Problem Child

So, I was embracing our new routine, all ready to start on the next few years of Aaron being in school while Harper's at home, figuring out how to spend our time. I was thinking of what I'd write for blog posts, maybe something about how I got totally immersed in teenage vampire love stories, or how I got even more immersed in reading bloggers who summarize teenage vampire love stories. Maybe I'd write about my new goal to perfect the application of self tanner, so that my friend Cindy doesn't look at my streaky ankles, shake her head, and sigh.

But then, after a solid three days at school, I got an email from Aaron's kindergarten teacher. Here's an excerpt:

Im sorry to bother you on a Tuesday evening, but I wanted to bring something to
your attention. As we are transitioning in the building (mainly as we are coming
in from playground) Aaron i having issues keeping his hands to himself. On
Friday we had a minor pushing incident and today Aaron was pushing and hitting
the boy in front of him. When i speak with him he can tell me that his hands
belong to himself but he struggles with doing so. Can you please speak with him
about this? I don't him or anyone else to get hurt.

Isn't that nice? And in the two days since that email, Aaron has contined to not only push and hit other kids, but he's escalated his desired target number, since today I asked how many kids he hit/ pushed, and his estimate was "probably ten". And it's not like I'm not addressing it; short of medicating him prior to getting on the bus, I am at a complete and total loss, to say nothing of being so angry and humiliated I could scream. He's currently sitting in his room while I grit my teeth and try to take deep breaths.

Kindergarten is totally kicking my ass.

First Day!

So, Aaron's First Day of School. It only took me a week to recover.

Let me just say, this whole First Day of School thing hit me way harder than I thought it would, because it's not like I've never been away from the boy. He's been in daycare part time for the past three years- I thought I'd breeze right through this thing and do cartwheels all the way back from the bus stop because I don't have to fork out a mortgage payment in childcare anymore. Instead, I became a completely unhinged mess.

I'm blaming this on outside factors, though. We woke up on First Day of School day and it was pouring rain, so I figured not having a raincoat for my kid was as good a reason as any to berate myself and feel crappy about how I was sending him off into the world. I tried to recover by letting him take his umbrella, until at the last minute I tested him and realized he didn't know how to open or close his umbrella on his own, so all I could picture was this pitiful image of him standing on the bus, unable to get off because his umbrella was permanently opened. Or standing in the pouring rain, shivering and sobbing with an umbrella stuck in the closed position (a little dramatic license there, since it was about 88 degrees outside). I was starting to list my other worries that morning, and realized I might just overload Blogger if I detailed all of them, so suffice to say I found anything and everything to worry myself about, and I worried well.

So we walked to the bus stop where one of my neighbors asked Aaron "which room are you going to?", and I had a panic attack right then and there.

"He's supposed to go to a specific room? Am I supposed to know that room? Was I supposed to tell him what room? I don't remember seeing anything with a room number on it. When did you get this room information? Was it in official correspondence? Should I run back to my house right now and look through my meticulously documented file of official school correspondence?"

And Linda, my awesomely relaxed neighbor (who just today decreed Friday Bus Arrival as our new happy hour), realized I was in the middle of a meltdown and put on her happy relaxed voice saying "No! No. I'm sure it's fine. There are a million adults all over, they'll tell him exactly where he needs to go." So I sat there adding to my panic while I see Linda quietly ask her 3rd grade daughter "Hey, Grace? Can you watch out for Aaron and make sure he gets to where he needs to go? Walk him to his class or something?" And all I could hear was the unspoken "Because Sara's such a dolt that she didn't manage to give her kid an umbrella or a rain jacket, so how could we possibly trust her to make sure her child finds the right room at kindergarten, and clearly an 8 year old is far more trustworthy than this imbecile".

Anyhow, Aaron got on the bus just fine and was thrilled, and after he left you can't find any witnessess that can verify that I left the bus stop a sobbing mess. And I may or may not have driven past the school, circling the perimeter to make sure he wasn't wandering around outside in the rain. And I may or may not have hunted down a raincoat for him to have on hand in a city that's had about a 10 year drought.

After school, he was telling me about his day as I lured him with sugar so he wouldn't leave me and go out and play, and I asked (because I've been his mom for a long time now) "Did you get in any trouble today?"

"Just one time out!" (Seriously, he was proud of it)

"Time out!? On the FIRST DAY?! What happened?!"

"Well, the teacher kept asking me to stop yelling." (I TOLD YOU SO, internet! See? Even trained professionals can't get through the day!)

"She asked you to stop yelling, and then what?"

"So then I told her 'I'LL GIVE IT A NICKEL TRY!'"

Of course. I mean, of COURSE that's what he said (yelled) in response to someone asking him not to yell. I blame this on Jason, because I like to avoid accepting any blame for anything at any time. Jason finds these weird documentaries on TV and Tivos them for Aaron, including a recent one named "Tougher In Alaska" or something like that. I don't know what it's about, just that it involves trains (and tough things. And Alaska, duh), and that since Aaron's been watching it at least twice a day, his voice and cadence have kind of changed, so when he starts reciting monologues from this documentary he's a perfect imitation of the narrator, who sounds exactly like Hulk Hogan crossed with a stoned surfer. (I know you can't fathom what that sounds like, but if you saw it, you'd say "that is EXACTLY what that guy sounds like!") Anyhow, that's where he got the "nickel try" thing from, and even though it's actually used as a cheerful affirmative in some tough(er) part of Alaska, unfortunately for Aaron, his teacher is from Pennsylvania, where that crap (apparently) just doesn't fly. Especially at his volume.

Anyhow, he did great last week, and I was a basket case of nerves at both him going off into the real world and realizing, for the first time in YEARS, I have a real, actual schedule to keep in the morning. Like, hitting the snooze alarm just cost me 30 minutes in missing the bus and dropping Aaron off at school, as opposed to "feh, I'll just call daycare and have them hold Aaron's breakfast, and I'll work through lunch or whatever". Ack! Then add in all of the open houses, volunteer requests, schedule coordinating, homework, lunch packing, and bus-meeting, and I'll be honest- Aaron is totally prepared, but I can't vouch that *I'm* mature enough for kindergarten.

Sunrise, Sunset

Harper got her final lab results back, and the results are that she's apparently won the staph lottery, and that her two boils in 6 weeks were just sheer dumb luck, and not MRSA, which is somehow really good news.

But do you know what happened today? Well, I mean aside from us all being in the car and Harper sagely yelling, apropos of nothing, "Everyone has nipples!"?

I got a pop-up on my Outlook. (I use a PC. Don't be a hater.) And my pop-up was kindly reminding me of Aaron's first day of KINDERGARTEN, on TUESDAY, which I am clearly not prepared for. I mean, he has all of the gear. It's stuff that can be bought at Target- of course he's prepared in that sense. But I don't understand how this little monkey that I'm still getting used to is ready to go out and start the world kind of on his own. I feel a little Tevye, and can't believe this is the little boy at play. I didn't really comprehend how quickly all of this was going to happen after I gave birth. I feel like I never even mastered infant carseats; how can we be on to teacher assignments and school bus schedules? This is all going by entirely too fast and I can't keep up.

I am willing to admit that part of me is very, very ready for him to start school. He and Harper are like gasoline and a match together, and I'm looking forward to some one on one time with the little diva. I mean, Aaron and I had three exclusive years together, and I haven't ever had that with her. Similarly, I haven't had any alone time with Aaron since Harper's been born. But since she's in daycare a few days a week, that means once he gets off the bus on those days, he's all mine, without any sibling rivalry to contend with. (And I'm not even going to mention the huge cut in our daycare bill, which has, for the past couple of years, been significantly larger than our mortgage.)

But another part of me realizes that this is it- this is the start of the greased slide that is childhood. I've listened to other parents- I know it just goes faster and faster, and while I can't see that at all when I'm in the thick of it, I recognize how quickly these 5 1/2 years have gone, and know I'm rapidly closing in on him not being my baby anymore. Right now he gives hugs with gusto and abandon, kisses us on the mouth, and does everything he can to be close to us and emulate Daddy. Just this past week he decided he wasn't going to sleep with a shirt on anymore, because Daddy doesn't. I tried to remind him that Daddy also eats broccoli and chews with his lips together, but Aaron's picking and choosing which parts of Jason he's going to try on for size, and broccoli doesn't seem high on the list. He's really divine. You can see him have his internal struggles with how to behave, and he clearly knows right from wrong, and the clincher is that the behavior that makes me most insane is when he's obviously imitating...me. He's a mouthy kid, but he came by that honestly.

I was talking with Jason's mom (Hi, Sharon!) a couple of weeks ago about digital cameras. She recently switched from film to digital, and part of her was a little disconcerted at the idea. I was trying to sell her on it because of the immediate feedback- you take a picture, you know what worked and what didn't, and you can readjust. And the hardest part of this parenting thing is that I have no idea of what the result will be. I don't know if my parenting will turn him into a serial killer or a sweet, kind person. There is no adjusting for poor exposure. There is no immediate feedback on whether your shot is accurate and clear, or if you've gotten everything horribly out of focus and framed everything entirely wrong. Getting the film back on this will take years- decades! At that point the film's been taken, and there's no going back, so I really hope I'm doing this right, because I'm completely winging it. But for one last day, he's still my little baby.


Aaron, 4 mos.

Boil Watch 2008, Redux

Just briefly, I talked with a nurse today about Harper's lab results. Her new abcess came back as a staph infection, but apparently not MRSA (thankyouJesus). The nurse was far less informed about the difference between staph/ MRSA than I was; you'd think she didn't have Google or something. So in addition to that being the only information I got from her, I also got no viable information regarding whether this was just a freak coincidence (two boils in a month and a half? Come on!) or a sign of a more serious problem, or what. There is another culture I'm waiting for to come back tomorrow that will give us more information as to this being MRSA vs. staph. I don't know why, since the woman I talked to was so clueless, but for some reason I got a good feeling that tomorrow wouldn't show anything unexpected. Maybe it was just because she was so happy in her cluelessness that it gave me a happy feeling, too. If I didn't have Google, I'd be happier, too, and not the boo-hooing mess one might have seen yesterday as I was Googling "toddler MRSA".

So keep thinking happy thoughts and keeping crossables crossed. Her abcess now is definitely under control (at least, it sure looks that way), so I've got that going for me. And if she'd stop erupting, I could even move on to Aaron's last day of daycare (today). Poor Aaron.

Lather, Rinse, Repeat

Writing this blog has taught me how completely formulaic my life is. Each day is basically a limited multiple choice.

"Today we:

A. went to Target.

B. went to the doctor.

C. went to the pool.

While we were there, my kids:

A. behaved miserably.

B. did something funny or particularly cute and poignant.

C. humiliated me.

And at the end of it, :

A. I felt kind of depressed about being a parent, and that this job is harder than it should be.

B. got a funny anecdote to share with the internet and use to embarrass them in the future.

C. learned a valuable lesson about myself which I will hopefully grow from."

See how easy it is? Just use the above formula, and you can either write my next blog post, or maybe make bets with yourself about which of the above scenarios will play out on any given day.

Today?

Today we went to the doctor. While we were there, my kids behaved miserably. At the end of it, I felt kind of depressed about being a parent, and that this job is harder than it should be.

It wouldn't have been *that* bad, but Harper has been feeling lousy and has bad memories from her boil experience, so she kind of freaks out now. So now that she's developed another boil (abcess) in her leg that they had to drain in the office, it was pretty much a downhill slide. They're culturing it to see if it's just a regular staph infection or MRSA, and I should know in a few days. I don't have any great way to sum this up, I'm just worried and feeling badly for my little bunny. If you're the praying type I wouldn't mind if you sent a few out her way.

Bathing Beauty

I read somewhere once that if your kids don't humiliate you at least once a day, then you're not getting your money's worth. There is no question that my kids were a bargain in that department, because if we leave the house, I'm guaranteed at least two public humiliations, and that's on a slow day.

We were at the pool today and the kids were fine, but the longer we're there, the sassier Harper gets. Eventually she was spending an average of two minutes in Time Out for every one minute she was in the pool. While she was sitting next to me right by the pool edge, she was amusing herself doing whatever; I wasn't really paying attention since I was watching Aaron. At least, I wasn't paying attention until a little girl about 6 or 7 walks out of the pool, looks at Harper, and makes a face that would lead one to believe she had seen something unpleasant. And I look at Harper and realize that she has barfed up the gallon of pool water she had consumed, as well as the lunch she had eaten shortly beforehand. And it's all down her stomach and crotch, all over the chair, and all over the pool deck.

Hoo, boy, let me tell you, you haven't LIVED until you get the opportunity to wrangle a towel out from under your soggy (and, of course, dirty diapered) toddler and get on your hands and knees wiping up vomit from concrete, calling over your five year old because you have to get out of there RIGHT NOW. Because as other pool moms know, when someone barfs in the pool, the entire thing is shut down for an hour and everyone has to get out, which makes you not very popular at all. Since no barf had actually gotten into the water, I don't know how it would have been handled, but I didn't particularly want to find out. So I wiped up the barf and took Senorita Soggy Stink and Captain Yell and hightailed it out of there and didn't notify a single authority, because the only thing that could have made this more humiliating was me having to tell the perpetually bored and annoyed 17 year old lifeguard that we had a vomit issue that needed to be addressed.

At least let me defend the dirty diaper- I didn't *know* it was dirty, it must have happened while she was in time out, maybe in the midst of all of puking (that I wasn't paying attention to. Where's that mother of the year application again?) Clearly, though, that wasn't the time to deal with it; we needed to make a speedy exit, not get caught in the locker room where we would have potentially been lynched if the pool was, in fact, closed. Thank heavens we live just a couple of miles from the pool, because by the time this diaper got home, I was hanging my head out the window and gagging, and I rationalized that while I had committed a parenting sin by running out on public puke, my penance was addressing that diaper (and I'm not going to go into details, but any parent who has dealt with swim diapers should understand the mechanics of the nastiness I was dealing with).

So, you might want to wait until it rains to visit our pool. Or at the very least, wear your shoes on the pool deck. I'm sorry for the situation, but I know if I had to do it over again, I'd make the same coward choice, so my apologies to anyone who runs into my kids and their blinder-wearing, rationalizing mother.

Milestone

Well, lookie-loo. Seems to me if I put enough Pop-Tarts on the bottom shelf of the pantry, I'm done needing a babysitter, right?

So that she knows one day when she reads back, I made the same ridiculous fuss for her that I did for her brother. Never have my children been so happy to hear me scream. And do a tinkle dance. And offer jellybeans. She's so Harper she actually told me "Mommy, you say 'Way to go, Harper!'" And I promise I did. With a song and a dance, and lots of squealing and clapping. And maybe a little mental spending of my current diaper money.

Selective Memory

Last summer we had a severe drought, and trying to be a responsible eco-citizen, I told Aaron precisely once "if it's just tinkle, don't flush it". Once! I realized as soon as the words came out of my mouth that it would create more problems than it was worth to save a few gallons of water, so I told him "nevermind that, just flush every time". He hears "please keep lips together when you chew" forty times a day and hasn't mastered it, but he sure clung to that "don't flush it" suggestion.

My apologies in advance to whatever you might find in our toilets if you should visit.

Safety Dance

To Whom it May Concern:

I am writing to submit this video clip, filmed in the spring, to accompany my application for "Mother of the Year". This is to prove completion of the "Provides Safe Play Activities Not Including Television" subcategory. Additional qualifications will be submitted as completed.

Sincerely,

Aaron & Harper's Mom

Rude Awakening

Jason and I went on vacation last week, and it was decadent. Our itinerary included eating, drinking, and sleeping. If we got to see some of the city we were visiting, that was fine, too, but mostly we wanted to enjoy being kid-free for a minute. Just driving there and having silence in the car was relaxing beyond measure, and it got better from there.

While we were there, I told him "I can't imagine what I'm going to write about when we get back. Nobody humiliated me or infuriated me, I didn't yell at anyone, I didn't have to deal with anyone else's fecal matter, how deliciously boring!" (To which he replied "The weekend's not over yet!")

And then we got home and picked up the kids. Before we even left my sister's house, where they had been staying (thanks, Kara!), there were at least 3 fights between them. By the time we got them to the car, it was pure chaos, and we hadn't even gotten home and started the unpacking yet. Jason's and my vacation bliss melted away rapidly under a steady barrage of crying and bickering among the littles.

When Jason and I started dating, like everyone else, we were in "put your best foot forward" mode. We were probably in our first year of marriage before he became aware that my toenails don't naturally grow out shiny and pink, and maybe the second or third year before I decided that shaving my legs every day during the winter was far more effort than shaving them once a week (or less). Everyone's been there- you just get more comfortable with your partner, and let down more of your guard about what a real slob you are underneath it all. When I got pregnant with Aaron, I was a little embarrassed about the new issues that pregnancy brings up that aren't exactly modest, but Jason was always fine with everything, or at least he pretended to not be horrified by my constant burping and chewing on Tums and the sixty-five pound weight gain (thanks, Dairy Queen!) The only thing that was really making me nervous was the actual delivery. I mean, if you have a shred of dignity, I think we can all agree that you can package that up and throw it right out the window when it comes to giving birth. In the end, of course, everything went fine. He was not traumatized by the sight of our children being born (so he maintains), and it just became another experience that we shared. We thought that was it- that's as bonded as you can get, right?

What I did not realize at the time, is that your partner seeing you give birth isn't nearly as revealing as your partner seeing the way you parent. I think that's when the real guard comes down; the last frontier of facade is destroyed. Giving birth is just biology; any grownup involved knows you don't really have any control over it. Yelling at your kids, or getting fed up to the point where a bedtime story is just more than you feel like dealing with, or putting them in front of the TV all day because it mutes the arguing- those are real tests of who you are, and I fail those tests more frequently than I'd like to admit. They tell Jason a lot more about me (and vice versa) than me admitting that I'm perfectly happy to use the dryer as my clothes closet to avoid folding anything.

When Aaron was first born, that shock to our marriage was so difficult to deal with that I wasn't sure we'd make it to Aaron's first birthday together. But we did, and while I can't say that parenting has gotten any easier since then, our marriage certainly did once we realized that we're a team. Sometimes one of us has to come in and relieve the other one when we're at a breaking point. We spend a lot of our time on the weekends separately running errands with one kid, our "divide and conquer" method. We sit on the porch at night and commiserate about the day, or laugh about the funny stuff the kids did. We're starting to figure out how to work with each other's strong points, and when the other person needs help. By no means do we have this perfected, and it's been a long road, to say the least. But there's no question that there's been a lot of soul-baring in the past 6 years- some of it I'm proud of, some of it not, that we would never have had to reveal to the other person if we hadn't had kids. I didn't know half of these things about myself before becoming a mom; I can only imagine how surprised Jason must have been.

At this point, the only secret I've got left is my natural hair color. I'm keeping that one until I think he's ready for it.