Adventures in Self-Reliance

Out of the wilderness

2013-04-30T17:42:00.001-04:00

These days I feel as if I've just returned to civilization after the six-year long wilderness camping excursion that was my children's early years.

I now sleep all night long.

I shower several times a week and my legs are shaved with some regularity. I no longer sport a mustache. (You brunettes out there KNOW what I'm talking about.)

The kids leave me alone and play with each other for up to a half hour at a time.

I only wipe one child's bottom on a regular basis.

My youngest turns three this week. I can see a diaperless, self-dressing future for him from here. Do you know what that means??? I will be able to leave the house without diapers and wipes. I will no longer have to wrestle clothes on a rabid porcupine hell-bent on just not cooperating.

This is a huge milestone.

For years, I've been too tired to maintain all but the most convenient of friendships: neighbors, church friends, family. For years, my appearance, fitness and general health have taken a back seat to my children's needs. For years, I've not made efforts to socialize widely because of the unpredictability of young children and the strong possibility that I'd fall asleep if I sat down anywhere.

My M.O. has primarily been to stick to a kid-centered schedule with as little deviation as possible to achieve the most peaceful environment for all involved, including myself. That has been my way of taking care of myself all these years.

Things are changing, though. At the beginning of the year, I was ready to quit my gym membership. The kids had had runny noses since Thanksgiving and it was impossible to take them to the gym. I thought my membership was up at the end of January. Turns out, it was up at the end of March. An employee there convinced me to stick it out until then and try some group exercise classes.

I then inadvertently walked into one of the toughest classes in the gym, kettlebell twice a week, with a Golden Gloves boxing champion for a trainer. I didn't think about how intimidating it would be to walk into a class alone for the first time. Right away, a few women approached me and encouraged me through my first few weeks. I didn't feel judged or inferior. I didn't have to hide my sense of accomplishment.

Since then, I've become more mindful of my eating habits using a fitness app called My Fitness Pal. I've lost 12 pounds, 7 inches off my waist, 3 inches off my hips and 2 inches off my thighs. And when kettlebell started to get easier, I increased my weights. When that got too easy, I started running.

Now, I used to tell people that if they ever saw me running, they better run, too, because something was chasing me (and it was probably a snotty child). I also used to sit in the breakfast nook in early January watching the newly resolved joggers going by and telling my husband "I wish I liked running."

Well, guess what? I don't like running. I love running. I want to do it every day, but I'm taking it slow to avoid injury. I'm using the Couch to 5K program and listening to podcasts that tell me when to run and when to walk. I'm on week 3. I've run three minutes in a row and didn't feel like dying. I am even considering doing the Rambling Rose Triathlon in October with my best friend and her daughter. Oh, who am I fooling, I will do this. I can do this. It will be special. (Jen, I'm all in!)

All this has opened my eyes to the process of change. Change often happens too slowly for my taste. But the good thing about blogging the way I do is the opportunity it provides to see where I've been, physically, mentally and emotionally. So in the spirit of recognizing change, I give a blast from the past ...

Screaming Uncle (yeah, it's as bad as it sounds!)

Till next time!

Overheard

2013-04-23T22:13:00.001-04:00

What's it been? Six weeks since my last post? Yeah, I'm getting lazy. Or as a friend pointed out this weekend, it's hard to write when the bucket is empty. Nothing seems out of the ordinary enough anymore to write about. Until suddenly it does.

One day, my sweet daughter came in the kitchen all excited and breathlessly explained to me in about 200 words that she had changed the toilet paper roll all by herself.

All of a sudden Fiona can hit a baseball and Danny can catch a football and Owen, well, um, he's kind of a pain in the bum. So some things take a little longer to change.

Owen is a handful these days. He's loud and belligerent. I've had to wrestle him out of the public eye and into the van, kicking and screaming (him, not me), all the while afraid someone will call the cops thinking the poor child is being abducted. He also truly believes that anything he has touched within the past 30 days belongs to him and no one is allowed to touch, look at or play with that item. Danny summed it up best.

We're having a bad Owen, Danny says. Indeed. I want to remove my eardrums.

He's also exploring the potty. Since he's my third child, I am not touching potty "training" with a ten foot pole. I'm just letting him figure it out. In the mornings and evenings, he often just sits on his little potty which sings when he pees in it or when you push the little button under the pot.

Pee not coming out. I push button and pee will come out. He then proceeds to push the button under the potty fully expecting his pee to come out. Oh, if only it were that easy!

We've also had two more rounds of the stomach bug. Owen was the first to fall.

Look at this, Owen exclaims after throwing up in his hand. He'd never thrown up before. At least he was perky.

I want a marshmallow for dinner, Fiona says after a day of throwing up. I think my stomach can handle a marshmallow.

You have frog in your throat. We got to get it out, Owen exclaims. He was coming at her with a back scratcher. Toddlers are so literal.

Here's a phrase I never, ever thought I'd utter ...

You two stop shooting each other with your penises, I tell the boys. They were running around naked after bath time, wrestling and, well, you know.

And another ...
I going to eat on trash can, Owen tells me as he stumbles around the kitchen with a big bowl of refried beans that he sets atop the trash can.
Don't eat on the trash can. You're not a hobo, I tell him.

And another ...
Stop flipping my flip flop around with a spatula and get in the bathtub. Don't even ask me why there was a spatula on my bedroom floor.

And still another ...
I swear if you don't settle down I'm going to tie you up. (Hey, I was desperate. My husband was working a double shift on a Saturday and the kids were jacked up.)
Why you going to tie me up, mommy? Owen said sweetly.

I also once threatened to glue their bums to the grocery cart if they didn't stay seated. I think they understand hyperbole better than most children.

Hey, there's popcorn on those trees, Danny says. The white flowers are coming out on the trees. I will probably call them popcorn trees forever now.

What is she saying, mom? Danny asks about a lady on the radio.
I don't know, honey.
No, you're supposed to know. You're an adult. You know more, he says belligerently.

Look, mom, Owen says as he and Danny are watching the Dukes of Hazzard on YouTube.
No, she doesn't have to look, Owen. It's not her thing, Danny replies.

My kids are obsessed with poop ...

Owen, stop climbing the windows please. (Yes, I actually had to utter that phrase.)
Yeah, that's what I don't do because I'm six and I pooped, Danny explains. I have no idea how poop came to be mentioned here. His brain is such a mystery to me.

I just had one little peanut come out of my butt, Danny informs us. That's weird. I poop peanuts now.

She's going poop. [Fiona] did her poop dance, Danny tells me.

After a less than stellar report for the day, Danny informs me: It was dad's fault. He gave me sugar for breakfast.

Till next time.

Overheard

2013-03-14T22:05:00.004-04:00

The Kindergarten Follies edition

Danny has had an interesting couple of weeks at school. We get a report every day. Smileys. Frownies. Straight faces. Color commentary such as the following:

1. Had to warn him twice. Wouldn't stop sniffing children.

Danny, why were you sniffing kids?
I wanted to know what they smelled like.

2. Pulled pants down and showed girls his bottom.

Did you talk to him about it? I asked Jim.
I told him the same thing my assistant principal told me in kindergarten when I pulled my pants down in the library.

Um, excuse me? This information should really have been disclosed before we had children, dear.

Jim asked him, Would you do that in church?
No.
Would you do that in the grocery store?
No.
Then don't do it in school.

3. Drew freckles on his face.

You have freckles, Danny. Why did you draw freckles on your face?
Because Brandon did it.
Well, why did Brandon do it?
Because he doesn't have freckles.
So if Brandon jumped off a bridge, would you?
No.
Oh. Why not?
Because it's dangerous.
He was silent for a moment and then said:
But we can do it spring. That's how we cool off.

So, basically he would jump off a bridge, but only in the springtime. Lovely.

4. Rang the magic bell. Wanted kids to look at him.

Now, the magic bell belongs to the teacher. She rings it. The kids are supposed to stop what they are doing and look at her. When I've been in the classroom and she's rung the bell, Danny freezes and looks. If I'm not doing the same, I get scolded. By a six year old.

Moooooom. You just have to look, he whispers.

A few from the awwwww file:

Want to listen to Jack Brown, Owen says. I had just turned on Pandora. He knows that mommy loves her Jackson Brown!

Want two more [carrots], Owen asks.
For you?
For brother and sister. And this is why I will hurt those two if they are mean to him.

Ow. My back, I say.
I'll go get backscratcher, Owen says. He is so sweet. He also goes and gets ice packs from the freezer whenever anyone gets hurt. It's hard to believe he's the same child who runs up to his siblings and just punches them. (I'm just waiting for him to get them an ice pack after he punches them.)

As for Fiona, she's still with us. She whines so darn much lately that I have NO IDEA what she is saying half the time. All mothers need a whine translator.

Till next time.

Overheard

2013-03-01T17:56:00.000-05:00

The February Plague edition

There really has not been a dry nose since Thanksgiving around here. When I mentioned the lingering illnesses to someone recently, they asked what the kids had.

Um, this week? Let's see ... stomach bug, runny noses, fever, coughs, ear infection.

Yep, I'm pretty sure we have the plague.

Sunday night I lost count of how many times I changed the girl's sheets and pajamas. There was even an emergency bath.

Monday and Tuesday I was sick. Thursday Fiona came down with an ear infection. I had Owen checked for good measure but the doctor couldn't even get enough wax out to see his eardrum.

He probably can't hear you very well, she commented. This explains so much right now. I couldn't tell if he was deaf or just exceptionally stubborn. And he's loud. Really, really loud.

That afternoon, I went to pick Danny up alone while my dad hung out with the other two. It was a nice change and chance to hang out with Danny alone. You never know where a conversation with him will go, though.

Owen has so much wax in his ear that he can't even hear us, I tell Danny.
We should yell at him, Danny replied. Well, that wasn't exactly what I had in mind. I had just called the doctor for an appointment.

And since Fiona did have a stomach virus earlier in the week, it lent some credence to constant, literal belly aching.

My belly hurts, Fiona tells me. She doesn't want to finish her dinner.
Does it hurt too much for a cookie?
No, no, I can eat the cookie and then throw it up.
Honey, that's called bulimia.

-----

What was that [noise]? I ask, finding Danny atop a blanket that was a tent and the puzzle basket on the floor.
I tried to balance on [the blanket]. I just laughed and laughed.
How'd that work out for you?

Later when we told his father about it ...
That's not a good place for a tent, he wailed.
Um, Danny, that was not a good place to walk.

You're halfly bald, Danny tells his father.

Owen did it, Fiona yells whenever something goes wrong. But usually, it's Fiona who stirs the pot. Case in point ...

Danny was hysterical (and rightly so) after his sister smashed his art project for no apparent reason. Really, I don't know what to do about her. She's a master tormentor. Danny had some ideas, though.

We should call her stupid for the rest of her life, he wailed.

When are we going on vacation? is Danny's constant question these days. He's been packing his craft tool box that his aunt and uncle gave him for Christmas.

Oh, no, my silly band broke, Danny wails. Get the hot glue.
You can't fix a silly band with hot glue, Jim says.
Why?
'Cause that would just be silly.

Later on ...

See, I fixed it. I turned it into a duck, Jim says.

You guys are having little donuts without me? Jim says when he finds the kids scarfing down Cheerios.

If you throw a penny into water and make a wish, you will get it, Danny reports. This is big news to a 6 year old. I know because Brandon wished for a popsicle and he GOT IT.
Did you get one? Jim asked.
I didn't put in a penny.
Well, then it must work.

Danny had his very first field trip this week, too. His class went to a local art museum. We asked him what he did there.

I didn't touch the pictures, he said. His father and I both howled with laughter. Danny was too tired to know what we were laughing about.

Here's hoping the plague lifts.

Overheard

2013-02-14T22:32:00.002-05:00

There are times as a parent when you are just baffled. One day this week on Danny's behavior report we got this little gem: "Pulled pants down at little recess and showed his bottom." So, essentially, he mooned some kids on the playground.

When we asked him about it, he said:

I forgot to not show my butt.

Yeah, I hear you, kid. Sometimes adults forget not to show their butts, too. We have no idea where he got this idea. Just another day in the life of an impulsive 6 year old boy, I guess.

Then there are the time when you are completely blindsided. It's particularly frustrating when you think you've been consistent and fair. Another day this week, I had given Danny the five minute warning to finish what he was doing and come help set the table. At the end of five minutes, I got teeth gritting, toy throwing, coffee table traversing and trampoline jumping. All in an effort to avoid stopping his activity, which he had stopped to put on an epic display of defiance. By the time he got to the mini trampoline, I continued calmly repeating my instructions.

NO. NO. I need to get exercise mom, he practically whimpered. I tried really hard not to laugh.

Speaking of exercise, we've continued with our Sunday hiking outings. This past weekend, we hiked on the Eno River again. The kids love running around in the woods and we even went off trail for a bit. (Don't worry, it's impossible to get lost there.)

Look at all this nature, Danny exclaimed when we got there.

-------------------------

Don't juggle your hamburger, Danny. Really.

Now I have a staircase in my mouth, Danny says after he lost another tooth. The lost tooth was right next to a growing adult tooth.

This is fun. Can we do this all day? Danny asks. Guess what they were doing? Cleaning their grimy little fingerprints off the railings and door frames with Clorox wipes. Excellent.

Five more minutes guys, I tell the kids while we're at the museum.
I want to stay, Danny whines.
You can. For five more minutes. A few mommies nearby snickered.

I want to watch TV, Danny whines.
You can watch the TV all you want, Jim replies. We're just not turning it on.

Until then, the kids had been playing nicely, making a community with the train tracks in the playroom. Owen's contribution was a natural disaster.

Tornado coming! he screamed before knocking over trees and buildings.

He's really just darling these days. When Danny got in the van after school, Owen asked:

How was your day? (heart melting!!)

And then we have incidents like this. I asked him to put a napkin at everyone's place at the table. He lowered his gaze at me and said:

Don't want to. Oh yes, he did. It used to be cute, but he's approaching 3 years of age. His life is about to get a little tougher.

Something else he doesn't want to do right now?

Do you want to poop in the potty? I ask him. He tells us when he's pooping or when he has poop.
Nope. Don't want to fall in, he says. Great.

Fiona is rather emotional and easily frustrated lately. She often loses her temper with inanimate objects and then the object goes sailing across the room.

It wasn't listening to me, she wails. While I can identify, I find it very hard to sympathize with that sentiment.

Till next time ...

Overheard

2013-02-06T22:32:00.003-05:00

As you may know, I took a little break from blogging over the holidays. I usually publish an Overheard column on a Friday. However, I'm overflowing with Overheards that I've collected over the past two months.

Clothes!!!

January has come and gone. We celebrated Fiona's birthday with go-cart riding and pink-frosted cupcakes and lots of Tinkerbell and Hello Kitty. I gave up on trying to have a party for her since her first three birthday parties were cancelled due to illness or snow. We took her to Frankie's to ride go carts and play in the arcade.

We've also started a new Sunday tradition: Hiking. Yes, hiking. With three kids in tow. Even when it's 45 degrees out. It started with a hike organized by the wellness committee at Danny's school on the first Saturday in January. It was a gloriously sunny but chilly day. We took a thermos full of hot cocoa and hit the trail with other families from Danny's school. Since then we've been hiking every weekend that weather permits. Sometimes it's cold other times it's unseasonably warm. The hikes are usually between 1 and 2 miles long. Owen starts out strong, but usually starts whining halfway through. Danny absolutely loves it. Fiona takes her time and is often bringing up the rear.

You know the wild animals pick off the last animal in the herd, right? Jim tells Fiona. She picked up the pace a bit.

What about this baby? Is she going to bed, too? I ask fiona, pointing to one doll who was sitting in a rocking chair.
No, she's the mommy. She'll stay there all night to watch the babies. Right. Because that's moms do.

Look, mom, I found a raccoonship! Fiona squeals. Um, what?
Oh, you mean a bakugan!

I threw the raccoonship into the bathroom and it didn't go in the toilet, Fiona reports. Lovely.

Now Fiona, do you see how clean your room is?
Yes.
Let's try to keep it this way.
She looked right at me, cocked her head and said, But, mom, I have to play.

I'm tired from talking, Fiona wails. And she's only four. Just wait till your a mom, baby girl.

Hey, mom, I put my shoes in the shoe basket for to find them better, Danny squeals, apparently delighted that he is just now figuring this out.

Danny, do you know what they do to adults who hit?
What?
They put them in jail. He pauses and looks at me for a few seconds.
But what if they're doing karate?

No chainsaws in the TV room, I tell Owen who has shattered the room's quiet.

You're getting good at writing small, I tell Danny who has written a tiny 's' inside a circle.
Yeah. You're bad at writing small, though, he replies.
Oh, how so?
You write big, he says pointing to the chalkboard wall.
Um, I do that so you can see it.
I can see that tiny 's', mom.

That stupid old chair. I'm going to sit on it, Danny cries. His brother had just hit his head on the chair. Finally, a child who willingly sits on a chair.

Stop looking at me, Fiona wails to Owen over breakfast.
I'm not looking at you, he replies in his toddler staccato. I'm looking at my foot.

I've wanted these my whole life! Danny got a Polar Express train set for Christmas.

Fiona's kitty doesn't shoot laser beams so she won't destroy our house, Danny says. Fiona got a FurrReal pet for Christmas. It was as close to an electric Hello Kitty as we can find. Three year olds who don't watch much TV are not easy to buy for.

There's a bump in the floor, but we can still live here. Oh, good.

I found a worm, Fiona squeals.
Yeah, worms are good. They eat dirt and poop out more dirt, Danny replies.

Hey, the moss bounced off the house. The house must have to poop. I often tell him when he has to poop that his belly is so tight he could bounce a quarter of it.

Mooommmm, Owen's looking at me.
Are you looking at Owen?
Yes. Um, well then ...

Danny comes home from school with a half dozen sheets of paper with drawings of cars. So a photo of a different sort are something to talk about.

So your house has a car right up here? I ask Danny, who showing me his picture of a house.
Yeah.
How do people get in your house?
There's an invisible door. Oh, of course.

I'm hot, Fiona wails from the backseat of the van.
Well, there's hot air coming out of your mouth, so if you keep your mouth shut ... , Jim hints.

Mom, where's paradise on the map? Danny asks. Awww.

Danny, get over here. What is this in the hallway? I ask, eying a pile of folded toilet paper squares on the floor.
I was making paper airplanes. With toilet paper. Of course you were.

Till next time.

Diary of an Omniturnal Mom

2013-02-01T14:12:00.002-05:00

The morning rodeo, er, routine

The last time I wrote an ominiturnal mom post, all three kids were at home. While it is slightly less hectic with only two, mornings are a three ring circus.

6:48 a.m. Mommy wakes up in a panic and realizes that she is driving the boy to school this morning, then going straight to a friend's house for a play date. There would be no throwing kids in the car with pajamas on this morning. They leave in a hour.

She does some mental calculations and determines that the best way to get three breakfasts, three vitamins and three drinks on the table and one lunch for the boy and two snack bags for the others ready is to NOT wake the kids up just yet. Sounds counter-intuitive, but it works. She pulls on clothes straight from the laundry basket where her clean clothes live these days and checks to be sure the shirt is right side out. It is, she decides.

6:55 a.m. Mommy turns on the lights in the kids' rooms. Two out of three are fast asleep. The school boy is humping a pillow and peering through the bedrails at her. Creepy. She lays out clothes on the beds of the younger two.

"Good morning, sunshines," she sings, then quickly leaves, knowing they won't get up for at least another five minutes. Surely she can get cereal and juice on the table in that time and dole out the vitamins (2 multis and 2 fish oils per kid) in the proper colors and shapes to arrange the perfect pattern. (Have I mentioned my son likes patterns? Every morning, the vitamins must be put into a pattern and he eats them in a pattern while I am reminded with each one he pops into his mouth to WATCH MOM WATCH. Now he has his sister doing the same thing.)

7:05 a.m. Fiona appears first, actually wearing the outfit she's been dealt. Normally, girl face goes through three different outfits, throwing the rejects (clean) into the hamper. Mommy twitches just thinking about this. Owen follows closely behind holding his clothes and whining something about getting dressed. She tells him to fetch a diaper to buy herself more time to throw together lunch and snacks.

Mommy throws a bag of crackers, a hunk of cheese, a few fruit rollups and oranges and two water bottles into a bag. Done. Lunch for Danny? Leftover meatballs, a cheese stick, crackers, salad and cottage cheese; a granola bar and apples; and an Easter egg full of chocolate covered raisins. Done. A small voice in her head says she could probably have done all this the night before instead of staying up late playing Words with Friends and watching TMZ. Mommy tells that bitch to shut the hell up.

7:10 a.m. Danny wanders down fully dressed but wearing Spiderman slippers and no socks. Fine. Just come to breakfast, kid.

Now, getting a child with ADHD to eat breakfast in a short amount of time is often a maddening and somewhat hilarious prospect if you can keep your sense of humor. Instead of chanting eat at random intervals, Mommy decides to use Danny's love of patterns to her advantage. Sipping a cup of coffee across the table from him, she tells him, "Danny, here's a pattern for you: two bites of food, one drink, and repeat."

It works. Until he gets to the repeat part, looks around and says, "I have freckles."

Face palm.

Mommy verbally recites the pattern several times as he complies. As soon as she stops reciting, he stops eating and turns to the window.

"Look mom, a bird."

Smacks forehead.

Meanwhile, the two year old is randomly roaring at his brother and lunging from his seat.

7:20 a.m. He's eaten about as much as she can get him to eat. She sends him off for shoes and socks.

"Socks and shoes, mom," he corrects her.

Whatever. It's not like he'll actually remember to do it.

7:35 a.m. She finds him up in his room playing with paper airplanes on his floor. Startled by her presence, he gets up and starts downstairs.

"Do you have socks on?" she asks.

"Oh, I forgot."

Of course you did.

7:40 a.m. Mommy tries to corral the two year old to put on socks and shoes. She calls him and tells him to sit. He runs circles around her three times before climbing clumsily onto the chair and thrusting his foot into her leg. Meanwhile, the only child who is doing as she's told is the girl, who came down fully dressed to the socks and must now only find jacket and shoes.

7:45 a.m. "Jacket Danny," Mommy calls out.

"I left it at school," he says.

Of course you did. You bring home a half dozen sheets of paper filled with car drawings and massive sculptures made from scraps yet forget just why you're freezing your toucus off waiting for dismissal.

"Shoes Danny." Mommy finds that he responds better to short bursts rather than long, loud sentences (otherwise known as mommy flipping her lid).

He sits IN FRONT OF the door to puts his shoes on as we're all trying to get out the door. Thank you, Captain Oblivious.

7:50 a.m. Miraculously, all are in the car, ready to go. Mommy totally rocks.

....

9:30 a.m. After school drop off, they head to her friend's house. Upon arrival, Mommy realizes her shirt is in fact on inside out.

Coasting

2013-01-30T13:24:00.000-05:00

I haven't written much lately.

Obviously.

I can't blame it on being too busy or not having anything to say. I have plenty to say and I've seen busier times. It's just that my subject matters are older with more complicated problems that deserve a certain level of privacy.

But it's not only that. As they've gotten older, I've gotten wiser. With each new challenge, I have a bank of resolved challenges to reassure me. I used to need to talk and write about my kids' issues and my thoughts in order to process them. Now it seems I just need to be quiet and go with the flow.

Since July, when my oldest began school, we've all been on quite a journey. We've all changed, good, bad and neutral changes. My son has ADHD. There. I've said it. I no longer doubt it. I no longer fight or challenge it. I also have no need to cling to the label or use it as an excuse for apathy or defeatism. It's just a tool to help us and others help him manage his behavior. If I know what works for most kids with ADHD, we at least have a place to start. And really who cares if other people don't believe it's a real disorder? (And if you don't, I have a 6 year old I'd like to lend you for a few days.)

When he began school, I would sit in the car pool line every day with a knot in my stomach waiting for the daily verdict that is his behavior plan. Some days he'd have a horrific list of infractions, other days he'd have all smiley faces, still others would be a mixed assortment of praise and concern. Within the first three weeks of school, he'd been sent to the principal's office, been written up for being a danger to himself or others, and I'd gotten a call from the principal himself. I had to get off that roller coaster.

Things slowly got better. He responded beautifully to positive reinforcement and rewards. The rewards were something I had always steered away from because I didn't want my kid doing something just for the reward. Apparently, this is something that works very well with many ADHD kids. We developed a reward system for him based on the number of smileys he got each day on his chart. He gets one penny for every smiley he earns and nothing for a frownie. When he has 10 pennies, he can trade them in for 15 minutes of computer time or lamp time at bedtime or game time with us. He's not as vigilant or attached to the reward as he was the first half of the year. Some days he even forgets to bring his chart home.

He seems to thrive on checklists. We have several strategically placed on chalkboards throughout the house. There's the upstairs morning routine and the downstairs morning routine; the after school routine and the bedtime routine.

We also provided many crutches for him to get through tough periods of the day. At quiet time, he was allowed to listen to music with earphones. At dismissal, I had the teacher provide him with an extra snack. He has spent time on and off in alternative recess, a special, smaller recess with the resource staff to help with social skills. He no longer needs most of these things, at least not on a daily basis.

Part of the struggle for me these past months, though, is the guilt and resentment I often feel at having a child who sucks up so much time and attention and worry. I feel the other two children get less of me and less attention and a more stressed environment. For a while, some of the energy needed to help him was wasted on the useless thought, "Dammit, why can't this kid just behave himself?" It's not been a struggle I want to write about either; just something to sit with until it goes away. I've realized recently that it affects the other kids in as much as I attach myself to Danny's problems. I don't have to intervene every time he starts to get agitated. I can just let him whirl and if the whirling gets out of hand, I can banish him with good cause. When I can detach from his issues and make him own his behavior, I am more available to the other kids.

So we're just coasting along here. I'd like to say I'll write more. Maybe I will. Maybe I won't.

The thin veil

2012-12-17T22:51:00.000-05:00

"Sometimes we love people so much that we have to be numb to it. Because if we actually felt how much we love them, it would kill us. That doesn't make you a bad person. It just means your heart's too big."
Fay, "Riding in Cars With Boys"

Years ago, I saw this movie and that line struck me and stuck with me. The movie is based on writer Bev D'Onofrio's memoir - teenage pregnancy and marriage, college denied, drug addicted husband, single motherhood. The line was delivered as Bev and Fay were smoking pot and discussing single parenthood while their children played in the yard perilously close to a pool.

Minutes later, Bev is pulling her 6 year old son from the pool he had just fell into. She is, of course, snapped back into reality, promising to be more attentive and responsible.

Those lines resonate with me because I am not, by nature, an emotional person. I am not an emotional mom. When my children were babies, I did not stare at them for hours or coo and ooh over them. I don't even think I cried when they were born beyond a few tears of joy. I do not think daily about how much I love my children. I do not feel how much I love them on a daily basis. It's as if those feelings are safely sequestered behind a dark, thick curtain rendering me almost numb to them.

There are times, though, when that veil between me and the love I feel for my children becomes thin. It is then that I am closer to truly knowing and feeling how much I love my children and my family and our life. And that happened Friday when 20 six and seven year olds were shot to death.

I can't even describe what it was like this weekend watching and playing and holding my children. Like many parents, I've choked back tears and still do as I watch them and let all those tears out when everyone is sleeping. This is why I have to be numb. I couldn't let my children leave my sight if I truly felt how much I love them on a daily basis.

This weekend, we just took it easy. We played with trains and read books and had movie night and made muffins and went to the museum. And I tried to forget that 20 mothers were facing the unimaginable.

Tonight

2012-12-14T23:03:00.001-05:00

I am grateful for ...

a little girl who sets up a picnic for her babies and feeds them watermelon chocolate milk.
a little boy who pats my arm gently as we cuddle at bedtime.
a big boy who spends hours setting up train tracks and asks me to play games with him.
a husband who styles his daughter's hair complete with detangling spray, a blow dry and a braid.

And most of all, I am grateful that I and so many others can't wrap our heads around what happened today in Connecticut. It means we're all still human.

Insanity by candlelight

2012-12-04T22:15:00.000-05:00

For the past few weeks, we've been eating dinner by candlelight. The kids have been much calmer at dinnertime. Previously, we couldn't keep them in their chairs or their food on their plates or the noise level below a dull roar.

They come to expect it now. They ask to light the candles. We have quieter conversations. I don't have to see just how messy my 2 year old is. At least two of the kids actually ask to be excused from the table and even take their plates to the kitchen.

This week, I put out the advent candles. They are situated in a lovely ceramic nativity scene. So for the past three nights, I've lit the first candle as dinner begins. Then comes the begging to light the other three candles in the Advent wreath.

This evening, I served dinner in bowls. Apparently it was the last straw for Owen, who did not have the benefit of a nap to temper his irrationality.

He wanted a plate. So I obliged, mostly to just stop the tears. I brought back three small plates to save myself a trip because, as any seasoned mom knows, if you bring one kid a plate, you darn well better bring all three of them a plate.

Owen and Fiona begin transferring their food. Crisis averted. For now.

I then spent the next 10 minutes fielding questions from my 6 year old about why he was given a plate. He suddenly seemed confused by this strange object next to his bowl.

And then Fiona, who is eating dinner in her underwear, is suddenly on the verge of tears.

"I didn't want to eat on a plate," she wails.

So, um, is that why you took the trouble to put the food on the plate, dear? That's probably what I should have said to her. Instead, I poured her food onto the table and told her to eat it off the table.

Then I dared anyone else to complain about anything. Ever. Well, at least until after dinner.

A glossary of early childhood

2012-11-11T23:24:00.000-05:00

There is a certain language that parents develop surrounding the care and feeding of young children. I've been collecting these little gems for years.

Happy hour - the one hour of the day when the kids are playing happily and behaving well. My girlfriends and I have determined that this is usually from 10 to 11 in the morning.

Unhappy hours - the rest of the day.

Fifth circle of hell - what most people call the witching hours of between 4 and 6 p.m.

Bedtime extenders - any request made after being tucked in for food, water, attention or "lost" loveys that are actually hiding beneath the bed sheets.

Emergency poop bath - the only solution to a poop so messy that no amount of wipes will suffice.

Poop check - an attempt to locate a foul odor by checking all bottoms.

Shut-up squares - fig newtons (they just can't make noise when these are in their little mouths.)

Trail mix - what I clean out of the baby's high chair or sweep up off the floor after every meal.

Pee Pee Lifter 2000 - what we call our steam vacuum cleaner.

Drink cart - a nursing mommy on a long car trip who contorts herself into position to keep the baby quiet.

In the poop loop - part of a group that is kept up-to-date on the bowels of another.

Drop zone - any place where we're leaving the children, usually Nana and PopPop's house, and running like hell.

Net thrift - Jim's word for the thrift shop where we pick up old video tapes and DVDs for a quarter a piece. (Yeah, we actually have a VCR.)

window art - the handprints and smears on the kitchen windows. At least it doesn't clutter the house up.

chew toy - what the baby chews on when he's teething

mommy job - any job that requires mommy's help or any job that mommy wants done quickly even though the kids can do it themselves. Mommy reserves the right put on jackets and shoes, wash faces and hands and fasten seat belts if these tasks are not done in a timely manner. And by timely manner, I mean sometime in the 10 minutes after the initial request.

mommy treat - anything that mommy is eating in the bathroom or the hall closet to avoid sharing with the kids.

appetizer course - the frozen vegetables mommy doles out while making dinner just to keep the kids quiet.

Feel free to add your own.

to be continued ...

Falling back in

2012-11-04T23:00:00.002-05:00

I'm still here and it's still crazy. I got an extra hour last night so I figured now was as good a time as any to fall back into blogging.

Unfortunately, my anticipated extra hour of sleep turned into an extra hour of kid drama. And with baby daddy at work this morning, I was on my own to face the hounds at 6 a.m. starting with my oldest.

Mom, my bed is wet up near my pillow, he stands in the door and informs me.

And then came the procession of stuffed "guys" and a sleeping bag. He tossed my clothes up on the bed and situated his wide-awake, perky self on the floor, on my side, not his father's because there's a vent there and, as everyone knows, monsters live in the vents. I knew he wasn't going back to sleep. Why was he even there?? I drifted back off and woke up nose to nose with Danny when I felt his freezing cold feet on my legs.

Then I heard the baby, who is really not a baby anymore. He was growling and laughing and running around as usual. Owen appeared naked in my bedroom. Fiona hollered from the hallway, Owen peed on the floor.

Great. It's now 6:30 a.m. and I am hauling the steam vacuum from the closet. There went my extra hour.

By 7 a.m. I'm in the kitchen making pancakes, you know, since I'm already wide awake.

The rest of the day was a roller coaster. With no clear plan, my urge to declutter and have some sense of order took over. There's something about transitions such as turning back the clocks or a seasonal change that makes me want to tackle every pile of crap in sight. Between cleaning rampages, I played two games of Go Fish, peeled a half dozen Clementines for the bottomless pit that is my 2 year old, and put together dinner in the crockpot.

The kids were wild, running, climbing, jumping, clinging, wrestling each other and hitting. At one point, I pulled the jail card on the 5 year old.

Do you know what they do to adults who hit people, Danny?
What?
They put them in jail.

He looked at me thoughtfully and with a glimmer in his eye and said: But what if they're doing karate?

After regaining my composure, I pointed out that karate takes place in a studio with mirrors and a sensei, not on the playground.

The rest of the day can be summed up like this:

Kicked kids out into the yard.
Swept kitchen floor.
Kicked kids back out into the yard.
Hid in the closet and ate their Halloween candy.
Kicked kids back outside.
Swept the kitchen floor.
Fed the kids lunch.
Yelled at kids to stop making noise. (This does not actually work, in case you're wondering.)
Dodged a 2 year old who is trying to tackle my legs.

I also listened to them whine and complain no matter what I did for them or asked them to do. I took Fiona out to run errands with me and took her to the pet store, which is her favorite place ever. When we pulled up to the store, she cried that it was not the right pet store. Danny gave me a hard time every single time I asked him to do something which makes me reluctant to ask him to do anything. I decided that this is the most thankless job in the universe, at least on a minute to minute basis. In the long run, I hear it really is worth it.

Later that evening, my best friend and her family came over for dinner. We wondered what exactly our parents did that made us scared to disobey them. I remember the few times I sassed my mom. The incidents became family legend. I'm still waiting for my 5 year old to ask "When are you going to do any work around here?" Yep, I really did ask my mother that question when she handed me a stack of folded laundry to put away.

No one took a nap today, either. The kids were literally bouncing off walls. By bedtime, the baby was so exhausted that he cried for 10 minutes straight and finally fell asleep when I laid down with him. That was my favorite part of the entire day.

Overheard

2012-09-24T21:49:00.001-04:00

With Danny at school these past few months, I've been getting to know Fiona's habits and quirks. She and her brother couldn't be more different. She is the slow, observant, focused one. Danny is fast, oblivious and unfocused. I imagine Fiona trying to catch a fly with chopsticks (think Mr. Miyagi) while Danny uses a baseball bat.

Danny chews his gum for five minutes before claiming that the "flavor is out." Fiona chews a tiny piece of gum all afternoon, saving it on her plate for each meal and snack. Fiona quietly stirs up trouble and you may never know what happened. Danny is like a fireworks show. They do miss each other, though.

See?

They ran up and slid down the slide together like this for about a half hour one afternoon.

With Danny home on break, though, Fiona isn't getting as much attention as she's used to. The other day she sat down next to me and wailed,

Mommy, I haven't been with you. Ouch.

Fiona is a hoot these days. She's chatty and bright and social. And she says the weirdest things.

What's this on my arm? Fiona asks.
I don't know, honey.
It might be a tick. OR it might be ketchup, she says.

Whatcha making, Fi? I snuck up on her in the back yard.
Strawberry Tinkerbell soup, she says, cackling. Should I be frightened?

Slushies on the porch

I don't like celery. I don't like chicken. I don't like any of this. Fiona is our resident food critic.
Oh, well. No dessert.
I like it. Oh, of course, NOW you like it.

I don't want to eat anymore, mom, Fiona says.
Well, no dessert.
Ooooh. I want to eat. I'm pretty sure I'd mentioned this no dessert thing at least 10 times.

Unless you're here to poop or pee, get out of the bathroom, I tell the kids.
Oooooh. I didn't get to see Danny's poop and Owen flushed it, Fiona wails. It's like the daily poop exhibit.

We can't go because that lady's car is in front of us, Fiona tells me.
Um, no honey, we can't go because the Volvo won't start. We were stranded on the side of the road and a very nice woman and her daughter stayed with us until Jim could get there.

You ruined my kiss on my cheek, mommy, Fiona wailed. I'm not even sure how I did this, but I had to give her another night-night kiss.

Also, her secret is out. She does actually like us. For months, I would kiss her good night, tell her I love her and get this:

I love you, poop. Then she would cackle. Well, a few weeks ago, I started getting "I love you, mom." She's even said it first some nights.

Speaking of poop ...

I pooped on the powder, Owen informs me. Turns out he puked on a bottle of powder, which is slight better his initial assessment.

I'm peeing, Owen informs me. Oh, good. We're getting closer to potty training. (I love how everyone in this house informs me of their bodily functions.)

A few from the "I can't believe I have to say this" file:

Stop swinging the poopy underwear around. In the kitchen, no less.

No penis twiddling while I'm reading, I tell Owen who is simultaneously twiddling his penis and sucking his thumb. It's like the equivalent of walking and chewing gum or rubbing your tummy and patting your head, only much, much creepier. His response? He grunted at me and shoved his member back into his diaper.

Get out of the bathroom. It's not a museum.

Don't pick your nose with that carrot.

Boy, put that thing back in your pants. You want to get arrested? Jim tells Owen. That "thing" was his penis and we were at the park.

And from Captain Oblivious ...

I'm going outside.
OK. Don't bother [the A/C repair guy].
I don't ever bother anyone. This is funny on so many levels.

Napkin, Danny, Jim says as he passes around napkins.
No. I never get dirty. Oh, okay.

MOM. MOM. It's 2 a.m. and Danny is screaming from his room.
Yes, dear?
I can't zip my sleeping bag, he whines indignantly. (Asshole.)

MOM. MOM. I trudged up the stairs.

What is it, dear?
My blanket. I can't reach it. Guess where it was? Within his reach if he had just SAT UP. (Asshole.)

Mom, Owen has an appointment and he won't come, Fiona wails. So now I'm supposed to mediate in the land of make believe, too?

I can hear it with my special ear, Danny squealed. He heard the train coming. How come his special ear doesn't hear his mother so well?

Oh, look, there it is. I can see it with my powerful eyes, Danny exclaims upon seeing the grist mill at the river. Now I just love his confidence, but I can't help but wonder why his powerful eyes don't see the trail of clothing he drops on the floor or the "lost" toy that is right under his nose.

Have a great week.

Anatomy of an epic tantrum

2012-09-15T23:04:00.000-04:00

My son is pretty crafty. There are some days when he just knows how to ask only questions to which the answers will be no.

Can we watch another Wild Kratts? No, you've had enough TV today.

Can we have gum? No, you've had enough. (And the last piece you chewed wound up ground into the carpet.)

Can I do computer time? No, we're about to eat dinner.

Can you get my tracks down from the attic? No, we're going to eat dinner in 10 minutes. (And I have chicken juice all over my hands and a whining 2 year old cornering me in the kitchen.)

Can I? Can I? Can I? (I probably should correct him and say, "May I?" or "I don't know, can you?")

I feel the most panicked and overwhelmed between 4 and 6 pm every single day. And he knows it.

It's the last two hours before Daddy gets home. I have one more kid than I do all day. I have to get dinner together or wrapped up and simultaneously deny food to ravenous children so they'll eat that dinner.

Friday afternoon was no different. His father wouldn't be home until after dinner. The younger kids were happy to be kicked out into the backyard. Not Danny. His mission was to pester me until he got a yes.

And then I served up the no that made the 5 year old snap. Danny Boy didn't just snap, though; he went bat shit crazy on me.

I gave him choices: Go outside to play or play in the playroom.

No deal. He began to scold me for daring to tell him no.

I told him: That is inappropriate. I will not talk to you when you are disrespectful. Go to your room.

No deal. He plopped himself atop the trash can, gritted his teeth, and clenched his fists, frantically looking for some object to take out his anger on.

A freshly picked green pepper was within his reach. So he crushed it. (Insert confused, bemused look here.)

I repeated my request. Several times. Calmly. He repeated his refusal. Several times. Loudly.

I asked if he needed me to carry him up.

NO. I don't want to go upstairs.

Oooookay. I proceeded to pick him up off the trash can. He started grabbing onto whatever he could.

Then he ran from me into the dining room. I decided to go through the hall to meet him there. He poked his head into the hall, saw me and ran the other way.

I went to the kitchen door, he poked his head in, saw me and ran. We repeated this dance a few times.

Did I mention he was screaming, "I don't want to" at the top of his lungs the entire time?

(Now let me just point out right here that the parents who say things like "My child knows better than to do that" or "I would not tolerate that" really have no idea what this kind of intensity is like. My inability to shut him down immediately does not mean that I tolerate the tantrums. My child somehow does not know better and that is not my fault.)

At this point, panic sets in. My thoughts race.

Is this really happening? I can't chase him. Hell, I can't catch him. Oh my God, I can't catch him. OH MY GOD, I can't lose this battle. I bet so-and-so's kid would never do this to his mother. I wish I had a tranquilizer dart gun. (Seriously, this thought crossed my mind.)

After thanking Lucy (the crazy lady in my head) for her input, I told her to sit down and that I would be handling this. And instead of seeing that white hot flame of anger in my head, this time, I saw something different. I saw what was actually happening. It was utterly ridiculous. I laughed as quietly as I could and found some non-crazy thoughts roaming around my head. That's when I spied his beloved Hot Wheels loop track.

I reached for the track and began to talk calmly over his screams.

"Here's what's going to happen. I'm going to take your car loop and your pillow pet and put them back in the treasure chest until you can control yourself," I told him.

Well, that certainly got his attention. Or at least it got him to the stairs where I calmly repeated the go-to-your-room mantra and he screamed his I-don't-want-to mantra some more.

Another impasse. Great. Thank God the other two play so well together. At this point, I had no idea where they were. (My guess was the backyard since I heard running water from the spigot.)

I had no idea how to get him up the stairs as he was now clinging to and hanging from the railing. So I just started walking. He followed but continued to dig in his heels, refusing to go to his room. At least he'd stopped screaming at this point.

I stepped into his room, took a good look around and said, "What else do you want to lose today?"

I reached for Dennis the monkey. He freaked and ran into his room. Finally.

After about 20 minutes of screaming and wall kicking, he came to the top of the stairs and asked if he could come down. I told him, "Only if you can tell why you're up there."

And he did. The rest of the afternoon he played with train tracks in the playroom without incident.

Mommy, 1. Danny, 0.

Overheard

2012-09-09T21:25:00.000-04:00

Life has been busy lately. I barely blink in the morning and suddenly I'm creeping along in the carpool line to pick up the boy at school with an impatient 2 year old screaming "GO, GO, GO" and a 3 year old moaning, "It's a looooong time, mooooooommmmmyyyyy."


They play together very well.

There's a different feel around here during the day when Danny is at school. With two non-ADHD kids, I can stay home all morning and not lose my mind. Owen and Fiona play remarkably well together and can leave me alone for long periods. I don't even mind that most of the time they are playing with hose water in the backyard and come in muddy from head to toe. (In my world, 20 uninterrupted minutes is a long time.) When Danny's home, it's like being poked 20 times an hour by a kid who gives me no time to respond. Here's a sample conversation:

MomMomMOM.
Yes, Danny.
Worms don't have eyes. I'm sure this information will come in handy eventually.

I'm also getting to know Fiona better. One thing for sure is that this little girl is determined and focused and talkative.

Honey, you're arms are not long enough to reach that, I tell Fiona who is trying to reach for the second ring on the monkey bars at the park.
That's poop, she tells me with a determined look. Five minutes later, she reached the second ring. Basically, my daughter looked at me, said the preschooler equivalent of "bullshit," and did it.

Yet she can be rather indecisive. It's maddening.

Do you want grapes?
No. Yes. And she usually says yes just as I'm turning back toward the fridge.

Are you going to finish that? I ask.
I don't like it. I do like it.
Oh, okay.
I like it. I don't like it, she repeats. Sigh. I hope she gets this one under control before she starts dating.

Mom, you have a boo boo on your chin. You need a Tinker Bell Band-Aid, Fiona tells me.

And THEN my pajamas were bleeding, Fiona says. She and Owen had a head on collision in the hallway. As she said, there was blood everywhere.

Mommy, I'm singing about vicodin, Fiona says.
Um, what, honey?
VACUUMING. I'm singing about vacuuming. Oh, good.

Even though they are easier on me than Danny, Owen and sometimes even Fiona are adding exponentially to the list of no-nos that I never thought had to be verbalized.

Owen, get off the drawer. It is not a stool. He pulls out the bottom drawer in the kitchen and stands on it to watch me cook.

Owen, don't jump in the sink. He does this after I change his diaper. The changing table is on the bathroom counter.

Owen, is there poop in your bed? I ask him.
Yes. Change my sheets again, he says. Lovely. I change his sheets several times a week because he can't keep his hands out of his pants and winds up sleeping with his fire hose pointing up.

Oh my God, are you licking all the clean spoons? STOP.

Oooohh, I spilled water, Fiona says. Next thing I know ...
No, no, Fiona, here's a rag. Don't lick the floor. (I know that I don't own a mop anymore, but seriously?)

Are you going to take a nap today? I ask Owen.
No.
Are you not going to take a nap today? (I was trying to trick him.)
Yes, he replied. D'oh. Outsmarted by a 2 year old.

Sit down in that cart or I swear I will glue you to the seat, I seethed at Owen and Fiona in Target.

Mom, can you get the gum off my foot? Want to see my poop? Danny asks, all in the same breath. Wow, where do I start?

Mom, I pooped and I didn't flush it. Want to come see it? Danny says as soon as I get home. It's curly, he continues. When will they stop summoning me to inspect their poop?

I just had underpants on and now they're gone, Fiona wails with her pants around her ankles. I have no idea how that could happen.

Do you know how to stop, Fiona? Jim asks repeatedly as she bikes down a hill at the park. She randomly uses her breaks and her shoes.
No, I don't, she called back. Wonder of wonders, she came down the hill AND managed to round a curve without falling.

Shit, Jim says as he fixes something with his little assistant, Owen.
Shit, Owen repeats.
No, no, I said shoot, Jim replies.
Shoot, Owen repeats.

What's that? the kids asked when Jim turned the channel to a tennis match.
That's tennis. They play it on a ping pong table, Jim tells them. And, I kid you not, they all yelled at the TV: GET OFF THE TABLE.

Danny, did you hear the words coming out of my mouth? I ask after he'd requested one too many repeats that day.
No, he replies. And his father snickered. It's the beginning of man's disease. I pity his future wife.

Have a great week!

Overheard

2012-08-21T23:00:00.001-04:00

Fiona's entire second year was marked by spectacular disasters involving, among other things, flour, pasta and poop. I had blocked a lot of it out of my memory until this morning. It dawned on me after cleaning half a dozen cracked eggs off the kitchen floor that we are now entering the third and final 2 year old's reign of disaster.

I just stared at the floor, frozen for about 30 seconds, not knowing what to do. How exactly do you clean eggs off the floor? It was not even 8 a.m. This was a pretty cruel blow.

Shut me in, mommy, Owen says as he stands inside the fridge. I've had to lock the fridge because he opens it every chance he gets.

Sometimes I forget, like this morning. This kid is an eating machine. His hands literally shake when he eats. I've been keeping an eye on him to make sure that is the only time he quivers. So far, it is. Yesterday, when I called him for dinner, he bolted into the dining room, crawled over my chair and tried to climb over the table to get to his plate. Later when he discovered the fridge locked, he took one panicked look at Jim and bolted back into the dining room to see if there was anything left on the table.

He is also into absolutely everything. It's tough to get a step ahead of this child.

Give me that. The stapler is NOT a phone, I tell Owen. He had flipped open the stapler and was holding it to his head. A staple to the head would be hard to explain in the ER.
Please get out of the salad spinner. NO, NO, don't touch the microwave, I tell Owen all in the same breath.

Owen, let's go get a new diaper, Jim says.
No, Nope, Owen replies as he waves Jim off.

And did I mention he hurts himself a lot?

He's got the belly flop down, a friend noticed as Owie repeatedly hurled himself into the pool.
Oh, yeah, he's been practicing on the driveway, Jim says.

I need chocolate, Owen wails after he pinches his finger. A few minutes earlier I had offered him a chocolate covered raisin when he hurt himself. He learns quickly.

Owen is also now sleeping in a bed. And he rarely gets out. I mean, why would he? All he needs is right there: his thumb for sucking and his penis to play with.

Do you think Owen is still in the bed? I ask Jim. It was awfully quiet up there. He had just started sleeping in a bed.

The real question is where will he be at 2 a.m., he says. Then he adds, I'm going to chain the doors.

Fiona is pretty chatty these days. She fills the vacuum that Danny leaves while he's at school. It never occurred to me just how much that kid sucks the air out of a room. She provides a running commentary from the back seat.

That lady said it was going to thunder, mom, Fiona informs me regularly on our car trips.

And she's just so eager to talk that her sentences have a string of false starts that leave me on the edge of hysterics or of my sanity, depending on the day.

Mom, before you ... Mom, before you ... MOM, before you ... said we could go to Nana's house.

Why do keep piling everything in your closet? I ask Fiona. I'm rather exasperated that everything falls out when I open the door.
It might rain in my room, she responds. Oh, of course. That's perfectly logical.

Talk the book, mommy, Owen says. Or, in his more impatient moments, TALK. This is how he asks me to read.

I'm going to put dirt in your Diet Coke. That'll be good, Fiona claims. We were having pretend lunch while real lunch was cooling off on the table.

I CAUGHT A FISH. I CAUGHT A FISH. YES! [hand clap] MY WEEKEND HAS BEGUN! Danny says. Yes, fish are necessary to have a weekend.

Well, Jesus was sad that his friend Lazarus was dead, I say to Danny.
Yeah and he used his back-to-life wand on him.

Ugh, I'm too fat for all my clothes, I tell Jim.
Danny overheard this and suggested: You need to be naked.

Ouch. I cut myself. I'm not having a very good day in the kitchen, I say. That morning, I got a second degree burn on my hand.
Maybe your contact lenses fell out, Danny responds.

Yesterday, Tinkerbell wore this dress so today I should wear it, Fiona informs me. Well, if it's good enough for Tinkerbell, it's good enough for you.

That's all for now.

Stress and distress

2012-08-06T08:34:00.002-04:00

Hello readers,

With me, no news is usually bad news. So if you haven't heard from me here in a while, it's because things ~~are~~ seem real crappy and hopeless. I rarely write when I'm stressed, though it's usually just what I need. In the chaos of stress, I forget the one thing that helps me most: sharing my pain and stress.

I say this a lot, but it bears repeating: somebody probably needs to know they're not alone. That somebody always includes me. That's why I share, even when it sounds like complaining or self-flagellation or navel gazing.

In the past few days, I had a close call with a wandering 3 year old. Let's just say that nothing quite prepares you as a parent for finding your daughter's dress in the hallway and your daughter nowhere in your house or yard. (She was found two doors down wearing a leotard and crocs; she later claimed she was walking to gymnastics.) This is stressful.

In the past week, our 2 year old has turned into a rabid billy goat who is constantly moving, making noise and messes and biting his siblings. This is rather distressing.

In the past few weeks, we've been introduced to such schoolish terms as behavior plan and student assistance team. I also now recognize my son's teacher's phone number on the caller ID. This is stressful.

In the past few months, I've gone from an ADHD skeptic to tearful and fearful near acceptance of my son's diagnosis. This is distressing.

The signs have been there and been building for years. The realization that he often behaves exactly as our 2 year old in certain situations. The five topics in 30 seconds conversations. The gradual backing off of friends. (And I seriously don't blame your kid for not really wanting to hang out with mine.) The inability to control his impulses to back talk and interrupt. The constant movement and noise. The rigidity and stubbornness.

Let's face it, social norms that come easily to some kids just don't occur to those with ADHD. How many five year olds have to be told that randomly blowing in people's faces is a bad idea? Or that spitting water at another person's face is never acceptable? Most five year olds have enough sensible fear of their parents to just stop arguing their point. Not my kid. He'll argue and follow even when I've walked away and stopped talking. There is no escape.

I could frame all this information in terms of how lucky we are to be at a school that takes such a supportive approach and that he is getting the help he needs so soon. The school is "this effective, this soon," I was reminded, instead of my son's experience being "this bad, this quickly." In my better moments, I do think the former. At my most distressed, though, I am heartsick for both of us. I'm already so, so weary and afraid that I just don't have the strength to travel this road.

This road means notes sent home, phone calls and emails, meetings and therapy and having to push him more that I'm comfortable doing. He will be different and singled out and have to work harder for things that come easily to other kids. His teacher already tells us that he is "trying so hard" and that just breaks my heart. We'll have to manage the way this is all presented to him so as not bruise his delicate, developing sense of self. I'm sure we'll learn how to do this but it all seems so daunting right now.

And the feeling I can't seem to shake is that somehow, some way, I made some fatal parenting error. It's as if every mother with better behaved children has a portion of the parenting manual that we're missing. When a child goes to school, it feels like your parenting skills are on display. I rarely care what people think of how I parent; it only worries me what they assume based on my children's behavior.

Right now, based solely on his behavior, I appear to be a parent who did not teach her son any social skills, loads him up with sugar and sends him off to school. Which I don't, of course.

Love,
J

The first week

2012-07-27T10:31:00.000-04:00

Four and a half years ago on my son's first birthday, I remarked in a blog post about my oddly unemotional state over that milestone. My son started kindergarten last week and not a tear was shed until at least the fifth day of school.

Part of this, I think, is that I never thought he'd actually go to school. Oh, sure, we applied to a few charter and Montessori schools where they literally pull your name from a hat to determine who gets in. We're not that lucky, we told ourselves. I mean, we rarely even win so much as $2 in the Powerball. So we just assumed we'd homeschool. Until three months ago. We got a call from a school. It was the last lottery we were waiting on. It was THE school. Child-centered, project based, integrated arts. It was the one that fit our philosophy and we felt would be best for him. And he got in as did his siblings by extension. His name was the fifth pulled.

"I feel like I just won the lottery," I told the woman from the school, as my 2 year old was screaming in the background, because, as usual, he hurt himself just as soon as the phone rang. I imagined that the woman on the other end was mentally cringing and wondering just what had the school gotten itself into if such bedlam exists in this woman's house.

I was in such shock that I worried: Maybe I misunderstand the woman on the phone? After all, it was chaotic when she called. Maybe we're just on the waiting list? For the next week, I anxiously awaited a letter in the mail that the school told us to expect with some further instructions. I held my breath and waited. When the letter came, I breathed again and it began to slowly sink in that we'll have school children and school nights and packed lunches and carpools and field trips. (But no homework and no grades because that's not how this school rolls. Sweet!)

So, you see, I've had only three months to fret over him going off to school. I've felt neither eager to unload his sassy little self on a kindergarten teacher nor excessive trepidation about his prospects. I've not spent the past five years getting him ready for school as if it were some kind of deadline, though. We've read no books on what our child needs to know before he goes to kindergarten or how to get him ready for his new envirnoment. Sure, I've had the occasional foray down the what-if rabbit hole. A few times in my head I've had him kicked out of school for his borderline ADHD behavior hence ruining his siblings' chances to attend. Really, with no information to back up this prediction, that voice just needed to be thanked kindly and told to go sit down.

As the first day approached, I looked at the 10-day weather forecast. I took stock of what he'd need: backpack, lunch bag/box, towel (because, you know, it is the most massively useful thing one can have), reusable sandwich and snack bags. (This school encourages parents to send lunches in reusable containers as they are trying to cut down on trash. How awesome is that?)

The first day of school went well. There was no drop off drama. He had his trusty map and he walked us in taking the route of his choosing. It was only a half day and only half the class was scheduled to be there that day. His only complaints was a passing mention that the day was too long. When I went to get him, several people commented that he was quite attached to his map and they dubbed him "map boy." It all sounded pretty promising.

We're settling into a routine. He gets up and dressed, eats breakfast and feeds the dog. I make his lunch and then he and I got on a short bike ride together. That's right. At 7 a.m., he and I are biking down the street. We've gotten some what-are-those-Meehans-up-to-now looks from neighbors. It's a good way to get some of his energy out before he goes to school and spend a little one on one time with him.

By the fourth day, his first full day, he was getting out of the car himself in the carpool line and walking to his classroom alone. His teacher emailed us on Monday and Tuesday evening, but we did not get the emails until Tuesday evening. When I saw the sender and subject line, my stomach turned.

And it confirmed my worst fears. Spitting, personal space invasions, hair tousling, generally pestering others in an attempt to get their attention. Classic ADHD impulse control issues.

I won't lie. There was a lot of deep ragged breaths and self-flagellation and crying, no, sobbing.

Why can't my kid be normal? Why can't he just behave himself? What did I do wrong that my kid acts this way? What are the other mothers going to think of me? What if the kids ostracize him? What if he gets kicked out and ruins for his siblings?

There's been a lot of discouragement this week. But I've also found a lot to be grateful for.

His teacher made it clear up front that she is opposed to using medication. She also was a special education teacher for 10 years. Thank God his teacher is on the same page with us.

We've been seeing a therapist since March with Danny, before we even knew we'd be at school. He's made great progress in several areas at home. And all I had to do is sign a release form to allow the teacher and the therapist to talk. Imagine if I'd second guessed myself or given in to my cynicism about therapy and stopped going altogether. Where would we be now?

I've listened to other mothers whose kids are having their own troubles at school this week. On Wednesday, I went to pick him up alone. I stood in the front lobby and overheard another mom of a kindergartener talking about her son. Apparently, he'd had a rough few days at school, too. And the next day, another mom shared that her son had had a few rough days, also. I felt less alone and more grateful for my own problems.

I had assumed that the standard for his behavior was near perfection from day one. That leaves little room for improvement and growth for both of us, now doesn't it?

And I see the evidence of growth every day now, because I'm looking for and expecting it. Not only that, I'm growing along with him. I'm realizing that the same simple tools that I use to calm and control my actions and thoughts are just as relevant to him.

Just this morning, on our bike ride, Danny was also talking to the voices in his head. After he had yelled at me for not responding to him within a half second of his request, I told him that he needed to count to 10 before he expected someone to respond to him. I told him to be sure he has my attention, say something and then count to 10 in his head. Then, from behind me, I hear "Oh, it's the bad voice. You go sit down. Mom, I put the bad voice in time out."

There's hope for him and me yet as long as we keep talking to the voices in our head.

And it continues ...

2012-07-18T22:45:00.001-04:00

"It" is the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. It's been quite a while since mommy has had consecutive days that strike fear and panic into her heart.

Mommy feels completely helpless to stop the onslaught of escapes, pilfered food and malicious woundings among siblings. Every one of them has scars from sibling inflicted wounds. Bite marks, bruises from pushes and shoves, cuts on their feet from being run over by a Big Wheel, half peeled off fingernails from door injuries. If pulled hair left marks, Fiona would be sporting wounds. Mommy feels as though she's toting a band of wounded criminals with her everywhere she goes. Mommy senses that her oldest's impending first day of school and the ridiculous July heat is affecting everyone's psyche.

Mommy's day starts at 2 a.m. when she hears Owen "reading" books in the hallway. Reading, good. 2 a.m., not so good. By 4 a.m., she had shooed him back to his room three more times. Fiona even joined him once.

But by 6:30 a.m., the really scary part began. Her husband bolts back into the bedroom and says, "Fiona's not in her bed and she's not downstairs." Mommy frantically gets dressed. She peers out the windows in her bedroom trying to spot the child. As scary as it sounds, mommy knows in the back of her head that Foudini (one of many nicknames for Fiona) probably didn't get far. Still, that doesn't stop her from imagining the worst.

Mommy can see the 6:00 news now. Preschooler catches school bus to local high school, mother charged with child endangerment.

As it turns out, she had climbed the baby gate, pulled an ottoman to the door, unlatched the chain and let herself out. When asked how long she had been outside, she gave a wicked look and said, "Five minutes." What's so frightening is all the obstacles she overcame to get herself outside. Mommy wonders how many more obstacles she'll have to build into the Foudini containment system just so she can close her eyes at night.

Next disaster involves Owen who is like a drunken billy goat on a suicide mission. He literally hurls himself into walls. It's like he has no sense of how his body works in space. He was pulling these stunts on the stairs and he fell. Backwards. Mommy is standing right behind him, watching as he falls on his head and neck.

Okay. That's over. Next up, mommy needs a shower. The kids know the drill. They stay upstairs and play while mommy takes a quick shower. Five minutes tops. How much trouble can they cause in five minutes?

Post shower, mommy finds Fiona in the hallway leading the 2 year old around with a belt around his neck. And it's not loosely around his neck, either. Mommy starts to shake inside. This is beyond horrifying.

Next mommy finds that Fiona has climbed up on the chest freezer to pilfer granola bars from the top shelf. Later that same day, her and Owen got into a container of brownies that Nana thought she had put far out of reach. There apparently is no such thing as out of reach for Fiona.

Oh, and it gets worse. At the park, Fiona follows a group of girls walking to the bathroom. At least there is an adult with them and it happens to be a friend of mine. I spotted her across the parking lot and thought, "Okay. At least she's with an adult I know." Is it bad that mommy is equally concerned about what her acquaintances at the park must think of a woman who can't keep tabs on her own kids?

Mommy is exhausted. She locks Fiona in her room for quiet time. Don't judge. Mommy is out of options. She hopes that once the first day of school comes and goes, things will start to calm down here. She suspects that the anticipation of it has been hovering above the kids and making them crazy.

Stay tuned for photos and stories from Danny's first day of school which is tomorrow. I'll write. I promise.

Mommy and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day

2012-07-17T23:14:00.000-04:00

Mommy really thought it would be a good morning. She had a plan: Blueberry picking. Church office for a 10 minute task. Library. Sam's Club. It felt like a good kid-to-adult activity ratio.

She had snacks packed, water bottles filled and kitchen cleaned up. She had library books ready to go back. On time, no less. The diaper bag was restocked and the blueberry picking buckets were in the van. The kids were dressed, shoes were on or at least in hand.

She was just about to strap Owen into his car seat when the familiar aroma of poop rises from one toddler derriere.

It must have been an omen.

After a pit stop for cash and Diet Coke, they head to the blueberry patch only to find it closed.

Okay. Mommy can roll with this. They head to the church office.

"I have to go to the bathroom," Danny moans on the way. Of course, you do.

Mommy is a bit flustered already and begins to panic. She can't let him pee his pants; there's no change of clothes for him. She decides to call her husband and see if they can stop by his office for a pee break on the way to the church. No dice. He's not answering the phone. They pulled up to the church office, which wasn't yet open. Mommy instructs the boy to pee on a tree. Yes, at church. She didn't think God would mind.

The kids play hide and seek in the trees and begin climbing a few of them. Danny breaks a low-hanging limb off the Magnolia tree. Mommy thought God would mind that, so she told him to leave the tree alone. He argues. He heads back toward the tree defiantly. Mommy feels the panic that rises in her chest when her son escalates his defiance. He finally relents. Meanwhile, Owen and Fiona are hanging on and climbing everything they can. Clearly, the kids are in no mood to wait around for the church office to open. And even if she could wait around, they would be too ill behaved for mommy to get a simple 10 minute task taken care of before they destroyed the church's volunteer office.

So they leave. Mommy is 2 for 2 right now. Two tasks undone.

PANIC. Deep breath. Mommy gets twitchy when so many plans fall through. How can these hoodlums not be trusted to behave for 10 minutes?

Just keep moving, she reminds herself. Next stop? The library. Mommy unloads the stroller, the bags of books and the kids. The 2 year old takes one look at the stroller and whines indignantly, "NO."

Great. The last thing mommy needs is to be chasing a 2 year old through the library. After about 10 minutes of chasing, she finally confines him kicking and screaming while they head for the checkout. She reaches into the library bag to find the card.

It's not there. Nor does she have her wallet with her. She leaves the books, trudges back to the car with three kids in tow and trudges back in to have the librarian look up her card with her driver's license.

Okay. Something finally got done. But the kids are melting faster than a Popsicle in Hell and there's still one more stop. Can't skip this one. There is no laundry detergent in the house and sure, mommy could get it at a less inconvenient store, but damned if she'll let the kids keep her from completing her mission. Really, how dare they balk at a morning full of errands when she took them the museum and swimming yesterday. The ingrates.

Mommy is officially pissed. She calls her mother, flustered and not even sure what she wants her mother to do.

They arrive at Sam's Club. Mommy can't find her card. Seriously. But she can't stop now. She just can't.

On the way home from Sam's Club, mommy calls her mother back and she agrees to come watch the little boogers for an hour. Probably to prevent mommy from eating them.

Lies I can't get away with much longer

2012-07-07T21:02:00.000-04:00

My kids seem to ask questions from dawn till dusk. By midday, I'm ready to throw in the towel and tell them that I'm not taking any more questions or offering any more explanations about anything. I usually can hold out until their father gets home. Then I'm on break.

And no question freezes me in my tracks and causes a mini panic attack like "What's in your mouth?" Here are a few of the answers that they are not buying:

I'm just chewing my tongue.

No, it's not a piece of candy.

Really, there's nothing in my mouth.

I'm not eating anything. I SWEAR!

They're not buying it. Any of it.

Also, in an effort to have a clean kitchen at the end of the day, I tell them this:

The kitchen is closed. My mother used to tell us this. I get it now. Totally. What she really meant was "The kitchen is closed for sticky fingered, crumb shedding urchins like yourself." But for mom and dad? Kitchen is open since we can now eat whatever we want without facing an army of beggars.

Other popular half-truths:

I'm not speeding. Okay. I kind of am speeding. But cops don't usually ticket for 5 miles over, now do they?

That's not a word you should use. At least not in public. Please. Who am I kidding? There are times when that word is totally warranted, like when you accidentally spill a full dustpan after the eighth sweeping of the day, right?

I have eyes in the back of my head. My oldest still believes this. He calls them my back eyes. One day, he sifted through my hair to find them. I told him he couldn't see them because they were closed at the time.

We don't eat before dinner. Translation: You don't eat before dinner. Mommy? She has a secret stash of jelly beans she sneaks while making dinner.

That song? It's about saving energy and keeping your doors locked. I told my kids this when they asked about the lyrics "Baby lock the door and turn the lights down low." I'm getting good at reinterpretting songs.

Do you mind? I'm using the bathroom. I'm not really. I'm reading. And eating a piece of chocolate to avoid the "What's in your mouth?" question.

Overheard

2012-07-03T08:30:00.003-04:00

It's been quite hot here, with several days in a row of 100 plus degree temperatures. I can't keep the kids in their clothes and yet I still have mountains of laundry. Could someone please explain to me how this works? The hot weather also means it's potty training season.

Oh, yeah, it's outdoor peeing weather this week, Jim said last week. Owen is of age. I think that we can start training him now.

So far, he's peed in his little potty twice and pooped in the yard once. Let me explain.

Lately, the kids have been playing well together. I have been able to trust Danny more with following and enforcing the rules (without wrestling them to the ground) instead of instigating mischief.

Just last week, I let them loose in the backyard after a little pool time so I could start dinner. I shut the gate and told them to stay in the backyard. Oh, and I let them hang out naked, or as Fiona calls it naken. No biggie. For me, there's nothing cuter and more natural than looking out the window and seeing three kids playing naked. They're so devoid of self-consciousness.

A few minutes later, Fiona comes in and says: I have some poop on my foot.

That's mud, not poop.

I thought it was dog poop. Turns out, it was Owen poop. I peered out the window and saw Danny and Owen stooped over digging in the dirt contentedly, as if nothing had happened. I inquired about the location of the poop.

We scooped it up. It's in the wheel barrel, Fiona informs me. They have a kid-size wheel barrel.

Fiona has surprised us lately with her knowledge of letters. I've not been able to teach her directly as much as I did with Danny. But one day, she blurted out:

P is for purple. Huh? I didn't know she knew that. And she's been writing letters. Numbers, though, are a different story. She knows them, but it sounds like she's calling audibles in a football game.

4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 11, 4, 5, 12. And Danny flips out because she's not saying the numbers in order.

She also has lots of opinions.

I like this song, mom, Fiona chirped from the back seat. Bryan Adams "Everything I Do" was on the radio. It's about looking into my eyes. I like looking into my eyes. Well, this is different, a kid telling me what a song is about. Danny, on the other hand, constantly asks what each song is about.

How can you breathe through your eyeballs, dad?
Well, I guess if you held your breath it might come out your eyeballs, Jim tells him. A few days later I realized that he asked that question because when I take my contacts out and wear eyeglasses, I tell him it's because my eyes need to breathe.

Let's play the quiet game, Danny says.
QUIET GAME, Owen screams. My kids suck at this game.

Danny played a game with me the other day, I tell Aunt Jackie. What game was it, Danny?
Yahtzee. Ooooh. I like gumballs. (He had spotted a gumball machine.) Yes, he really did say all of this in the same breath. Ironically, I had mentioned the game playing to show her that his attention span was improving.

And now you know the purpose of basements, Danny, his cousin Mia says as she wraps up her 5 minute dissertation.
What? Danny says with the same blank stare he'd been giving her for the past five minutes as she explained basements.
Mia, he doesn't know what purpose means, another cousin chimes in.

Don't drink the bathwater, Fiona. Your brothers probably peed in it, I tell her.
I didn't pee, Danny replies. I farted in it. Ewwwww.

I don't know what happened, I bemoan to my sister. The two of them were playing so nicely for a few minutes. They were listening to each other's elbows [with a toy stethoscope]. Next thing I know, Fiona whacks him and he tackles her to the ground.
It's a bipolar match, she replies. Ah, yes. That explains everything.

When Nana sets her house on fire, we can come rescue her, Danny tells his sister.
Yeah, because I'm going to be a firefighter! Wait, what? Nana is going to set her house on fire??

Hey, I can put the plate on top of the pumpkin [it was actually a watermelon]. It can balance, Danny says. Five year olds havew such great ideas.

Can this plum pit grow? Danny asks.
Sure, but I think it has to be planted somewhere warmer, like California.
Where's California?
On the other side of the country.
Can we go there tomorrow?

Why do we have mouths? Danny asks after a five minute series of questions about something completely unrelated. It's at this point that I want to bang my head against the wall. Hard.

Are there a lot of mosquitoes in the world? Danny asks.

I'm closing my eyes so you can't see me, Danny says to his Nana Meehan. Right. If that worked, I'd be eating chocolate with eyes closed in front of the kids nonstop.

Mom, I passed gas upstairs. It was a fart gas. Can you smell it? Danny says from the top of the stairs.

Ew, did you pass gas, Danny?
No, Fiona might have done and it came all the way in here. Sure, that's plausible.

Why did Nana's [bike] tire get flat?
Maybe it got a hole in it.
Maybe there was too much weight on it and it went down. Nana loved that explanation.

Now, you need to behave at the gym this morning, Danny.
Why?
Because when you don't behave, it doesn't make mommy want to do nice things for you.
You want to do bad things to us?

Got poop, Owen tells his father. Check it out.

Look, dog, Owen says pointing out a picture of a dog to our dog Molly. I love how kids just think of the dog as just a furry human.

What is that noise, Owen? I ask him as he whines at me.
Me, he says. Smart ass.

Watch out. He charges, Jim warns someone as Owen hurtles toward them.

Owen. Patrick. Meehan. Come here, I say.
MEEHAN COMING, he replies as he charges toward me. This kid has linebacker written all over him.

Do babies climb walls, mom?
No, I reply.
Do they have suction cups on their hands and feet?
No. Where are you getting all this?
Dad said that babies have suction cups on their hands. Oh dear.

Found penis, Owen informs me when I come get him after his nap.
You found your penis, huh?

Penis down there, he replies. Sigh. The ladies are going to love this one.

Mom, let's go bike riding. We can scare them with our face paint power. They had just finished painting each other's faces with water colors.

Have a happy and safe 4th of July!

Shhhh. Don't tell the universe.

2012-06-28T22:59:00.002-04:00

Tonight, I blog in bed. It's been a long day. Usually I'd still be twitching after days as long as this one. The kids have been getting up at 6:30 in the morning, rendering me exhausted by 2:00 in the afternoon with at least four more hours till the relief pitcher returns.

I'm reluctant to put in writing just why I'm not still twitching. I tend to think the universe punishes me for daring to acknowledge when things seem to be maybe sort of turning a corner. For years, whenever I mentioned that one of my babies was sleeping through the night, they'd stop, sometimes for weeks at a time. And don't get me started on potty training "success" stories. One optimistic story and suddenly we're back in diapers. I've been burned. A lot.

Danny's behavioral turnaround has been nothing short of miraculous. We don't know if it's the diet, the therapy, the supplements, the different strategies or just a sudden surge of maturity that has transformed his behavior from utterly intractable to increasingly malleable.

I find myself seized by anxiety, though, when I see a familiar pattern of behavior starting: the clenched teeth, the raised voice, the menacing look, the chin. He's getting ready to go Incredible Hulk on us or his siblings or some inanimate object and I feel panic. It's like I'm shell shocked.

Today we had an all too familiar scene. Danny fell and caught his chin on the edge of a kids' table in the play area. He howled, he flipped the table and a few of the chairs, he insisted that we get rid of the table, just throw it in the garbage. I think he even kicked it.

Now usually I ask him what he was doing before he got hurt and try to make him see how his actions caused his fall. Naturally, he doesn't respond well to that. I end up sending him away to calm down because I just don't know how to deal with that level of intensity. I avoid that kind of prolonged intensity at all costs. But today was different. He's given us enough of a break from that intensity that I can now respond more calmly.

So I brought him in for a hug and just let him vent about that naughty table that made him fall and hurt his chin.

When he was done, I asked him if, instead of getting rid of the table, we could just put it in time out.

He agreed and we left the table to sit alone and think about it's hideous, irresponsible behavior. We then left to do errands.

When we returned, the table and chairs were as we left them. I asked Danny if the table could come out of time out. He agreed that it could. And then ...

He put the table and chairs back the way they were.

Who is this child? And can he please stay for a while?

Just keep moving forward

2012-06-27T23:50:00.001-04:00

The kids are finally asleep after being dosed with Melatonin. The water in the upstairs bathroom is turned off so no one can claim to be "getting a cup of water." The husband has gone up. Only the dog and I and the crickets are awake.

Earlier today I thought that if I typed quickly, maybe, just maybe I could do some blogging.The younger two were playing nicely in the backyard and the 5 year old's stream of consciousness had slowed to a trickle. It didn't last, though. They found me as soon as I sat down.

I miss blogging. I miss getting my thoughts out there. For some reason, I can only write when there's an audience, even a small one. I'm not good at talking to myself; there are too many voices in my head and I often have to tell them to just sit down and be quiet. I have a habit of hiding my struggles until I've reached an acceptable level of crazy. Because if you knew what I was really thinking a few weeks ago, you'd either back up very slowly or put me in a straight jacket. Then I remember that writing is how I process things. And lately, I've had all kinds of excuses for not writing.

Let's see ... the kids keep me busy. In fact, I devote a lot of energy lately to creative work arounds to keep Owen from peeing on every sheet, blanket and item of clothing he owns. And we're not even potty training yet. You see, he likes his penis. A lot. He rearranges it until it is no longer safely pointed down in his diaper. My final solution is just to put him to bed buck naked because I figure unfettered access might lessen the appeal. I spend the rest of the time doing laundry and feeding Owen, who now hangs on the refrigerator door and whines "Huuuuuuunnnnnnngggggggrrrrrryyyyy." And listening to Danny's stream of consciousness and keeping Fiona from annoying the boys and the dog.

Pinterest keeps me busy and not because I'm doing all the cool projects posted by moms on uppers who likely have kids on downers because, seriously, the only way I could get my kids to do any of those creative homeschool "lessons" or do any projects myself is if the little buggers were drugged. (Mostly, I just browse and pin and sometimes do a recipe or craft that takes little to no effort.) I collapse on the couch around 9 each night and get lost in all the projects I could do if I had more energy or children who don't destroy every nice thing we own.

The weather has been gorgeous. It's been like a New York summer here; in the 80s with low humidity. We've gone blueberry picking at least once a week, biking, swimming and romping in parks. Of course, tomorrow, the gates of hell will open and by this weekend, it'll be dangerously, triple digit hot.

And then there's the growing sense that my 5 year old deserves some privacy in our current struggles. He deserves to struggle and grow in privacy and have his mother show the world his best side. He's also at an age where he senses what's going on, he hears things that we whisper or even signal, he knows what our eyes say. There's a fine line, though, between respecting his privacy and pretending that everything is just fine.

It's not. And it is. And it will be. I believe all these things, usually at the same time.

This morning, I read a post on Momastery that reminded me of why I need to write, even if it seems I have nothing new or inspiring or original to say. She writes:

We gotta show ourselves when we’re all beat up and scarred, too. That’s what people need to see, much more than our shiny selves.

Exactly. I need to write because someone needs to hear what I have to say. That's not narcissistic; it's humbly placing my problems and fears before the world in the hopes of helping someone else who is struggling. Because we're all struggling somehow and seeing moms on uppers parading their shiny lives in front of us doesn't inspire us but tends to deepen our suffering and further our isolation.

Too often, though, I feel chastised for seeming to dwell on the negative when I write about the utter chaos of three children so close in age, the daily grind, the worries, the heartache, the sleepless, messy existence. I feel pressure to be positive. Being positive is such a complicated concept. I don't believe being positive means seeing the good in everything. What it really means, at least to me, is that we acknowledge the imperfect, believe in a resolution even if we don't know what it is yet and just keep moving forward.

So here's what's really going on:

My son is seeing a shrink. At the age of 5. He's an angry boy with an impulsive nature. Well, he was. Things are getting better now with just a few months of therapy, which has probably helped me more than him, and some dietary adjustments.

There is the possibility that his problems are related to environment. Really, there's nothing more annoying than 3 and 2 year old siblings; in fact, if I wasn't an adult, I might just react to the frustration the same way he does.

Diet definitely is a factor for him. We've taken him off wheat and gluten, the main protein found in wheat, barley and rye. There is research to suggest a link between ADHD and celiac disease and/or gluten sensitivity. We've noticed that if he has gluten, he has trouble with self-control and focus and hyperactivity. It takes about three or four days for the effects of gluten to wear off with him. We've tested the theory off and on since late February.

We've also added a fish oil supplement to his diet; we call it his kindergarten vitamins. Fish oil has been shown to improve behavioral control and focus in children with attention issues and was suggested to me by a neighbor.

Over the past few months, though, I have felt the most incompetent and stuck that I've ever felt as a parent. Every day was a frustrating and exhausting exercise in behavior management. Every interaction was an argument, every word I spoke to him was scolding, every fun activity turned to tears and fighting within minutes, every privilege extended turned to an argument over more privileges, every argument escalated into some threatening gesture on his part or mine. I would offer choices, he would "choose" something not offered. We would tell him to stop making noises at the table and he literally could not stop himself.

In fact, one incident started with him screaming at me to get him a bandage "RIGHT NOW" after he fell from his bike and when I refused until he spoke politely to me, he threw a rock at me.

He has been diagnosed with ADHD, but I've been skeptical since we don't know how he will behave in school. However, a few weeks ago, I decided that it didn't matter whether I think he has ADHD. One morning I described a scenario to the doctor and asked my perennial "Why does he do that?"

She replied, "Because your little boy doesn't have those extra seconds other kids have before reacting."

And my heart just sank. Maybe it was because she referred to him as "your little boy" when I had been seeing him as the 3 1/2 foot freckled monster terrorizing our house. Maybe it was because she cast him as someone who is sick and needs help, not someone who is wrong and needs correcting.

Suddenly, I had that sympathy I'd been lacking. It's a start.