Caelism of the Day

"Mommy?"

"Yeah?"

"Why do I have tiny cheekers and you have such a big bottom?"

"Gee thanks, Cael.  Yours is tiny because you're still a boy.  Mine is bigger because I'm a grown up."

"But it's really big!"

"Yes, I know.  I'm working on it."

"But why is it SO big?"

"Because I eat too much unhealthy food and I had two babies."

"No, that's not it."

"It's not?  Then why is it big?"

"Because.  That's where you keep the coal.  Toot toot!"

Trains = 1, Mommy = 0.

You Are What You Eat

Can a four-year old live off of french toast sticks?  I mean, I know that they will sustain him, but about how many years would it take before he'd have a heart attack or collapse under the weight of all of that syrup?  Ten?  Twenty?

I think Cael would be the first to sign up for that experiment.  Lately he has been shunning nearly every food I place in front of him and the little bit of nourishment I manage to encourage down his throat is only swallowed in order to earn his daily treat from our Advent train. 

"Mommy, I want my 'today treat'!"

"You have to eat some more of your sandwich and peas first." 

"How many peas do I have to eat?"

"I want you to try to finish them, but just do your best."

"I think I can only eat two."

"I think you can do better than that." 

"Fine.  I'm gonna tell you this.  I'll eat three peas." 

Do three peas fulfill one's daily vegetable intake?

Now, more than ever, I need to change up the kids' lunches.  We seem to cycle between the same tired meals, simply choosing a protein from column A, a vegetable from column B and a grain or starch from column C, with fruit for dessert.  And while that may seem like a pretty healthy formula, health means nothing if your kid opts to use his spoon to catapult said peas into your cleavage.

So the timing was perfect when a package sent by Bamma (Joel's mom) arrived with Christmas presents for the boys as well as a little something for Joel and me.  My gift was a book called "Insanewiches", jam-packed with creative spins on lunches and artistic ways to present meals to make them fun for kids and adults alike.

Right up my alley.

I knew the ideas in the book would reinvigorate our boring old lunches.  I fantasized that Cael and Graham would squeal with delight as they phoned one another from their mobile phonewiches.


I daydreamed about squares of ham stacked into an edible Rubic's cube.

I imagined the wide-eyed excitement on the boy's faces as they saw the delicious--

--What?!?

In the middle of an otherwise wonderfully creative collection of super-mommy ideas, was a recipe so repulsively bizarre that it would force any child to revert back to the most basic tenets of pickiness.  I could immediately imagine the dinnertable conversation.

"Mommy, what are we having for lunch?"

"It's called 'The Breakfast Club'."

"But this isn't breakfast time!  What is in it?"

"Oh, it's delicious.  First I take four waffles and layer them between bacon, lettuce, turkey and cheese.  You like cheese, right?  Then I put a big, drippy scoop of ice cream on top of the stack and pin a green olive on top.  And if you haven't thrown up on your train bib yet, I drizzle the top with maple syrup.  And on the side, I like to use a whole sack of potato chips with a bowl of mayonnaise for dipping.  You know, in case you were having trouble pooping on your own!"

"I want french toast sticks."

Aside from "The Breakfast Club-Me-Over-The-Head", it was a fun gift and I am looking forward to using a lot of the ideas in the book to put some of the creativity back into our food.  And if nothing else fails, I can always make "The French Toast Flagwich".

Hail to the chief cause of heart disease.

Say What?

As all mothers know, there are a lot of things to "expect" while you're "expecting".  Unfortunately, there are an equal number of unexpected nuggets of parenthood that creep out of the recesses of family life.  For example, I never knew that, coming from a pretty polite upbringing, I'd spend much of my day documenting my children's bodily fluids or trying, hopelessly, to argue the merits of good manners to a child that wants nothing more than to cram his chicken nuggets into the coal bin of a steam engine.

But even more unexpected are the bizarre and foreign phrases that come out of my own mouth.  I say things that would have shocked me ten years ago.  I say things that I don't always mean.  But mostly, I say things that just plain don't make sense.

"Pee does NOT go in the trash can."

"Never poke the kitty in the bottom with a drumstick."

Or most recently,

"Cael!  Don't use Jesus to shoot your brother."

Is this the kind of sentence spoken in the homes of regular people with polite upbringings?  Somehow I doubt it.  But it did happen, and I will do my best to explain why. 

It all started with Pocahontas.  I innocently DVRed the Disney movie when Joel had stomach flu and I was relegated to the couch with Cael.  After several hours of "they're two, they're four, they're six they're eight..." I had to listen to something else, and convinced Cael to munch on some popcorn and watch the story of Pocahontas with me.

 I, however, had forgotten all of the details of the movie and unintentionally introduced a whole host of unwanted behaviors unto our home. 

"Mommy!  I don't like those kids playing with the balls at Walmart.  They're savages."

Thanks, Disney.  But while I didn't approve of his inappropriate (and inappropriately directed) racial slurs, the bigger problem we encountered was that Cael took great pleasure in pointing any item at the nearest target and pretending to shoot it. 

Now, I know that almost all boys go through a "gun" phase, but it's not something I approve of for my young son, and when he started attempting to shoot Graham, his parents and eventually himself, I knew we had a problem.

Meanwhile, life carried on as we transitioned from Thanksgiving to Christmas.  We breathed a sigh of relief as more time passed and neither Graham nor I showed any signs of the stomach flu that affected Joel, Cael, and eventually Papa and my nephew Keaton. 

 Finally, last weekend, Joel and I dropped the boys off with my sister Amy while we attended the church staff Christmas party at our pastor's home.  We enjoyed an evening of food, socializing and a very enthusiastic white elephant gift exchange.

Don't know what a white elephant gift exchange is?  Allow me to enlighten you.  A white elephant gift exchange is an opportunity for you to select, wrap and give a gift that is funny, inappropriate or otherwise not gift-worthy to someone else who can throw it away with no sentimental or emotional attachment.  At this particular exchange, the unusually clever and funny gifts were distributed, passed around, passed again, again and again, and when it was Joel's turn to open his package, we all laughed to see that Jesus had been lurking inside the holly and berry wrapping paper. 

Jesus available here

Upon closer inspection, his gift was a "Jesus Action Figure", apparently sent from heaven to battle villains for interstellar domination. 

"How come Jesus has wheels?" 

I think that was a question Joel never expected to say.

Once we got home, Cael instantly gravitated toward Jesus.  He accompanied Cael into the bathroom.  He played catch with him in the family room.  Wherever Cael went, Jesus was sure to go.

And then I saw Cael pointing Jesus, arms raised toward the heavens, straight at Graham while threatening to shoot.

"I'm gonna shoot you!"

"Shoo!  Shoo!"  Graham shouted as he egged Cael on.

"Cael!  Don't use Jesus to shoot your brother!"

Shooting one's brother is bad enough, but using our Lord as a weapon is probably not acceptable biblical decorum.  So we had a lengthy talk about what Jesus really stood for and how we should love each other, and I tried to put this latest obsession to rest.

But then there was an accident.  It didn't involve guns, but it was gruesome and disturbing nonetheless and it caused me to shout out yet another unexpected utterance.

"Oh no!  Oscar is eating Jesus!"

I ran quickly to retrieve Jesus from the lion's den Oscar's mouth, but it was too late.  Jesus had already lost a hand and had suffered some serious wounds to his forearm.  With no remains of his hand in sight, I recognized that the damage was irreversible.

I stashed him behind a chair and put a pillow over the opening.  We'll check on him in a few days and see if he's still in there.

Christmas Confessions

I know, I know.  I didn't post anything yesterday.  And to the nine of you that emailed me to make sure I was okay, I appreciate the sentiment.  It was creepy, but appreciated.  Thankfully I am okay, but was unable to post because our internet signal has been MIA for two days now. 

I've put in a call.

And since I'm posting this S.O.S. from my cell phone, you'll have to bear with me for the lack of photos.  My cell phone does a lot of things I need and a great many things I don't want it to do, but it is not sufficient for the ins and outs of blogging.

Cael, meanwhile, couldn't care less whether the internet works.  His only concern yesterday was regarding a song he'd heard in the car while a local radio station played nonstop Christmas music.

"Mommy?  Can Santa really see me when I'm sleeping?"

"That's what I've heard."

"But... is Santa in my room at night?  Does he sleep in Graham's bed?"

"No, honey, he's not standing in your room.  But he does know if you're being a good boy or if you're doing naughty things."

"Did Santa see me when I pushed Graham?"

"I'm sure he did.  I bet that's not what you want him to see, right?"

"No.  I want Christmas presents."

Lesson learned... or so I thought.  Instead of the change of heart I was hoping for, Cael used Santa as an excuse to confess all of his undesirable actions.

"Did Santa see me sneak in the closet and play with the pool balls when Daddy was taking a nap the other day?"

"I guess so.  You should remember that next time you think about messing with those pool balls."

"Mommy?  Did Santa see me honk Oscar's nose?  Or did he see me eat all of that candy when I went upstairs to get a drink?  Or those crackers?"  Just as I was trying to compose a response to any and all of those offenses, a look of horror crossed Cael's face.

"Oh, no."

"What else did you do, Cael?"  I was afraid to ask.

"Did Santa see me poke Kitty in the bottom with that drumstick?"

"Cael!  You don't EVER poke kitty in the bottom-- with anything!"

"But did Santa see?  Did he watch me do that bad thing?"

"I'm not worried about Santa right now.  I'm worried about the cat, and I'm worried about your behavior."

"Don't worry about it.  I think Santa thought it was funny.  I bet it was one of the reindeer games."

I sure hope not.  Rudolph's been through enough.

Abstract Art

When I pick Cael up from preschool, he almost always has some art project to share with me, and the enthusiasm with which he announces it tells me he is very proud of his accomplishments.  But more often than not, his artistic vision is a little bit more "abstract" than "realism".

Joel will be the first one to tell you that he did not inherit the artistic gene from his parents, and from previous artistic impressions of cars and circles and what-the-heck-is-thats,   didn't think Cael got one either.

But when he pointed to his painting hanging on the wall with those of the other preschoolers, I immediately noticed that his stood out.  The others students had made a big puddle of red fingerpaint in the center of the page while Cael, in his infinite creativity, streaked the paint down the page, filling the canvas with color.  Even more striking than his artwork, however, was his interpretation.

"I love your painting, Cael!"

"Thank you.  It's a picture of rain falling down."

Whoa.  That was deep.  Could I have a budding artist on my hands?  Could his artistic potential have been been lurking there behind the surface, distorted by trains and dirt? 

"Or it could be pee in the potty."

Back to the drawing board.

Merry Chuggin' Christmas

If you read this blog and don't know about Cael's train obsession, you must be as delusional as his locomotive-related fantasies.  Cael has taken a simple interest and compounded it into an infatuation and now a full-blown lifestyle. 

It's hard to believe that two short years ago, trains weren't a daily part of our life and amounted to little more than background noise to the soundtrack of our day.  From our front window, Cael would occasionally watch as the trains rattled by and "ooh" and "ahh" with each whistle.

Then on Christmas Day, Cael received a plastic GeoTrax train set from Papa.  He was hooked.  Even that first day, he sat silently as the locomotive rolled over the tracks, shifting expressions only to giggle as momentum forced the train to speed down the hill.

Two years later, trains have invaded our home and Christmas has only perpetuated the obsession.  In addition to Cael's GeoTrax set, he has also received a Thomas the Train set, an electric self-adjusting engine and a wooden Brio train set inherited from Daddy's days as a young train 'ductor.

 But that wasn't sufficient.

Papa, while walking through his church's bazaar, noticed a small, ceramic train decked out in greenery and red bows for the holidays.  Knowing that this item fulfilled my borderline obsession with Christmas and Cael's over-the-line obsession with trains, he purchased it on the spot and it very quickly found a home.

That didn't do it either.

So when I was at Kohls and already on a mission to find an Advent calendar, a very expensive wooden Advent train caught my eye, and my breath.  But at 40% off (is anything ever full-priced at Kohls?) and with Papa's 30% off coupon, it brought the item down into a "doable" price range so that it could grace our countertops and force my children to ration candy.


There was still a void.

As it turns out, that void was train-shaped.  So the other night, after I was done wrapping Graham's Christmas tricycle into a really big box (yes, I did), Cael claimed one of the not-quite-big-enough boxes for his own.  It had been flattened and he was disproportionately irritated by its inability to stay together.  I taped it back into shape, cut out a hole for him to poke his head through, and in a moment of sheer genius, saw the train it could become and got to work.  By yesterday morning, Cael was busy shouting commands at the other engineers and navigating the treacherous terrain of the living room from the safety of his steam engine.  He loved it.

 But it's not enough.

Cael's newest aspiration-- his greatest wish-- is for the Polar Express train set to appear under the tree on Christmas morning.  I've reminded him repeatedly that although Santa knows when he's sleeping, he does not have ESP and needs Cael to tell him exactly what gifts he wants.  But since Cael can't exactly write a letter (or a number, really), I guess Joel and I will have to step up to the plate and make his little dreams come true.  Maybe that will finally satisfy his need for trains.

 But I doubt it.

I'm not sure we'll ever be a train-free household.  Even when I pack away the tracks, there is always another locomotive lurking around the corner where I least expect it.

And while it is a small price to pay for the ear-to-ear grin on my son's face, I'm ready to move on to bigger and better interests.  After all, life is hard enough without overcoming your reputation as a beady-eyed train enthusiast with frizzy hair and an affection for bathroom humor.

Maybe I need Santa's help after all...

Short In the Tooth

Having two kids is tough, and I'm really trying my best to help them learn and develop their little personalities, or really just keep them alive.  But while I've been keeping one eye on the children and the other eye on the house and my other work, someone was neglected.  And I feel just awful about it.

Not only was I neglectful, I was ignorant.  I was too busy picking up toys and writing blogs to put two and two together when I found the teeny, tiny tooth on the carpet.  I was flighty and flaky and thought that all dogs have breath so vile that paint peels and bats screech when they yawn.

By the time the "breath smelled 'round the world" made its way to my nose and up into my brain, it occurred to me that something was wrong with Oscar, our loving yet relentlessly needy dog.  I picked him up and pulled back his jowls to reveal that his teeth were in such poor condition that my teeth hurt from sympathy alone.  I could see that he had lost a couple of teeth already and it was clear that some of those remaining needed to go.

So I called the vet.  I was completely terrified that I would be chewed out for being neglectful with our dog, but the call had to be made nonetheless.

"Hello.  My name is Mary Foreman and I need to make an appointment for my dog, Oscar.  He is having some dental issues."

"Uhhh, okay..."  I wasn't sure why the receptionist on the other end of the phone was so skeptical of me, but I did my best to jump through the proverbial hoops they'd rigged up for me.  "Before we get into that, I'm going to need some other information."

I informed her that Oscar is five years old, an Aries, enjoys long walks in the backyard and munching on used Kleenex.  We established that he was behind on his shots, and I tried to explain that Oscar responded to his last round of shots about as positively as Joel responded to stomach flu.  And then it was time to fess up about my sweet dog and his nasty grill. 

"So can you explain the problem a little for me?  Explain what you mean by 'mental issues'."

"Mental issues?  What mental-- Oh!  DENTAL issues, not mental issues!"

But the dog has mental issues, too.  His favorite place to sleep is on top of the boys' oversized stuffed monkey and will lay nose to nose with the primate while he snores and whimpers through his tiny puppy dreams.  He chases a laser pointer with such energy and enthusiasm that he must be cut off lest he suffer a cardiac event.  Oh, and he eats poop, too.

We scheduled an appointment for the veterinarian to check out Oscar's mouth and determine a course of action.  A few days later, Papa took Oscar to the office while I stayed home with three equally mental little boys that were disturbed by the dog's absence. 

"Where is Oscar?" Cael asked.

"He is at the doctor getting his teeth checked out. 

"Is he sick?"

"I don't know, honey.  But he'll be home soon and he will be just fine." 

"If he doesn't come back, I want to get a sheep."

"I'll keep that in mind."

The vet recommended that Oscar complete a round of antibiotics to clear up what turned out to be a nasty infection caused by severe gum disease, and then return for an entire day for an aggressive cleaning and to have any too-far-gone teeth removed before I find them lodged in the carpet, too.  So after I'd successfully forced 20 pills down his throat, Oscar was returned to the office for his whole-mouth renovation.

He returned to us later that day very sluggish, sore, and short an additional five teeth that were even more of a lost cause than asking Cael to sit still in church.

"Cael, you have to be quiet!" 

"But Mommy, God thinks toots are funny, too!"

You see what I mean.

But we were glad to have Oscar home to love, and even more grateful that his gum disease was discovered before it was too late.  The vet assured me that had I been brushing his teeth religiously, this still would have happened to some degree because the tooth loss wasn't a result of bad hygiene, but mainly from the gum disease.  He also said that most dogs in such a condition are in a lot of pain and begin to lash out at family members, so Oscar's sweet, dossile demeanor is a testament to what a wonderful dog he really is.

Life is back to normal now, save for the excitement of Christmas and a dog that can only chew on one side of his mouth.  Having him back to health is a great Christmas present.

I think all he wants, however, are his two front teeth.