Mandarin OrangeUpdate

Mommy helped me with in-depth research today. A giant can of mandarin oranges at Wal-Mart is $1.68 for 29 ounces (5.8-cents per ounce). A tiny can of mandarin oranges at Fareway is $.39 for 11 ounces (3.5-cents per ounce).

I’d prefer a giant and cheap can. For now, the cheap cans will suffice.

Never Surrender

It’s important to never give in to your children’s unreasonable demands. When I, the parent, set a rule, my children have to follow that rule no matter how big a fit they throw. If I give into the tantrum once, they’ll throw a tantrum every time.

Abbie’s current bedtime ritual involves reading her Dora calendar. This is one of those month-by-month wall calendars that Abbie refuses to leave on her wall. She wants to flip through the pages, look at the pictures, and recite the months. I paid good money for this wall decoration at a post-New Year’s half-off sale, but I let her read it like a book if that’s what she insists on doing. It’s a great, albeit expensive, way for her to learn the months.

Every night before I close her door, we have to read through this calendar. Tonight, though, she grabbed a book when we walked in her room. We read the book, and when I grabbed her calendar for the final reading, she pushed the book back to me. I asked if she wanted to read the book or the calendar, and she told me, “book.”

“Are you sure?” I asked. “This is the last thing we’re going to read before bedtime.”

“Book,” she confirmed.

We had our rule. We would read the book one more time and she would go to bed. I knew that Abbie would want to read the calendar too and would throw a fit when I refused, but she needs to learn to make choices and live with the consequences.

I finished the book and shut the door to her room. Abbie protested mightily, screaming that she wanted to read the calendar. I would not give in.

About five minutes later I walked back into her room. When Abbie throws a tantrum, she will literally make herself physically ill, turning into a teary, snotty, and eventually vomitty mess. I intervened before she hit the third stage, but I wasn’t going to give in. Our cat had foolishly crawled into my lap after I shut Abbie’s room door, showing her gratitude for us finally locking up the children. While she blissfully purred in my arms, I carried her into Abbie’s room. Maybe a couple minutes with the cat would calm her for bedtime.

The cat worked. Abbie immediately calmed down and petted her, and didn’t seem bothered by the various unpleasant cat noises. After a couple more minutes I let the cat scurry away, wished Abbie goodnight, and closed her door.

Abbie screamed. This time I could hear her screaming for burp clothes. Abbie always needs burp clothes to sleep, and I’d forgotten to round up all the ones she dumped in the living room this evening. I wasn’t giving in to her calendar demand, so this seemed a reasonable request. I let Abbie out of her room to round up burp clothes, wiped her nose while she was free, and sent her back to her room.

As I closed the door, Abbie told me that she wanted to read her calendar. I couldn’t give in to our earlier rule, but I knew what happened the last time I denied her calendar request. So I sat her in bed and read the calendar.

I held my ground with the calendar rule, though. I didn’t let her hold it; I flipped the pages for her. I flipped through the pages really fast, too. Maybe she controls what we do, but at least I control how fast we do it.

Still Sick

I’m still sick. The kids, though, are mostly unaffected. That’s good because it means I don’t have to deal with the kids being miserable. That’s bad because I’m still miserable while the kids bounce around the house unaffected.

While the kids tear into a bag of choking hazards, I lie on the couch a few feet in front of them. I weakly tell them to stop, hope they don’t ingest anything too harmful, and wonder why I’m light-headed. Has my fever cooked my mind? Did that pseudoephedrine give me a legal high? Are my sinuses so full of mucus that it’s cutting circulation to my brain?

Sniffle

Everyone is sick. I need to keep this short and get to sleep.

Now that Abbie is sick, I can see one of her new talents: She can blow her nose. When the need arises, she will grab a tissue off the counter, hold it up to her nose, and blow. That’s great. The downside is she blows repeatedly into the same tissue for minutes at a time, her aim into the tissue still needs improvement, and she throws the tissue on the floor when she’s finished.

Like I said, everyone is sick.

And the Oscar Goes to...

While watching tonight’s Academy Awards presentation, I finally realized why they keep showing clips of movies from years past. They need to show something familiar to suck in potential viewers like me who haven’t seen any movies this year.

I enjoyed watching clips from old movies I’ve seen. I didn’t think much of the clips from any movies that were actually running for an award this year, though.

Speaking Mandarin

I’m a cheap guy. When I want something, I find the cheapest way to buy it. Sometimes I hunt down the generic equivalent, which is why you see references to Fruit Rings and Crispy Hexagons on this blog instead of their slightly more expensive name-brand equivalents. Sometimes I buy in ridiculous quantities from the club store, which is how I wind up eating two-pounds of cherries after the kids try one and simultaneously decide they don’t like them. Sometimes I shop the discount stores, even venturing into the scary one where produce sits without refrigeration all day and they charge you for shopping bags. Sometimes, usually for clothes, I check rummage sales for cheap goods that have been used, gently or otherwise. I can usually find stuff fairly cheap, but my cheapskate tactics are breaking down with mandarin oranges, though.

Abbie loves mandarin oranges. That’s not just coming from me, that’s what a note from her preschool said. The “loves” part was capitalized and underlined, so you know she enjoyed them. I don’t know what she did at preschool, but if she ate like she did at home, she swallowed her serving within seconds of it appearing before her, and screamed for more before the server could tend to the next child. When she didn’t get more, she threw a tantrum, hit someone, and spent the next several minutes in timeout while cooling down from orange rage.

Abbie used to love fruit, but now mandarin oranges are the only fruit she wants to eat. She’ll still eat things like grapes and canned apricots under protest. She’ll also eat most fruits mixed with whipped topping, but it’s cheating to coat fruit with whipped topping. Mandarin oranges are a perfect side dish or snack, and if Abbie wants to eat them, I want to buy them.

My problem is mandarin oranges are hard to find. I haven’t seen fresh mandarin oranges in Iowa, so I can’t buy them fresh. I tried a fresh navel orange, but she wouldn’t touch it, possibly because she was holding out for whipped topping. The boys wouldn’t eat it either, so I had a tasty side dish for lunch that day. Oranges don’t freeze well, or to be more specific, they don’t thaw well, so I can’t buy them frozen either. That leaves canned mandarin oranges as my only option.

I love canned fruit. It’s cheap, peeled, and usually pre-cut. Just set it in front of the kids and pull your hand back quickly before it inadvertently winds up in their mouths. I usually buy big cans of fruit because, even though Abbie won’t eat most of it, the boys plow through it in a couple of days. Bigger cans are more cost-effective, and need to be opened and less frequently, making them less of a pain in the butt than smaller cans. Mandarin oranges, though, only come in two sizes of cans: A tiny size that Abbie can eat in one sitting, and a slightly larger size that Abbie could still eat in one sitting but I only give half to her at a time so I don’t have to open a new can the next day.

Why can’t I find large cans of mandarin oranges? The club store sells peaches, pears, and fruit cocktail in half-dozen-pound can size. They sell eight-packs of the slightly larger size cans, but they’re name brand and not cost-effective. I buy generic tiny cans at the grocery store for less per ounce than the club store, and yes, I checked with a calculator, because I’m a cheap guy. For now I’m buying those kind of expensive tiny cans and letting Abbie consume one a day. Maybe I’ll save money and find a case of them at a garage sale some day.

I Know All There Is to Know About the Pushing Game

Abbie needs to stop pushing her brothers. That should be an obvious lesson for her to learn, something we should’ve pushed on her from the early days. That lesson should be learned well before age 3, and right up there with learning to walk, learning to talk, and learning to use the potty. Sadly and stupidly, we didn’t stress that lesson in her from the early days, and now we’re paying the price. I suppose the boys are paying a price too, but we have to pay the price of comforting them after they fall.

The pushing started about a year ago in the form of a game. The boys would run, Abbie would chase them, and she’d shove them when she caught them. Everyone enjoyed this game, and I’m not just being optimistically negligent when I say that. Usually the boys took a dive right before Abbie caught them, and everyone giggled as the boys hit the floor. Even when Abbie caught someone, the offended party would cry for a few seconds until he realized Abbie was after the other brother. Then he’d stand back up and run in the opposite direction, giggling in anticipation of another exhilarating dive.

We should’ve stopped this behavior immediately as it was dangerous for the boys, and it taught Abbie that pushing is an acceptable form of play with others. We fell back on under-parenting because everyone loved the game so much. When a boy hit the ground hard and started screaming, we tried scolding Abbie, but I don’t think our words affected her as we fought back our own giggles while lecturing her.

These days, the pushing game causes problems for many reasons. Abbie is a little stronger. The boys fall a little harder. I’m a little more stressed out from all the screaming. Maybe most disturbingly, Abbie thinks any time is a good time for the pushing game.

When I announced it was time to go out this afternoon, the children all ran for the downstairs garage. I waited at the bottom of the steps, children’s coats in hand, ready to wrap everyone in warmth before stepped into the cold. Ian toddled near me first, and I caught him on the steps, spinning him round to find the best angle to slip his coat over his arms. Tory ran into us as he came down the steps. Not that Tory walked down the steps; Abbie caught him running down the stairs and shoved him the rest of the way. Fortunately I caught him with my already outstretched arms as I struggled to slip Ian’s coat over his body, or else Tory would’ve landed face-first on the hard tile at the bottom of the steps.

I glared at Abbie. Abbie shot back a look of not so much malice, but delight and total ignorance in how close she came to seriously hurting her brother. I wanted to lock her in timeout, but we needed to leave, so I left her punishment at a scolding and a withering glance and loaded the car.

This scathing punishment had little effect. When we unloaded the car, Abbie continued pushing her brothers as we walked to our destination. The boys stayed on their feet because I held their coat hoods in my hands like leashes, correcting their direction when they wandered, and providing balance when Abbie pushed them against my protestations. After a couple shoves, she realized why her brothers wobbled but wouldn’t fall down. She grabbed my hand, yanked it off Ian’s hood, and shoved him face-first onto the heavily salted concrete.

I picked up a screaming Ian and glared at Abbie again. She giggled again. We were still in a hurry, so I swore that she was in big trouble when we returned home.

I know it’s not effective to punish a child long after the act. You need to deal out punishment immediately after the infraction so the child knows what they did wrong. It probably wouldn’t have been effective to put Abbie in timeout when we returned home for pushing her brothers an hour ago. Fortunately Abbie pushed her brothers again as soon as we stepped into the house, so I had a new infraction to punish. Maybe the lesson will sink in with my new over-parenting style.

Technical Difficulties

Sorry for disappearing for a few days. My internet connection has been broken. Hopefully I should be back up tonight.

internet down

Can't post, must fix internet, posting from Panera. Will put up full post when back online.

What Valentine's Day Means to Me

Abbie spent much of the day begging for Valentine’s candy. When I frequently caved in and gave her a few chalky hearts, her response was predictable.

“Valentine’s candy!” she screamed. “Just for me!”

I assume she picked that up at preschool. At least she’s no longer saying “trick or treat” every time she gets candy.

Learning Experience

Today’s learning experience came at mealtime. Today being Valentine’s Day, we decided to eat out as a family. We didn’t have reservations anywhere on this super busy dining night, but thought we could sneak into a restaurant. We chose a restaurant that we had all to ourselves the last time we visited. The weather was bad, so that should keep people home. Valentine’s Day is on a Thursday this year, and at that point, most people would probably wait until the weekend to celebrate.

Wrong, wrong, and wrong. The wait was 30 minutes when we arrived at the restaurant. For a DINK couple, that’s a painless wait. For a couple with three children ages 3 and under, the wait would be intolerable. I’d be sick of hearing the kids scream in the waiting room within 15 minutes, which is about ten minutes longer than the DINKs would last.

Instead of a semi-nice sit-down restaurant, we walked to the pizza buffet across the street. It seemed like a good idea. Quick. Fairly cheap. Unhealthy food that should satisfy the kids.

The food was fairly cheap and quick, albeit crowded with other families “celebrating” the day, but I was wrong on the last count. The boys were happy with pizza, but Abbie refused to eat. She turned her nose up at the salad bar, the pizza bar, and even the desert bar. The only substances I could get her to ingest were Saltines, and my soda pop. Even the lemonade we bought for her wasn’t good enough. One of the servers asked if there was anything she could get for me. I asked if they had chicken nuggets. She gave me a weird look.

Lesson #1: Don’t even think about eating out with small children on Valentine’s Day.
Lesson #2: Never take a girl who hates pizza to a pizza buffet.

The Ornery Americans

I greet Abbie when she walks off the bus almost every morning. She’s always happy when I see her. She loves the freedom of riding the bus. She loves returning home. Most of all, I think she loves the opportunity to walk through the snow as I direct her back to the house.

She was happy as usual this morning. Her handler on the bus said something unusual when we made the exchange. “She’s being ornery today,” she said. Apparently Abbie ignored the bus rules and tried to remove things while the bus was moving, things like her hat, her shoes, and her seatbelt.

“It must be contagious,” I said. “The boys have been ornery all morning.”

Wednesdays are my errand day. While Abbie plays at preschool, I take the boys on a tour of town. The highlight is stopping at the library for story time, but I make sure to squeeze in a visit to the big box store or the club store for some Vital Supplies before we return home seconds before Abbie’s school bus. Today was a sunny and busy day; major snowstorms seem to keep striking us on Wednesdays, so we visited the big box store and the club store while the skies remained clear.

I loaded the boys into the vehicle early in the morning. Ian screamed most of the way to the big box store because he didn’t want the middle seat.

We walked into the big box store. I stashed the boys in a shopping cart so we could move faster and I wouldn’t have to worry about the boys wandering away and/or breaking stuff. Tory screamed for most of the shopping trip because he wanted out of the cart and onto the floor, most likely to wander away although breaking stuff was surely on his mind as well.

After Ian screamed from his middle seat most of the way to the library, we sat through story time. Inside, Tory took the screaming shift, although I don’t know the reason. It probably had something to do with wanting to slam folding chairs into the walls.

Ian screamed to the club store.

Tory screamed in the club store.

Ian screamed on the ride back home.

Back home, the boys were fine, possibly because they could roam unchecked throughout our house. Abbie was fine when she walked into the house, too.

In retrospect, I should’ve changed the boys’ seats in the car. If Tory was going to scream in the store, I should’ve made him sit in the middle in the car, too. Maybe he would’ve worn himself out from screaming and sat silently for the final half of our excursion. It would’ve been nice to find something to quiet both boys because screaming is ornerier than taking off a hat.

"Okay, everyone out the window."

When Abbie was an only child, car seat arrangements were easy. The middle of the back seat is the safest place for a child to sit. Therefore, Abbie sat in the middle of the back seat. We want her to be as safe as possible, and lord knows with all the choking hazards we leave lying around the house, we need all the safety help we can get.

When the twins were born, we needed to rearrange the back seat of the sedan. Only one child could sit in the middle; the other two children had to sit on the edges behind the front seats. I decided to place Abbie on the driver’s side, Tory on the passenger’s side, and Ian in the middle. Why put Ian in the middle? Because we love him most.

NO! We love all of our children equally, even when they empty a freshly opened box of cereal on the floor. We put Ian in the middle because he was and still is the lightest child. When hefting a child into the middle seat, you might as well heft the lightest child. I think Abbie wound up on the driver’s side because I occasionally took trips with only Abbie, and on those occasions it was easiest to lock her into the same side I sat. That left Tory with the passenger side as his only option, much like a hand-me-down pair of jeans that’s perfectly androgynous except for the frilly trim is sometimes his only option for leg wear.

This system worked well for over two years. The children expected to sit in their assigned seats every time they rode in the car, eventually climbing into their seats to minimize the chance that I might unexpectedly force someone into the middle seat.

When Abbie started preschool and I started venturing into the world with just the boys, I changed the seats a bit. Without Abbie, I’d let Ian sit in her androgynous car seat on the driver’s side. He seemed to enjoy the view out the window, and the elimination of the possibility that Tory would steal a toy from him. I enjoyed not having to strain my back heaving him an extra several inches into the middle. Plus I love all my children equally, so therefore I couldn’t give one of them a safer seat than the other if I didn’t have to.

Recently we changed the setup again. I now have a vehicle with three rows of seats, so we let Abbie graduate into a booster seat in the third row. To allow her access to the third row, we permanently folded down the passenger’s side seat in the second row. Abbie loves her booster seat and the freedom offered by the red button she can push to release her seat belt the instant I move the transmission to “P.” Since Tory lost his traditional passenger’s side spot, I had to upset the boys’ seats, and that has caused problems.

Tory thinks he still gets to sit on the passenger side. When he crawls into the vehicle, he sits on top of the folded-down seat, ready for an unrestrained ride. Ian thinks that since Abbie is no longer in the row, he gets her old spot on the driver’s side. Under no circumstances do either boy want the middle seat.

When we load into the car now, I know one of the boys will scream when forced to sit in the middle. Never mind that the middle seat isn’t technically in the middle since there’s currently nothing but carpet between it and the passenger’s side door. Sometimes I put Ian in the middle, hoping he’ll enjoy his traditional spot since birth, but nope. Sometimes I put Tory in the middle thinking he’ll enjoy being on Ian’s right, which is his traditional spot since birth, but nope. Sometimes I consider letting Tory ride unrestrained on the passenger’s side, but nope. I love him too much to let him ride dangerously. Plus I can’t give Ian preferential treatment in terms of extra safety.

Hi! My name is ... what?

We teach the children anatomically correct terminology. Arm. Foot. Vagina. It's all in their repertoire. Someday, most likely in a store, we may regret not teaching them more delicate terminology to describe the human body. For now, the biggest problem is when Abbie counts her brothers’ penises during bath time.

As I changed the boys’ diapers tonight, we worked on names. The boys know their names, but they don’t say their names when asked. When I ask, “What’s your name?” their response is usually a blank stare. At best they point at me and say “Daddy!”

I worked on Tory while asking for his name. He repeated, “What’s your name?” back to me. We continued the echo chamber until I removed his diaper. Ian saw the body part and announced “A penis!”

“Yes, that’s a penis,” I said to reinforce his anatomical knowledge. “But that’s not his name,” I continued. “What’s your name?”

“A penis!” came the response.

Uh oh.

Tory continued the call and response solo for a few rounds. “What’s your name? A penis!” he conversed with himself. I tried asking for his name to break the pattern, but each time one or both of the boys would answer “A penis!”

I did my best not to laugh to avoid reinforcing their answer, and I called for mommy. She rushed to the room thinking something might be wrong, and was relieved when I started asking the boys “What’s your name?”

“What’s your name?” they repeated back to me.

After a few rounds back in the echo chamber, I gave up and explained to mommy what had happened. This time I spelled out the key word to avoid reminding the boys of what had happened. I don’t mind if they call a penis a penis. When they call each other a penis, we’ll have problems.

Blame Lynnette for this One

Continuing the previous post, how exactly does one child’s poop end up coating three children? To understand the answer, you have to understand my children’s bathroom behavior.

Abbie is good about sitting on the potty. She’ll take her seat and stay there until her business is complete, grunting if necessary. She’s never pooped in the potty, and she still won’t tell me when she needs to go, but we’re making progress.

The boys love sitting on the potty. I could even use the potty as a reward if I didn’t mind the potential lifelong psychological damage I could inflict by doing so. When the boys sense Abbie is on the potty, they strip down in preparation, and bang on the bathroom door if I lock them out.

The boys sound like they’re almost potty-trained, but they don’t quite grasp the concept. They will pee and poop on the potty, but they won’t stay on the potty. When I unleash them in the bathroom, each boy will pick one of our two potties to sit. Each will then sit for at most nine seconds before hopping down and switching to the other potty. After a maximum of nine seconds later, they switch again, and the fire drill continues until I tire of watching them run naked in the bathroom, constantly threatening to deposit something on the floor.

On the occasion in question, Ian didn’t quite aim correctly when pooping on the potty. He left a large deposit on the seat, which the boys happily smeared all over their legs as they slid on and off the sullied potty several times. I didn’t notice this because I left the boys unattended. Leaving them unattended in the bathroom is never a good idea, but I like to pretend that I’ve childproofed the bathroom.

While the boys ran back and forth, I followed Abbie to convince her to sit on the potty. While Abbie does well on the potty, I’ve needed to work harder recently to convince her to sit. Sometimes this takes several minutes of cajoling, threatening, and eventually pulling. By the time I drug her into the bathroom, she was fighting so hard that she refused to sit on the potty. So I sat her down.

When she slid off a half-second later, I saw my mistake, and it had nothing to do with potential psychological potty trauma from forcing her to sit. Abbie’s legs were smeared, Tory’s legs were smeared, and, of course, Ian’s legs were smeared. I grabbed a package of wipes and started working. When I realized the extent of the damage, I decided an early bath was appropriate.

And that is how they accomplished a three-for-one.

Three for the Price of One

The kids set a new record today. One child pooped. Three children wound up with poop stains on their clothes. It was an accomplishment worthy of an early bath.

Feline Hazards

We had the standard rush out the door this morning for preschool. The bus rounds the corner, and I shoo Abbie towards the door, slipping clothes on her body and food in her mouth as we move.

Abbie has three key accessories to don before we can walk to the bus: Shoes and socks, coat, and backpack. The shoes and socks can take a while to attach, so I usually slip those on her feet several minutes before the bus’s scheduled arrival. Her coat and backpack are simpler to slip on her, and I usually wait until I see the whites of the bus’s headlights before I make her wear those. Abbie doesn’t like wearing her coat indoors for extended periods because she gets too hot, and I don’t like her wearing it for extended periods because it’s only a matter of time before she spills something on it.

When I heard the bus this morning, I carried Abbie to the door while she finished drinking her orange juice. I grabbed her coat and started slipping it over her arms as she moved her cup from free hand to free hand. I try to keep Abbie’s coat hung in the closet, but it was on the floor this morning. I try to be a patient parent who’s cognizant of my children’s limitations, but that doesn’t always happen either.

As I was about to zip up her coat, I noticed that something didn’t smell right. Ordinarily the children are the source of these odors, but this odor didn’t quite match. While watching the bus stop at our driveway, I realized the odor was wafting off her coat. That meant this odor’s source was one of our cats, a cat who opted not to use the litter box stationed 15 feet from the coat’s position.

With the bus idling outside, I had to make a quick decision. What coat should Abbie wear to preschool on this winter morning?

Her odorous coat? No, that might risk a visit from child protection authorities.

Her windbreaker? No, too cold. Besides, I couldn’t find it at that second.

No coat? No, once again, her preschool teachers are required to report signs of child abuse.

Just before reconsidering the odorous coat option, I remembered another option. We’d just bought coats for the boys for next year. Ian’s size-4 coat was hanging in the closet. It was a masculine shade of red, but it didn’t have any heavy machinery or dinosaurs decorating it.

I removed Abbie’s coat and slipped Ian’s next year coat on her.

“That’s Ian’s,” Abbie told me.

“Not today it isn’t,” I replied as I slipped her backpack over her shoulders. “Thank your cats.”

Question of the Day

Why do my children enjoy pulling wet toilet paper out of the toilet?

Good Boys

I had to take the dog to the vet this morning. That means I had to take the boys to the vet too while mommy was at work and Abbie was at preschool.

Taking the boys and the dog is a little like having all three kids at once. They whine. They all run in different directions. They smell bad. Fortunately, one of them (the dog) wore a leash.

I brought everyone into the examination room. The dog panicked, hopping on me and panting like she was hyperventilating. The boys, who are known for hopping on things two, climbed onto a bench in the examination room and sat. While the vet poked and prodded the dog, the boys stayed seated, rising only briefly when they noticed the “Dog Breeds of the World” poster behind them.

The boys were amazing well-behaved during the examination. I assumed I’d have to chase them around the room, preventing them from breaking expensive examination equipment. Instead they sat quietly and soaked in the surroundings, possibly because they sensed the jar of lollipops sitting in the waiting room.

For a minute I thought I had the best behaved boys in the world. Then we opened the door after the examination, and the boys scrambled to race the dog out of the examination room. It was nice while it lasted, but as I struggled to keep the boys corralled in the parking lot, I wished I had three leashes with me.

This Means War

When one child steals from another child, things can turn violent. When Abbie grabs a toy from one of the boys, they lack the verbal abilities to tell her how they feel, and to convince her to play nice. I also lack the verbal abilities to convince her to play nice, and I’ve tried explaining the rules to her at every volume within my range. When words fail, the boys bite.

This afternoon, Abbie stole a toy from Tory. He was playing with a tiny slide, giving toy figures a ride down it in the kind of brain-building imaginative play parents dream of. Abbie, possibly not wanting to risk the boys building their brains beyond hers, swiped the slide and figures and played with them herself.

Tory wanted his toys back, and tried biting her. Biting is the nuclear weapon of child-to-child interaction: It’s quick, violent, and usually ends any hope of resuming normal activities for a long time as both sides are reduced to tears.

Fortunately, Tory hasn’t discovered proper biting technique. He leans in mouth-first, violating the principle of “always protect your face.” He also screams as he leans in, ruining any chance he might have of a surprise attack.

Properly warned, Abbie kept the slide with one hand, and pushed Tory’s face away with her other hand. When he kept coming in spite of the stiff-arm block, Abbie smacked him in the face.

I sat to the side during this, hoping they might resolve this situation on their own. I stepped in when it became clear that neither side would surrender until they’d landed a critical blow. I snatched the toys and told them the rule, “if you can’t play nicely with a toy, nobody gets to play with it.”

I set the toys in front of them and gave them a minute to reflect on their actions. Eventually Tory grabbed the toys and resumed playing. Abbie spent her time rethinking her strategy to acquire the toys she wanted.

Abbie leaned into Tory, face-first, intent on biting him, and screaming the entire time. Tory, having watched his sister deal with such behavior, smacked her in the face. I just laughed. I probably should’ve interfered, but this was kind of like cooperative play, and that builds brains too.

Super Snacks

The Kids Rate the Super Bowl Snacks:

Chili: Meh. The boys liked it more than Abbie.
Boneless Chicken Wings: Great, they were basically chicken nuggets.
L'il Smokies: Why bother with them ` when there's chicken nuggets?
Chips: Cheetos were great. Everything else was a last resort.
Dips: No.
Soda pop: Oh yeah!
Chocolate chip cookies: I had to keep them out of those all night.
Lemon bars: A little too messy with cleaner alternatives on the table.
Chex Mix: The boys liked it. Abbie found better things.
Marshmallow-Topped Peanut Butter Bars: The marshmallows were good.
Crab-stuffed mushrooms: No, although they were great for shooing the kids away.

Yes We Have No Bananas

I bought bananas for the boys today. The last time I gave them bananas was a couple weeks ago, which they reacted to by leaving them on the table for the dog to snatch after lunch. I expected them to still ignore them when I brought them home, and planned to make banana bread with them. The boys are carb monsters, and never leave bread on the table.

When Ian saw the bananas on the counter, he immediately screamed for them. When Tory heard the commotion and noticed them on the counter as well, he screamed for bananas too. Both boys had a nice banana snack before lunch, and I set the rest aside for banana bread later.

The boys continued screaming for banana during lunch, leaving their canned fruits on the table for the dog to snatch. I obliged and split a banana between them. The boys ate a few bites, left most of their banana on the table, and continued screaming. I set them on the floor and let them calm down while I cleaned utensils off the floor and the dog cleaned leftover food off the table.

As I cleaned dishes in the sink, the boys continued screaming, convinced that a few more bites of banana were the key to happiness. I told them they didn’t eat what I gave them lunch, but somewhat surprisingly they didn’t appreciate my logic.

I sent the boys to their room to calm down, and hid the bananas on the porch while they weren’t looking. It may be too cold for bananas to keep out there, but our kitchen was a much quieter place tonight.

Flood Warning

I’m still learning how our house works a year after we bought it. Tonight I learned, with help from the kids, that when water gets poured on the floor in the upstairs bathroom (say after someone dumps several cups of water over side of the bathtub) the water will immediately drain through the floor and empty into the master closet below.