Whoot! Fall!

I love Fall.  (Although I didn't love waking up to the dusting of SNOW this morning. WTH, Mother Nature!?!)

But, Fall, yes.  Crisp days with rustling leaves.  Beautiful colors that blaze in the light of November sunsets.  The wisp of fragrance from chimney smoke drifting on the wind.  The joyful shout of childrens' voices jumping in leaf piles.

Yeah, it eventually leads to the most dreaded of times - winter in New England. But for now? I'll take it.

 

 

Lies, Lies, Lies, yeah

Wonderboy had a bit of a breakdown the other night.  It was one of those nights where everything was jammed into a small space of time so after dinner it was pretty much right into bedtime.  This inevitably leads to both kids getting out of bed several times for the usual potty, need water, potty again, etc, etc.  We had about reached out limit when WB comes downstairs and said he peed in his bed, "while he was dreaming."  (Mind you, this was about five minutes after his last foray downstairs.)  I'm so fed up at this point that I tell him to get a towel (since I'm sure it's a only a little spot.)  Well he's up there saying it's coming through the towel, yada, yada, whine, whine.

So I go upstairs to find a HUGE wet spot in the middle of his bed.  Immediately I am suspicious.  I reach out and feel his pajama shorts which are bone dry.  Then I notice his empty sippy cup on the floor.
The second I question him on this he starts crying and carrying on, swearing up and down that it was really pee.  By this time I am ripping his sheets off the bed, completely furious.  He's in the bathroom crying away.  I go in and look at him and say, "Tell me the truth.  Right now.  Did you spill that water?"  To which he answers, "Yes."

Of course, by this time, he's so emotional it's pointless to get angrier with him.  And mostly what I wanted was him to tell me the truth.  I get his bed remade and we go back in and lay down together.  I tell him how incredibly important it is for him to tell us the truth.  That we will always love him, no matter what.  I ask him why he did it.  He says he really missed us and wanted to spend more time with us.  (Ugh. Let me remove that dagger from my heart.)  We talked about this for awhile and decided we will try harder to get dinner earlier so we will have time to hang out before bed.  We decided to get a Family Calendar so that we can mark days where we will be able to do something special together - or just be together as that is sometimes challenging with our schedules.

Then he starts to talk about school.  Mostly about how he misses us and wishes he didn't have to go.  But then he mentions that his friends don't play with him at recess.  Which sounds weird because after school he always has a bunch of kids he plays with at the playground.  Next he says this other "big" kid makes fun of him.  At this point, I am of two minds: One being concern that there is some kind of bullying going on - and Two, that I'm being played.  I question him some more and it's all very vague.  He doesn't know the kid's name (Fishy clue #1, WB knows everybody's name)  I asked if he's told a teacher. "They think I'm not telling the truth because I don't know his name." Hmm.  I say he should try to find out his name so we can address the problem.  We talk about it for a few minutes more and then he says, "Nevermind about what I was saying before.  That was just in my IMAGINARY school."

WTF? 

"Okay," I say (deep breath), "let's talk about your real school.  And let's remember how important it is to tell the truth.  Do you play with your friends at recess?" 
"Yes."
"Are there any kids that are giving you a hard time or being mean to you?"
"No."

GAH!  Is this all just attention-getting behavior?!?!  Obviously I want to take him seriously - especially about stuff that happens at school - but his history in the honesty department is a little shaky.  I'm not one to want to squelch his imagination, however I have to draw the line somewhere. 

Sigh.  Just another one of those nights that prove to you that parenting is a lot of guess-work.  Right now, we are focusing on seeing that WB gets some more "hang with Daddy and Mommy" time.  And daily reminders of how much we love the truth. 

Some days I really think we should have just stuck with the dogs.
 

Baby, baby, baby, ohh...god, kill me now!

We lived through The Wiggles.  We didn't mind Sesame Street or the Backyardigans.  I actually enjoy the soundtrack to "Princess and the Frog."  But this?  THIS?

GAH! 

And mind you, this has not been brought into our house by Pixie.  Oh no.  This is alllll Wonderboy.  Remember those book order things you would get at school?  The ones that were printed on thin newsprint paper with the teeny-tiny ordering lines on the back? Yeah. So he brings one home a month or so ago and shows us what he wants.  The Justin Bieber "super pack."  Including! A book, stickers and...wait for it....an entire CD!  Get it now for the low, low price of twelve dollars!  Kid actually took money out of his piggy bank to pay for it.  'Cause hell to the NO were we going to buy it for him.  The Mr. and I kept pressing him, "Are you surrrre that's what you want?  Look at some of the other books you could get!  You could get all these other books for $12."

Didn't work.  Book orders came in a week ago.  The Mr. refuses to let him play the CD in his car.  He's the smart one.  Me? I'm the pushover.  But it's testing my ever-loving patience.  It's SO painful. I'm even past the point where it's cute when WB and Pixie sing along.  That lasted exactly one car ride, actually. 

Send help!

And Duran Duran!

View, haloo! Oh yes, definitely, view haloo.

Ya ever get alllll sorts of excited to introduce your kids to one of your allllll time favorite movies only to have it fall flat?  I have been so, so excited to have the kids watch Mary Poppins.  When we had the flood, our VCR bit the dust.  Which was kind of a suck since we had so many darn video tapes.  One of which was Mary Poppins.  Wonderboy found the box to the video and had been asking to see it.  Yes!

I had put Netflix on hold this summer because we were just too busy to be watching movies on a regular basis.  But it kicked back in on Sept 1 and I was all sorts of pumped to put that first on the list.  I mean, come on!  Mary Poppins!!  Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious! Tuppence a bag! Step-in-time! A wooden leg named Smith!  What could possibly be better?

Apparently, the new drawing program the Mr has installed on the computer.  Sigh.  Although they did get through most of it.  They really liked the chalk picture and the tea-party on the ceiling, and they loved Step-in-time.  (I mean really, who doesn't?)  But I think the final message was just a bit over their heads.  Or their attention span. 

I admit, I was bummed.  I wanted them to be rapt.  I wanted them to be enthralled.  I wanted them to get the total joy of Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke.  I got about half-rapt.  I guess, for a first viewing, that's not too bad.  Maybe it's just that there are so many options out there for them today, a movie like Mary Poppins is just not sophisticated enough.  And to that I say...PPHHHFFFTTTTT!  My kids will damn well love this movie!  I will force feed them this film until they can recite every line and love doing it! 

Okay.  Not really.  Or... only sort of.

A few of my favorite things and first steps

I've been having a lot of conversations inside my head lately.  Some of them have been lamenting that I don't have anything interesting or funny to blog about.  And that I have let this whole entire thing slide - not only my writing but my involvement with everyone else.  But I've decided to put all that aside and remember why I started doing this.  For myself.  To write about things that I am feeling, to write about my kids and provide memories for them and for the Mr. and me to reminisce about.  So that's what I'm going to do today.

We had a sitter for Wonderboy last week as his camp had ended.  She was telling me a few days after the fact that they had been going out and she was worried about not having a key to the house.  WB explained that they could get back in using the code on the garage.  He said, "You just press 1-2-3-4 and tic-tac-toe."  To which the sitter thought, "That is some funky code! Why don't you show me."  So he pressed the four key code and hit the pound key, #, or "tic-tac-toe."

One of the days I brought WB to work with me.  He is old enough now that he can wander around, with certain guidelines, and I don't worry about him.  At one point I realized I hadn't seen him in a bit so I went to see where he was.  Turns out he was sitting at the outside restaurant bar regaling the staff with his usual aplomb.  Telling them all about how much he had grown this year (we recently went for his 7(!)yr doctor appt) and his taste in music, heavy metal, (thanks to the Mr for that one.)  I received many nice compliments the next day on what a good kid he was, and how well behaved - that's the best music to my ears.

Seriously - I don't want Pixie to get any older.  When I think about the fact that within 10 years she will be a cranky, moody teenager I cringe.  And if she is anything like I was?  I'm doomed.  She is kind of all about Mommy right now and I'd be lying if I said I didn't love it.  As we lie in bed together at night after her story, "just for a bit,"  she will cup my chin with her little hand, look me in the eyes and say, "I just love you Mama."  Perfect.

I don't want her to stop saying "alligator" when she means "elevator."  I don't want her to grow out of starting almost every sentence with, "Well, I just...."  Okay, maybe grammatically speaking it would be best if grew out of that one.  I know each stage will be new and exciting, minus the teenage years, and I do look forward to those - but damn, three and four have been so wonderful.

And for me.  I had my first session with a therapist.  I'm really happy that I took this step, I know it's something I should have done years ago, but better late then never.  I'm not going to go into too much detail about it here, but I want to remember the beginning of this process.

I do want to try to catch up with my blogging friends, I will try to do so, but I know right now it is bound to be sporadic.  (Whenever I hear that word I think of the line from Clueless, "Yeah, I hope not sporadically!"  Oh, Brittney Murphy.)

Hope you are all well! (not sporadically!)

PS - Had to turn the word verification on - sorry.  As few comments as I'm ranking these days, it's even more annoying when they turn out to be some Asian gibberish.)