When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple

Yes, but I am not so much thinking of the red hat with the purple ribbon.  Or is it a purple hat with a red ribbon.  Either way, that’s not really what I have in mind.  I’m thinking once the last crazy-making boy is down the drive and out the gate I’m right behind him.  And while  I might not be officially old by that time I will certainly be old-adjacent.  So, close enough for the purple thing.

Yup, I’ll be right behind him.  Off to get myself a purple Harley.  And some red leathers, head to toe.  Then I’m going to set out to see whatever stretches of highway in this country and the one to the north I meant to get to but never quite did.  My fondest hope is that this makes my now-grown boys completely nuts.  I hope they feel compelled to repeat things to me 100′s of times trying to get me to modify my behavior. Which I, of course, won’t do.

Then we’ll be even. 

I really need to know how that works, exactly

I’m getting ready to clean the rooms that didn’t get done yesterday.  The first step in this is getting the boys to make their rooms (tv/play room and bedroom) vacuum ready. Usually I assign them all to separate areas because, experience shows, having them “working together” on one room is an approach that will leave me twitching and thinking about running away from home.

However, today the mess is really all in one room.  And a friend is on the way so we need this job done as fast as possible.  I put them all to work together and prepare for the onslaught of “he’s not doing his share” “he’s telling me what to do” etc etc.  Think of about 14 variations on that and you’d be about par for the course.

Several minutes later, DS1 comes out to me and DH in the mancave where DH is watching football and I’m annoying him by talking about stuff not related to football.  He says “Mom, I {DS2} and {DS3} in hyper speed mode and the room is almost all cleaned up.

Sure enough, I go in there and it’s like the Cat in The Hat was there.  Being the mother of the boy, it’s a bit concerning how adept he is at manipulating his brothers but I guess in certain circles this is known as being a good motivator.  I just have a couple of questions about this “hyper speed mode”.  Does it require batteries?  How, exactly, does one turn this on? Is there a switch? Magic words? Will it work for homework? Getting ready on school mornings?

And, most importantly, why did no one tell me sooner that my children were equipped with this feature???  Is DS1 also equipped with it? DH?  And if not, is there any kind of aftermarket installation available?

Million dollar giggles

The boys were just getting ready to go to sleep when I got home tonight. I walk in and see DH sitting on the bed with DS2 in his lap and DS1 and DS3 on each side. They are reading a train book and DS2 yells out with enthusiasm as only he can “Guess what, mommy? I spelled uphill for Daddy.” He’s been having some trouble with the whole kindergarten thing so he’s quite chuffed with himself. The sight of my 4 handsome men in that setting was just priceless, for sure. Definitely a “life is really good” moment.

Then, since I’d been gone all evening I offered to do the chair-sitting till they got settled. (Really, I just wanted DH to go eat the cake that the hosts of the volunteering event I was at foisted on me. If he doesn’t, I will and I’m reasonably sure it’ll look better on him than me.) Earlier this morning, I’d gotten around to a project I’d been promising DS1 I’d do for quite a few days – burning CD’s of the Robert Munsch stories (available for free download).

So, lights out, I’m in the chair, they are in their beds (they all share a room since no one wants to move into their own room). I put on one of the CDs to listen to a few stories before they fell asleep. Well, Robert Munsch stories are wonderfully silly and fun (and a big TY to my sister or I would never have known about him other than “I’ll Love You Forever” which I can’t even read without ending up in a blubbering heap). So, they are settling, in bed and listening. There were two stories, in particular, of the ones we listened to this evening that just got them cracking up, though: Up Up Down and Something Good. So, I’m sitting there in the dark listening to the stories, which are funny, but listening to the three of them giggling hysterically was even funnier. It was definitely one of those million dollar moments that offset the “my head is going to explode in a second if they don’t stop < fill in the blank >”.

The tribulations of 5 year old boys

The boys frequently “suffer” from morning erections. It seems they do not care for the experience and, well, what do I know – it’s outside of my realm of experience. I just try to act sympathetic.

So, this morning DS2 is at the breakfast table, having significant trouble waking up (as usual).  He starts the squirming and whining which usually means he wants the under-the-cupboard kitchen light that he faces when sitting at the table turned off because “my eyes aren’t awake yet”.

Nope. When I ask him if he wants me to turn it off he says “no. I just hate it when my penis yawns.”

It was really very difficult to keep myself from laughing hysterically at his discomfort.  Well, not the discomfort as much as his interpretation.

You know that stage

where the parent knows, essentially, nothing.  And then sometime later on in life the parent gradually gets pretty smart again.  Typically sometime not long after the child is out on their own and having to actually fend for themselves.  Doesn’t every parent / child pair goes through this to some degree for a number of the teen years – maybe even into the twenties?

Well, I suspect I might reach that “gawd, Mom.  Don’t you know *anything*??” stage a little sooner than I might have expected with DS1 – my little brainiac.  I actually first realized this the day he came home from first grade and gave me a pop quiz on the 5 types of vertebrates.   I did not do so well on that.  But I was reminded of this suspicion recently when we had this conversation.  Again, driving home from school – usually the time of day when all his mental circuits are cookin’ with gas and mine are mostly just fried.

Him: Mom let’s play guess the animal.

Me: OK.  you think of one and I’ll guess

Him: OK, I got one. (waits for me to guess)
Me:  Well, you’re going to have to give me a hint to narrow it down a bit (thinking to myself “or this is going to be one loooong guessing game”)

Him: It’s microscopic.

At this point you could just go ahead and picture me with a blank look and a big cartoon-like question mark floating over my head.   An orange one.
Me: well, how about an amoeba.

Him: Nope.  Guess again.

Me:  Well, actually, I can’t really think of anything else it could be that would be microscopic.

Him: (big sigh) OK, well, I’m not sure if it’s exactly microscopic.   It was zooplankton.

I guess sticking to something one might find at a zoo or a farm or in the jungle or the forest would just be too easy.

Two loose teeth

DS3 comes running in this morning with his finger in his mouth saying (through his hand) “look Mom, look”. It took a minute but then I realized he was showing me that his tooth was loose. Of course, my boys being the way they are my first thought was if he’d fallen recently or gotten hit in the mouth. After all, I was away last weekend and it’s just the sort of thing DH would neglect to tell me. Then I realized it was two!!

OK, I am so not the mom to bemoan my “babies growing up too fast”. I’m totally in favor of it. I enjoy the highly interactive, creative, self-propelled, communicative, own-butt-wiping, self-entertaining, through-the-night-sleeping versions of my children much more than the previous not-doing-those-things stages.

But I was (and am!) totally not ready for that! He’s only 4 (well, for a bit yet, anyway). DS1 was through Kindy when he lost his first tooth. Of course, to make matters worse, DS2 thinks he should have a loose tooth, also. Given that they have so far been the “different as day and night in every possible way” twins, I have no reason to think that DS2 will do this on an even remotely similar time-table. Time to start practicing my “everybody is different” speech in all its variations.

And I better make sure I remember exactly what the tooth fairy left with each tooth for DS1. Because I’m 100% certain DS1 will. And he’ll be registering official complaints should there be any hint of inequity.

Tonight I put on Christmas music for the boys when they were going to sleep. All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth came on. SIL was here today with neice K. SIL was singing that song and telling DS3 that Grandpa would be singing it to him (repeatedly) at Christmas. So when it came on the stereo in the boys room, after lights are out and it’s all quiet, I hear DS3 muttering emphatically “I just hate that song”. Perfect. This should be good for the trademark DS3 High Drama Hissy Fit. Luckily, the HDHF is generally short-lived and easily de-railed into laughing.

Reason for not going to sleep #42

DH put the boys to bed about an hour ago. I go out to the dining room to do some work at the table and hear the telltale noises of small feet that were in bed a minute ago and are now in the hall. Looking over, sure enough, there is DS3 peeking with one eye into the kitchen from the hall.

Me: What are you doing up?

DS3: I can’t sleep

Me: How come?

DS3: Because my brain is talking to me too much.

LOL

As I type this, he just appeared in my office doorway. I guess the Christmas music / glow stick / my special teddy bear that is off-limits for playing with incentive plan has failed. We will now move to “take your pillow and lay on the couch and try to fall asleep” musical sleeping spots game.

Any odds on whether this child ends up in my bed tonight?

I’m a slacker mom and I don’t care

<sung to the tune of Jimmy Crack Corn>

So, it’s finally cool enough to play outdoors without coming inside every five minutes saying it’s too hot out. That, and the first day I can open the windows (without dying) are when I declare it to be the Official Best Day of the Entire Year.

It is with enormous pleasure that I announce that day to be yesterday. So, today is Monday. All the boys have homework (yes, even the 4 y.o.’s in preschool have homework. What, exactly, is this world coming to??). I sent them out “for 10 minutes” to play while I cleaned up the kitchen so we could then have everyone do homework in an environment that didn’t closely resemble shambles.

Well, it’s been 45 minutes. They are out there playing and laughing and shrieking and, most importantly, NOT fighting and bickering. It’s 30 minutes till bathtime and we haven’t eaten. Or even looked at the afore-mentioned homework. And I don’t care. I think sometimes you just gotta let the boys run. Bedtime will wait. Homework will get done at some point.

If I weren’t a slacker mom, I would care about bedtime schedules and work before play, and being consistent and making sure that 10 minutes means 10 minutes etc. But I am. So I don’t. Tomorrow I might. But right now, I don’t.

The Riding Bike on Two Wheels Fairy

Yup, you read that correctly. Apparently, the tooth fairy has a much less-well-known cousin. This fairy, like the tooth fairy, leave money under pillows also when this important milestone is reached. Interestingly, if two boys reach this milestone the same day but one does significantly better that the other, this fairy seems much more of the capitalist sort than it’s more socialist cousin. This fairy will leave 3 quarters for one boy and 1 quarter for his brother who gave up easily and went to watch tv rather than sticking with it till he could start by himself, ride the length of the drive, turn around by himself and ride back (“and I didn’t even have to put my feet down”). The one quarter brother may then collapse in dramatic fashion while announcing the unfairness of being rewarded on the basis of what you actually do. At least until he remembers he’s got a shiny new quarter and he should to seeing how far it will roll, how long he can make it spin, etc.

If anyone is wondering why they’ve never heard of this elusive fairy cousin, I have insider information that this fairy only makes it’s appearance in houses where there is a big brother who is entirely convinced of his role as third parent. This, of course, leads me to believe that this said big brother knows exactly what the deal is with the tooth fairy. Of course, being the capitalist that he is (just like the fairy that shows up where he is) he’d likely play along and great convincing fashion till he was 18 if there’s free money involved.

The problem with clever kids

is that you may find yourself losing a game of Scrabble Junior (yeah, the one that the grownup playing really should be able to win…) to a 4 y.o. and a 7 y.o.  I like to think of myself as a reasonably smart person.  In order to preserve this idea of myself, I may need to stop playing games with them once they are in the double digits.  Or maybe I’ll just stick to the games of chance.