Cracking Up

Tonight at dinner I lost it. I started cracking up. And I mean that in the I-started-laughing-and-couldn't-stop kind of way. Not in the way that might mean I was starting to crack. Although that's probably the reason behind my laughter-driven tears.

It all started with a long afternoon chasing around a 2 year old. And then we hit the unhappy hour. These days I have resorted to turning on the TV at 5pm so I can get some dinner cooked without 30 pounds stuck to my legs insisting on being picked up. But today I was feeling like I had already used the doctor recommended allowed time of 2 hours of "screen time" per day. In fact most days that allotment seems to go by the wayside before nap time. Oops. Perhaps I shouldn't admit that to the public. But hey, look at you. You're sitting there glued to the screen right now. So you can't throw stones from inside your glass monitor.

But they were all playing pretty well together at about 5pm tonight, so I just made a quiet move over to the kitchen and got things going. Now is when the fun starts. About every 3 minutes I am either pulling one of my kids off of their sibling or crawling on the floor picking up pieces of something that was thrown through the air or knocked over. At the very least I'm barking out orders to "leave her alone!" or "stop throwing things!", or the classic "STOP YELLING!".

This continues for the better part of an hour while I cook some ground beef and cut up some vegetables. Now in most homes across the country this culinary skill may take only 10 minutes. But in my home, with no "screen time", it can take up to an hour, which is what happened tonight.

Finally my husband gets home, which means the relief shift has begun. I finish what I need to for dinner and get everyone's food on the table. Then we all sit down for dinner.

Wait. That's an overstatement. There's not a whole lot of sitting going on. At least not for my husband or me.

First I forgot the napkins, so I was up again to get those. Then one of the girls needed more milk, so I was up again for that. Then someone dropped a fork, so my husband went to get a new one. Then my son finished his peaches, so my husband went to get some more. Then my younger daughter wants more peaches too. But she doesn't like "those kind" of peaches, can she have the other kind? And during this time my husband and I have barely touched our food, and yet my oldest claims "I'm done - can I be excused?".

This happens a lot at dinner time. She wolfs it all down and then wants to get up again. She's not the type to sit still for long, so I can't blame her. But we always make her wait until someone else is finished as well before she can get up. I'm not sure why, other than to make her pay for her carefree life and the envy she causes us at her ability to eat food while it's still hot.

Then my younger daughter decides her taco won't stay together so she won't eat it. My husband gets up to get a toothpick to solve the problem. About one minute later she declares that she doesn't like what she's eating and asks for a plain tortilla. As my husband is up getting a tortilla, my oldest decides she wants one too, but can we put butter on it and heat it up for her? Sure, WHY NOT? We were just standing around the kitchen wondering what else can we do around here besides sitting down to eat the rest of our dinner?

Now they are all armed with tortillas, plus the bag is now in the middle of the table, with the milk and an extra fork. Frankly, they don't make lazy susans big enough for all the crap that needs to be within reach of us while we sit at the dinner table.

As I approach my chair one last time I just start laughing. I think I had a moment where I saw this all through my husband's eyes, and I had to laugh. He gets home and every single day he gets the "hero's welcome". The kids run to greet him and give him smiles and hugs. And that's about where the fun ends for a while.

Because we go right into this song and dance we call dinner time. Suddenly I saw the past 30 minutes rush through my head all at once, like some crazy-ass dance you might see if there were ever a musical about whacked out exhausted parents of three small children.

Sit down...stand up...open cupboard...sit down..."eat your dinner"...bend over...pick up fork...stand up...open drawer...sit down..."eat your veggies"...stand up...open fridge...sit down..."don't throw your food"...bend over...pick up food...stand up...open pantry...sit down...standupsitdownstandupsitdown...TA DA!

And it just cracked me up. I was laughing so hard tears were streaming. My kids were asking me what's wrong and I couldn't answer. My husband just said "I think mommy's losing it." Which is a bit true really. Why else would I be laughing so hard at the very thing that drives us bonkers?

Because the alternative was to cry out of sadness and exhaustion I guess.

And I choose laughter.

My glass is always half full.

At least until one of the kids finishes it and asks for more.

So Many Moments, So Little Typing

Where do I start? This past week had so many precious moments. And funny moments. And exhausting moments. And I wanted to remember them all so I could write about them later. Well not the exhausting ones because we all have enough complaining in our lives already. I know I do. But try as I might to capture all these moments in writing, they remained only written in my mind. So I'll try to sum up the good ones for you.

Last weekend we took my oldest to get her ears pierced. Yikes. Talk about an age marker. I can't believe she's old enough already. But we said we'd talk about it after her 7th birthday, and then we settled on her being 7 1/2. Which was officially last week. So off we went to the mall. And there were 2 girls ahead of her in line. The first one we saw was a very brave and stoic role model which I was pleased to see. Then it was time for the next girl to go. She was fine until the moment of truth on her first ear and she flinched just as the girl was doing the piercing. The job came out okay, but the girl started bawling and saying that it hurt and she didn't want the other one done. That poor mom had to calm her down and then talk her into sticking around for the other one, which she knew wasn't going to feel good. But thankfully she did it and survived. Then my daughter went up there and was very brave through it all. She ended up lucking out and having the second employee available to help when it was her turn, so she had both done at the same time. And she never shed a tear. Now she LOVES having her little pink crystal flowers in her ears. It goes great with her new haircut, which is about 10 inches shorter (and now Locks of Love is the recipient of all her patience over the past year).

Then last week was the end of the school year, which somehow gets translated into hurry-hurry-hurry-have-lots-of-events-and-meetings-and-too-much-fun-before-the-world-implodes. The first event that fell under this category was the recap and brainstorm meeting for the PTA Board. Did I mention that I got shanghaied into being an officer on the PTA next year? Okay, shanghaied might be a strong word. Let's put that under the category of It's An Honor To Be Asked To Serve My Country School, and subcategorize it under I Can't Say No. Anyway, back to the meeting. The only reason I highlight this event is because I had one of those "yes, that's my kid" moments. So here was this group of lovely ladies that were sitting around a family room in a lovely home, and I there I was with my two youngest rugrats. I brought them along (with fair warning to the group) and figured I'd put them in front of a show and they'd stay happy for a bit. Which worked for a while, but then my youngest got restless and decided to go up to the sliding glass door to watch the dog in the back yard. A little time passed and I was just thankful they were still quiet and staying out of the middle of the room and conversation. Then one of these sweet ladies gets my attention and points to her open mouth, and then points to my son, who is behind me. I turn around to see my son licking the sliding glass door and sharing a french kiss through the glass with a golden retriever. And he was leaving more drool on the window than the dog.

Yup. He's with me.

Another great moment from last week was on Thursday night. My younger daughter had a gymnastics "show". This is sort of a recital that they do every 6 months and invite us all in to watch from inside the gym so that we can feel like our kids are really getting something out of all the money we sink into the place. This being her 3rd or 4th show, and her being the rather shy one in the group (although she will always participate and perform, which we love) we weren't expecting anything too new. But low and behold, when it was her turn to run in and jump on the vault up to the platform and stand up on that platform all by herself to introduce herself to the crowd, she did just that. Did you get that? SHE DID JUST THAT. She introduced herself to the room. In a clear and somewhat loud voice. With eye contact no less.

Whaaaatt?! Who's child was this anyway? My husband and I could have been blown over by a feather. She's never done that before, and it was a HUGE step toward her blooming social side. One of the teachers, that she has had for the past 2 years, came up to me afterward and expressed her pleasant shock with it all. She couldn't believe it either. When I asked if she ever talked in class, she said that her public introduction was just about the most she's heard her say, ever.

One other moment from that night deserves a shout out. My daughter and her crowd pleasing introduction was not the first one to make an entrance for the class performance. The first boy that came in did so in the same fashion, running and jumping up to his shining moment on the stand. And just after his jump onto the platform, we all heard "ooooh....I try it!" and then we saw the streak of my son running past us all, crossing the entire floor exercise mat to reach the platform, then hurling himself at this kid's ankles up on the stand before my husband could retrieve him.

Yup, that's my kid.

So many moments in such a busy week. I wish I had time to capture them all with the details they deserve. But suffice it to say, just because this blog goes quiet for a few too many days, it does not, in any way, mirror what is happening in the daily life of this mom.

Things That Go Bump In The Night

Lately we've been having a lot of bumps in the night.  As I mentioned not long ago, our son has figured out how to get out of the crib by himself.  And he helps himself to this lovely exercise every night at bedtime.  We are now going into our 3rd week of this, and it's finally getting better.  And no, we haven't gotten a big boy bed yet.  And yes, we probably should.  But he's our third child, and so far he hasn't injured himself, so we are feeling pretty good about it all.

The tell-tale sign of how much his bedtime routine is getting better is how many loud thumps you hear in a single sitting.  It used to be 6 or 7 or more.  And it would go on for an hour.  A lot of those sessions were peppered with "Daaaaddy" and pleas for more time with his idol.  And the more daddy got involved in the process, the longer it all seemed to go on.  

So I put an end to that pretty fast.  Call me a spoil-sport, but it was getting a little ridiculous.  My husband would get so annoyed by it all that he'd resort to some crazy tactics.  Although one of them turned out to not be so crazy.  

It seems that taking his favorite snuggly animal away got our son to listen up a little.  Yes, it seems a little cruel.  But it worked for my husband, and I've gotten it to work for me too. 

Now this week my husband has been out of town and I have things running like a tired rusty squeaky well-oiled machine.

I put him in his bed, tell him to stay there, and I leave.  I wait outside and if I hear him stand up I look in and say "lie down".  If he doesn't lie down, I come in and take away his doggy, and go back outside.  After he's been able to lie down in his crib for a few minutes without standing up, I go in and give it back.  And we do it all over again if he stands up again, or if he gets out before I can catch him.  Tonight, after only 2 escapes, he settled down and went to sleep.  Not bad considering I wasn't patrolling his room very well.  The other night it was only once.  A record!

Nap time has gotten better too.  It's never been as bad as bedtime, but today he just went right down and never even bothered to take a second look at the door.  Sweet.

Now the only other hitch in this is that at times he's been getting up during the night.  And he doesn't hesitate to just thump his way out of bed.  It's rather startling to be woken up by the sound of your child basically jumping out of his crib.  

And you add to that the weird energy that we've had in the house around midnight, and you get some more bumps in the night.  For the last several nights, the kids have all taken turns getting up around 12:15am.  The first night it was my younger daughter, complaining that it was too dark or some other asinine thing like that.  Too dark?  It's the middle of the goddamned night.  Of course it's too dark!  And of course she had to tell me this on 3 separate occasions over the next half hour.  Then, at 2:30a that night, there was a bump in the night.  Jailbird was stretching his wings and it took 2 times to get him back in bed for good.

The next night my son was randomly out of his crib close to midnight.  With barely a peep he escaped, but I only had to put him back one time.

Then last night I figure maybe, just maybe, it will be a quiet night.  Sure enough, my younger daughter and my son were quiet all night.  But, go figure, my oldest got up to go to the bathroom at 12:15am.  Now normally I might not have stirred too much when she gets up, which is very rarely.  But these days we have so many bumps in the night that require my more or less immediate attention.  So I sprang out of bed at the first sounds, only to see my son's door still closed and to hear the little tinkle from the bathroom.

Great.  I'm up even when I don't have to be!  So be it.

Now here's the kicker for all of this sleeping madness.  Around the same time that my son started escaping from the crib, he also started getting up around 5:45a or 6am.  Oy!  Who the hell wants to be up at 5:45am other than the girl that delivers our newspaper?  And for a non-morning person, that's like getting up in the middle of the night.

For the past few weeks my husband has been taking the morning shift, as usual.  We have tried putting my son back in his crib, but it's usually useless.  You end up just getting way too much exercise for that time of morning.  What's also usually useless is me going back to sleep.  But at least I get a few quiet minutes in a warm bed before I have to face the world.

This morning stuff was the thing I was dreading when I knew my husband was going out of town.  Sure enough, after that night when my daughter had me up at midnight (right after I'd gone to bed, by the way), and then my son had me up at 2:30am, there he was, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 5:45am.

Enough is enough.

I tried putting him back in, over and over, until about 6:15am, and then I gave up.  

The next morning I tried to have a more positive attitude, and while I was putting him back in at almost 6am, I did the take-away-his-favorite-stuffed-animal-the-only-piece-of-security-he-has-in-the-crib-we-are-cruel-parents trick.  And it worked for a bit.  Then I told him, after I gave it back, stay here and wait for mommy to come back.  And just like sleep-training in reverse, I came back after a few minutes and said "good job", and then again after 5 minutes, and then again after 10 minutes.  And then I called it a morning and got up with him at 6:30am.

Are you tired yet?

Well here's the good news.  Last night I put him to bed and after not too much fuss, he was out at 8:15pm.  Which I have decided needs to be his new bedtime, since he's clearly getting enough sleep that he can wake up before the roosters.  And had I closed his curtains real tight to keep out the morning light.  And I had turned his humidifier down to a lower setting so it wasn't quite so loud (good for drowning out our night time noise with the girls when he's trying to go to sleep, but I've noticed it seems awfully loud during our middle of the night tea parties).  And I hoped that our morning lesson had struck a bit of a chord.

And this morning he slept until 6:45am.  Whaaaaat?!  

Not only that, he didn't make a thump when he got out of bed.  He managed to get out quietly, then walk over to our door.  At that point he usually starts saying "daaaaaadddy" much too loud for everyone else in the house.  But this morning he didn't do that.  He just stood quietly right by our door until I came over to get him.

And that's when I'm pretty sure I heard angels singing.

Now the question is, what worked?  Was it the morning before?  Was it the curtains?  The humidifier?  I have no idea, but I'm repeating it all again and we'll see what happens.

The saddest part of this whole thing is that I am absolutely ecstatic that I got to sleep in until 6:45am this morning.