Do you speak Toddlerese?

Prater Points...I bet you're wondering what those are huh? Well they are our version of Colbert Coins an amazing idea I'm stealing from my mommy friend Elizabeth. So Elizabeth THANK YOU!! It's a new chart in our house for all of the kids. They can earn Prater Points for helping around the house and for getting good behavior at school, for using nice language in the home, especially to siblings, and for showing respect to others. This is our first full week of using Prater Points so we will see how this goes. I'm hoping it works and that it works well!

I've thought about documenting Magnus in a blog solely dedicated to him as he seems to be the most inventive child I've ever run across when it comes to creatively getting in trouble. I want you to picture my kitchen. It's shaped like the L piece in the game Tetris. On one side of the long L shape there's the pantry and a long counter on the other side stretching almost to the end of the long L side is the sink, dishwasher, stove, and refrigerator and it opens up at the bottom of the L into the french doors and dining area. Have you got that picture in your head?? Ok, now picture a 10lb bag of sugar sitting on the counter next to the pantry and next to the sugar is the coffee pot, toaster, and our mail holder. Seems harmless enough right? Now imagine that you are three years old, your mom has been at work all day leaving you at home with your dad and no other kids to play with thereby leaving you to your own devices to entertain yourself. Now how does that kitchen look to you? Does it look rife with possibilities of endless fun? Does it appear to hold the secrets to Transformers Rescue Bots? Have you ever in your childhood wondered if you could re-create Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs how awesome that would be?! What if you hated taking a shower but you loved sugar..would a sugar shower be cooler than a plain ole' water shower? I imagine as a three year old all of these things go through your mind and plus more stuff that I can only guess at, which is why when I came home from work yesterday to find Magnus hiding behind the t.v. stand I instantly knew something was up. First and foremost this is my 'babydoll' who runs to greet me at the door everyday for hugs and kisses so when I walked inside and was not immediately accosted for hugs and kisses I began to worry.

I'm going to take a break from this story to tell you a little bit about what goes on in my head when confronted by a situation like this. First and foremost I think, why is it so quiet? This thought is immediately followed by, are the kids outside? Downstairs? or backyard? When these possibilities have been checked out my next thought is, What's broken, ripped, burnt, painted, glued, or destroyed in some other random matter. I should tell you that I'm rarely wrong in assuming that, once again the children's father has lost control of the home situation and something is indeed destroyed. This ladies is why women are meant to be caregivers..because we care, about our homes, our children, chores, meals, school, all of these things we care enough about to make them priorities. Men, or at least my man, have only two maybe three priorities and they are as follows: Food, Money, and Sex. Everything else appears to be white noise to them. For instance last night my husband is recounting how our oldest son was almost late to school because he missed the bus. His exact words were "can you believe he was almost late to school because he missed the bus? I mean that little jerk told me "Dad I missed the bus why didn't you wake me up?" To which I replied "why did you not waking him up for school make him the little jerk? You're the adult you should have been the one to get him up and ready if anything that makes you the jerk". To which my husband replied "well isn't it obvious that I didn't wake him up because I was asleep? So you know you ask a stupid question...." Really that's level of intellect I'm married to. I know it's astounding but this is seriously how my husband processes  parental information. When it comes to business and cars he's awesome, when it comes to home, school, or kids he's hopeless. It's like his ability to think in that arena is biologically retarded at the age of nine. I say that with all the love in my heart.

Now back to my Magnus story. I come home and am not greeted by my baby doll, after checking all areas of the house I find him hiding behind the t.v. Our conversation goes thusly:
"Magnus why are you hiding?"
"I'm not hiding"
"Ok then why are you behind the t.v. stand?"
"Because I'm hiding"
Deep breath in and chant serenity now.
"O.k. soooo who are you hiding from?"
"I'm hiding from daddy"
"why are you hiding from daddy?"
"because he's gonna be mad at me"
"What's he gonna be mad at you for?"
You can never just come out and ask Magnus what's going on because as you can see he's a master at avoidance.
"He's gonna be mad because I took a shower".
"Is that why you're naked?"
"No I was already naked".
"O.k. so why did you take a shower?"
uncontrollable giggling ensues.
Here comes Gavin who speaks fluent Magnus.
"Magnus what did you take a shower in?"
"I took a sugar shower!"

I look into the kitchen and see the 10lb bag of sugar on the edge of the kitchen counter with multiple stab wounds and leaking sugar all over the kitchen floor. At this point there is only one thing to do. Send the miscreant to take an actual shower and wash off all the sugar, sweep up the kitchen floor, and pour the remainder of the sugar into a canister. I like to think that as a seasoned working mom I can handle most things with grace and calm. I also like to think that I wouldn't flip my lid over some spilled sugar. I like to think those things..and sometimes I even succeed in them but yesterday there just wasn't a hole deep enough for me to crawl into. It took four sweepings to get all the sugar off the floor, 10 minutes to wash the kidlet, and five minutes to vacuum up the carpet where said kidlet had been hiding and shedding sugar all over the place. I would like to be angry with the kidlet but I just can't find it in myself to be angry with him. He's three there are two older people in that house one is almost 16 and the other one is 40 freaking years old!!! These are the two I'm mad at. These are the two that I'd like to take outside and lock all the doors and not let back in. Where are the older people responsible while I'm work? Outside on the back porch not minding a single thing! This is when I lose it. This is when I flip my lid and after cleaning everything up and saying my peace I get back in my car and drive to Walmart. Not because I want to but because as the sole responsible adult in my family I need to pick up two new sweatshirts for Gavin and a winter coat.

Does it ever get easy?!!

Parenting I mean, does it ever get easier? Someone once told me that boys are hard when their small but they're much easier as teenagers and that girls are the opposite. I hope that's true because right now I have one teenage girl and two small boys that are bound and determined to send me to the funny farm and there's nothing funny about it.
Gavin started the first grade off really well and in the month of September it's devolved into a constant struggle between me/him/and his dad. If he's not whining about something he's mouthing off, if he's not mouthing off he's throwing supreme fits. I'm left scratching my head and wondering where my little boy went and who replaced him with bipolar boy? I'm at a loss as to how to handle it I've grounded him, created extra chores for him, taken away his outside play time, his game playing time, and have even tried reasoning with him but nothing and I mean NOTHING makes an impact. There's a key to this I know there is but dang if it isn't locked up tighter than fort knox and I don't have the cat burglar skills to figure it out. I'd call my mom an ask but she'd just tell me i'm being to hard on him and poor little Gavin. I'm rolling my eyes just thinking about that phone call. My mom had 6 girls and 1 boy so she tends to be biased toward her grandsons any advice she gives is circumspect.
Magnus ugh he's 3 and he's the baby and he's determined to be heard, seen, and felt in every spare second and a few he steals from his siblings. It's gotten to the point that I can't even come in the house before he's all over me. Magnus has also picked up the most annoying habit of grabbing my face and screaming in it when he wants my attention. Repeatedly I've told him to stop, repeatedly I've sent him to his room for doing it and repeatedly he's ignored me and continued to do it. Have I mentioned that he's a nudist as well? No? Oh well let me enlighten you to my typical day. I wake up for work to discover that a naked Magnus has slipped into bed next to me sometime during the night. I dress him and then dress myself and go to work. I come home 9 hours later to a naked Magnus running through the house. I ask him "do you need a bath?" he responds "no" I say "then why are you naked" he says back to me "because I like the way it feels". The days I can get him to wear underwear are a win for me because most days I dress him and he strips five minutes later. It's a revolving door of dress, strip, dress, strip. Some days it's just not worth the argument and I allow him to roam the house naked as the day he was born. I really hope he grows out of this before he starts Kindergarten cause I can just see the e-mails i'd get about that kid.
Andrea's ok she's liking 10th grade a lot more than she did 9th grade and she's got a group of girls that she's friends with. She's getting out more and staying home less. She's excited about the homecomng dance her and a group of her girlfriends are all going stag together. She's really impressing me with her academic skills as well she's taking an AP History course, Chemistry, Spanish 2, Algebra2, 3 dimensional art(whatever that is) and communications. This summer she's enrolling in the University of Missouri St. Louis pre-collegiate bridge program which a free program for high school students that qualify. It's a huge committment that will pay off big for her in the form of scholarships, college credit for math, science, english, and communications. She has a plan to be done with the first year of college by the time she graduates from high school and she's sticking with it. It's a huge undertaking for most college freshmen and she's a sophomore in high school. I think i'm more nervous about her classes than she is. I got the syllabus for the AP history class and about died!! I didn't do that much work when I took the class in college and then there's the AP exam in March to get the college credit for it! She's not worried but I am sweating bullets over this class and i'm not the student. The amount of homework that girl has every night is ludicrous and i've officially taken her out of the chore rotation because no way can she keep up with it all some nights she's up till 10 or 11 just doing homework. Today when I got home from work she bust out in tears and told me she forgot to upload her project for class on Monday. I told her it's Friday chicka you got two days to upload it it'll be fine. Then I sent her out with her friends to RELAX because seriously she needs it, I mean breaking down over a project that's not due till Monday and all you have to do is upload it..girl is need of some R&R.
I wish I could say this parenting journey has been fun but that would be a lie. It's work with a capital W and like work I've discovered that there are moments of fun, moments of joy, and moments of pride, but mostly it's blood, sweat, and tears.

Catch up

That's the name of the game for me for the past few month. I feel like I'm running behind on everything and life is out running me. Gavin's first year of school is almost over and I can't say it was a complete success but it's wasn't a complete failure either. Andrea's first year of high school was o.k. but again I find myself in a state of frustration over her lack of enthusiasm for anything! at all! in her life. I can't imagine being so blase about EVERYTHING in life. She says she's not depressed but I don't buy that for a second. First off she refuses to leave the house, she's eating her feeling and putting on weight, and she doesn't seem to have any interest in anything including the things she used to love. I know a lot of it is from dealing with the emotional and physical abandoment from her mom but I believe some of it simply because the friends she would have gone to for support have all moved away. I need to come up with SOMETHING to get her motivated and out of her funk. April is going to be BUSY! Just in the first week of April we have two birthdays one is Phil's and two days later it's Gavin then Good Friday and the Easter Pageant rehearsel on Saturday then Easter on Sunday. The following week is another birthday and then preperations for Gavin's first school musical. They are doing a rock opera of Stone Soup and Gavin has a part in the production. Gavin also has a science fair project that's due the third week of April. Lord give me strength because in between all of that we have Andrea's Youth Group activities and they are doing a sermon on one Sunday in April that they have to be prepared for and a Trivia Night toward the end of April. Or Lord Jesus be my strength and give me the grace to be pulled and stretched in many many many different directions.

Resistance

I've been resistant to writing ANYTHING for the past few months. Don't get me twisted cornflake it's not that I haven't been writing it's that what I've been writing SUCKS!!! I mean is sucks to enormously that's is EPIC! I can't even reconcile the abysmal failure with my own self confidence as a writer that's how epically bad this past few months of writing have been. So my dad in all his infinite wisdom told me to write a poem. Nothing major..nothing having to do with my book..and most of all nothing too cerebral or taxing. Just a little poem something for fun, to get the creative juices flowing again, instill some self confidence back into me, a shot in the arm if you will, so after much resistance, because a Poetess I am NOT, I decided to try. What could it hurt right? I mean it's just a poem. So I got out a piece of paper and stared at it...............for DAYS.......and DAYS...and that blank piece of paper stared right back at me, mocking me, taunting me, telling me I wasn't good enough to even bang out a simple poem!!!! So I did what any self respecting writer would do. I tore up the paper and lit it on fire while cursing the universe for creating writers block in the first place! That's when it happened..I finally thought of a poem and I had to it write down.

A divergent interest

I hate you Poetry.
I hate you're word structure,
Your phrasing,
Your sycophantic syncopation!
I hate your blocking and your Iambic pentameter.

Your Haiku's make no sense!
Your Allegories bore me,
Your Alliteration is pretentious at best.

Like the proverbial whore of Babylon,
You lend your wanton ways, your Limerick's
To drunk Irishmen and horny teenage boys.

Your Ballads are but a poor imitation.
Eclipsed by the written prose.
Blank Verse is but an excuse,
An anemic measure of creativity.

Poetry you are lazy.
You lack the dedication of Prose
The beauty of a paragraph is lost on you.
You are the poor, illiterate cousin,
Shunned for her ignorance and loose morals.

Oh that you should aspire,
To the heights of novellas.
Be as inspired as plays.
Seek to create a universe as diverse as a novel.

I hate you Poetry.
I even hate this poem!

Overheard at home!

Andrea to her dad: The basement smells like fresh butt...I guess it's time for it to be cleaned.

I just keep walking and shaking my head. 

Overheard Everywhere | More Overheard Quotes (Page 14)

Overheard Everywhere More Overheard Quotes (Page 14): Thus Racing Through the Full College Experience in One Day
College guy #1: We should get wasted.
College guy #2: We should wasted and go to the dining hall.
College guy #1: We should get wasted, go to the dining hall, and then throw-up.

Strangely enough I've done this! In college no less LOL. It's gotta be like a time honored tradition or something.

Natural consequences

Sometimes as a parent nature has a way of disciplining our children for us thereby negating our need to step in. I'd like to highlight just such an occasion that occurred last week with my older middle child.

THE BACK STORY

My husband and I have told him a hundred times to stay off of the "hang ups", an exercise machine that turns you upside down to relieve pressure on your back while you do sit up, and a hundred times he's "forgotten". Over and over and over again we've caught him climbing on it and over and over again we've told him it's dangerous to play on it, it's for adults, it's NOT A TOY! Still his short term memory has refused to store that information into long term memory.

THE INCIDENT

Date: January 4th.
Time: 4:15 p.m.

At approximately 4:15 p.m. while the oldest child (15 years) was watching the younger two (5 years and 2 1/2 years) middle son decided to once again "forget" the rules of staying off his dad's Hang Up's machine. While the oldest was pre-occupied cleaning up the youngest the middle child took that opportunity to once again scale the machine. Unlike every other time before there was no adult present to tell him, for the millionth time, to get down it's not a toy. The lock on this particular mechanism was loose and the weight of said child at the apex of the machine caused an overbalance of weight which caused the lock to slip and slam the middle child into the floor face first.

MY DAY PRIOR TO THE INCIDENT

I work at a Community College full time. I work in the counseling/advising office. This loosely translates as I deal with grown adults that still think they're children and teenagers who whine and cry like they are toddlers. This particular day was my first day back at work after the long Christmas break. In short it sucked balls. I was anticipating a nice night at home with my family some dinner and an early bed time.

WHAT I CAME HOME TO INSTEAD

When I walked through the door ,after a bad day at work, I found the middle child, we'll call him Quasimodo, with a wash rag full of ice pressed to his broken and bleeding mouth. The toddler in a diaper and the oldest freaking out. *Le Sigh* Since turning around and pretending that I didn't know these children was not an option I assessed the situation. One chipped tooth, one loose tooth, and one broken tooth, swollen lips and two abrasion on the left eyelid, LOTS OF BLOOD! Mouth wounds bleed, well head wounds in general bleed a lot so copious amounts of blood are expected when head trauma is involved. The blood didn't bother me, the broken teeth alarmed me, and at this point I'm not freaking out. I've done the concussion thing before with my youngest so I knew what questions to ask him, I knew how to assess him and he checked out. He had a headache and his mouth hurt. Yeeeahhh cause you just got face planted into the basement floor genius. I placed my first phone call to the after hours dentist number and made an emergency appointment for him to come in the next day and have his teeth and mouth checked out. Since no teeth were actually busted out of the mouth the dentist felt some children's Tylenol for the pain and ice for the swelling would be sufficient. Sounded good to me so I drugged him and iced him and called my sister in law to come over and watch him because I still had volunteer work to do at the church that night.

WHAT I CAME HOME TO PART DEAUX

He puked. Lots! Not once but twice. My next phone call was to the pediatrics after hours exchange. I knew when I placed the call he had a concussion. I knew before they said anything that they were going to send us to the ER. I knew all of this and still I had to make the call. What I was not expecting was to be asked by the ER nurse if he was wearing a helmet when he hit the floor. First off he's not special needs, I know you were all thinking it it's ok I thought it too when she asked. Secondly this was not some planned experiment to see if the helmet would in fact protect his brains in the case of a head trauma. Thirdly no my kids, and I'd love to see the person whose kids actually do this, wear helmets while at home in the house because, and call me crazy, I didn't think it would be necessary to protect them inside their own home!

RECAP

Middle son a.k.a. Quasimodo climbs up on his dad's Hang ups machine after being repeatedly told not to. The lock on the machine comes off and he's flung face first into the basement floor. End result after a day and half at the ER is a concussion restricting him to limited physical activity one chipped tooth, one loose tooth, and one broken canine.

NATURAL CONSEQUENCES

Quasimodo is effectively grounded due to the concussion. He's not allowed to participate in P.E. class at school, he's restricted from playing on the playground or participating in any activity where a head injury could occur. Due to the state his mouth is in he's restricted to the type and consistency of the foods he can eat. Soft foods only which rules out any of his favorite foods such as pizza, spaghetti, eggplant Parmesan or any of the other foods we usually eat for dinner. Milk and dairy based products such as yogurt and soft cheeses are highly recommended to help strengthen the teeth that are injured and keep them from prematurely falling out. Last but not least headaches and mouth pain expected to last for a minimum of a week and up to two weeks.

I, with all of my creativity as a parent, could not have come up with a better consequence for disobedience. Hopefully this has driven the point home that we don't play on things intended for adults and when our parents tell us no it's for our own good.

In with the new year out with the old one

2011 went by fast! So fast in fact that I don't remember most of it and what I do remember wasn't good...so ya know I wish I could forget that part!

So here's what I know so far about 2012:

All of the presidential candidates graduated from clown college. I know this because they are all a big joke!

My husband has defined a new word for procrastination. It's called procrastidon't. That's when you procrastinate to the point that it just doesn't happen. As in my husband is so far past procrastination that he's a procrastidon't. Yes it's my word and I've created it and defined it expressly for him!

I have a new "martha stewart" project. I'm going to use these butt ugly plastic crates and cover them with fabric to re-purpose them into sweater bins in the hopes that it will contain the clothing clutter in every one's closets. I mean sweaters just take up sooo much room in the drawers it would be nice to have a way to contain them without just leaving them sitting on a closet shelf.

My stepson seems pretty determined to live with us. I'm not sure why since he seems to have a hard grasp of rights vs. responsibilities and privilege vs. needs. This I do know there is no way given the balance in our household and the hard won peace that I'm prepared or ready to have him living with us full time. I really believe there is a point where parenting leaves off and guidance takes over so whatever parenting was going to happen would have to have been done by the time the child is 13. After that it's an act of God or Divine Intervention to change what someone else has done to that child. In short my stepson is way too much his step dads brainwashed automaton for me to even want to take on that challenge. The only problem is as long as I'm married to my husband I really don't have a choice and if he's going to be around my sons I'd rather be there to oversee the interactions between them so I can correct them when needed. What is that Elizabeth calls those "teachable moments"?  Yeeaaahh I had plenty of those moments over the winter break! It's just mind boggling to me that he wants to live with us when before he never seemed to care one way or the other and I'm a disciplinarian I believe in consequences for your actions both good and bad. So IDK go figure..I guess it's true what they say and children crave discipline.

Gavin will be six years old this year! I don't know where the time went but I've got a ton of pictures to look back on. This year I've decided no birthday party. I think it's important to realize what you're good at and what you're not good at. I'm not a social butterfly or a party person. I don't enjoy planning those things they stress me out and leave me feeling exhausted by the end of it. This year I have a different plan instead of a birthday party I'm going to let him invite two of his friends over for a wii game night. They can come dressed in their pj's, have pizza and apps, and play the wii till their parents pick them up at like idk what 9 or 10? No party, no fuss, no muss, but it's still a celebration :-) !!

Andrea is getting her drivers permit next week! You know unless her dad decides to be a procrastidon't and not get her birth certificate. That girl is very excited to drive and I'm just as determined to NOT be in the car with her when she does. I don't even want to think about her turning 16 this year and being able to legally drive!

Magnus will be 3 in July which means he'll be starting preschool in August. My littlest baby is growing up as well :-( I know he'll love school though so I'm excited for him to reach that milestone and feel like a "big boy".

Some of my favorite kidsaying's from 2011:

Magnus: Mommy I love you but I not a baby.
I love you more when you give me candy.
Back off me bro I'm Magnus!!
Co..co..come at me bro!
I Pastor! You give me that now!

Gavin: Life in time out sucks.
I'm not coming out from under this desk till you teach me something.
Liking you and loving you are not the same thing! (wiser words were never spoken)
My all time favorite because it demonstrated to me that he IS listening when I talk was the explanation he gave his 12 year old stepbrother in the car about why I wouldn't allow war games in the house: Gavin to his stepbrother: You can't play those games in our house because Magnus and I are little kids and we have young developing minds that shouldn't be exposed to that much violence, bad words, and inappropriate content.

Andrea: Said while explaining venereal diseases to me and my younger sister Lafon on her visit up here: That stuff is broken yo! If you have sex you'll be broken and then you'll have kids and they'll be broken! So If you have those diseases you need to keep that stuff to yourself and remove yourself from the gene pool.
Said while explaining a scary cartoon: That stuff is Pixelated!!
Why do all home wrecking hoe's seem to be named Lisa?

That's it for 2011 folks here's hoping 2012 brings us closer to whatever our goals may be.