Musings of a Mom

Most kids are afraid of the dark and my children are no exception. They like to have a nightlight on and we allow it. My kids have the tendency to wake up in the middle of the night and relocate. They may move to another part of their room and nest on the floor or they may move to another part of the house entirely. Mostly they seem to relocate to one of the couches in our home. Since the kids roam, we have nightlights located in various rooms. By the way, the kids are not sleepwalking although Jill has done that in the past.

As you know, we recently adopted fish. The tank is located on a cabinet countertop in our family room. Behind the tank is an outlet in which a nightlight is plugged. We had every intention of removing this nightlight until we realized that the fish we adopted are afraid of the dark.

At the store we asked if we needed to keep the tank light on and were advised that not only did we not need to keep it on at night but that it might make some of the fish stressed and we should watch out for their comfort. Stressed? Fish swim endlessly with food dropped into their tank. What could they be stressed about? Do they have to worry about sending the kids to college or saving for their retirement? I paid their mortgage — well, my sister paid their mortgage but I paid for the landscaping!

So we watched for signs of stress but the fish swam happily with the light on. But turn the light off and they dash for the back of the tank where the nightlight is. Turn the tank light back on and the fish start to swim throughout the tank footage. Light off, back they dash, and they’re not nice about it either. They push and shove each other to get to the light first.

We started with kids that are afraid of the dark and have moved on to fish with the same problems. How do you explain to a fish that there are no monsters under the bed? Jill thinks a more important problem they have is where to go potty, but that’s another subject entirely.

 Jill had her 8^th birthday.  Time does go by quick.

Jill has been asking for a pet. She wants a cat but my hubby is allergic to them. Hubby wants a dog but the kids don’t seem too excited about dogs. Jack wants a turtle. Someone, we don’t know who, mentioned fish and the kids got excited. Since we didn’t respond right away by going to the pet store, Jill decided to put in a good word with my sister. You know, the one with the crazy dog.

My sister calls one day and says, “Jill wants a pet fish. Can I get her fish and a tank for her birthday?” I told her the decision would be my hubby’s since he would be the one to clean the tank. He acquiesced and off to the store we went. 

The kids were very excited when they found out they were getting fish. Now, I know this was for Jill’s birthday but when you have more than one child the fish become a family thing. So we looked at tanks. We were going to get a 20-gallon tank until the salesperson explained the pros to going with a 30-gallon tank. Since we decided to go with a bigger tank, we told my sister we would cover over the $100 she was originally planning to spend. Of course we had to decorate the tank so Jill found a really cool castle at only $67. Cha-ching. We looked at using sand instead of rock but the cost was going to be about $50 for the amount of sand we needed versus $10 for the rock.  Rock it is! Cha-ching. Oh, yeah, we have to get plants and some shells. Cha-ching. Thank goodness we went with a tank that came with a heater, light, etc. 

We went to pick out fish and found out that you have set up your tank and let it “settle” before you can get fish then you add the fish slowly. Now, we would be coming back for fish the next few weekends. How convenient!

Now, at some point in this scenario I got excited about having fish. Enough so that I considered making the leap from freshwater fish to saltwater. Yes, we’re beginners. My hubby and I had only had goldfish in the past, but hey, saltwater fish are pretty. So we went to another store that had lots of pretty fish. In fact, they had the cast of Finding Nemo! The kids and I went nuts!  “Look!  It’s Nemo!”  “Hey, there’s Dory!”  “Mom!  It’s the guy that cleans Nemo!” 

As we ogled the cast of characters, my husband kept saying, “I think we should stick with the other fish. These guys are harder to care for.” But we ignored the man. We ignored him until I saw the price of Nemo and friends. The cheapest fish was $35 and the prices rose steeply from there. I did some quick calculations in my head and then crushed my children’s desires. “There is NO way I’m paying that much money for FISH!” Yes, they were disappointed but they’ll get over it. Hey, they’re lucky they’re getting the freshwater fish!

So the tank settled and we went back to the store to spend more money. We bought four fish and some food and will go back for more fish in a few days.

Now we have to choose names. I’m thinking we should name them: Cash, Credit, Sucker and I’m Going To Ring My Sister’s Neck.

 I’ve decided to call the kids Jack and Jill. There’s no big reason other than those are the names that suit my kids for purposes of this blog.

Jill wants an Ipod. She’s been trying to talk me into getting a new one for myself and giving her my current one so that she can have my music loaded already but she hasn’t yet convinced me. 

She approached me the other night with an idea. “Can we sell Jack for medical experiments and use the money to buy an Ipod?” Now, if you haven’t guessed already, our family’s sense of humor is a bit flippant, so I replied, “Well, he would be worth more than you.” To which she said, “Yeah, he’s so small and cute!” Now that’s a loving sister for you.

There’s something special about kids wanting to please their parents. Even when they are going through phases such as constantly saying, “I hate you” or throwing tantrums and such, they still, ultimately, want their parents’ approval.

Recently I went shopping with a friend and bought some clothes for myself. When I got home I told my husband, “I got some things for you. Would you like to see them?” My son said, “I want to see!” and when I pulled out the clothes he said, “That’s girls’ clothes!” I realized that he thought I meant that I had literally bought something for my husband and was confused by the fact that they were girl’s clothes. I explained that I bought the clothes to look nice for Daddy and that when you love someone you try to look nice for them. At that point he looked at me and asked, “Do I look nice?” With my heart melting, I said, “Yes, honey. You look wonderful.”

That’s what love is all about.

 Kids get excited about Mother’s Day, at least they do when they’re young. They enjoy making something special for mom. They enjoy giving gifts but find it difficult to wait until Mother’s Day to have the gifts opened. They are just not patient people.

My son attends daycare a couple of days a week and at daycare he made a gift for me.  He proudly presented the gift and said, “Happy Mother’s Day!” When we got home he asked, “When you open your gift, will you share it with me?” I told him we’d talk about it once I opened the gift. Now, this was on Thursday and he would have to wait a few days and that was just too long so he asked, “Do you want to open it now or on Mother’s Day?” I told him I would like to wait until Mother’s Day and he asked, “But would you like to open it now?”

Whether you’re a parent or not you know he was not really trying to get to my wishes, so of course I agreed to open my gift early. He had given me a jar of walnuts that were specially seasoned just for Mom. Now, however, he realized that he didn’t have something for me to open on Mother’s Day.

On Friday he went to his grandma’s house and asked to make a pretty bracelet for me.  He asked me what color beads I liked and told me not to look. Later that night he gave me a small wrapped box and told me to open it. I asked if I should wait for Mother’s Day and he said, “No, you have to open it now.” After I opened it, my husband saw and said, “You were supposed to save that for Sunday.” Here we go again.

Saturday morning my son came to me with a dollar bill and a dollar coin and said, “Happy Mother’s Day! Which one do you want?” When I asked why he was giving me money he said, “Because I like giving people money to be Mom and Dad.” Great, not only is he proudly paying me less than minimum wage but he makes it sound like my husband and I can easily be replaced. I think I need to check his piggy bank and see how long we’ll be around.

Mother’s Day finally arrived and my son comes into my room, says, “Happy Mother’s Day” in a way that shows no enthusiasm for the day in the slightest. Apparently he had moved on to other things.

 I’ve noticed over the years that boys seem to need more reminders about washing their hands after using the bathroom than girls do. That’s not to say that girls don’t need reminders, it’s just that boys need more, lots more.

Today I saw my son run from the bathroom into his bedroom while tugging at his pants. I asked if he had gone potty and he said, “Oh!” and turned, ran back to the bathroom, flushed the toilet and ran back to his room. I said, “Did you wash your hands?” He then ran back to the bathroom turned the water on and back off and ran back to his room. As he was running by I asked “With soap?” He grunted and ran back to the bathroom. This time he thought he would be smart so he came out to me to show that he had washed his hands with soap. He held his hands out to me and said “Smell!” Now, this may seem like an odd request but we use scented soap so the proof is in the smell of your hands.  But my son once again forgot a step. Yes, he had rinsed his hands. Yes, he had put soap on his hands, but, no, he had not rinsed the soap off. So I sent him back to the bathroom to wash again.

 This time I heard him rinsing his hands in the water. He then turned off the water and once again ran to his room. This time I asked,

“Did you dry your hands?”

”Yes.”

“With a towel?”

“A towel?” (There was a real pause here.) “Yeah, of course. What else would I do?”

Now there’s a question worth pondering.

 When I started this blog I decided to use pet names for my kids instead of their real names. At the time, my sister talked me into using Buddy and Sugar and for some silly reason I listened.

The other day my sister and I were talking about the blog when she said “I hate those names” Excuse me? I reminded her that she talked me into using them in the first place and she said, “I know but it sounds like you’re talking about two dogs instead of two kids.” That’s just terrific.

So now I am changing their names, not because I always do what my sister says but because she’s right.

I’ve been trying to think of different names but all that comes to mind is “rugrat” and “pain-in-the-butt”, Yes, they’ve been testing me this week. So I thought I would open this to our readers. Would you like me to call them “The Boy” and “The Girl” or do you have a suggestion?

Let’s get creative here, but keep it nice. These are my kids after all!

Kids are terrific for showing you your shortcomings. They watch everything you do and mimic it whether you want them to or not.

My husband learned a bit about himself the other day. He was trying to clip Buddy’s toe nails but Buddy just couldn’t keep still. My husband said, “Stop squirming or I’ll clip your toe off!” Buddy asked, “Will it hurt like hell?”

Sadly, I’ve had to learn the hard way too. One time when Sugar was in kindergarten her teacher pulled me aside and said with a grin, “I hear that you say the ‘S’ word a lot.” I laughed and said, “I’m afraid I do, but do you know what the ‘S’ word is?” She said she had a pretty good guess but I told her that she would be guessing wrong. The “S” word to Sugar was, and still is, another word for “dumb.” For those of you still wondering, I can’t say it without getting in trouble so I’ll spell it, S-T-U-P-I-D. Of course her teacher laughed at the explanation but I had been ratted out by my own child! I can’t complain though, sometimes I do have a potty mouth and she could have told on me for some other word.

My husband and I are learning and I’m sure we’ll make mistakes but you can rest assured, the kids will be sure to remind us of what we’re doing wrong.

My daughter has a loose tooth. This isn’t the first loose tooth she’s had but the process hasn’t gotten easier.

The first two teeth became loose, she wiggled them and eventually they fell out. The next two loosened, she wiggled them, the new teeth grew in behind them and the darned baby teeth tightened back up. Both of the stubborn teeth had to eventually be pulled by her dentist and what an ordeal that was. Now, most children would resist the dentist pulling a tooth, but “Sugar” fights with everything she’s got. She works herself up into a frenzy and is sure the dentist is going to do something horrible to her. Before you get the impression that Sugar is overly sensitive or that we coddle her or anything like that you should know that she’s one tough cookie and those who know her are surprised at her fear of dentists. On a side note, for a post regarding teeth and dentistry I sure seem to use a lot of sugary references, don’t I?

So last week Sugar noticed that she had another loose tooth and started wiggling that thing like crazy to avoid the dentist. She asked her dad to help her pull it but then shied away when his hands got close to her mouth. The other problem here is she has tiny teeth and a small mouth and his hands are fairly large so he wasn’t quite sure how this was going to work anyway.

Last night the loose tooth finally got to be a bit too much for her. She got out of bed to once again have Dad try to pull it. (Looking back, it was probably partly a stall tactic too.) Again, she was scared. Finally my husband said, “Just pull it out. What’s the worst that could happen?” (We really need to stop asking our kids that question!) She replied, “I could swallow it, choke and DIE.” Needless to say, the tooth is still hanging in there.

 Buddy is sick. He has some sort of stomach bug. Most people, when they are sick, tend to eat less but Buddy takes after me. When I am sick I cannot seem to eat enough. Buddy isn’t eating much, but he’s craving every kind of junk food imaginable.

Let me just start out saying that our kids eat pretty healthy. They don’t get a lot in the way of junk food unless they go to visit Grandma, then they are pumped full of cookies, ice cream, chocolate and other goodies because she is sure they are being deprived.

So, as Buddy is on a very bland diet right now and still having a difficult time keeping things down, he is making demands for future meals. He has informed us that when his stomach is better he will eat: “King Cuisine” (the frozen food meal is known to the rest of the population as Kids Cuisine), mini Pizzas and Nerds candy. Now, he has never had any of these foods (he’s had pizza, but not the specific ones he’s ordering) but he is SURE they are as tasty as the commercials claim them to be. He has wholeheartedly bought into the advertising that airs during the various shows he’s watching and yes, when he’s sick and can’t play, we let him be amused by the television. 

At one point, my husband gave Buddy some toast to eat. Buddy said he wanted sugar on it. There was no sugar on it, but to appease this highly cranky child, my husband lied and said, “There is sugar on it.” Buddy said, “I want a PILE of sugar on it.” Then he said, “I want French toast with a bowl of syrup, maple, a bowl of sugar (powdered), and a plate with bread cut up.” My husband quipped in with “I think you need to need to call Grandpa for that,” to which Buddy replied, “Get him on the phone.”

I’m hoping that this bug passes quickly, because Buddy can eat only so much “soup juice” (broth), rice and toast and is becoming crankier by the minute. He is a far more pleasant to be around when he’s healthy. But I do find it interesting that what he craves is more mental than physical. It just shows what a powerful tool advertising is.