When it rains, it pours!

During a momentary lull in our daily chaos, I urgently needed a telephone break with my sister. I was behind on the family gossip and then there was recent plot developments on a certain show we watch (which I will never admit in public) that required detailed analysis. We gabbed for maybe 3 or 4 minutes.

Then the lull passed. I suppose it was the 'calm before the storm' or something.

Kye began to hitch his way up my pant leg, grunting with effort. The noises drew Rascal away from Christmas of Enchantment, who decided now would be a good time for a snack. I hobbled over to the fridge with Kye still firmly attached to my calf and pulled out a yogurt - usually a safe choice.

Well it was the wrong thing this time, and Rascal started to wail. When he gets into full turbine-strength bellows, there's not much you can do to stop it even if you have the sheer luck of figuring out what, exactly, you did wrong.

So at this point, I asked Tantie to "hang on a sec" because not only was the ambient volume an issue, but I also couldn't keep the handset wedged under my chin with two squirming boys fighting for total lap domination.

Somewhere in the midst of all this wonderfulness, Tweenie came in asking if BFF could come over. She had to shout to be heard. At this point, Tantie had been hanging on for many secs, so I snatched up the phone so she knew I was still there.

"I'm sensing this isn't the best time to talk," she brilliantly deduced. But I wasn't ready to relinquish the few moments of adult conversation I get in a day, so I struggled to talk, pacify, and keep from injury as best I could.

That's when Rascal bit me in the butt. You may recall this has happened before. By the time I had all the kids sorted out (Kye in his crib, Tweenie working on homework, and Rascal in Time Out), Tantie had to go.

Apparently she has a life. Go figure.

And so it begins...

Tweenie always dumps out her book bag in the front hall when she gets home from school and it drives me nuts! On this occasion, though, it was worth it.

I smudged out the names to thwart any stalkers that may happen by my little blog, but the note was in fact signed and addressed to my daughter. Who's much too young to even play boyfriend/girlfriend during recess, never mind receive love notes.

What did she do about this? It was pretty hilarious; she tattled to the teacher because she was mad about it. In the end, it turns out the note was a prank pulled by another boy.

Before I found out that particular detail, though, I showed the note to Husband.

"Git out yer steel-toed boots, honey, 'cuz ya got some butt-whuppin' ta do."

Actually, Husband was not as amused as I was. He questioned me very thoroughly about the boy involved - did I know him? His family? Is it a friend of Tweenie's? Where did you find this? When? What did Tweenie say about it?

I snorted and laughed the whole time, which didn't improve matters. Neither did my explanation that this sort of thing happened to me at this age too. Not impressed.

The rest of the day, Husband sighed and talked about how our kids are growing up so fast... yeah, a little reminder like a love letter will have that effect I guess.

Side effects may include--

So we got Rascal on the yaykit train to help him learn to put his peebeep and 'tinky in the potty. Now we have to train him to put his clothes back on.

"No itchies!", which is the Rascal-ism for gitchies.

He has Thomas the Tank Engine and Finding Nemo itchies. Apparantly they're soooo last year. He has a birthday coming up, and Gamma has as much as promised him some Lightning McQueen itchies. Who knows, maybe that'll do the trick.

He has also decided not to wear anything for bedtime, and so far we're accident-free! However, this has opened up the door to a whole new getting-out-of-bed opportunity. It used to be he'd ask for milk or a certain blanket or toy, but we had worked around that after several months of effort. It came to the point where he realized no amount of asking was going to get my attention. My policy (such as it is) was to respond to the first 2 or 3 requests and then the store was closed for the night.

Now, all he need say is that he has peebeep or 'tinkies and I'm flying up the stairs to attend to the little driblets he rations out over the 2 or so hours bedtime takes to complete. A few times I have tried to hard-line it with him and not allow him to get up, but then he makes a mess and teaches me a lesson.

Sometimes I wonder who is being potty-trained here.

A mother's worth

From time to time I feel the need to wax philosophical. Despite the tone of my blog thus far, I don't find everything funny, at least not until several days after the fact. Some things just never get funny with age, and so we are left with my other voice - the good ole rant 'n rave. I also reserve the right to have 6 different points (not necessarily related) that I will attack simultaneously. It's ok, Husband doesn't read my blog and won't get annoyed about it!

I was reading on MSN about the dollar value of mothering. They say a stay-at-home mom (SAHM) should earn over $138,000/yr, and that a SAHM passes up about $1 million in income, pension and other benefits if she gives up her career for her family. These stats always seem to pop up right around Mother's Day, as if that's the only day when a mother's value is worth mentioning.

I have several issues with the whole thing. First, it amazes me that we still have this debate. That a SAHM performs many jobs that would be expensive to find replacement for should be obvious to anyone. When I was recovering from my C-section last year we had a cleaning lady come in for a few hours every Monday. Cost us $50 each time and that was just for floors, bathrooms and surfaces, not picking up. The figures quoted in the MSN articles don't surprise me at all; I think if you replaced every job a mother performs you would come to the same conclusion. I don't think it properly represents an average family situation though, in that many of the jobs listed would still be done by a parent anyway (eg. driver, launderer, psychologist, etc.). Maybe if dad didn't pitch in at all, or if one of the parents were deceased the figure would be more accurate. Bottom line, though, is that a mom does many things that go unnoticed when completed but would be expensive to outsource.

However, I don't like that the emphasis is on a mother's tasks. To me, my job entails much more than cleaning and stocking the pantry. Spending time with my children, playing and teaching them has more value than a well-trained sitter doing the job for me. What value do my children place on being all day with the person that loves them more than anyone else on this earth? My daughter says to me she loves that I'm waiting at home for her when she steps off the bus. Would it be detrimental for my kids to be in daycare? Probably not. Preferable? No.

Every so often I get cabin fever and calculate what the outcome would be if I worked "in the real world". Let's say for argument's sake daycare costs $30/kid/day. I'm sure it's more in the big cities. My daughter would go to an after-school program; the one at her school costs $35/week. Add to that each month another $150 or more for fuel and insurance for my vehicle and another $100 or so for a work wardrobe. Then consider that I wouldn't have as much time for housework and cooking, which means I would bring the cleaning lady back and probably buy more takeout - let's say the food costs go up 25-30%, which for our family means $150 more.

All told, this increases my monthly costs by about $2100, which translates into $13/hr after taxes. This is just to cover my costs. I am a recent college grad with very little experience in my field. Where I live, someone with my skill set might start around $30-35,000. This works out to $15-17.50/hr before taxes. Factor in taxes and the loss of tax credits your husband would otherwise receive if you didn't work, and you'll quickly see that in this scenario you are working for free or possibly losing money. Obviously as you gain experience you'll earn more, but the first years will be hard and you lose this valuable time with your babies. Once they are older I might reconsider. Talk about a mother's worth? It may be that a working mom is worth less than her SAHM counterpart.

Where does this leave me? For now, I am happy to stay at home and halfheartedly browse around for opportunities that would allow me to work from home. I take pride in preparing from-scratch meals that are properly planned and nutritionally balanced. I like that I can attend school and extracurricular events with my daughter and storytime at the library with my sons. I love not having to do my hair or get out of my comfy clothes unless I'm leaving the house. I'm glad I have time for talking to my friends and family on the phone. I'm grateful that I can be the one to kiss the skinned knee and make a total mess of the kitchen baking cookies with my little apes.

Cost of a professional babysitter for a day: $100
Raising my children myself: priceless
There are some things in life money can't buy. For everything else, well, you know the rest.

I would love to hear your opinions on this topic!

Cruisin'

Rascal went for a yaykit motorcycle ride today.

Here I'm muddily planting away in my flower bed and I hear the hum of his Power Wheels Harley Davidson in the background. This is nothing new. He loves that thing so much, we're already on set #2 of batteries and charger.

Eventually though, I hear him heading up the driveway toward the street. I take my time standing, brushing off the dirt from my shorts and drink a swig of water. As I lift the bottle to my lips, I glance over and see Mr. Yaykit roaring and laughing as the bike putts down the street.

I went chasing after him, the clods of mud flying off my rubber boots and splashing water from the bottle with every jolting stride. When I caught up to him, I could see his baby fat jiggling as the wheels rolled over gravel.

I took a picture, but I won't share it with you today. I'm saving it for his wedding.

Eating breakfast

For some reason, breakfast is the craziest meal of the day. Take for instance this morning.

I set out Cheerios and (grr) Cinnamon Toast Crunch, 2% and skim milk. Not too many choices or we'll be there all day. And yet....

We start off with a small helping of Cinnamon Toast Crunch for Rascal, no milk. Just the way he likes it. Kye receives a Tupperware bowl with a few Cheerios. I'm in the middle of slicing strawberries into my own bowl when I hear the beginnings of trouble. It sort of sounds like when a jumbo jet fires up its engines.

Quickly quickly chuck a few Cheerios into the mix - I had cleverly deduced his demand based on the covetous look he directed at Kye's bowl. This obviously required a rethink of his position, and he sat there for a moment deciding how to proceed.

Just as I returned to my own preparations, the siren started up again. What now??

"No touchy! NO TOUCHY!"

Oh oh oh right. Non-alike items cannot share space; I can't believe I made such a basic mistake - after all, Tweenie trained me on that one for years.

I set his bowl aside and haul him onto my lap. He immediately starts eating from my breakfast. I feel a little like Mama Bear watching Goldilocks trash everyone's stuff and then snarf down the best choice. He's really cramming it in, milk and watery strawberry juices trickle down his chin and onto his shirt. This is another huge problem.

I tug the shirt off as gently as haste permits and wipe him off with (of all things) the sleeve of my bathrobe. Luckily his eyes had only managed to fill with tears and the mouth stuffed with cereal was not able to multitask in a good cry. Whew, another crisis averted.

Once he crawls off my lap, I glance over at Kye who's been really quiet during this entire event. I can't believe I didn't take a picture of this, so here is the mental one:

A fistful of Cheerios in either hand
Rascal's bowl sitting on the tray of his highchair
Kye face first in the bowl eating and grunting.

Gettin' ripped

So I recently won a workout DVD through ChickAdvisor (there's the plug, misschickie!), and although it took me a while to get off my keyster - you may recall it was quite sore for a while - I recently started using it regularly.

Yesterday evening as I was lounging around in my sweats I had one of those big, full body yawns (I just love those) and as I cat-stretched all over the couch and half onto Tweenie's lap, she remarked:

"Wow, Mom! You lost weight! You lost a lotta weight! I mean, you really lost A TON of WEIGHT!"

Ok, I have lost maybe 2 lbs but my fatpack has slowly congealed into something more resembling a flattish stomach region. The point is, I haven't really lost anything that noticeable, but apparantly it was enough to elicit this, um, wonderful compliment. After all, she did mention my size in the past...

Two all-purpose cleaners

I have tried most of the cleaning products available on a typical grocery store shelf. They all work well in their own specific ways. Surely, though, there must be a universal cleaner out there that can tackle the tough stains only a two-year-old can make.

One I've known about forever but am forbidden by Husband to use on our children. Yup, nothing quite works as well as mama spit. A good lick of the thumb, apply firm pressure to the offending spot on a body part and rub briskly. Handy, neverending supply, and economical to boot. Hey, the animals do it! Why is this so unnatural and gross? Of course it goes without saying that once your children are old enough to realize just what you're doing, that would be a good time to quit and start carrying WetOnes in your mamapurse.

The second one I must give props to my S.I.L. for clueing me in on - diaper wipes. They can get out any stain on any surface. Just don't use them on hardwood floors because the nice shea butter additive for tender tushies creates a beautifully slick sheen on your walking surface that doesn't dry or evaporate. You can have the pleasure of wiping out on your fanny over and over again until you get wise and whip out universal cleaner #1 to fix the job.

Just kidding! Well, mostly.

Au naturel

I may change Big Boy's nickname from Rascal to Yaykit. Not because he runs around screaming "Yay!" but because he runs around NAKED.

Yaykit is how he pronounces his ensemble du jour. It's mainly my fault. After months of halfhearted attempts at potty training, I am going for broke. My theory is that he'll find the prospect of peeing or pooping on himself so disgusting that he'll hold it in until his butt hits the cold porcelain.

Like I said, it's just a theory. And how do we prove a theory? (Anyone?) We do our darndest to DISprove it first. 4 liquid and 2 solid incidents later, we are still working on disproving. Which is why he's still yaykit.

We've been doing this now for about 2 weeks. So far the neighbor, mailman, BFF, BFF's mom, and the propane delivery dude have also met Mr. Yaykit. He runs up the driveway, winkie a-dangling and shouts (what else?):

"YAYKIT!!!!!"

We stay-at-home mamas need a little comedy to overlook the accidents that no amount of Rug Doctor, Spot Remover, or Tide can fully banish.

Like two peas in a pod? Not quite.

It never fails to amaze me how different my children are, particularly my two boys. Here is an example.

Kye tastes everything. He casually lifts this and that into his mouth, slobbers on it for a second or two, and then moves onto the next thing. He does this in Tweenie's room with great delight mainly because (I believe) he and Rascal are almost never allowed inside. So when I was in there recently picking up, he roamed from corner to corner tasting as he went.

Rascal bashes everything. He casually lifts this and that up into the air and smashes it against a second object to see what happens, then moves onto the next thing. As with Kye, he gets very excited about being in Tweenie's room and tries to destroy as many things in as short a time as possible. Tweenie has all her Barbie, Polly Pocket, and My Little Pony stuff set up very deliberately, and so there are many many targets for Rascal's rampage.

So this is how yesterday went. First Kye came into the room and tasted. When he was about halfway done, Rascal came in and destroyed behind him. I chased them both out and plopped them in front of the TV. Kye looked at the screen for a second, then glanced over at Rascal who was mesmerized by the singing vegetables.

Kye casually lifted Rascal's hand and tasted it. And, well, you already know what Rascal does...

Let's just say there is no permanent damage.