mothermayi

Milk Teeth

Kenneth and I went to Lucy’s parent teacher conference today.  On the drive there, Lucy asked me what a parent teacher conference is.  I explained that her teachers would be meeting with Daddy and me to talk about how she is doing in school.  She looked at me as though I had accused her of not loving Barbie.  “I am doing GOOD at school mama.  It is my best thing.”  Then she glared at me again.  How dare I?!   It is true.  School is her best thing.  She takes it very seriously.  Her teachers agree.  According to Mrs. Noonan and Mrs. Struckmeier, Lucy is all ready for first grade. 

After some lunch and a trip to the library, I took Lucy to the dentist.  They took x-rays of her teeth and explained to her about how well she needs to take care of the “forever” teeth that shadowed her sweet baby teeth in the pictures.  They looked huge, menacing her milk teeth from just off stage.  She is getting really grown up.  She seems fine with it all.  She nodded her head enthusiastically while the hygienist sucked spit out of her wee mouth and gave brushing instructions.  Me?  Not so much.  “Forever” teeth?  First grade? I am still not totally sure that I have decided which kind of baby sling is best for her.  I only tried two.  Maybe I should have tried water birth…?  

Court is Now in Session

I have always thought that having Perry Mason as a personal friend and confidant would be pretty cool.  We could smoke cigarettes in his cool office while trying to piece together his latest case.  Della Street and I could talk about where she gets her outfits.  Then we would all go out for steaks and martinis.  Hopefully, that moocher Paul Drake wouldn’t snow up with a new clue to cut our dinner short.  How does that saying go?  Be careful what you wish for, or something along those lines? 

My little litigator is a real pain in the steak and martini if you want to know the truth.  For example; yesterday Grandpa stopped by for a visit after an appointment with his doctor.  This morning Tennessee wanted to know “Where’th my Grampa Rod?”  He drove home yesterday.  “In hith car or you car?”  In his car.  “Why did he go to the doctor?”  I am not sure, he didn’t say.  “NO!  Tell me whyyyy he goed to the DOCTOR!”  At this point, I started to sweat a little.  I swear, I don’t know anything, he didn’t tell me.  He just said he was going to the doctor.  “Did he get a sthot at the doctor?  Did he?  Wath the needle thith big?  Or thith big!?”  He held up his little hands to indicate a needle that ranged in size from 8 inches to a foot long. 

It went on like that for a while.  He followed me from room to room, grilling me about the size of the needle.  Did the doctor hurt his grampa?  I felt harried and guilty, and I hadn’t even finished my morning bowl of oats yet.  Let alone my cup of coffee.  While I was in the bathroom, he smooshed his little mouth down by the crack at the bottom of the door demanding more facts about grampa.  I finally lost it and yelled “What are you?  A lawyer?!” 

“Whaths a lawyer?  Ith my daddy a lawyer?  Do lawyers have carths?”  Duuuude…I think my patience is in the laundry, in my other pants.  This is gonna be a long Wednesday.

Sneaking Away

Kenneth and I went to Detroit for a wedding this past weekend. It is the first time we have flown together without the kids.  Despite the fact that modern air travel is designed to take the recently enslaved to spend the rest of their lives toiling under the hot sun and whip sans paycheck; rather than a mode of transport for people taking vacations, we had a nice time on the plane.  KP and I read books and chatted quietly with each other.  We took naps.  I carried a small bag with a book my wallet and a bottle of water.  Not a single box of crayons, baby wipe nor emergency “please be quiet so those people don’t glare” bag of candy.  It was light like a feather.

We walked around a strange city; we ate in places that didn’t serve chicken fingers.  It was really nice, but I missed the kids like I would miss my right arm had I left it home with Granny.  It is so nice to be home among their squabbling and chipmunk voices.  Probably, by next week I will be fantasizing about being trapped in a dirty fuselage traveling at 500 miles per hour with nothing to eat but broken pretzels, but today, I am soooo happy to be home.

Being Discovered

It is like a magic trick.  As soon as I sit down to write my blog entry, Tennessee comes to inspect my work.  This evening, I thought I would hide in my bedroom to do a little sneaky work on my novel.  The kids were happily bickering away, totally occupied.  I wrote three sentences before I was discovered.  I am now typing this while a young gentleman I know uses my back as a road for his police car.  I asked him to please stop running the car over the keyboard.  I guess I had it coming.   I asked him if he wouldn’t mind going back to play with his sister.  He responded with a sweet smile and said “NO!”  He says that a lot. 

When I am away from the kids, I miss their little bodies.  Lucy’s sinewy little arms and birdie feet, Tennessee’s sausagie arms and sweet bonky head.  At this moment in time, I am dreaming of missing them.  That bonky head has crashed into my own unfortunately large cranium three times now.  Those sausagie arms are connected to two slap happy hands.  Lucy is using all her sinew and mite to launch herself off the bed at ever increasing speeds and height while she peppers me with questions I can’t answer.  I don’t know how our house would fare in an earthquake, nor do I know why sharks don’t have feet and/or if they did have feet, just for pretend, could they get into our house?

I am told I will miss this when they grow up and figure out what an embarrassing dork I really am.  In theory I get it, but right now I just can’t see missing this.  Pardon while I break up a squabble.  Maybe I should just tell them how terribly embarrassing and dorky I am. 

Terrorist Three's

I want to set by example.  I want to remain calm.  But what does a person do when the fruit of their loins throws a Playmobile pirate, aimed at the face and yells “you are a stupid mama!”?  I lost my temper and grabbed the Loin Fruit Gone Rotten by the waist and hauled him, kicking and screaming to his room in order to calm down enough to apply effective discipline, whatever the heck that means.  Where does this pirate chucking come from?  Kenneth and I don’t throw pirates, certainly not in front of the children. 

I couldn’t really calm down.  I was too worked up.  The pirate was really the last straw in a series of child on mother terror tactics.  He woke me up at 4:30, he asked for then refused to eat the eggs and toast I made, he pooped his pants, then ran away from me when I mentioned changing it thus spreading the offending substance around the insides of his jammies…I could go on, but I am getting angry again.  When I am old and demented, I hope I need diapers.

Ready, Set, Go!

Play-date, T-ball, chicken stir fry, baths, jammies, tooth brushing, bedtime stories, lunch packing, permission slip reading, calendar comparing, laundry folding, floor sweeping, house tidying, TV watching, book reading, sleeping.

Pho Phantasy

Woooohooooo!  We took the kids out for Vietnamese food, and they liked it.  Well, Tennessee can find something he likes at any table, Lucy is the tricky one.  Pho is my favorite soup in the whole world.  Until today, I had to have a babysitter to eat it due to Lucy’s unnatural need to eat chicken fingers and French fries any time we ate out.  I talked up the experience for a couple of days before hand.  I pointed out the advantages of being more adventurous about food; more opportunities to eat out with Mama and Daddy and the chance to find something new that is tasty.  After I said that, Lucy made a face to indicate that she was deeply doubtful.  Why would you try new food when you have already found french fries?  Your work is done after you meet those salty deep fried beauties.  After I pointed out the educational advantages of eating a wider variety of food, I pulled out the ol’ carrot and stick.  If you are good, there will be ice cream (in a cone!) on the way home, if you make nasty faces and swordfight your brother with utensils, I will personally sit in the car with you while Daddy and Tennessee finish eating.

We got to the restaurant and Lucy was enchanted by the giant urns by the door.  She got noticeably less crabby when she noticed the rickshaw displayed by the cashier.  There were green chopsticks too, Lucy’s favorite color!  She declined any avocado shake.  Tennessee drank at least half.  She liked the vegetarian spring role I ordered (damn cleanse! no shrimp allowed) and the rice noodles were right up her colorless food loving alley.  She tasted almost everything, and was generally a really good sport.  Tennessee had a “don’t play with your chopsticks” meltdown, but we worked it out with a quick trip outside.  I was really proud of my little sweeties.  Eating out is my favorite sport and it is nice to have the kids along. 

Alarming

At 5:00 AM Tennessee decided to turn on the light over the kitchen table.  Who want s to eat Cheerios in the dark?  He dragged the stool from the kitchen over to the light switch by the back door.  Sally Alice saw a great opportunity to get her kitty self outdoors.  I couldn’t act fast enough.  I yelled “Do Not Open That Door!”  while Tennessee was saying “Thure kitty, I let you outthide.”  He is a helpful guy after all.  I ran for the alarm keypad and fumbled to code.  He opened the door.  The horrid shriek of the alarm woke up Lucy, startled Tennessee, sent the cat running for the yard and made me fumble the code again.    

I got everyone calmed down.  Tennessee was enjoying a slightly soggy bowl of Cheerios and I lay on the sofa with a groggy girl in pink monkey pajamas.  This is the second week of the cleanse I am doing.  The worst week of all.  I snuggled Lucy and thought about all of the red meat I want to eat.  At this point, it wouldn’t even have to be beef, just something that was once living, and is now dead and cooked.  Preferably something that tastes good with all the red wine I want to drink.  I would polish off my meal then drink ten, no….eleven cups of coffee.  One week and a half to go.  I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.

Bathrobe

All the best stuff happens when I am in the shower.  I was soaping up when I heard the shriek of doom from upstairs.  I rinsed off quickly while I listened to the thundering and wailing coming down the stairs.  I was still in process when the shower curtain was ripped back and Tennessee screamed “She made make me mad at her!”  Lucy wasn’t far behind, hollering her case as loud as she could.  I turned off what was a lovely shower and dripped my way to my towel and robe while the two little litigators argued their cases at the tops of their voices.

Lucy was appealing to the mama jury’s sense of justice.  She hadn’t really done anything.  She didn’t mean to hurt his feelings. Three year olds can be soooo sensitive, you know how they get.  Besides, nothing could ever make pinching reasonable in any bathroom court of law.  Tennessee wailed passionately.  He was forced by hurt feelings to pinch.  He didn’t want to do it, but a man’s gotta do, what a man’s gotta do.  PINCHING?!  She is just lucky he didn’t have his tiny frying pan handy. 

They wailed, I dripped shower water on the floor.  I lead the group in some counting and deep breathing, then, when the breathing just led to more howling, a firm “Alright, enough with the sobbing!  State your case nicely or go to your room!” Cheese Louise.  I was beginning to feel pretty pinchy myself. 

Post Dinner:

Everyone is still alive.  There wasn’t anymore pinching, or feeling hurting, but I have funny hair from letting it dry without product.  There is no justice in the bathroom.

Banana Morning

At 5:00 this morning Tennessee whispered into my nose (it was the closest to the edge of the bed were he stood on tiptoe) that he was “thtarving”.  This is a regular occurrence.  Occasionally I fill him full of enough starch and milk before bed to hold him until 6:00, but not very often.  The difference between 5:30 and 6:00 in the morning may seem small on paper; but in reality, mine anyway, it is the difference between patient, kind mama, and crabby, angry mama.  I don’t know why, it just is. 

I have come up with a plan.  I will put a banana next to his bed.  Instruct him to peel and eat upon waking and then snuggle back in for some more rest.  Tonight is the maiden voyage of The Nanner Plan.  I hope to awake tomorrow around 6:30, bright eyed and ready to greet the morn.  Wish a tired lady luck.