Life is a highway

Life is a highway, I wanna ride you all night long

- Jason, Age 4, singing to himself while (supposedly) brushing his teeth.

What's Cialis?

Recently I took the kids to the doctor. I don't like this new doctor, though I thought I would at first. We'd had brief interaction with him before we moved four or five years ago. When we returned, I thought he'd be good, and after the first appointment, I felt confident. He explained things.

After a few trips I realized he doesn't just explain things, he condescends.

One of the things I hated about our last pediatrician was that, while a nice lady, she seemed to always be on the lookout for sins. One time she gave my son the once over and said,

"Bruises look normal."

Awesome. I've been working on that.

This new doctor does the same thing, just in a different boat. "So, how much TV does he watch?"

After some years on the WIC program, I've learned how to answer this question.

"Too much."

I'm tired of feeling like a bad mom because my kids drool in front of the TV every now and...ok, more than they should. When we lived in a 900 square foot apartment...among other issues, the TV was awesome.

Squirrel!
I hate having to defend myself to a pediatrician who knows nothing about me. I hate the "he's a cute kid. Great kid. Aren't you a great kid?"

The new doc condescends to my kids, most recently it was Jason.

People, I make a concerted effort to not condescend to my kids, so when someone else does, they always have this "WTF?" look on their face.



But anyway. Do they watch too much TV? While most times it's just on for noise and they're off emptying entire bottles of baby powder or shampoo on a freshly cleaned bathroom floor...Yeah. They probably watch more than they should.

Here's how I know:

One time we were at the store. I needed aluminum foil. I reached for the cheap stuff, but Abbie stopped me:

"No! You need Reynolds Wrap, Mom!"

It doesn't happen on a regular basis, but every now and again they'll stop me dead in my tracks. The most frightening thing is when they tell me I need something because a commercial told them so.

That's usually when I snap out of it, turn off the TV, and tell them to go dump a bottle of baby powder on the freshly cleaned bathroom floor.

Then there are the "ED" commercials. You know. Erectile Dysfunction. These commercials are on all the frickin' time. I wince every time one of these commercials comes on. I get little visions of what may be coming our of our childrens' mouths:

"What's 'ED,' Mom?"

"Why does he look so happy?"

"Daddy, you need that."

They're just bad commercials, cheesy, stupid. Not that I don't think they're doing some men a service, but all. the. time.

So far, though, so good. Until the other day. You know these commercials are ridiculous, and sometimes in the spirit of mockery, I repeat lines from things - commercials, tv shows, etc. Without thinking, I repeated one of the lines from a Cialis commercial.

Abbie wastes no time. "What's Cialis?"

At least he does it for a reason.

So my son thought it would be a nice surprise if Mom and Dad woke up to a clean fireplace.

That's right.

Eric woke up to the smell of burning plastic.

I want to precede this with this: lately, because Eric and I are absolutely beyond tired, the kids have taken to getting up, putting on a movie; Jason makes everyone breakfast, and they chill until Eric gets out of his shower. Neither one of us is really certain when they wake up some mornings.

It's been good. I mean, make your own breakfast, don't wake us up - yay!

Except this morning.

We just recently started using our fireplace. It's awesome (read: cheap) and the kids get such a kick out of the thing. We've tried to beat it into the kids' brains that you do not touch the fireplace nor anything within the fireplace.

We've used reason.

We've used threats.

You just don't touch the damn thing!

But Jason, like he tells me often these days, does stuff "for a reason!" We think him making breakfast for everyone makes him think he's the man of the house. He likes to be a big guy. He likes being "the boss."

(Really quick: be careful if you ever try telling your kid he's the boss of himself. That doesn't really jive with little kid logic.)

So this morning he decides that he's going to clean out the fireplace. The coals are still hot. Red. Yeah. Mostly out, but we all know how firefighters are always looking for even the slightest red coal in the ashes after a fire, right? Right.

He takes the shovel, opens the door, and shovels out the ash, carries it across the living room and then throws it into the trash can.

You know, just your standard trash can fire.

Sigh.

Conversations with a 4 year old boy

It's after dinner, and we were lazy tonight. Kids ate at the table, Mom and Dad chilled on the couch.

A couple hours later, I decide to clear off the table. There's food on the table, plates, cups, ketchup bottle and...

"Uhm, why is there ketchup on these trucks?" Nevermind why are they on the table. They've been on the table on a daily basis as of late.

"Oh," Jason responds offhandedly. "I was just licking it off."

Right.

You just have to see it.

So Abbie has proved to be quite the little writer/drawer.

Just like someone some of you all might remember (hint! me)

Of course, some of this may stem from the fact that she observes me writing on a daily basis and has seen me draw cartoon characters.

But still. Her attention to detail astounds me.

Yesterday, she was sitting at the table while I was in the middle of trying to keep my mind focused. This is a near-impossible feat as of late. I could have to vomit and forget that I had to if
I was trying to keep my mind focused on what I was writing at the moment.

"Mom, how do you spell room?"

The words spill from my mouth as fast as I can get them out. "R-O-O-M, Abbie."

"Okay."

A minute passes.

"Mommy, how do you spell you?"

"Sweetie, puh-lease. This is the last one. I'm trying to do something. Y-O-U. Now you have to sound out the rest. I can't think!"

Oh if I only knew.

Some minutes later, she comes to me asking for a piece of tape so she can place her new sign on her door. I glance at the paper she's speaking of because, honestly, I'm not so sure this is a good idea. Memories of my mom telling me as a kid it wasn't a good idea to tape things to doors like the ones we have flood my mind. I don't want to ruin the doors, but there's always paint.

"Lemme see your paper."

Instead of telling you what it says, I'd rather show you. It's absolutely hilarious and adorable
all at the same time:

She then explains to me that this paper is to "keep the boys out."

To be fair, the girl made one for Jason as well.

...And then they all played. In each other's rooms.

It's things like this that make the insanity a little more bearable.

Fresh!

My brain is absolutely shot.

Sure, it has enough room for about one topic, one train of thought. That's it, though. My mind is so saturated with fatigue and this one thing that I didn't even notice the one red flag all children have a tendency to wave:

Silence.

Every parent craves silence. I foam at the mouth for it. I have been known to clasp my hands over my ears and sing "lalalala, I can't heeaaar yoooou!" just to get my point across.

Hey, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

Mature, I know. But surround yourself with children all day and tell me you don't feel like doing that at least once in a while. I actually do it.

The problem with silence is when it comes without you somehow demanding it, and yesterday that happened. My brain was so dead that it didn't realize it until it was too late.

The boys, bless 'em for getting along, put their little heads together and decided to see what the bathrooms (plural) would look like covered in baby powder.

I walked into the hallway, probably to use the bathroom, thinking "huh, what's that smell? *cough* smells good."

HA!

Fortunately for them, I'm too beat up lately to flip out at that. I'm a little unstable lately. You really never know what will set me off and what won't, but the baby powdered bathroom didn't do it. I shrugged, told them to go play outside and, uh, left it alone for another few hours.

I'm tired!

And really, compare that to the time I walked in on Jason dipping a paper cup in a toilet full of crap, finding crap on the toilet paper roll, the wall, the towels...baby powder is nothing.

Seriously, though: I think Eric and I both deserve a week off. The kids, too. At this point, we'd take a weekend easy. The last time we took a weekend we did nothing but sleep. I actually fell asleep at 7:30 one night. Lame!

So much for a romantic weekend, right? Slept like rocks. Woke up only to eat. This is why we need a week. A weekend to sleep, a few days to actually see each other.

I might miss them after a week. Maybe. Probably. I know I'd miss them after two weeks. I love my kids to death, and I'm only half-joking, but it would do us all a bit of good.

I just need my brain to wake up.

Kindergarten Words

Abbie's teacher sends an envelope of flash cards home with her every Monday, and we're to return it by Thursday at which time she is tested on her ability to memorize - er, on her knowledge.

She's learning to sight read. I think to a point this is necessary, but anyway...She does really, really well. When she struggles, I help her sound it out. This pisses her off, and not just during homework time. At various times during the day I'll hear this:

"Mom, how do you spell 'dog'?"

I don't even look up. Usually I've already helped her spell out dozens of other words, or have had to explain why "ehdyu" isn't a word. Usually, by this point, my head is about to explode.

"Sound it out."

"I don't want to!"

Reminds me of all those times I was told by an exasperated parent to "look it up."

Anyway, the other day we were going through the cards. She's got "see," "the," "and," and a few others down pat. She calls these her "kindergarten words" and it's been fabulous. Whenever she insists she's bored or we're in a waiting room, I tell her to grab a mag and look for her kindergarten words. She finds this thrilling, fortunately enough.

There are a few words she struggles with, though. "It" is one of those words. You'd think a kid who knows - out of the blue - how to spell "here" or "she" would get "it" but whatever. I don't care. What's funny is how she sounds it out.

"Eye...Eye..."

"No, sweetie. This one makes an "eh" sound."

"Eh...ehhh..."

"Good. What sound does the t make?"

"Teh. Teh."

"Awesome. Put them together now."

Her forehead furrows. "Eh-teh. Eh teh. Eteh."

Her eyes widen with the relieving joy that is personal revelation.

"Tit!"

It must be inherent.

Abbie can't tell a lie to save her life. She gets that from me. Her eyes wander and the corner of her mouth will twitch like a bad tick until I get full on teeth.

"Abbie, did you do this?"

She stifles a giggle. "No, Mommy."

I put on my best Ricky Ricardo. "Abbie..."

"I don't want a time out!"

Jason, though? That dude will look you right in the eye and lie, even if he knows you witnessed the crime. Here's one conversation we recently had in which I did not see what had happened...but I heard it.

"Jason, did you pee on the floor?"

"Nope."

I decide to use words that wouldn't sound as accusatory. "Jason. Did you have an accident?"

He raises his fists into the air and punches them back down for added emphasis. "NO! I didn't."

"Then how did this spot get wet?"

His deadpan expression includes big brown puppy dog eyes that completely lack the mischevious twinkle you might think a kid caught in a trap might have. His face is the picture of pure innocence. "Joey did it."

This might be a viable answer, except this spot is new, Joe is outside in pull ups, and I heard Jason do it. "Joey's outside, J. What happened?"

His little eyes roll to the upper corners as he considers who might be the culprit. If you didn't know any better, you'd think he was really trying to help me figure it out.

"Ummm, Abbie did it."

He's lucky I have patience today. "Abbie's at school. Did you not make it to the bathroom? I'll bet you tried hard."

"Yeah."

Ah-hah. "So did you have an accident?"

"No."

"Are you sure, because I need to know so I know how to clean it up."

He sighs. "Yeah, I just have an accident."

I've learned I have to appeal to his sense of logic. I know - he's only four - but he has a sense of logic. It's weird.

A few days pass to find him messing with Abbie's hula hoop. It's easy enough to fix, but I don't fault Abbie for getting pissed off. Jason's constantly "experimenting" with and breaking her toys.
For this particular debacle, we had a conversation much like the one above. It began with the initial interrogation. "Did you break Abbie's hula hoop, Jason?"

"No."

"What happened, then?"

"Ummm, the red ants did it?"

When that doesn't fly, Jason continues to place blame on Joseph, Abbie, and then he even goes so far as to accuse Daddy, who was at work. I send him to his room until he can decide to tell me the truth.

A few minutes later, a humbled little boy comes out to tell me sorry. I ask him if he can tell me the truth. He nods.

"So what happened?"

"It did it by itself?"

My voice firms and I give my best don't you dare look. "J."

His shoulders fall. "I broked it."

And there you go.

Before anyone might think otherwise, no. Joseph just doesn't have the strength. Abbie wouldn't have done it herself--I mean, she might have, I won't lie, the kid is quite the talented manipulator - but I know Jason. He likes to break Abbie's toys to figure out how they work or what they look like inside. He's not a malicious kid, just too curious for his own good. His ability to spit out a believable lie is a little more than nervewracking. What will he be like at fifteen?

On second thought, don't answer that question.