All I want for Christmas

The ’season’ is upon us and the emails from the grandmothers have arrived. What might the cherubs want for Christmas, they ask.

I haven’t replied.

Because I’m trying to think of the ‘perfect’ gift. The gift that will bring them a few minutes’ worth of joy; that I won’t have to constantly pick up, or trip over, or throw in the trash ‘inadvertently’.

I got home from the parent teacher conference today. Jason was lying on the couch, with a blanket draped over him in dramatic fashion. In addition to a much publicized case of plantar fasciitis, he’d acquired another injury: ‘I stepped on a hotel’ he informed me.

I knew what he meant – a Monopoly hotel, of course. I can still see the wheelbarrow embedded in my foot. And I can still feel the sensation of sharp metal leaving thick skin as I yanked it out. And that was probably two years ago.

Vivid. Memories.

The best part? They don’t actually play with the game. They just dump out the pieces and the paper money and the real estate cards. Man, do I love Monopoly! And Scrabble. And Blokus. And Uno.

In addition to an injured husband on the couch, this is what else waited for me as I walked through the door. Over forty markers lying on the floor along with about fifty crayons. Fifteen or twenty marbles strewn across the kitchen floor. Pages and pages of ‘artwork’ lying around. ‘I wan paint’ the Hen announced after I surveyed the damage.

Charmed, I’m sure.

The art craze has taken a major turn for the worse, as the Gort has now discovered tape. Combined with scissors. Which result in exceedingly complicated tape-constructions in the most inconvenient of places. A tape ‘bridge’ in the stairs leading to the basement. A tape and string ‘book perch’ hanging down from the kitchen counter. As I was bustling around in the kitchen trying to get everything ready for a Thanksgiving potluck, I looked over to where the baby was sitting in his bouncy seat.

Ensconced in a ‘tent’ made of paper towel and masking tape. Luckily the sides had been left open, otherwise I might have freaked out a bit. ‘He’s in a tent!’ the Gort exclaimed. Delighted.

In an effort to keep the boys’ sticky fingers off our printer paper supply, the professor brought in a stack of neon orange and green and pink paper. Which means the house looks like a burgled surf shop.

So I don’t really know what the boys want for Christmas, but here’s a list of things ‘they’ don’t want.

Markers. Crayons. Pens. Pencils. Paper. Marbles. Games containing pieces or cards. Cars. Trains. Puzzles. Play doh. Moonsand. Tools. Books (see ban on paper). Toys with pieces (i.e. blocks, magnets, lego, lincoln logs, tinker toys, mr. potato head, and other building/stacking/ toys). Tape. Stickers. Stuffed Animals. CDs. DVDs. Clothes. Socks.

So, basically, ‘they’ want a gift certificate to a fancy restaurant or a day spa.

Overheard

Some nights now the wife is gone helping a friend cater to the rich and richer, listening to the gliterati of an oily cow town discuss the markets, hockey and nannies who don’t have visas to travel with them to Hawaii. Meanwhile at home I am trying to push back the rising tide of maleness* that is my three offspring as it threatens to overturn the small rowboat that is my sanity.  I am probably just barely keeping the water below my knee level as I bale it out by the teaspoonful with handfuls of chocolate chips and pecans I find in the cupboards.  I am like a squirrel gathering bits of sanity to store for these occasions when I feel the slow boil in my throat and hear words expelled with hard edges and volumes that I immediately regret.  I fear capsizing until, laying in my bed, the only quiet point of a triangle of sound, I hear from the room the two oldest boys share the following conversation.

G. the moon is full of candles and that is what makes it light. (this enlightening information is drowned out by the yapping of his little brother slowing rising in volume to a level that can’t be bested)

G. do you mind? it’s my turn to talk now.

H. OK

G. Did you know the moon is glowing houses making them happy?

(meanwhile the little brother yells “GAGA GAGA” until big brother stops to patiently listen to his mumbling and then ask for permission to speak again…)

G. “The moon is private and there’s trees and one of the branches of our tree fell down remember that? OK now your turn….. say something about the moon or the branches or the trees….”

H.” hmblmlbmlbm moo hamdlamlam moo.” (The tones and inflections are those of an animated politician imploring that you can trust his facts, his motives. Of course the sounds themselves are also like those of politicians and lawyers….. gibberish that goes on too long and with too much certainty)

On and on and on in a circle they go about the moon and trees and chimneys with stars flying out of them, followed by unintelligible but equally urgent descriptions of whatever the heck is in that kid’s mouth that makes him unable to enunciate until suddenly as clear as his little blue eyes…

H. “I wanna choo choo an apple….”

G. “YOU CAN’T KEEP SAYING THE SAME THING, STOP TALKING ABOUT THE CHOO CHOO AND THE APPLE,             ok my turn… Do you know any planets, like the monkey planet? Have you ever lived in America?”

H. “uh huh….” (He always says this like a teenager might agree with, in a sort of matter of fact “of course I have who hasn’t” way.)

G. “No you haven’t lived in America…. We used to live in Muncie and now we live in Canada, First we lived in Muncie, then in America and now in Canada…. Do you like Canada?”

H. “yah…”

It goes on like this for an hour and despite the nagging feeling that I should be doing one of the tasks Google keeps telling me are urgent, I lie there and listen to them and feel the boat empty of water and the tide roll out and then suddenly silence.  All points are quiet and still and the wife is not yet home, but you know this will make her smile and that makes you smile and close the Google Task List…..

*maleness because as Nicola often points out this sort of crazy climbing, jumping, head bashing, toy throwing hysteria is apparently all my fault and completely foreign to someone raised without a brother. I always think of it as training although I don’t think any of us have figured out exactly for what…. At any rate maybe it is my fault but when I go to the park it becomes clear that it is not an exclusive club.

Adjusting to Kindergarten, Part 3

At the risk of sounding ‘anti-education’ I have to say Kindergarten is sort of a….bust for me. At least so far.

As far as I’m concerned, there’s only one thing in the ‘pros’ category: the entertainment/occupation/advancement of my oldest son. The ‘cons’ category has a few more items: driving to school twice a day; inconvenient time slot (12-2.45); fundraisers (casino night, coupon book sale drive; Scholastic book fair and card sale drive….and that was just the first three months); remembering the jillion events on the school calendar (‘no school’, library day, reading day, school pictures, class pictures, kids’ yoga etc.) and homework.

We had a reprieve for the first nearly two months. The kid went to school, and he came home. And that was it. Then, one blessed day in mid-October he came home with a blue folder in his backpack.

The Home Reading Program.

The folder contained a tiny (Scholastic) book sealed in a ziploc bag. And a log – so that you, slacker parent, can record how often you read this book with your child. The instruction sheet also contained a reminder to send the book back to school every Tuesday so it could be replaced with a different book. Not to be confused with library books and library days. Even though it is…confusing.

The books feature awesome prose, like: ‘I like big dogs….I like little dogs….I like wet dogs….I like cold dogs….But I really like….hot dogs.’

I think the goal is for your child to magically absorb the oft-repeated words (I, like, dogs) and in the future be able to spontaneously recall them from his memory bank. ‘Hey, that’s dogs!’ or something like that. Clearly I’m not an educator.

The thing that is tricky, aside from trying to maintain one’s patience when one’s child wails ridiculous things like ‘I can’t read’…’I will never read ever again’, is finding a window of time to do the work. Especially when you have a two year old and a nearly three month old hanging around. I mean, it seems counter-intuitive to put the two year old in front of a movie…..to work on reading with the five year old. ‘Here, you watch a movie while I work on your brother’s brain?!’ But the other option is to do it at 7pm when he’s tired and I’m ready to draw the curtains on the parenting experience.

And just when I was starting to fret about finding even ten minutes of alone time with my boy each day, another folder appeared in his backpack. The black, duotang folder. With homework pages. And another log: evidence of your ‘commitment’ to your child’s education.

This week’s page: a list of the colors in Spanish. So now, in addition to reading fun things like ‘I like big dogs’ I also have to review the colors in Spanish and listen to arguments from my oldest about why he wants to call light-brown ‘marron’ instead of ‘cafe’. Or why he wants to call pink ‘rosa’ instead of ‘rosado’.

The other night I was counting from 1-100 (as requested by the Gort) while cooking dinner to the soundtrack of one infant and one toddler screaming. It felt like a bizarro IQ test.

Yesterday was report card day. The Gort’s first report card. It brought back all of my own anxieties and issues with report cards. Which I was trying very hard not to pass on to him. We got in the car after pick-up and I tried my best not to rip the backpack off his back to get my hands on the report card. ‘You need to read it in the car,’ he instructed, ‘my teacher said you have to read it in the car,’ he advised when I tried to postpone the experience until we got home.

So I calmly removed the blue folder from his backpack. I reviewed the grading system (4, 3, 2, 1) and quickly scanned the 32 areas of assessment for any marks of brilliance; any signs that we have a genius on our hands. There were none. Not a single ‘4′ anywhere. ‘Demonstrates an awareness of personal health and safety’….a 2?! What does that even mean? And art – his milieu, his forte…a 3?!’

‘During large group and teacher-led activities, he likes giving his opinions and sharing ideas. He still needs daily reminders to raise his hand in order to talk and not interrupt the teacher or his peers.’

Wha? (Oh, wait, I can see why she might have said that.)

I thought about our upcoming conference with his teacher and how I was going to have to give her a piece of my mind about her woeful under-assessment of my firstborn.

Thankfully it was still a week away. And rational Nicola had a brief window of opportunity to make an appearance in the twenty four hours that followed the shock over the first report card. When a modicum of sober judgment returned, I determined that his teacher had merely left room ‘for improvement’ as it were. Clearly, if the Gort was going to have all 4’s by the end of Kindergarten, he had to start off with mostly 3’s. Otherwise, why finish the year?

Rational Nicola also concluded it would be best to send the professor to the teacher’s conference. Alone. He’s more likely to be ‘reasonable’ and not ‘defensive’. However, I will be sending with him a small portfolio containing my child’s work which refutes her assessment, point by point.

Es un autentico genio, Senora.

Hair Cut

It was time for my semi-annual hair cut last week. It had been nearly five and a half months since my last one and my hair looked…weird. For lack of a better word. The phrase ‘not good’ also comes to mind.

So I made an appointment at a salon that had been recommended by a friend. Unfortunately I didn’t know the name of her particular stylist. Also, I had called on a Saturday morning for a same-day appointment.Which means I got ‘assigned’ to the one person who had a free slot that day. Her name was Betty.

I arrived at the appointed hour of 3pm for my rendezvous with Betty’s shears. It is worth mentioning how I got to the appointment.

The professor had finally, after a good two or three months of procrastination, taken our beloved car-van in for an oil change. When I walked to the oil change shop at 2.50pm, to pick up the van I was told it wasn’t ready yet. Apparently it takes at least three hours to change the oil in a Chevy Venture. Who knew.

So because I didn’t have enough time to walk to my appointment and because we don’t have another vehicle, the owner of the oil change shop gave me a ride to the salon.

An inauspicious start.

Even more inauspicious, Betty was fifteen minutes late. And since I don’t have a cell phone I had to use the salon phone to call the professor and tell him to pick me up at 4.15 instead of the agreed-upon 4pm.

After washing my hair, she led me over to her station where we agreed she’d cut off about 3 and a half inches. She assumed the position of a long-distance runner at the starting line: one leg in front of the other, leaning forward. All while cutting off long chunks of my hair.

It was as if hair cutting was her work-out, her form of exercise. At the rate she was going I imagined I’d be out of there well before four. I mentally kicked myself for telling Jason to pick me up at 4.15 instead of 4. But I’d spied a copy of People magazine with Andre Agassi on the cover. All was not lost – I could use my extra time to uncover the mystery of his marriage to Brooke Shields. And the whole wig/weave/hairpiece business.

Within ten minutes the hair cut was finished. Or so I thought. Even though it was still wet and un-styled, I thought it looked pretty good. After all, wet and un-styled is how I roll. But she wasn’t done. She kept cutting and cutting and cutting. I feared I was going to end up with Kate Gosselin’s haircut.

Finally she stopped. And instead of ‘pretty good’, my hair just looked very choppy; like the kind of hair that would need to be styled in order to look good. She pulled out the blowdryer and the paddle brush and the round brush and the hair spray. And the styling marathon began.

I had no idea what time it was; I wasn’t wearing my glasses; I wasn’t wearing a watch; I couldn’t see the lone clock on the wall. But my ‘inner clock’ told me it was close to 4 at this point.

‘You have a lot of hair,’ she commented as she dried and brushed and sprayed. ‘Do you color your hair?’ No. ‘Do you blow-dry your hair?’ No…I don’t really know how…and my wrist gets so tired from holding up that heavy hairdryer. Betty seemed perplexed – she clearly didn’t run into a lot of people with my level of hair care.

‘Your hair is very healthy,’ she pronounced; the hair stylist’s version of ‘you have a nice personality,’ I’m guessing.

It was getting later and later. And I was starting to panic at the thought of the professor sitting in the van. Waiting. With three screaming kids. I caught a glimpse of the wall clock. It was well past four, that much I could tell.

Finally she pronounced me ‘done’. My hair was stiff as a board and poufy and looked like Rachel’s in the second season of Friends. It’s not a good thing to sport such an iconic hairstyle fourteen years after the fact.

I bolted from my seat to the cash register. I paid, uttered thanks and grabbed a couple of toffees for my little people.

It was 4.50pm. I’d been ‘under the knife’ for more than an hour and a half. The professor had been waiting for at least thirty five minutes.

I entered the van with trepidation. The Hen was wailing. The baby was screaming. ‘Sorry, sorry,’ I apologized as I handed each of the boys a toffee in an effort to stop some of the crying.

‘Your hair looks nice,’ the professor muttered. ‘But I’m not talking to you.’

Fair enough.

Addictions

I knew the day was coming. How could it not? The Hen had made his way through his stash of ‘acceptable-to-him’ pacifiers. He was down to two. And then there was one. And every day since we’ve been afraid he’d lose ‘the one’ and we’d have to find the toddler equivalent of a methadone clinic.

His obsession with his ‘da’ started casually enough, as it has with all our boys. They emerged from the womb smacking their gums and, in an effort to avoid being permanently fused to them, I gave them a pacifier. Personally I don’t understand why anyone would want to suck on a piece of silicone for even three seconds, but apparently they want to.

So, it’s a win-win situation, except when the kid wakes up the minute the silicone nastiness leaves his mouth and can’t stop crying until it’s back in his mouth. That’s more of a lose-win situation. At least for me.

I think it was around the time we arrived on Canadian soil that his attachment to pacifiers expanded to include pillowcases. Preferably white, 100% cotton pillowcases. With the highest thread count possible. It was also around this time that the pacifier matter took a turn for the obsessive. With a dingy white pillowcase in one hand and a pacifier in the mouth, he could face anything. Without them, he could face….not much. At least not for very long.

And, thanks to his penchant for carrying these items all over creation and setting them aside when his interest in a particular toy outweighed his need for comfort, we’ve lost a lot of pacifiers. A LOT.

The Hen has personally lost about fourteen of them. By the end of summer two of the fourteen remained. Because in addition to being picky about having a pacifier…he only wants a certain kind of pacifier. A not-made-in-Canada kind of pacifier. Anything else gets thrown across the room…disgustedly.

The first of the last was lost a few weeks ago. Which left one. One blue newborn MAM pacifier. A two year old walking around with a tiny newborn pacifier in his mouth is quite a sight. Especially when he’s also dragging a white pillowcase behind him.

‘If he loses this one then it’s time for him to be done,’ Jason and I have been saying to each other the last couple of weeks.

Almost as if (a) we’re calling the shots and (b) we’d ever find the mental fortitude to listen to that kid scream at the top of his lungs for the better part of an hour.

And so, tonight arrived. The professor was off at the soccer fields trying to maintain the Eldorado Kickers’ newfound winning streak. I was alone. The Hen was tired. He’d only had a twenty minute nap in the car.

‘Whe my ba-da?’ he asked insistently as I changed his diaper before bed.

I hustled downstairs to get his majesty’s ’stuff’. The ‘ba’ was lying on the floor by the dining table. And the ‘da’ was….nowhere to be found.

I searched in all the plausible places – play room, living room, dining room, pants pockets, coat pockets – and came up empty-handed. He was screaming by that point. I looked with more fervor. Finally I went upstairs to deliver the news.

In total disbelief, he grabbed me by the hand and led me downstairs to the drawer where I keep the pacifiers. He stood waiting, expectantly. I opened the drawer and handed him one of the ‘back-ups-that-he-refuses’. He looked at it and threw it on the floor. Wailing all the while, heartbroken by my callous refusal to produce the ‘da’.

I took him upstairs where he lay sobbing on the rug; throwing clothes and toys at his older brother who was sitting on his bed minding his own business. He even threw a shoe at the poor kid. When he saw that the shoe lit up when it hit a surface, he was intrigued. Much like Curious George, I couldn’t help but think.

The tears stopped. He shoved the three-sizes-too-big shoe on the wrong foot and began stomping around. So he could see the lights.

I had a vision: of a pacifier-free child wearing one pair of Skechers size 11 light-up shoes 24 hours of every day for the rest of his life. It wasn’t a pretty picture, but at least he’d stopped crying. Surely not the first person to drown his (or her) sorrows in a pair of shoes.

Women have their Jimmy Choos and toddler boys have their Skechers, I guess.

But as with all material goods, the light-up shoes quickly lost their luster and the crying resumed. In search of some earplugs, I headed downstairs, bracing myself for a long night of weeping and gnashing of teeth. Why oh why couldn’t this have happened on Jason’s watch?

I thought about baking some brownies, so I’d have something to drown my sorrows in. But, for the first time…ever…I didn’t want to bake. Could this be the night when we’d both be delivered from our respective addictions?

I glanced at the ridiculously messy-crowded kitchen counter. I saw a blue Mam pacifier lying amongst the rubble of dirty dishes. I ran upstairs. The crying ceased immediately.

Maybe another night.

On having a big family

We were at the mall last week, trying to find some snowboots for the boys. On our way out of one store, we walked by a woman and her son. Instead of the usual cursory nod and semi-smile, she stopped to talk to us.

To tell us that one of the children’s clothing stores was having a big sale.

Even though I wasn’t planning on buying the boys any clothes, I appreciated her passing along the good news of a sale. I mean if there are shirts and pants on sale for $5.99, I like to be in the know.

I thanked her for the information and kept walking, trying to keep the contingent moving before tears erupted or store property got damaged. Or the new truck we were buying our oldest got dropped on the floor…again.

Out of the corner of my eye I could see the woman was still going on about the sale to the professor. Apparently she really sensed we needed to know about this event because, in her words, ‘I see you have a big family.’

A big family?

The thought hadn’t occurred to me. Nor had it been uttered by a complete stranger. Until now.

Is a family with three kids – a five person family – big?

I guess I’ve been operating on the assumption that it’s not. Because when people ask if we’re going to have a fourth, I usually answer ‘no….because four kids….that’s a LOT!’

Three kids….is sort of middle of the road isn’t it -the 21st century version of the 20th century’s two parents-two kids configuration? I mean, (in my best Carrie Bradshaw voiceover) isn’t three the new two?

I’d assumed that the Johnson party of five was still within the parameters of a small-ish family. But the woman’s comment put us in Duggar territory, practically.

Curious, I conducted a very scientific poll. I made a list of the names of families I know reasonably well. Of the fifty-five names that came to mind, twenty-one (21!) are families with three children. And twenty-five (25) are two-kid families. That’s a fairly even split.

Either that or I’m hanging around with a bunch of Duggar-wannabes.

I will say the grocery cart is a lot fuller than it used to be. With kids – not food. Now, when I do the shopping with all three in tow, the cart is entirely filled with boys. I barely have room for groceries. Yes, the alternative is to insist my oldest boy-child walk through the store instead of ride in the cart. But then his brother will want to walk as well. And I’ll end up with more mysterious, unwanted food items in my grocery bags.

Like the large can of ‘fruit cocktail’ that made it all the way from the shelf to my grocery bag without my noticing.

I mean I’m used to the professor filling the cart on the sly with things like sweetened condensed milk or butterscotch ice cream topping. Or pop-tarts. But now the children, too?

As I was pushing my cart in the Superstore parking lot last week, a chicly dressed woman whizzed by me. Not a difficult feat by any means, since I was moving at a pace of roughly one mile per hour: trying to push the cart while corralling the oblivious-to-traffic-children focusing on their respective candy bars (bribes).

‘You’re my hero!’ she called to me over her shoulder. ‘I have one at home, and don’t even bring him….you have three!‘

We made breakfast at home last weekend: eggs, bacon, french bread. Jason was in the kitchen manning the stove and when he finally came over to the dining table, where the two bigger boys and I were sitting, munching on bread, the baguette was nearly gone.

He picked up the remaining crust and gave me a look. ‘What?’ I pseudo-apologized ‘I’ve hardly had any.’

Which was true. The blondies had eaten about eight pieces…each. Dejected, the professor walked back to the kitchen for a slice of loaf bread.

Big or small, one thing is certain. We are no longer a one-baguette family.

Remember this

It’s Remembrance Day here in Canada. Or, Veteran’s Day in the States. It’s about remembering people who fought in wars; who made tremendous sacrifices; for the greater good.

Unfortunately, that’s not exactly how we spent the day chez Johnson.

The morning began with reveille from our two year old. I noted he now screams ‘mommy’ or ‘daddy’ while bouncing vigorously in his crib. This might be because no one comes to his aid.

We’re too tired.

‘Is this my morning?’ the professor croaked. Meaning, I suppose, ‘his’ morning to ’sleep in’ – as in, not get up at 6.30am. I politely and lovingly reminded him that I’m the one who gets up in the night with the kids and he’s the one who gets up in the morning with them. After which he protested ‘but I’m a veteran’.

A veteran of ‘the Lord’s army’ he later clarified. Yes sir.

We managed to bumble along until nap-time in a remarkably civilized manner. Unfortunately the Gort doesn’t nap, or ‘rest’, for any amount of money. He instead likes to spend nap-times working on some art project and waking up any adult trying to nap to show them his progress. Repeatedly.

As the professor found out today when he was trying to take a nap downstairs. I’ve learned my lesson and no longer bother with such exercises in futility. I just drink another cup of coffee.

There was a palpable malaise in the Johnson home following nap-time. So I suggested a walk. Outside.

‘Raise your hand if you don’t want to go on a walk,’ my five-going-on-fifteen-year old replied before extending his arm into the air. With certainty.

Silence filled the room as the professor silently (visibly) debated the pros and cons of going on a walk with everyone or staying home alone with his son who hates naps.

We went on the walk. To sweeten the deal, I promised Starbucks beverages afterwards for any and all happy participants. While the walk itself wasn’t a raging success, it was without incident, so I made good on my Starbucks promise.

The blondies and I went inside the coffee shop while Jason stayed in the van with the baby. We ordered two hot chocolates and an eggnog latte (the mere smell of it makes me ill) and a caramel brulee latte (how is this different from a caramel macchiato).

I gave the boys their hot chocolate and, with a latte in each of my hands, we began the journey back to the van. Having been around the block a time or two, I worried one of the boys would drop their drinks. But after we’d successfully navigated the big step in front of Starbucks, I thought we were in the clear. Four seconds later the Hen dropped his cup on the pavement and his hot chocolate spilled. Everywhere.

His face turned red, his mouth opened wide – the outrage and heartbreak so acute he couldn’t even make a sound. I ran to the van to rid myself of the drinks so I could assist the boy wonder. By the time I returned the silence had given way to intense wailing. Strangers were stopping to look at the little kid who was crying and pointing to the ground.

Since there was a rather lengthy line of people waiting for drinks inside, I picked up the little ball of tears and promised I’d make him some hot chocolate at home. Which was zero comfort to him. And he wailed the whole way home.

As we turned onto our street, the professor muttered: ‘I should have raised my hand.’

Minutes later, the Hen was happy as a clam, sitting on the kitchen counter munching on a scone and drinking his homemade hot chocolate. I, however, was not a happy camper. The pizza dough I’d made right after lunch had not risen at all. Which meant dinner wasn’t going to happen any time soon.

Feeling the need for some no-crying time, I decided to let the kids watch a movie. ‘Who wants to watch a movie,’ I asked and they ran downstairs clamoring with excitement. As I started clearing off the dining table, I noticed one of the Gort’s nap-time art projects: twenty or thirty tiny red stickers affixed to the table top.

I summoned the young man back upstairs to pay his dues (i.e. get rid of the stickers). Which resulted in more wailing and gnashing of teeth and ridiculous sounding phrases like: ‘but it’s really hard to get the stickers off,’ and ‘I’m tired of cleaning stickers off the table.’

You think?

Remember this: only patronize Starbucks’ with a drive-thru, even if you have to drive lengthy distances to get to one.

Remember this: stickers are the devil. Do not, under any circumstances, give a child a gift of stickers. There’s a 99% chance they will end up in places you do not want them, like car windows and dining tables. I speak from experience, as a person with a wreath-like pattern of stickers on the back of my shirt.

Apparently the little guy wasn’t just being ’sweet’ and ‘affectionate’ this afternoon while I was changing his brother’s diaper. He was slapping stickers on my back.

The two month old

Save being the main subject in the family photographs, the littlest member hasn’t gotten much press. For now, he’s sweet and cute; he sleeps and eats and smiles. And he’s remarkably accurate with getting his fist in his mouth. I could say he seems pretty relaxed and easygoing, but what choice does he have? In this house, he’s kind of third on the totem pole. Feedings, diaper changes and naps all revolve around kindergarten drop-offs and pick-ups and other scheduling commitments.

It reminds me of the one time we went dog-sledding in northern, excruciatingly cold Minnesota. In December. It was vastly different from the nearly romantic image I’d had in my mind: sitting in a dogsled, being whisked in and out of spectacular scenery…

Instead it was brutally cold and we were woefully underdressed. And the ride was incredibly bumpy and also….like that horse carriage ride on Seinfeld….the dogs poop while they’re running. So you’re sitting there, beyond frozen, and then a nasty whiff of excrement finds its way to your nasal passages. The musher, in fact, commanded them ’sh*t and run….sh*t and run!’ Which we’re still chuckling about, nine or so years later. But, when you’re trying to win the Iditarod, there’s no time for potty breaks.

And that’s sort of what life is like for the baby of the house. ‘Nap and run’…’eat and run’…’poop and run’.

A few weeks ago, I was feeding the little tyke when his brothers required some urgent disciplinary action. And then it was time to go to Kindergarten. And…..an hour and a half later, he was able to finish his lunch. Good thing he has some ‘fat reserves’ in those little rolls on his thighs.

Another ‘drawback’ of being the baby – he’s either being held by someone or sitting in his bouncy seat. Meaning…the kid has zero ‘tummy time’. A realization that just occurred to me the other day. ‘I think he’s lazy,’ I told my sister over the phone. ‘He doesn’t do anything…the other boys had both rolled over when they were his age.’ (Just from tummy to back, but still.)

That’s because the other boys spent time playing on the floor. But these days, if we put the baby on the floor there’s a good chance he’s going to be ‘accidentally’ trampled by one of his brothers. So, for safety’s sake, it’s better to keep him elevated.

Hopefully he’ll figure out how to roll over before he gets to Kindergarten.

The Johnson boys at around the 2-month mark

Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting

The professor abandoned us on Saturday. To go and gamble away our life savings for a good cause. That may be a slight exaggeration. It is not, however, an exaggeration to say he left me alone with three children on a Saturday night. Without any eggs or milk in the fridge. Which means I couldn’t even make myself a faux-latte at home. And I couldn’t bake. Anything. I wracked my brain trying to come up with some kind of option for dessert. But, when you have no chocolate chips and no fruit of any kind. And no eggs. You don’t have a lot in the way of sweet options. Besides eating a cupful of whipped cream. Or a bowl full of dry Golden Grahams.

Much as I yearned for something delicious, I had zero desire to take the boys to the grocery store after six o’clock at night. It just seemed like a recipe for disaster.

I concluded that some kind of outing would be necessary for my continued sanity, so I helped them get ready. Their outfits could not have been more spectacular. The Gort wore Buzz Lightyear pajama pants and a mismatched top with a ‘regular’ shirt underneath. Puffy vest. Snow boots. His newest baseball cap. And….earphones?

The Hen wore a ‘regular’ shirt with pajama pants featuring palm trees. And a puffy vest. And too-big tennis shoes.

 

I piled them into the van and headed….for the Starbucks drive-thru. On the way there the Gort shared his latest musical composition – a song he’d just made up about ghosts. Even though he dutifully sang it twice, I couldn’t really tell what was going on.

But the lyrics I managed to hear, I loved. ‘Wouldn’t it be chilly with no skin….on.’

Take that, Elton John.

After picking up a tall latte and slice of holiday gingerbread, we headed home. Just me and my three boys driving in our awesome minivan on a Saturday night. I’ve never been one for going out on the weekends, but this may have officially pushed me into middle-aged mom territory. If I wasn’t there already.

When we got home we spent some time outside ‘looking at shadows’. Which basically involved the older boys running up and down the path leading to our front door until I got cold and told them we had to go inside.

Then we watched Tom and Jerry on my bed.

‘Is that the FDI Morning?’ The Gort inquired when the Warner Bros. logo popped up on the screen. ‘You mean FBI Warning?’ I clarified, even though it wasn’t that. ‘Yeah, I mean the FDI Morning.’

I don’t really know which is better – the animated cat and mouse antics, or watching the boys laugh hysterically about the antics. Even if I had to be parental and periodically remind them that putting matches in a cat’s claws and lighting them, is a really bad idea. Ditto for playing with dynamite.

The professor came home poorer than when he’d left.

The power of pear

When I woke up on Friday morning, it appeared to be a beautiful day outside. The color of the light, the brightness of the sun, the absence of snow on the ground – all led me to conclude it might be a good day to get outside.

Since the professor didn’t have class until the afternoon, I suggested a family outing to the (stinky) zoo.

Sometimes I’ll have one bright idea which will quickly lead to another bright idea. If we were going to the zoo….perhaps we could even take a family picture and get an early start on the annual holiday card conundrum/procrastination/saga?

I carefully selected clothes for the boys because the Gort’s ‘Superman’ shirt paired with snow boots and a too-small baseball cap wasn’t exactly what I had in mind. The Hen is still, mostly, of the age where he will wear whatever I put on him. Occasionally he’ll shake his head vigorously and tell me ‘NO’ when I select a shirt for him, all while grabbing one of his brother’s three-sizes-too-big superhero shirts. (As if!) But he can usually be convinced to put the shirt back and don the appropriately-sized item in my hand.

The Gort, however, generally refuses to wear whatever I bring to him. No matter how much thought I put into it, or how hard I try to avoid the particularly ‘itchy’ items. He is unyielding in his refusal and no amount of reasoning or convincing will change his mind.

But, we still have Halloween candy lying around the house and I’m not opposed to offering a bribe in exchange for a (potentially) decent family picture.

Naturally the professor questioned the wisdom of bribing a child to wear an ordinary long-sleeved shirt; certain the kid would want candy every time he got dressed from then on. A suspicion that proved correct when the Gort came up to me this morning and said: ‘hey mom, can I get candy if I wear a long-sleeved shirt?’

But desperate times call for desperate measures. And Halloween candy doesn’t last forever.

An hour later when we were all gathered at the front door, ready to go, I beamed with pride as I glanced at my ‘five and under’ contingent. The level of cuteness was almost unbearable. The older boys were wearing stripy shirts with puffy vests. And the baby wore a prissy, baby-blue outfit – one that is suitable for photographs…and nothing else.

And then we opened the front door. My first inkling that I’d been wrong about the weather: rain drops on the screen door. My second inkling: the wind. When the boys stepped outside they were literally moved by the icy wind which was gusting at a rather unpleasant speed.

No zoo. No family picture.

Instead we went to the farmer’s market where we sat on a hard wooden bench and watched the boys jump in the bouncy castle. Which is even less preferable than taking them to the park. It is a frankly dull and slightly nerve-wracking affair – trying to keep track of one’s children inside a giant inflated castle. I spend a lot of time beseeching my spawn – telepathically – not to be ‘those’ kids who bounce into other children and knock them over. Which results in pointed looks of judgment from their parents, as if to say: ‘what kind of animals are you raising?’

We whiled away a respectable amount of time and drove home for lunch and kindergarten drop-off. And picture-taking with the two youngest boys. Because I couldn’t let their coordinating cuteness go to waste.

When I got in the car to pick up the Gort, it was 2.47pm. The time I’m supposed to be at school….picking him up. And this time I didn’t have a good excuse. ‘Sorry I’m late sweetheart…I was downloading pictures of your brothers onto the computer?!’

As I drove towards the school, fellow moms were driving the opposite way. With their children in their cars.

I ran into the school building where my poor child was waiting for me in the office; seemingly unaffected by my tardiness. I was grateful for his non-reaction, even as he scolded me for running in the school building. ‘We’re not allowed to run in the school!’

Sorry.

Because I felt like a louse for being late, and because I wanted a yummy snack, and because I had six pears in the fruit bowl, we went home and made pear crisp. With real whipped cream.

Which we ate on the kitchen floor.

I had to cut them off after ’seconds’ so the professor would have something to nibble on when he got home.