Is This Appropriate Winter Attire?

This is the view from my back deck.  Winter is officially here.  Temperatures remain below freezing, snow is on the ground. 

Today it’s snowing with howling winds.

Official blizzard weather. 

This is the best time of year to be a kid, snow is full of fun possibilities.  “Little Miss” asks her brothers if they want to play outside in the snow.  I have 2 very excited little boys who eagerly run to the entry to get their snow stuff on.

But CamCam gets sent upstairs to me, despite his protests.  Once he gets here I see why.  I tell him, “CamCam, you gotta get dressed if you want to play outside.”

He replies,

“But Mom, I got my hat.”

Our Little Dancing Machine

Ever since he was a small baby, “Little Hurricane” has LOVED music.  He loves to sit and listen to music, he loves to ride in the van with music playing, but most of all, he loves to dance to music.

When I’m out at stores, I won’t even realize that they have music playing until I see “Little Hurricane’s” shoulder start bobbing up and down. 

Here at home he’s always dancing.  He dances to the music that plays during a show or movie, he dances to the radio, he dances every time The Dada’s phone rings. 

And the older he gets, the better his dancing gets.

I’m curious what kind of career this could possibly translate into?

Wish I could go back in time and give these to me:

 

 

 

 

 

Little Hurricane was on a roll this morning!

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I’m picking my battles, Don’t judge me

“Pick your battles.  Your child insists on wearing a t-shirt and shorts in December?  He’s the one who’ll be cold, not you.  Save it for something important.”

That wise advice came to me from my kids’ pediatrician before my first child was even born.  I was only 19 at the time and that conversation has stayed with me.  I can’t even begin to count how many times I’ve been in the midst of “fighting” over something with one of my kids when I’ll remember “…save it for something important.”

Ironically enough, most of my battles HAVE in fact been fought over wearing clothes.  It’s already been well established that CamCam HATES wearing clothes.  I really though he’d grow out of this by now, but I still have a streaker in the house. 

You can’t even begin to imagine the battle that ensues when we need to leave the house.  We live in New England, it’s December, it’s ridiculously cold outside.  But CamCam still cannot see why he needs to get dressed to go out. 

And then there’s the coat.

Ohhhhh, the coat.  Why does he hate his coat so?  I let him pick it out himself, I foolishly thought this would help.  But apparently a coat is an evil burden CamCam wants no part of. “I don’t need my coat ma, I’m fine,” he says when we’re leaving the house.    In the van he will not get into his car seat until his coat is off.  Once we get to our destination, I get to stand outside in below freezing temperatures trying to get CamCam to understand why he now needs to put on his coat.   Often I have to force him to wear it.  We barely step inside the door of wherever we are going when CamCam abruptly stops, unzips his coat, and throws it into the stroller in disgust. 

The other night I had to stop at 3 separate places.  Once to get into the car, 3 times to get into 3 buildings, 3 times to leave 3 buildings- that equals 7 times I had to fight with CamCam about wearing his coat.  As we were leaving the final building I told him to wait, we needed to put on his coat.  He laughed and ran for the door.  Little Miss caught up to him and CamCam started crying and falling to the floor, “I don’t wanna coat, I don’t wanna coat….”

The advice I got from the pediatrician so long ago came back to me.  I said to Little Miss, “Never mind, just forget it.  One of two things will happen, either he’ll be cold and realize how foolish he is, or he actually is too hot and he’ll be happy.” 

We went outside and CamCam was so happy.  He was skipping along, singing, jumping off of steps.  He was free. 

I was smiling.

And then a couple came out of the store behind me, and I heard the women turn to her husband and say:

      “That boy really should have a coat on.”

What Was He Thinking?!?

I would LOVE it if I could, just once, understand my kid’s thought process.  How often I shake my head and say “What were you thinking?”  

“Were you thinking???”

Just the other day CamCam and Nolie were downstairs playing.  I heard CamCam cry, so I went to see what was up.  CamCam was standing at the bottom of the stairs, Nolie was hiding (definite guilty move!) and CamCam’s face was covered in a black sorta haze.  My paranoid prone brain naturally went to every worst case scenario that could have produced crying AND a black face. 

“What happened to you?”  No answer.

“What did Nolie do?”  No answer

“What’s happened to your face?!?!”  That’s when Nolie saw his chance.  He knew he’d be in trouble with the first two questions, but on this one he was scott-free.  He came bouncing out of hiding and exclaimed “CamCam ate the stamps!”

Apparently my boys were playing with stamps, and CamCam decided to lick the inkpad. 

“What were you thinking?  Why on earth would you lick the inkpad?!?”

Naturally, he had a perfectly logical explanation:  “Because, I was playing basketball and so then I ate the black.”

Well, logical to him anyways. 

I really wish I could say they grow out of this.  But, alas, experience has taught me that this is not so.

Last year, when my oldest son was 12, I went into his room and saw that his comforter had a big hole in it.

 

“What did you do to your comforter???”
”Nothing, it ripped.”
”There’s no way that it ripped like that.”
”Yes it did.”
”You seriously expect me to believe that it ripped in a perfect square.”
    silence
”Did you cut it?”
”Yeah.”
”Why did you cut it?”
”I spilled lemonade.”
(trying to wrap my brain around that one)”So why would you cut it if you spilled lemonade on it, I can just wash it.”
”No, I didn’t spill lemonade on it, I spilled it on the shelf here.”
(trying not to scream) ”I don’t get it.”
”I didn’t have any towels to wipe it up with.”
”So you thought cutting your comforter was the best idea?!?”
”What else was I supposed to do?”

I have a feeling that once they’re teenagers, it only gets worse.

House Cleaning Strike

You know what I don’t want to do anymore?  Clean my house. 

Nope.

Had enough.

I hear many moms say it’s a never-ending battle.  And guess what?  It really is a never-ending battle. 

At any given moment I have enough laundry thrown around the house to open my own Gap store.  And everyday I pick it up.  How is that even possible?  I know there’s seven people living here, but come on!  No one's changing clothes 10 times a day, where is all the laundry coming from?  Heck, CamCam won’t even wear clothes.  Is someone throwing it out of the closets when I’m not looking?  Something fishy is definitely going on here. 

And dust.  I think all the world’s dust originates at my house.  Yup.  Right here is the source.  Sorry people.  It doesn’t matter how often you dust, soon as you turn around, it’s right back.  It’s like some sort of evil monster. 

Ohhhh, fingerprints.  I have fingerprints all over the windows, furniture and kitchen appliances.  Except, my kids have Indestructible Fingerprints.  No matter what cleaning product I buy, I can’t get them off.  I actually wiped some of the finish off our end table, but the fingerprints wouldn’t budge. 

Mopping is a joke.  All I do when I mop is guarantee that soon after someone will have an accident.  Maybe someone can’t make it to the bathroom.  Maybe someone decides to throw a plate of food across the room.  Or maybe someone decides their old enough to get their own glass of apple juice and then, oops, when they spill the entire bottle decide they better use every towel they can find to smear the stuff across the room.  

How about picking up?  Anyone still bother to try and pick up toys and things that are where they do not belong?  I read this cleaning tip once- it said to take a laundry basket with you throughout your house and anything you find that isn’t where it belongs, toss it into the basket.  Hahaha, one laundry basket!  Could anyone accomplish this with one?  I think I’d need at least 10.

But seriously, if I really put my mind to it and decided that this was it, I was going to go right now and not stop until I had the entire house in tip-top shape, I bet I could get the whole thing done in less then 3 hours.   

I could do it.

And my three little boys, if they really put their mind to it and decided to go right after and not stop until they had messed up everything I did, I bet they would be done in less than 3 minutes. 

They have done it.

I hope I’m not asking for too much, but. . .

I think I need a break.

One week would be nice.  One week away on vacation somewhere warm and I could have a week off from doing laundry.  Ahhhh, that would be great.

Although a week off from laundry probably isn’t possible.  What would everyone wear?

6 Days then.  I’d like 6 days off from cleaning the house.  No vacuuming, no dusting- how awesome would that be?

Of course, no one would be cleaning in those 6 days, so I’d just have a lot of catching up to do.  6 days break is asking too much.

5 Days- for 5 days I would love it if the kids would stop fighting.  No pushing someone because they took your toy, no rough-housing resulting in tears.  It would be so quiet here.

But how would I stop them from fighting?  Sure, Little Miss is fine, but it’s in boy’s blood to fight- I don’t think it’s possible to contain it. 

So 4 Days it is.  For 4 days I don’t want to have to clean up from a single meal.  No highchair trays dumped to the floor to signal “I’m Done!”, no peanut butter sandwiches turned into table art, no more spaghetti sauce in hair. 

I think that’s asking the impossible though.  NO way that could ever happen.

How about 3 days?  A long weekend- maybe The Dada and I could go away for a long weekend and just relax.  Marvelous.

Except that I know the minute I leave the house I’d miss my kiddos too much and I wouldn’t enjoy myself at all the entire time.

So a long weekend away is expecting too much of me.  How about 2 days?  For 2 days I’d love it if I didn’t have to pick up a single toy.  No rooms looking like a hurricane or tornado just went through them.

Of course I DO have a little hurricane and tornado living in my home. 

So one day.  For one day could no one please ask me for food?  No more eating full meals and then 15 minutes later crying to me about how hungry your tummy is.  No hanging on cupboard doors wailing about how you need to “eat, eat, eaaaattttt!”  No opening the fridge door and climbing up inside. 

But that’s never going to happen, I have a house full of boys.  Endless guts.

So maybe just a few hours?  Could I have a few hours to maybe work on “The baby’s” scrapbook?

Fancy paper, markers, nifty scissors, glue, stamps and endless piles of stickers- what on earth am I thinking asking my little boys to stay away from that tempting spread???

Ok, so if a few hours is too much, how about a minute?  If I could just have one minute to run upstairs and use the bathroom without “Little Hurricane” pushing a bar stool over to the kitchen sink, climbing up the stool and onto the counter, then crawling into the kitchen sink and drinking the old liquids out of the dishes sitting in there; if I could just do that- it would be the best thing ever.