Zero Control

I have read that once a child leaves the womb, parents have zero control over what happens to him or her. With that in mind, I do not claim any influence over the fact that Meredith has been 98% successful today with potty training and has pooped without any ushering.

I can't figure it out. I rush Child #1, get less and less pushy with each kid on the start time of learning how to use the toilet on their own and...they teach themselves by Child #4. Amazing. The things I could write a book about...to myself, of course. There's no way that what worked for our house would work for anyone else, but then again whose to say that doing a hands-off approach would have done any good for Louie? The only thing it would have done is made me less crazy. I worried so much about him being potty trained for the sole reason he was two-years-old.

And I would be a fool to assume that the successes she's had today will be replicated tomorrow. I can dream, but I've learned that my job is to be the supporter and praiser. She is doing great and has just enough words in her vocabulary to call Daddy at work and tell him the good news!

It was bound to happen

This picture was taken last August. It's not real. As much as it looks like a black eye, it really is just an errant hand stamp put into place when rubbing one's eye...just seconds after getting stamped.

This is real. I've never used a butterfly band-aid before. And if I never have to use another I won't be complaining.

I don't think this picture does it justice. It was really a lot deeper and wider than it shows, obviously. Please forgive me for not taking a shot pre-bandaging. When the incident occurred, I was in the middle of registering at the hospital for Numero (or "numera") Quatro when Ben come running past, trips and goes headlong into the corner of the wall. Yikes! That's going to leave a mark. And it did. In fact, it was such a deep and wide mark that I thought I was going to toss my cookies.

Amazingly enough, Ben didn't cry after the initial 10 minutes and bleeding was a minimum. I couldn't get ahold of Kevin, which happens to be the case when I'm not calling just to chat! After talking to my parents, consulting some websites and friends who have been in similar situations, I decided not to take him to the hospital. Although extremely gross, he wasn't bleeding profusely, his head wasn't swollen beyond belief, and he wasn't crying/complaining of pain. Oh, and he hadn't fallen asleep, which is a fear ingrained in my head when it comes to head injuries.

I handed Ben a piece of candy, slapped that butterfly bandage on there (I took the first off, which Benny loved, and did another that I felt was holding the wound together better), and we were getting ready to go to the park to enjoy this beautiful day!

(Knocking on wood) I'm kind of surprised that it took almost four years for something like this to happen. That kid is a walking disaster zone. Athletic, yes. Energetic, yes. But, boy is he clumsy!

Yep, I'm not winning any mother-of-the-year awards here.

Practice makes perfect?

Spending as much time as I do with the boys, I feel like I know them pretty well. So when we get into a new situation where I see reactions and bits of their personality that I haven't seen before, it's kind of a shock. Who is this person? Where did this come from?

Last night we had the second practice for German Dance. I thought it was going to go smoother this time. They have been talking about it since last week, they were eager to see their new friends, and, of course, pop was involved. When we were having dinner Ben informed me he wasn't going to dance. He said this last week, so I didn't think much of it.

When we arrived, the boys' good friend Gloria was there for her first practice and I thought she'd be enough to get them motivated. However, all her cousins were there and she was thrilled be joining them in the dance group and ran around with them.

Dave the director called the kids together and we walked over, Charlie on my arm, Ben gripping my jeans, and Lou holding my hand. Dave called Louie over first and partnered him up with this very sweet girl who did a great job of showing him the ropes. What I'm noticing with Lou is that he has these things he does when he gets nervous. He bites the inside of his mouth and then sticks his neck out, like a giraffe reaching for leaves, or maybe a turtle trying desperately to get out of his shell. Regardless, although it's kind of weird, he did hold his partner's hand and go through with the dance without reluctance.

Dave then called Benny and he was hesitant, but I said to go on over behind Louie. Dave wanted him in front of Lou and, looking back, I wonder if this is where it went wrong. Would he have done better if Louie was ahead of him and he could see him doing all the moves?

They went through the first dance and I could tell that Benny's partner wasn't into having him by her side. She is almost twice his age and has been doing this for a while, so maybe she'd rather be with someone she didn't have to instruct. I don't know. Ben wasn't doing any of the spins, but the good news is that Louie was, which is a huge improvement from last week! What I do know is that by the end of the first dance Ben was ready to stop. I gently suggested that he try again.

After one revolution of the next dance Dave took over as Benny's partner and that's when the tears began to fall. He wasn't sobbing, no noises, and he kept up with it, but you could tell he was miserable. Ben kept wanting to spin inward and Dave was having him spin out. Tears, tears, tears. My heart was breaking. He reminded me of me when I was a kid. I detested (still do!) being the center of attention. I really didn't like when I didn't "get things" right away. I would cry a silent cry and wish that I was in bed under my covers.

I'm not sure if this is the way Benny was feeling, but it sure seemed like it. He was not happy to be on that dance floor and that was the end of his dancing career, at least until next year. I think he'll be better off going on 5-years-old, rather than going on 4. They recommend being 5, but I thought Lou wouldn't do it without Ben.

Lou has been surprising me with his (quiet) outgoing-ness and his being OK with doing something new and not that easy. I'm hoping that Ben sees this and decides that it's all right if you're not great at something you try, and wants to practice with him. If not, that's OK, too.

Of course, Charlie wants to join right in and I have a feeling next year it will be he, not Ben, who takes up the dance. Ben is just content sitting on the sidelines, playing with his cars in a world of his own. But he still wanted his pop. I guess it wasn't enough of a motivating factor. Half dance practice or whole dance practice = whole pop.

Nightmare, then not so bad

Naps after the conservatory were a disaster. Louie and Benny were all sorts of wound up and poor Charlie was beyond exhausted.

The older two were bouncing off the walls and Charlie stood in his crib and wailed.

No one got any sleep. The good thing was that they put up no fight at bedtime. In fact, they were thrilled to be going to bed. Everyone woke up in a good mood.

Let's see how this works out.

Postponing the Inevitable

After two days of not being able to upload the video, I quit and demand that you use your imagination. My apologies.

The snow came down in buckets (5 inches) overnight and school was called off. Being the bad parent that I am, I have yet to open the blinds covering our windows. What this means is that the boys have no idea that it is a winter wonderland outside. Yes, I am bad.

We have probably around seven pairs of gloves...somewhere. I do not know where they are. I imagine that a couple of pairs may be locked in our frozen van. I'm not going to go outside until I have a better idea of where all their "snow gear" is, what little we have. We may be making good use of the few plastic grocery sacks we have left!

So, to bring some warmth into the house we're watching Madagascar. The best part of the movie is when the lemurs do their "I like to move it!" dance. Charlie likes to partake. This is video of him dancing to it.

Good to know

After talking about the incident a week ago, my friend Amanda was telling me a story that reassured me. A while back she dropped her husband and two sons off at the museum, went to run an errand, then came back to meet them.

She went down to the Children's Museum, showed her pass to get in, and was given the third degree. Are you here with anyone? I'm meeting my family. Do you have children? Yes, I dropped them and my husband off earlier. Well, we can give tours to those interested in becoming members, but we don't allow adults without children into the museum.

It went something like that, and then Amanda told them how happy she was to hear that. It was good to hear that they take such precautions to make sure that there aren't unnecessary/unwanted people in who may have ulterior motives.

The Museum is probably in the top three of my favorite places to go in Cincinnati and the fact that Charlie "escaped" from the Clifford exhibit was just a freak incident and won't happen again.

No worries, Mom!

Beautiful Mid-November Day

Today we went to the Museum with our friends Owen, Eli, and Miss Amanda and had a wonderful time, all except for the part where I lost Charlie!

The boys have been begging to go back down to see the Clifford exhibit and it was supposed to rain all day, so what better time to go to the museum? Well, it turns out it was actually 60-degrees and sunny, but we went anyway.

As I've posted before, the Big Red Dog exhibit is great, with so much for the kids to do. But one thing Amanda and I noticed is that there are just too many nooks and crannies for the kids to hide in. Not sure if it is the way that the room is set up or what, but it seems like you spend the whole time finding one kid or the other because there is just no way that they're all going to want to do the same thing.

At this particular moment, they did. Lou and Owen were behind the counter at the restaurant cooking up soup and seafood while Ben and Charlie were sitting at the counter and Eli was going back and forth. Charlie wanted to see what the kitchen was all about so behind the wall he went...and that was the last I saw of him...for the next five minutes. (It may not have even been that long!)

I know that I have an over-active imagination, but it's amazing the kind of scenarios I can cook up in my head when my baby is missing. I ran all over the room, looking for him with Amanda's help, when I asked one of the many workers to help look for Charlie.

There are three workers that staff the door, then another that works the desk to check passes. Charlie the Wonderboy got pass me and these staffers and made it all the way across the lobby area, and tried to go into the Children's Museum! While I was frantically searching in the Clifford room he was probably slowly making his way to the door. I didn't think to look at the door because of all the workers.

Luckily, they all have walkie-talkies and someone from the Children's Musuem called over to say that she had my little boy. Goodness! Apparently he walked over to the other entrance, looked up at a big person, then pointed back to the Clifford exhibit. I guess he had it under control all along.

I had had about enough of that room for one day, so we headed over to the (very tightly and securely contained) 4 and under room before having lunch. The lunch tables were packed so we enjoyed a nice lunch out on the steps in front of the museum.

A very nice day, overall.

Guilt

While Kevin and I were enjoying a Bengals pre-season game with lovely sights, my poor middle child was dealing with pain. He was stung by a bee right by his eye! Oh, I feel so bad. Kev and I had a great time at the game and my baby was crying from his first bee sting--on his face, no less!


What's crazy is when he woke up and I asked him about it, he acted like he didn't know what I was talking about. I guess the attack didn't have a lasting effect on him. If nothing else, at least we know he's not allergic to bee stings. I'll never get the image out of my head when Macaulay Culkin was stung by hundreds of bees in the movie My Girl.


P.S. Lou must have picked something up from watching a big of the game last night: all day he's been using a rally-rag Bengals towel to "soak up sweat" from his forehead. Let's just hope that he doesn't start dumping big coolers of gatorade on top of me...but then again with the way the team looked last night he's may not see much of that this season.

Questions of Sanity

I saw this written by a woman with three boys. What are we getting ourselves in to??


Things I've learned from my Boy's (honest and not kidding):

1.) A king size waterbed holds enough water to fill a 2000 sq.ft. house 4 inches deep.

2.) If you spray hair spray on dust bunnies and run over them with Roller blades, they can ignite.

3.) A 3-year old Boy's voice is louder than 200 adults in a crowded restaurant.

4.) If you hook a dog leash over a ceiling fan, the motor is not strong enough to rotate a 42 pound
Boy wearing Batman underwear and a Superman cape. It is strong enough, however, if tied to a paint can,
to spread paint on all Four walls of a 20x20 ft. room.

5.) You should not throw baseballs up when the ceiling fan is on. When using a ceiling fan as a bat,
you have to throw the ball up a few times before you get a hit. A ceiling fan can hit a baseball a long way.

6.) The glass in windows (even double-pane) doesn't stop a baseball hit by a ceiling fan.

7.) When you hear the toilet flush and the words "uh oh", it's already too late.

8.) Brake fluid mixed with Clorox makes smoke, and lots of it.

9.) A six-year old Boy can start a fire with a flint rock even though a 36-year old Man says they can only do it in the movies.

10.) Certain Lego's will pass through the digestive tract of a 4-year old Boy.

11.) Play dough and microwave should not be used in the same sentence.

12.) Super glue is forever.

13.) No matter how much Jell-O you put in a swimming pool you still can't walk on water.

14.) Pool filters do not like Jell-O.

15.) VCR's do not eject "PB & J" sandwiches even though TV commercials show they do.

16.) Garbage bags do not make good parachutes.

17.) Marbles in gas tanks make lots of noise when driving.

18.) You probably DO NOT want to know what that odor is.

19.) Always look in the oven before you turn it on; plastic toys do not like ovens.

20.) The fire department in La Mesa, CA has a 5-minute response time.

21.) The spin cycle on the washing machine does not make earthworms dizzy.

22.) It will, however, make cats dizzy.

23.) Cats throw up twice their body weight when dizzy.

24.) 80% of Men who read this will try mixing the Clorox and brake fluid.

25.) Women will pass this on to almost all of their friends, with or without kids.