Imaginassic

"Mommy, do you remember when I shot that dinosaur in real life?  When it was in the kitchen with claws and I took my toy (Nerf) gun and shot at it and it said, "Ouch, Cael!" and you gave me a timeout because I was shooting at people like I'm not 'sposed to?"

"And then the dinosaur came after me because I guess I missed it or something, so I told it to go get Graham.  And Graham was playing with the buckets in the basement, so you covered up the dinosaur with one of those big buckets so he couldn't get away?"

"And Mommy?  Mommy?  The dinosaur was red and purple with a huge green tail and it smelled really bad like Graham's diaper!  But I like green and-- hey, green is my fav'rite color!  And the dinosaur was really scary and it was real, you know?  The dinosaur had really sharp teeth like those scissors.  Not my green scissors, your grown-up scissors on the counter.  Hey!  My scissors are green like my fav'rite color, too!"

"So what are we having for breakfast?  Can we have cereal?  I want to have-- oh, that dinosaur!!!  Did you forget about the dinosaur?  I almost forgot about the dinosaur.  He wouldn't like cereal because that dinosaur only eats bugs and candy.  They don't like breakfast stuff because it's not bugs or candy.  Did you know that dinosaurs like candy?  I knew that.  I'm a genius."

"Then the dinosaur was on FIRE!  And I have a firetruck in the backyard so me and Graham are good firemans.  So we put the fire out even though it was just a pretend fire, so you don't need to be sad.  I told Graham the fire was real and he cried so I gave him a hug, but then he hit me so I told him he couldn't be a fireman anymore and he cried again."

"Graham's just not a good fireman, Mommy."

"But the dinosaur wasn't on fire anymore, so I gave him one of my wood trains and he flew away.  But now I want that train car back.  The one with the whistle, okay?  How do I get it back?"

"Mommy?"

"Cael, I'm pretty sure none of that happened."

"Yeah.  I'm pretty sure it did."

Waterworld

There's only one bad thing that can be said about a March weekend spent at an indoor waterpark.

"Cael, don't pull down your swim trunks in public!"

Okay, I guess there are two things.

The second thing is that the warm heat of an indoor park is a bit less enticing when the temperature outdoors is a balmy 82 degrees.  On any other day, I'd be spending every available moment outside, soaking up the unseasonable sunshine.  But last weekend we were happy to forego the warm March day to spend the weekend with great friends and soak up chlorinated water instead.

This trip to Grand Harbor Resort was a repeat of a trip we took two years ago when Cael was Graham's age, and Graham was a lump of belly and toes that slept almost nonstop thanks to the roar of the water and the stifling humidity inside the park itself.

Cael, on the other hand, cried incessantly at the mere thought of water in his face, let alone near his ears or in his hair.  It took more than encouragement to send him down the waterslide, or in the path of a trickle of water-- it took brute strength.

As we got settled into our river view hotel rooms this weekend, I was so hopeful that this visit would provide more actual water play, way less sleeping, fewer Little Swimmer diapers filled with "number two" and just as much laughter as the previous trip.  We dug out our swimsuits and I knew everything would be alright when Cael found a little piece of home.

"Mommy, a train.  Mommy, an engine.  Mommy, on a bridge!!"

I think it was a good omen.  Graham whipping out my bra and wearing like a flotation device?  Not recommended.

The first afternoon spent in the water was a blur.  As predicted, Cael was still very hesitant around the water and didn't want to leave the zero-grade entry and baby slide.  But Joel in his equally stubborn way wanted both of our boys to push themselves and experience the thrill of the water slides and the challenge of the lazy river, so spent most of Saturday emotionally bouncing back and forth until he finally gave in and went down the slide himself. 

"I did it!  I went down the green slide all by myself!  I'M A GENIUS!"

I'm not sure that qualifies as genius-level bravery, but I was definitely proud of him.  Meanwhile, Graham had gone solo down the slide twice, had joined a water polo team and signed up for the 2012 Olympics in London.  I think his best event will be the backstroke.  Or maybe explosive pooping.  We'll see if they get enough entrants.



The boys crashed hard that night.  I'd tucked them in under the covers with Barker and Bloose only to return from our adjoining room to find them passed out halfway through a rousing game of Twister.  I peeled them off of one another and settled into my rock hard bed for a nice night's sleep.

Right foot red.

In the morning, we had a couple of hours left in the waterpark before we had to check out of the hotel.  We spent them sliding, swimming, "hot tubbing" and inner-tubing around the lazy river before we had to head up to our room.  But before we could leave, we had to stand under the bucket.

At the top of the large climbing apparatus where the slides begin, there is a huge bucket that slowly fills with water and dumps out every eight minutes.  We had spent much of the trip avoiding the bucket dump, because getting caught under it meant losing your footing, losing a contact, or possibly losing your swimsuit.  But since we'd taken advantage of everything else the park had to offer, it was a good send-off from the Grand Harbor Resort.  And probably a guarantee that Cael never sets foot in water again.

After a nice lunch, it was time to return home and to the crazy March heat.  In the car with full bellies and their stuffed friends, Cael and Graham once again lost their battle with sleep.


We had a wonderful time with great friends, and we truly felt like we'd filled our spring break with activities that we can look back on to keep us fulfilled until summer.  From our visit with Joel's brother Seth to our waterpark adventure, it's been a great spring break, and I have no regrets.

But does this look like a waterslide to you?

Supermommy

I've always had this habit of getting really drawn into different tv series after they've gone off the air, forcing me to DVR any and all episodes that come on regardless of the order and disrupted story arc.  But who's kidding, it's difficult to follow a series in twelve minute chunks between diaper changes, time-outs, and dislodging Buzz Lightyear from the microwave.  So I've made it work through my belated interest in "Sex and the City", "House", "What Not to Wear", and my latest featured program, "Supernanny".

In case you haven't seen the Supernanny work her magic, let me share with you the basic premise of the show.  The Supernanny, Jo Frost, comes to the rescue of families with screaming, aggressive kids that won't eat or sleep just when they are the brink of divorce or spontaneous combustion.  She teaches them about consistency, discipline, and how to construct wire snares using only pipe cleaners.

Okay, so I might have made up that last part.  But with two kids under five, it really would be a helpful skill.  Maybe I'll write a letter.

Once the Supernanny has completed her time with a family, the children are transformed, the parents happier, and the relationships between everyone involved are transformed.

I was sold.

So about two weeks ago, I decided to give it a real try.  We used her timeout technique with detailed steps:

1)  Give a warning.
2)  Take the child to the timeout spot.
3)  At eye level, explain why the child is in timeout.
4)  Set timer and walk away (1 minute per year old).  Don't speak during the timeout.
5)  After time is up, explain again (at eye level) what the timeout was for.
6)  Make them apologize, give hug and kiss.

 I knew that it would be a good change to have specified steps for timeout rather than me shouting, "Go to your room!" and watching Cael huff down the stairs where he would turn on Netflix and watch Mad Men (yes, really) or rearrange the photos in my childhood albums until enough time had passed that I wouldn't notice when reemerged from the basement.

It's a good thing Jo didn't ever mentor our family.  During that first four-minute timeout, Cael single-handedly redefined the rules.

1)  Choose which infraction is most offensive and/or annoying, and warn that repeating it will definitely result in a timeout.
2)  When the crime is committed again within 45 seconds, drag the child to the timeout corner.
3)  Put a vice grip on the child's head to force them to look at you as you remind them of what they've done.
4)  Set timer for 4 minutes and gather up earplugs as you try mightily to ignore the pleas for release.  Meanwhile, all other children in a one mile radius will be drawn to the exiled child like moths to a flame, so it is somewhat successful to bribe them away with the promise of candy.  Know, however, that giving them candy and eventually cutting off the supply will result in you needing to give timeouts to each of those children as well.  Parenting is nothing if not a cycle.
5)  Once the allotted time has passed, remind the children of the atrocities they've committed and pray that your child doesn't laugh about it they way mine does.
6)  Keep them contained in the corner like you're blocking a 7-foot tall basketball player until they give you a heartfelt apology.  Or grab your chest and make a honking sound. 

It's obvious that our first attempts weren't "textbook", or if they were, they were drawn from the pages of a parenting "what NOT to do" book that sits dustily on the shelves of your local library.  But since that first day, we've noticed some really positive changes in our boys.  When we talk, they know we mean business.  When we send them to a timeout, we can monitor what is actually taking place.  And we get to overhear conversations like, "Bloose, I warned you not to be blue, but you stayed blue anyway.  Now you have to sit in a timeout for FOUR minutes."

"There."

"I put you in a timeout because you were still blue.  Are you going to keep being blue?  No?  Good.  Now give me a hug and a kiss and tell me you're sorry."

I guess we're doing something right. 

"Now come on, Bloose.  Let's go shoot Graham!"

Does anyone know if "Nanny 911" is still on the air?

Anatomy of a Phobia

I hate bees.

Photo taken here

Or wasps. Yellow jackets, hornets... you name it, I loathe it.  But maybe my feelings go beyond hatred and enter phobic territory.  If I see one of those black and yellow harbingers of terror, I drop whatever I'm doing (for their sake, pray I'm not tending to my children) and run toward water, liquor, or any substance that promises to either protect me from the dreaded stinger or dull my emotions enough that I no longer care.

One thing I don't understand, however, is how this phobia started.  I have never been stung and --excuse me while I knock on a big freakin' piece of wood-- have managed to prevents stings on my boys in the summers as well.

But while my buzzing paranoia is unfounded, I've witnessed the evolution of Cael's fear, and it's totally legit.  The kid isn't frightened of monsters, or aliens or even train derailments.  He's terrified of being run over by a car.

You would too, if your brother took you out with one.

On one of our first "summer in March" days spent frolicking in the yard, the boys reacquainted themselves with the John Deere Gator and toured the yard from the vantage point of their battery-powered automobile.  They whizzed past the firetruck, looped around the basketball hoop and parked the tractor in the corner as they explored the farthest recesses of the lawn.

When Cael and Graham determined that they should scour the yard for the sticks most capable of battling vicious dinosaurs, they needed to enlist the help of the Gator to haul their weaponry before the sparring began.

They ran as fast as their little legs could carry them.

Cael took the lead, always hoping to reach the driver's seat before Graham, who has not yet mastered the pedals and steering.

I diverted my attention briefly to my nephews, who were enjoying a rousing game of football, before I noticed that something was wrong.

Cael was suspiciously absent.  Had he scaled a tree in search of a larger branch?  Had he made a U-turn and headed toward the house to steal cookies and wreak unimaginable havoc?

Just as I set down the camera to attempt a cookie interception, I heard it.  It was quiet at first, then growing in urgency.

"MOMMMMMMYYYYY!"

But he was nowhere in sight.  Graham sat in the driver's seat of the Gator which he'd rallied up against the fence slightly, and craned his neck to locate Cael's screams.

"Graham drove over Cael!"  Joel shouted as he reached the scene of the crime.

As I watched helplessly, Joel pulled the vehicle back to reveal Cael's traumatized face much like pulling back the sheets from a bed.  And even though nothing but his ego was injured, his expression told me that a phobia had been created in that moment.

That and a good case for attempted vehicular homicide.

I hope his young age and resilience will help him to overcome this anxiety and not prevent him from living a full and happy life.  Who wants to spend a lifetime overcome with fear?

.....bbzzzzzzz.....

I guess I do.  You're on your own, Cael.

The Yellow Shoe Diaries

Hi there!  My name is Courtenay and I am another red-haired Eastern Iowa mama!

Miss Mary (who is not contrary) and I were co-workers during the long summer of 2007 when we were both pregnant, she with her first (the one-and-only Cael) and me with my second (the unforgettable Violet).  That was a long, hot summer, wasn't it?  Ugh... I remember insisting that we buy a family pool pass so that I could plop down in the zero deck and let my two-year-old Milo exhaust himself running circles around me.  I didn't even care how huge I looked, sitting in that water was a life saver!

Me pregnant with Violet

Little did I know then how huge life (and my uterus) would get.  We welcomed twin girls to our family last April.  And I was a heee-yuge pregnant woman, measuring 56cm the week the twins were born.  Yes, that is a fact - I measured a year and a month pregnant.

The day the twins were born - how nice of me to strike the same pose so you can really compare!

So, if you're paying attention, you find my kid count to be four, with three-quarters of my brood female.  My poor husband fell into a chair upon learning the news we were having twins - he saw his retirement vanish at the thought of three weddings when he found out the twins were both girls.  I also chided him, reminding him that when Milo goes to college,  he'll be at home with three teenage girls and a menopausal wife - lucky fella, eh?

As good as it gets taking a Christmas pic of four wiggly kids

What does having a house full of girls mean?  PINK.  Pink clothes, pink shoes, pink backpacks, pink toys, pink books, pink bowls, pink headbands, pink everything.  Because, like, you know, girls only like pink.

Except for Violet - her favorite color is yellow.  And all she wanted for her fourth birthday was a pair of yellow shoes.  Hello, marketers, did you hear that?  YELLOW, not PINK.

Do you think I could find yellow shoes in September?

I found exactly one pair and they were foam-soled sandals with a tight elastic band to go around her heel.  In other words, worthless for school.  No one can run and play wearing foam-soled sandals and the weather cooled off quickly enough that she was trying to wear them with tights to preschool.  Yeah, that didn't work.  Her narrow little feet slid right off the front of the sandal beause without the friction of a bare foot to stop it, the elastic strap pushed her lil tootsie so far forward that her toes were hanging off.  Poor girl got to wear them about three times before it was impossible.



But this year, Grandma Shoe remembered.  There will be a pair of sneakers with yellow flowers waiting in her Easter basket.  Grandma Shoe is my mom, who has a small thing for shoes, an addiction that skipped a generation and took hold of my tiny daughter.  Her name is really Sue, but a toddler Violet mispronounced it and called her Grandma Shoe, which, well... if the shoe fits...

Special thanks to Mary, whose tales entertain daily!  Humor is a fantastic quality for a parent to have, and she's got it in spades!  Huzzah!


If you liked Courtenay's post, be sure to visit her blog!  And while you're there, check out the links to all of the other places she posts regularly!

The Real Life

If you live in the Midwest like I do, you know that we are in the middle of an unreal string of amazing weather-- temperatures in the low 70's, sunshine, light breeze, and every ounce of my being is shouting, "SPRING!".  I wholly welcome this shift because it is at this time that I always feel invigorated and drawn to get out of the house, exercise more, and get my oversized rear off the sofa.

Monday night was my last "hurrah".  I celebrated the unofficial end of winter by camping out in front of the television and numbing my brain with the official end of The Bachelor.  Now before you judge me for my choices, let's put things into perspective.  I don't go out drinking, I don't wear revealing clothing and I certainly don't abuse or otherwise mistreat my children, so I think that spending two hours out of my week watching a greasy-haired man make truly appalling dating choices is acceptable, even necessary.  All mothers of high-maintenance children need a break, and if I am able to find respite in poor quality reality television and not in illicit drugs, more power to me.

(Soapbox dismount.)

Photo courtesy of ABC - The Bachelor

For those of you unfamiliar with the Bachelor, let me give you a very brief and formulaic synopsis:  One man (Ben) goes on weekly dates to slowly and painfully lead on and eventually, emotionally scar twenty-some women, until he has narrowed the pool down to two.  Throughout the process, otherwise intelligent women are led to make statements like, "You know, jumping off of a cliff (or into a crater, or out of a plane) is kind of like a relationship.  You simply have to trust that your partner will be there for you to catch you when you fall."  This season, Ben chose and proposed to Courtney, the "Black Widow"-- a manipulative and unlikeable woman, but a model and therefore prettier enough to overlook her character flaws.  After the finale show was over, we were subjected to an additional hour of follow-up programming to confirm that she is, indeed, manipulative and unlikeable.  I turned off the television and felt, more than ever, that as the seasons have shifted, I too, am ready to usher in a new phase of the year.

So the next day, I went for a walk.  I saw tulips leaping out of the ground and kids playing hopscotch.  (I thought maybe I'd slipped into a wormhole and back to 1986, but it was still 2012.  Who knew.)  I saw so many things, in fact, that I remembered how entertaining life can be when the reality television finally gets switched off and the real life gets switched back on.

Not "The Real World".  Real life.

Take, for example, the group of five or six 10 year-olds in the park passing around a can of pop.  It reminded me of when I was little and my friends and I would stop by the local bar to buy bottles of orange or purple soda and drink them on the sidewalk as the sun baked our shoulders.  I smiled fondly until later when I thought more about it and realized that the kids were drinking an ancient Zima.  Even that was funny until a quick search on my phone revealed that Zima was not alcohol-free as I'd always thought.

When I'd completed my loop, however, the youthful boozers were gone and the only sounds in the park were my own feet clomping along on the pavement.  Clomp, clomp, clomp... THWAP!  The sidewalk that was serving as my track was covered in tiny pebbles from the playground, thrown from their intended location by sugar-riddled children jumping and climbing on the train-shaped equipment, or maybe launched by pre-teen boys in a semi-alcohol induced daze.  Either way, my Nikes couldn't find traction on the tiny stones and I slid, nearly wiped out, and even slammed hip-first into a parked car.

Karma for not chewing out the Zima boys?  Perhaps.  But it definitely put a slight damper on my walk about town.  I was embarrassed, a little sore, and longing for a cold drink and the couch when I saw him.  Or her.  I don't really know.  Regardless of gender, it was clear that I had encountered the laziest and most winter-drained squirrel in the entire state of Iowa.

First of all, he was the size of a football, and similarly shaped.  But the best part was his posture, the squirrel sitting in a human-like position.  Not legs crossed, or on his side, instead this rodent was sitting upright but slouched, not unlike the position I take as I settle in for a Bachelor fix every Monday night.  He was so subdued that I inched closer and closer to him to snap a photo until, at only two or three feet away, he finally waddled over to a nearby stump and collapsed against it.

Motivation problem solved.

When I returned home, I was left to ponder the strangeness that was my afternoon walk.  What were the odds that I'd experience all of those strange happenings in one day?  But you know, kids drinking Zima (or walking into a parked car, or disrupting a squirrel in a blasé mood) is kind of like life.  You simply have to trust that at the end of the day, you'll still have the motivation to just keep walking.

Until May, that is.  Everyone ready for the Bachelorette?

Breaking for Spring

It's Spring Break!

And who needs Daytona Beach when you have sunshine...

Budding trees...

And a John Deere Gator recently released from the impound?

We're loving the time off and amazing weather (ahem, except for today) but more importantly, we're enjoying the opportunity to spend time as a family and welcome Joel's brother for a visit.  So in honor of Spring Break, I'm taking a couple of days off but will be back on Wednesday, likely with a report of how Cael managed to hogtie Uncle Seth and torture him for secrets. 

Watch your back, Seth.

Also make sure you tune in on Thursday, when my friend and fellow mom-blogger Courtenay will be guest-posting.  Courtenay was recently selected to be one of the "Real Moms of Eastern Iowa", a take on the Real Housewives television series but without all of the Botox.  When she's not being "real" she can be found posting on her own blog, so feel free to check her out and come back on Thursday to check her out!

I hope you enjoy the next two days as well, and I hope it's warm and sunny where you are.  But no matter the weather, I hope you have fun.

See you Wednesday!