Potty Talk

I joked once that my son Keller could single-handedly provide enough unpredictably crazy, humorous, random comments and incidents to fuel my blog...and, though it's funny, I wasn't kidding! He's like a mini Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde, one part mischeivious wild man and one part organized and focused. I secretly wonder if he's a little bit of a mad genious! My oldest is straightforwardly intelligent, analytical and logical. Keller is often completely unpredictable! So, I love that he likes puzzles, as mentioned in my last post, because it focuses all his energy on one giant visual problem, which he handles beautifully (and keeps him busy!). Along with this side of his personality, he likes to clean. He actually volunteers to do it! Sometimes he will just decide to reorganize the craft drawer or a section of the playroom. When it's time to clean up, we can always depend on him to work diligently and do a remarkably thorough job. It's absolutely fantastic. I don't know that many other four year olds who LIKE to clean, but I'm all for it. So whenever he gets in the groove, I let him go.

This afternoon he wanted to dust, which was great, since I couldn't remember the last time I dusted. Lots to keep him busy! He's working his way around the house, and I'm tending to the other kids when I hear him bumping around in the bathroom. I hesitantly ask what he's doing...since there's not a whole lot to dust in there. He comes out with his rag in the air and triumphantly announces that he's cleaned the toilet. Well, it really wasn't that "clean" an announcement. More like, "Mom, there's no more poop in the potty!"

Let's put this in perspective, shall we? Uh, no gloves. No special toilet scrubbing tools or cleaning products. Just bare hands and a rag. I'm literally speechless. Ok, very briefly speechless...then I quickly demand he run the rag to the washing machine (I realize speed doesn't help the situation or kill any nasty germs, but it seemed to warrant running, nonetheless) and immediately wash his hands. Sigh...for all intensive purposes, I really am speechless though. What can you say but, "Wow. WOW?" Or "Ewwww." That works too.

Just one of those days...

Today is going to be one of those marathon days for a large family. We have four dental appointments today, requiring multiple trips to Blacksburg, which is 30 minutes away from our home. Granted, I'd rather get it all over with in one day and have it done for the next six to twelve months, but it still requires lots of preparation and coordination. With four children and regular OB visits, we make frequent trips to the doctor, so I'm in familiar territory here. I'm armed with snacks, activities, games, diapers and changes of clothes. Keller has some Hidden Picture books that we're going to bring along too, and I asked him to collect some viable markers for his bag. (The way we go through them, you never know if you've got a good one or not, and you DEFINITELY don't want to end up at your intended destination with dried-out markers!). He picks one up that he found on the playroom floor (what is THAT doing in there instead of the craft drawer? Don't even want to know right now.) I instruct him, "Test it and make sure it's a good one before you put it in your bag." He whips out his arm and prepares to go to town. "Seriously, Keller?! Do NOT write on your pajamas!" He looks at me...and pushes up his sleeve. Seriously?

So, I finish prepping the bags, supervise everyone getting dressed and make my daughter's hair presentable (or at least out of her face and less likely to attract food and other sticky, gooey substances.) We are surprisingly ahead of schedule, and I announce to the kids, "Mommy just has to go to the bathroom, and then we'll be ready to go!" Before the entire sentence is out of my mouth, my youngest walks by, and I can tell with one whiff that our cushion is blown. It's amazing how quickly a five minute advantage turns into a deficit when...Poop happens. Obviously, this new development takes precedence and, as we are now automatically running late, I am having an internal debate over the necessity of my going to the bathroom or not. I'm an adult, right? I can make it to the dentist, get my paperwork completed, and work it in after we've arrived on time. My pregnant self argues back, quite convincingly, that you really shouldn't count on the reliability of a pregnant woman's bladder. It's a 30 minute drive, conservatively, and who knows when baby girl will decide to practice a few hooks and jabs?! So, I head to the bathroom and resign myself to being in a rush (doesn't it always happen? It's almost inevitable really...each child is a force of nature unto themselves, and they take turns wreaking havoc on even the most well-planned time tables!) THEN I remember that I haven't even brushed my teeth yet, and I'm pretty sure the hygienist would appreciate that small effort on my part. We finally make it out the door, armful of bags and clothed, freshly-diapered children intact, and I notice that I'm still wearing the clothes I slept in the night before. I shut the door and don't look back. It's just one of those days...

Out of the mouth of...Keller

Lately, Mike has been working with the boys to help them be more directed in their bedtime prayers, sort of a simplified version of ACTS (adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication). Each night he asks them to come up with something to thank God for and something to ask for. It's an effort to get them to think beyond selfish petitions to consider that God is their great and loving and merciful Father, deserving of praise as well as interested in their needs. We expect the usual, "I'm thankful for Froggy" or "I'm thankful for snow." Sometimes we get more serious requests like "I pray God will help my eczema feel better." The other night Mike started off asking the boys to consider what they were thankful for that day and then moved on to consider a petition. Mike turned to Keller and said, "What do you want to ask God for tonight?" Keller's response? "Stickers."

Well...we're working on it. =)

In addition to his silly, ornery, mischievous nature, Keller also has great visual problem solving skills and LOVES puzzles. He had just completed a new 300-piece puzzle a few days ago and wanted to save it on the card table until Mike got home so that he could show off his hard work. Anxious to encourage, I agreed. Of course, for reasons that remain a mystery to me but seem to be ingrained in boy DNA, Keller's puzzles are magnets for his equally busy 20-month-old little brother. After McCrea delightedly decimated a corner of the puzzle, I dutifully helped put it back together. After the SECOND too-gleeful pulverizing of the puzzle's top half, Keller looked at me seriously and said, "Mom, I really don't think we need any more babies." Though understanding of his frustration, as I am 35 weeks pregnant with the latest addition to our family, I solemnly reminded him that it was a little late for second thoughts. He responded, "Well, at least make sure this one's a girl."

And, lucky for him, God thought we needed another one of those as well. =)

Finally, yesterday in the car we were talking about the garden Mike wants to plant this spring. Keller started listing off all the good things he hoped we would include...blueberry bushes, strawberry bushes...and then he threw in a request for banana bushes. Slightly amused, Mike started to explain that bananas actually grow on trees and probably wouldn't grow well in our climate. Keller responded emphatically, "But I want to see all the monkeys!"

We busted out laughing. Of course...it's only logical. Think about it, if Curious George can hang out in the city, why wouldn't a hoard of monkeys naturally flock to and thrive in our backyard with a few banana trees? Makes perfect sense, all in the mind of a four year old named Keller!

"You'll Shoot Your Eye Out...!"

I never understood what was so funny about the movie "A Christmas Story." You know, the one about the little boy who desperately wants the Red Ryder BB Gun for Christmas. He memorizes all the specs, and he plans and dreams for weeks about all it's fantastic qualities and the ways he'll use it. I always figured, what's the big deal? Those parents are being really over-protective. It's just a toy! Now I have three boys of my own, and all the humor of the movie makes perfect sense. This morning, as I was getting ready for church, I noticed, out of the corner of my eye, my two oldest boys running back and forth to the dining room table with supplies. This is not an unsual occurance, so I monitored their comings and goings from a distance. I couldn't hear their intent plans from the bathroom, but when I spied glue and scissors join their pile of materials, I ventured to ask, "What're you making?" "Bows and arrows, Mom!" they replied. I popped my head out of the bathroom and took a closer look. The most notable thing in the pile, it appeared, was a collection of toilet paper tubes. So I decided to maintain a "Carry on" attitude and encourage their creativity. Later as I walked through the room, however, I saw an accumulation of pencils. "No, we're not using pencils," I calmly informed them and went about my business. They regrouped and, apparently, dug through a number of kitchen drawers, eventually coming up with some fantastically arrow-like wooden skewers. My husband then got in on the action and declared, "No, we're not using anything sharp!! You'll shoot your eye out! There's a reason all your darts are made out of foam! And stop digging through my drawers!" I just had to smile. Especially when I saw THEIR smiles...and how utterly NOT deterred they were. That's boys for you.

There ought to be a rule...

...Occurs to me at 3:30 am, whilst I lay on my brand new mattress cushion and fancy sheets, specifically purchased to give me the best night's sleep EVER...that there ought to be a rule. There ought to be a rule that Moms and Dads are off-duty after 8 pm. Even the hardest workers usually limit themselves to 12 hour shifts (unless you are Nicholas Cage in The Family Man, and he had issues. Hence, the movie.) First addendum to the rule: Pooping should be restricted to daylight hours. Why any reasonable child would hold it all day and promise that he was fine, in spite of indications to the contrary, is beyond me. We have a very nice ocean-themed bathroom and umpteen opportunities to use it. It's not as if he has to wade through the wind and snow to some outhouse in the back. But no, obvious benefits of using the bathroom in daylight and having an undisturbed sleep notwithstanding, he is up at 12:30 am...pooping. And so, Mommy and Daddy have been woken up too. Second addendum to the rule: Children should only need medical treatment during daylight hours. Granted, my second child DID recently have surgery and the doctor DID say that coughing would cause soreness and pain for another two weeks...I'm not cold-hearted...3:30 am just feels REALLY early, especially when you aren't sleeping well otherwise. This leads to Addendum #3 (which kind of excuses and supersedes the others): Children should AT LEAST wait until they are born to disturb Mommy's sleep. The other disturbances wouldn't be so bad if baby girl wasn't sending me to the bathroom every hour, giving me heartburn or doing gymnastics. Let's say the glass is half full and she is considerately preparing me for her arrival. I respond, how about Mommy gets a restful third trimester to store up her energy? Wouldn't that be good for everyone? Like a hibernating polar bear, preparing to be the best seal catcher it can be...(wow, that's a little violent. That's what sleep deprivation does to your proper analogy-making skills.) This leads to Addendum #4: it's now 4 am, and I am thinking about blogging. This does not help me sleep, thinking about witty ways to recount the night's events, because for some reason, my Mom thinks my stories are funny. She thinks I'm the next Erma Bombeck. Ah, a mother's rose-colored glasses, if ever there were a case. I don't even know who Erma Bombeck is. Poor lady. But I can see the coroner's report now: Death due to natural causes. Exacerbated by: sleep deprivation. Contributing factors: Children and blogging. Back to my original thought. There ought to be a rule. Mommy should be off-duty at night. Right? Sigh...would I enforce it, if I could? No, probably not. It's 4:30 am. I need to go to the bathroom.

Never going to be Martha Stewart...and pretty much okay with that!

I accepted awhile ago that I'd relinquished any Martha Stewart-like comparisons. First of all, I can't sew. Although, I wish I could, aside from fleeting and moderate jealousy when I see posts about fancy curtains or cute homemade pillows acquaintances have made, I've never put out the serious effort to learn. So that one's on me. I taught myself to crochet last year, but I've yet to complete anything bigger than a dinky and practically unusable potholder. My house is not immaculate, as my sisters will readily attest to. Neat for a family of six, but not eat-off-the-floor ready-for-spur-of-the-moment-entertaining clean. Translation, there's a lot of dust and toys laying around. I don't garden. My husband wants to create an elaborate flower, vegetable and fruit garden in our back yard, complete with landscaping, butterfly bushes and benches. I've already told him not to count on my weed-pulling skills. I do think I'm a pretty good cook, and I'll happily prepare and/or cook any vegetables or fruits that come out of this garden, when it materializes. But I'd just as easily make a crock pot turkey with applesauce on the side than roast leg of whatever with parsley potatoes that Julia Child would be proud of, and my kids would thank me for it! Maybe that's just the kind of mediocrity you accept when you have four children aged five and under. And while I won't win any awards, some days I still start to think I'm doing pretty well! I washed, folded and put away four loads of laundry today, and I'm 34 weeks pregnant with number five! My husband and I even got our 19-month-old to sleep in his new big boy bed for the first time today after only 30 minutes of fussing and messing around. If you had seen the cartoon blurb over my head, you would have seen me starting to pat myself on the back with congratulations of "Super Mom." Then, God, in all his wisdom, saw fit to humble me with reality. The spice cake that I was so proud of myself for squeezing into the afternoon actually only got made because my husband, snowed in from work, graciously proceeded to follow the recipe laid out on the counter, since I was detained every two minutes putting out fires and answering questions for children in other areas of the house. I was only in the kitchen long enough to scour the cupboards and line the ingredients up on the counter. So much for being super woman. And then, after the first taste, without so much as a word, I could read in the faces of my family members that they'd be just fine with regular old chocolate cake from now on. Experimenting with cuisine is, apparently, not always recommended! Oh, and my Kindergartner, of whom I was so proud for working semi-diligently on his snow day activity packet from school, proceeded to have a meltdown after yet another reminder to get back to work, and so he lost the privilege of playing out in the snow. That went over like a lead balloon. So, I'm back to reality. MY reality. The one in which I have four very busy children, who are all precious blessings, but who also wear me out by the day's end and constantly leave me feeling befuddled. The reality in which I am very thankful for a thoughtful husband who is always willing to help and never flinches when I place hot dogs on the table instead of steak. So I'm off to the kitchen, and while Martha would also spend lots of time there, she might be appalled by the dirty dishes in my sink, the chicken nuggets in the oven and the macaroni and cheese (from a box!) on the stove top. Some might call me Super Mom, simply for keeping four kids fed and safe from bodily harm, but I know the truth. I know that God is providing for me and my family in ways that I see and in ways I will never see, every single day, even in moments of exasperation. I know that my husband will probably wash all those dirty dishes for me, and I love that about him! And I know that I'll never be Martha Stewart, even though someday I'd like to sew, crochet and cook more gourmet than Stouffers. However, after the kids are in bed tonight, I will put up my puffy pregnant feet on my bed, now covered with the new memory foam mattress cover and fantastic RED sateen sheets my husband bought me, and I'll fancy that, though I can't BE Martha, I'll be sleeping like her, and I'm pretty much okay with that. I'm a happy woman.