Musings of a Mom

Last night Hubby and I took the kids to see the Easter Bunny. Jack and Jill were excited and were very cooperative in dressing nicely for the pictures they would be taking. We got to the mall and they were thrilled to see there were no other kids waiting in line to visit with the Easter bunny. They would get plenty of time to visit.

Once they sat down with E. Bunny the kids were suddenly at a loss for words. Since E. Bunny can’t speak, it was up to me to break the ice. I said, “Why don’t you tell Mr. Bunny how you’ve been?” Jill took a clue from the big whiskered one and kept her mouth shut.  Jack, on the other hand, felt a need to be truthful without sounding bad so he ventured to say, “I’ve been medium.” E. Bunny made a gesture that showed he was questioning the comment, but Jack just repeated, “I’ve been medium.” 

Hubby stepped into the act and said, “I hear that Santa and the Easter Bunny talk to each other and compare notes.” E. Bunny gave thumbs up to Hubby and so I pushed a bit and said, “Yeah, I hear they’re good friends.” This is where things get interesting. Now, I’m not trying to start any rumors, but the Easter Bunny indicated that he and Santa are doing so-so in the friend department. I had it on good authority that they were pretty close so I don’t know if they had a recent falling out or what.

Anyway, we managed to get a picture. Jill refused to show her teeth and Jack seemed determined to show every tooth in his mouth. The Easter Bunny kind of had a blank look. He must have been running over his to-do list in his mind.

Now all we have to do is find the Santa and Easter pictures from the last couple of years, trim them and dole them out to family who have been complaining about us never sending pictures. They might actually get the pictures this year.

Hubby and I decided to take the kids up to the snow for a weekend getaway. We pulled the snow gear down from the attic to see what fit whom and what needed to be replaced. Amazingly, my stuff fit, but then I didn’t try on my snow pants and, of course, my husband’s gear fit. The kids’ gear was the real question.

Jill’s boots still fit as we got them a little big last year. Her gloves were a bit snug, but would work for this one more trip. Last but not least, there’s Jack’s stuff. Poor Jack. He’s the second child so as often as possible we’ve tried to use hand-me-downs. Yes, Jill is a girl and Jack is a boy but we’ve been able to make it work much of the time. It helps that he admires his big sister and that she likes dark-colored clothing.  Don’t freak out on me here - we’re not making him wear her girly clothes, but when she was younger, you couldn’t tell if her jeans were boy’s or girl’s jeans.  (Plus, we sometimes put her in boy’s jeans anyway.) Hey, I’m not cheap; I just have better ways to use money.

So last year Jack wore a pair of magenta-colored snow boots. He couldn’t have cared less, he was just happy to play in the snow. This year he liked the blue gloves that were handed down, but was finally showing signs that he cares about what colors he’s wearing. So when I pulled out the pink boots, he laid down the law for me. ”I will NOT wear pink boots!” Now, I did feel for him. Honestly, I can’t blame him but I’m not going to pay roughly $30 for a pair of boots for one day’s wear. I told him to try the boots on which he finally agreed to, telling me how tight the boots were and that he couldn’t even get his foot in. Fine. 

We’re in California, so even though it’s our cold and rainy season and the snow is nearby, the stores are ready for us, stocked up on bathing suits. So I’m not happy about what the selection will be in trying to find boots, but I’m going to try. Darn it, my kid’s feet will stay DRY! So I was telling (or yelling, you choose) the kids to get their shoes and jackets on and Jack asked where we were going.  I told him we were going to find new snow boots for him which is when he showed me that men are born the way they are. He, like most men I know, doesn’t like to shop unless it’s for toys (and tools) so he takes the opportunity to say… “Shopping! Well maybe those pink boots aren’t as tight as I thought.” What!?! So I calmly, yes calmly, asked, “Are you telling me that you would rather wear tight pink boots than go shopping?”He looked at me as if I’d just said the dumbest thing a person can say and he replied, “Well, yeah!” (Read some attitude into the statement - think teenager attitude and you’ll have the moment nailed.)

To make an otherwise long and trying (for me that is) story short, my husband checked the boots on Jack’s feet and decided they would work for one day. We skipped the shopping, went to the snow and Jack wore his tennis shoes the whole time. His feet stayed dry, we saved the time and money that would have been spent chasing after snow boots that fit and next year we’ll either buy new boots or he’ll wear tennis shoes and we may deal with wet feet. Regardless, I now know that my son, much like his father, cares what he wears as long as he doesn’t have to shop for it.

 It’s been a while since I’ve blogged and I’m sorry about that. First I had computer issues and then the holidays. In between all of that madness Jack got lice, so you can see that I’ve had my hands full.

Yes, Jack got lice. I had never dealt with lice before and I hope never to deal with them again. You’re probably already itching your head just thinking about it but read on. I did find humor in the situation and I’ve learned a lot. Hopefully you’ll never have to deal with lice but maybe our story will have you better prepared if you do.

I had always heard that lice looks like a grain of white rice so when Jack started itching, Hubby and I checked but saw nothing that looked like white rice. A few days later we checked again and found a brown bug that resembled a flea. Since Jack had been around a couple of dogs, we assumed he now had a flea. I even called my sister and told her she should check her dog because we found a flea on Jack.

  A few days later Jack was still itching his head, so again we checked and found another “flea.” This time I called the doctor and explained the situation. This is when I learned that lice are brown bugs once they hatch and that the nits (eggs) look like dandruff but don’t flake off like dandruff. The nurse, being kind, said, “You need to treat him for lice” and I naively/ stubbornly (you choose which one) said, “Are you sure? Maybe I should bring him in so you can see for sure.” Now I know that the nurse has either patiently dealt with many first-timers or when she hung up, she laughed her butt off.

Once receiving the news, I did what many parents do (at least I hope so). First I cursed a bit then I threw a fit and then I went into action. First thing to do: call mom. Yes, I called my mom. Next I went to the pharmacy to buy whatever product would rid us of these pests (the lice, not my children.)

I have since learned there are businesses which deal solely in treating lice. They are expensive but I’m sure they’re worth every dime. I, however, did everything at home.  I wanted to be sure we got rid of the bugs so we treated every family member’s head whether they had lice or not.

 As we started the treatments Jack threw a fit. He screamed and cried, not because the treatment hurt (it doesn’t) but because he wanted to keep his “friends” with him. What started as a discussion quickly escalated into an argument which ended with me saying, ”Lice are not your friends. They’re sucking the blood out of your head. Friends don’t suck the blood out of you! That’s a life lesson. Learn it now!”

 I read that vinegar helps loosen the “glue” that holds the nits to hair so over the next few days, when we washed our hair we would finish with a vinegar rinse. During one rinse Jack informed Hubby, “You know I have to scream, right?” Hubby told him to do whatever he needed to and Jack started screaming.  Yes, we were all a bit stressed and unhappy it seems.  My sister even called to find out if her dog could get lice from my kid.

There are websites that tell you to bag up anything that can’t be washed and other sites say don’t worry about doing a deep cleaning because lice don’t live long once they’re off a body. Now, I have never been accused of being a neat freak but my house went through a serious deep cleaning. My washer and dryer were running constantly for a week, we used Hubby’s Shop Vac to vacuum the carpets, couches, mattresses and anything we could think of. Stuffed animals and other items were bagged up and put outside since the temperature was supposed to get down to freezing that night and lice can’t survive the cold. We left everything bagged for about three weeks, and then Shop Vac’d everything that came out of the bags.

Did I go overboard in getting rid of the bugs? You bet I did! If I will scratch my head just because someone mentions those creatures then you can bet that I will freak out knowing they are in my home and on one of my kids. If I kill spiders for being unwelcome guests in my home then I certainly will not take mercy on lice.

So, again, I hope you never have to deal with lice but if you do, I hope you find some humor in the situation and at least enjoy how clean your home will be.

Kids can keep you feeling young but they can also make you feel very old in an instant.  They have no sense of age or mortality coupled with a lack of a filtering system.

Yesterday was Hubby’s “23^rd anniversary of his 20^th birthday” and he was teasing my sister (who’s younger) that she is soon going to be over the hill.  Jill chimed in with, “Daddy, you’re at the top of the hill!”

Recently Jack was asked how old he is and he answered, “I’m 5, Jill’s 8 and Mom’s a googolplex!” (If you don’t know what a googolplex is, just know that it makes me the oldest person on Earth.)

Jill also has a way of reminding her grandparents of their mortality.  My mom heard Jill singing a song from the movie Nightmare Before Christmas and teasingly said, “When you have kids I’m NOT watching them!” Jill shot back, “That’s okay.  Mom will be the grandma then and you’ll be dead.”  (Note:  For those of you who just fell out of your chairs in shock, my mom laughed and told Jill she might not make it to being old enough to have kids if she keeps making remarks like that.)

Kids have a way of reminding you to enjoy the time you have, to have a sense of humor and that you too probably said something similar when you were young.

I hope you feel as young as I do right now!

As a parent there are some days when we know we are doing our best, some days when we aren’t sure of ourselves and some days when we just can’t seem to handle anything right.  The nice thing to know is that our kids have those days too.

I was reminded last week that “some” is a very vague term.  Using the word opened me up to potential manipulation by my firstborn.  One of Jill’s jobs is to fold her own laundry and put it away.  So last week I said, and this quote is important, “Jill, you have some clothes to fold.”  A little later I noticed that she had folded three shirts and left the rest and so I reminded her that she still had some clothes to fold.  About an hour passed and I noticed that the clothes were still in a pile on the couch so I said, “Jill, you haven’t folded your clothes.” She said with a smile on her face, “You said to fold some clothes, so I did.  See.  I folded some clothes.”  Oh, how I love that she’s a bright girl, but oh, how I loathe that she tries to use it against me.  Of course I am her parent and of course I was not going to let her get away with this so I said, “Well, then I guess you lose Wii and DS privileges for some days.”  Boy did that smirk fall off her face quick.  She knew it was the wrong thing to do but she felt the need to test and see what she would get away with.  She tried arguing her case but that just made matters worse. 

Later that night she got into trouble with her father and so he made it a restriction of all electronics - no TV, radio or any other gadget she has access to.  He gave her a restriction time of a week but my restriction was an open-ended one.  So she went through the week and obeyed the restrictions.  She begged for time off for good behavior and even did extra jobs around the house to get time taken off of Dad’s restriction and she asked how long some meant to me.  Now, I’m not hard-hearted but I know a test when I see one, so I explained that as a family we are a team and everybody has a job to do to help the team. 

Now, here’s the important part of this drama.  Jill was over at my sister’s house this weekend and my sister offered to let Jill play with her Nintendo DS and Jill explained that she was on “electronic restriction.”  My sister was telling me that Jill stuck to the restriction even though she wasn’t at home (and I’m sure my sister told her that the rules didn’t apply at auntie’s house according to auntie) and my sister asked what Jill did.  At first I couldn’t remember until my sister said, “Jill wasn’t sure when it ended.  She just said that it would last some days and you hadn’t decided how long some was.” 

I have to say, I’m proud of Jill for not breaking her restriction and I’m happy that she appears to have gotten the message.  It just doesn’t pay to test Mom, or at least don’t do it with a grin. 

 I knew I would have to deal with fashion at some point in my children’s lives, I just thought it would happen later on, like maybe when they become tweens. But that just wasn’t the case for us.

Jill showed an eye for fashion when she was just six-months old.  She would reach out for lavender-colored clothing and smile. It didn’t matter which store we were in and she didn’t reach for other colors so we thought she just liked the color.  That is, until I was flipping through a catalog one day. The catalog was full of designer outfits and Jill was sitting next to me looking as I flipped through the pages.  Suddenly she grabbed the catalog and turned back the page, smiled and started making what we called “happy noises.”  Jill not only liked fashion, but she had expensive taste to boot.  More interestingly, the outfit was not lavender.

Since then Jill has become a bit of a fashion critic and will tell me how an outfit could be improved and she likes to be creative with her own outfits.  She must pick out her own clothes and spends a bit of time each night deciding on the perfect outfit for the next day. Sometimes she will take the weather into account and sometimes the outfit is just too important for her to care about weather conditions.  For example, last Friday temperatures reached over 100 degrees in our area but Jill insisted on wearing a black and white shirt with black gaucho pants. She said she would be in a classroom most of the day and would stay in the shade on recess. Her mind was made up. (I also did not realize until we were leaving the house that this was her chosen outfit. She and her dad discussed her choice and she won.)

Jack is also somewhat fashion conscious but in a different way. He will wear the same clothes for three days if you let him. His idea of changing outfits is running into his room and turning his shirt inside out and/or backwards and turning his pants inside out.  When you say, ”I just told you to go change your clothes.” He will answer “I did!” He will also argue that his clothes are still clean and that he likes them.  Jack doesn’t care if there are holes in the pants, stains on his shirt or even if they are too short.  All he cares about is that he is comfortable.

As you can see I deal with both ends of the fashion spectrum on a daily basis. If it’s like this now I can’t bear to think of what it will be like when they’re teenagers.

When faced with leaving the house, kids MUST bring something.  They like to have something to amuse them or comfort them or show off and it doesn’t matter whether you’re going one mile or one hundred, they just can’t leave with empty hands. 

No matter how much warning we give Jack that we are leaving, there is almost always a frantic search for what to bring.  He may already have packed something to take but he just wants to make sure he has the right thing even though “the right thing” is whatever catches his eye at the last moment.

Yesterday we were taking Jack and Jill to grandma’s house for a bit.  Grandma lives one mile from us and has lots of toys, but still the packing and search had to happen.  Jack decided to bring two of his stuffed animals but couldn’t find one at the last minute.  Hubby was trying to get us all out of the house and said, “Don’t worry about it.  Find something else.”  Jack ran off and came back with his pillow.  Hubby didn’t realize what was happening and asked me if the kids were spending the night and why Jack had his pillow.  I said, “I guess it’s his pet pillow.”  Jack had clearly been worried before I made the comment as he thought his dad was going to make him leave the house empty handed.  The idea of a pet pillow was amazing to Jack.  He grinned and announced, “I have to show grandma my pet pillow.  He’s my new friend!”

Now, however, Jack has taken to carrying this pillow with him, had to have the pillow nearby when he was bathing and even tried to put a pair of underwear on the pillow.  Apparently the two have bonded and I’m sure I’ll be inviting Pillow to join us for dinner soon.

Jack will turn five years old soon and so I’ve been trying to plan a celebration. When Jill turned five we had a party and I always assumed we would for Jack as well but now that the time has come, we are reconsidering. Don’t worry, we’ll still celebrate, its just that Jack’s current friends are much younger than he is and don’t have the same interests so a party just doesn’t seem appropriate.

I asked him recently if he wanted to have the family go bowling which he got really excited about and then he added that he wanted the whole family (including grandparents and his aunt and cousin) to go to the Lego store so everyone can buy one Lego brick for him. Hmmm, I’m sure he means one Lego set but I’ll easily agree to one Lego brick!

Of course as I was starting to make plans for this Lego/bowling fiesta my nephew decided to turn 17. Yes, decided. If you’ve ever been around teenagers you’ll understand that there have been a few days that I thought his mom wouldn’t let him make it to 17, and he’s a good kid generally. So he turned 17 and had his annual campout party which Jack decided to crash at the last minute. (The 17-year old actually wanted Jack there, but Jack likes the idea of having crashed the party.) Then everything changed.

Jack has now decided that he too wants a campout but only after going to the extremely important Lego Store. Jack has also decided that he wants to invite his cousin’s friends to his campout. Oh yeah, he thinks the friends should go to the Lego store to buy him a brick too.

So picture this, invitations sent to a few 16 and 17-year-old boys saying “I’m turning 5! Come buy a Lego brick for me and camp out too!” Sounds like quite a celebration to me.

Jack went out with my sister and nephew the other day to go toy shopping.  On the way to the store Jack announced, “Girl mosquitoes are blood suckers!”  My sister has not studied mosquitoes so she didn’t know this information is true.  She said, “All mosquitoes suck your blood.”  To which Jack replied, “No, only girls are blood suckers!” 

Now, my sister claims that Jack told her that he learned this little tidbit from his dad and, of course, my sister quickly brought it to my attention:  “Do you know what your husband is teaching your child?”  The irony in this situation is: 1) Hubby is very pro-women and does not adopt the “women are blood suckers” feeling, 2) The statement is true regarding mosquitoes and 3) Jack actually learned it at daycare from a woman. 

So here’s the moral of the story:

Dads - watch what your kids say, it could accidentally get you in some hot water. 

Moms - know about mosquitoes, bugs and other creepy crawlies and more importantly, don’t jump to conclusions. 

I knew about the little blood suckers so Hubby was never in trouble, but he did have a great laugh about the fact that my sister took the statement as a jibe and not a fact relayed by an innocent child.

Jill has always been interested in learning how to read, write, do math, et cetera.  She was easy to prepare for kindergarten.  She was hungry for information and we were happy to provide her with tools to feed that hunger.

Jack is a completely different child.  He’s a smart kid but he has a completely different learning style.  He is very hands on and does not want to sit down to learn to read or write.  He wants to build, explore and be active.

You would think that knowing how he learns would make the process simple but it doesn’t.  The way I learn best is a mix of Jack’s and Jill’s styles with a little more emphasis on Jill’s side.  Since I am the one who works most with Jack it is up to me to find ways to teach him.  I have tried games, songs, videos, and various other ways to gain his interest but they only work for a few minutes.  I know a few minutes are better than none, but still…  He doesn’t have A.D.D. because he can sit for hours playing with Legos or Bionicles.

I don’t worry about it too much and, for the most part, I figure he’ll be fine, but it’s a bit difficult for me to shift gears between the two learning styles. I could take Jill to the library and she’d be happy for hours.  Jack would be much happier in a hardware store. 

Yesterday Hubby and I took the kids on a tour of a submarine.  When my sister asked Jack about it he was really excited.  She asked, “Could you see the water through the windows?”  Jack looked puzzled for a bit and said, “There are no windows on a submarine.”  My sister said, “Well, what did you see in the submarine?”  Jack said, “Lots and lots of mechanical stuff!  It was COOL!!!”  Jill enjoyed the tour too but she just kept commenting on the fact that the submarine had a lot of doors to go through.

So I’ll keep trying to find ways to teach Jack to write the alphabet, but if anyone has suggestions, I’d love to hear them. 

By the way, I’ll be trying to teach him how to tie his shoes soon.  Any suggestions?