Hamster Wheel

Is it about time for my annual apology for being distracted post? I think so...

Life has been busy lately. Between family, work, classes, extracurriculars, and home renovations, there hasn't been a whole lot of time left for blogging. So sorry!!

We are all happy, healthy, and learning and growing. Busy...too busy, but that's how we learn limits, I guess. The new year is definitely going to bring some changes for us, and a realignment and reprioritization.

Boy the Elder has been loving Kindergarten, and just got an outstanding report card. He is exceeding expectations across the board, even in the areas that I was concerned about. He's making friends, and really starting to come out of his shy phase too. He's been taking kung fu and I think it's really helping his confidence. It's amazing to watch him grow. Even when he shows me a glimpse of the sullen teenager he'll be in a few more years, like this morning, when it was simply tragic that his skinny jeans weren't skinny enough.

Boy the Younger is a big shot in his preschool room at daycare now. He's up to seven girlfriends (I'm a little hurt that I'm number 7 - shouldn't I be number 1?), well on his way to the goal he's of of 16 girlfriends. He's been taking a hip hop dance class, and he is always practicing. He seems to have perfect pitch too when he sings. Also he is an amazing swimmer - he was almost skipped ahead an entire level because he's such a little fish. Still sweet and loving and sensitive, and I know it won't last much longer now that he's 3 (and 3/4!) but I'll love it as long as it lasts.

Darling Husband and I are busy, and tired, and very much looking forward to going on our next vacation. It is still a while away, but by the time it comes we're going to really deserve it!

I am loving the class I'm taking, even if it's a bigger time committment than I thought it would be.

We're working on getting our house ready to sell. We are planning to downgrade our house a little - since we always have a few projects going anyway, we figured it would be better to have a smaller mortgage. We like updating and upgrading things, so if we buy something a little uglier/older/shabbier and fix it to our specs, we will end up ahead of where we are now. The trick is now figuring out how in the world we'll get everything done and start showing our house to buyers on the timeline we mapped out?? No idea yet how that will work.

Anyway, sorry sorry sorry for neglecting Apparently I'm A Parent. It's still a very important thing for me, it's just that I am a wee bit overprogrammed at the moment.

Chronic Whyarrhea

In yet another way, I have discovered that one of my kids is almost an exact replica of me. You know those little kids who ask "why" about everything, constantly, day in and day out? I was one of those kids. So, apparently, is Boy the Younger.

We go to a daycare centre, and there was a little bat that was sleeping above the front door for a while a few weeks ago. Every day this was a huge source of questions.

"Why is Butterscotch (we named her Butterscotch) sitting up on the wall?"
"Why is she sleeping? It's morning time!"
"Why are some animals nocturnal?"
"Why is she upside down?"
"Why does she come to the same place every day?"

And now that she's stopped coming there:

"Why isn't she here anymore?"
"Why didn't she say goodbye?"
"Why can't we go find her batcave?"
"Why. Why. WHY WHY WHY?"

Now due in no small part to my own childhood chronic whyarrhea, I'm a fairly decent repository of useless trivia, so I am able to answer a lot of these questions...but even I'm running dry on some of these. And a half assed answer like "Just because" is absolutely not acceptable. He will tilt his head, raise an eyebrow, and say "That's not a real answer, Mommy." So I need to pull out my secret weapon. Google.

Seriously. I have no idea how my parents survived my own curious childhood without Google. Or duct tape. Best.Parenting.Tool.Ever. Only I am truly afraid of my browser history or what we are singlehandedly doing to search engine statistics. There is some crazy crap that we look up.

We had a chat the other day about why he asks why so much. I told him he has whyarrhea, and I laughed, and then told him that's funny because it rhymes with diarrhea. His response?

"Why do people get diarrhea?"

Sigh. Let's Google that. 

Sarcasm - My Second Favorite -asm

"Momy, Momy, look, a smart car!!" "Hey, a convertible!!" "I see a little dog!!" "A double dump truck!!"

This is the soundtrack to my daily commute. Every day. Doesn't matter if we're already in the middle of another conversation, doesn't matter if I'm belting out a Journey tune, doesn't matter if I have not had a drop of coffee yet and just need a little peace and quiet, thankyouverymuch.

So I have resorted to the lowest form. The Sarcasm. I figure that Boy the Elder and Boy the Younger are going to need to figure out sarcasm sooner or later, with the family they landed in. No Sheldon Coopering allowed here. Might as well be sooner.

So when I'm presented with one of these excited announcements of the perfectly mundane, lately I've been tending to respond with a smartass-ish comment like: "Is it on fire?", "Is it flying?", "Is it doing something different than every other ______ that we've seen every day for the past few years and therefore actually worthy of some sort of mention today?" "No? Ok then. Let me know when it is."

A little jerkface? Maybe. But we are having massive interrupting problems right now, and I feel like I really need to kill this little monster before it becomes a big monster - and I see this as a very big opportunity to work on the interrupting.

As usual, my kids are surprising me with their brains. The first time I made a comment like this, I wasn't sure if they'd get it, wasn't sure if maybe I was pushing it a little, wasn't sure if it really was age-appropriate. No fear. They get it.

Last weekend, I took them to the beach and I saw someone riding a stand up paddleboard (which I'm really interested in trying) and I pointed it out to them. "Look, boys, check out that paddleboard!"

Boy the Elder replied, "Is it on fire?"

Sarcastic little jerkface.

I Don't Speak Whinese

I don't often recommend it, but having two children in 18 months does have certain benefits. One key benefit was spending about a year or two so ridiculously busy and sleep deprived that I was just completely oblivious to a lot of things.

Like Whinese. I do not remember this phenomenon in Boy the Elder. Possibly I was too distracted with the baby, possibly I was too comatose as a general rule to notice, possibly he just never did it as badly as Boy the Younger. That three year old can whine like a vinyard. Even if all he's doing is trying to tell me something,  even if it's something nice, lately he seems to be only able to speak Whinese. In the dialect of Pest Naggian. It is utterly exhausting. And I'm powerless to combat it. I try to ignore it. He gets louder. I tell him I can't speak Whinese and he should try again in his big boy voice. He looks at me like I'm some kind of idiot.

We just got back from a family vacation - a road trip - about 8 hours each way. The boys really surprised us and handled it well, but they were just...highly needy. We were together for five solid days, but somehow they seemed starved for attention. We were smart enough to stock up on movies for the in-vehicle entertainment system, but still, toward the end of it, at times I had to mentally struggle between keeping it rubber side down and between the lines and driving off a cliff.

And then the time zone change. We are all messed up. I couldn't go to bed, and the boys couldn't wake up. Well, except for Boy the Younger's 4 am wakeup, when he cried and whimpered "I just need to tell you something." "Ok, what is it?" "I love you. All."

I guess maybe it wouldn't hurt to pick up a few things in Whinese.

I Suck At Bluffing

I like to think I'm this strategic thinker. I've built a career around being logical, analytic, and measured. But when it comes to my personal life, relating to my family, it's like I'm a total dummy. I have no poker face. I cannot bluff. Any attempts to bluff are royally screwed up and backfire on me.

Here's a little gem that happened to us this week. We're on a bike ride/dog walk and the boys asked if we could take a different route home for a change. So being the flexible, fair, friendly mom that I am, I said "Sure thing, why not...except this is a busier road so I don't want you guys zooming ahead on your bikes like we do on the cul de sac. We have to stay all together, do you still want to go home that way?" They both agreed, "Yes Mom, we can do that."

A whopping two seconds later B1 was zooming off way ahead of us, so I called him back and reminded him of our deal. He lost it. Cried, yelled, said he was going back and going home the other way. I reminded him that there were two other people and two dogs and we had all agreed to go this way today and that we would all stay together. I said that if he couldn't ride nicely with us, then I guessed he couldn't ride his bike and would have to walk home while I carried it (because doesn't THAT sound like fun?). He didn't cooperate, so I picked up the bike and asked him to follow us.

I guess he had been saving some reserves because now he REALLY lost it. Screaming, crying, acting like I was skinning him alive (I may have wanted to a little, but gosh I'd never do it on a public street). And planting himself firmly in one spot and refusing to walk home.

Now...I have problems with conflict. I have problems when people don't take my advice. I know lots of ways to influence people and to manipulate behaviour, but it's so different when you're dealing with people acting rationally. When my adversary just goes bat crap crazy like that, and I'm in the heat of the moment, looking like a fool in public, and there's a clear standoff, I just have no idea what to do and typically end up saying something really stupid.

I told him that if he didn't come home with us now that he would be losing his Lego privileges for a week. Huh??? Ok, how does Lego even relate to the battle at hand? Who was talking about Lego? And, a whole WEEK? Um, isn't that a little much? Not to mention - Lego is a most excellent Shut Up Toy. Taking it away for a week really only punishes me.

See what I mean? Dummy. Obviously I was hoping he would agree that was a stupid consequence and way too extreme and not worth it, and he'd decide to go along with me. Clearly my not-yet-five-year-old will outperform me in Vegas, because he decided to call my bluff. He's still not coming home with us.

Shit. What do I do now? Ok, a week of losing his prized possession wasn't motivating enough, how about we double that - TWO weeks of no Lego! WHAT? What am I saying? This is taking stupid to a whole new level! It doesn't make sense! It's way too harsh! But - I'm committed now. I can't take it back. I have to follow through on this stupid, unrelated, excessive consequence. Lego gone for two stinking weeks. And he's STILL not coming.

I must have been more convincing after that - only had to ask if he wanted to make it three weeks while starting to walk away (let's not consider that it was actually the walking away that did the trick, I'm already feeling foolish enough, but suffice it to say I'll probably be trying that first next time).

So we made it home. And I dutifully put away the Lego per the terms of his sentence. I'm not really sure how I'm going to survive two weeks of not having Lego available to bring down the volume level around here. I'm going to need to devise some sort of parole plan to knock down the sentence for good behaviour or something.

Obviously I need a trip to Vegas. A lesson in poker strategy, focusing heavily on bluffing, is clearly in order for me.