Silence Is Not Golden

Why silence is not golden in my house...

If I am home with Noah and it is suddenly too quiet, I know something is wrong.

While putting away laundry today, I noticed that my shadow was not right next to me and that I did not hear him playing downstairs.  When I found him, he had taken all of the toilet paper rolls out of the new package of toilet paper and was tearing them apart.

My frustration was split evenly between the mess and the money going down the drain on what I paid for the 2 ply necessity.

By the way, if you come to my house and use the downstairs bathroom in the next few days, you will see a mound of toilet paper scraps sitting on the shelf.  It will be used up and will not be thrown away.

Yesterday, after changing Noah's dirty diaper in the evening, I let him be diaperless for a few minutes.  After all, it was almost bath time so why waste a diaper?

Um, yeah, I should have wasted a diaper.

It only took a few minutes for me to hear, "Mommy, my finger is wet with poop."  Excuse me?

I found him upstairs, standing near my desk, with poop on his fingers.  My eyes then drifted to my desk chair, where there was a pile of soft feces.

I wanted to scream and run out the door, and never come back.

Instead, I pulled it together and cleaned up the little monster.  And my desk chair.

Tonight was a memorable one.  Noah came out of his room, saying something about having to use the bathroom.  Because he never means it and because I was distracted helping Abby finish up her final book report (last 2nd grade report-hooray!), I did not really pay attention.  Within seconds I heard a crash, followed by a scream.  Then I heard Caleb yell, "Mom, Noah slammed the toilet seat on his penis!"

Are you freaking kidding me?

Images of blood and tips being broken off and a life with no grandchildren filled my mind as I raced up the stairs.  My poor little guy was in so much pain (no kidding) and it was not a pretty sight.  After much calming down and a little ice, I think he is okay.  Time will tell how he heals.

I really hope this does not affect his future potty training issues.

Oh Noah, life is never boring with you.

After he broke the blinds on the back door

Boys

Anyone who has a boy will love this story from W. Bruce Cameron...

Someone once asked me, "if you could be any person in the world, who would it be?"  To which I responded without hesitation, "my eleven-year-old son." 

My boy's life is one where the less pleasant elements of reality rarely intrude.  His eyes unfocused, his mouth emitting sound effects, he drifts around in serene oblivion, almost never concerned about anything. 

Last Saturday I interrupted his reverie and asked him to check to see if the mail had arrived.  He responded agreeably enough, though it took several reminders before he actually was out the door.  I went to the window to observe his progress.  He made a strong start, striding purposefully toward the mailbox at the end of our driveway.  Then something caught his eye and he stopped, frowning.  He bent over and picked it up:  a stick.  It fit into his hand like a Colt pistol, and he swiveled, eyeing the trees for enemies.  He spotted a couple and dove for cover, firing as he rolled.  Airplanes swooped down and he switched to ground-to-air mode, jubilating when the missiles hit their targets.  He spoke into his radio and did something to his forehead, probably putting on his night vision goggles.  I lost sight of him as he snaked around the corner of the house. 

Half an hour later he tromped in, exuberant over his military victory.  I stopped him in the hallway.  "Did you get the mail?" 

He stared at me blankly, and I wondered whether he even knew who I was.  "You were going out to get the mail," I reminded him. 

His focus cleared.  "Oh, yeah." 

"Did you get it?" 

His expression indicated he wasn't sure. 

"Why don't you try again," I suggested. 

Back out the door.  I winced as he glanced at a tree branch, but he didn't appear tempted.  His eyes acquired radar lock on the mailbox, and I sighed in relief. 

Lying next to the mailbox was a football which had drifted there at the end of a neighborhood game a few weeks ago.  He scooped the ball up in his arms and swerved, dodging tackles.  Touchdown!  I put my hands on my hips and watched him toss the ball into the air, calling for a fair catch.  First down.  He took the ball, fading back, out of the pocket and in trouble.  I shook my head as I was treated to the spectacle of my son sacking himself for an eight-yard loss.  He jumped up and shook his finger, urging his blockers to stop the blitz.  They seemed to heed his admonitions*on the next play he rolled left and threw right, a fantastic pass which found him wide open thirty yards downfield.  He trotted into the end zone and gave the crowd a mile-high salute. 

When I checked back at half-time to see who was winning, mankind was on the brink.  The football was jammed up inside his shirt, and he was struggling forward on his knees, looking like a soldier crawling through the desert.  He had pulled the lawn mower out of the garage, and as he fell toward it, gasping, he pulled the sacred pigskin from his shirt and, with the last reserves of his strength, touched it to the engine.  He died, but civilization was saved by his heroic efforts. 

No word on whether, with this triumph, mail would be delivered. 

I met him at the door, pierced through his fog, and asked him to get the mail.  He agreed in such as fashion as to indicate this was the first he'd heard of the subject.  There was a skip in his step as he headed down he driveway, and he was making so much progress so quickly I felt my hopes growing, particularly when he reached out and actually touched the mailbox. 

Alas, he was only stopping to talk to it.  Conferring in low tones, he nodded, squinting into the distance.  He raised the mail flag, igniting the retrorockets strapped to his back.  He throttled to full power and then dropped the flag, firing off into space with his arms outstretched like Superman. 

He was nowhere in sight when, half an hour later, I went out to get the mail.

This is totally my Caleb.  Whether the task is to get up, get dressed, eat a meal, get your backpack ready, get your baseball bag ready, get your shoes on, clean up your mess...there are so many adventures between what I say and when he actually does it.  After reading this, I no longer feel like I am raising a child that ignores me or will be lazy-he is simply a little boy.

My Life As A Single Mom

No, Nick did not leave me.

I honestly think he has had his moments, because that is the reality of eleven years of marriage-eventually you WILL annoy the other person at some point.  Thankfully, my husband still likes me enough to stick around.

I only feel like a single mom these days.  The reason?  It is baseball season.

No, I am not a baseball widow because my husband likes to watch the Reds every day (oh wait, he does), but because he is a baseball coach, I am left on my own most days.

He has been the assistant junior high coach for years, so I have been used to it.  However, this year, he was offered the JV head coach position.  Awesome promotion and fun for him-exhaustion for me.

I suppose it would not be so bad if I did not have the perfect storm of kids playing spring sports at the same time.  My week usually looks like this...

Kids come home from school, I make dinner that most people on AARP would find too early, then we go to whatever practice comes first.  Sometimes I feed and drive extra kids.  At least twice a week, I am dropping off Abby and possible teammate, then going to Caleb's practice, while another mom brings Abby to me or keeps her until we come home.

Carpooling is, without a doubt, one of the best things ever thought of in the world.  Without it, I would be lost and possibly insane.

Again, I was used to this in the evenings as Nick has been a coach for years.  However, this year, there are more games AND Abby is playing select soccer, which means that the schedule constantly changes.  This organized, lives by her calendar, mom does not appreciate that.

Another added bonus of the JV job is Saturday games.  Nick is now missing most of Caleb's soccer games and some of Abby's soccer games.  As much as I am exhausted, going to all their games by myself and chasing Noah on the sidelines the entire time, I know that it is killing him to miss their games.  Yet, it comes with the job.

I think I reached my breaking point the other day.

Abby had a tournament on the west side of the city.  For those not familiar with Cincinnati, the east side and the west side are like different countries.  You just do not cross them very often.  I do not quite understand it, but after eleven years of living here, I have come to accept it.

Regardless of this rule, many of Abby's games and tournaments are over there so I have been navigating my way around new places.  Between this particular tournament and Caleb's own game back on our side of the city, I found myself driving all three kids to the west side for Abby's first game, racing back to the east side for Caleb's game, then hurrying back over to Abby's second game on the west side.

I really wish I could find a way to write off all this mileage on my taxes.

I never thought I would be one of those parents who kept their kids busy.  We try hard not to be that way-they can (usually) only participate in one activity at a time, we lay low during the summer and winter months, and on our days of no games, we make a point to stay home.  When I think about the busy schedule we have right now, I have come to realize that only I am the one who is tired.  Abby's going to her thing, Caleb's going to his thing, Noah's having fun wherever he is and I am the one trying to be everywhere at once, while chasing the fun-loving Noah.

I want to cry sometimes and ask, "What has happened to my life?"  Then I see the look on Caleb's face when he scores a goal and the fist bump that he gives his teammates when they do well.  I see the little skip and grin that Abby has every time she defends the ball well.  I see them having fun and running around outside.

I see how happy Nick is when he is coaching the game that he loves.

And it makes it all worth it.

Typical Friday Morning

It has been one of those mornings again.

Our van is with our guy who fixes things for the weekend.  Nick's dad hooked us up with a rental from where he works, but only Nick is allowed to drive it.  So, Nick gets to drive the roomy mini van around while I squeeze all the kids into the cadddy.

Left for school this morning in the typical fashion-Abby ready on time and playing "Heart and Soul" over and over again on the piano, Noah stopping to play with toys instead of getting his shoes on, and Caleb taking his sweet time getting ready.  Finally got everyone out the door, started to put Noah's carseat buckle on and realized he was soaking wet.  Apparently, in my rush to grab stuff at the last minute, I forgot to put the stopper in his sippy cup.  So, one pair of pants covered in apple juice and no time to change-oh well.  He'll survive.

We continued on and picked up our carpool friend.  Now, these kids all know not to touch the back windows.  For some reason, they will randomly slip down, but as long as we do not touch them, we can slide them back up again when we stop the car.

Sweet kindergartener carpool friend seemed to forget about this rule today.

I saw her window down a little bit and warned to not touch it because it cannot slip down further.  A little while later, I looked back and saw it half way down.  At this point, my voice was raised higher than she had ever heard it.  Even so, a couple of minutes later, I heard a "uh oh" and realized the window was ALL the way down.

Awesome.

Oh, should I mention that it is cold and rainy today?

After dropping off some stuff with Nick at school that he forgot and neither of us being able to fix it (should mention that when he saw the window he gave me a "what the?" look and I returned his gaze with a "don't get me started" look), I gave up and continued on to drop the kids off.  I tried to fix it in the parking lot of the elementary school and even a passing dad tried to help, but there was no getting that window up.

At this point, the rain was starting to pick up, as was the cold wind.  So, I pulled into a dealership down the road, praying they would have something to quickly pick up the window.

I did not appreciate the strange and unwelcoming looks that I received there.  I'm sorry-is the cold and tired mom with a freezing two-year old in the backseat inconvenient for you?  They did not even attempt to help, but thankfully put some plastic on it as a temporary fix.

The yellow plastic looks absolutely smashing on the caddy.

They also gave me the number of their glass guy, but after hearing the $85 estimate fee, I passed.  One broken car at a time, please.

Managed to make it home only to discover that Noah had taken off his shoes.  Normally, I do not care-just walk into the house without them.  But, as I mentioned, it was raining.  So, I carried him (and his lovey and blanket and second lovey) into the house, came back out for my purse, his shoes and my one grocery bag.  As I walked back to the house, I found Noah standing in the rain in his white socks.

Why, child?  Why?

Then he had the nerve to cry because I put him back into the house.  Because that is totally worth crying over, right?

Took off his socks and pants (because, remember, they were covered in apple juice) and replaced him with clean clothes.  A bowl of goldfish and Dora on the television and he is now done with the crying fit.

After all of this, I looked at the clock and it was only 9:30.

Can I go back to bed?

Electronic Adventures

We left for church this morning in a hurry.  I threw Abby's soccer bag in the trunk, along with my tote full of stuff to keep at the soccer game, made sure we had everything for church, while Nick wrestled Noah into the car.

As we left our neighborhood, someone coming the opposite way honked their horn at us.  As Nick had not made any errors in driving, we figured it was for someone else and continued on our way.

Turns out, the guy was honking at us.

As Nick started down the main road and picked up speed, we suddenly saw something fly up at the front window and bounce off.  Within a second Nick yelled, "My ipad and my Bible!"

Apparently, he had set them both on the car, but had forgotten about them.  The Bible must have fallen off in our neighborhood because as we turned around to go find everything, we saw the same stranger who had honked at us, waving Nick's Bible out the window.

It must have been a fun sight for strangers who were driving by to see the two of us taking a side of the road to look for the lost ipad.  Oh, and while our three kids stared out the windows from the car, with the Les Miserable soundtrack blasting from the cd player.

We are just so cool.

I finally spotted the precious item across the street, the case wide open, inches from the road where cars were flying by.  Whatever case Nick purchased for that ipad must be the best ever.  Not a single scratch on the ipad.  Nothing.

The case has seen better days, but amazingly, it still holds the ipad just fine.  Even the keyboard was left untouched.

I must back up in this story to explain what happened 15 minutes before this event.  Nick had the ipad in the shower with him.

I know-seriously?

As he listened to his sports talk, I heard a crash and thought he passed out in the shower or something.  Nope-the ipad had fallen, thankfully on the bathroom floor and not in the shower itself.  Again, awesome case.

Now I will skip ahead to the afternoon.  We were at Abby's soccer game and as I went to use the porta potty (always fun, right?), I had my phone in my pant's pocket.

Oh yeah, I'm going there.

When I stood up, I heard the sound of something falling next to me.  I did not even look-I just closed my eyes and prayed, "Please, Lord, don't let my phone be in the toilet."  I mean, if it was, I could have easily reached it since the waste was almost up to the lid, but really?

Amazingly enough, it landed in the urinal.  Never in my life did I think I would be grateful to find my phone in a urinal.  A DRY urinal, that is.

So, here I sit on my laptop, safely away from toilets and roads.  Although, I do have a Noah attempting to tackle me with sticky fingers and I think I smell a dirty diaper.

I better close this laptop now.

The Bunk Beds

The boys are now in bunk beds.

Finally.

No more jumping through an obstacle course to get past the crib and bed in one room to retrieve an item.  No more Noah jumping in his crib that has gone through three kids and was literally about to fall apart as he stood there.  No more complaining of not enough space.

The bunk beds are in and my two boys are very happy.

Along with the bunk beds came the task of making Noah stay in his bed.  With the older two, they were a bit challenging so considering Noah is a complete crazy child, I figured that I had my work cut out for me.

Before the first nap time in his big boy bed, I explained to him that he could not get out of his bed.  If he did, he would get a spanking.

(Note to those who do not know me well-spankings are given in our house for complete disobedience and, at this point in time, are usually for Noah and his well cushioned, diaper-covered butt.)

He knew the consequences, he knew what to do and he went to bed, promising to stay in it.

I positioned myself near the top of the stairs, where I could lean down and see under the door.  Within thirty seconds, I saw little feet walking around in the room.

I immediately opened the door and he was in trouble.  We repeated this a few times, until he finally stayed in his bed.  However, he took two hours to fall asleep and had eventually emptied the entire bookshelf.  Awesome.

After that long afternoon and his complete grumpiness, he finally agreed that my way was better and has stayed in bed and taken awesome naps ever since then.

Seriously, it only took one day?  Mr. Noah surprised me.

The downfall to this method of mine is that every time he talks about his new bed, he follows it up by saying, "I get out of bed and Mommy spanks my butt."

Yes, he says this in public.  He said it in the waiting room of the podiatrist while Abby had an appointment.  He said this in chapel at the elementary school.  He says it to everyone he meets.

Noah, I love you, but hush, child.

Getting ready for naptime

Promising to stay in



Finally asleep right when it was time to get up

Go Ahead And Judge

Not sure why we thought having three kids would be a good idea. 

When one of them has something to do, the other two have to go along for the ride.  Sports, activities, doctor appointments...you name it.

Abby had soccer practice this past Monday evening.  Because of issues with when the field was available this week, she practiced with extra girls, meaning there were lots of parents around that I had never met.

This is important to know before I continue.

So, Abby was practicing with her team in the ridiculously cold weather (someone please shoot that blessed groundhog), while I chased the boys.  Correction-I chased Noah while Caleb was actually being pretty good.

I chased Noah around the track, I chased him away from the parking lot, I chased him up the bleachers...I was pretty tired.  Amazingly, he was not.

It only took a second.

He went under the bleachers, which he has done before, but then he usually sees a dead end and comes back.  I noticed that he did not come back right away this time, and when I bent over to look for him, I could not see that little blond head anywhere.

You parents all know the strike of panic that hits you in the gut and sends all sort of irrational fears to your mind?  Yeah, I know you know it.

I quickly followed the bleachers to the end, while telling Caleb to not go under the bleachers, but to stand still.  I found precious Noah, on the other side of the bleachers, through a fence that was open, standing in the middle of a huge puddle.

Puddle is too kind of a word.  More like a pond.

As that child of mine waded back to me (remember-ridiculously cold weather), I grabbed him and got back to the front of the bleachers.  That is when I looked over and saw Caleb in tears.

This is where I got frustrated, because he was standing near a pile of adults, crying and holding a hand to his nose, and not one of them looked his way.  No one.

Apparently, he did not hear me say to NOT go under the bleachers, so he went, trying to help find Noah.  Somehow (because he is a boy) he managed to hit his nose on the bleachers when standing back up.

He is quite talented that way.

So, I took him over to the sidelines to grab Abby's water bottle, which contained ice (sure, ice water for a ridiculously cold day-why not?) and while I attempted to stop the swelling, I realized that Noah had not followed us.

Seriously? 

I left Caleb on the sidelines, holding a water bottle to his head, and went in search of that crazy son of mine.  After a few minutes of not finding him, the real panic began to set in.  Did a stranger take him?  Did he go out to the parking lot?  Did he fall down somewhere?

I asked a dad who was standing nearby if he saw a little two-year old go by and he just looked at me with perhaps a bit of sympathy, but mostly confusion.  I know parents heard me ask that question, yet no one stopped their conversations to help a scared mom find her little boy.

Finally, one mom (who I already met the previous week and she is awesome) came by and started looking.  We then heard the footsteps above us and I found Noah walking along the top bleachers.  I had even looked there a second before, but he must have been laying down on them.

After retrieving the little monkey and checking on the bruised guy on the sidelines, Abby suddenly came up to me, in tears, because her heel hurt.

Again, seriously?

Thankfully, Nick arrived then and stayed at practice so that I could take the monsters home.  But, not without a few looks my way from the strangers as I drug my crying six-year old away as he was whining for his dad and holding his bruised nose and while I had a crying, wet two-year old in my arms, who just wanted to run straight into the busy parking lot.

Go ahead and judge, perfect parents.  Or, is it more like go ahead and ignore?  Perhaps they have served their time and do not feel the need to help out a mom that is clearly in need of aid.

As a mom who is writing this at 1:00 a.m. because she is waiting for the second load of puked on clothes to get done in the dryer because of a sick kid, go easy on those moms that you see in public.  The ones who are raising their voices and have bags under their eyes.  You have no idea the kind of day they just had and chances are, many days repeat the same.

Oh good, the dyer is dinging at me.  Now I can go to bed and start it all over again in a few hours.