Dumpster Diving Preschooler

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Dumpster Diving Preschooler

“This isn’t garbage. This is totally awesome stuff that I need right now or I might die.”

Now that the new baby finally seems to have an actual “schedule” I’ve been trying to get this house back into a semi-clean state. I say semi-clean because lets freaking face it… I didn’t have a clean house BEFORE I had kids, so I’m not trying to shoot beyond reality here.

The biggest part of cleaning around here is decluttering. When you have a kid, you have just accumulated a fucktillion pounds of stuff. Some of which you need, most of which will never be with you when you need it and all of which costs a lot of money. As kids get older, they still produce more stuff. And now I have three kids. Fucktillion, cubed.

“Mommy I made you a picture.”

“Mommy I made you a painting”

“Mommy I made you a craft”

“No, Mommy I want to keep that, it’s my paper collection”

IT’S JUST A BIG PILE OF GARBAGE, A LITERAL PILE OF TRASH!!! PAPER COLLECTION?

NO, YOU’RE A HOARDER IN TRAINING.

And don’t get me started on the goody bag toys, the stocking stuffers, the Easter basket trinkets, the sports medals and trophies, each of which has distinct sentimental value to a child. I get it, kid, I really do…. but something has to go, and since you are mine, it’s gonna have to be all this extra crap.

Which brings us to today. I just cleaned out the playroom and found some plastic, useless crap that needed to go…. Goodbye plastic crap, hope to never see you, or your brothers again. And I was rid of it. *happy sigh* until the 3-year-old came home from school.

Of course, I was on the phone. If you want your child’s attention, pretend to be on the phone… because it seems that is the only time they ever want to talk to you. After eating his banana and throwing away the peel, I guess he saw some of his junk in the trash…

“Mom, but this not garbage….”

{He’s walking toward me wearing 500 silly bands of assorted colors, a plastic Fireman’s Hat, a macaroni necklace made by his 8-year-old brother (7 FREAKING YEARS AGO), while holding a hot pink plastic egg in one hand and a handful of green plastic grass (with a tampon wrapper in it) in the other}

Ummmm, yeah it is…

“But this my stuff, I not done with it yet”

He is currently at the coffee table playing with the pile of “his” stuff.

Nap-time starts in 15 minutes.

I’ve learned my lesson.

No more kitchen trash for decluttering, because I have given birth to a dumpster diving preschooler.

Garage garbage can from now on.

If he scales that bitch I’m in serious trouble.

There Can Only Be One Superman

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I asked the 3 year old about his day at school on the drive home today… His response,

“Joe didn’t wanna play Superheros with me.”

Really? Why?

“I wanted to be Superman.”

Why couldn’t you both be Superman?

“Mom, {very serious} there is only one Superman. ”

{Tell that to Christopher Reeve and Henry Cavill}

Oh, sorry my bad. So who did Joe play with?

“No one, he played alone.”

And who did you play with?

“I played alone too.”

I see, what did you play?

“Superheros”

How ’bout that. And Joe?

“He played Superheros too.”

It’s obviously worth playing alone if you get to be Superman.

 

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Badass Bionic Supermom and The Common Cold

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I’m such a freaking baby when I’m sick.

Right now I have a cold. But in my mind I’m Scarlett O’Hara taking care of a pregnant, near death, Melanie as we flee the burning south. “Oh, Fiddle Dee Dee!” All I want is the red soil of Tara between my toes, and this cough, runny nose, headache and post nasal drip to leave my Plantation. For good.

And of course, when you’re sick, everything seems unmanageable and overwhelming. But I did get a great deal accomplished today even though I feel like shit, Thank you DayQuil. But all of a sudden, my to-do list seemed to have a certain urgency… Like, I HAD to write some thank you notes for the baby gifts today… HAD TO! I have no clue why? And I HAD TO, couldn’t live another day in this house, without finally folding and putting away the laundry.

Why is that? Why when we feel our physical worst do we push ourselves to accomplish things that really can wait until tomorrow? The sky wasn’t gonna fall if I spent a day in bed with the baby, only to get up to pick up and drop off the other kids.

Maybe it’s because when I’m sick, I feel weak. And the idea of myself being weak goes in the opposite direction of the Badass Bionic Supermom I want to be. It’s not that I don’t have those days… we all have those days… but giving in to the germs, admitting defeat, that some bug has beaten me and stolen even one freaking day from me…. pisses me off.

I have friends with, and hear stories about people who are fighting real sickness. Cancer, AIDS, MS, Immune System Diseases, MRSA (the list is endless) …. REAL, life changing, life ending illness… and I can’t believe I’m this angry that I have a cold.

Sometimes my inner big baby needs a nice, steaming, hot bowl of reality check.

The Right Shit

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A close-up of Astronaut John Grunsfeld shows the reflection of Astronaut Andrew Feustel, perched on the robotic arm and taking the photo. The pair teamed together on three of the five spacewalks during Servicing Mission 4 in May 2009. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute conducts Hubble science operations. Goddard is responsible for HST project management, including mission and science operations, servicing missions, and all associated development activities.

Jeez, I looks like the reflection of Alien in your mask. I’m worried. Hold me.

Overall, my kids don’t usually swear. And considering that I’m about one call sign short of being a Trucker, that’s a pretty big feat.

As a general rule, in my home, language is based on situation. I rarely use foul language “at” someone… You won’t hear me call someone a “F**k”, but if I drop a bookcase on my foot I’m pretty sure I’ll yell, “Fuck!” or something of that nature. My kids hear these words. It happens. Some days, it happens more then others. And, there has never been an instance that I have heard my children curse… until today, and it was hilarious.

I had a lovely Mother’s Day. Well, as lovely as it could be with this horrible cold but Hubby and the kids really tried their hardest to make it special. They cooked me an awesome breakfast, and then left me alone for a couple of hours while they cleaned and washed my car. THAT, is a huge gift.

We went to my In-laws for dinner and I brought my (self proclaimed) World Famous, Bacon Wrapped Shrimp. My Father-In-Law was thrilled to see my blue casserole dish being held in my arms as I walked through the door. And I can’t blame him. Bacon is good. Bacon wrapped around shrimp is even better.
As we wrapped up the evening Father-In-Law handed me back the clean dish…. (Wow, it really must be Mother’s Day) and we packed up the kiddos and headed home.

We pull into the driveway and Hubby goes..

“OH SHIT!”

{Now I’m worried} What?

“We needed to stop for garbage bags”

OH SHIT, I thought something was actually wrong, I’ll use a lawn bag and get kitchen ones tomorrow.

I open my door and CRASH…..
The blue casserole dish (which I’d placed right next to the car door and floorboard…. I have no clue why) has fallen out of the car, onto the driveway and shattered into a million damn pieces.

At that exact moment, in perfect comedic timing, my 8 year old says,

“Oh Shit”.

I’ve never laughed so hard at a broken dish in my entire life.

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Monkey in the Middle

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When I got pregnant with our third child, our family dynamic was really…. easy. Everyone had their specific place in our little nuclear family. Roles were clear, defined. It was simple to see who was what. We had the big boy and the little boy. We shit rainbows and sunshine and everyone whistled while they worked.

It’s really easy to glorify the past.

Sometime around the 8th month of my pregnancy, my 3 year old became “that freaking 3 year old” and I couldn’t attribute this change in behavior to anything other then his “Three-nees”.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, 3 is the new 2. It makes sense when a 2 year old is a douche-bag. Some have limited verbal skills but desperately need to be heard. At 3, they are repeating all the stupid shit you say under your breath… “Yeah, Mommy, you’re an asshole” when you realize you left wet laundry in the washer for 2 days…. For the next 2 days after that all you hear is a little mouth saying, “Mommy is an asshole.”
Game, set, match, little man.

Now that the new baby is here, the 3 year old has two strikes against him…
A. He’s 3
B. He’s the dreaded {Dom, Dom, Dom} MIDDLE CHILD

I didn’t even realize the stigma attached to the whole “middle child” thing until tonight… bad mommy. I should have picked up on it before now.

Biggest kid went to sleep over a friend’s house and Hubby and I threw caution to the wind, said “fuck it” and decided to brave the great unknown by going out to dinner. This is a pretty big deal for us, because I really do like to cook and their are just too many variables with all these kids that can screw up a meal out. But tonight we did it….

And it was fucking awesome.

Because, in taking our oldest son out of the equation, 3 year old happily took the slot of top dog. He was well behaved, ate his dinner without question, helped with the baby…. did all the things (I assume) he’d been yearning to do.

So now I’m wondering, how can I make my second child, my #2, feel like my first child, my #1, all the time? I mean, obviously, I don’t have a time machine… he’s never going to actually be my first born. And he totally knows that. He loves his big brother and completely uses his big brothers actions as a guide. But I need to erase the middle child stigma from my mind, my world, my house… The whole shebang.

The 3 year old is very important member of our new family dynamic. He’s the glue. He’s the guy that holds all the brothers together in a very important way. He’s the funny, irreverent brother. He’s the one that asks the ridiculous questions…. “Mommy, why are your nipples so much bigger then mine?” He asked that over breakfast by the way. And he’s the one who tells us when we have something caught in our teeth. And tells us when he farts…. even when it doesn’t make a noise. He’s also the one who perfectly holds a pencil, and can play with Lego’s (without directions), and can paint (with real paints and brushes) for hours and never make a mess.

Starting tomorrow I’m going to bite the bullet and give him some assignments. Chores and helpful stuff that he will love, stuff that will make him feel important, and stuff that will help me out. This is a huge leap of faith for me, because I really love control. But if it works… (fingers crossed) I’ll be giving him some massive identity beyond being the monkey in the middle.

Stay tuned, I’ll keep you posted.

*Note to self, buy wipe boards

I Don’t Hit My Kids, Yet…

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When I picked the 3 year old up from school yesterday his teacher had an interesting story for me. I guess my middle monkey was playing with a stuffed animal and he kept throwing it on the ground. When his teacher asked him why, he said it was time for the bear to “go to sleep”. So his teacher questioned further (while sorta giggling because she knows us very well) “Do Mommy and Daddy throw you in your bed when it’s time to go to sleep?” and my sweet little boy said, “Yes”.

I actually found this story a bit comical because
A. I don’t hit my kids and
B. He wasn’t really lying.

This past week the 3 year old was refusing to finish his dinner but still insisted on desert. That’s not how things work up in this bitch. You eat… you get a treat. Simple right? But Mr. 3 wants to do things his way, which (although very age appropriate) is a total fucking pain in the ass. So on Thursday and Friday nights he went to bed with no desert, and a temper tantrum, which was finally resolved without books or cuddles but getting a time out, in his crib. Now, I wouldn’t say we “threw” him in his bead… but when a strong 3 year old won’t listen and is trying to kick you, he isn’t laid down gently either.

The moral of this story is always give your kids whatever the fuck they want so you don’t have to explain yourself to DCF.

No, no, that can’t be right. The real moral of this story is that sometimes being a parent means you have to be a dick. They aren’t always going to like you, but they need to trust what you say to be true. If you say one thing and then do another all you get is a kid who’s going to know they’ve got your number. And in this case my little buddy seems to think that if he annoys the living shit out of us he’s going to get his way. I think he might, just might, be finally getting the message that we aren’t going to give in on certain core things. Like eating, we aren’t going to budge on this one. And hopefully we don’t have to repeat the soap opera from the other night. But if we do, so be it.
I might have to get the preschool some new stuffed animals.