Now accepting nanny applications. Don't all jump at once!

So, TODAY. Ugh. Not one of my better days, you guys. Jack is... dude, I don't know. Doing the kind of stuff where you tell him to stop and he TRIES to look contrite but is just BARELY hiding his triumphant grin. You know? Or ignores you. Or continues doing whatever you just told him not to do, but with one minor adjustment. OR putting his hands on his hips and HUFFING when you tell him to knock it off. Stuff like THAT. And my standard response today was to just sort of look at him with vague confusion, because seriously, WHAT IS UP WITH THIS KID and WHY WON'T HE JUST LET ME TAKE A NAP ALREADY. I happened to do this in front of both sets of grandparents, therefore earning myself a big fat parenting FAIL, and I just keep running over the [many, various] FAILURE scenarios in my head, wondering what the heck my problem is. Because bad behavior from almost four-year-olds is to be expected, but what is also expected is that the mother DOES SOMETHING ABOUT IT FTLOG.

Molly isn't much of a peach either, if I may say so. There was the giant screaming incident over a zipped up coat, for example. The steadfast refusal to use the potty before we left the house, resulting in 1) getting manhandled into the bathroom and 2) using the potty before she actually GOT to the potty. Molly ignores me too - she will even TURN HER BACK ON ME - but Molly eventually caves to the Mean Mommy Voice, which doesn't even register with Jack. 

Also, my husband is Way Far Away and parental lectures via Skype have even less effect than parental lectures in person. If you were wondering. 

ANYHOW. Both beasties are now in bed, all of us promising to have a better day tomorrow. Eh. I keep vascillating between thinking that Jack is secretly attending How To Mortify, Exhaust, and Drive Your Parents To Drink Camp (in this fantasy I envision my younger brother as his camp counselor, giving him special "how to push YOUR crazy mother's buttons" tricks) OR I think that he is emotionally if not intellectually clued in to the giant mess that is life right now and is Acting Out. 

Gah. I'm sorry. I will stop talking about my beasties children. NOW I'm going to talk about carpet. 

(YOU: YIPPY SKIPPY!)

So! We are probably going to bludgeon away the weird fireplace in our house, leaving a big hole in the wall to wall carpet. Wall to wall carpet that is not necessarily the most beautiful to look at, but which is NICE and not at ALL in need of replacing. And! They do not make this carpet anymore. Which means we can't buy a fireplace-sized chunk and stick it in the hole. The Carpet Dilemma has been the cause of much marital strife lately, mostly because my husband thinks we can 1) demo the fireplace 2) paint over the green and 3) replace the carpet (which is almost the entire upstairs due to the circular floor plan) in, oh, FOUR DAYS. Me, I am skeptical. (Do you see how our usual roles are reversed! HOW NOVEL!) 

He wants to do this because we pretty much have one weekend to move. THIS IS HOW NUTTY EVERYTHING IS RIGHT NOW. And he wants to get all this big stuff done before we move. But... that is just crazy talk. (Says me.) Even if four days were technically enough (also to CHOOSE carpet and PICK paint and all that, because I'm not doing either of those things without first BEING IN THE HOUSE) everyone knows that remodeling projects ALWAYS last longer than the people in charge say they will. This is pretty much the ONLY thing I know about remodeling! 

At this point I think I have Phillip agreeing to 1) paint and 2) fireplace demo, and putting off carpet selection, if we need it, until later. Because aren't carpet installation dudes USED to moving furniture? But I am also thinking about area rugs (or LOTS of area rugs, or REALLY BIG area rugs, because the hole is in a weird unfriendly-to-1-single-area-rug spot) to cover up this hole. Because as much as a hole would be annoying, paying to replace carpet that does not need to be replaced is also annoying. Right? Right. 

LA LA LA!

You know what I think about when beasts and carpet get me down? The long narrow pantry cupboard in my new kitchen, with SLIDING DRAWERS hidden inside. This lifts my spirits. I'm sure you understand. 

P.S. If I owe you an email, I KNOW. I am SORRY. Even though right now I'm going to shut the laptop and SLEEP. 

 

I should have gone to school for this

My piece at Parenting tomorrow contains something I try not to have very much online: an opinion. I especially try not to have opinions at PARENTING. However. Sometimes you have only one Parenting-appropriate post in your head and here we are and, well, I TRIED not to be obnoxious but I'm sure SOMEONE will find me obnoxious and accuse me of posting my own positive comments and blah blah blah. And people, don't get excited, it's not like I wrote about breastfeeding. No, I'm writing about TEACHER PRESENTS. 

Bah. 

I'm in a very Doom and Gloom sort of mood right now. I had a typical day, even a nice one, except for the part where I took both children to Mass (today: Feast of the Immaculate Conception) and also the part where I took both children to the library. During Mass I told Jack to stop doing something - making noise with crayons? See I can't even remember. And he just WOULDN'T. Even when I used my Angry Mom Hiss, even when I physically moved him away - he wrenched his arm away and KEPT DOING IT. 

I thought: I should leave. I should drag this kid out of here right now and throw a hissy fit in the car and send him to his room for a million hours and basically make sure he knows that when he so blatantly disobeys me HE IS IN FOR IT. There will be SUFFERING! 

But I didn't. I gave up. I hissed a couple of when-we-get-home threats, but what else could I do? We were in church and people I was damn proud of the fact that we MADE it to church! And that I was there with both kids on my own! And sitting right next to the seminarian who led the before-Mass rosary who was, without a doubt, watching me pointlessly discipline my three-year-old and feeling cheerful about his commitment to celibacy!

Then after Molly's nap we made a quick trip to the library. Again, everything was just fine until Jack started to get a little excited and took off running. Again I used the Angry Mom Hiss, the grabbing his elbow and leading him back to where he was supposed to be. But as I stood at the self check out computer he RAN AWAY FROM ME. And started dancing around the line dividers and I know I know. I should have dropped everything and marched that kid out and took him home where he would SUFFER. Where he would connect Disobeying One's Mother to ENDLESS MISERY. 

But I didn't. I gave up. I finished checking out, because we'd spent half an hour finding those stupid books and it'd been weeks since we'd even visited the library and Molly had picked half of them out herself and why punish her too and and and. 

I called home to complain, but ended up getting a Buck Up, Kiddo talk which was, I hate to say, sorely needed. It was just really helpful to talk to someone who 1) has done this before and 2) knows my kid really well. Because all the Time Out stuff? The talking? The choices? That stuff does not work on my kid. You know what else doesn't work? All the OTHER stuff I do. Namely the various ways that show him I I'm Really Stinking Angry, because that was what worked on ME. (At least as I recall!) I HATED IT when my parents were mad at me. But my kid? Eh! Who cares! They'll get over it!

The thing is that we DO get over it. We are big fat softies with a large helping of Lazy. I can talk myself out of almost any hard core discipline situation simply because I hate how it ruins everything. I hate ruining dinner or ruining a project or ruining an outing. It really does ruin it for me - I don't get past it easily, I feel bad about myself and my kid, it stays with me for the rest of the day. 

But I feel like I need to start ruining things in order to CHANGE a few things. 

It feels kind of weird writing about this because I'm actually feeling like things are going well. Like, have I told you Jack eats now? Sort of? I mean, he still subsists on white flour and cheese, but at least he eats regular AMOUNTS of those things. Sometimes he'll eat a whole apple! I used to feel like I had a kid who didn't eat, now I just feel like I have a picky eater. And as a lifelong picky eater, I can sympathize with that. (Phillip, not so much. Sigh.) And there was one day where he was super rotten, but the next several days he was an ANGEL. Like he was super aware of how upset I'd been that day and he wanted to show me that ACTUALLY he really IS a good boy! See how he cleaned up his room? See how he ate all his lunch! He will do that! He will be a nice boy! 

So yeah, I guess it's just the same old same old. Kid acts out, I realize how bad I am at Consistency. BLEARGH.

Whatever. It's been a long day of not-disciplining, cookie-making and fretting about my ONE SINGLE CHRISTMAS CARD. Do you people not love me?! My IRL friends better step it up. (Let's not mention the fact that I haven't sent MINE yet. Ahem.)

He is not the boss of me

I had a really rough day with Jack.

Well. I've just been sitting here staring at that sentence, wondering where to go with it. OH THE PLACES WE COULD GO. But I just feel spent. And sort of like this topic has been driven into the dirt, and everyone has given me their two cents and while I appreciate it, there is no two cents specifically catered to the combination that is my cheerfully disobedient kid and my set of parenting flaws and I just end up feeling even MORE like everyone else knows better than me. That everyone else has it figured out. That anyone else would have this kid straightened out in a snap and when they look at me they're just biting their tongues and rolling their eyes. 

Which is to say that I'm tremendously insecure (NEWSFLASH!) On the other hand, I really do think, I mean, I REALLY REALLY DO THINK that I am doing my best. I even think I've improved. I'm WAY more consistent, from which battles I pick to how I respond. And it's been a long time since Phillip and I argued over our drastically different 'styles', because we talked it to death and found solutions we could both live with. That's been huge. 

But I am still routinely and cheerfully ignored by a preschooler, which I find infuriating, embarrassing, baffling and beyond frustrating. Cleaning up is one of our biggest power struggles. This morning we visited friends and when I asked him to help clean up the bedroom - we were in the living room and I was changing Molly's diaper on the floor - he flat out refused, danced around the room, whimpered, whined, ran away from me. And then, when I threatened him with his life or no computer at quiet time (I can't remember which) he walked verrrrrrry sloooooowly to the bedroom and then I'm 99.9% sure he didn't help once he arrived. He probably just stood there looking obstinate and superior, calculating the mortification he was causing his mother with every not-helping second. 

Stuff like that - I don't know what to do. 

Or what about when I tell him to do (or not to do) something, so he goes and asks my mom or my friend or my sister instead. Within earshot of me. When they've already heard me tell him yes or no. I just want to die. 

I had a handful of depressing-ish topics for tonight - I can't believe I went with this one. Again. You are probably all tapping out a GROW A SPINE comment with your left hand and unsubscribing with your right. 

You know what else annoyed me today? My in-laws came over in the afternoon so I decided to get my run in then instead of waiting till the kids were in bed. But I couldn't eject last night's Foyle's War DVD from my laptop. My computer just wouldn't spit it out. I got tired of that, so I decided to just watch Parenthood on Hulu. But then 1) my computer crashed, I think from all the DVD annoyance and then 2) on the second try the screen blacked out after the first commercial. But I was still determined to get my run in. So I tried again. And then I had to watch yet another episode of Parenthood where I hate all the characters except Amber WHY DO I KEEP WATCHING THAT SHOW. SHUT UP, KRISTINA!

Anyway. 

We went to dinner at a Chain Restaurant where the burgers are as big as your face and Jack eats half a French fry and FIL frets over Jack's starvation diet and MIL micromanages every bite. Except tonight Jack ate the carrot sticks they give the little kids as an appetizer. HE ATE A CARROT. And then he shoveled in his macaroni at a speed heretofore unthinkable, and MIL was so amused by my astonishment she took a picture. 

And when we got home we put on our pajamas, treated ourselves to some iced animal cookies and played a couple rounds of giant toddler dominoes. All three of us, on the floor in the living room, counting and matching and then driving Matchbox cars along our domino train. I asked Jack to clean up the dominoes, just once, and he said, "Okay Mommy."  

Bedtime was a cinch. 

Jack was out within seconds. Molly? She's still talking to herself in bed, and every so often hollering for me to come and, in no particular order: find Halloween book, want covers, want passo, want moozik, want Fassy Nassy books, not this covers want pink covers, fix blankie Mommy, want kiss and hug. Tomorrow night I'll have to lace her animal cookies with Benadryl. 

 

He takes after his dad in the chips department

Okay, the first part of this post goes like this: what in the world do I do with my kid while his sister naps for FOUR STRAIGHT HOURS? 

In the olden days I would have been dancing a jig because dude! Four hours! Jesus loves me! I have been blessed with excellent nappers, folks. But Child Number One no longer takes a nap. Well, sometimes he does, if preschool was especially strenuous, and he almost always naps at Grandma's house since she wears him out way better than I do in the mornings. But usually he is up. Usually he plays his computer for a good long while. Then he goes into his room to "take a little rest". He used to fall asleep, but no more. Now he shouts, "I done with my rest!" and I have to figure out what to do next. About half the time he plays quietly in his room and leaves me alone. The other half he makes us both miserable until Molly finally wakes up and we have someone else to occupy our attention. 

Today was one of the miserable ones. Obvs.

I really want to establish Quiet Time - play in your room, read your books, drive your cars, do your puzzles, all that stuff. But none of those toys are new to him and he's done it all with Molly and shoot - I'M bored too! We're BOTH sitting around waiting for Molly to wake up so we can DO something. So when I get all short tempered and snippy because he won't stay in his room or he keeps asking me for stuff, I feel like that's my fault. If Molly's going to sleep for four hours, if we can't go anywhere, if we're stuck inside with only each other to look at, I better find something for him to do! 

I talked to my mom about it and she suggested a Quiet Time box or cupboard full of fun things he 1) only gets to do during Quiet Time and 2) Molly doesn't touch. So I'm printing out some stuff from a homeschooling site and I ordered a few things off his preschool book order and I think a trip to the dollar store may be in order. I also bought him a little folding table and chair for his room, just for quiet time. But I'm really wondering how you guys handle this. What do your older kids do while the younger ones nap? I mean, at this point I feel BAD for Jack because seriously, it is SO BORING in our house right now! And poor kid, his mother is stomping around feeling bad for herself that she can't ENJOY a four hour nap! Anyway. Ideas welcome!

The second part of this post is about Curriculum Night at preschool. Ahem. 

I asked my sister to babysit so that Phillip could come with me and help me not be scared of the other preschool moms. Which was nice. And you guys, I love our little preschool even more. The teachers are just so nice and the room looked so fantastic - artwork EVERYWHERE, snapshots EVERYWHERE - and all the veteran parents were saying wonderful things about the preschool and I was super self congratulatory. I'm all, "Dude, self, you picked an AWESOME SCHOOL. You did SOMETHING right in this parenting gig! Go YOU!" 

But there was something about it that left me a little insecure, and after thinking about it for a while I think it's about the other kids. I mean, it's about comparing Jack to the other kids, except I haven't really met the other kids, so I'm comparing him to what the other parents SAY about their kids. WHICH IS STUPID I KNOW. Like, HEIGHT OF STUPID. 

Like you can stay up to an hour after preschool - eat lunch and play outside. We haven't tried this, though I've kept it in mind. Tonight I learned that the other kids do this ALL THE TIME. And two of the kids in particular wanted to stay after school for lunch so bad that the teachers talked to the parents about it! And now they stay at least once a week! And it's so nice! And you know how many times my kid has mentioned wanting to stay for lunch? NEVER. 

And then the mom talking about how her daughter wants to go to preschool every morning, how the mom had to lie about where she was going tonight so the daughter wouldn't get upset about not being able to come with. And me thinking about how when I told Jack he had to stay home sick he didn't seem to care. 

And how social some of the other kids are and things the teacher would say, about how they have no problem going potty in a new place or things they talk about all the time or how one kid is so chatty. 

And I know I KNOW this is ridiculous. That these aren't even REAL THINGS. I mean, why in the world do I care about whether or not Jack wants to stay for lunch?! But there's still this way that I left feeling sort of... I don't know. Like my kid isn't doing what all the other kids are doing. How COME he doesn't want to stay for lunch? Is he getting LEFT OUT with this lunch stuff? Are the other kids just more ADVANCED somehow? Are they all BESTIES? Does Jack not LIKE preschool? Is he counting the minutes till I come pick him up? HOW COME HE DOESN'T WANT TO STAY FOR LUNCH?!

When what I should really be thinking is: I am specTACularly skillful at turning anything into a full fledged blog-worthy problem. Someone needs to write me a prescription.

That said, I introduced myself to the mom of the kid that Jack talks about the most, and it turns out she is all about The Playdate and while I'm not particularly a FAN of the playdate I am a fan of making friends and she was nice and her kid's little story about himself on the wall next to a super cute snapshot was pretty funny and hey, why not, right?

And I really like this preschool. I like it so much that I told Phillip we'll just have to stay renting in this neighborhood until we can find a house to buy in this neighborhood. So, uh, maybe when Jack is thirty-seven? We'll see. 

Anyway. I trust that you all will have fantastic ideas for quiet time AND you'll say a few prayers for poor Jack's future dealing with his neurotic crazylady mother. Thanks. 

Winning vs. losing

Long long ago, long before I got married, I had this horrible, awful dream. I was fighting with Phillip, and not just shouty screamy fighting. No, in addition to the shouting and screaming I was on top of him, pinning him to the ground, slamming my fists into his chest. Have I told you this story before? It was just horrible. The worst thing about it was his expression. He didn't fight back, he just looked at me with the most profound sadness, the most confused confusion. And I wouldn't stop. 

When I woke up I felt sick. I had this voice in my head: this is what you do to him and I listened to that voice, I took it extra super seriously. So that was the day I resolved to start fighting better. 

See, I was out to win, and I was very good at it. My husband likes to keep things at a very even keel. He doesn't get too sad or too happy. He doesn't get too depressed or too excited. Raising his voice is a near physical impossibility, and I'm being serious. And when we argued, he was trying to figure out what he was upset about, and I was out to win. Whatever he said I found a way to throw it back at him in a way that benefited my case. I could twist anything to serve my purpose. I was furious, but I was cool and logical and unflappable and he couldn't beat me. I was loud, I was mean, I didn't care that he didn't follow me. In fact, I would get mad that he didn't try to beat ME. I considered it an insult. That's what happens when you are proud of your ability to verbally dismantle people. 

I stopped doing that. Literally, the day I woke up from that dream I stopped trying to win. It was one of those moments where you realize you love someone else more than you love... well, for me it was travelling for months at a time or not having a real job or my independence or, say, the lifelong need to win. 

ANYWAY.

This post is not really about a fight with Phillip. It's about a fight with Jack.

He would not clean up the crayons and markers that HE and ONLY HE had thrown, willy nilly, all over his bedroom. It was time to put on pajamas and brush teeth and get ready for bed, but he needed to clean up his room first and hell would freeze over before I did it for him.

He wouldn't clean up. He wanted Mollymoo to help. His stomach hurt. He wanted to lay down.

And I yelled. I threatened. I spoke under my breath like my dad used to do (and scare the crap out of us.) I put him in time out.

He sat in time out until I got tired of hearing him cry and sent him to his room. He still wouldn't clean up. By that time Molly had figured out that Mommy was nearing her last straw and was sidling up to me like a kitten, stroking my arms, putting her cheek next to mine. I'm not sure if she's trying to cheer me up or make sure she's not the object of my wrath when she does this. It'd be sweet if I wasn't so furious.  

Every so often I would open Jack's door, interrupt the sobbing, and ask if he was ready to clean up his room. Every single stinking time he told me he just wanted to lay down. 

Phillip was annoyed with me but I didn't care. I was not going to lose this battle. Was! Not! And you guys, I did everything. I tried everything. All it did was reassure me, for the millionth time, that certain types of discipline have little to no effect on my kid, and other types just make things worse. 

Much much MUCH later I got him to clean up. Not everything. And I had to help. But he cleaned up his stupid crayons and markers and was treated to a loud angry lecture the entire time and THEN the child had the gall to ask me for a treat. Because he cleaned up! Like I asked him to! 

Rather than dropkicking him into the street, I sent myself downstairs and Phillip took over. There was crying - that awful hyperventilating kind of crying - and I was just happy that Phillip was doing it instead of me. I brought Molly upstairs to say goodnight to Phillip (so much for the bedtime routine) where I was informed that Jack wanted ME. He wanted ME to hold him. He wanted ME to read him stories and put him to bed. 

And that was the moment. I stared at my three-year-old and thought: NO. I do not want to hold you. I do not want to read you stories. I am so angry with you I could spit. I don't understand you. I don't know to manage you. I can't control you. I can't do ANYTHING with you. I am so freaking tired of hearing you say NO every time I ask you to do something. I am so freaking tired of trying to discipline you to absolutely no effect. So NO. I AM NOT GOING TO HOLD YOU. 

I said all these things with my eyes, of course. I felt so hard and angry and done. I was stone. I would not be moved by that swollen puffy face. I would not feel bad. I would tell him I wasn't going to hold him and then I would win. 

Except... what would winning get me? I handed Molly off. And I sat down in the chair and I barked at Jack to find a book and then I barked at him to get his blanket and his teddy bear and then I barked at him to get in my lap and I said, "ONLY ONE BOOK" and "NO DRINK OF WATER" and then I held the book closed for a really long time because I would have to use my nice normal Mommy voice to read it and I wasn't ready to be nice and normal. 

He told me he was sorry, which helped. Then he snuggled into my shoulder. And gripped his teddy bear. And I opened the book and started reading. It was very cute, a new library book about a lost penguin. I let him pick out a second book, about elephants. We sang a fabulous rendition of 'I've Been Working On The Railroad'. And then we said our prayers, and he recited the whole thing right along with me, and added every one of our friends to our litany of family members. 

I told him I loved him and he told me he loved me and he got right under the covers and gave me a huge kiss and I haven't heard from him since. 

I'm pretty sure I lost. But when I think about how I would feel now, sitting at the computer, an hour after the kids have fallen asleep, having won - would I feel as settled about the end of our day?

Sometimes I think what stands between me and a much wiser mother is a simple redefinition of what it means to win. 

Revenge

Well, I don't know about you but I'm about ready to toss this week in the garbage. There were a handful of bright spots, notably the smashing success that was preschool orientation and Phillip's birthday dinner and, hmm, I think I bought something on Etsy. But other than that it's been one mess of cranky, sassy, food-wasty, grumpypants. With a lot of comfort carb-loading in the evenings because dude, I deserve it. 

These days have been the kind of days where I'm totally doing okay, I really am, I am making dinner and using my pleasant Mommy voice and fulfilling twenty-seventh requests for snacks and drinks and toys and books and help with the potty. And I am doing those things EVEN THOUGH they're doing their whole Selectively Deaf charade and embarrassing me in front of friends and throwing freaky deaky tantrums in the car (MOLLY) and responding to my every instruction with "No! I just BLAH BLAH BLAH" (JACK) and people I should be on my second bottle of wine by 5pm not making dinner. 

BUT I DO. And I haven't been drinking the wine! (Partly because - news flash - the cheapest wine at the grocery store ($3.99!) tastes like pavement!) 

BUT THEN. Then! Each day has contained A Straw. The straws are USUALLY food-related, though not always. Yesterday's straw was when both kids asked for yogurt, then, when said yogurts were placed in front of them, stared at the yogurts as though they had never SEEN yogurt before, what IS this disgusting substance doing anywhere near them, do we need to call hazmat? The day before that had something to do with picking up toys. The day before that? Someone's insistence on "do it myself!" and whatever we were doing taking nine hundred years longer. I'm not - news flash - terribly patient. 

TODAY'S straw was when I attempted to implement the New Dinnertime Policy which I stole directly from the comments, lest anyone accuse me of ignoring the comments or not responding to them or, say, writing them myself under different accounts. AHEM. The New Dinnertime Policy is as follows: You Must Eat At Least One Of Everything On Your Plate. aka You Must Try Everything On Your Plate. aka You Must Have At Least One Bite Of Everything On Your Plate. HOWEVER IT GETS UNDERSTOOD. This satisfies 1) Phillip's compulsion desire that the children eat their vegetables and 2) my desperate prayer desire not to turn every meal into a "Just have one more bite of this!" "One more bite and you can do this!" "Eat this and you can have dessert!" "Let's have just one! more! bite!" AD NAUSEUM. 

So tonight I gave them ravioli, bread, watermelon and peas. Ravioli with RED sauce, I should say. Not as common as white sauce in our house, but I've had fairly good success with filled pasta (we call tortellini doughnut noodles, FYI) and Molly, at least, and if she's in The Right Mood, will eat almost anything. Oh! AND! I let them eat at the little table in front of the TV because 1) Phillip was out and therefore I am Allowed To Be Lazy and 2) they almost always eat better if they're watching TV. SUE ME. 

Molly takes one bite of ravioli, then decides she is no longer a fan, then sucks up the watermelon and peas (which are frozen, the preferred style) and the bread and demands more of each.

Jack sloooooooowly eats his bread. Then he sloooooooowly puts one ravioli on his fork, but the ravioli with the least amount of sauce. He does not touch the watermelon, which I know he at least likes. He does not go anywhere near the peas. Surprise! 

Fine, fine, but after a while I decide it's time to implement the At Least One Of Everything Rule and that means One Pea. ONE PEA. After multiple suggestions, some coaxing, some stern wording and finally a Time Out threat, Jack says, quite like he's referring to Disneyland, "I want to go sit in Time Out!" 

That was THE STRAW. 

Okay, so the end of the story is that I won, he eventually came back to the table and ate, get this, FIVE PEAS, but I had to go get the frozen ones because by this time his peas were "soft". And then at 8pm he ate all the leftover ravioli, but only with butter and cheese because he didn't want "ketchup". 

Which, okay, I hate it, it's so much work, it feels like everyone else's kid eats FOOD why won't my kid eat FOOD. And I look at Molly, who is getting pickier about eating, but in strange and varied ways, like the other night at my in-laws' she ate ONLY broccoli for dinner. And I give them the same food, the same amounts of food, etc. SO WHAT'S UP?

And then today, as I watched my kid eat his plain ravioli, sans ketchup, I thought about how my mother and grandmother would reserve a bowl of plain spaghetti for me before they smothered the rest with tomato sauce, and how I would dress my bowl with melted butter and Parmesan and how I did this until I was in college. How I never ate a tomato. How I was scared to move to Italy because all I knew about Italian food was tomato sauce. How totally grossed out I was when my dad forced us to go to a Chinese restaurant every summer. How salad meant lettuce and Ranch dressing. How much time I spent picking things like peas and carrots and other random green things out of whatever I was served. How I am still pretty picky - carrots, goat cheese, cilantro, onions, slimy seafood, and MOST tomato sauces are on My List - but how now I LOVE Chinese food and CRAVE dim sum and GROW vegetables in my YARD and not just for FUN. 

I remember sitting at the dinner table, age eleven, and my father informing my sisters and me that we would not be allowed to leave the table until we ate a green bean. One. Green. Bean. I believe I eventually swallowed mine with milk. I'm pretty sure one of my sisters sat at that table until it was time to go to bed. 

So I look at my kid and think, maybe I'm not necessarily doing it wrong, maybe there's no Answer. Maybe this is just what my dad meant when he said, in that menacing tone of his, that One Day I'd Have Children Of My Own. 

In which Jack has yet to succeed in driving me to the psychiatric ward

Yesterday morning I couldn't get my kid to 1) put on his shoes 2) put on his sweatshirt 3) put away the Legos 4) put away ANYTHING 5) come here so I could comb his hair or 6) do anything I told him to do. He wouldn't look at me when I was talking to him. And when he DID deign to respond to one of my demands, it was with a, "No, I just BLAH BLAH BLAH" which, as you know, was driving me out of my everloving MIND. I was getting louder and louder, shorter and sharper and finally I was all out yelling. Shouting instructions and if he didn't respond, if he didn't look at me, if the first thing he said was, "No - ", if he didn't immediately jump up from his mess of Legos and do EXACTLY what I said, he was going to have to stay home, alone, in his room while his sister and I went out and had fun. Oh yes. I threatened my three-year-old with Willful Abandonment. 

So I should tell you what Jack does when I get all scary and yelly and that is cry. Which makes me MORE angry. It's hard, because I think half the time he's just crying because he knows I can't deal with it. I really do. He's a black belt manipulator and that's WHY I get angry. I KNOW I'm being manipulated and but I still can't deal with the crying. On the other hand, sometimes it's real. Sometimes it takes me a while to make the distinction. 

He's crying and I'm furious and everything that comes out of my mouth now is a basic training instructor bark and both kids are fumbling with their shoes, all nervous-like and holy grilled CHEESE people I just wanted to take them to play at the lake with their aunt and uncle! It's not like I wanted to drag them off to the orphanage. Finally I get Molly into her jacket which is cake because my friend gave her a Hello Kitty fleece for her birthday and Molly is a huge fan of 'Kitty'. Jack, on the other hand, did not want to wear his sweatshirt. I told him fine, just hold it. I was already carrying a few bags, I didn't need his stupid sweatshirt that he'd inevitably whine to have in the stroller because "it's too wiiiiindy Mommy." 

Well. HOLD IT? Oh no. He couldn't possibly HOLD HIS SWEATSHIRT. And I'd had it. HAD IT. I was not going to hold it for him. OH NO I WASN'T. And so we had a nice ten-minute standoff in the laundry room, inches from outside, because he wouldn't hold his sweatshirt and I wouldn't hold it for him and he was going to whine me to death and I was going to try my best not to pitch him out the window. 

It was pretty bad. 

I won, I'll have you know. Mostly because I just turned around and went outside and did not care whether he followed me or not. I was shaking I was so mad at him. 

He did follow me, eventually. He seemed much smaller than Three. His face was this contorted mess of What Happened Here and How Did I End Up With THIS Mommy and he clutched his sweatshirt to his chest and didn't look at me as I held the car door open for him. He laid his sweatshirt down very gently on the car floor, ambled into his seat and sat still so I could buckle him in. 

I felt very guilty. 

I felt guilty all the way to my sister's house. I AM the grown up. I AM in charge. I DO know how to handle misbehavior in ways other than yelling. (Do I?) And I know, I know I know I know, that every time I screech and rail and get in his face, my kid feels it. And not necessarily in the, "Gee, I better shape up!" way I'm hoping for.

We've been doing the Super Nanny thing for a few weeks now, to half decent effect. By which I mean I'm not sure that Jack behaves any better, but it's given me a SYSTEM that I can ADHERE TO and can agree on with my husband. We have a new time out spot, we agree on how long to leave him there, we know how to get him out. We always talk/reason a bit when time is up - I'm not sure if that does anything, but it makes us feel a little better, which isn't unimportant I think - and then we hug and then he gets to go play. 

The hardest part, often, is the hug. A lot of times I'm still angry. And there's this part of me that thinks if I hug him, if I'm nice to him, then I'm negating all the anger. I'm telling him that I'm NOT upset with him anymore, which means whatever he did wasn't THAT big a deal. It cancels out the time out. It means I'm okay with him acting like a little twerp. 

Now is that logical? I don't think so, though it's hard for me to come to that conclusion. I know a lot of you probably think that's a horrible thing to say. I am nervous to write it. But it's true. I don't want to stop being angry.

But for Jack, that hug is... lifesaving. Somehow. And if I don't immediately offer it, if I don't mention it, he will. "Hug, Mommy," he reminds me. And it melts both of us. I don't want to melt. I want to be mad. But he melts me, softens me, reminds me that he is Three, that I am the Grown Up, that not holding his sweatshirt and not eating his lunch and not picking up his toys and not coming here when I tell him to does not own me, does not steal my joy. 

I tried to remind myself of these things in the car. I hadn't followed protocol. There was no time out, no hug. Jack was obviously chastened. I was still angry. But I looked at him in the rearview mirror and I said, "Jack, I'm sorry I was so angry with you." I told him that I get upset when he doesn't listen to me, but I shouldn't have yelled at him like that. I was sorry. He didn't say anything. I thought: why are you talking to a three-year-old like he's thirty-three?

We had a great morning. My sister was awesome. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one taking care of everyone else, but she and her husband totally entertained the kids, and afterwards we went to their apartment where she made the kids lunch while I discussed a post-Christmas siblings Vegas trip with my BIL. We went home, Molly took her nap and Jack played a little computer and then took his own nap. When he woke up, earlier than Molly which is unusual these days, I went into his room and held him for a little while in the rocker. "I love you, Jack," I said. "Even when I'm angry I still love you."

And he said, "But it's okay Mommy, you said you sorry in the car." 

Oh you guys, sometimes I think he's this big kid who's only out to get to me, ruin nap time, make me miserable by the time his dad gets home. He only wants to do what he wants to do. So many times I try to get him to answer a stupid question and he responds with, "I talking to YOU" meaning, I better answer HIS question. And I'm all, excuse me, YOU ARE THREE. How in the world do you have control over ME?

But I'm the one with the hugs and kisses and I love yous and when I offer these in abundance I receive in abundance. I do. Sometimes it's even the fastest, best way to stop the sassy bratty talk-backy twerpiness - if only I wasn't too angry to offer it. At night after his dad puts him to bed he often whines until, completely frustrated, I march into his room and demand to know what his deal is. And he just wants me to lie down with him for a little bit. 

Sometimes I argue with him. He just doesn't want to go to bed. He can't manipulate ME.

Other times I'm too tired. I lay down. 

I rub his back, kiss his forehead, tell him how sweet and handsome he is, tell him he is my favorite boy. A few minutes of this and I say, "Okay, Mommy's going to go now" and he'll sit up and throw his arms around me, kiss me, say "I love you Mommy, you're the best Mommy" and go right to sleep.

Lazy lazy LAZY days of summer

So, today is a bust. I am not loving today. I am sitting in the bathroom banging out a Post of Dissatisfaction while my kids take their second bath of the day, not because they're dirty but because it's something to DO.

I don't know if Jack is just getting bored with summer or what, but he never wants to DO anything anymore. Well, I suppose that's not exactly true, since all morning he wanted to go to the playground and when we went to the playground I was informed that this was not the RIGHT playground, the RIGHT playground is the one with the SANDBOX so I totally up and turned the car around because heaven forbid I thwart the boy, right? But every time I suggest going outside he is... unwilling, to say the least. No talk of sprinklers and baby pools and watering the plants can change his mind. No going for walks. No physical exertion, just his computer and/or TV please. Molly goes down for a nap at one and from one to nearly three he and I are engaged in a battle of wills. Today I gave in and held him (2:45) just to shut him up and we both fell asleep and at 3pm I woke up, realized he was still asleep and just put him in his bed. Right when Molly started bawling from her room. 

Which is how it goes lately. Jack either doesn't nap at all, or falls asleep at the most inopportune times. I go from battling Jack to entertaining Molly and ugh, it makes for a long boring day. I always think we'll go out for a walk when the kids wake up, or play outside or just DO SOMETHING. But the day just drags on and on until I get so stir crazy I decide that yes I AM going to cut Molly's hair like I've been talking myself out of for weeks. It's cute. Not too crooked. The bangs have a sort of Spock-ish quality that I can't quite figure out, but the good thing about hair is that it grows back. 

Phillip is meeting an old professor tonight, hence the poor attitude. He's also going out Thursday night. Who is going to send me cookies? No, wait, my major coping mechanism for boredom involves standing in front of the refrigerator. I certainly do not need gratuitous snacks. 

I can't believe I'm going to say this, but: I think I'm ready for summer to be over. Today was eighty something, which is not at all unbearably hot and ordinarily I am thrilled with high temperatures, but today it just felt like overkill. Like, enough already, SUMMER. I'm done with you. I'm over it. Get moving. Let's start something new. Let's DO THIS THING. 

I feel like Jack is supposed to go back to school, even though he's never BEEN to school. Phillip is definitely supposed to go back to school. I am supposed to start the volleyball league. I'm ready to start making butternut squash soup and wearing sweaters and if it weren't the season where anxiety traditionally reared its unwelcome mug, I'd go so far to say fall is my favorite. 

I think I may just be ready for a SCHEDULE. 

This is Phillip's second year of grad school and after that this whole Waiting Room thing I feel like I'm in will be over and we can figure stuff out. It's always, "Well, when you're done with school..." or "In June we'll know if we can do this or that..." 

I suppose there is SOMETHING new happening: Molly is potty training herself. Yes, herself. Today she insisted on going around butt nekkid and running to the potty (the BIG potty) every twenty minutes to pee. And you guys, I was not encouraging this at all. She's sort of been doing this the last few days, insisting on sitting on the big potty and doing her thing and I am just too lazy for this. I'm all, "Seriously? I'm still recovering from the first child. I am not ready to do the second. STOP ASKING ME TO GO PEE." I know that if this is the real thing (which, so far, looks likely) then it's all to my benefit, but I could honestly wait. I've heard of people actually Potty Training, you know, where you stay home for a week and you make the kid drink a ton of water and you're all Sergeant Pottypants 24/7. I probably should have done something of the sort with Jack. I think I probably did everything wrong with Jack. But MAN does that sound exhausting. And between a week of Sergeant Pottypants and months more of diapers, I choose diapers. I'm bored, but not THAT bored.

Is there a medicine for the whining?

Most of my friends are parents of rather precocious girls. Most of them are a little bit older than Jack. They are all whip smart, beautiful and mini future student council presidents. As I am not a teacher, a daycare provider, an aunt to kids within frequent visiting distance or a preschool aide, these are the only little kids I know. They are my sample. And my sample is freaking SKEWED, man. 

I mean, poor Jack. Since day one he's been getting bossed around by these pretty little girls, just a few months older than he is, but you know that in Toddler Years a few months is a big deal. I'm proud to say that he's an eensy weensy bit less of a pushover than he used to be, and I think he's improving. Yay! But whenever he is doing something weird or confusing or annoying or flat out pushing me to my utmost limits, one of the ways I try to keep myself in check is to say, "Self? Is this just something kids his age DO? Is it just a THING?"

See, because if it IS, then I am totally off the hook parenting failure-wise. It's in my best interests to turn whatever phase he's going through into an actual factual Phase. That all kids do. That all mothers hate. It's not me! It's him! 

But you guys, when your sample is made up of disgustingly cute, impossibly well behaved little GIRLS*, it never works out in my favor. EVER. 

The Thing right now is the whining. And the whining is especially... whiny, lately. I mean, you have your average list of demands, what I call the Litany of Wants. Want a drink, want stickers, want to sit in this chair not that one, want to play computer, want to buckle by himself, want to open the gate, want a snack, want to stay up, want to open the mail, want to help, want to watch CAAAAAARE BEAAAAARS. Okay, so I've seen even those darling little girls I know start in on their own litanies. Yes, it makes me want to die and causes me to shriek, "STAY IN YOUR ROOM AND PLAY BY YOURSELF!" during "quiet time" but whatever. Not that unusual. Well and good. 

But Jack, I feel, takes it to this incredibly dramatic level. Like he is a teenage girl. Like he might be writing angsty poetry in his room at night. Like his world is ending. Like I am the meanest mommy who has ever lived. He whines, he protests, he sputters - but then he WAILS. All out someone-killed-my-dog BAWLING. And I'm all, "Seriously? You're doing that? Really?"

I've noticed that we can get him to STOP crying a little bit faster these days. He's a bit more responsive to bribes and dire threats. It doesn't always work, but when he let it all out in the restaurant tonight, we had him contained in under 30 seconds. Major Improvement. 

But still. What the heck? Molly snatches his ball away and from the sound he makes you think she has him in a head lock. (Okay, ONCE I came downstairs to find a nice set of teeth marks in Jack's arm. The wailing was completely justified in that instance.) BUT STILL. It seems excessive. It's embarrassing. It's unnecessary.

When I compare my kids, it seems like they have two decidedly different ways of combating Life Is Not Fair. Jack pushes and pushes and pushes until he bursts into magnificent tears. Today we had several important conversations about Talking Back and Looking At Mommy When She's Speaking To You and Doing What Mommy Says The FIRST Time, Not The Seventeenth Time. If he doesn't grow up Goth he'll be a politician, what with all the sidling around my instructions. "Clean up your room, Jack!" "But Mommy, I just doing this first." He is an ACE at these "I just doing..." excuses/stalling strategies.

Molly, on the other hand, just gives you an unequivocal "no" and waits to see what happens. Time out, usually, which induces tears, but only for a moment. Then she's on to something else. With Jack, the tears last until he feels sufficiently coddled. And as you might guess, that takes quite a while since I am rarely in the mood to coddle. Like, EVER.

GAH. The whole point of this post being: EXPAND MY SAMPLE! Am I dealing with a future eyeliner-wearing drama major? Or is this pretty par for the course? Just a sensitive little boy? 

***I am not one of those people who thinks girl = sweet, well-behaved and boy = rambunctious heathen, no no no. I do not subscribe to that. HOWEVER. Jack's little pals are all very sweet and darling to their mommies when I am around! I am open to conspiracy theories. 

I've submitted my resignation

OH today was wretched. The WRETCHEDEST. It was a Triple Volume Whinefest today (myself included). All day I was thinking about Super Nanny. WHAT WOULD SUPER NANNY DO? We tried her Time Out method a few times (I'm still looking for the Discipline Method that both Phillip and I can be consistent practicing, as Shrieking, Stomping and Yelling doesn't really work for him and Reasoning For Hours On End doesn't really work for me) and it seemed to go okay. Except for the parts where I lost MY temper and the kids were so worn out and crabby they couldn't even function and IS IT BEDTIME YET?

After months of Not Napping, Jack picked it up again. Until today, when he decided he would not bother falling asleep until the moment his sister decided to wake up and I was all NO. That is NOT HAPPENING. So of course he's been a beast all afternoon and I have only myself to blame. 

And Molly - I don't even know what to say about her. Remember when all this blog consisted of was, "Midnight is not an acceptable baby bedtime!" Well, we're sort of back to that. We put Molly down and five minutes later she is up. She hurls everything out of her crib, including the books we keep on the window sill for early morning perusal. She wants a doll. She can't find her pacifier. She wants MOOOOZIK. She wants MAAAAWMEE or sometimes she wants DAHHHHHDEE. And, my favorite, she just stands there looking fifteen and surly until you go pick her up. 

What do we do with THAT? Jack had to learn how to fall asleep on his own and CIO was our answer. I know it's not everyone's, but one night people. ONE NIGHT. We had to do it all over again at certain points throughout Babyhood, but something clicked in that kid and it worked. Molly, on the other hand, has known how to fall asleep on her own since she was born. If she was howling there was something wrong. ALWAYS something wrong. You had hunt high and low for The Answer, but there was always an answer, even something like, "I just LIKE going to bed at midnight, suckas, and there's nothing you can do about it! Pbbbtt!" 

Even now, I'll go in and hold her for five minutes at a time. Sometimes I'll say, "Molly? It's time to go night night now" and she'll lean towards her bed and dive in. Other times it's a "NOOOOO!" and I have to do it all over again. Like, fifteen times again. The good thing is that I have an almost unlimited number of things to give her to play with in bed, which is usually how I get her to go back down. A ball? A book? The alarm clock? SURE! So there's always a point where she agrees to go to sleep. Always on her own. No rocking, no falling asleep ON you, no no, she wants the bed. She just wants it on very specific and mysterious terms.

(Sometimes I think about how anxious I was to give Jack toys in bed. What if he just PLAYED? What if he never fell ASLEEP? And I think: SILLY WOMAN. The point is not to sleep! The point is to keep them quiet so they leave you alone!) 

Sometimes we do let her cry, but only for a few minutes. It seems to tire her out, and then makes it a little easier to coax her back to horizontal. I don't know. Phillip keeps suggesting we do the full on CIO, but I don't like it. It's not the right answer here. (My evidence for this is: My Gut. Phillip is unimpressed.)

ANYWAY. We are all a bit cranky, is what I'm saying. By 3pm we are all careening towards our inner prima donnas and fixing for a giant screamy explosion. Usually the explosion is ignited by dinner, which is then punted into the refrigerator to be offered up again for the next day's lunch. Where it will be turned down, once again, until 2:30, when a certain someone starts whimpering from his bedroom, where he has been banished for Quiet Time, that he's HONGREE, MAWWWMEEE! HONGREE!

So eat your freaking lunch! GAH!

Oh, and also I was comfort eating all the live long day and you guys, the amounts of Bad I am feeling about my size and my weight and how my pants fit and all that stuff feels insurmountable right now. Even though I worked out every single stinking day last week AND ate like a freaking supermodel getting ready for her TV special. How can I let the guilt of one day of cookie-stuffing cancel out an entire week of awesome? I am so DOWN about all of this, I don't even want to write about it. BAH. I'm going to go put on my (XXXXL) tutu and sulk. GOOD NIGHT.