Kids Remember

Aaron's birthday is coming up, he'll be 6. Either that means that he's getting old or I'm getting old, old enough to have a 6 year old. A little scary either way you look at it.

The other day we were talking about what we would do on his birthday. Mostly because as the slacker mom that I am, by the time I booked his birthday party, the day of his actual birthday was all booked up, so we have to have it the next week. I keep telling myself him that it just makes his birthday longer. Anyway, in our discussion about what we should do on his birthday, we talked about going out to dinner to a hibachi restaurant where they cook in front of you. We talked about inviting Grandma and Papa and maybe even Grandma Cheryl.

Here's the conversation that followed.

Aaron: Grandma Cheryl can come too?
Me: Yes, we can ask her.
Aaron: But Papa Bill can't come because he died.
Me: Right.
Aaron: Mommy, if Papa Bill didn't die, I would have wanted him to come to my birthday.
Me: Me too.

In the six months that my father in law has been gone, Aaron really hasn't talked about him. I wondered if he understood, remembered or how his almost 6 year old mind had processed the whole thing. Clearly he both understands and remembers both his Papa Bill and how much they loved each other, which makes me happy.

The Many Faces of Camryn

All kids have many faces, right? Here are the many faces of Camryn, at 2 1/2 years old.

The silly face...

The confused face...

The annoyed face...

And the cutest face ever!

Bedtime Routines

By day, she's an adorable little girl, pretty cool clothes, curly blond hair and big blue eyes. She says the most adorable things. Like yesterday, she looked at Grandma's shoes and said, "Grandma, mommy have same shoes," and then ran inside I got them. Pretty good for a 2 and a half year old, they were very similar, outside of the color, but who cares? She eats, she takes a pretty good nap, she doesn't mind when I leave for work and she's mostly nice to her brother. At night though, the wild beast emerges and my husband and I look at each other as if to ask, "Who is this?"

Our routine has been dinner, bath and bedtime. Because our first-born's bedtime routine sometimes exceeds 45 minutes (yup, books, stories, then it starts - Can you lay with me/send mommy in/send daddy in/give me a drink/I have to pee?) when our daughter was born, we made a conscious effort for her to have pretty much zero routine. Have the bottle and go in the crib. Usually awake. And it worked for us, until now.

Last night, we ate dinner and then she burst out crying hysterically at the mention of a bath. She now doesn't like the faucet on, which is semi-understandable because it is pretty loud. But, her new rule, which she screamed and cried for a good while, is NO TOYS IN THE BATH. Yes, zero. They have to be outside of the tub. Not even in the bag in the tub, but truly outside of the tub. This is reminiscent of when she was petrified of the bath after she pooped during one, but that's neither here nor there. We complied with her rule (anything to stop the crying), she took a bath and was herself again. Until someone mentioned the dreaded word - BEDTIME.

Hysteria. We read books. Two to be exact. And twice each. Dora and Sesame Street. Then she decided she needed socks. Of course, the white socks that she was wearing weren't good. She needed the Elmo socks. I'm sure you've already guessed that they were in the laundry. And I don't usually do laundry, so she was pretty much out of luck. Crying again. Finally we found socks that were okay - they were pink ("my favorite color") so she was pretty happy with it. Almost ready to go into the crib, but no, the wrong baby is in there. The pink baby is in the crib, of course, because she's been sleeping with that baby for about a month, and she wanted the white baby. Where's the white baby? It's downstairs. So I leave her in her room and go downstairs to get the baby. She then decides that the baby's face is dirty and we have to clean it. Took out the wipes, wiped the baby's face and then the baby was totally ready for bed. Oh wait, we have to pick out a CD to listen to. She decides that she wants the "orange CD". What's the problem? We don't have an orange CD. We have a purple CD, a name CD and a few white ones, but no orange one. So trying not to lose my patience, we put on the purple CD and she goes in the crib. Quietly, no crying and I think I'm in the clear.

So hubby and I sit down to catch up on Army Wives (new favorite show, by the way) and of course, the crying starts. I'm done, so it's his turn. He's in there for about 10 minutes going through the same thing I just went through with her - change the socks, change the CD, clean the baby. Finally, he's out and she's still crying. At this point, we decide to just let her cry it out. After about 5 minutes, she's still crying and as we sit down, he says, "I think you're making a mistake letting her cry."

Yes, he did. He really did. He really said that. And as if that wasn't bad enough, he didn't understand why I got pissed off and why I went into her room. That was like saying, "Hey, you're the worst mother in the world, but keep doing what you're doing." UGGGGGH.

The end result was, I did go in to her room, we changed the CD AGAIN, and she finally laid down and went to sleep. Total time spent, about an hour and a half. And not a fun hour and a half.

I hope that she goes back to her regular bedtime routine of pretty much nothing. A book then the crib then sleeping for about 12 hours. Just when you get used to a routine, these kids go and change it up on you. Hoping that tomorrow night goes a little bit easier....

Right Now

Right now, I feel like not such a great mom. Like I have no patience with my kids. I've always cited that characteristic as the reason why I could never be a teacher. Absolutely no patience for 20 something kids in a classroom all day. Teachers truly have my utmost respect. I definitely could never do it.

Right now, in the quiet of the night, I think about the day gone by and remember being aggravated with Aaron a good amount of times throughout the day. At the time, the reasons seemed so important. Now, I can't even remember one of them. Okay, maybe I can remember one of them, but for the most part, I don't remember why I felt like I was having such a rough day.

Right now I can think about the day more clearly. He's a 5 year old boy. Entitled to be a little wild, entitled to not listen 100% of the time. Are my expectations too high? Do I think he should be more mature than he really is? Do I jump the gun and react to quickly?

Right now, I feel sad because although I want to enjoy my kids as they are now, in the moment, I lose sight of that. I don't know why I find it so hard to just let loose and have fun.

Right now, I remember my daughter asking me today to do her Dora puzzle with her and I can't remember what was so important that I told her to wait a few minutes. We never wound up doing the puzzle together.

Right now, as they sleep, I can feel in my heart how much I love them. They look so peaceful, so quiet. Like they are the perfect kids.

Right now, I wonder why I can't be exactly who and what I want to be for them. I remind myself that they will only be little once and that as each day passes, I can never get it back.

Right now, I promise to try my hardest to be a better mom to them tomorrow.

Star of the Day

"Why aren't you listening?" This has become my mantra to my 5 year old son. Lately he's been pretty much ignoring everything we say. If he's tapping and we say, "Stop tapping", he does it again. If he's running around the house and we say, "Stop running around the house," he runs one more time. If he's jumping on the couch and we say, "Stop jumping on the couch," he jumps a few more time. If he's...okay. I'm sure you get it.

The "stop jumping/running/yelling/spinning" is usually followed by, "Did you hear me?" Of course he did, and then we talk about going to the doctor and getting his hearing checked. "I heard you though!" Exactly! So why didn't you listen??

After a not-so-great-listening weekend last weekend, we decided that we would implement a rewards system. For every day that he is a good listener, he gets a star. After 5 stars, Daddy will take him to Dave & Busters. The first question he asked, "Do the 5 starts have to be in a row?" Smart kid, right? "Yes," we told him, "they have to be in a row."

Day 1 was good. He listened to the babysitter, didn't torture his sister too much, listened to me when I got home and was generally pretty good. Ahh, I thought, we're on our way.

Day 2 was good too. When I got home, babysitter said he was great. He had a playdate over and was pretty good, included his sister, got along with his friend, didn't whine. Well, whined once. But in the scheme of things, and thinking about our weekend, I'll take it. Wow! This is all we had to do? I should have done this reward thing earlier, it's working great. Am I going to have to bribe my kid fo the rest of his life? If all it takes is Dave & Busters (and not a car at any point), I'm good. Let's hear it for bribery!

Day 3. Not so great. First he threw up on the floor. Obviously, having nothing to do with listening, but I thought I'd throw that in there. Puking episode over and confirming that there's no fever and he's not sick, he went to his friend's house on a playdate. When he was picked up, we learned he did not listen to the friend's babysitter. She is a lovely woman, and described her day as "sometimes challenging." Oy, that's not good. What else did he do? He didn't listen. He whined. He didn't want to eat what she served for lunch. He spit on his friend. Seriously, this is a good kid. He spit on his friend? Are you sure? Spit like saliva from his mouth??

I spoke to him on the phone. "Mommy, I'm not getting a star today," he said, clearly fighting back tears. "Why?" I asked. "I didn't listen today, it wasn't a good day." I almost felt bad. Not bad enough to give him a star anyway, but still bad.

Later we talked about his day. I was much less concerned with the not listening than I was with the spitting. Who spits on someone? I cringe just thinking about it. He said that his friend "was crying, and I was just trying to help." Now, this might make sense to a 5 year old mind. It might even sound like it could get him out of trouble. But this didn't make any sense to my 30-somthing year old mind after a lousy day of work at a job that I am teetering on leaving at any given moment. "Huh?" I asked. "What do you mean, how does spitting on someone help?" He really couldn't explain it, but insisted that was what it was.

End result of the day? No star for the day. No tv or computer for the night. But we didn't dwell on it. We didn't talk about it anymore. He played Shrek Operation with Daddy and went to bed for the night. I checked on him when he was sleeping and felt this incredible surge of love for him. You know the feeling, when you see your kids and they are fast asleep, not moving, not talking and not terrorizing anyone. You question how could this little angel ever do anything wrong?

Tomorrow will be better, I thought. He's such a good boy. When I get home from work, we'll see if he gets a star today.

From The Mouths of My Babies....

Oh, to be a kid again. Yesterday I took my son and his friend to their gym class and while we were in the car, overheard the exciting conversation between two 5 year old boys:

Son: I love the Mets
Friend: I love the Yankees
Son: I love the Mets and I love the Yankees a little bit
Friend: I just love the Yankees
Son: I hate the Red Socks. When we see them, my papa always yells BOOOOO really loud.
Friend: 5 year old boy laughter
Son: Shea Stadium was built in 1964 and in 2008 they are knocking it down and they are building another stadium named Citifield.
Friend: Hmmm....that's a good name.
Son: Yeah, it is, isn't it?

So simple, so innocent, yet so grownup.

Is it normal that I am sad that my first baby is big enough to have this conversation with his friend? Is it normal that I am sad that he is going to kindergarten next year? Isn't that something that I should be so happy about, like celebrate this major milestone in his life? When I think about him waiting at the bus stop and getting on that bus the first day of school, I'm just sad.