Why is it that some (most) days, the part I look forward to most, is the hot shower before bed…?
Saved from the Lake
Picture this: a beautiful, sunny day. Birds singing. Boys playing football nearby. All 3 of my shivering, content children just brought to shore after swimming (alone with floaties!!), laughing, choking, blowing bubbles, and floating. All 3 children basking in the sun with our dear friend that owns the camp by this beloved lake. Floaties removed. Wrapped up like a burrito in their towels. Ready for a “snacky poo”.
And then….Mama ever so slowly, nonchalantly, makes her way back to the float and slides into the water, facing the shore. Without a word. Mama makes it maybe 20 feet out when spotted by said content children. Mama watches just how quickly the children can free themselves from a towel burrito, ask for help in putting Floaties back on (BAD dear friend!), and run like their lives depended on it to the water, while they shriek and squeal, and start frantically swimming towards me yelling, “Mama, we’re coming to save you from the lake”!!
Out of the Mouths of my Babes June 2017
My Twin nuggets turned 4 this month, and their sister is 5. The following is my laughs for the month…
On their birthday morning, Twin 1 said, “I just can’t stop getting hugs”.
When I reminded him that they were four now, he said, “I like my pull-ups because I like peeing in stuff”.
My daughter was getting dressed and said, “I wanted to wear my honey dress, but I had smoothie on it “. What is that?? “You know, the one that they (my brother and his wife) got me after they got married”. Their honeymoon!
“How did you know how to do that”? “Because I’m a Mom”. “Yeah, Moms are really smart, I know that”. Twin 1
When twin 1 was in time out upstairs and I went to get him, he said that he had heard me jamming downstairs. I asked if he was ready to come down and he said, “Well I’m not going to jam, but I’ll go down with you”.
“It’s hard to be a person”. T1 Does he have any idea??
The kids don’t like for me to cut their toe fingernails.
“When I was with my teachers, we talked about birds every day, because we are all about learning about birds, and Ava too (his BF)”. T1
We had a special treat one day and went out for burgers and fries at a local Irish pub. When we got the burgers my daughter said, “Do you know this is an animal”?? I told her that yes it’s a cow. She said, “You mean, I’m eating a dead cow”?! This got her brother started who said, “Oh my God, I’m eating a dead cow”?! They kept going back-and-forth and repeating it and laughing, but they didn’t stop eating…
I checked on T1 at bedtime once and he said, “How long are you gonna be here, two or twice”?
” When I lay down on my ear it feels like it’s moving… It goes ant ant ant ant”. T1 hearing his heartbeat.
One night I was getting frustrated because the kids wouldn’t get in bed and I told T1 to come on hurry up and get in bed. He said, “can’t you see my legs are little!? Why are you telling me to hurry up”?!
I was having terrible cramps and visibly in a lot of pain. My daughter told twin1 , “She gives us good love, we should give good love to her”. She was trying to get me herbs from the cupboard to try to get me to feel better.
Twin 1 came down one day after getting dressed upstairs and said, “I found something that looks like a potato chip, but it was just a boogie, so I put it in the trash”.
I went to cuddle with twin 1 for some alone time after everybody was in bed, and he said, “yeah now you’re talking “. After a few minutes he asked if I was going to go eat dinner and do my stuff. I said, “I thought we were cuddling”, and he told me that I was making him hot and sweaty.
“Guess what? I’m a grown-up now”. “Oh really, since when”? “Since I have money in my piggy bank”. T1
One morning after a dry bed night, I told twin 1 to go try to pee so he doesn’t have an accident in my bed. He said, “Yeah, good idea because you haven’t had pee in this bed before and just in case you get a visitor to our house and they want to sleep in your bed”.
“I’m good at peeling Band-Aids “.
Twin one stuck his freezing cold hands into my armpit when I was in bed one day and I said, “Well, don’t you ever do that again you little stinker”. He said, “That’s what boys do, we’re stinking dummies”.
“My eyes are black like daddies. That way I can remember him since I haven’t seen him in a long time, through these eyes”. T1
The kids love grabbing my phone and talking to Siri and one time I heard them say, “OK Siri?? Exclamation point dot dot”. I think they’ve heard me do talk to text too many times.
“Mom, you are a rabbit, and rabbits don’t ever give up”.
My daughter told me that my dog and my mom’s dog that recently died are up high like God and Santa.
The kids were doing yoga stretches with me one day, and twin 1 said, “Wow, this actually feels pretty good. Oh yeah, now were talking”.
I was waiting for twin 2 to poop after I gave him a suppository, and the other two came over and wanted to watch. Twin 1 said, “He’s just a boring little baby, and no one likes him but you”. He forgets they’re twins.
Twin 1 eats like a turtle, while my daughter eats like a dinosaur. One night after waiting and waiting for him to finish, he said, “Mom look at my body! Can’t you see how little I am? I can’t eat as fast as you”.
In Search of Rainbows…and Puddles
I am a relentless control freak. I am an extreme germ phobe. I am not a fan of disorder and chaos. These things do not always serve me well as a parent of a four, four, and five-year-old.
But tonight, we went searching for rainbows after a rainstorm. Well, I did. They were searching for puddles. Muddy puddles. Puddles filled with worms. Most given days I would cringe as I saw them approaching. Tonight we were on a mission. They put on their rain boots, OK, maybe one had on pink snowboots (with shorts), and we were off.
I didn’t cringe tonight. I let them be kids. They were glorious and happy and free. And they hit every single puddle through our entire neighborhood. I even took little dude out of his stroller, gasp without shoes on, and let him walk through puddles, and over the rocks where that lovely dirty water was running like a river. He shrieked with delight, and did NOT want to get back in that stroller.
I never found my rainbow. But, I’ll take 3 delighted kids over a rainbow, any day. And of course, I washed their feet before we went in the house…
Special Needs X 2
I hate that expression. I prefer developmentally delayed or high maintenance. I recently coined the term physically limited for my newly 4-year-old son with cerebral palsy. He’s brilliant, doesn’t miss a beat, and has a wonderful sense of humor, but he is unable to sit, walk, or say more than a few words.
I’ve had four years to dive into the world of disability, and I have learned something new daily. But, it’s the life we now live. Regardless of how much I love my son, and would do and have done anything for him, I wouldn’t wish having a child with a severe disability upon anyone. It is incredibly draining, stressful, frustrating, alienating, and expensive. But, he’s not the current issue.
What isn’t so spoken about is a child with an emotional or psychological special need. It didn’t occur to me until today that my five-year-old daughter falls in this category. My nanny told me after much ranting and raving from me about today’s episodes, that she had read an article about a girl who sounded just like my daughter and was considered having special needs. And the middle child, much like my sons twin, was starting to act out from anxiety, after dealing with his siblings behavior for so long. We see this as uncontrollable meltdowns and fits and shrieking and attacking his sister. But, his nature is as a calm, easy-going, passive, sweet little boy for four years. And now that side of him is hiding more and more.
My daughter’s play therapist of about a year, loosely mentioned the term reactive attachment disorder a couple of months ago. I was in huge denial when I first read about it, since awful people tend to be diagnosed with this. My daughter is not awful, she’s just hurting. And making all of us hurt. She also gathered this only from my reports, as in the office my girl was sweet, kind, exceptionally loving. In other words a child that I did not exactly recognize. This is the side of her that she shows the public, such as her teachers and babysitters. I too know this side of her, but I catch rare glimpses.
A month ago I was unable to make a session. The therapist emailed me and told me that she had tried a more direct approach and that my daughter would have none of that. She said she was very bossy and contradicted everything she suggested. She even splashed dirty paint water at her. She told me that she could see how tired I must get. Although it made me sad, it also was strangely validating, because at times I feel like the nanny and I are the only ones that see this side of my daughter, and it makes you feel a bit crazy.
Two weeks ago her therapist gave me a book to read called, “Love is not Enough”. It brought to my attention that my daughter was in pain from all the early trauma she experienced. She thrives on negativity, and anger, and doesn’t trust anyone or anything. She needs to always be in control and run the show. She is obsessed with food. I then had the epiphany that the nanny and I had put the kids in complete control, and we acted as their doormats. So, since May 31 we have been following the methods of the book, and not tolerating any nonsense. We call our house the Boot Camp. I feel like a beast, but I hope in the long run it will prevent them from being the beast.
I will admit that disciplining children from 6 AM until 7 PM daily is utterly exhausting (and weekdays that’s divided by 2 adults). For instance, today I spent a wonderful morning with the twins, and took my girl to her once a week sitter. As I opened the door to pick her up at 1:15, she asked me for a smoothie, and after the first time of saying no, she continued to ask over and over and began whining ( she asked five more times on the drive home, which is two minutes). As she climbed into the car, her brother was excited to tell her something and she instantly yelled at him. And then again. She then asked what we would be doing when we got home, and my answer didn’t suit her, so she begin running her mouth and whining. The correct response is OK mom. I repeated this a few times until she stopped and then barked that at me like she was possessed. When we parked the car I told her that my friend had given us something, and when she saw the Rose she said, “that’s it? I’m really not happy, it’s just a flower”. Her brother told me how beautiful it was.
Because her behavior in a two minute drive was completely unacceptable, I sent her to her room when we got home. She refused. I then took her by the hand into her room, where she shrieked in my face and threw a doll, and then ran up the steps after me. She stayed in her room until she calmed down, which was about 45 minutes. A couple of timeouts followed, from talking back and disrespect. We went outside to play and she didn’t listen to me when I told her to stop doing something, so she went back into her room for 30 minutes. We went for a walk after this, and she complained the whole way down the street. She ran away from me, and I stopped walking until she returned to me. She was very annoyed and she ran away from me up a hill without asking, after her brother did, and I made her come back. She cried walking through the neighborhood. She pulled it together for a few minutes, and then started whining that her legs hurt her. She asked me what we were having for dinner, and when I told her her favorite salad from a local restaurant, she barked that she didn’t want salad ( she contradicts like it’s her job). When we were walking home, she told me to go “THAT WAY”!!!, opposite our forever way, and got mad at me for going the wrong way.
Her brother then threw a fit after not getting out of the way when a car came, and he cried the rest of the walk home. I sent them both to their rooms so that I could make dinner in peace, and I finally lost my temper and yelled at them to get inside the house when they both started talking back instead of saying OK mom. I’m tired just reading this, and it was only four hours.
Like a Lightswitch
” I can’t wait to get to work. This mommy hat is starting to itch”. ~my new beloved employee and single Mom of an almost 3-year-old boy (I feel this way daily).
I understand the law of attraction. I understand how positive affirmations work. I also understand how if you have a morning where you oversleep, and then your favorite shirt has a stain on it, and then you burn your breakfast, and the kids won’t stop arguing, and you start to wonder why me, and if the day could get any worse, that it could and will. But, I still fall prey to the dark side from time to time (almost daily). It’s hard to break out of that big pile of funk when you’re right smack in the middle of it.
I often wonder how life can just switch so drastically, so quickly. Like lightswitch-style. I’m sure people whose plane is crashing, or whose husband just told them that he’s cheating, would feel much the same way.
The day started out better than most, with the kids waking at 6, 7, and almost 8 (and I stayed in bed until 720). Usually, they are all up by about 6ish. I opened up the office for my assistant who is on vacation, and had a smooth hour, before leaving for an appointment. I won’t say what kind of appointment this was, but suffice it to say that they asked if I needed to discuss birth control and I laughed and said sadly, that won’t be necessary (I am a single Mom of a 4,4, and 5 year old!!).
I had two hours of luscious alone time (very rare) before needing to relieve the nanny, and so what did I decide to do? What any good mom would do of course… I snagged one of the twins from his brother’s therapy session and took him out to lunch… alone time for me is rare, but so is alone time with any of them. We had the best time just drinking a smoothie, and sharing a salad. All smiles. On the drive home, he told me not to turn on the radio because silence is good so that we can just talk (be still my heart).
Let the bewitching hour begin. I remember questioning if my house was actually cursed. At 2 PM, the nanny left. At roughly 2:04 I was walking up the stairs to change. Per usual, my daughter started loudly yelling my name over and over and over. I then hear a bit of a tussle, and my daughter and son are battling at the bottom of the stairs. This ends with her sobbing and trying to explain what happened, while he goes to time out and has his first meltdown (he was wailing on her when I got there). When I come into the living room, with beige carpet, my daughter tells me that my other son had pulled on his feeding tube, and there was green smoothie dripping down the side of his chair, sprayed all over the floor, and on both of them. Did I mention that this was green smoothie all over my beige carpet?
Twin 1 comes out of timeout and proceeds to get upset with me about something and ends up kicking me. I decided he needs to go to his room at this point because he obviously doesn’t want to be with the family. Start meltdown number two. The rest of us then play an entire game of trouble, which is probably the most enjoyable time of the afternoon. I held twin 2 during the whole game, but I put him down so that I could go retrieve his brother. By the time I get to the top of the steps he is screaming, so I grab meltdown boy and head downstairs. As I pick twin 2 up, he pukes everywhere. It is now 3 PM, and I sat down in the middle of the living room and could only think about how I could possibly escape. Part of me wanted to put a movie on and go climb into bed. So, I start cleaning up the puke and meanwhile my daughter takes something that does not belong to her off the counter. I tell her three times to put it back, and she opens it and passes it off to her brother, and they go to play with it. I take her to time out, and then twin 1 decides to hit me several times with a balloon. I send him to his third time out, where he has meltdown number three. Meltdowns include shrieking at the top of his lungs like a wild banshee. it us now 3:08.
I will say that after a snack, and some outdoor time, and a visit from a friend, all was well under our roof once again. I wish I could make something like this up. It would make for a good story. But this is real life, and no positive affirmation was going to get me away from here fast enough.
CRIBS, Going, Going, GONE!
For five years, I have had one to three cribs in my house at any one time. My daughter is 5 1/2, and she started sleeping in her own room in a crib at six months. This was against my will, and I cried, but that’s the way her dad said it must be. When she was 19 months, her twin brothers were born, and they and I slept in the living room in some form of disarray for almost a year (we couldn’t disturb their Dad who needed his beauty sleep). Sometimes they slept in the bassinet, sometimes the swing, sometimes a car seat, sometimes the floor. I didn’t care as long as they, and I, could sleep.
At some point, we had another crib set up in my bedroom, and the third in our basement, which was a guest and playroom. Twin 1 slept in my room, my girl still slept in her room, and Twin 2 slept in the basement playroom, which was necessary for him to have the darkness and quiet that he needed in order to sleep.
My girl did not give up her crib easy, but I bought her a trundle bed for her room before she turned three. She wanted nothing to do with it for months. I finally told her that when she turned three, she was going to be sleeping in her big girl bed. Literally, the day she turned three she got in, and never looked back.
When the twins were about 2 1/2, I finally realized that we should all be together on the same floor for bedtime. Twin 2 started sleeping in my girls old crib in the room with her. I tried to put Twin 1 in the bottom bed of the trundle a few times, but I always regretted it because it became an absolute circus those nights. I completely got used to having a child in a crib in my room, and the thought of him not being there almost made me anxious. I loved hearing him breathe and roll 
over at night. And who else would tell me to “fix yo hair” upon waking at 6 AM…??
Fast forward to 11 days ago. Two days before my boys turned four, and my girl is 5 1/2. I decided that my girl deserved, and needed, a room of her own. And so did I for that matter. And the boys deserved to no longer be in a crib at four years old…( I honestly have no idea what other physically limited children sleep in at night, but at least I knew Twin 2 was always safe in his crib). So, we made the basement into a princess cave with an infrared heater, sound machine, a Himalayan salt lamp, a flashlight, crystals, glow-in-the-dark stars, and stuffed animals…and a child monitor. The first few nights were a test, and although she loved her new room, she came up two to three times to check on me, and to use the bathroom, again, and would then call me on the monitor a few times. I made sure I reacted to her and came down right away so that she would feel safe. After that she would just talk to me through the monitor, and she was happy with me responding the same way. The last few nights she goes right to sleep.
And the boys? Well, Twin 1 is in my girl’s trundle bed on the top. And Twin 2…is in the bottom trundle. They seem totally at peace together, and typically fall right asleep. My polar opposite identical twins sleep nothing alike either, and Twin 2 pretty much stays in the same spot all night, while Twin 1 is upside down, with his feet up the wall, with his feet on the bottom trundle…. The first night, he fell into the bottom trundle, and was laying right next to his brother. On the second night, he fell onto T2, and when I came upstairs they were both a bit disoriented and flailing. The next night they were like Yin Yang in the same bed, but upside down.
I came home from work last week, and my nanny’s husband had taken down the crib in my room, and the crib in the boys room. It’s amazing how big your room can look when you take out that big monstrosity. The crib in the basement will be going soon as well, since it’s no longer in use.
And as much as I want to hold onto their baby-hood for as long as possible, it is nice to be able to turn the light on and read a book, in my own room after four years…and they’re only a room away..
Out of the Mouths of my Babes May 2017
3-year-old twin boys and 5-year-old girls say the darnedest things…
“When you scratch my back, it makes me cold sometimes”. “It gives you the chills”? “No, it gives me the colds”. T1
Twin 1 jumped out of bed one morning to go pee, and then came back and said, “There’s just a little pinch of pee in my pull-ups”.
My daughter showed me a picture of a snake and told me that I’m just going to die when I see it. Twin one said, “I’ll never let you die”. I told him that we all die at some point, but we can come back as somebody else. He said, “Well, I just going to come back as me, so I can be funny again”.
I started singing to Twin 1 at bedtime and he told me no songs tonight. I told him I was sorry and he said, “That’s fine. I’ll just tell you so then you’ll know”.
I told my daughter to lower her volume. She said, “I don’t just have a switch on my back”.
Capers=peepers in T1 lingo
Cupcakes=cutcakes in T1 and his sister’s lingo
Dalmatian is a doggymatian per T1.
Getting out of his bed one day, T1 said, “Mom, I’m not coming to cuddle with you, just in case you know”.
At bedtime, my girl wasn’t listening to me and I told her that if she talks back one more time I was going to spank her butt. I asked her if she remembered when I did that the last time (and only time). She said, “Yeah, I cried. I felt like somebody bit me in my butt and killed me”.
After talking to my mom about her dog that was about to pass, and my dog that has passed, they saw me crying. Twin one said, “Mom, she will come back. Please don’t ever cry again”.
My daughter is going to grow a MOMongous (humongous) cherry tree from her seeds.
Pre-Mother’s Day
I was instructed by the nanny to not bring home our typical Friday night Thai takeout that morning. One less errand in an errand-filled Friday was fine with me…So, instead of Thai and yoga, I was able to reconnect with a dear old friend (read old flame) and have a three hour lunch… This was after a smooth half-day at work. So far, so good.
But, the best was yet to come. As I was pulling into the driveway, I saw three excited children and the nanny sitting on our stairs, staring out the front door waiting for me. When I walked into the house, it smelled delicious, and then I noticed a beautiful hanging plant with red flowers hanging off the chandelier. My three-year-old twin boys and my five-year-old daughter were giddy with excitement and literally jumping off the floor for me to see what they had done that day. There was a huge presentation of a vanilla cake with vanilla frosting, which is no easy feat considering our household is gluten-free dairy-free and our nanny’s is not ( between the two of us we have probably tried to make that darn coconut milk frosting a handful of times for different holidays and never succeeded). My daughter opened the fridge and pulled out a glass bowl that was larger than life, full of a shrimp pasta salad with dill, scallions, and cucumbers. Then there were zucchini tater tot’s cooking in the oven (or titty tots as my girl called them).
As if this gourmet meal were not enough, my nanny stayed a good hour after her off time to sit with us at the kitchen table so that I could just relax and not have to take care of the kids while I ate ( I probably get up a minimum of 13 times for every meal). She even fed my twin that is strictly fed by a tube so that I didn’t have to interrupt my meal. And, I even got homemade cards with handprints on the front that each of the kids had made me at school telling me what their favorite things are to do with me (cook, cuddle, play outside, read, and go for walks).
As the nanny was walking out the door, already past the kids bedtime, she said I hope this doesn’t disintegrate…Almost simultaneously, one of the twins was climbing up on the counter trying to water the plant that did not have a plate underneath, and the other twin started crying to such an extent that he ended up vomiting his whole meal, mostly in the sink, but also all over the both of us. Then she gave another amazing gift, and came back in and got all three of them cleaned up and put in their jammies, and ready for bed.
Doesn’t get better than that..Thanks, T…What a memorable day.
Out of the Mouths of My Babes April 2017
What will my 3 year old boys and 5 year old girl say next…?
I was talking to Twin 1 and I called him son, and he said, “I’m not the son, I’m the boss”. And he may actually believe this.
According to Twin 1, good-met = gourmet.
I always ask my kids, “How do you like those apples”?, sarcastically of course, and one day after I brought lunch to the table, my daughter said, “Good apples”!
We were playing in bed one day, and I wrapped my girl up in the blankets and told her I had put her in a cocoon. T1 said, “Put me in a raccoon”…!
At therapy one day, T1 wanted a drink of water and when he came back he told the nanny, “I filled it full, so that brother could lick it. If it was far down then he can’t reach it”. Sweet.
I heard this while T1 was pooping, “I wish I had a nose protector for my stinkiness”.
My daughter told me that God is the boss of all the angels and he tells them what to do. Sounds good to me.
I told T1 that I was going to bite his bum, and he said, “OK, but just a little nipple (nibble)”.
“Row row row your boat gently down the stream, marry marry marry marry like a spider dream”. T1
After I had told the kids that I had made their beds with clean sheets and blankets, T1 tenderly touched my hand and said, “My mama does the best things”.
WhatsAMamaToDo 