Archive for parenting
Meatballs
Posted by: | CommentsWell, the newest addition to our family is growing up and leaving hair everywhere. Remember Rex?
Well, he’s becoming a man 
Even more so. I’m not sure if you remember the post about his girlfriend or not. The girls asked about that, but didn’t have any probing questions. And I’m going to start this story off as delicately as I can. Let me just say that Rex isn’t neutered.
He prefers to lay on his back, legs all spread apart. Well, a few months ago, when the…um…”boys” popped out, Chloe had some concern. I’m going to tell you exactly what she said, but let me first say that Rex’s belly (and those other various parts) is white with black spots. Just so happens, that the black spots landed exactly on the boys.
Chloe came running into the kitchen, screaming in a panic.
“Mom! Mom! Mom! Mom!”
“What!!!” I screamed. I was hoping nobody lost a finger.
“Rex has meatballs coming out of his but!”
“Um, what?” I didn’t really make the connection right away. It took a second. But it did hit me before I actually SAW the dog.
As I chuckled under my breath, I gently told Chloe that they were not, in fact, meatballs. All these different words (both medical and slang) flew through my brain. I decided to keep it as simple as possible.
“Chloe, those are his boy parts. Girl parts are inside. Boy parts are on the outside.”
She looked at me, and I saw the wheels turning in her head. Obviously, the next question HAD to come.
“Do Dad’s boy parts look like that?”
I simply answered “Well, Dad’s not a dog. If you want to know anything else, you’re going to have to ask Dad.
And that’s all I have to say about that.
Have Chicks, Will Travel
Posted by: | CommentsIt has been crazy beautiful here in the ‘burgh for November. It was sunny and sixty five degrees yesterday. As I was going through my normal Saturday morning routine (mostly involving paperwork for the restaurant), I spied with my little eye four free passes to the Pittsburgh zoo that were on my fridge. They were set to expire at the end of December. I looked outside, I looked at the passes, I looked at the kids. ”Who wants to go to the zoo today?”
There was literally cheers and jumping up and down.
So, after we finished all of our work at home, we packed up. We had to stop at the bank and the restaurant first, but then we could have our little adventure. As we were getting ready to go, Becca asked me where my backpack was. I told her it was in the closet….why? She told me that I needed to take it to the zoo. OK, I understood. I told her I didn’t need to take it to the zoo…I didn’t need diapers, wipes, bottles, extra formula, etc. The last time I took Chloe to the zoo, she was just about to turn three. Well…she was out of diapers by then. But I still needed that emergency extra outfit, just in case. (I never actually had to use the extra outfit, but I felt better just having it).
I told the girls that they were much easier to just take along to places now. And they are. I fed them McDonalds in the car. Beautiful. I didn’t have to rent a wagon – they walked the whole time. Chloe was a bit nervous on whether or not the animals could get out. We had a great time – the two favorites were the monkeys and the polar bears. One of the polar bears was in the water, playing with his toys. We ended the day in the Kids Kingdom, running across wobbly bridges, crawling through tunnels and climbing gigantic rope spider webs.
There wasn’t any fighting. Although there were a few attempts to plead for a stuffed animal to take home, they both settled for a huge sucker and a mood ring (yes, I got a mood ring for myself, too – but not a sucker). It was a fantastic afternoon. It was one of those days that I fantasized about when I was awake at 3:00 am feeding a bottle to a cranky infant.
My chicks rock. My family rocks. Although Tony couldn’t be with us yesterday, we get to have an awesome family day today. I’m holding on to yesterday. And next week, when I’m screaming for everybody to stop touching each other, telling Chloe to stop choking the dog and cleaning up everybody’s mess, I’m going to stop, sit down, and think about yesterday.
Maybe it will stop me from having the “Mom Freakout.”
Liar, Liar Pants on Fire
Posted by: | CommentsThere are many moments in time when my kids just plain crack me up. There are other times when I’m just amazed at how their little brains figure things out. This little snipped is about when both of those things happened simultaneously.
The other day, our friends’ kids were at the house playing. They live just a few houses away. I’m not sure if the paretns are comfortable with me slapping their names all over the internet, so let’s just call them by their initials. “C” is a girl, five and a half, and is about to start kindergarten. “B” is a little boy who turned three in June. The four of them were out playing in the yard and swimming (well, the girls were swimming. B was hitting golf balls). After a while, B decided that he wanted to come into the house with me. I was cleaning up toys, so I told him that if he helped me clean up, he was more than welcome to come in. He was a great helper, and just super cute. (He was trying on Halloween masks. Something about a body that small with a latex zombie mask on is just uber adorable!)
Well, all of the kids ended up coming inside. The girls all had their MP3 players. B doesn’t have one. Becca is pretty good at taking care of her stuff, and she put hers into her little purse. Now B is three, and a boy. Needless to say, he can be a little rough at times. And, he’s curious. He wants to check everything out. He headed over to Becca’s purse, obviously wanting to check out the MP3 player.
You could see the fear in Becca’s eyes. She loves her MP3 player, and you could see the scene playing out in her head. In that split second, her quick thinking little brain said to B, “B, you don’t want to go in there. There’s poop in there.” Her big, beautiful eyes looked up at me. You could tell she was proud of herself for coming up with something so ‘original,’ and proud of the fact that it worked. But I could also tell that she was looking for approval.
B said “Poop?” So, I went along. I told him “Yes, B, poop. Becca likes to walk around with poop in her purse.” The giggles poured out, even from B. With that one sentence, I helped keep B away from Becca’s precious MP3 player AND gave her my approval.
After the fact, I wondered if that was the right thing to do. I’ve always told Becca that she shouldn’t lie. But her I was, pitching right in. We haven’t sat and discussed the whole situation, but I’m still gonna stick with the fact that this lie was OK. That’s what my gut is telling me to do. So, I guess we’ll be discussing the fine subtleties of fibbing. But not tonight, because tonight is…
SLEEPOVER NIGHT. Or at least that’s what they both think. They’re headed up to the neighbors to sleep out in a tent. The adults all expect that the kids will be coming home, and not sleeping out all night. But if they DO decide to sleep out all night, that’s fine. (My poor friend has offered to sleep in the tent with them, if they DO sleep out there). Chloe has already asked me if she can come home if when she misses me. Becca, however, has told me that she’s going to stay all night. We’ll see how that goes
A New Flat Friend
Posted by: | CommentsWell, it finally happened. After leaving the tv on pretty much all day (sometimes on a music channel), it died.
The kids took it VERY hard.
We came home on Sunday after a whirl wind day of Sarris Candy, painting our own pottery and chinese food. Tony had just returned from the Buccos of Suckitude game. He asked me to look at the tv, it wasn’t turning on. Jinkies. I check the power, and it’s dead. Once the power supply goes, it’s just cheaper to buy a new tv. Or pretty close, anyway.
The girls FREAKED OUT! Through their massive tears, they screamed the questions:
Where are we gonna watch tv!?!?!? (Um, on one of the FOUR other tv’s we have?)
But I wanna lay on the couch!!! (lay on the couch downstairs!)
I wanna watch Rugrats! (It’s on the DVR, I told them to watch a DVD)
WWWAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!
We headed down to the “man cave.” I’m not quite sure why I still refer to it as the ‘man cave.’ Tony’s never really here to enjoy it. But before we bought a restaurant, we turned our unfinished basement into Tony’s hide out. There’s a big 52″ flat screen on the wall, surround sound and a beer fridge. Original plans were to build a bar in the back, but since we went out and bought an ACTUAL BAR, those plans have sort of fallen to the way side. You could tell the girls just weren’t comfortable down there. I mean, they watched the big honkin’ tv, but they still weren’t happy.
So, as I went to work on Monday, Tony headed out to try to find the best deal. Our new family member is a 32″ flat screen LCD. It’s pretty. It looks a little strange in our entertainment center, though. The old tv was a big old tv. Honestly, it had to weigh at least 150 pounds. And we had to poke the big perforated hole out of the back of the entertainment center so that the back of the old tv could stick out. The new tv, however, is all sleek and light.
So, even though my girls were more upset about the tv than they were the death of their fish, I believe they’ve completed the healing process. And when I need to get something done, my babysitter is again available.
We’re All Equal
Posted by: | CommentsHi, all! I’m in the middle of my mom’s visit, and it’s nice to just be together. We have done some ‘touristy’ stuff, though. Wednesday we went down to the Carnegie Science Center. It was raining, so it was crazy packed inside. The kids thought the submarine was stinky, but really liked the robots. We had a great time.
But something happened in Becca’s little brain that day. Shortly after we arrived (and I purchased a membership, BTW), we were all at a little fountain where you try to balance plastic balls on the streams of water. There was a boy there who was probably 10 or 11, along with his chaperone. I’m guessing the boy had cerebal palsy, or something similar. He had a padded helmet on, and enjoyed the fountain. Becca could not stop looking at him. I was on the other side of the fountain, so I couldn’t really whisper in her ear not to stare. Nobody seemed to notice (except for me). I could see the little wheels turning in her head. There was a mix of confusion and amazement in her face.
Well, I had forgotten about this little incident until last night. We always seem to have our little heart to heart talks right before bed. As I lay there with Becca, a told her that I saw her staring at the boy with the helmet when we were at the Science Center. I asked her if she knew why he walked the way he did and had a helmet. Well, she had no idea. I’m hoping that I picked this chance to explain some things about people and life in the right way. I told her that his brain couldn’t tell his body what to do very well. I also said that he is probably a very smart boy, but it’s just that his body and his brain aren’t quite in sync. She thought about that for a while. She asked “Can he talk?” I said that I wasn’t sure about him specifically, but that if he could talk, he probably had to practice a whole bunch. I again emphasized that just because he might not be able to talk, that didn’t mean he didn’t have lots to say. I told her to try to imagine having all these great thoughts in your head, and not being able to tell them to anybody. She asked if he could snap. I told her, again, that it was probably very difficult.
Then she asked if it was hard for him to breathe. Which I thought was a pretty good question for a six year old. I told her that breathing is different. You don’t have to think about breathing. I didn’t want to give her a whole science class, so I told her that the ‘automatic’ part of his brain works just fine.
We chatted some more, and talked about how he really isn’t any different than other kids. That he probably likes to watch cartoons and be with friends. I hope the little ten minute talk we had helps her understand that we’re all equal, even if we have different challenges.
As she lay there, ready to drift off, it hit me how lucky I am. I need to be thankful for that every day. And then she told me “Mom, you’re making me hot. Can you leave now?”
