Rebellin

Part of me was dreading this weekend. Being laid up, I shuddered to think of an entire weekend where I couldn’t take the kids anywhere or do the things we
love to do. So far, I’ve been pleasantly surprised.

The morning started with yet another cuddle session with Little Man, and some quiet time with the kids in the morning as JB caught up on sleep. He then got up and made us all pancakes, and then we all went to the park together.

Being at the park was a little frustrating, as I’m not normally a parent to just sit on a bench and watch. I like to get on the equipment, play with the kids, and run around with them. But today, I was on the bench. I think some other mothers thought I was nuts when I started doing tricep dips on the bench. But come on, I’m afraid my whole body is going to atrophy during this recovery process.

After lunch, we put Little Man to sleep in a pack-n-play in our bedroom (since I can’t get upstairs to his room) while JB went out skiing (and later mountain biking when the conditions sucked). While Little Man slept, my daughter and I read books on my brand new Kindle and watched our DVDs of Little House on the Prairie. First off — wow, the Kindle is amazing. It’s the perfect new gadget for someone stuck in a recliner most of the day! Secondly, a neighbor gave us the Little House on the Prairie box set (it was a cast off of theirs from a white elephant gift exachange), and I’ve truly enjoyed watching the series from the beginning and explaining the plot and what it was like living on the prairie a hundred years ago.

So now on to day two. Tomorrow, I’ll be flying solo with Little Man while JB takes my daughter to ski camp (sniff — that used to be my job!). I’m a bit nervous about watching him by myself in my gimpy state, but hopefully it goes smoothly. Unfortunately for me, it’s supposed to snow, so I guess I’ll be homebound. Crutches and snow just don’t mix.

Remember how I was lamenting about how challenging Little Man was in a house that wasn’t very child-proofed?   Ha!  I didn’t know how things could get even MORE FUN when you add one gimpy Mamma to the equation.  The past few days, I’ve had to resort to verbal reprimands with Little Man, as I’m no longer physically capable of picking him up and removing him from a situation.  Let me just tell you how this goes…

Mamma:  “No!  Put that back!”

Little Man looks at me and smiles, then starts running. 

I then try to corral him by hopping after him with my crutches, and try to guide him with the crutch. 

It’s highly inefficient. 

Oh, boy, this is going to be fun.

I think I brought this knee injury on myself.  Just last week, I told JB that I’d like to “switch roles” with him, saying that perhaps he’d have more respect for all I do in regards to the kids and around the house if he just had to do it for a week.  Wow, did I get that wish.  And JB sure isn’t happy about all of this.

Went to the doctor yesterday, who said from a physical exam, he can tell that I probably tore my MCL tendon, and the ACL isn’t looking “right” either.  The fun part of that diagnosis is that they’d treat it as two separate injuries.  We’d immobilize for the MCL to heal and then do physical therapy for that, which will take 5-8 weeks.  Then, if I need ACL surgery, we’d do that, and then I’d have to do physical therapy specific to that recovery.

So in essence, this whole fiasco could last 4-5 months.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wished I could go back in time and just tell myself to let Little Miss ski on her own — she’d be fine.  Instead, I now can’t really take the kids to do any kind of activity, such as bike rides, the park, swimming, etc.  I’ve always loved our outings on the weekend, and now I fear I’m just going to be homebound and unable to keep tabs on them when they go upstairs.

Last night, JB went on a walk, and I was home alone with the sleeping kids for about 45 minutes.  Of course, Little Man started crying.  After about 30 minutes of his crying, I couldn’t take it anymore, and managed to scoot my way up the stairs on my rear, dragging my crutches along.  It probably took me 10 minutes to get to the top of the stairs, and then find a chair to get myself to a standing position, and wouldn’t you know it — by the time I made it to Little Man’s room, he was fast asleep?!  Gah!!!!

While I’m throwing my own little Pity Party, I’m also so bummed that I’m about to get REALLY out of shape.  I just recently got to where I was within 2 pounds of my pre-pregnancy weight, and I felt like I was in really good shape.  I felt like I had completely recovered from the second pregnancy and C-section, about 18 months later.  And now, I’m looking at months of inactivity.  I’m just cringing at what that is going to do to my body, and have already started to try to monitor my food intake, considering I now get the same activity of a 80 year old in a retirement home.

The fun continues.  If you live in Reno, please come have a playdate with me.  I’m going to need friends to help me with Little Man while JB goes out to ski, as we all know he will.

I’m always on the lookout for a healthy dinner I can throw together lickedy-split. Last night, I made one up that is a true winner, so I had to share…

Southwestern Chicken
Preheat oven to 375
Place chicken breasts in a casserole pan
Pour salsa over the top
Pour a can of drained black beans on top of that
Bake until chicken is around 145 degrees, then cover with shredded cheese and return to the oven until chicken is 165 degrees.

Voila! I was originally planning to throw in some brown rice with the mixture, but JB thinks “that would have ruined it.” I didn’t have any in the pantry, so it was left out. Anyway, I sat and played with the kids while it cooked, and was my kind of fast food!

I vividly remember the first thing I said to JB after the ultrasound tech announced that we were having a boy for our second child.

“Toddler boys scare me.” Of course, JB had no idea why I said this. I think he is beginning to understand.

I had a right to be scared. Daily, I am amazed at the energy and determination of Little Man. He has an uncanny knack to find trouble, no matter where he is.

I remember Little Miss at this age — my cautious girl that would never stray more than a few feet from me in public, and who rarely got into cabinets or drawers. I didn’t really even need to childproof for her.

But Little Man, he’s a different story. I think it’s that extra dose of testosterone in a male child that makes them so much more curious and fearless.

For instance, last week, JB worked from home while Little Man recovered from the stomach flu. I came home that day to find a spoon in the guest bathroom, a spatula in the master bathroom, and a curling iron in the kitchen. He is into EVERYTHING. Plus, there is a philosophical difference of opinion between my husband and I. I am absolutely fed up with constantly following Little Man around and picking up the messes he creates every two minutes. He’s like a miniature Tazmanian Devil. I say, PLEASE, can we put childproof locks on the cabinets and drawers?! This is driving me crazy.

Of course, JB thinks that if we childproof the cabinets and drawers, Little Man will just find some other kind of trouble. (Perhaps I can convince him if I start pointing the electric drill at our cabinet doors.)

JB has a point, but I’m becoming more and more paranoid about keeping this energetic and curious little munchkin out of mortal danger. He interprets, “No!” or “STOP” as direction to RUN away from me as fast as his little legs can carry him. I am so afraid that one day, he’ll be running from me and will get into a street or drop off a ledge, etc.

I used to think that putting leashes on children was just wrong, but Little Man’s leash is probably going to start getting a lot more use. When I’d speak against leashes, I had no idea that my daughter, who functioned so well under voice control at this age would be absolutely nothing like my son in that arena.

Not only does he run from me if he knows he’s doing something wrong, but if he has something we want — a remote, a piece of trash, you name it – once he knows he is cornered, he will throw that item as far as he can out of my reach.

So yes, I was right to be scared of toddler boys. Little Man is earning the nicknames of Trouble and Master of Disaster in our house. The really scary thing is that he has only just begun. Oh, Lord, help me!

I’m not a morning person, but I find the most precious moments with my children are right after they wake up, so it has me getting out of bed without much grumbling.

Now that it’s winter (or close enough), I get the kids up, and we go sit in front of our gas fireplace to snuggle.  We snuggle as long as it takes Little Man to drink his milk.  Those minutes are pure heaven for me.  With Little Man in my lap, and Little Miss snuggled beside us, we bathe in the warmth of the fire, and let ourselves wake up gradually.  When he is done with his milk, he hands me the cup, saying, “all done”, and then he is up and away to find whatever mischief he can.

This morning, we awoke to an inch of snow on the ground, and I got such a kick out of watching Little Man re-discover the snow, as he gasped and pointed out the window, watching with absolute awe as the large snowflakes fell to the backdrop of our neighbors’ Christmas lights.

This time of year, it’s so beautiful to cuddle in front of the fire, with the Christmas tree lit up and the snow falling.  You can’t help but get in the Christmas spirit, even if it is earlier than I would choose to get up!

I have a big day at work today.  I needed to get to work early, and to be on my game.  I told Little Miss about this last night, and this morning, everything was on track until it was 2 minutes until I was ready to go and we needed to do her hair. 

I quickly spritzed her hair with water and combed it, figuring she could go au natural today.  But then, she grabs a pony tail holder and insists that she wants a pony tail.

So, I obliged, though there was much fussing because she had tangles and I was in a hurry.  I made a quick pony tail, turned around to put my shoes on, and then see that she pulled the pony tail out.  She says, “I want a braid.”

At this point, I’m now running late, so I tell her she has to deal with no pony tail or braid.  Then the melt down ensued.  Not a good combination to have a stressed mother and a 4 year old melt down.

I finally wrangled her into the car, and she started wailing in the back seat.  Needing some Zen, I simply turned up the radio hoping to drown her out.  She finally said she’d be quiet if I turned down the radio, and then I got the silent treatment the rest of the way to her school.

Having a little girl comes with such drama.  I just never expected such drama at this early age.

Little Man has been moving and a shaking lately.  It has been so fun to watch him develop and compare him to his sister.  So far, I’d say he is much more courageous and physical, and much less verbal.

He is walking everywhere now, and it extremely curious.  His latest trick is to crawl on top of our coffee table, stand up, and then start clapping.  Although this makes me nervous, so far (knock on wood), he has managed to then get back on his knees and dismount from the table with no major event or trauma.

He is an expert at crawling up the stairs.  This is a good and bad thing.  We have to be extra diligent about the baby gates now, which isn’t so easy when a 4 year old is the primary user of those gates.  With Little Miss, I taught her to slide down the stairs on her bottom, which helped us avoid any tumbles down the stairs.  I keep trying to teach him the same trick, but he is NOT interested in learning how to go down the stairs, and gets mad every time I try to teach him the bottom trick.

Little Man has three words.  He uses them often and in different contexts, but still — only three.  He knows Momma, Daddy (often pronounced Dadoo), and Doggy (also pronounced Dadoo).  Balls are “Da”.  He usually calls for me when he has a poop in his pants or he is looking for me.  I have to laugh at how the kid will search me out if he has a poopy diaper.  I swear at this age, Little Miss had a ton of words.  Her brother resorts to a lot of grunting and fart sounds, all accompanied by pointing.  For instance, I put up Halloween decorations this weekend.  Monday morning, after finishing his milk, Little Man methodically pointed and grunted to acknowledge each of the decorations.  He especially loves the skeleton I bought that is covered in glitter (he shakes it and we get glitter all over the floor).

At this age, Little Miss was barely learning how to walk, and would never really venture more than a few feet away from my side in public places.  Her brother, on the other hand, wants to be set down, and wants to explore on his own, without anyone holding his hand.  I totally understand why my brother called his sons “suicidal midgets” when they were this age.  I feel like the next year and a half will be spent focusing on keeping him out of the danger that he will inevitably seek out.

And speaking of shaking, Little Man loves to dance.  He does this dance where he shakes his bottom and it is truly adorable.  He’ll be walking along, and then will stop to bust a move, and then keep going.  His sister loved to dance at this age, too, but she simply turned in circles. 

He also loves to put things on his head.  His favorite toys right now are the dive rings I bought for his sister this summer.  The kids raided my swim bag, and these dive rings now litter our house, and serve as a hat most nights for Little Man.  Who would have thought?  The kid loves dive rings and coasters…  So much for the plethora of toys we have for him!

My daughter lives for Show and Tell.  Show and Tell is the first week of each month, and she asks me all throughout the month if the next day is Show and Tell.  She plans and plots way in advance what she will bring.

Why, I ask, must preschool schedule Show and Tell for MONDAYS?  Monday mornings are always crazy, and I actually thought I had everything together this morning until I showed up and saw all the kids’ show and tell items in their cubbies.  Knowing Little Miss would be crushed, I started racking my brain as to what I could come up with in my car.

“Do you want to show off your pink cowboy hat?”  This was a novelty a week ago, but did not make the muster for Show and Tell.

And then I came up with something she liked, and I dare say she’s excited about.  Yesterday, I took the kids to the Race for the Cure, where I ran 5K pushing 70+ pounds of kids.  Little Miss cheered me over the finish line, and told me that the race was her favorite activity we did this weekend (I really couldn’t believe it beat out going to see Beauty and the Beast with her cousins in the theatre). 

Anyway, I ran back to the car, grabbed the race number I had thrown onto the floor of the car when I was done with the race, and came back in to prime her for Show and Tell.  “OK, so we did this race where everyone pays money to give money to doctors who will find a cure for cancer.”  Not sure what her presentation will include, but at least I avoided tears from her and guilt from me for the rest of the day!

While driving home from Lake Tahoe on Sunday, Little Miss asks me, “how did your Grandma die?”

And then I embarked on a conversation I never envisioned having with a four year old.  I told her one of my Grandmothers died from old age, but that the other one got really sick from smoking cigarettes and it ended up killing her.

So then I had to answer the following questions:

“What is smoking?”

“Why do people do it?”

“If they know it will make them sick, why do people do it?”

“Do only stupid people smoke?”

The list went on and on.  I can say that watching my Grandmother’s decline due to emphysema when I was only 14 made a life long impression on me.  At a very impressionable age, I saw how she constantly coughed and couldn’t catch her breath, and then she died at the relatively early age of 74.  I learned from my Grandmother’s experience, and am proud to say I never smoked a cigarette in my life.  I’m hoping to instill the same knowledge and aversion in my own children, but I wonder if at some point, they’ll think I don’t know what I’m talking about because they haven’t seen it with their own eyes.

I can’t say how I’ll react if I catch one of them smoking one day in the future.  I will be livid, and I kind of liked the reaction I heard of one father, who made his son smoke an entire pack of cigarettes as he watched, knowing it would make his son sick and that experience would help his son develop an aversion.  I’m not sure I’d have that in me, but I could see a hospital or nursing home visit in our future, where I’d make them talk to people with emphysema.  There is more than one way to skin a cat!

If you recall, Little Man had a bit of a spit-up issue as a baby.  OK, he had a huge reflux issue, and we had him medicated and on soy formula for most of his first year.

But now we’ve transitioned him to cow’s milk, things are good, and he only spits up about once a day.

So was I tempting fate to call in the carpet cleaners today?  We’ve been waiting anxiously for him to be “done” with spitting up so that we could call the professionals in to remove the countless spit up stains on our carpet.  We did our best to wipe it up, but that kid was a bit of a fountain, and at some point, we kind of just gave in, saying we’d get them all removed once he grew out of it.

I think the carpet cleaner was impressed with the spit up stains.  He even recommended we get the super duper scotch guard, which I gladly signed up for. 

So, if you live close by, maybe you should drop by.  Because I don’t think my carpets will look like this for long!

I recently read my daughter a story about how dolls and stuffed animals move when you’re sleeping, and then they go right back to where you left them before you wake up. 

Anyway, on the 4th of July, we didn’t go see fireworks because we were stuck at home with a baby with a 104 degree fever.  We didn’t mention fireworks to Little Miss, and I don’t think she remembered to miss them.

That night, I put her to bed, and cuddled with her for a few minutes.  I could hear fireworks outside, and right as I was about to leave her bed, she turns to me wide eyed and whispers, “I can hear my dollies moving!”

I guess that fireworks show sounded like magical dollies to her.  I love the imagination on that girl!

Little Miss was doing great not wetting the bed for the past month, but I think the start of preschool has thrown her off, as she has been wetting the bed almost every night this week, despite me waking her up at 11pm each night to go. 

Last night, I was awaken from a dead sleep to a pat on my head.  Of course, that pat scared the you know what out of me, and I sat up and did a gasp before I realized it was Little Miss, saying she wet the bed.  This morning, the following conversation ensued at our house:

Dad:  You need to stop going pee in your bed.  No one is going to marry you if you pee in your bed!

Little Miss:  But I’m so beautiful!

Me:  Yes, and since you won’t sleep with anyone until you’re married, no one has to know that you wet the bed!  By the time he finds out, it’s “Surprise!”, and he’s already promised to be with you for better and for worse.

This morning, I awoke to Little Miss crying on the stairs.  “My throat hurts.  And behind my teeth hurts.”

It hurt so bad she couldn’t even open her mouth to show me.  I rocked her and held her for quite a while, thinking in my head how I would arrange the day to work from home. 

I then told her that I wanted to look at her throat.  After finding that all the flashlights in the house have dead batteries (mental note on that), I pulled off a lamp shade and held a lamp to her open mouth (I get points for creativity).

I didn’t see anything amiss.

She then sat on the side of my bed, and quietly said, “I don’t want to go to school because when they ask me questions, I don’t know the answers.”

You see, she started a new preschool on Monday.  She had been going to a Waldorf school, that doesn’t do cirriculum, and just does arts and songs and imaginitive play.  She is now at a preschool that will teach actual cirriculum, and a lot of the kids in her class already know how to read, so I can imagine how she feels.

But what struck me is I never expected to have her play sick…  Such a convincing performance, mind you, at the age of four.  JB laughed at me, saying I was a sucker for almost falling for it.  We’ll see how “sick” she is when I pick her up this afternoon.

My daughter has been stealing from school lately.  She calls it “borrowing”, as she usually brings the item back, but I believe she is the only child at the school who sneaks items home from school simply because she thinks they are “beautiful”.

Her teacher says that Little Miss thinks everything beautiful is hers.

Which, OK, the child appreciates beauty.  And I know the items are trivial, but I’ve been doing my best to teach her that this is wrong, and every time I find a crystal or doll at home that belongs at school, I make her return it to her teacher and apologize, and I make a big fuss out of it, thinking one of these times she’ll get the gist.

Today, the teacher who has never said anything negative about Little Miss told me that this is becoming a “real problem”.  And of course, she started this conversation on a morning that I had an early meeting I was trying to make.  Hence, I stood there and agreed, “yes, this is a problem, yes I’ve addressed it, yes, I’ll frisk her before we leave school every day.”  And the conversation took so long that I completely missed a crucial meeting.  And how is that for an excuse — “sorry, my daughter has been stealing from school.”

We switch schools next month.  On one hand, I don’t think the next school will have such an array of “beautiful” things as the Waldorf school does, but I also worry that the next school will not be as accepting of my little kleptomaniac as her current school has been.

I’m open to suggestions…  This morning, I told Little Miss that every time she steals something from school, I will take one of her favorite toys and give it to poor children.  Of course, her response was, “no, not the poor children!  If you do that I will not like you very much.”

Ah, life as a mother.  I could have never imagined such situations if I had tried.

I’ve been focusing a lot lately on healthy eating for our family.  I was definitely inspired by Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution.  What a great show.  I’m behind him 100% in improving the food at our schools in America.  I was pretty disgusted by what I saw (pizza, fries, chicken nuggets — all processed foods with unhealthy white flour and tons of sugar). 

Seeing what the schools feed children convinced me that I’ll be packing lunches for my kids for the next 18 years.  That is fine, but I worry about the peer pressure.  I vividly remember a time in middle school where I thought bringing a lunch wasn’t cool, and I threw away my healthy lunches that my Mom lovingly made and instead bought a jumbo pickle and a Diet Coke.  I think that was my staple lunch for the entire school year.

(Sorry, Mom, not sure if I told you about that.  I did wise up and start eating your delicious lunches again, and sure wish you were around to pack lunches for me now!)

I cringe when I think about how unhealthy and nutritionally lacking that was, and ick — all that acid on my teeth!

Anyway, I digress. Peer pressure can undo all of the good efforts I’ve made to teach my children to eat healthy food.  I am a perfect example of that. 

I signed up this week for the Great Basin Basket CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), which gives me a basket (OK, really a box) full of seasonal veggies and fruits from locally grown  farms every week.  I picked up our first box last night, and evidently it is the season for lettuce, as we have like 5 varieties of lettuce.  I’m taking it as a challenge for us to consume all the lettuce and not let it go to waste.  The basket even comes with recipes for what vegetables are in the box that week, which also has me excited to branch out and try new things.  Tonight, we’re having herbed oregano chicken with braised spinach.  And I guess a side salad, considering the lettuce challenge this week.  I think it will be a refreshing break from the run of the mill vegetables I’ve been buying at Costco (i.e. same veggies throughout the week).

I like what this is teaching my daughter, as well.  Supporting local farms, what vegetables and fruits are grown locally, and what the seasons are.  Plus, I’m having her help prepare them, so she can see what her food is made of.  I figure any veggies that we can’t consume will be turned into baby food. 

Hopefully I’ll have time for all of this inspired cooking!

Little Man is on the move.  He’s a comando-crawling, rolling fool.  I’m already amazed at how much more physical he has been than his sister ever was.  He’s brimming with energy, many times getting all of his limbs working at once as he pants and grunts.

Holding him turns into an athletic event.  He’ll see something he wants, and will start reaching, grabbing, putting his entire body horizontal until he gets close to what he wants.  I used to eat dinner with him in my lap.  But after him putting his hand in my chili, almost dumping my bowl over, and trying to yank my placemat off the table, I now have to put him somewhere else.

He is strong.  And so determined.  My brother used to call his sons the “suicidal midgets”, and I’m getting glimpses of my boy becoming one of those as well.  People say boys may be easier in the long run, but I have a feeling I’m going to have my job cut out for me just keeping him alive and away from hazards for the next 2-3 years.

Here is a video of him crawling for the first time.  He’s already entranced by the electronics on the entertainment center and the knobs on the bathroom drawers and cabinets.  It’s only a matter of time (a short matter of time for sure) until he figures out how to do some damage!

Little Miss is trying to tell jokes. But she just totally doesn’t GET IT.

Last night at dinner, she says, “knock knock”.

We respond, of course, “who’s there?”

And she’d say “orange”, as she was eating an orange.

“Orange who?”

“Orange banana pants!” And then she’d just laugh at herself. It went on like that. Or one time, we said, “orange who”, and she answered, “orange”.

For a kid who sees so much humor in the world, we were very entertained on her lack of knock knock joke comprehension.

Here is a picture of her, dressed in my childhood dress from the early 1980s and with one of my old stuffed animals, who has been dubbed as Toto. Hello, Dorothy!

Last night, Little Miss asked if we could make pumpkin bread. I happened to have all the ingredients on hand, so I obliged after we ate dinner. After the bread was in the oven, she turned to me and said, “This was the best day of my life.”

I asked, “why, because we made pumpkin bread?”

She said yes. I didn’t know that was the true key to happiness. Must stock up on more ingredients.

Sorry for not posting much of late. To be honest, I’ve been under some crazy stress with some scary unknowns in our future, and I haven’t felt much like writing. I hope to work out of that funk soon!