Harry Potter Cheese

My husband has been out of town since Sunday. It has not been easy. I started out all calm and collected, zen, ready to single parent like nobody's business. And I did, for a couple of days. But by last night, it was kicking my butt. The kids can't help it. The three year old can't help that he whines when he's tired, gets mad when he can't wash his hands first because his brother beat him to the sink, or because he wants juice not water. Also, I couldn't get the bathtub drain to work, and he hates showers. I realized this morning that he hasn't bathed in five days. 

My seven year old likes to ask questions. Lots of questions. He can't help it, he's curious, a sign of intelligence, surely. Sometimes driving in the car with him is like being in trapped in an interrogation room with the Kyra Sedgewick character on that show on TNT, the title is escaping me. 

The questions themselves are innocent, often funny, but there are so damn many of them. For example:

"Mom, what's this number: 1-0-0-2-5-7-6? What is it?"

"Ummm, don't know. I'd have to see it written out."

"Can you count that high?"

"Probably."

"So do it."

"Now?"

"Yeah."

"Not while I'm driving."

"Because you have to look at the road?"

"Ummm, uh-huh." 

"Is driving hard or easy?"

"Ummmm...."

"I think it's easy. Have you ever gone to 100?"

"Umm, yeah, sure, I mean probably. It's not safe though."

"Why not? "

At this point, I lose it, you might crash, I tell him, no more questions, please. He might give me a minute or so before he's off and running again. 

We had this interesting exchange the other night while eating leftover manicotti.

"Mom, what kind of cheese is this?"

"Ricotta cheese."

"Harry Potter cheese? What's Harry Potter cheese?"

"I SAID RICOTTA CHEESE!"

Momma tries to be patient. It's hard sometimes. Husband comes back this afternoon. Probably just in the nick of time. I hope he's ready for his duties: bathing and answering lots of questions, while I put my feet up and watch a Top Chef marathon or something.

Boys will be boys

I don't know why little boys like guns so much. I never buy guns for the boys, but it doesn't matter. They make their own out of sticks, or tinker toys, or, as one mom told me recently, a piece of toast. So it's not just my boys who like weapons. I guess it has to do with the testosterone bath they get as fetuses. 

The boys act aggressively. They kick things, jump off stuff, hit things with sticks (sticks and more sticks, there are many things you can do with sticks). It used to really bother me. It makes me feel better when I talk to other mothers of boys; they are going through the same things. The moms with toddlers are still adjusting. "No sweetie," they tell their sons, "we don't make guns out of legos!" Those with school-age kids know better. "Just try not to poke him in the eye with your light saber" we say. You have to forgive them for being boys. 

Sometimes that's easier said than done. My seven year-old brought home this picture he drew in art class. It has everything: planes shooting at each other, two sword-fighting pirates, and an erupting volcano. What could I do except laugh? I showed it to my husband. "Awesome," he said. 

Art gone awry

So last weekend we thought our dear sweet three year old was upstairs napping quietly. But he wasn't. I got clued in to this fact when he came downstairs and announced that he had changed his clothes. What mostly clued me that there might be a problem was the paint all over his arms. I asked him why he changed his clothes. I asked him why his arms were covered in paint. Then I very calmly went upstairs to survey the damage. The boy had gotten out of his bed, and sneaked across the hall to the guest room/playroom.  He took out the paint. All the paint. He smeared it all over the floor, painted the wooden toy bins and the rocking horse. His clothes were covered in paint. There was paint on the rug. I calmly went into the bathroom next. I have to give him credit, he tried to wash the paint off himself. It was all over the sink, the white cabinet, the white tile floor. 

Just another destructive act in a lengthening line of destruction done by the boys!

Adorable 3 year-old comment of the day

"Mommy, the birds are cheeping. Do you hear them? Cheep, cheep."

Scrapbooking

I do not make scrapbooks. I tried once, when I had my first dear, sweet baby. I bought a nice album, some papers and glue.  It did not work out well. I couldn't figure out how to make it look nice and cute and "creative". I cropped my photos too small. The little tiny rattle and baby bottle stickers bugged me. The glue was too sticky. I gave up.  

Sometimes I wonder if I'll regret not scrapbooking. People are always trying to convince me to do it. The "scrappers". They really can make you feel guilty. At this point, though, I'm so far behind I could never catch up, even if I wanted to. I take hundreds of photos of the boys, and I do things with them. I frame some. I send some to the grandparents. I make Christmas cards on Shutterfly with them. Mostly they sit on iphoto waiting for something to happen. 

Why are we so obsessed with making and preserving memories? Is it because our own parents could hardly be bothered to take a picture of us? My own mother started a baby book for my older sister. When I came along 21 months later, she simply wrote things about me in the margins. I'm not sure if there are any existing baby photos of my younger sister. 

The main problem I see with all the scrapbooks that are being made is this: What's going to happen to them all?  Imagine for a moment. The year is 2018. Ava is packing up the car, going off to college. Mom comes out to the driveway with a huge box. "Here sweetie," mom says,  "I've been saving these for you." Ava looks in the box. Sees the 19 scrapbooks, every moment of her life from conception to high school graduation, photographed, trimmed with fancy scissors, framed with multicolored papers, hand-lettered comments. 

"I'm not taking that to college!" Ava says. "Ugh, mom, it's so embarrasing!"

With an active imagination, you can justify doing (or not doing) just about anything!

Addictive snack food of the day

I bought these Snyder's of Hanover multi-grain Cheese Puffs yesterday. I could eat 1,000 of them. They are like fancy cheese doodles. Zero trans-fat!

Thoughts on Poo

Sorry to have to discuss this after introducing a delicious snack. Most moms can go from discussing food to poo pretty seamlessly though.

It seems no mom blog is complete without some mention of poo. So let's just go ahead and get it over with.

Seven years ago I was getting ready to give birth to my first sweet baby. What if someone had told me that once he was born I would be dealing with his poo nonstop? Not only during infancy, but for the next seven years. What if they told me that I'd be handling it, worrying about its size, consistency, frequency, and its disposal? Then, what if they told me that in another couple of years I'd have another baby, and at that point I'd have the responsibility of not one but two other people's poo? What would I have said? Maybe I'd have had the audacity and courage of someone about to have their first child. Maybe I would have said something like: "My husband will be changing all the diapers." Maybe I would not have said anything, just laughed.  But most likely I would have been thinking, "That will never happen to me. How much poo can one little child really produce? It can't be that hard to teach a child to use the potty and deal with their own poo. Right? Right?" 

Housework

Today I stumbled upon this interesting tidbit, which only confirms some suspicions I've had all along. Since the marriage and the kids and house and all. 

According to this new study, having a husband creates extra housework for women! And having kids creates, are you ready for this? Even more housework! I've always wondered why the house always seems slightly messier on the weekends when everyone is off from school and from work. I'm just glad to know that my dear husband (who really is so very helpful, and handy (!), who cooks wonderful meals, bakes bread once a week, and is a great dad) is not the only husband in the world with impaired abilities when it comes to figuring out where to put his dirty clothes when he takes them off. 

Wish I'd had the video camera

Okay, I know that one major rule of parenting is that we should never laugh at our kids. I mean, unless they want us to (I will publish some of our endless knock-knock jokes at another time). But like when they fall down. Like when boy #2 spins himself round and round and round and round, and momma is reading to boy #1, and also thinking, "I should tell him to stop doing that", but before the words come out, said spinning boy falls into the bookshelf. Then spinning boy gets up, but is still so dizzy he falls yet again. This time he falls backwards. By now he is screaming because he hit his head. But also because he is so dizzy and is thinking, What the heck? What is this odd feeling that is making me fall down?

My kids love AFV. America's Funniest Videos. (You know, people making poor judgements, falling down, hitting their crotches on things). And if I'd gotten it on video, I'd send it in. No, I know, you shouldn't laugh at your kids. I picked up spinning boy and held him till he settled down. Kissed him where it hurt. But I laughed. I did. It was funny.

Naps

My friend Annie and I have been having variations of this conversation for the past three years:

Momma: Baby boy will only nap in his swing!

Annie: Baby girl will only nap when she's strapped to my chest!

M: Baby boy napped in his crib for an hour this morning!

A: Baby girl napped in her crib for only 30 minutes this morning, but she took a two hour nap after lunch!

M: Lately any little noise wakes baby boy.

A: Arrgh, the garbage trucks woke baby girl!

A: Don't you just love nap time?

M: It's the best time of the day!

M: Baby boy didn't nap today. But he seemed fine all afternoon. 

A: Do you think he's ready to give up his nap?

M: Maybe, yeah. 

Wait, what did you say? Baby boy give up his nap? He is 3 now, but momma is not ready for him to stop napping. Nap time is momma time. Could we give up the thing we've worked so hard at for the past three years? Just give it up, just like that? I do look forward to the time when we can go somewhere as a family between the hours of 1 p.m and 3 p.m. Honestly, we are pretty much slaves to the nap. But for now, as long as he will nap, baby boy keeps napping. 

Time Warp

Why is day light savings time so hard on parents? Before I had children, I used to change my clock, go to bed a little earlier or sleep a little later, and be done with it. Sometimes it was even fun. Like in college when the bars would stay open an hour later. 

These days, I feel the effects of "falling back" and "springing ahead" for days, and so do my kids. In the fall we supposedly gain an hour.  But the kids still get up at the same time, only now it's an hour earlier, resulting in what I have renamed The Longest Day Ever.  This Sunday we lost an hour. Any parent can sense the unfairness of this. Who among us can afford to lose one hour of sleep? Of course we all remember taunting our parents with the questions: "What time is it really?" "Why do I have to go to bed when it's still light out?" "Why can't I have lunch right now? It's only 10 am? What does that mean?" 

This morning we all overslept.  I woke my oldest boy, who at age 7 can get himself ready fast.  My three year old lay on the floor and sobbed. Then screamed for waffles. He feels the effects of the daylight savings hangover. I threw on clothes, and my glasses and did the best I could with my hair. Much as I wished to just drop him off and ride away, I accompanied my first-grader into the main office of his school for his tardy slip.  Looking and feeling as though I'd spent the night out partying, or had just arrived home from LA on the Red Eye. (As though momma were a rock star...) 

We ran into the school guidance counselor on the way in. He took one look at the three of us, sons and mother with red-rimmed eyes and hair askew, and said kindly "this time change is a real drag isn't it?"