Cooperating for a common purpose

"Come, Kye!" sang Rascal.

I looked around the corner suspiciously. Usually Rascal hates Kye horning in on anything he's trying to play with.

Don't misunderstand - Rascal really loves his little brother. Just so long as he's well out of reach of his carcars.

As I observed for a moment, Kye looked over indifferently toward Rascal. A wad of drool blobbed onto the floor.

"Kye! Come, Kye!" Rascal patted the floor beside him enthusiastically.

A fresh driblet of saliva began forming on Kye's lip. He returned his attention to Tweenie's Polly Pocket car. I was satisfied that nothing improper was going on, so I returned to the stack of laundry.

Eventually I heard some strange grunting noises. I looked over curiously to see Rascal standing on Kye's back, straining to reach the TV and DVD remotes I had purposely placed out of reach.

I frantically stuffed the sheet I was folding back into the basket, roaring at Rascal to get off Kye's back.

He responded quickly, prize in hand, then immediately handed one of the remotes to Kye who sat up and crammed it into his mouth, shmatzing loudly.

I firmly plopped Rascal into the Naughty Chair, who looked at me calmly and said,

"What?"

Ferber and Oatmeal with a side of Insanity

I have been on blogger hiatus lately. I'm sure my REAMS of fans have noticed!

Today, instead of an *amusing* (at least, I think they're amusing) anecdote about my rapscallion offspring, I will offer an inside peak of what's going on in my head.

Kye stopped sleeping through the night just after Thanksgiving. Now at 9+ months of age, he's still not doing his part to ensure maternal sanity. After lots of soul-searching, weepy half-tantrums (in the privacy of my bedroom), and a stern conversation with our pediatrician (I conversed, he was stern), I have decided to go Ferber.

For the uneducated, the Ferber Method is a technique to get your kids to sleep through the night. It involves several nights of blood-curdling howling from Baby, stuffing head under pillow by a guilt-wracked Mama, and hourly elbow jabs from Husband reminding Mama about his 7:30 a.m. meeting tomorrow.

Ferber does allow Mama to quickly check at the beginning of each new wail cycle to ensure the safety of the child, but this results in raised hopes and teary smiles from Baby. This wrenches at Mama's heart and causes her to pick him up and cuddle for a minute, making the inevitable parting even worse as Baby realizes he's been tricked again.

After several nights of this, we had some partial success last night. Kye made it from midnight to 5:30 in one stretch! I was so excited.

There were some side effects, however. I was a little disoriented at having so much sleep that making breakfast became quite an adventure.

First, I made coffee with half the amount of beans that I usually use. Frowning at the taste, I looked into the filter and noticed that I had ground them espresso-fine. That would explain the coffee dust at the bottom. So I had weak, sandy coffee.

After that I mixed up some oat porridge for myself and the kids as I do nearly every day. I started off intending to make 2 cups of finished product, for which I usually use 1 cup water, 1 cup milk, and 1 cup of oats.

Into the pot went the 2 cups of mixed liquid, followed by 2 cups of oats. It was thicker than I expected, and I quickly realized my mistake. I hurredly added 2 more cups of liquid and 1 more cup of oats (I don't know why either). That didn't quite do it. I thought hard about my process. Once I realized that I was at 4 cups liquid and 3 cups of oats, I added 2 more cups of liquid to come to the right consistency.

We all had our fill of porridge and a large Tupperware-stored supply for tomorrow and Monday.

I blame it on too much sleep.

toxic contamination

When I was a teen, I had breakouts like everyone else. Nothing extreme, but let's just say I was waiting for puberty to be over so that I wouldn't have to deal with it again.

It took some time before I was mostly breakout-free, but then I started having babies. I get that the hormones involved in pregnancy would cause zitty flare-ups, but I assumed that the problem would go away after birth. Now I'm on baby #3 (Kye) and I've had an epiphany.

The confusing thing was, that while I was a teen I had zits on my face mainly. Now that I'm a mom, my face is clear but I have breakouts on my neck, beside my nose, and on the tops of my shoulders.

This morning Kye was so excited to see me. He clutched happily in my direction, finally finding a sure grip on my neck and nose. As his sharp little fingernails dug their way in, I suddenly thought of where those hands have been.

As with Rascal, Kye grubs around in his diaper area while I clean him. I always wash his hands at the end but never think to clean under the fingernails.

Gross.

What a Mama does for love

Love hurts, they say. Usually they mean emotionally, but I can vouch for the physical pain today.

The little boys and I were having a lazy morning playing in our bed. A very mellow start.

Baby, who Rascal recently christened "Kye" (not remotely close to his actual name, by the way), is crawling now. But apparantly that's not enough for him yet - I can tell he wants to walk. I learned early on that mobility in children is in fact not desirable. Just read any of my Rascal stories and you'll know what I mean!

Where most children would perhaps pull themselves up on furniture, Kye uses any part of my body to accomplish this; it's usually my hair, ear, or jaw. Today, however, as I was lying on the bed, he crawled onto my chest, then sank his head like a tripod onto my face and pushed his legs out straight.

There were two small problems: first, his feet were grinding into my stomach; and second, his mouth was open when he planted his face directly over my nose. If only it were deja vu... As I attempted to free myself, he bit down and balled his fists in my hair. I actually called to Rascal for help.

"Kye, what doing?" Rascal sat there, not overly concerned. Kye just laughed.

Later, after I cleaned myself up, Rascal and I were wrestling and tickling. Then he pulled a fast one, headbutting me on the nose. I thought I was going to die, the pain was so excruciating! I probed gingerly convinced something was broken, feeling and tasting the coppery blood trickle back down my throat.

I might not survive these toddler years.

It goes both ways

We're potty-training with Rascal ... again. Just when it seems he's on the verge of it, he loses interest and then we have to start all over.

We've been working on this since last summer.

This time around, we're back to our same old tricks - bribery, letting him run naked, and leading by example. This is where it gets amusing.

I debated today about telling you all this, but then quickly realised that any shame I may have once had was swept away during childbirth - very possibly the most shame-shedding experience of my life (but that's another story!).

So there I was, on the can, with Rascal watching intently.

"Where da peeeeeepee?" he sang out encouragingly. I obliged.

"Ahh! Hi peepee!" He was very excited.

"Mama 'tand, 'tand." He tore off some toilet paper and attempted to help me-- well, you know. I thanked him kindly but took care of it myself.

"Good mama, you good, you choklit! Okee?"

We went together to get me a chocolate chip as reward. Once there, he held out his hand patiently waiting for his chip.

I guess I forgot he gets his cut up front.

Are you sure you're ready?

I have no comment.

You are what you eat

Rascal is a snacker. We mamas are always on the lookout for "healthy" snack options, and supposedly Goldfish crackers are a safe bet.

Safe for whom?

He was eating these and some raisins. I was playing with Baby on the floor. Tweenie was off somewhere probably counting her Barbies.

It was just like in a cartoon - the part where green smoke drifts past your nose and suddenly an odor engulfed the room. We're talking a brain-numbing nostril-hair-singeing eye-watering anaphylactic-shock-inducing stench.

I held my breath as I approached him. He looked up innocently, not yet fully aware of the carnage he had wreaked. I picked him up and held him at arm's length as I carried him to the change table.

Ground Zero was a surprising sight. For all the smell there were only a few rabbity turds in his diaper, but what was really super awesome was that they were neon green. I tell you in all my years of changing diapers I have never seen anything so weird. I remembered then when he had all those Freezie-pops last summer that his poo was strangely colored too.

I cleaned him up as fast as I could and then double-bagged the diaper before putting it in the trash. I opened the window to let the room air out.

When I returned to the living room and Baby, I realized that the stink was still quite strong. I opened a few more windows, but it didn't seem to help much.

It was then I noticed that Baby had swiped some of Rascal's fishies.

A strange association

Baby was slobbering on me earlier - it made me think of Jabba the Hut.

It started during a phone call from Tantie. Baby felt he had something to add and yanked the phone away from me. Within seconds the handset was covered in drool... I was concerned that the phone would short out and Tantie would be electrocuted on the other end. The last thing to go through her mind would be the sounds of shlurping and gurgling.

By the time I got the phone back it was so wet that the saliva was literally dripping off the end. Even I was disgusted and it must have shown in my expression.

Baby hooped with laughter and reached for my face. He grabbed a fistful of cheek and lower eyelid in one hand and my lower jaw with the other, then hauled himself forward until he was sprawled on my chest and in attack position.

All I could do was watch in horrified paralysis as his dripping maw approached. He crammed my nose into his mouth and went to work. His two little teeth anchored onto my left nostril allowing his tongue free access to the right. He was so delighted with himself that he giggled as the ooze escaped up into my nasal passages and down my throat, making me cough.

I struggled to free myself but his grasp on my eyelid and jaw was solid. Finally I used my fingers to pry his jaw off of my nose and then the rest of my face. I put him down onto the bed as quickly as safety would allow and went to the bathroom to clean myself off.

It took about a half-hour for the red tooth- and fingernailmarks to disappear, and I'm pretty sure I now have a few new wrinkles.
____________

Epilogue

The thought briefly crossed my mind that this was Baby's version of a kiss. However, tonight he did pretty much the same thing to Twit. It didn't matter how hard he yanked, that fluffbrained feline loved every minute of it. If affection is still implied, it's apparantly not limited to Mama alone.

Oh well.

I hate it when she's right!

Tantie the childless. Tantie the insightful. Tantie the smartass.

I called her a few days ago because I was at the end of my rope. Rascal was getting on my last nerve and I needed to hear someone feel bad for me. Husband listens but does not respond - I guess he learned his lesson a while back...

Tantie has a special bond with Rascal because they are both the 'middle child'. She claims she understands him.

So although I did get some ego-soothing platitudes about my fantabulous parenting skills, she also had some words of wisdom. I didn't expect advise on this topic from her but it appears she has some insight.

So her solution was basically to use huge amounts of positive reinforcement and to absolutely not acknowledge bad behavior, other than a single stern "No!"

"Be a robot. Don't let him see that he's got your number. He thinks it's funny when you're mad."

I didn't believe this at first, but last time I was on the verge of losing it, I caught my reflection in the mirror. My face was beet red except for some white splotchies around my mouth that was wrenched into a scowl, my hair was wild and woolly, and I am pretty sure there was smoke wisping out of my ears.

Ok, ok, so I did look pretty funny. Rascal didn't laugh, probably because he learned along with Husband that a poker face gets you into a lot less trouble.

I tried this method for a few days and I think there was some limited success. Ever looking to gain an edge, Rascal found a way to crack my armor. I called Tantie in a panic.

"I'm a robot! I'M A ROBOT!" I shrieked. "But it's not working!"

Calmly she replied, "What did he do now?"

"He whipped off his diaper that was loaded with %&*@ and is rolling around on my bed, smearing it all over the sheets!"

My knuckles were white, my eyes squeezed shut as I clenched the phone to my head, waiting for the pearls of wisdom to come. I waited... and waited.

Finally a response: "Oh!"

What, that's all? I could hear laughy breaths on the line. She was trying her darndest to hold it in. Eventually she got herself back together and proceeded to do some damage control.

"I know what you're thinking," I accused. "Better you than me, right?"

A pause, and then "uh, listen, hate to do this to ya but Y&R is on..."

____________

Lest anyone should think that Tantie is anything other than a wonderful aunt and incredibly supportive sister, let me assure you that she has been an anchor, sounding board, and cheer squad for me. I only tell this story because it's freakin' hilarious... well, it is now anyway.

Toddler-proofing: part 32,489

We thought of everything, supposedly.

The books are on the topmost shelf of the bookshelf behind glass doors - he took care of that Spidey-style.

His clothes are in the oldest dresser we own, the one that you have to really yank on to open it - he's in there almost everyday.

The garage door opener is way out of reach - he knows how to get into the van and press the remote control.

Husband's car door usually requires a certain amount of technique to open - Rascal can do it in 0.6 seconds and uses the seat controls to recline both front bucket seats all the way.

Here's another thing we never thought of: the venetian blinds that I hate and have been planning to replace ever since we moved in.

I was in the kitchen making coffee when I heard, "Hewp, hewp!" from the living room.

There he was - one leg on the floor, the other looped through the slats of the blind, one wrist tangled in the string clutching 3 Hot Wheels, and the other hand hanging onto the back of the couch for dear life. A very precarious situation indeed.

How does he think of these things?