Mother knows best

December 18, 2009 at 5:48 pm (Chatterer, Family)

Chatterer was sick this week with strep throat.  He is “too old” for naps and getting him to actually sleep became such a fight a couple of months ago that I have instituted “rest time” instead.  The rule is that he does not need to sleep, but he needs to lie quietly in bed until a certain time, usually about an hour.  When he was home sick, he took rests, but did not fall asleep.  Yesterday was his first day back at school and was also the school Christmas program.  We did not get home until after 8, and it was after 9 when he finally went to bed.  (His usual bedtime is 8.)  Today was a half day for the beginning of Christmas break and there was the usual Christmas party during class time.  We went out to lunch, saw Santa, and came home.  I explained that since he had such a big day yesterday and today was very busy, he needed to take another rest.  “But I don’t need to go to sleep, right?”  “Right.”

He has been out cold for the last hour and a half.  :-)

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17 days

September 20, 2009 at 7:44 am (Chatterer, Family)

17 days… that’s how many actual days Chatterer was in kindergarten before being sent to the principal’s office.  It seems that there’s a very good reason the school keeps the kindergarteners separated from the other kids at recess and lunch time, especially at the beginning.  However, the kindergarten playground was unavailable on Friday because of the school’s rummage sale.  Here’s what happened (as we understand it from the principal).

Two second graders were “play fighting” when one of the second graders’ little brother, a kindergartener, took umbrage to the the treatment his older brother was receiving.  The kindergartener started fighting with the second grader that wasn’t his brother.  Then, to help out his friend, another kindergartener “tackled” the second grader.  (Chatterer is not involved at this point.)  At some point in time, the second graders had enough of the kindergarteners, but not before Chatterer thought it would be “fun” to hit a second grader he knows (who was trying to stop the whole thing) to try to get the second grader to play with him.  He did it enough times to get sent to the principal’s office with his friends and the second graders.

On the plus side: Chatterer was not the instigator and he didn’t have any true “fight” intent.  One of the other kindergarteners is a teacher’s kid, and the last one is the son of my ob/gyn, as is the second grader that is the older brother.  There’s nothing like going to the doctor’s appointments and finding out that other kids in Chatterer’s class are just as bad (or worse) than he is… and this time both of her sons are involved.  I get to see her again in a week and a half and I’m sure we’ll laugh about it.

On the down side: he shouldn’t be hitting anyone, let alone a second grader that he likes.  He’ll be spending two days next week having lunch with the principal (along with all the second graders and other kindergarteners involved in the incident) and doing community service projects around the school instead of playing.

All this happened the Friday before our meeting on Monday with the principal and kindergarten teacher to evaluate whether Chatterer should stay in kindergarten or go back to preschool… ugh.

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Headlong into the Terrible Twos

August 8, 2009 at 12:34 pm (Little Boy on a Mission)

Today demonstrated how quickly things can change in the life of a two year old. It was haircut day for both boys. Chattered went first while LBoaM played. When it finally was L’s turn, there was crying and tears. Not because he was scared, but because he did not want to get his hair cut. He has clearly reached the “I want things my way or else!” phase. Good thing I’m already pregnant.

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Shh… it’s a secret.

June 20, 2009 at 9:21 am (Chatterer, Family, Little Boy on a Mission, MM)

Like most moms of small children, I took the liberty of purchasing gifts for the boys to give to MM for Father’s Day.  One day last week, Chatterer told me he was making a monkey at school for MM for Father’s Day.  I explained that I had also purchased a very nice gift for Chatterer and LBoaM to give to MM.  I told him it was a watch box for MM so MM would stop misplacing his watches.  I told Chatterer it was a secret until Sunday.

Fast forward to Saturday.  MM, Chatterer and LBoaM are playing an improvised game similar to volleyball with an inflatable football (think beach ball in the shape of a football.)  MM has a couple of pocket watches in display cases on the mantel over the fireplace.  Being a mom, I suggested he might want to put them away.  To which Chatterer said:

“But Mommy, you bought him that box to keep all of his watches in!  He should use that.”

Lesson: Never tell a 4-year old a secret.  He’s past the age of forgetting things after 24 hours.  At least I didn’t tell Chatterer about the OTHER gift.

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Kindergarten… or not.

May 24, 2009 at 8:34 am (Chatterer)

The principal of the local Catholic school called on Friday night.  Chatterer participated in the “kindergarten screening” evaluation process a couple of weeks ago.  As some of you may know, he misses the kindergarten cutoff for birthdays by seven days.  Part of why he changed schools last year was so he could be at the same school’s preschool for a year so they could subjectively evaluate him aside from the official screening.  Well, that and kids in the preschool that is part of the Catholic school get first priority when it comes to admission for kindergarten.

Anyway, it has been clear for a long time that Chatterer is academically ready for kindergarten, but then there was the social question.  Basically, Chatterer is still a little on the emotional side.  (They don’t call them the “Fearsome Fours” for nothing… whoever “they” are.)  We’ve been working on it, especially over the last couple of months, but one never knows if it will be enough in time.  

So, back to the story.  The principal called on Friday.  She said that Chatterer had done “extremely well” on the evaluation and that they were going to let him in to kindergarten… on a trial basis for one month, starting in August. Personally, I don’t think it’s going to be a problem, because the closer he gets to 5, the more the emotional stuff will fade away (at least that’s the theory).  I also think when we were having these discussions before the kindergarten teachers had evaluated him, the kindergarten teachers may have thought the preschool teachers were exaggerating about C’s academic readiness (much like the preschool teachers themselves did when C first started at the preschool last year… they tried to put him in the class with kids his own age and within a month recognized he needed to be in the kids-who-missed-the-kindergarten-cutoff-by-less-than-a-year-or-weren’t-socially-ready-for-kindergarten class).  Basically, even upon objective evaluation, the kindergarten teachers couldn’t justify keeping him out of kindergarten based on his age because he (probably) aced the entrance exam.

C is going to kindergarten… he’s very excited.  So are his parents.

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Well, the middle part was good.

May 11, 2009 at 9:50 am (Chatterer, Family, Little Boy on a Mission, MM)

So, you’ve likely already read about Mother’s Day early morning surprises below.  Mother’s Day at our house was anything but relaxing.  MM and the boys let me sleep in until about 9 a.m.  MM needed to mow the lawn, so I threw on some clothes and took the boys to the park.  Chatterer made a friend there named Vince and had a great time, especially when the water feature started to work.  Oh, to be four years old and think that it’s ok to run around in your underwear in the water feature.  LBoaM wanted precisely nothing to do with the water, though, and by the time it turned on was very tired.  Rather than trying to get C out of the water, I plopped L in the stroller to watch.  He enjoyed watching his brother act silly in the water for about another half hour before C came over and said “I’m done.”  Fortunately, I’d brought extra clothes for everyone, so C changed his underwear and we walked home.

After that, it was time for Mother’s Day brunch at our favorite local eatery.  Unfortunately, it took them 45 minutes to get our food and they were out of their signature special for the day, which was something I’d really looked forward to having.  Fortunately, they did manage to get C his usual cheese pizza instead of forcing him to eat something new (Heaven forbid!).  It truly turned into a circus, though, when first L and then C both had bathroom emergencies… just as the food arrived.  This happens so often that the sealed travel wipes in L’s diaper bag were dry.  I made do with Wet Ones, though.  MM took care of C’s issues.  Overall, though, brunch was good.

MM and I were both looking forward to some down time during nap time.  By now it’s 3 o’clock, both boys are down for naptime, and MM heads out to the-worst-place-in-the-world-that-we-both-hate-but-they’re-the-only-ones-that-carry-pre-sliced-apples-that-don’t-go-bad-after-two-days.  I snuggle down under my Mother’s Day gift (big person sized softest blanket ever… Inna and Anissa, you know what I mean!) to read for a little while and maybe doze off.  For a grand total of half an hour.  C wakes up a little more than an hour after he started his nap.  He wasn’t really ready to be awake, so he cuddled with me for another 20 minutes, until MM came home.  Then he was ready to go outside in the wading pool to play.

While MM was gone, I decided I’d like a glass of water with ice.  I opened the freezer to find the ice bin filled with about half an inch of water and the ice was wet.  Thought: “This isn’t good.”  Time passed.  When MM came home, I told him about it.  He said he’d noticed it earlier.  I told him I’d turned down the temperature.  Time passes.

The food in the freezer is defrosting.  The food in the refrigerator is getting warmer and warmer.  Yes, it’s true: the refrigerator is broken.  It seems to be blowing the air in the refrigerator around, but not making any effort to keep the air cold.  Enter the unexpected $250 expenditure:  MM heads to Home Depot to pick up a freezer and we move all of the truly perishable stuff to the little refrigerator we have from when MM lived in a closet studio apartment in San Diego.

Heck, at least both the boys slept well last night.  Seriously, though, it was good to spend time with the boys and MM.  The boys seemed to have a great day, and, after all, isn’t that what matters most?

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Happy Mother’s Day!

May 10, 2009 at 3:21 am (Family, Little Boy on a Mission)

Just to prove there is no such thing as a parent’s day off (and I include MM in this post for reasons that will become obvious), I relate to you the following story.

All of us, MM and LBoaM in particular, have been fighting a spring cold.  This morning (about an hour and a half ago, aka 1:45 a.m.), LBoaM starting coughing in his sleep.  Not a polite little cough like “Oops, a fleck of dust flew into my nose,” but a real, deep, “I’m going to cough until I choke” cough.  I listened for a while to see if it would get better.  No such luck.  About an hour ago, I decided to get up and get him out of bed and sit him up to help calm the cough.  It worked, too.  For a while.  The cough was calming down and I was just thinking that it wasn’t so bad sleeping in the glider for the night when a big cough hit him.  So big that he threw up.  All over me.  All he could say was “Oh no.”  Somehow, that seemed very appropriate.  He managed to get a little spot on himself, which required a change of his clothes, but there was no doubt that one of Mom’s Rules came into play for me: “The only way to get rid of vomit odor is to take a shower.”

Fortunately, MM is wonderful and, upon my calling to him in an increased sense of urgency, came to my rescue so I didn’t need to figure out what to do with LBoaM while also figuring out how to get out of footie pajamas without “spreading the wealth” of my situation.  He took care of getting LBoaM into fresh clothes and a diaper while I showered.  He’s in there still.  I love that man.

Proving what moms (and dads) everywhere already know: just because they say it’s your “special” day doesn’t mean that “special” won’t have a different meaning than the one intended by the holiday.

Additional thought added in the morning:

Only mothers would think “Thank goodness he threw up on me instead of himself or the sheets.  I’m easier to clean.”

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Updates on LBoaM and Chatterer

April 16, 2009 at 12:28 pm (Chatterer, Family, Little Boy on a Mission)

First, to reflect his increasing stature, ToaM is being renamed Little-Boy-on-a-Mission (LBoaM) for purposes of the blog.  Usually the “mission” is whatever Chatterer is doing or eating.

LBoaM has added several body parts and new words to his vocabulary, and he can correctly point to the body parts on himself and others.  This is a little gross when it comes to “nose,” because, as most children immediately find out, the best place to put a finger is… and he’s not shy about doing it to others, either.  We’re working on getting him to point to his nose instead, but it’s a work in progress.  Current new words are:

head, nose, eyes, ear, tummy, bottom, leg, arm, “chugga chugga,” “all done,” “cars,” “two” (spoken after I say “one”), cracker, chicken, apples, fries and his favorite: Elmo.  I’m sure there are others I can’t think of right now, but I’ll add them later.

Both MM and I had funny conversations with Chatterer the other night as he was going to sleep:

Chatterer (to MM):  When I grow up to be a veterinarian, how will I get my veterinarian clothes?

MM answered in some appropriate fashion.

After this conversation, I decided Chatterer might have other questions about when he grows up to become a veterinarian, so I went back to chat with him.

Me:  Do you have any other questions about being a veterinarian?

C:  When will I be a veterinarian?

Me: Well, you need to go to school, and college, and then special veterinarian school.  So it will be a little while yet.

C: But when will I be a veterinarian?

Me: When you’re 25.

C: Oh, ok.

Me: You might decide you want to be something else before then, too.

C: Why would I do that?

In fairness, he’s only wanted to be a veterinarian since he figured out what a veterinarian is, which was probably a year and a half ago, so the idea of being something else only occasionally crosses his mind.  Usually it’s right after the fire engine visits school… then he wants to be a fireman.  Until the next morning, when it’s back to being a veterinarian.  Ah, to be young and that sure of oneself again.

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Chatterer’s teeth.

February 13, 2009 at 4:34 pm (Chatterer)

Chatterer went to the dentist for the first time today.  (Yes, I know he should have gone a long time ago, but these things happen.)  What prompted making the appointment was a minor “accident” at gymnastics class.  Chatterer and one of the less well-behaved kids ran into each other.  More to the point, Chatterer and the other little girl ran into each other because the other little girl was going the wrong way.  Anyway, it seems Chatterer’s tooth took the brunt of the hit.  The next day was also dental hygiene day at Chatterer’s preschool, so it seemed there was a message in the air.

Anyway, his appointment today was excellent.  He has healthy, clean teeth.  However, the dentist said that we should watch the one front tooth, and that Chatterer should come back in 6 months.  The best part seems to have been the prizes: Chatterer came home with a little foam airplane that flies.  We’re having a good time keeping it away from Elmo and Zoe.

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Updated address.

February 13, 2009 at 9:49 am (Family)

For those of you who send us stuff, please contact me via e-mail to get our residence address to use instead of the mailing address most everyone has.  We have decided to begin the process of closing our mailbox at the UPS store.  It changed owners about 18 months ago, and after two years in a row of not receiving Christmas packages without asking for them and, when they “couldn’t find them” giving them the tracking number that said the packages were, in fact delivered, we have had enough.  The service has gone down the tubes as well.  If you happen to already have our residence address, please delete the mailbox address.  If you don’t know which is which, see the first sentence of this posting.

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