Play-dates with boys

Ok so I am entering into a new world of boy play dates. With girls, you go to pick them up, they come home, are quiet, play Barbies, dress up, Legos, what ever. They pretend that they are in these imaginary forests, and worlds that are enchanted. (Granted there is usually some evil mother symbol, thanks to dear old Disney) but never the less, they are quiet, and creative.

Boys? The way they interact is … well, interesting anyway.We go to pick up Henrys friend from his house, and immediately the boy showed Henry his "burp on demand" skills.

Henry giggling, says "That is very interesting" then continues the rest of the ride home to try to burp on demand...which he cannot seem to master, much to my pleasure. But this was the beginning of...well, BOY mode.They proceeded to scream from the moment they entered the house, running up the stairs as fast as they could to start an activity I like to call “shake the house down”

I cannot figure out what exactly they were doing, they were jumping, tumbling…or taking off drywall, I am not sure, but the entire house was shaking.

Thankfully, 4 year old boys seem to have the attention span of a gnat so that only lasted for a few minutes (before I had to go up and crack some skulls) and they were onto something new.

Did I say that I was thankful for the short attention span? OK so THAT was delusional. This short attention span turned into a continuous path of running from my sons room upstairs to the basement downstairs, with 1000 things in between… after they had played with every toy in the entire house for the allotted 10 seconds, they were bored.

Bored? Seriously??

I finally sent them down to play…I did not, however, for the benefit of my sons social future, give the “back in my day” speech about no such thing as play dates, and any mention of boredom led to more chores. The speech that always elicits the rolling of the eyes, and large sighs response. Secretly I don’t blame them, I got the same speech, as did my folks, and If I was a betting woman, I’d bet none of us appreciated the sentiment!

I have been checking on them periodically to make sure that they aren’t building bombs in the basement or somewhere they aren’t supposed to be (the girls rooms) and my son, who on a regular basis, just looks at me with love in his eyes, and says "I love you mom"... Now is in the basement and when I come down stairs he says: "WHAT? What do you want?"

I said nothing, and then he says "What? Why are you looking at me?"

(we will have a politeness discussion later and I doubt I will be polite about it!)

Somehow the extra Y chromosome in the room transformed his eyes from looking at me as lovable cool mom to “Persona non grata.”

He is worse than a teenager...is this a sign of things to come? I hope not. But Some where deep in the recesses of my heart, I am fairly sure that he is going to make me drop him off a block from school so he can walk in.

So I have just given in, I will listen carefully from afar and check on them periodically, and hope all gets calmer. Somehow when they see me they seem to think I am Julie McCoy cruise director, and am going to do something fun…I keep reminding them…”I am not that Mom”

So I am hoping if I stay hidden all will be ok.

Super Eyes

Henry has a new trick, he has informed me that he has "Super Eyes"

He screws them on, with a wonderful "shhhwooot, shhhwooot" sound and then I know that he has them on. He says that he can see North Carolina with them.

So North Carolina ought to be scared, my son is watching you...and if big brother is reading this, I am sure to expect strange unmarked vehicles following my four year old to preschool...

I suppose that this is in response to missing his grandparents. One set is in NC and the other is in VA. He has really enjoyed seeing his NC grandparents a great deal this month between an extended Christmas visit and a "pick up gran" trip.

I have had to answer endless questions about why we don't live in NC, or VA...when CAN we live in NC and VA... when I explained that we used to live in VA, but we moved away to Maine his response was:

"Well that was stupid"

Nothing like feeling judged by your 4 year old. And I am sure that as my mother-in-law is reading this she is thinking "YEAH my super secret mission to get them back here is working!"

This all is kind of sweet that he misses and loves his grandparents so much that he wants to see what they are doing...but it is worrying me a tad that he is giving me descriptions of what he is seeing...

"Hey there is a brown horse"

"Where Henry, I don't see a horse."

"No Mooooom, in North Carolina, can't you see I have my super eyes on?"

must have not heard them being screwed in...never a dull moment.

There are Days I Wonder....

…If Henry is operating with all 6 cylinders....

Because I don’t feel I have enough to make me insane, I took on coaching my middle daughters D.I. team. (Destination Imagination) The other coach and I being crazy busy decided to have a meeting so that we could get organized.

She has a daughter one year older than Caroline and one that is one year older than Henry. So I thought to myself…hey they can play!

My eldest was on the computer playing SimCity, the others were playing, and we got our work done…all was nice and normal…

I went to the bottom of the stairs with the other coach to call for her daughters as it was time to head home…Henry comes to the top of the stairs with his light saber, leap pad back pack on and a pair of underwear on his head…

To make matters worse when I laughed trying to make it all sound silly and said “Oh did you get those out of your clean laundry basket?” Kind of giving the reassuring look to the woman standing next to me who was sporting a very “unsure about the cleanliness of your house" look He yells…

“No I got them off Marshall’s floor!” Yeah, not really what I wanted to hear…especially when he had them pulled so far down on his head he was peaking through the leg holes…

Marshall came bolting around the corner and ran up the stairs taking them by 4’s, grabbed the underwear off his head and yelled…”That is so gross Henry that’s my dirty underwear…” and stomped off to her room muttering about her privacy...

So who wants to bet how long it will be before we have a meeting at my house again?

Excuses Excuses

So, my son doesn't eat anything anymore...to be honest I am not sure how he is still growing. His palate consists of white starchy things. Rice, bread, peanut butter, noodles with parmesan cheese and waffles….Occasionally I can get him to eat an apple, but only with out any of the skin showing…because that MIGHT add color to his diet.

I have gotten so tired of this, that what ever we have for dinner is what he gets, he can either eat, or be hungry…I just have put my foot down…

Unfortunately the boy tends to choose going to bed hungry. He realizes that this makes me crazy so in his Henry way of making me feel better, he comes up with what he views as “reasonable excuses” for not eating and I get them each morning.

“Mom I didn’t eat because I sat on the couch too long and my tummy hurt”

“Mom I didn’t eat because my knees were bothering me.”

“Mom Green told me that I couldn’t eat” (Green is his lovey bear)

But this morning was one of my favorites…

“Mom I do you know why I didn’t eat last night? Because I didn’t want to get this counter dirty so I could eat at it this morning…” he said this rubbing the counter in front of him.

OK so I get that I am not Martha Stewart…but I DO wash my countertops… How this child is so big is beyond me…peanut butter must have super nutrient powers to it!

Christmas Presents to Cry Over

Christmas for us this year was a small one. Between the economy, an emergency flight to VA for my husbands dad, and BOTH, yes BOTH of our cars breaking down the two weeks before Christmas, our Christmas funding (which isn’t very generous in a normal year) was slowly eroded.

But as I found as a child, when I was told it was a tight year and Christmas was going to be lean…sometimes that provides the best Christmas ever…because we get creative.

I put my hands to work and made gifts for my nieces and my daughters, which turned out to be a good thing. Watching my oldest daughter put on her dress and swing around in it holding it to her chest like it was too precious to let go, or seeing my middle daughters surprised look when the sweater that she coveted as I was knitting, was actually for her and not for her cousin, made Christmas morning for me.

But the “piece de la resistance” was the present from my middle daughter. (who is known for her home made gifts of paper and boxes!) I pulled out two people made from popsicle sticks, and a bunch of sticks wrapped together. Then I pulled out a piece of cardboard that was covered in green construction paper with a blue round piece on it.

Puzzled I looked at her for the explanation. Here it is:
“Mom I know you have always wanted to have a farm, so I made you one that you can play with until you finally get yours…that is you and dad, and that is a bale of hay. Here are the fields, and you even have a pond! Every year I will give you more pieces to your farm so it’s the gift that keeps giving…”

OK so other than the hallmark teaser at the end…it was such a wonderful little thing, that it brought tears to my eyes….YES Rabid Outdoorsman…AGAIN!

But seriously? Who wouldn’t get a little vaclempt????

boys and their guns

Ok so it's not that I am totally anti-gun necessarily...I am not.

My husband was a hunter and would be still if he had fellow Y chromosomes to take him here in Maine. I have no issues with that. I will even be honest and tell you when I shot a 45 at my friend Kims house and it kicked back so hard my arm almost fell off... it was kind of a rush...

I do however, do the suburban mom thing when it comes to my kids pretending to shoot all of us dead...I mean call it the teacher in me, but I kinda feel that I should intervene when my kids are plotting my death.

Just as having a boy has taught me many life lessons, I have also learned that it doesn't matter if you give boys guns or not. They will shoot them anyway. If you don't give them a plastic replica of a handgun...have no fear, they will find a stick, or a car or even a piece of string.

One day Henry put on a long white Cinderella glove from the dress up box, and told me it was a special hand gun that shot fire out of the fingers.

If you don't give them a gun, they will create them. Tonight at the dinner table, Henry pulled his foot up onto the table and pretended to shoot me with his toes.

yup...he used his FOOT as a gun. *Le Sigh*

No point in fighting it, boys will be boys, and what is it with them and their guns anyway???

Snow, Beautiful Snow

OK, so I guess I am a true New Englander. Besides my crotchety side, I also really love the snow. There is something about the white stuff…(in January anyway) that makes me smile, curl up with a good book and bad food and go into a little hibernation that I won’t allow myself to do in good weather.

HOWEVER, I realize that there is one caveat to my love of winter…still having a pre-schooler. Having a little one makes “Snow time” like putting on a Broadway musical with major costume changes and adjustments at every act.

Henry wanting to go out in the snow was told to go get a sweater and we would send him out. Being summoned to the bottom of the stairs I gazed up at my 4 year old standing at the top of the stairs with nothing but his boxer briefs and a sweater vest…
“uh…that wasn’t what I was thinking” I said nicely

“WHAT? It’s a sweater and it’s warm!!!” Henry screamed indignantly.

After a few minutes of arguing and knowing that I was going to lose, I simply took matters into my own hands and wrangled him into warm clothes. This task was more like wrestling a wet pig in Jello than clothing a child (not that I would know this per say…) All this only to come down stairs to start the wrapping, layering and jamming of the winter wear marathon.

By the time he got out side and I sat down, the door bell was ringing. Snow in the gloves… This is the major disaster that sends Henry into complete and total apoplexy every time he plays out side…they have yet to invent a glove that the boy can’t get snow into. As I am shaking out the glove I hear:

“Look I can boot skate on the floor!”

Henry in all his glory, and snow covered boots, is sliding around the wood floor in the living room. By the time I get him back out side, mop the floor so I don't break my butt slipping in it, answer the door a few more times and resolve more tragedies of the wetness of snow, I remember…didn’t I have a book somewhere I wanted to read?

Now I remember why I like spring also!