I’ve been waiting for the day when her wants involve something that signals she’s growing up. “I want to use the potty, please” would be nice to hear. Also nice would be, “I want to go to bed early tonight so I can be fully rested for preschool tomorrow, please.

This request might be the signal I’ve wanted to hear. Abbie still uses sippy cups despite my encouragement to use regular cups. She can drink from regular cups, but usually insists on using a sippy cup. When I give her drink in a regular cup, she immediately requests a sippy cup. Her insistence may be because she knows she spills regular cups too often. When I say, “spill” I don’t mean to imply “accidentally.” Those accidental spills will happen when a child trains with a regular cup, and I try not to make a big deal out of them. No, Abbie’s spills are of the “turn the cup upside down and watch the liquid spill out” variety, or the “throw the cup after you take a drink because you don’t want to bother finding a place to set the cup” kind. Those spills irritate daddy.

Her request for a big cup might mean that she’s ready to take responsibility, that she wants to be a big girl with all the rewards and responsibilities involved. Maybe she saw some of her preschool classmates using sippy cups, decided they looked cool, and now wants to be just like them. Maybe potty training will follow, and then dressing herself, swinging herself, and keeping the colors on the paper. She’ll be patient waiting for meals. She’ll stop throwing food. She’ll stop pushing her brothers. All this grows from her desire to use a regular cup.

I pulled a regular cup off the shelf, and gave it to her. Maybe she could hold it while I poured the milk, which would be another step forward in her development.

Abbie immediately threw the cup and repeated, “I want a big cup.”

I looked up in the cupboard and checked the top shelf. There I saw the larger 10-ounce cups that we rarely use because the kids can’t finish them in one meal.

“Do you want a big sippy cup?” I asked.

“I want a big sippy cup,” she repeated.

I sighed, gave her milk in the big sippy cup, and sent her on her way. Her appetite is increasing; that’s a sign of development.

Picture Post

Abbie’s reading. That’s a direct quote from her.


Tory (left) and Ian (right) are competing for space on a chair to climb on the counter and steal crispy treats.


That’s our large cat. He fills up the frame.


We went trick-or-treating at the zoo this weekend. Tory (left) is disguised as a generic Frankenstein creature. Abbie is disguised as a blue fairy. Ian (right) is disguised as Clifford. Mommy and daddy are disguised as parents enjoying the visit in spite of the restless children.


Abbie’s blue fairy costume is no relation to last year’s green fairy costume.


Abbie may never forget the day she met Curious George.


Snacking was a frequent problem during the trick-or-treating.


The boys’ favorite treat was the ice cream sandwiches. I really wish those costumes were machine washable now.

I Can't Leave You Alone for Five Minutes

Yesterday I was enjoying a leisurely late morning of reading the newspaper in between issuing warnings to the children to stop climbing furniture. When I heard a buzzer sound, though, I had to spring into action. The washing machine cycle had just ended, and I only had enough time to hang the load outside, prepare lunch, and issue a couple more furniture climbing warnings before the clocks turned to noon. That’s when the kids eat lunch, and their whining turns less plaintive and more frantic.

I hung the laundry on the line outside and rushed back in to prepare lunch. I poured yogurt into the last of three individual serving dishes seconds before noon, and searched the house the round the kids for lunch. Abbie was in her room reading, and being significantly less destructive than usual. I appreciated that. After failing to find the boys in the house, I looked outside to see them in the backyard. They were huddled around the clothesline, celebrating over their freshly killed clothing.

As I mentioned yesterday, the kids love pulling wet laundry off the clothesline. I wish I had remembered that before I left the door open for them to wander outside. I assumed they’d do more acceptable activities outdoors, like play with the swing set or test the edibility of our backyard flora. Instead they went straight for their old standby of “pull the laundry off the line,” and successfully yanked almost every garment I had just hung.

I shooed the boys inside and went to work re-hanging the laundry. Several minutes later with the final sullied shirt in hand, I heard a noise from the house. It almost sounded like glass breaking, but they couldn’t have gotten into any glass. They probably dumped something small and metallic on the floor, like our entire utensil tray. I started to hang the last shirt before going inside when I heard the glasslike sound again. My parental alarm went off, the one that signifies my children are doing something that is either harmful or will make me want to harm them when I see what they’re doing.

I rushed back inside to see Tory sitting on the kitchen floor. He’d pulled a few glass cups from the cupboards, broken them on the floor, and was now playing with the shards. He saw me, knew he was in trouble, and scampered away from me, running barefoot directly through the broken glass. He had a mischievous laugh as he scurried, which is much better than the anguished screaming he would’ve had if he had embedded glass in his foot.

I took stock of my other children. Ian had climbed on the kitchen counter, possibly to help Tory at first, and was now munching his lunch. That was messy, but not the worst thing he could do. Abbie had found a large glass shard, and was munching that, which was possibly the worst thing she could do.

I grabbed the glass from Abbie’s hand and mouth, pulled Ian off the counter, and shooed everyone into their rooms while carefully avoiding the broken glass on the floor. I needed everyone safely locked far away while I swept up the floor. Plus I knew there was no way they could hurt themselves locked in their rooms, and that was important peace of mind for me while I took my time to re-make their lunches.

Hung out to Dry

As a devoted cheapskate hiding behind a cloak of environmentalism, I hang up laundry in the backyard to dry on a clothesline. Clotheslines seem increasingly rare these days. Indeed, our home didn’t come with a clothesline, unlike, say, the swimming pool and hot tub. Installing one was one of my first home improvement chores, though I wonder if our neighbors consider it and the lump of concrete that holds it in the ground less of an “improvement” and more of a “hideous abomination that drags area property values.”*

I picked up the clothesline habit from my parents. They hung almost everything outside in the summer, and strung clotheslines in the basement so they could hang wet laundry in the winter. When I struck out on my own, I carried their values of conservation** and clotheslines into my backyard and hung my laundry out to dry. Someday my children may absorb these values, but for now they just use the hanging clothes to annoy me.

Of the 4,214,721,025 annoying things my children do, none of them infuriate me more than pulling clothes off the line. Throwing food on the floor? The dog will clean it. Breaking the cabinet drawers by pulling them all the way and hanging off the end? Meh, we were going to replace those cabinets eventually anyway. Climbing furniture up to perilous elevations? I try to stop them, but if they fall, maybe the intense pain of sudden impact will teach them a lesson that my shouting can’t. Pull clothes off the line while they play outside so I can prepare for/clean up after lunch in peace? Whoa boy… Hang freshly washed clothes on a line in front of them, and my children will pull them down with such zeal you’d think there’s a chocolate bar held in each pocket.

I hate the extra time I need to re-hang wet clothes. I spend 10-15 minutes hanging a load of laundry while the kids play at my feet and near the dangling garments. The last thing I want to do is pick the clothes off the ground, figure out which hole in the clothesline they resided, and return them to dry. This is especially true when a meal or naptime looms near, and in our house, one of those always looms near. I imagine the time savings is why many people simply use a dryer. For now, I don’t mind standing outside with the kids watching them play while I hang clothes once.

I hate the wet clothes hitting the dirt beneath the clothesline. After taking the time to gather the laundry, sort it into loads that will look okay if the colors bleed onto each other, and wash it in the machine, I don’t want to pick the formerly clean clothes off the ground to find fresh mud stains. When I’m lucky, the clothes are mostly dry, the ground is mostly dry, and the clothes have a few specks that I can easily flick. When I’m not lucky, the clothes are wet, the ground is wet, and the kids spent a good half hour tromping circles around and through the discarded clothes before I discovered them. That’s when I get to run an extra load of laundry.

Most of all, I hate the destruction of clothespins. These spring-loaded wooden contraptions that are chock full of choking hazards are a favorite forbidden toy of my children. Pulling down hung clothes often brings clothespins down too. They love grabbing the ends and pulling the clothespin apart. Sometimes the clothespin falls apart when the clothes come down, but that’s no problem for them. They simply pull down some more garments until they scare up fresh pin meat.

After picking up the clothes and assessing them for fresh stains, I have to pick up the clothespins. More accurately, I pick up the clothespin remains. Grab one wooden piece her, one wooden piece there, a bent-beyond-repair metal spring there, and repeat until the number of recovered pins equals twice the number of recovered clothes. The time I waste cleaning aggravates me, but so does the wastefulness. These perfectly good pins a minute ago are now uselessly limp with their twisted springs. Those things cost money, you know. Oh, and think of the trees that have to die to supply their wood; that’s bad too.

* If they do dislike it, it’s their own fault for looking over our privacy fence.
** Conservation of money, not energy.

Here Kitty

Mommy held the cat down last night. Our aloof cat usually avoids the children like a full litter box, and mommy felt it was time to change that. She held the cat in place while the kids each took a turn petting her.

One by one, the kids took a shot, with Abbie stroking her fur in an up-down motion, and the boys gently striking her body in that uncoordinated toddler way of petting.

The cat took the abuse well, mostly huddling into a tight protective kitty lump until mommy let go. Mommy was so pleased with the cat’s submissive behavior, that she took a moment to teach Abbie something. She pointed to the cat’s four white feet, and explained that we call those “socks.”

Abbie took the lesson well, immediately pointing out that the cat had “four white socks.”

Mommy, sufficiently pleased with the progress, let the cat go. The cat, determined to show us who was in charge, took a few minutes to strut about the living room instead of huddling in the basement to recover from its trauma. While the cat strutted about like she owned the place, Abbie fetched her shoes. She knows that shoes go over socks, and chased the cat trying to put shoes on her “four white socks.”

Don't Shush Me

We have a lot of people working with the kids. We have Abbie’s speech therapist, the public school extension workers, the NICU follow-up coordinator for the boys, and some woman who the NICU follow-up coordinator thought would be helpful but doesn’t seem to do anything besides bring toys for the kids to play with.* The advantages to this setup is we have many eyes to watch the kids for any developmental delays, and many hands to help keep the kids in line. The disadvantage is that we have many strangers’ ears to hear the bad things the kids say.

Yesterday was public school extension workers day for the boys. Two workers highly trained in the realm of child development come to our home to watch the boys play with blocks. Their main focus is on speech, ensuring that the boys continue developing their language skills and avoid the delay Abbie showed at that age. They work with the boys individually, splitting into separate rooms so as not to bother each other every time someone cheers wildly because a boy said “please.”

I like to watch my children when they work with these specialists. I can answer the workers’ questions, interpret my children’s speech, and hopefully catch the kids’ arms when they rear back to hit out of frustration.** Since the boys were in separate rooms yesterday, I couldn’t watch both of them. I bounced between them a little before settling mostly on Ian since his speech is a little behind Tory and I could use the feedback on how he’s doing. Plus, Ian’s worker had cooler toys.

At the end of the session, Tory’s worker brought him into the room and gave me a progress report. His speech is improving, he used several words, and he often tried to imitate sounds. Those are all encouraging signs. He also said something that sounded like “shush up.”

That was a new one. I know that you shouldn’t use any words around children that you don’t want them to use. Our children also know they shouldn’t climb on furniture, and that doesn’t happen either. I mentally ran through all of the negative words we use around the kids. I call them twerps when they’re being twerps. The occasional dammit slips through the filter. We sometimes tell the dog to shut up, which is bad, but in our defense, she can be really annoying. We tell the kids to shush, hush, or maybe hush up, but I can’t remember telling them to shush up.

I explained the shush / hush / hush up scenario, and the workers were on their way to the next home. I wish I could’ve heard what he said; I doubt it was any variant on shush. The boys haven’t picked up many other admonitions. They shout, “get down” while standing on furniture. They don’t get down, but they shout it. They might say, “stop.” Otherwise, they haven’t repeated “no,” “don’t,” “naughty,” “what are you doing,” “dear lord, what are you doing,” or anything else I say while reprimanding them. That’s good, because between the furniture climbing and the hitting, I do a lot of reprimanding. I wouldn’t want these workers to think I use anything less than the optimal correction techniques, such as an occasional “dammit.”

* Not that I’m complaining.
** Hitting isn’t an issue with the boys yet, but you should ideally wear a football helmet while trying to make Abbie say, “ooh.”

Baa Baa Black Lamb

Abbie’s preschool began a new activity today, and this one has nothing to do with fundraising.* They’re starting the Letter of the Week. Her teachers assigned a letter to every week for the rest of the school year. The letters’ order is seemingly at random; L this week, F next week, E after that, etc. Maybe there’s a handy mnemonic for the order, like “let’s finally eat half that itchy ugly cow over quiet gravy served just dead, probably because Roger killed another very mediocre night with … xylophone yellow zebra.” They saved XYZ for the last three weeks, probably because the teachers don’t want to think of words that start with those letters any more than we do.

Every student should bring something from home to share with the class that begins with that week’s letter. This isn’t a requirement, the instruction sheet said not to worry if we couldn’t find something appropriate, they’ll go on without the item. Presumably we’ll simply be stunting Abbie’s mental development by depriving her the opportunity to intimately know an item that begins with that letter. The item can be anything from a picture to something tangible; the only limitation is it must fit in her backpack. I assume that xylophones will litter her classroom during X week, though I may dig up an old copy of the video game Xenophobe just to be different

With this being L week, we needed something that begins with L. I plan on flipping through the Sunday newspaper ads looking for pictures of most things, but we had the perfect object this week. One of Abbie’s first favorite stuffed animals is a stuffed lamb. She snuggled with it on many naps, and I used it to calm her through many tantrums. I could always make her laugh by pecking the lamb at her cheeks while shouting “lambie kisses!” Eventually this morphed into “flying lambie kisses,” which involved me throwing it at her face in an action that is much less mean-spirited than it sounds.

I dug it out of her stuffed animal basket and showed it to her.

“What is this?” I asked her, hoping that she’d remember from her infanthood.

“A sheep!” she replied.

While technically correct, “sheep” definitely doesn’t begin with L. I walked her through the process a few times, telling her it’s a lamb, lamb begins with L, and L is the letter of the week. After each round, she responded by telling me “that’s a sheep!”

I gave the animal to Abbie, and she toted it around the house for a while. Eventually she walked up to her brothers, pecked it on their cheeks, and yelled “lambie kisses!” Close enough. As long as she did that at preschool, her teachers would know that we didn’t accidentally send something for S week.

This morning she was walking around the house carrying a stuffed turtle. “Turtle begins with T,” she shouted repeatedly. Looks like we’re set for T week.

* For now.

Doh

Abbie didn’t nap yesterday. We went through the naptime routine as normal. I shut her in her room as normal. I let her bang around her room until she fell asleep as normal. But she didn’t fall asleep as normal this time.

I didn’t care. Nap time is Matt time.

I left her in her room until the regular wake time in hopes that she might eventually give up and drift off to sleep. No luck. I listened to her the entire time over the monitor, and she never sounded hurt or even unhappy. She sounded content, maybe too content.

When I opened the door to her room, I saw why she was awake and happy. She had climbed high into her closet, and pulled a Play-Doh set off a shelf previously believed inaccessible. She had spent the entire “nap” time playing with her dough. For Abbie, playing mostly involves opening every can, mixing the colors, pulling the dough into bite-sized pieces, and grinding them into various fabrics around her room. Her carpet, clothes, and bedding all have tiny, fluorescent colored specs of dried dough bonded with the fibers, possibly at the molecular level.

The Play-Doh website claims clean up is easy. We’ll see about that. Regardless, I’m never again keeping a can of black dough in the house; that stuff easily left the worst stains.

* “Matt time” mostly involves sleep.

Scenes from a Clown-Themed Restaurant

We took the kids out to eat last night. Wanting the least stressful experience possible, we chose our favorite fast food, clown-themed restaurant. It has kids meals stuffed with toys plus an indoor playground, giving the children absolutely no reason to complain at any point during the night until we drag them away kicking and screaming. This is the perfect opportunity for us as parents to relax and forget about the tensions of the day, such as a demanding occupation, complaining children, and alarming amounts of fat and sodium in our diets.

Watching our children happily eat and play is therapeutic, but we have to navigate through that tricky gap between the time we walk in the restaurant, and the time the food magically appears on the table in front of the kids. As her preschool teachers know, Abbie doesn’t have much patience when she knows food is imminent. If food is coming, she will throw a wall-trembling tantrum until someone places it in front of her so she can decide she doesn’t want it and throw it on the ground. At home, she screams the entire time between climbing into her booster seat and having food set in front of her. You might think that walking into a noisy play area with plenty of brightly colored padded equipment to climb would be enough to distract her from the approaching meal, but nope.

We walked into the restaurant, and mommy stood in line to order while I herded the children into the play area. The boys chose their seats and happily hopped aboard to await the meal. Abbie sat next to them, realized there wasn’t any food to eat yet, and started screaming. Realizing this was my opportunity to address a behavioral issue her teachers keep raising in their notes home,* I sat across from her and encouraged patience. I soothingly assured her that mommy would bring food in a minute. Abbie frantically assured me that she couldn’t wait a minute, and screamed so loud that the family seated next to us could almost hear her over all the other screaming children in the playground. The boys continued sitting happily, knowing that screaming wouldn’t make the food come any faster. Or maybe they just knew they couldn’t get a whimper in above their sister’s wails.

As promised, mommy brought the food after a couple minutes and an eternity of waiting. The food was unremarkable. They ate half their chicken nuggets, stole each other’s chocolate milk, and tried to sneak swigs from mommy and daddy’s drinks. The toy in Abbie’s meal caught our eye. It was this doll:



That’s Nolee. She likes roller-skating, though apparently not when a stiff breeze blows that could buckle her bird legs. Mommy stared at the doll, and longed for the days when little girls only had to live up to the impossible body image of Barbie. Ever the feminist, mommy wanted to throw it away before Abbie formed any ideas about ideal proportions or clothing choices. I agreed that it was disgusting, but also noticed that Abbie seemed to like it, unlike every other doll we’ve given Abbie up to and including the properly-proportioned Dora doll. She liked moving her adjustable limbs, she played with the realistic hair-like substance flowing from her head, and she loved skating her about the restaurant. I told mommy we could throw it away if she ignored it, but I wanted to encourage pretend play as long as she liked it.

The kids spent the rest of the time playing while I finished their leftover food. When they turned antsy, we knew it was time to leave. They did so fairly happily. The boys toddled out to the car, ready for the next adventure, while Abbie and Nolee skated together.

* “Does not wait for snack well.”

Walking a Wire

Naptime is a difficult balancing act. I must follow every step in the intricate naptime routine, from reading to bouncing on the bed, in a precise order, for a precise amount of time. Any deviation from the routine can throw off sleep for all three children, resulting in a later naptime for everyone.

Enforcing rules is a difficult balancing act. When I see a rules infraction, I must declare the restitution the violator must complete, and implement a progressively harsher series of punishments for failing to comply.

That’s how the kids went down for a nap almost an hour late today. Abbie swiped a box of cereal and carried it into the boys’ room. She dumped its contents on the floor (infraction). I forced her to help clean up the kibble (restitution). When she refused to help, I sent her to her room (punishment). When I gave her a second chance and she knocked the garbage can over instead of helping (worse infraction), I sent her back to her room to nap with no naptime routine (harsher punishment). When I rushed the boys through the naptime routine to make up for lost time, the truncated routine threw them off their sleep pattern. The screams coming from Abbie’s room helped send the boys into tantrums, and the competing screams fed everyone’s tantrum (now I’m being punished for some reason). I needed 15 minutes to soothe the boys and another 15 minutes to run Abbie through multiple versions of an adjusted naptime routine before everyone was content. Even then, everyone banged around their rooms for several more minutes, possibly hoping I’d make an encore appearance.

The boys learned that I’m always available to help soothe them. Abbie learned that I’ll lesson any punishment if she throws a big enough tantrum. If I were on a tightrope, my left foot would be moving perpendicular to my right foot.

The Animal Rules

We’re trying to teach the kids the proper way to interact with the pets. They have a lot left to learn, but they have a lot left to learn about interacting with people. Some of the lessons learned so far:

Good: Giving the chinchilla a peanut.
Bad: Giving the chinchilla a jar full of peanuts.

Good: Walking up to the chinchilla’s cage to say, “hi.”
Bad: Shaking the chinchilla’s cage to make sure he’s awake to hear you say, “hi.”

Good: Speaking softly to the cats.
Bad: (The cats won’t let them get close enough to learn what not to do)

Good: Petting the dog.
Bad: Crossing that fine line between “petting” and “hitting” the dog.

Good: Feeding the dog.
Bad: Dumping your food on the floor to feed the dog.
Worse: Stealing from the dog’s food dish.

Abbie learned a couple new rules tonight regarding the fish. While the fish ate, she hit their aquarium to make her presence known.

“Do not hit the fish tank, Abigail,” I told her, making sure to use her full name for extra emphasis.

“Do not hit the fish tank,” she repeated. Remembering her human interaction rules, she continued with, “do not scratch the fish.”

Scratching isn’t much of an issue with the glass between her and the fish, but maybe she’ll carry that over to other animal interactions. Or at least maybe she’ll remember that she’s not supposed to scratch humans instead of just repeating the rules.

Seald

I’m a homeowner, and as such, I’m expected to complete certain routine chores to keep our home in excellent shape. I need to clean the gutters, care for the landscaping, and figure out why a large section of our front lawn is sinking. I’ve done none of those things in the almost year we’ve owned our home. I’m a homemaker first, and as such, I’m expected to keep three young children fed, clothed, and safe. The kids are my top priority, and consume most of my time. Routine home maintenance doesn’t help the kids, although if that sinkhole out front gets much bigger they might have trouble climbing out should they fall into it.

A few chores do benefit the kids, though, and those I have to stay on top of. Anything pool related has a high child benefit as long as I’m not closing the pool. Keeping the windows in their rooms lubricated so I can open and close them helps regulate the temperature while they sleep, plus turning the window crank easily provides entertainment while they should be napping. Playground maintenance helps prevent the thing from collapsing on them while swinging, which would force me to buy and erect a new playground set. Oh, and the possibility that they could suffer horrific injuries in the collapse is bad too.

I tackled some playground maintenance yesterday. Our play set is wooden, like one of those kits you buy at a home improvement store that uses solid metal fasteners to join sturdy pieces of lumber, except ours uses more malleable metal fasteners and toy airplane-grade lumber.

When I left my parents’ home, they gave my old play set to another family with young children. I expect our current play set to disintegrate long before the boys leave home, but I’d at least like it to last until they reach the weight limit a few years from now. To reach that goal, I need to take care of it. That means tightening the fasteners whenever the wood starts creaking at an alarming volume level, and keeping the wood sealed so it retains its appearance of a contraption that a responsible parent might let his children use.

The creaking wood is merely irritating for now, so I sealed it yesterday. I don’t know how often is should be sealed, but judging from the cracks that formed over the summer, I’m guessing it should be more often than once a year.

With Abbie in preschool and out of the way, and the boys roaming the backyard, I took my brush and can of sealant, and set about protecting my investment. I needed to keep the boys in the backyard where I could watch them, but I didn’t want them boys to touch the play set before the sealant dried. With all the toys in the yard, such as oversized balls, a sandlot, and freshly hung laundry, I thought they had plenty of entertainment. They rarely used the play set anyway unless I was actively swinging them.

Naturally they chose yesterday morning to fully explore the various positions in which a toddler could use a slide. Nothing attracts children to an object like a parent showing interest in it. I protected the boys and the play set for several minutes, yelling at them and pushing them away from wet surfaces as best I could with a brush in one hand and a sealant can in the other. After that I settled for resealing the wood with handprints, and thoroughly scrubbing everyone’s extremities when we went back inside. I knew I wasn’t going to keep the boys away from the play set, and figured a little spar urethane in their systems couldn’t be that toxic.

It took about a half-hour of screaming, pushing, and eventually ignoring the boys, but I finished. Every piece of wood got a coat, and the horizontal, cracking, or fingerprinted sections got several coats. Hopefully that’s enough to keep the play set intact over the winter until it warms up again for another coat. By then, maybe the kids will be a little more self-sufficient, and I’ll be able to work with them at my side without having to yell, “For the love of God, don’t touch the ladder!” every few minutes.

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, Yellow Fish...

I fed our fish tonight, and sat down to watch them. It’s important to watch your fish periodically while they eat; you need to observe your fish at mealtime to ensure they’re all healthy and eating well. If one of your fish looks sick, it’s important to catch it early so you can begin planning what you want to replace it with because sick fish never recover.

Watching fish can also be a valuable stress-reliever. Seeing your fish peacefully swimming through the water and hunting down those mischievous flakes can help the day’s tension melt away. Listening to your twin boys destroy the house while you stare at the aquarium somewhat negates the effect. Watching your daughter pound on the aquarium glass effectively reverses the stress release.

Our pets don’t like our kids. The cats might never appear near them if the kids didn’t leave the back door open so they could escape the house. The dog tolerates them as long as they’re not raiding her food dish. The fish are mostly oblivious toward them, though their insistence on repeatedly pounding the glass may be instilling a Pavlovian run and hide response in the fish whenever someone under 4-foot tall wanders near the glass.

I instructed Abbie to not hit the glass, and she settled for simply pointing at the fish. She then said something semi-intelligible: “Fish (garbled word with a long ‘a’ sound).”

“Fish escape?” I guessed, thinking maybe she saw a fish flee behind a rock.

“No,” she replied.

“Fish cake?” Maybe she thought the fish were eating cake, much like we were eating cake after mommy’s birthday.

“No,” she replied, and continued staring intently. Whatever she saw was still there. I always try to repeat the things she says to me to encourage her speech, but this one was tricky. Ever since she started preschool, she’s been bringing home strange new words, almost as many words as strange germs. I have no idea where she gets some of these words, which makes guessing them difficult.

“Fish tank?” I tried.

“Fish (garbled word with a long ‘a’ sound),” she repeated.

She was pointing out the fish tank. With that mystery solved, and a little stress relieved, it was time to raise my stress levels and see what the boys scattered across the floor.

Backpack, Backpack

Today’s note from preschool:

She has a tough time sitting quietly and listening to unfamiliar books. She also has a tough time waiting for snack. She gets upset when she does not get it immediately.

Yeah, she’ll do that. I have a feeling that the grace period is over, and the teachers are going to start telling us about behaviors that need modifying. I just wish I knew how to teach her to sit quietly.

I also pulled out another fundraiser from Abbie’s backpack. This one is for candy. That’s after the coupon book, the pictures, and the t-shirt order form. It’s only October, so that works out to about one fundraiser every couple weeks. The class that sells the most candy wins a pizza party for this one. Given Abbie’s disdain for pizza, I think I can safely sit this one on the sidelines.

Picture Post

Sorry I haven’t been able to post. I’ve been too busy preparing for and cleaning up after…


Mommy’s birthday! When mommy woke up this morning (her actual birthday), Abbie hummed “Happy Birthday” to her. I swear I didn’t teach her to do that.


This is the scene seconds earlier as the candles’ combined intensity sends everyone aback.


All hell broke loose when Abbie discovered how to insert the straw into her juice box/bag at the birthday party. We estimate that she consumed, or at least opened, a dozen juices. At least they kept her entertained. Notice that Abbie’s jersey/shirt is backwards. She insisted on being able to see the numbers and letters.


Now the shirt is on correctly, but this little girl is sad. Get used to it kid.


In anticipation of Halloween, our house is haunted.

This Weekend's Homework

From today’s note home from Abbie’s preschool:

She did not want snack today & hit me 2 times when requested her to stay at table. Then she dumped her water.

That explains why she wore her backup shirt home. At least it’s good to know that she’s getting comfortable enough at preschool to act like she does at home.

Look Out Below

Abbie still enjoys riding the school bus. That’s good, because I still enjoy the free time I get after putting her on the school bus.

Abbie loves riding the school bus so much, she usually runs to it in the morning. I open the front door, and she takes off down the driveway toward the bus. This comes after a 45 minutes of me yelling at her to get dressed, finish her breakfast, put on her shoes, etc. Obviously she has plenty of energy after loafing her way through the morning to that point.

Our driveway, like most driveways, slopes down to the street. This gives Abbie a little extra momentum while running to the bus. As a relative newcomer to the world of running with only two years of experience, this momentum can overwhelm her and cause her to lose control. She’s always kept her balance, though, until this morning.

Abbie started running too fast and toppled forward this morning. She landed on her hands and hit the ground about as softly as one could hit concrete. I saw no abrasions as I picked her up and kept her moving to the bus. She felt severe, possibly life-threatening internal injuries, though, and cried the rest of the way to the bus. I did my best to comfort her as she stepped on the bus, promising her that she was okay, but she was still upset as she boarded the bus.

When the bus returned a few hours later, the driver told me that Abbie cried for a few minutes, but calmed down after they gave her a bandage. The bandage was placed below her knee, under her pants and over pristine skin. As I watched her at home, she moved the bandage around her body, placing it over other injuries. Or maybe she was plying with it. The important thing was it made her feel better. That, and the bandage was still clean.

Hydro-Electricity

I’m a homemaker. I keep our home running. Sometimes that means cleaning. Sometimes that means home repair. Usually that means keeping the kids running out the door for our next appointment, or at least running away from whatever dangerous item they’re wielding.

Since I have to devote so much time to simply surviving our menagerie, I need to delegate responsibility. Mommy can only handle so much since she’s already burdened with a job that puts food on the table and Gymboree in the closets. In order to keep up on the upkeep of our home, I’m looking for timesavers, hiring people to do jobs that I could do myself if only I had the knowledge and ability to forgo sleep.

Yesterday’s homemaking duties involved opening our front door to some electricians to make our home run. With a little studying, I’m sure I could wire the house myself. I believe our home’s previous owners had the same philosophy, hence why I called the electricians.

Our pool area has electrical issues.* Much of the outdoor wiring used exposed wire intended for indoor use. Not only was that less than adept at repelling things like water, it was very good at attracting mice judging from the wire’s frayed patterns and deck’s peculiar odor. An extension cord serviced the pool pump, which a heavy electrical draw housed in an area that tends to have high humidity. The cord’s socket had turned ominously black over the summer just in case I needed a little foreshadowing of what might happen if I ignored it for another season.

The electricians arrived shortly after the kids woke. This meant I had to juggle the kids’ morning routine, complete with urgent preschool preparations, with getting the electricians started. The kids ate breakfast while I showed the electricians our various hazards. I walked Abbie to the bus while the electricians had a good laugh at the previous wiring job. The boys dug through the cupboards while I made sure the electricians had everything they needed to work. I then returned to the house to do my morning chores while the electricians did their chores.

After a couple hours of me cleaning the house at a rate slightly faster than the boys could trash it, the electricians were finished. They ran new wire, and encased it in conduit. They added a covered electrical outlet by the pump. They made the whole pool experience safer and more reliable. It might prevent future foul scents from under the deck, too. I appreciate that, even if the bill dented our bank account.

* As any high school physics student knows, and W+EI=B, where W=water, EI=electrical issues, and B=bad.