Are We There Yet?

My husband has issues with his GPS.  I'm thinking about starting a support group called D.U.M.B.A.S.S.:  Directionally-challenged Unthinking Men Basing Actions on Subjective technological Systems.  The GPS is a wonderful little device that can be very helpful...but there are times when common sense should still kick in.  A good example is when an exit will be coming up for the town you wish to reach, but the device is telling you, albiet in the voice of Mr. T, to turn off on some unknown path that is not paved...or lit...at night.  I pity the fool who decides to follow the suggestion of the GPS. 

My husband does not usually deviate from the suggested path outlined by his technological wonder.  Sometimes I feel like we are re-enacting the scene from the movie "RV," where Robin William's character is torn between listening to "Lola" the GPS, or his wife, who has driven that route and knows the traffic patterns during that time of the day:  "Go straight."  "No, Lola says take a right."  Many of our driving expeditions include at least one child asking, "are we lost?" 

Unfortunately, today was the day he decided to follow road signs and ignore his GPS.  The exit was closed, so he followed the detour signs...which put him way out of his way, rendering him lost, and added a half hour to his commute home.  I am waiting to hear the words, "if I had only listened to my GPS..." 

Somehow I don't think he would have been home much sooner if he did.  We are still working on the first step of the program:  admitting you have a problem.  Once he does that, we will move on to step two:  admitting that your GPS is not actually the voice of God  (as played by Mr. T...or James Bond...or Homer Simpson.) 

We have a long road ahead of us...

St. Patrick's Day

The day started out well.  My children were all donning green apparel.  The leprechauns had visited overnight, leaving chocolate gold coins for each child.  Owen even asked to go potty, and peed in the toilet.  Well, with the aim of a two-year-old boy, anyway, so some of it made it in the toilet.  In fact, the day was almost perfect...until it was time to pick Irelynn up from preschool.

I started putting Connor in his carseat.  I had barely managed to buckle him in, when I turned and saw Owen running...down the sidewalk.  I took off after him, amazed at my speed and agility...until I realized that he was faster.  I couldn't keep up with a two-year-old.  He laughed, realizing, as well, that he could outrun Mommy.  I yelled as he reached the corner, to no avail.

"OWEN!!!  STOP!!!" 

The sudden noise only slowed him for a minute...enough to allow me to catch up to him and grab him as he ran right out into the road.  His triumphant laugh quickly turned into primal screams of protest as I carried him, in a football hold, back to the van. 

His antics were not limited to escapology that day. 

Later, during dinner, he discovered a new skill.  I was focusing on my dinner, trying to block out the abnormal amount of whining that seemed to fill the air that evening.  There was a preschooler whose sensitivity level had reached new heights, causing everyone to nervously glance at each other before attempting to communicate with her.  There was a toddler who desperately wanted to cling to me, whose constant whining competed with the preschooler's constant wailing, creating a headache that rivaled the ones I get when the teenagers argue.  In the midst of the commotion, I hear Jay say something to Owen.

"Owen...don't...no..."

I look up to see Owen, with a pea between his thumb and forefinger, holding it dangerously close to his nostril.  I suddenly straighten in my seat.

"Owen...stop."

He gives me an impish grin, moving the pea closer.  I start to stand up.

"OWEN..."

Too late.  The pea goes up the nose.  I run to the other side of the table just in time to witness him blow air as hard as he could out of his nose...and out shot the pea, bouncing across the table.  He laughes hysterically, as do the other children.  I set him down, declaring dinner to be finished. 

Unhappy with this negative reaction to what was probably one of the proudest moments of his life, Owen ran toward the kitchen, tripping and falling onto the floor.  Connor held out his hand and helped his brother up, and led him out to the kitchen.  In this moment of kindness, I relaxed my attention on the boys for a moment to focus on the commotion still happening in the dining room, in light of the pea incident.  Suddenly it occurred to my husband that the boys had been very quiet for a few minutes.  We walk back through the kitchen to find them in the laundry room...playing in the cat's litter box.  Connor had the scoop...Owen was using his bare hands...and they were taking turns dumping litter down the heating vent, while scattering it across the floor.

Bruce happily left the house to take the older girl to Lacrosse practice, leaving me to bathe the boys.  Somehow that managed to get done incident-free.  Then I put the preschooler in the bathtub.  She had a blister on the back of her foot which was part of the reason she was in such a horrible mood.  She had to take her bath with her foot held stubbornly in the air while I quickly tried to wash her hair.  As I went to kneel over, my foot slipped on something wet, and I tumbled forward...into the tub.  Luckily I somehow managed to avoid Irelynn, landing on my elbows behind her.  I look down to realize what I had slipped on...a remaining puddle of Owen pee.  I guess I missed a spot earlier.  Awesome. 

While the luck of the Irish was not with me that day...the Baileys was waiting patiently on the counter.  Upon getting all the children into bed, I celebrated all things green...including the pea, which thankfully did not get stuck in my toddler's nose. 

Slàinte!

Sleep Training

I have a bit of a conundrum.  I have three children who share a room.  Two of the children do not have an issue going to bed at night.  One does.  Said child will not stay in his crib.  If I put the two tired children to bed, the other inevitably will climb out of his crib and into his brother's crib...waking and further tormenting his brother.  If I put said toddler to bed first...we go through an hour of directing him back to bed before he finally collapses from exhaustion.  By this time, the other two children are nearly passed out in the living room, waiting to be tucked into bed.  The process begins around 7pm.

We put on a quiet movie and start to settle the boys down.  Last night it was "The Princess and the Frog," one of Owen's favorites.  We were hoping Owen would calmly watch the movie while Connor, who isn't as interested, would go to bed.  Within 60-seconds of laying him down, he was out of the room.  We see the door creak open and his head peek out.  Bruce promptly puts him back in his crib. 

We repeated this process several times, growing more frustrated with each time.  Just as we would sit back down, he was out again...usually with a slow creak of the door, only coming far enough out to see the TV.  I was just about at my witts end, when the door creaked open one more time.  There was Connor...with a big grin...doing "jazz hands."  He started bouncing to the music from the movie, with his hands in the air, shaking them back and forth.  Mustering all of the acting skill I could, I kept my face straight and marched him back to his bed.  Even as he was placed back in his crib he grinned and did one last rendition of  "jazz hands."  Nice try, kid.

Meanwhile, poor Owen is falling asleep on the couch.  We hear a thud as he rolls off and hits the floor.  Slightly dazed, he looks around, climbs back on the couch and starts to fall back asleep. 

Eventually they all went down...but it was close to 9:30pm.  Two and a half hours after we started the bedtime ritual. 

Perhaps tonight we should play something with less music.  As much as I want to encourage my children's talents, I think Connor's Broadway ambitions will have to be limited to daytime hours. 

Thank Goodness for Microwaves and Beer

The last couple of weeks has been building up to this moment.  There have been ups and downs...exhausting moments...and while last night was not necessarily the worst of it...it did pretty much sum up the frustration throughout the duration of my husband being gone.

I attempted to make dinner.  That was my first mistake.  Why, as a single mother, was I going to try and cook something from scratch?  Perhaps it was the altruistic side of me that wanted to prove that I am capable of doing this...I do not need to resort to fast food or macaroni and cheese.  I am going to feed my kids a healthy, home-cooked meal.  I was going to make a healthy version of fish and chips...where I made my own breading from grinding toasted multigrain bread.  I made the chips out of sweet potatoes...which took me nearly an hour to peel and try to slice with the side of a cheese grater, because I did not have the proper appliance for slicing vegetables into paper-thin slices.  Connor watched for awhile.  The older boy had to be brought down to watch the other little ones so my mother could hold Connor. 

After stopping here and there to deal with issues with the teenagers, I finally got the sweet potato slices into the oven.  My oven has been acting up for awhile now, but I've managed to somehow make it work by adjusting the temperature and keeping a close eye on the food.  This was not a night I could make it work.  I opened the door to find smoke billowing out...the bottom tray of chips were charred...the top tray not cooked at all.  The smoke alarm went off...I still had to bake the fish.  I had now been in the kitchen for almost two hours.  My mother came in and fried the rest of the undercooked sweet potatoes in oil, while I started some macaroni and cheese, which I should have just done in the first place.  The fish didn't have the same issues...but we did end up microwaving some of them. By this time I was ready to snap if a child came in one more time asking if dinner was ready...or what that burnt smell was...

We sat around the table.  Owen squeezed some macaroni between his fingers and slid down from his seat.  Connor proceeded to switch seats and eat Owen's macaroni after I told him he needed to eat his fish (he had already shoveled down all of his macaroni.)  Irelynn asked how many bites she had to take.  The older two poked at their fish as though they were examining some sort of crime scene evidence. 

Needless to say, dinner was a bust.

Then came the frustrations of trying to get the teenagers to help clean up after dinner (I get the strong impression that doing dishes ruins their lives somehow.)

After a few attempts, we finally got Connor down to sleep.  Owen was getting tired, and tried to snuggle up to me...I bent down to kiss him, and he jumped up, making contact...hard...with my lip.  My teeth cut into the inside, and I could taste blood.  Brilliant.

My mother managed to find one lonely can of beer in the basement fridge.  Upon getting the last child to bed, we split the beer into two mugs.  The phone rang...and I thought it might be my husband, calling to wish me a good night and perhaps apologize for making fun of my predicament earlier.  No...it was the instant alert system for the public school system...due to inclement weather, the kids will have no school the next day.  They had already had a long weekend, because they had no school that day, either, due to President's Day.  Awesome.

We ended the night with a toast to endurance.  

The Camel and the Business Trip

Men do not understand the phrase, "the straw that broke the camel's back."  If they did, they would understand that the real reason we had a mental breakdown when the glass of milk spilled was not because of the milk, in and of itself.  We are not crazy, overly-sensitive, highly emotional beings that cry over spilled milk.  In fact...it is quite the opposite:  if a man had to endure what a woman does on a daily basis, he would have several mental breakdowns before 8am.  However, a man does not "get it."  Unfortunately, when explaining the process of one of my meltdowns, I turn into Bill Cosby, circa 1983.  My eyebrows raise.  The corners of my mouth turn down.  My voice becomes much more animated...much like Bill's descriptions of his own wife, when dealing with his children.  I begin to time-stamp the events of my day.

"6:02am:  I wake up with the boys."

"6:35am:  I break up a fight over a wooden choo-choo train and a dinosaur, after the choo-choo train makes contact with Connor's head."

My voice starts to get higher.

"6:46am:  I argue with the oldest girl as to whether or not a jacket is necessary in 18-degree weather and remind her that the younger girl is still sleeping so take the headphones out of her ears and stop yelling."

"6:59am:  I drag the teenage boy out of bed and remind him he has fifteen minutes to get ready and get to the bus stop."

I pause to note his reaction.

"7:45am:  I wipe yogurt off of the walls, the floor, and both boys."

I could go on, but you get the point.

Now, this is a typical day.  My meltdown usually occurs somewhere between the older children arriving home from school and post-dinner chaos. 

Currently my husband is away on a business trip.  This has been the longest one yet, spread over two weeks and three states.  Luckily my mother has been here to help with the children, and offer emotional support.  I do not have to time-stamp the day for my mother.  We have this understanding...woman to woman...mother to mother.  All it takes is a nod...a hug...and one of us breaks out a couple bottles of beer. 

Over the course of two weeks we have gone through rounds of sickness.  I lost my voice.  The oldest girl had episodes of dizzyness so bad that she nearly passed out.  Connor got an ear infection.  Both my mother and I managed to throw our backs out (at different times.)  The boys have not slept through the night since my husband has been gone.  Our patience is wearing thin. 

Everyday I am juggling children's medications, figuring out meals, breaking up fights, deflecting teenagers' snarky comments, and using my mad almost Kung Fu-like defense skills on two toddler boys who do not have a father to wrestle with right now.  I have numerous bruises on my arms and legs.  The older kids have been quite underwhelming when it comes to helping out while he has been gone.  It is amazing how quickly they can disappear and hide when things get messy or chaotic downstairs. 

When my husband comes home...Owen will inevitably throw his dinner on the floor...and I will say something clever, like, "that's it.  I'm joining the circus.  Don't call me, I'll call you," and my husband will then ask me, "what's your problem?"

I will calmly look at him and say, "do you remember me talking about the straw that broke the camel's back?  Well, the camel's back broke about a week ago, when she tried to remove a jumping boy off of his sister's bed.  She also lost her voice, and didn't get any sleep.  Then that camel had to carry around two 25lb boys, juggle doctor's visits with screaming children, make sure the little camels got all their medication at the proper time, and make last-minute runs to the store for posterboard and printer ink because someone forgot to mention they had a project due the next day.  There are only two things that can cure this poor, beaten animal that is foaming from the mouth (which may or may not be a direct result of being bitten by a toddler):  put it out of it's misery...or let it have a vacation.  Even one night would be good.  A full night's sleep can do wonders."

If my husband is wise, he will not upset the camel.

They Do Have Their Moments...

Can I Get Double the Xanax?

I have been afraid to update my blog. 

Updating my blog means that I have to actually take the time to sit down, compose something worth reading, and do it in the amount of time it would normally take to check my Facebook newsfeed before extracting Owen from the cat's water dish and then figure out how Connor changed everything to Spanish on the cable box.

Life with the twins has been a struggle lately.  The "Terrible Two's" has a whole new meaning with them...because the ripe old age of two would be much easier to deal with if there wasn't two of them going through this marvelous developmental stage at the same time.  Owen might not manage to scale the shelf in the living room if Connor didn't get down on his hands and knees to allow him to step on his back first.  Connor might not have the time to change the settings on the Wii if Owen didn't distract me by stripping down and peeing on the carpet.  And I'm sure that on their own they would not be able to construct a tower out of chairs, plastic bins and stuffed animals so that they could reach their sister's CD's on a high shelf. 

They would also not have the fights that only children of the same age could conjure up.  A certain toy can cause an eruption that might involve throwing things, smacking, or hiding said toy down one's diaper (or DVD, in Connor's case.)  We are trying to gather digital copies of their favorite DVD's as the boys get very possessive...apparently licking a DVD and stuffing it down the front of your diaper is a clear declaration of ownership. 

I see the dark circles forming under my eyes...and the lines on my forehead that used to only appear when I raised my eyebrows, but are now permanently etched into my skin.  I do not see the gray hairs, however, because I did find time late one night to dye my hair. 

The older kids are definitely stressing me out as well, with the usual teen issues, some more prominent than others...but, for better or worse, the twins have made it so that I do not have long to sit and stress about those issues.  I'm too busy wiping applesauce off of the wall...and the cat.

I see Owen is naked, and Connor has found a fruit snack.  We haven't had fruit snacks in the house for over a month...so I suppose I should go take care of that. 

((sigh))