HALF a Decade???!!!

Henry is officially 5. I am officially freaked. That is half a decade, people. How did this happen? Don't get me wrong. Five is WAY better than three. But he is so big. No baby fat, no chubby cheeks, no missed syllables in words. I love it though, I really do. He is such a PERSON now. We can have such great conversations. Yesterday, he became fascinated with the human heart and the skeleton, and we talked a lot about all of the bones of the body and all of the parts of the heart. Also, the past few days we have been playing Gobblet Jr. and Blokus (both are fun board games) and he is good! And in some cases actually has a strategy. What really freaked me out was when QUINN won at Gobblet Jr. I am sure(?) that that was just a coincidence.

But as a tribute to Henry, my darling, crazy, handsome, affectionate, nutty, silly, sweet boy, here is a list of the wonderful things about him. The things that I should focus on every day (read "I actually focus a lot of energy on the other things he does that annoy the shit out of me and make me want to do a WWF wrestling maneuver on his sorry, whiny ass, but since this is his tribute I am going to stay positive"):

Henry is affectionate to a fault. He would make out with me if I let him (I don't, obviously).

Henry is very concerned about moving out of our house as an adult. When he was upset yesterday because his teacher never taught him about skeletons and hearts ( which is the reason we looked them up and studied them), he proclaimed that he wanted to be a teacher when he grew up. But that he still wanted to live with me. He has told me quite often that he wants to live with me forever, but up until now his career choice was to be a chef. Regardless of his career choice, that boy loves his mama!

Henry honest to goodness let Quinn help open all of his birthday presents and blow out his candles. And it was his own suggestion.

Henry is HANDSOME. Gorgeous, truly. I would post a picture, but I am too terrified of kiddie porn sites, plus you would all be so transfixed by his beauty that you would spend the rest of your day mesmerized by his Zeus-like image on your screen.

Henry is NOT a victim of peer pressure. Sometimes this works against us because I can never pull the whole, "Kenny gets himself dressed so you can, too" thing, but I am hoping that when Kenny passes Henry a Marlboro ten years from now Henry will be like, "No dude, I don't want that cancer stick. You're so lame."

Henry keeps me on my toes. He questions everything. He never, not once, takes "Just because" or "Because I said so" as an answer. He wants to know every single thing that he can about this world.

Henry is so amazing. Despite my wanting to wring his persistent little neck 20 times a day, he truly is a wonderful child. He has such confidence about himself with adults and children alike. His questions and observations amaze me on a daily basis.

Henry made me a mom. Before him, I was just me. Not Mommy, just Callie. I raised him, but he also raised me. He forever changed me.


Happy birthday Henry! You re loved!



Tomorrow: A post on all of the things that annoy the shit out of me and make me want to do a WWF wrestling maneuver on Henry's sorry, whiny ass. Kidding.

Who I Am

There has been much convo the last two days on MIM's site (Morphingintomama.typepad.com -- yes, I am still too lazy/busy to learn how to link, but one day,..., one day) about how to handle a child in a tantrum in public. I wrote a comment that was of the "Can't we all just get along?" nature, as in that we should not judge other parents in public because we don't know the whole story. I don't want to explain in any more detail, but go check it out if you care.

ANYWAYS, the stream of incredibly insightful comments from others that were involved has got my little blogging brain thinking. People write really amazing, well thought out things on that site, I tell ya! What it got me thinking about was who I am as a mother. I am so much a product of my past, present and future. Let me explain:

The Past:

My parents were strict as hell. With a capital S. Actually make that all caps. My sister and I were not respected in our family. My parents were young, poor and stressed out, but it was more than that. If we were watching a show and my dad decided he wanted to watch TV, he would just turn our show off. If they ate steak, we ate ground chuck. If we spoke our opinion, we were told we were stupid. We were utterly terrified of my father and his temper.

My sister was cracking me up the other day on the phone. I was talking to her about my recent anxiety attack and how the doctor said it was usually linked to trauma. She said that while there was no single event in our childhood that was traumatic, our overall experience was traumatic in the way of being neglectful. Neglectful sounds too harsh, actually. Maybe a better way to say it was that our parents took no interest in our activities, our friends, and our lives in general. Anyways, here is what she said: "As a parent, if one of my children wet their pants on the bus every day on the way from kindergarten to afterschool care (which I did), I would have thought that something might be wrong. Or if one of my children wet the bed every day until age 12 (which she did), I would have thought that something was a little off. Perhaps we should have paused." There was other stuff, too, but that is just a little taste of our childhood. We were slapped, spanked, and constantly grounded. And we were good kids, by the way. We were A+ students, didn't drink, smoke or do drugs, and were always responsible. But they saw us as a nuisance. Going to our volleyball games got in the way of my dad watching "Bonanza." Letting us go somewhere with a friend was okay once in a while, but a big drag for them. I could go on, but I will save that for my future therapist's couch (MIM, are you available? We are fairly close to you, geographically speaking!)

I realize this transfers to my parenting style. I probably lean too much the other way as a backlash. I want my children to feel free to explore and express and create and imagine. I want them to ask interesting questions and feel that they are in SOME ways my equal. So I think that sometimes when I could be a stricter parent, I choose not to because I don't want to crush their little spirits. I don't want to break their souls and beat them into submission and into my way of thinking. This is crazy, I know. Children SHOULD be able to sit at a table for a meal without "accidentally" falling out of their chair or "just getting up to give Mommy a kiss and hug," but somehow in my mind I would not be supporting their growing creativity by stifling them into societal conventions. Wrong, wrong, wrong, I know, but aren't we all victims of our past in some way?

Past Part 2:

When we lived in Berkely with newborn Henry, my husband traveled 80% of the time. It was HARD. Fussy baby, stay-at-home mom in new city (we moved there practically seconds after he was born), no friends, no family, no outside world. NO help. Somehow that set a bad tone for my beginnings as a mama, and I feel that today I am still making up for that amazingly difficult year or so.

Present:

In some sense boys will be boys, at least most of the time. The hardest days for me are the days that I am around all of my friends with docile little mindful children. I have seen these moms in action. Are they good moms? Yes? Do they do things differently than me? No. Some kids are just more persistent (read "Henry"). My sister-in-law is amazingly calm, and her first daughter is a princess. I felt like ass every day I was around her and her daughter -- UNTIL she had her second daughter. Who is a HANDFUL. And my sis-in-law is sometimes out of her mind with how to handle her. It is validating to me because it makes me not feel like such a failure. Ditto for a few other moms I know. They are all preachy with their first little angel, but then their second one comes along and the same old tricks don't work. One day my sis-in-law called me, absolutely frazzled. She wanted me to take my niece to school. Why? Because her younger daughter spit up on her, her husband was out of town, and it was raining. While I was certainly willing to do her the favor (it takes a village), it made me feel so much better because the morning she was having is like MOST mornings for us. I realized that her life truly IS easier than mine, and that made me feel a lot better knowing that there is a reason that I feel more stressed out than she does. I imagine that it is kind of like finding out that a child has ADD. A moment that you think, "So I am NOT crazy! He really IS harder!"

My solution to the present is to make sure I see my other frazzled mom friends as often as possible. Being around moms of mellow kids makes me feel like I suck, but checking in with my friend that has two boys just like mine makes me feel sane. Misery loves company, yes?

The Future:

While I know that I could be strict and consistent and make my children leave any public place when they are being bad, and make them pick up their toys every time, etc., I have this experimental theory I am working on. I feel that if I raise my children in a way that enables them to be themselves and think freely and explore (so long as they are not actually damaging property) that somehow they will turn out to be amazing, creative adults. It's just a theory, though. Check on my blog "Being A Mom Of Serial Killers" in 20 years if I am wrong.

Don't get me wrong. I do discipline them often. If they are fighting repeatedly, they are either forced to separate or forced to stay in their room together (depending on the situation and my mood). If they hit me (this has only happened once or twice), they are in bigtime trouble. If they run away from me in the store, I will not take them to the store with me again (still haven't, since Friday). I could go on. But I am definitely lax in some areas, and I keep going back to my childhood. Am I making up for parents who let me make no choices? I don't know. I am just trying to survive each day and hoping for the best in the end.

One more note on the future. I noticed that MIM and a few commenters on her site have a background in some form of child/family education. I wish I was so lucky. That may in part be why I sometimes suck at this. I think it must be a huge advantage to have years of study on young children when you are raising them. Unfortunately I don't have that.

I DO rock at teaching high school. I truly get teenagers and how to deal with them effectively. And I have a ton of experience at it. I sincerely hope that this will be a huge benefit to me and my children when we hit their teens years. All of you Young Child Experts feel free to come to me for advice when your kids hit 14. Maybe then I will be of some use. For now, though, I kind of suck. But I care. But I suck. But I love them more than the world. But I suck. But I will rock when they are rebellious teens, right? Right?

In summary, I am just doing the best I can. Some days good, some days bad. Some decisions good, some decisions bad. Some moms judging me, some moms empathizing with me. Some days me patting myself on the back, some days me wanting to put myself in "time-out." But if I am anything like my mother-in-law ( who I truly adore, by the way, in most cases), I will have blocked this all out by the time my kids are grown. And I will only reminesce (spelling?) about how perfect my kids were and how perfect I was, so it will all be good by then! Like how I look back at Henry's first year and think, "Well, it couldn't have been THAT bad!" But I know that it was. I vowed to remember it, and wrote it down, for the sake of my future daughter-(or son, I am liberal)-in-laws.

We are who we are. We all are great as parents sometimes, but we all sometimes suck, too. But I am so glad that our generation has these conversations. Back a generation ago, parents didn't think. Your kids were just your kids and that was that. There was no blame aspect to the whole thing. While that worked out well for my hubbie's parents (who were awesome), it didn't work so well for mine. They could have used a little more thought in their parenting, or lack thereof. So I am glad that people are a bit more self-reflective in this day and age.

And I hope I am doing a good job. And that I will always be able to sleep at night, at least knowing that my kids know that I love them. And that every day I am trying my best. Failing? Myabe. Succeding? Maybe. But trying. And thinking. And reflecting. Oh, and drinking. Did I mention drinking? That is my best parenting tool!

Those Who Do Not Learn From History Are Doomed To Repeat It

Was I smoking crack the other day? I have no memory of doing any drugs on Saturday, but apparently I must have had some sort of mind-altering substance. Otherwise, why in the hell would I write a post about three ways to know your kids are sick that went like this?:

1. The High Fever
2. The Bleary Eyes
3. The Yellow Snot

Hello?? Earth to Callie! Anyone in that brain of yours? How could I have left out diarrhea and vomit????? Those are clearly missing from the list. Sadly, they are no longer missing from our house. No vomit yet, but diarrhea? -- Check.

This afternoon, Quinn's bottom began uttering sounds that no parent wants to hear. The gurgling sounds of liquidy, bubbly gas. The smell hits almost instantly with those. That is when you know you are about to experience the worst form of poop -- The Poop Puddle. It is as if Quinn's little bottom was a miniature volcano with molten lava oozing out, dripping through his diaper and his pants, down his legs and onto the floor, hitting his socks along the way. I imagine tiny little villages of dust mites were gathering up their young and screaming while running for cover. Oh the humanity! It was one of those diapers that required an instant bath. With two cycles of fresh bathwater. We have experienced poop puddles a few times before ( and have experienced vomitting more times than I can even count), so I haven't the foggiest as to why these two lovely items were not on the previous list. Other than the whole crack-smoking theory, that is. Anyways, I have noticed that I always handle The Poop Puddle Situation in approximately the same manner:

1. Assess the damage by gently placing my hand on the child's back and turning them around so that I can look for large wet spots on their pants and liquid and/or chunks by their feet.

2. Offer a few soothing words along with a gentle back pat, making sure that my hand does not come into contact with any wetness.

3. Pick the child up by holding them with my hands under their armpits so that their legs dangle a soild 12 inches from my stomach. Try to do this is such a way so that they know I still love them and do not think of them as a lepper.

4. Transport child to the bathroom in the manner mentioned above.

5. Using only the tips of my fingers, strip off all of their offending clothing and put in a pile on the bathroom floor. Place diaper on top of pile.

6. Using a minimun of half a roll of toilet paper, wipe off as much poop as possible and throw paper into the potty. Flush after every twenty wipes or so to avoid clogging the toilet.

7. Once child is reasonably clean, fill the bath with a shallow level of water and four times the normal amount of soap. Place child in the bath and clean off remaining poop.

8. Drain brown, chunky bathwater.

9. Fill tub again and continue to clean the child's bottom, legs and feet.

10. Once a layer of skin has been scrubbed off, drain the bath and dry child off.

11. Dress the child and hope that there is not a repeat performance (which their usually is -- ever notice how diarrhea is almost never a single occurence?).

12. Again using only my fingers, pick up poop-infested clothes off the bathroom floor and transport to the washing machine. Wash clothes by themselves in the hottest water possible. Triple-bag the diaper and take outside to the trash.

13. Return to bathroom to scrun the floor for at least ten minutes.

14. Return to the orginal scene of The Poop Puddle and scrub the floor for at least ten minutes.

15. Return to washing machine and rewash clothes, just to be safe.

16. Wash my hands like a crazy person at least five times with the hottest water that I can tolerate.

17. Continue to hope for no repeat performance.

17. Keep sniffing the air and obsessively checking child's diaper, convinced that you smell Round Two.



So it has been over an hour now and so far no puddle repeats. Here's hoping! And I am throwing away my crack pipe.

The River Runneth

Poor little Q. He is so sick. His nose looks like the Nile River, or at least what I imagine the Nile looking like if gallons of radioactive pollution were to be poured into it (though I understand that it is not the cleanest river to begin with, but whatever). That's right, we have The Yellow Snot. In the parenting world, there are a few red flags of knowing when your kid is "really" sick. Flag 1 is The High Fever. Usually you can tell that this is present without using a thermometer. Flag 2 is The Bleary Eyes. You look at them and know by that glazed look that something is just not right. And Flag 3 is, of course, The Yellow Snot. Flag 3 is my least favorite. The High Fever requires Motrin, and even though it is a little scary when their little bodies are so hot, they are usually so miserable that they just pass out on the couch. Ditto for The Bleary Eyes. A few days of Dora should get you through those. But The Yellow Snot is just the worst. For one thing, it requires a LOT of wiping. And wiping. And blowing. And wiping. But unfortunately, The Yellow Snot does not seem to substantially slow them down. So what could just be a puddle of lemon-sherbert-snot on your couch instead ends up being a sort of a snot-snail-trail throughout the house. I see it glistening on the wall, sliming up the pilows, and dripping down the handrail. It is everywhere, including covering every square inch of Quinn's face. And this is all despite the fact that I have wiped his nose a billion times. Including just now, but since I didn't have a tissue handy at the keyboard, I just used the parental tissue standby -- my sleeve. So my navy sweatshirt sleeve is now green (yellow plus blue makes green). At least now it matches the other sleeve.

There are a few other factors that seem to always go with one of the boys being sick:
1. The other boy is sick, too. Check.
2. I am sick, too. Check.
3. My husband is out of town. Check.


The good news is that it is the weekend, so at least we don't have anything that we have to do. Our only required outing was to go get milk last night. So I think we are set. A few days of "rest" and a few boxes of tissue and we should be fine.

A Highly Opinionated Post About Education

I am so stoked right now. I found out that the charter high school that I work at has a charter elementary school right next door, and that although they do a lottery drawing to admit students, teachers get first dibs. So Henry can go to kindergarten there! This is oh so fabulous for many reasons. For one thing, Henry can be right next to me at work, which makes parent conferences and other such things so much easier. Also, it will be a piece of cake to get him to and from school since he will just come with me (our local kindergarten has very short, very inconvenient hours, and I would have to find someone to pick him up every day if he went there). But those things are all just the icing on the cake. The MAIN reason that I am so excited about Henry attending this school is to get him out of our neighborhood. So this is probably the point where you are nodding your head and thinking, "Yeah, the public schools are going down, neighborhood schools are dangerous, it's best to get the kids into a better school." Our case is quite the opposite. We live in one of the most expensive neighborhoods in the country. We have beautiful streets, a safe and clean environment, and "Blue Ribbon" schools. Most people would kill to have their kids grow up here. And I am so, so incredibly grateful to have this life, but I feel like I have some perspective since I was raised poor. And that is what I want for my kids - perspective. I don't want them growing up thinking every person is blonde, white and drives a nice car. It would be nice if they actually knew what a minority was, and more importantly possessed some social awareness.

Now don't get me wrong. I am not sending Henry into the trenches or anything. This charter school is one of the best in the country. They could easily fill it with a bunch of rich kids, but they do a zip code lottery to ensure socioeconomic diversity. The curriculum is much less structured, and really encourages kids to be creative and think for themselves. I am convinced that the purpose of at least half of American classrooms is to beat out at a young age any creative thought or free will. I have heard tales from my friends whose kids are in kindergarten here about their parent conferences. The teachers are more concerned with whether the kids are doing proper "brush stroke" when they make letters than anything else. For those of you who don't know, here is the proper brush stroke for the letter "M":

Put pencil in top corner. Make a straight line from top to bottom. Pick up pencil. Place at top and make the first diagonal piece from top to bottom. Pick up pencil. Make second diagonal piece from top to bottom. Pick up pencil. Make last line from top to bottom.

They practice this for HOURS. And some kids make the most beautiful little letters you have ever seen, but if each stroke is not done from top to bottom, they get an "F." I think after about two days of this, Henry would decide that he wanted nothing to do with school. And I can't say that I would blame him. I have been wondering how on earth I was going to bite my tongue through the next decade of teacher conferences where some teacher is telling me that my child doesn't make letters properly or can't sit still and be quiet for an hour ( what five year old can?). Now I don't have to! Yay!

Sorry this is so boring. Honestly, I will try to make the next post funny!

Quinn The Mute

I have mentioned before that Quinn has an absolutely amazing grasp of the English language. You really should hear him -- you would never believe that he was only two. Apparently, he has been keeping this fact his little secret at school.

Quinn has gone to this school since September, so for about 4 months. They have him in a class with kids his age, but every time I pick him up I always feel like he seems more mature than his little classmates. I figured that it was just because, like any other mom, I think my child is brilliant and above his peers. But it turns out that I was actually right!

So there is Quinn, hardly saying a word for four months, when a few days ago he apparently decided to come out of his shell. His teacher handed him a juice, and after taking a sip he looked at her and said in his perfect little voice, "Mmmm. This is good juice. What kind of juice is this?" Her jaw hit the floor. She said, "It's grape juice," to which he replied, "Oh. Huh. I like grape juice!" When I picked him up, the teacher told me they were going to bump him up to the older class so he could have some kids to talk to.

Now when I pick him up, the teachers are so impressed with little Q. They say, "He knows everything!" Which, really, he does. Point to any object in any room or any person and he will tell you what it is. In a proper sentence with correct grammar to boot! Amazing little guy, that Q.

As far as work goes, my first week was fantastic. Great students, great staff, great great school! Quinn has adjusted perfectly, but even more amazing, so has Henry. I kept Henry in his MWF school, but also am sending him to Quinn's school on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The first Tuesday he went was two thumbs WAY down! It was raining so they didn't play on the playground. Stirke one. Tuesday is also sharing day in his class, but since no one bothered to tell me that, he didn't bring anything to share. Strike two. And then, ..., THEY MADE HIM NAP. Stirke three, you're outta there! Henry hasn't napped since he was two, despite many, many attempts on my part. Naps are ancient history to him. I had no clue they wold make the four year-old class nap, so I didn't warn him. And he was PISSED. Plus I made the mistake of getting there right as nap ended, so all of his rage was right at the surface. He said that he was NEVER GOING TO THAT SCHOOL AGAIN! NEVER!

But guess what? When my husband dropped him off on Thursday, he was a little grumpy, but by the time I picked him up (a solid 20 minutes after nap-time ended -- I ain't no fool) he was downright chipper! He loved it! Go figure.

My First Meme

Okay, Chag. You tagged me with this a while back and I said I would try to do it, so here it is. But I am not tagging anyone else because I am a bit of a blogging community outsider, so anyone I tagged would be like, "Who the hell is this Callie girl, and why in the hell is she tagging me?" And I don't really want to make any (more) enemies.


What were you doing 10 years ago?
I was a sophomore at The University of Texas at Austin getting my math degree. I lived in a tiny little apartment with two other friends and did nothing but party and study. Oh, and I waitressed at a steakhouse where we had to wear bandanas and cowprint aprons, and customers threw peanut shells on the floor. Classy.


What were you doing one year ago?
Unexpectedly moving out of my house and into my in-laws'. We had just started our remodel and were supposed to be able to live in it for a while, then one evening we came home to find our babysitter and our kids in a house missing a kitchen roof. Whoops! They THOUGHT they could build the upstairs while keeping the downstairs intact, but apparently they were wrong. A little advanced notice would have been nice. So we had 24 hours to pack up and get out. It is really weird to pack up your kitchen cabinets with the night sky directly above you, though we did have a fantastic view of Orion.


Five snacks you enjoy:
Cheese and crackers. GOOD cheeses, that is, like morbiers, pont levecs, and aged goat cheeses, etc.
Chips and Dip (just about any dip -- salsa, spinach-artichoke, bean, whatever. I love to dip!)
Mini cucumber sandwiches
Deviled eggs
Nuts, especially pistachios


Five songs to which you know all the lyrics:
The entire Abba Gold album
One Week by Barenaked Ladies
Extraordinary Machine by Fiona Apple
Take Your Mama by Scissor Sisters
Baby Got Sauce by G. Love and Special Sauce
**this list could go on forever because I have a freakish ability to memorize just about any song


Five things you would do if you were a millionaire:
Get my hair cut more than twice a year
Travel a lot
Buy a sailboat
Hire someone to make all of those annoying phone calls to insurance companies, credit cards, doctors, etc.
Volunteer

Five bad habits:
Not sending thank you notes
Washing my car a max of once a decade
Worrying way too much
Picking at my nails
Procrastinating

Five things you like doing:
Dancing
Listening to music
Teaching
Gardening
Walking


Five things you would never wear or buy again:
Banana clips
High heels of any sort (after years of knee problems, I finally realized that no fashion statement was worth horrific pain)
Anything that says "fat-free," "reduced fat," "low carb," or any other phrase that really means "tastes like ass"
Wine in a box
Cheap tequila

Five favorite toys:
iPod
DVR
Swiffer Vac
Cocktail shaker
Corkscrew

Man, that was a lot of work. Favorite toys #4 and #5 are looking pretty good right now.