A Sweet Moment

February 12 2010 · 8 Comments
Posted in: The Kids · Tags: Maddie, motherhood

I was never much of a doll sort of girl. Of course, I had a small collection of Cabbage Patch Kids, but I also popped the limbs off any Barbies my parents would dare dangle in front of me.

I’m not sure what I did with these Cabbage Patch Kids, however, as I distinctly remember never having a maternal bone in my body until I had flesh and blood children of my own. In fact, it took at least a few days after the birth of my first child for the beginnings of a maternal nubbin to form. It’s safe to say, I never thought I would be a mother until it happened.

Maddie has two soft pink baby dolls. One given as a Christmas present by her grandparents, the other bought on a clearance rack last week when she seemed drawn to it. I didn’t expect much when we brought them home, this is a girl used to playing with her brother’s trucks and light sabers, but she has since started pushing them around in her pink shopping cart. Side by side, in pink sleeper outfits.

Pink pink pink. I never thought we’d have so much pink, either.

The other day, she began to brush the bald head on one of these dolls as gently as an 18 month old can. Taking her seat on the floor in front of me, her toddler legs elbowed forth, she brushed contently. When she was done brushing, she held the doll close and covered it in kisses. She then handed her doll out for me to kiss.

Which goes to show how she’s already more maternal and sweet than I ever was as a kid. Though we’ll fail to mention how Maddie tried to bite the doll’s head afterward. Or how she tried to suffocate it by sitting on it. We definitely won’t talk about how she catapulted it across the room once she was finally bored of it. Come to think of it, maybe maternal and sweet aren’t quite the right words. At least she hasn’t ripped off their limbs. Yet.

Hawalle

February 10 2010 · 11 Comments
Posted in: The Kids · Tags: conversation, Jayden

My kids don’t seem to be the kind to form cute names for things. Sadly, a bottle is always a bottle. A book has always been a book. A fork could easily be misconstrued as something else, but you’d just be twisting vowels around. I mean, Maddie refers to the cat as her brother, but I’ve yet to decide if that’s charming or confused. As well, they also rarely mispronounce. So when it happens, however briefly, I get a little amused.

Since I needed to wash dishes, I gave the boys a choice between Barney or the Fresh Beat Band. The fact that they actually chose Barney should tell you all you need to know about the appeal of the Fresh Beat Band.

As I was scrubbing last night’s dinner off a pan, Jayden comes in to inform me of Barney’s make-believe itinerary for the day.

“He’s gonna use his imagination!”, he buoyantly chirps. “To go to Hawalle!”

“Go where?”, I asked just in case I had soap bubbles in my ears.

Excitedly, he repeats, “Hawalle!”

This is why children make life a little bit brighter without even trying. In the midst of grease and stuck-on noodles, it made me smile. I almost hated to correct him.

“You mean Hawaii?”

“Oh, yeah, Hawaii! He’s gonna go there!” I don’t know, though, Hawalle sounds nice, too. Although I just Googled it and it appears to be a city in Kuwait. Which would make for a much different episode of Barney.

Even Easy Can Be Complicated

February 09 2010 · 4 Comments
Posted in: Daily · Tags: life, of course I did

J was headed to the grocery store and wanted me to email him a list of what to get. Who needs a pen and paper anymore when you have an iPhone? It’s a simple, menial task that should be completed in record time without incident. This is never the case, however, as kids can prolong any situation.

I open my laptop and Gmail on the kitchen counter and begin to type: milk, chocolat…

Then I notice Maddie, who’s nose is running like a full-pressure faucet. I grab some tissue and have to chase her down, as it’s become a sort of catch me if you can with her. Meanwhile, Ethan is swinging on the refrigerator door. Obviously, being sick hasn’t slowed him any. I pry him down and return to type a few more items to the list.

Coco Puffs, breakfast muffins, turkey lunch meat, che…

Ethan’s flinging a toy at my legs and I need to wipe Maddie’s nose again. Except she’s grabbed the crayons that were sitting on the table and, sensing my intentions, ran off down the hall. I give chase for a few feet until Ethan initiates an urgent whine for another milk refill.

After topping off their drinks, I begin again: trash bags, more cold med…

Jayden’s hollering from the other room, so I go in to find that the television has been scribbled yellow. After scrubbing it clean, I trudge my way back to the kitchen as Maddie follows. While I’m wiping her slime-covered snout, Ethan takes the opportunity to reach up and press every key on the laptop he can touch. Thanks to that, it’s now a lesson in how to decode hieroglyphics. Maddie begins to cry, which of course makes her nose ooze again. This is how an easy daily task turns into a 10 minute ordeal. At this point I press send, because even though I’m frazzled, I’m fairly sure I’ve at least covered the essentials. Before I remember, we’re out of bread and I completely left off anything for dinner.

Sick

February 08 2010 · 8 Comments
Posted in: Daily · Tags: life, this sucks

My roles this weekend included, but were not limited to: medicine dispenser, nose wiper, feeler of foreheads, reluctant nurse, moaner and groaner, cough drop absorber, hoarse whisperer, germ magnet.

The house is a mess. There are tissues everywhere. I haven’t washed dishes in two days. I managed to tackle the laundry pile, but I wasn’t happy about it. What started as Ethan’s benign cough last week has turned into Sick Central, population: 4, going on 5 days now. I tend to say sharing is caring, mainly in jest, but there are some things better kept to yourself. Ethan is congested and miserable. Maddie isn’t faring much better. I’ve got it all, too, and I shuffle my feet and pathetically groan just to make sure my discomfort is apparent. Another way I’ve morphed into my mother. The only one seemingly unaffected is J. Clearly, we haven’t coughed hard enough in his direction.

If there’s a bright side, at least we’re all in this together. Aside from J. Bastard.

Jayden, who is probably the least sick of all of us, is also the most pitiful. He’s currently bundled in a blanket on the couch and whines for medicine at the faintest sign of a cough. He’s only 6, but I already feel sorry for his future wife. At least he has the right idea, though. As horrible as I know they feel, I don’t understand why nobody’s taking the opportunity to sleep. That’s one of the few benefits of being sick that now seem lost. Naps. And chicken noodle soup.

That’s been my weekend. It sucked. How was yours?

Lesson Learned

February 05 2010 · 9 Comments
Posted in: The Kids · Tags: FAIL, Maddie

Mistake #1 was giving my daughter a chocolate chip cookie.

I didn’t think she’d eat it, though. She’s still not very fond of feeling anything with texture on her tongue. Figuring she’d get bored of it in 5 minutes, I gave it to her for something to hold in her hand. I watched her for a few minutes with it, until I was content enough that she wouldn’t try to jam the entire thing down her throat.

Mistake #2 was forgetting that I gave my daughter the cookie.

More time elapsed until Jayden came out, with a look of disgust. That isn’t saying a lot, however, since the boy has the gag reflex of a fly. “Maddie has something on her hands!”

Her hands? Oh, right. She still has that? “It’s just cookie”, I told him nonchalantly as I returned to checking on twitter what I was doing.

“Just go see!”, he urged.

Always one to oblige, I put my laptop down put a halt to the important matter I was attending to and went back to where they had been playing. There, I found my darling Maddie. Covered in mushy cookie remnants and a look of “what the hell?”. All over her face and between her fingers and down her pink shirt. I grabbed a towel to wipe her clean and that’s when I saw the rest of the cookie. Chocolate chip tracks smeared across my bed.

Lesson learned, indeed.