deus ex mama
it rained. and it rained. and it rained. there are only so many ways to amuse children when it is raining outside unless you are a supermom. which i am not. we did, however, go to an indoor pool for about a half hour. it was fun until jools started to shiver. he has 0 percent body fat, so sooner or later, he freezes in the pool.
i would have to say that was pretty much today’s high point. carry on, people. nothing to see here today.
sometimes i wonder how involved i should be in my kids’ lives. my son is now reporting that no one wants to play with him. he chases friends at school; he hugs them. but apparently, this approach is not working for him. how do you get through to other three year old boys? i guess by just asking them to play with you and see how it goes. one child has challenges of his own and constantly tells my son he is “stupid.” these are the sorts of things that break your heart. while he is three, i continue to try to talk him through all of this. but how much does he understand? how much does he hurt? it’s all so hard to gauge.
note: i just posted this question to my favorite forum, DC Urban Moms. i am so wildly desperate for answers that i’m posting the question in my blog, too. if anyone out there has any suggestions, please write to me and let me know. i’ll thank you, and my washing machine will thank you, too.
ok, that may have given a chuckle to the parents out there who slaved through quantitative techniques in grad school, but the sort of regression analysis i am talking about actually involves a little boy, a toilet, and some r e a l l y messy pants.
my three-year-old son was daytime trained this summer. there was much rejoicing. however, at the end of september, he changed from a daycare situation to a full-day montessori program at an elementary school, a program that requires kids to be potty-trained. they don’t nap, and they have a short lunchtime and short recess that mirrors the schedule of the bigger kids at school. in the past month, he has not only had pee accidents, but he has actually had poop accidents. did i mention they don’t like to change kids there, though they will occasionally… today, we’ve had two poop accidents, and i actually had to go to school to change him for the second time.
i’m not exactly the sharpest tack in the box these days, but i think my son is trying to tell me something.
i’m sure there are others who have been in a similar boat. i am trying to address the underlying question of whether this is just too much of a structured experience for him; but someone out there — please tell me how you got your child-formerly-known-as-a-potty-trained-champ out of regressive behavior? it seems to go beyond the usual potty training tricks – we’ve been through them all the first time, and they’re not working the second go-round.
another issue which makes me think i am becoming the worst mother in the whole world: i am beginning to get really, really irritated with these accidents. it was easier to be kind and understanding when he was learning to train. now, i *know* he is able to control his toileting, but he is choosing not to. it’s hard to smile and say “that’s ok!” to your child as you clean up their 4th/5th/lost count accident of the day when you know they known damn well how to go to the bathroom. but i’m the grownup, and he’s the kid, and i am trying to get over myself.
but it’s so hard.
in this house, we celebrate chanukah. and christmas (in a secular way.) and, in a stroke of brilliance that i refuse to take credit for, it’s also BC’s birthday.
we refer to december as the BIG BIRTHDAY BONANZA MONTH!
now, it’s hard enough as a parent to figure out a birthday present. but to have to figure out birthday presents, chanukah (one for each night, mind you) AND CHRISTMAS is a moment i dread each year. and of course, starting in october, grandparents and others start asking for hints. and i have very little clue. i place catalogs in front of my kids – etoys, land of nod, SHOOT, harry and david if it would only yield some answers.
but of course, both of my kids have shown how acquisitive they are. “i want this, and this, and this, and this, and this…” ad nauseum. i remember when i first became a mom how i wanted to raise people who cared about others and loved the earth and all those good, crunchy qualities i cherish. and they do, of course, possess many of those qualities. but they also want polly pockets, and race cars, and a baby doll high chair, and… well, you get the picture.
it makes me feel like i have somehow failed as a mom.
on the bright side, i guess i have ideas now for gifts. i’d better make room in my house for all the crap that will descend starting in early december.
******
of course, the only thing i want, no one can give me.
we took a jaunt to a new playground this evening, BC, jools, BS, and BC’s pal, Alison. the kids all started to create a restaurant with some sandy mud and various sticks and acorns. so jools comes toddling over with a bucket first, filled with sand, and announces, “do you want some hamburgers and creme brulee?”
BS and i didn’t know he had ever heard of creme brulee. the fanciest we get is vanilla pudding.
a few minutes later, Alison comes over to collect some more sand near us. another mom is neaby with her little one, who is looking on wistfully, waiting to join in the restaurant biz. “what are you making?” i ask Al.
“Julian says he wants us to bring him a six-pack next.” jools learned this term from the adventures of zak and cody, where the heroes ask for a six-pack of soda. but it’s too long to explain that.
the other mother looks at us. we shrug. we wait for her to pick up her cell and call the authorities. fortunately, she just takes her son and walks over to the kids.
for anyone concerned, my kids seldom drink soda. and that’s about the hardest stuff they’ll get around here.
tonight, BS is doing something above and beyond the call of duty: he is escorting BC to a Brownies HoeDown. i believe the fete includes:
bobbing for apples, doughnuts on a string, dancing, and more! get your dancing shoes on!
just what my guy loves to do on a chilly saturday night in november. but he’s a good sport, and he is also someone who apparently, in a fit of g-d-knows-what, was a 4-h square dancer as a kid. (this little fact has provided hours of amusement in 16+ years of marriage.) so he’ll allemande left and allemande right and teach BC the proper way to square dance.
meanwhile, back at the ranch, jools is actually jealous of his big sister. so i’ve borrowed that 1960s classic, the love bug from our library. we’ll pop popcorn, and i’ll experience all the buddy hackett i’ll need to experience for the next decade.
if only i were one of those incredibly creative moms who could think of more educational pursuits. we could make little turkeys out of wax paper and toenail clippers, or something like that. but no. we’ll watch an ancient video instead.
on the bright side, it ain’t the one with lindsay lohan in it.
after school. BC has plugged herself into the Disney Channel, where aged Sister, Sister episodes are playing back to back. jools and i retire to his room, where his latest activity seems to be discovering that his boom box can do things besides play CDs. it can play tapes, too. AND, it has a radio.
so first we’re dancing around to a CD i found at the library, one of the putomayo things for kids. he is unimpressed. “this isn’t good for jumping on the bed,” i believe, is his criterion. we try another CD, this one an Ella Jenkins special. no dice.
so we turn on the radio. we flip it around. and we come upon our friends in Parliament singing Give Up The Funk “what did he say?” jools asked.
“he asked us to ‘turn this mother out'” i reply with a straight face. (for those keeping track, this is reason # 1,345 why i am a bad mother.)
“is this good jumping music, mama?” he asks.
“the best!” i say, jumping along with him and pretending i’m a soul train dancer.
so i’m frustrated.
i’m frustrated about my health (which seems to be a never-ending story of angst).
i’m frustrated because my friendly son cannot seem to make any friends in his class AND the teacher is pretty unaccessible. you can’t talk to her before class. you can’t talk to her after class. today, i merely was about to ask her when it would be a good time to talk to her; she stopped me before i finished my sentence and said, “please, e-mail me. i can’t focus on anything else right now.” it’s hard enough when kindergarten is a black-box experience at public school; but a black-box experience for my three-year-old is completely unacceptable. this has got to change. and if i can’t get any support from the school, then perhaps i need to rethink this whole thing.
i’m frustrated because we uncovered a zillion of these flying ant things downstairs crawling around the deck. i called the exterminator, and she indicated that they are likely not termites (thank G-D) but some sort of ant that begins with “C” that i cannot somehow remember, even though i heard about this 10 minutes ago.
i’m frustrated because BC, her friend (an absolutely delightful little chick who i adore), and jools were so terrified of said bugs that they ignored both open back doors and ran to the front, which was locked. i couldn’t find them; then i had to go all the way back around to get in and let them in. and when i got there, jools had pooped in his pants.
so will somebody please tell me what horrific thing i did in my life to earn all of these things and more?
they changed the YouTube link for the whole jenny lewis dancing with the kids. check out the pancake mountain page for the link if this doesn’t work.
in other news, they have stills from the day as well. i especially love this one, where she is bent down, smiling at jools, who, i am sure, is scared beyond belief.