mothermayi

Temper Losing 101

Lucy stubbed her toe in our neighbors back yard while we were having Memorial Day burgers and corn.  She screamed REALLY loud.  The neighbor worried about her being hurt.  I could tell by the scream that she was screaming mad.  On the way home, her little black be-jeweled Croc came off her foot and she scraped her precious tootsie on the sidewalk.  Again, mad screaming.  The we got into the house and she screamed at me when I told her she would need to wait until after bath time to eat a snack.  (She had gone after a cheeseburger like a dingo on a baby not even an hour earlier; so I knew she wasn't actually starving like she claimed to be.)  I sent her to her room where she slammed the door and screamed and cried while I got her brother into the tub. 

Before I go on, I should say that I have at times in my life had a terrible time controlling my emotions.  Maybe Lucy learned to lose her temper watching me.  Maybe we are just hard wired to have a hard time letting things slide.  I have no idea.  None the less, I completely understand how Lucy feels when she loses her temper.  My heart really hurts to watch her lose it.  I try my best to show her my techniques for coming back from the dark side.  We deep breathe, we count, we try.  But I also understand how huge rage can feel, even in a tiny person.  Man, I wish she had gotten my hair instead.

Smell that Smell

The smell of a weak mommy, that is.  It is probably the smell of coffee and morning breath, The Fear and maybe gardenias (that is just my vanity talking), whatever it is, they know.  They know when my resolve is half baked.  They know when I am feeling low.  Maybe it makes them feel nervous, or off as well.  It makes me feel even lower.  Good thing there are no lions trolling the sidewalks of Portland, because I believe I am doing a spot on impression of a zebra with a limp. 

To celebrate my weakness, Lucy caught a sniffle (not the kind that comes with a fever, but the kind that requires copious amounts of tissue and much back of hand to forehead action), then complained that she doesn't like the babysitter I hired on for the night.  When pressed, it turns out that Gigi's lack of mastery of our complicated satellite remote makes Lucy mad.  I didn't get that out of her until after I spent and hour feeling guilty for going on a date with Kenneth.  Tennessee threw a Greek tragedy of a tantrum when I dropped him off at school.  His wailing made a little girl coming up the path to school as I exited the building tear up.  I got into the car feeling like a total asshole.  Why do I send him to preschool anyway?  Couldn't I just keep him with me?  All day, every day?  Forever? Who am I kidding with this novel writing crap anyway?  Not the kids, obviously.   

The hardest part of this whole having kids business, is that I can't really wallow in this mood like I would like to.  I need to get my crap together, get some work done, and shake the pheromone that tells them that I am not in control.  It feels impossible, but I know from experience that it can be done.  I will go running, I will make chicken stock, I will re-write the first chapter...again.  Maybe by tonight, maybe sometime tomorrow, I will get my regular mommy smell back; coffee and morning breath sans The Fear. 

Booo Hisss

Today is the stuff of housfrau dreams.  Tennessee has the dreaded Hand Foot and Mouth virus, which always reminds me of Hoof and Mouth, which I somehow associate with Anthrax (the band of course).  In fact, Hand Foot and Mouth is one of the less life threatening of the childhood diseases.  It is more life annoying than life threatening really.  Poor old Tennessee is the clingiest, clammiest, crying-est, crab ever today.  I have been carting him around on my hip like a wee babe.  If I need to leave him for a minute to say, use the restroom, he howls and whines.  Jeebus Hershel Crabcakes! 

It is also thunder storming outside at the moment.  The part of my brain that is supposed to make serotonin, is making vinegar and sad instead.  I need some exercise.  I need some adult conversation.  Lucy and Kenneth are coming home soon.  I hope I can be nice, because I am going to be so happy to see Kenneth.  Sometimes after a day like this, it is hard to be nice to the person I want to see most in the world.  I want to whine and complain in the hugest of ways and demand that he stay home while I boss around doughnuts in the sunshine.  I am going to try my best to just whine a little, and complain mildly.  I might just try that string around my finger thing to remember to be nice.  Maybe a sock in my mouth?

Bunk Bed Fever

Tennessee got a bunk bed for his third birthday.  Like the rest of his presents, except the few deemed "boyish, Lucy has been coveting the crap out of it.  As soon as the box was in our house she started jockeying for possession of the top bunk. 

"I could snuggle him in the night if he got a bad dream momma!  I would be right there, in the top bunk, close."  As Tennessee has never known a life without sharing, aka having anything his sister wants yanked from his mitty mitts, he is pretty cool about communal property.  Not so with the former only child, Lucy June Pogson, but we will get back to that later.  So when she began her campaign for top bunk of his most prized birthday present, he agreed right away.  She moved a few, things into her new digs.  Four Groovy Girls, her stuffed bear Blue, her blanket and pillow, an extra set of jammies (in case she gets too cold in the night), and her "laptop" that her Uncle Mike and Aunt Suzie gave her for Christmas.

It took Kenneth four hours to put the thing together, then two hours to get the kids to sleep (they were both so excited that they could barely stand it let alone relax and sleep).  I checked on them before bed, then went to sleep myself.  I woke up twice, imagining the sound of my Lucy flopping over the side despite the substantial guard rail and Conestoga wagon type canopy keeping her safe.  They didn't wake me up until 6:12 in the morning, which is practically luxurious by my standards.  I asked them how they slept.  Tennessee was happy as a big old three year old clam.  Lucy, well Lucy had some complaints to file.

Apparently Tennessee did "gots" a bad dream.  He climbed up the ladder to snuggle his sister.  After stealing her covers and kicking her in the shins a few times, he went right back to sleep.  She now wants me to forbid him from going in the top bunk to sleep with her, and while I am at it, just tell him to stay out of her bunk in general as she didn't want him messing up her stuff.  I figured it wasn't worth working her up before school this morning, so I told her I would think about it.  I think after school will be the right time to explain that her bunk bed colonization plans are not going to be tolerated.  Poor old Lucy, the end of an empire is a tough thing to take. 

My Appologies to Godzilla

It is Tennessee's third birthday today.  We are celebrating tomorrow, but he is hip to the fact that today is his day.  It is as though a switch was flipped that set off the alarm to wake his inner Godzilla.  He has been stomping around, threatening the cat and making demands.  He has threatened to "poop at me".  He has called me a potato head.  He wants a banana, then, as soon as the banana is peeled to the point of no return, he hates bananas.  My patience is being stretched in new and amazing ways. 

And then, almost immediately after giving the cat a playful choking, he is amazingly cute and cuddly.  Like a fool, I unpack his suitcase and cancel my check to military pre-school.  He is such a sweet little innocent guy.  What chubby cute cheeks.  What sparkly big blue eyes he has.  He smooches me, tells me how pretty I am...then karate chops his sister and tells his dad that he "is a thtinky head".  I was kidding about the military pre-school, but as I sat writing this, he threw a large bouncy ball at my head.  I might need to send off for brochures. 

A Room of One's Own

This wonky little house Kenneth and I bought has many wonderful features.  The zany yellow blue and red linoleum from the 60's that hides spills ever so well.  The giant bedrooms upstairs are nice too.  But today I am happiest about the little room above the garage.  I have tried a few times to make it into an office for me.  The trouble with that being that most of my writing is done in stolen bits of time between folding clothes or breaking up squabbles.  I end up writing on my bed or in the kitchen much of the time.  Over the winter, my supposed office was a hide out for squirrels and spiders.  After some sweeping and dusting, it turns out it is the best playhouse ever. 

The kids love it out there.  I set up a few folding chairs and an old cash register from the first doughnut shop.  I don't know what it is about a cash register, but the kids can't get enough of that thing.  We are starting them on the capitalism early.  My office is really no longer my office, if it ever was mine to begin with.  I think it was really a playhouse disguised as an office before.  Just waiting for a couple of kids who had finished taking over the rest of the house and needed some more space to cover with toys and shriveled left-over snacks.

Penith

It was one of those dramatic weather days we have here in Portland.  Gentle fluffy clouds turned into torrential rain and gale force winds, with patches of amazing sunshine.  When the first bucket job started, Tennessee demanded his rain coat and boots and headed for the back yard.  He tromped around, investigating the rain spout and testing different mud consistencies with his grubby boy hands.  After his clothes started to be uncomfortably damp, he came in for a change of socks and a snack.  He looked pretty drowsy so I set him up on the sofa with a blanket. 

After a few minutes, I heard him calling me.  He was just wanting to know if he could have a try at the potty.  To save me some trouble he had already removed his diaper on his own.  There he was, half way up the stairs, pants down around his ankles, boner in hand. 

Okay, let's freeze frame for a minute.  What am I supposed to do here?  I don't want to make him feel bad about boners.  But he does need to start learning about decorum.  What I really wanted to do was holler, "Cheese and Rice Tennessee Wallace Pogson!  Put that away!"  I went for, "Sweetie that is for you to do in private."  Mr. T grinned a huge grin then hopped the rest of the way up the stairs with his safety hazard style pants.  He turned around, and said "Huhu, penith!" then penguin walked into his room. 

Dear Old Dad

I just visited my father in the hospital.  He is having some appendix trouble, nothing too alarming.  I stopped by Rich’s (a wonderland of tobacco and magazines) and bought him a pile of magazines and some fancy cigarettes.  I felt nervous all morning.  I wasn’t sure why.  Maybe it is because I am afraid of him getting older and dying before I get the chance to get to know him as a grown-up.  Maybe I am just petrified of hospitals.  The only time I have spent around hospitals has involved death and birth, neither of which I am in the mood for at this juncture, thank you very much. 

He seemed fine when I got there; his room in the V.A. had a great view of the Willamette River.  He had spread his stuff out to make himself at home, newspaper, half drank cup of tea, half consumed cup of jell-o, some various scraps of paper and notes, and was up and cruising around in some brown institutional jammies they had outfitted him with.  I think he will be just fine, but it scared me to see Dad in that place.  It didn’t scare adult me, with my driver’s license and mortgage; it scared little kid me.  What do I do if my Daddy gets hurt?  Who will reach all the high stuff and holler at me to remember my coat?  Wouldn’t I be lost in the world without him?  Well, no, not in the least.  But that didn’t stop me from feeling that way.

It is good for me to remember this feeling.  Lucy and Tennessee are still reliant on me for almost everything.  I take for granted how much their worlds revolve around the chores I do for them at this phase of their life.  Sometimes I feel frustrated with how much they need me.  I am going to try my best to remember how I am feeling today the next time there are nightmares or attacks of insecurity at a birthday party.  It might just make it easier for me to be patient. 

Bed Hopping

Lucy woke up at 2:00 this morning with a bad dream.  I walked her back to her room and lay down with her to pat her back until she fell back to sleep.  I awoke three hours later to the sound of Tennessee creeping down the stairs to look for me in my bed.  I woke up and snuggled him back into his bed, laying down next to him on his tiny twin Big Boy Bed, hoping for another twenty minutes of cramped uncomfortable sleep.  He was too hungry. 

I feel the kind of strange that one only gets from a night of broken sleep, or a tequila bender.  Either way, I am not at the top of my game.  It is a glorious sunny day here in the City of Roses, and I should be out weeding and generally roughing up my yard, but I think writing this may be the only thing outside of the general “keeping the kids alive” duties that cannot be avoided.  The sofa is calling my name, I will go to her, my precious kid stained sofa.  I love her so, despite the way she smells when it is warm.

Bathtub Roulette

I didn’t post yesterday.  My plan was to post after the kids were in bed.  It was such a sunny afternoon, and we grilled dinner, and did I mention how sunny it was?  I just couldn’t drag myself to the computer until I got every last bit of sun.  As you may or may not have noticed, I didn’t end up posting yesterday.  Now I am gonna tell you why.

The neighbor and her son came over to eat dinner with us and play.  The kids made mud pies and had a gang of fun.  Dinner was served, followed by an after dinner mud flinging session that got pretty crazy and awfully messy.  I didn’t mind, it was the sunniest day so far this year.  Nothing was going to get me down.  We gave Lucy a shower, plopped her in front of the tube for a pre-bed show, and put the boys in the tub.  They played and laughed.  I checked on them.  We had some wine.  Then Calley checked on them. We had a little more wine.   Then Kenneth checked on them.  Then we started talking about how cool it is that they are getting bigger and they don’t need to be watched every last second. 

Then the fire alarm started going off in the basement.  I should explain that our fire alarms are connected to the alarm system in our house.  It calls the fire department directly and makes the most hideous ear splitting sound you have ever heard.  Kenneth and I ran to the basement to check for smoke.  We found just the opposite.  There was water coming through the ceiling and running through the fire alarm, thus pissing it off and making it scream real loud.  Next question…why water?  Well, those big boys of ours had bailed all of the water out of the tub on to the floor using the best part of Wally’s potty.  An inch of water flooded the bathroom floor and spilled out into the hall.

I don’t know when I have been madder at kids.  I yelled my head off.  I scared the boys.  There was a little voice somewhere in the back of my head telling me to stop screaming.  Telling me that the boys got that they had messed up and that I had gone too far.  That voice often fails to speak at a volume I can hear.  After the alarm shorted out and decided to go off at random for the next hour and four calls to the alarm company, Kenneth figured out how to turn the whole thing off. 

The kids were so tired and scared after all the noise; my yelling, at the alarm repeatedly going off at random.  I apologized a repeatedly for being unnecessarily screamy.  Tennessee apologized for bailing out the bathtub.  That’ll teach me to relax.