mothermayi

The World is Your Hanky

My kids are fairly well mannered for their age and station in life.  They can eat at the table without over-turning it, mostly.  They have been known to say "please" and "than you".  They generally behave in stores and other public spaces.  Really, I have seen worse.  Where my kids (and I do not think I am alone here) seem to display their most raw mammalian selves is in the area of body investigating/fluid exchange/jam handedness. 

In the hour after bath, before bed Tennessee  held his penis between his thumb and index finger in order to poke it up against his dad while saying "peck, peck, pecker" then cracking up.  While I painted Lucy's toenails bubble gum pink he sat next to her picking his nose with one hand while holding the other out to me repeating "polish on my nails too!" over and over.  Later I caught him wiping his nose on the sofa like a total freakin' barbarian.  I squawked tissue box squawks, pointed and hooted.  He ran a tissue over where his mustache will someday be, then tossed it over his should onto the rug.  I groaned and huffed.  I know this isn't forever.  I know my squawking and his future desire to date will mold him into a tissue using citizen of the world.  I just know it will all come together one day.  I believe!

Being Big

After gymnastics today, Lucy and I stopped to pick up the pizza our family won in the school raffle.  Woohoo!  Turns out, the best part about the pizza was the fact that we won it, not so tasty.  The pizza parlor did have orange Fanta though.  That softened the gross crust blow.  Lucy got her very own soda, a very big deal (it was orange so I am counting it as a serving of fruit).  As we toodled back home through the dark and rush hour traffic, Lucy sipped her soda and tallied up all of the things about her that make her big.  "I like soda now, I go to kindergarten, I don't wear diapers, I go on play dates, I get my shoes on the right feel almost always..."  The list was long and traffic was bad, so I didn't hear it all.  It got me thinking though.

I remember being in junior high school and thinking about being in high school.  In my mind, once I got a locker took drivers ed, and changed clothes for gym, I would be grown up.  Then I got there, I wasn't big.  In order to be big, I would need to go to college, get my own apartment and find true love.  It just keeps getting farther away, this getting big I hear so much about.  After I finish a novel, learn to not over-eat and pack too many pairs of shoes when I go on a trip...then I will be big.  By then I am sure I will have a whole new list of being big requirements.  I will need to be able to levitate and predict weather.  Then I will really be big.

Potty Redux

Tennessee just asked me to put on his big boy choo-choo train underwear.  They have been collecting dust after a failed first attempt at learning the secrets of the toilet.  I am trying not to get my hopes up, but he can now pull his drawers up and down and seems really enthusiastic about the whole thing.  I am going to remain neutral, play it cool.  I will say things like "Fine go ahead, use the potty if that is what you are into."  And "I don't mind changing your diapers.  I would gladly change them for another whole year [gasp, sob] if that is easier for you."  I hope my act is convincing.  I hope he doesn't sense my real feelings..."Pleeeeeeze pleeeeeze, if you really love your sainted mother, who carried you in her womb for 40 looong weeks, and only complained every couple of minutes or so about it.....start using the potty!  For the love of God!  Please."  Maybe I should wear sunglasses when I talk to him so that he doesn't see the pleading in my eyes.  It is gonna be hard not tripping over things in this dark gray weather while wearing my shades. 

Camp Out

Lucy has been sleeping on her floor for a week now.  At first, she waited until bedtime to set up her sleeping bag, pillow, three favorite snuggly friends and cup of water.  Now it seems to be a permanent installation.  She has a cardboard box (formerly her Halloween float, formerly formerly a case of diapers) turned so that the opening faces her while she sleeps.  All of her My Little Ponies line up inside the box facing her with squares of tissue on their backs to keep them warm in the night.  The rest of her dolls camp next to her in various and sundry beds, make-shift and otherwise.  It is like a shrine.  She is the slumbering deity, and all of the toys surround her, adoring, while she sleeps. 

Last night I asked her if she would be moving back to her bed anytime soon.  She let me know that she wouldn't be needing a bed anymore.  Tennessee could have it.  She has grown out of beds for now.  I asked her if Daddy and I were too big for a bed.  She just looked at me without saying anything.  I guess I got my answer.  I won't be rolling out the sleeping bags anytime soon though. 

In the Future

Tennessee and I were just hanging out in the kitchen having a snack.  I enjoyed a lovely tangerine while he munched a beautiful yellow/green pear.  I commented that he was growing out of his Thomas the Tank Engine jammies.  His little toes are pressed right up against the seams of the footie feature of his evening attire.  He told me that he is getting to be as big as Lucy.  I told him that he shouldn't get much bigger as I won't be able to carry him any longer.  He told me that it would be okay, and that as soon as he got big and I got little he would carry me around.  I am one lucky mama.

Exploring with Dora

Yesterday morning, after dropping off Lucy, Tennessee and I made a pit stop at the market.  He was not in the mood to follow my long list of grocery store don'ts.  Don't yell in the cookie isle.  Don't yell at the meat counter.  Don't yell about bagels.  Don't yell in the produce section.  Don't throw yourself on the floor at the check-out counter.  I know, I know, with the price of organic milk these days, throwing a fit when it comes time to pay seems appropriate, but I have my rules...

All of the back arching and mother embarrassing that he did, resulted in his not receiving a sticker from the cashier, which caused more screeching.  Luckily we were on the way out at that point, so no one had to hear what a mean mama I am.  We got home and I managed to get all the perishables in the fridge despite the little guy hanging off my legs yelling "NOOOOO!" over and over again.  I am not sure where his "no" was aimed.  I am sure he wasn't sure either.  Perishables fridged, I sat down and started reading books out loud.  He sobbed his way into the living room and finally climbed on my lap (that very hungry caterpillar is so alluring).  After a good pile of books he, climbed down and wandered upstairs.  After I loaded the dishwasher, made the beds, put the rest of the grocery store score away, and picked up the morning flotsam and jetsam, my angry young man came down the stairs.

Tennessee recently figured out how to take his clothes off.  During his cooling off upstairs, he had removed his corduroys, and put on his sisters pink polyester Dora the Explorer nightgown.  He had on that and a pair of red striped socks pulled up to his knees.  Cutest effing thing ever.  He asked for some paper and crayons.  After humming and drawing for a while he asked for some pieces of tape.  I pulled off a few strips and stuck them half on half off the kitchen table.  He went to work putting drawings of strange circle guys with lots of squiggly arms all over the house, just two feet off the floor.  I guess there is a lack of art hanging at that level.  He worked quietly, only piping up to ask for more tape.  He took his nap in the "Dora Dress" and asked to wear it to pick up Lucy in the afternoon.  I explained how bent out of shape Lucy would be if she caught him wearing her clothes.  He agreed and changed back into his fit throwing pants.  I will not read too much into this.  I will not.

Friday the 13th

It is really dark today.  The snarky nerd that DJ's the morning radio show said that there is a 100% chance of rain.  There is a flu epidemic on.  There were roofers on my house yesterday, (nice men, efficient and tidy, but sooooo loud for sooooo song).  The cat got the basement door open in the middle of the night and pounced around on my bed, leaving me pretty bleary eyed.  There has been a string of robberies, car accidents and a death among my family and friends.  It is also my Special Lady Moon Time, if you know what I mean. 

Tennessee has a music class scheduled this morning.  I don't think I can go.  It seems far too dangerous outside my wonky little house. Maybe Mr T and I will put on some Leonard Cohen and have a little music home-school.  I feel a little bad for not soldiering through, but I just can't find my soldier pants today.  I even checked the laundry.  Nope, nary  a pocket or brass button.

Beet Man

So the drive home was the usual horror.  Tennessee howling for "his" music, Lucy whining about Tennessee howling, Kenneth and I having a disjointed, mildly passive aggressive cell phone conversation. (Yeah, you read that right, I was being passive aggressive to my husband while talking on the phone whiledriving in rush hour traffic while using my most crabby voice at my children.)  Yeesh.  I got the kids calmed down a block before the house with a promise of a bath free night.  It is Veteran's Day Eve after all.  We were in the house for no more than five minutes before Tennessee starts wailing from two year old exhaustion and frustration at the exact moment that Lucy pokes herself in the eye with a kite.  When asked what she was doing with the kite at dinner time during a rainstorm it only made the howling louder.  The left over chicken that was being heated during the cacophony was burnt causing more whining and complaining.  Finally enough ranch and ketchup where applied to get the kids to the table. 

My head was getting that caught in a vice feeling that only small children can create.  Kenneth and I had yet to say anything truly civil to each other and Lucy was still sniffling from her kite vs. eye incident.  Then there was a small snuffling sound.  Tennessee was holding the little bowl his dad had filled with pickled beets up to his mouth.  Having eaten all the beets he was drinking the vinegary left-overs.  between each sip he would pause to take a breath and say "mmm, good beets, mmmm".  It lightened all of our moods significantly.  I love that little dude.

Two! andahalf

Tennessee is pretty easy to predict right now.  His answer is "NO!", guaranteed.  No matter what the question might be.  Kenneth suggested we have a little t-shirt silk screened for him.  It would say "I AM TWO F%#* YOU!" No comma, it would ruin the flow.  It was raining buckets today and he had been badgering his big sister all afternoon.  There was a graph-able pattern to the whole thing.  First they play nicely, then they wrestle around a bit, then Lucy cries or whines, then Tennessee hollers/slaps/screams that it isn't his fault.  During dinner, after a particularly loud comment on the pickled beet he was eating, his dad asked him to refrain from yelling at the table.  He stuck out his pouti-est lips and said, "I didn't yell, I screamed."  There will be no winning with that guy, not for at least another 6-8 months

Just when I am about to dig out that business card I have for the Gypsy who is rumored to steal bratty blond boys, he bowls me over with cute.  Yesterday, after a really long afternoon nap, he was eating his way through a whole peanut butter with jelly and three halves of avocado (or bocabo, as it were) He looked up at me with his puffy little post nap face and said "'Dis is really nice mama, fanks."  Maybe not the heart melting-est a'la computer screen, but I was so swept up in adoring that I forgot how rotten he had been acting before he took his nap.  I suspect this is a glimpse of life with the puberty set.  The mood swings and belligerence, followed up by glimpses of unfair sweetness all contained in a package far too big for me to tuck under my arm and plunk into time-out.  I think I might need the teensiest dab of whiskey in my evening tea.  Yeesh.

The Bickersons

The kids are in the fighting in the bathtub.  Most of the time they get their own baths, but there is a drought on somewhere, so I figure I should do my part.  Plus, they have been fighting since dinner ended and I am running out of ideas.  I am going with a version of that treatment you hear old timers tell about getting caught with cigars, or cigarettes as kids.  The one where upon discovering the tot with the smokes, the adult in charge gives the tot a huge amount of cigs and orders the things smoked.  The old timer always says "I never touched another cigarette for the rest of my life!"  One smallish bathtub, two washcloths, a wind up seal, a bar of soap, one whiny sister, and one pesky brother.  It is a long shot, but maybe they will bicker so much that they will never bicker again....?

Alright, I am full of crap.  The noise just reached a crescendo and I couldn't take another minute.  I stomped my stompy slipper feet in there and told them that I was revoking before bed tv privileges if I heard one more peep.  Lucy pouted her saddest pout and tried to explain how she wasn't doing anything and it was all his fault.  Tennessee started giggling and peeping like a little devil bird.  Mom, if you are reading this, I am so sorry Brook and I bickered so much.  I am really, really sorry.  Really sorry.