"What do they say, Mommy?"

I bought the boys some of the Little People Christmas collections.  Well, I say I bought the boys, but I really mean I bought it for all of us.   I chose to purchase the Christmas Tree Lighting in Discovery Park, Santa and his Reindeer and the Nativity.  These are collections that I have seen and wanted since Patrick was a toddler.  I never purchased it for many reasons, #1 we never had much extra money, #2 we didn't have a house, so space was always limited, but probably the biggest reason was #3 I was too much of a "green" mother to understand how to use such a collection properly.  I used to think it was just another toy for the kids to play with and therefore was easy for me to pass on.  However, my thinking changed  when I was recalling my favorite Christmas memories.   I remember, how exciting it was when my mother took down the decorations.  We were very excited, because of course it meant Christmas was on its way, but it was also so exciting to rediscover the treasures that were in those boxes.  They had that distinct attic dusty smell and we were so young that it seemed like so much time had past since we'd last seen what was inside.  One of  my absolute favorites was, an ice-skating rink that we placed under the Christmas tree.  It was a plastic decoration with silver, shiny paper placed on top to make for the rink.  There were the figures that we had to take from their boxes and set some up at the rink and some sitting on the benches.  I loved playing under the tree with this decoration and was only slightly frustrated by the constant pine needles falling on the rink, distorting the fantasy. Another favorite was a plastic decoration of Santa driving his reindeer on the sled.  My sister and I would fly the red and white sleigh, with the reindeer around the house and reenact Santa's process of loading the sleigh and taking flight.  Finally, my other absolute favorite was the Nativity.  My mother painstakingly wrapped each figurine the Christmas before back in its designated newspaper to protect each piece in storage.  Amazingly, I think only Joseph ever became fragmented and glued back together.  (Which; I am only able to admire now that I am the keeper of my own Christmas decorations and will admit to dozens of fragments and mutilations of all kinds to my decorations and I have only had this job 9 years. )   My mother let us play with all of these decorations, but they were, after all meant to be decorations and not toys, so things would fall off, or not stand up the way I wanted to play with it, etc. etc.  So that leads me to my newest acquisition.  What I hope will become my family heirloom.  Yes it is Fisher Price and yes it is Little People.  But I hope my boys will enjoy playing with these "decorations" that I will take out every Christmas.  And, of course, when they are too old to "play", I will continue to take them out and be reminded of their Childhood Christmas pasts.  If the universe is really good to me, my boys will go on to have their own children and then I can pass one down to each of their first-borns.  It was not until I was a mother who traveled enough "maternal distance" (I will call it)  that I could imagine  such a future.  Now that I foresee a different and greater potential for these items, they became worth so much more and seemed priceless.   I quickly purchased those 3 different sets that remind me so much of my own childhood Christmas.  

I took out two of the collections today and Tristan quickly took to the Santa with his reindeer.  After playing with it most of the day he asks me, "What do they say?"  

"What does who say," I asked?  

"Reindeer.  What sound do they make?"

"Well, they uh...

I don't know..."

I guess my maternal distance has not traveled far enough to have seen that coming and been prepared.  I'm sure I will have a well thought out answer for when Colin asks such a question.

Two Mommies

TJ: "I'm making two of you mommy."

ME: "What?"

"I'm making two of you."

"Two Mommies," I ask?

"When I do like this with my eyes, I make two of you."

"Oh really.  Do you like to do that?"

"When I do like this I can make two of everything."

At the Train Tracks

There is no other place that I can actually feel the metamorphosis that has occurred since I have become a mom.  I used to moan and throw my hands up with impatience when the crossings would deploy seconds before I made it through.  Now, I consider the "Gods in our Favor" if they come down before we cross, giving us the best seats in the house to watch the train go past.  "Here comes the train," I yell back to the boys, as I roll down every window no matter the season, so that we can hear the dinging and listen for the train whistle.  Having this last minute position also provides the back view of the train.  As the crossings lift and we ride over the tracks the boys look after the train and see it rolling away.  When I manage to be out in the car alone, I find myself excited to get stuck by the train and even begin to roll down the windows for that brief second before I remember that I am alone.  It is in that moment of reality that I can almost touch the wave of emotions that will roll over me when the boys are grown and I will forever sit at the train tracks alone.  It is this moment that it occurs to me I may never be able to let them go!

"I have one day left..."

Tristan says, "I have one day left."  I ask,  "One day left till your birthday?"  "No," he says, "this is my last day of being three."  I guess it is the same thing, but puts an entirely different spin on it.

There was a lot of confusion for TJ this year regarding his birthday.  We celebrated with friends and family in October because we combined his party with Patrick's.  So, November 13th was his "real birthday."  He told his teacher and everyone he could, "Today is my real birthday."  Which implies he has fake birthdays.  He believed he would be different on this day because he would now be 4.  On this last day of being three he spoke of all the things he would now do once the day turned and he was 4.  He would begin swimming underwater, he would do karate like Patrick, he would also not be scared of a list of several things.  After telling me how life would be so much different for him as a 4 year old, he paused and had his faraway, thinking look on and said, "I really like being 3.  3 is fun!"  I had to reassure him that 4 would be fun too and not to worry.  When he woke up on his first day of being 4 he said, "I still need swimmies in the pool and I don't want to put my head all the way under the water.  I still don't like the dark and I like my night light.  I'm not going to start karate until next year.  I guess 4 will be a lot like 3."

Fortunately Brilliant ... Unfortunately

These are the words my seven year old uses on a regular basis. He has recently adopted the habit of saying "Brilliant", when he thinks something is good.  He says he got it from me.  I can recall using this phrase on several occasions but with a heavy hand of sarcasm; as in "That was a brilliant move," when one of the boys, perhaps stuffs his brother into the pillow for so long that the other begins to choke and retch.  Sarcasm, unfortunately, is not innate, as is laughter and Spongebob which I suppose could be attributed to the necessity of the latter to the survival of childhood.  Which, segues me into the second word of my title that is over used by my 7 year old, "unfortunately/fortunately."  Whether the event or non event as is often the case, requires it, Patrick ends the majority of his sentences with the word, "unfortunately / fortunately."  He ventures a guess at the right one and then tags on the other and listens to hear which he thinks sounds better and then says that one again.  So a reply from him sounds like this (and I quote), "Mommy said we had to go to another doctor and this one was in Manhassett, unfortunately... fortunately...(thinking) fortunately.  His other quirky habit is asking a question and then asking, "Is that correct?"   I can't help but to think of him in Junior High, asking a girl out, I would imagine he would sound like this, "You and me are friends.  Is that correct?  I would like to go to the movies with you, unfortunately... fortunately.... fortunately."  I know fortunately this is just a phase that he will fortunately grow out of and is just another brilliant example of his brilliant mind constantly thinking and over-thinking what he learns and  over-applying it.  Where do they pick these things up from?  :) 

Force Fields & Jedi Blood

You have to be quick witted and creative to be a mom.  You need to have a PhD in Fiction.  You need to be able to explain what holding up the middle finger means to your 5  year old, without adding to his vocabulary.  You have to always, always translate the real world into the present obsession that your child is in the midst of.  I don't know if my boys are simply OCD, but everything becomes an obsession.  We can't just like Thomas the Train we become obsessed with Thomas and we have to own every single one and play with it every hour of every day until one day we wake up and,  (I obviously missed the memo) but it is over.  After an obsession has run its course and it could be a couple of weeks, months or even years, there is usually a very unsettled unhappy period where there is mostly TV watching. This is basically filling the time, awaiting the next obsession to take hold.  

At the present time we are at the height of an all out STAR WARS obsession.  When Patrick is obsessed he needs to collect.  He just needs to gather everything that is part of that obsession and own it.  He doesn't spend much time with each item, it is just the quest for him of collecting it and being done with it.  Tristan, however, his obsessions are intense and strong.  Once it takes hold he is all in.  He enjoys adding to his collection, but becomes enthralled with each item and has to experience it over and over again.  He gets down on the floor with his toys and has to look at the train, or spaceship at its level.  It is a pleasure to watch him play.  He becomes entrenched in his play and it is hard to pull him out.  

I don't really have a problem with obsessions or the form in which they take hold.  I'd say, for the most part I can get an obsession to work to my advantage.  Kids respond best when you can put things in terms that they can relate to and if you know where their heads are presently at, then you have already won half the battle.  Right now, everything is put into Jedi terms and Star Wars examples.  Everyone has their own force field in which no one can bug them.  Patrick was tested for Jedi Blood before his surgery.  It turns out he has a lot of Jedi in his blood and we now expect model Jedi behavior from him.  Tristan is a Padawan and he is training diligently in hopes of moving up.  

Some obsessions are easier to deal with then others but regardless of my own interest in it I always find myself a little sad when one is over.   I know the boys' changing interests correspond with their growing up.   I know with each obsession abandoned, a little of their childhood remains behind with it, so I will usual keep a token from each and with these items I can retrace and remember their growing selves.  

When Costco Calls...

When Costco calls, perhaps I have to admit that I may have taken a few too many pics.  In my defense they span the time of 6 months, in which time, I had a 3 month turn to 8 month old.  Took a first family trip to Disney, Summer vacations, two birthday parties etc etc etc.  

But I have to admit, Costco called to make sure it was not a typo, because the order was "ginormous", I think the word he used, so now I am waiting until I look my most put together before I pick them up, because I am sure they must be saying "this crazy mother with a gazillion pictures of her children," so I do not want to look the part.  The actual number of pics you ask? 790, do you think that is too much?

Collie Ollie

Now that the older boys keep me so busy it is hard to remember what there is to write about an infant, although I know there is so much.  I get so caught up in the chaos that is Patrick and Tristan that sometimes we spin out of control around Colin.  And although this chaos surrounds him and he is a part of the confusion, my focus sometimes becomes lost.  My mother in law always told me the story of her third child, Christina.  She would tell how when Dad would come home from work, the baby, would be in the same back room in the same bassinette as when he left for work that morning.  She said he would say, Eileen did the baby come out of the room today?  When I was a younger, newer mother I thought how could that ever be?  And now, there Colin sits in the pack n play in the middle of the kitchen, and he is so wonderful.  He sits there and plays with his toys, watches the boys and if he falls on his back, doesn't fuss, just lays back and stares at the chaos swirling around.  I'll be entrenched in homework, baths, fights, changing batteries, answering phone calls, cooking dinner, kissing boo boos, I'll hear the rumblings in the pack and play and take notice of this perfect little boy, playing and watching us and I ache for that intimacy I had with my first born, and fear that my memories of Colin will be a blur as the days go by so fast.  But there is a different joy with him , and perhaps this joy is more just about him and not quite so much about me.  

Allergies & Adenoids

Patrick is loud.  Now I know all children are loud, maybe especially boys, but Patrick is so loud, when we tried to have a tenant for one year, he drove her crazy, and I had his hearing tested because I was sure there was something wrong with him.  They said his hearing and his ears were perfect, so for the past two years we have endured, loud screaming, endless "what"s and frustrating communication.  At seven years old he fails his hearing test and we go back to the ENT.  This time they say he has conductive hearing loss.  This time they say his adenoids are too big.  This time they say he needs tubes in his ears.  This time they say he needs surgery to have his adenoids removed.  This time I get a second opinion.  And again and again all the specialists agree he needs tubes in his ears and his adenoids removed.  I am left feeling relieved and validated.  I have said for years that there is something wrong with him and the specialists said the exact words I have been saying.  "He hears as if he is underwater."  "Allergy medicine won't work when he is that congested and the tubes are that clogged."   I am also left feeling sad that he has been in this state and that I was assuming his hearing was fine, because after all, we'd been to a specialist.  And of course frustrated because I was right about this in the first place and felt so much time had been wasted.   So many of his strange habits have been explained because of this anatomical discovery.  He blows out his nose, won't go underwater without a mask, chokes on food, screams at you when sitting right next to you.  His hearing was bad enough that he would need a hearing aid if it was neural, but luckily it is only conductive.  No air can get in through his nose, so there is no air flow behind his ears, which means he is in a constant un-popped ear condition, a vacuum sucking and trapping fluid into his nonfunctioning eustachian tubes.  Where do I sign for surgery?

The boy who won't get a haircut...

"You get a haircut!"  That is a headband on my almost four year old boy's head.  He says it works great to keep the hair out of his eyes, but he refuses to get a haircut.  He is scared.  I quote, "You can cut my hair, but you can not use a scissor, or buzzer, only a comb."  I guess if I was good enough I could figure out how to make that work, but I can't.    This should not be a surprise to anyone who knows him; the boy that would not join the entire family outside on Mother's Day when he was 2.5 because he was afraid of wind.  "I am very little, I will blow away."  He is our Piglet and we love him!