Mothering Mayhem: Life with the Wild Boys

A month. Seriously, a month has gone by without me writing anything, and I feel horribly guilty.  I really do, see, I was raised in an Irish Catholic family.  The guilt I feel over my mother raising an eyebrow is almost crippling.  It drives me to drink (that's more the Irish part than the Catholic, I suppose), which is tragic because I'm also very Cherokee.  You thought the Irish were piss poor drinkers? Combine that with my native heritage, it's no good at all. But I can explain in one word. Holidays.  You all know exactly what I'm talking about.  There is no rest for the weary on any given day of the year, and yet for some reason when the holidays come we take it upon ourselves to cram a bajillion festivities in that we haven't the time, money, or really desire to do because it's what is expected.  But not this family.  Not this year.  Right before Thanksgiving the cop and I agreed not to accept any extra invitations this year.  Sur...

For everyone who thought the title implied pregnancy, you are sick individuals who are officially off the Christmas card list. Seriously, have you read ANY of the previous blogs? I employ about six different kinds of birth control just to prevent that kind of thing from happening, and your bad juju just thinking it and giggling is not appreciated. Rather, the familia was recently expanded with the addition of pets.  For about six months now Gabe has been telling random strangers everywhere we go that "we don't have any pets, just our friend dog Ruby."  And this is true.  Our lovely neighbor, Shirley, has a boxer named Ruby.  Shirley is a retired grandma of about a million grandkids, none of whom live within a several hour radius, and enjoys time with my boys.  This may be a sign of the onset of dementia.  Whenever she says they can come over I check to see if she's wearing her underwear on the outside, or has been styling her hair with glue or someth...

That's right, outbreak. Remember that movie? The movie where a monkey bites someone, and that someone sneezes in a movie thater or somewhere equally crowded and accessible to all of us watching (and suddenly very nervous), and just like that a plague of epic proportions threatens to destroy all mankind? Welcome to fall and winter, ladies and gentlemen.  Most of you have kids, or have been around mine, and realize that with the end of summer comes the return of perpetual illness in the casa. And this year has proven no exception, and it's only the beginning of November.  This is my way of an apology, for the huge lapse in blogging type fun (oh you loyal four readers, how I have surely disappointed you).  And as a means of explanation, a glimpse into the casa when the first bug strikes. Imagine yourself off on a Tuesday as a fluke of nature and holiday weirdness, deciding to accompany your children to the pumpkin patch on a daycare field trip.  When you arrive you ...

When I was in college mornings presented little challenge whatsoever.  I could wake up, wash my face, brush teeth and hair, and run out the door with as little as 5 minutes prep time.  I was young, and responsible for only one person. And that person still didn't need makeup.  It was a beautifl thing. As a mother, all things simple are gone, and mornings are a time of utter and total chaos in la casa.  We will start with a brief introduction to personalities as expressed in the morning.  Gavin and I, we wake up incredibly well.  The alarm goes off at four and I'm out of bed and in the excercise room.  After an hour I come back up, make coffee, and venture in to wake the cop.  The cop and Gabe, they do mornings poorly.  The cop has improved dramatically within the last year.  Gabe has not.  So, after I tell the cop coffee is brewing I clear out and allow him space.  While I get ready for the day he makes our two, very...

I have long been fascinated with science and medicine. Hence the sports medicine major and biology minor.  And up until the cop banned me from Web MD during my first pregnancy I would obsess over potential illnesses but also over baby development.  And somehow I still remember that babies are born with reflexes which they outgrow during the course of childhood, like the rooting reflex for nursing, and the walking/stepping reflex, and the Moro reflex. The Moro reflex, as I recall, was a startle reflex believed to be left over from our time as monkeys, when we needed to grab on if we started falling, and was named for the discovering physician.  I'm thinking I may be on my way to recognition in a similar fashion. It appears that babies, or at least MY babies, were also born with a heightened sense of pheremone detection.  It doesn't seem to be limited, however, to simply sexual situations (although believe me, they can sense those from about a mile aw...

Ah, parenthood.  I sit here typing, I am slowly recovering from a raw throat and sore body as a result of a full Saturday of family fun.  But I feel compelled to type, if only for standing firm in my resolve to seek my own nerdy revenge.  That's right, a woman who slighted me has become (dramatic drum roll)....blog fodder. Let's start at the beginning, shall we? (Mainly to provide me with a little bragging rights, admittedly). I am the ultimate example of living vicariously through my children.  I was a super unathletic child.  Nothing about this has really changed, come to think of it, since I can still sustain serious injury opening a drawer. Take soccer, for example.  I played for three years and never made it past fullback.  In three years I could count on one hand how many times I touched a ball during a game.  But I made countless dandelion necklaces, and could make the majority of weeds into projectile weapons, so that has to count f...

As has been previously outlined, the cop and I are not youngsters.  Don't get me wrong, we aren't ancient.  We just opted to do the whole "responsible" thing where you get married, have steady employment, get a house, and then procreate.  It worked for us.  I'm not saying it's necessary, but knowing that half of my kids genetics would come from a man who honestly believes that it's perfectly reasonable for one piece of kitchen cutlery to cost the same as a month of daycare for a preschooler it just seemed risky to bring them into the world before we could afford them. Being older parents has afforded us lots of opportunities, and we have a blast.  But it can also be humbling.  Such as my encounter with the Walmart fabric clerk.  While buying patterns and fabric (for my mother to sew for me, because Lord knows I don't have those skills) and attempting to maintain some semblance of control over my two wild children in the cart, I was asked by the clerk...

Let's spend a little time examining public disciplining of children, shall we? Just jump right in to a hotbed of debate and open the door to immense judgment and criticism? Yes, yes I believe we shall. It would seem the people with the strongest beliefs about discipline are not actually parents.  That's right, we're on to you all. With your haughty looks and sneers of disapproval. That's why every parent on earth ignores you or (in my case) openly laughs at you.  Because non parents have NO idea. But I'm going to do my best to enlighten you a wee little bit.  Picture it: Old Navy.  You have run inside for a quick, yes quick, quest to find Hawaiian shirts for  three and five year old boys. Why? Because during the one pick up you actually made from daycare last week when you weren't relying on the kindness of EVERYONE else on the emergency card due to last minute overtime demands, you were informed you had to bring something for a bake sale Tuesday, money...

Sunday morning. A thing of beauty, but for what the cop and I have dubbed "fair hangover." It started as a simple plan.  Every year we go to the county fair.  It's a tradition, it furthers our appreciation of small town living.  Plus, about a quarter of the entries are by Auntie or our oldest boy.  Seriously, there's not many livestock areas you can wander past that the teenager doesn't have at least one competitor entered in, which adds to the "rustic charm" of the fair experience since loosely translated it means we will be spending time with every form of livestock known to man and I will not have nearly enough hand sanitizer to keep me sane throughout.  This year, with the new schedule, I decided it was time to try an evening fair experience.  This was common for me as a single and with my older kids, but since the addition of the wild boys it has been a virtual impossibility.  This means that for several years now I have missed what has bec...

Often times, when children visit or are babysat by family members it takes a little while to gently tease out whatever damage may have been done.  This is not the case with the wild boys.  They come home eager to tell tales of all of the forbidden extravagances they have been allowed.  And that's to be expected.  But perhaps most entertaining is when they have experienced something entirely new that a family member has clearly not felt entirely comfortable explaining.  We've all been there.  None of us want to be the monsters that ruin the fun of Santa or the Tooth Fairy while we are in charge of someone else's child.  But this time it was poor Auntie suffering the questions of pregnancy (insert dramatic sound track here). Somewhere along the line while Auntie watched the boys they encountered a very, VERY pregnant lady.  And when Auntie brought them home they were very interested in when I would have another baby (ummmm, never. EVER. I tipped t...

Obviously my material this week is limited.  After all, the boys spent their week without this chick.  And then they didn't even want to talk to me on the phone at night! What a rough crowd.  Apparently they survived camping out, kayaking and movies (i.e. copious amounts of spoiling). That being said, I have decided to reach way, way back for this weeks edition to the ultimate birth control: pregnancy.  Because I don't feel like people give an accurate representation of this part of parenthood in the least.  I've been spending some time with some ladies trying to get pregnant for the very first time, and the information they are being provided is setting them up for failure in my humble opinion.  Now don't get me wrong. I'm sure I've said before, and I'm sure I'll say again, my boys are the best part of my life. They are amazing creatures who never cease to amaze and entertain.  And I know there are women out there who absolutely adore pregnancy, and...

Here I sit, blogging a day early. Ahead of schedule? How is that even possible, you ask? Well it's not.  I'm doing this now as a means of escape since I have piles of laundry waiting and packing that needs to be completed. Plus it has the added bonus of putting me in the same room as the munchkins, who as a result of the lunar cycle (or lack of sleep or change in routine or some other random crap) run extreme risk of needing hospitalization due to rough play this evening.  And being a fantastic multitasker I am able to referee and type simultaneously.  If only I could add in the laundry I'd be one happy chick. Laundry and packing.  Every mom's dream come true. And the only real benefit of laundry and packing? That's right, travel.  This Momma is out of here on Monday, gone for a week of gang training in southern California.  And my own testosterone gang? Left to their own devices. But no, not really, I'm not that cruel.  I have tagged in the gra...

My bouncing baby boys, they are amazing creatures.  And, having subscribed to the attachment model of parenting, were pretty much sewn to me for...well, it felt like forever I'm not going to lie.  I was a huge believer of the whole "the world is a cruel place, and they'll figure it out soon enough, so why not comfort them when it's simple and I have the ability" train of thought.  That train of thought, it has produced fantastic little humans.  But really and truly, it's time to switch them from the mommy train to the train that takes a nice, scenic tour through manland.  That was the declaration of the cop after discovering how badly his little men wanted to blow dry their hair and paint their toenails. So, starting a few months ago the cop changed his schedule.  For the first time in years (about four, to be exact), the cop and I had days off in common.  This allowed for limited couple time, but a vast increase in paternal exposure and best of all,...

Recently I reconciled myself to the fact that I cannot keep up.  I am but one woman, and the testosterone has so vastly overwhelmed me here in la casa that I decided in certain matters I need to tag in a teammate.  Enter the housekeeper. Now for every one of you that just thought to yourself anything along the lines of "really, she has time to blog but can't even clean her own house?" go away.  Because until you've walked a mile in my chocolate milk encrusted flip flops, you have no idea.  And really I think most of my readers will support me in this latest investment in my sanity.  Because truly, the blog is a once a week thing.  And the house, well it takes about 3.5 minutes for the house to be destroyed top to bottom, inside and out. Take as an example a winter day.  A snow day, as it were.  And my cherubs decide that while I shovel our driveway, AKA the icy hill of doom, they will play outside sledding. Sounds picturesque, right?  But...

Before I was a parent there were so many things I never knew were invaluable privileges rather than rights.  For example, picking music in my own car.  You would think that having to actually do the driving I would get control of our audio ambience, right? But alas, no.  Enter again Choo-choo Soul, or Christmas music (yes, year round, and always "Up on the Housetop by The Jackson 5...don't ask), or the Imagination Movers, or some such toddler fodder that may be educational but sometimes makes Mommy want to steer us into oncoming traffic. Another privilege? Eating the meal I order in a restaurant. Or anywhere, for that matter.  Because sure, I will let my kids pick whatever they want to eat.  I will let them order for themselves, because I feel like it fosters independence and self confidence.  And when our food arrives I will watch them take two bites of whatever they have ordered and then suddenly turn their focus to mine.  And devour it in front of...

I'm not sure how a typical Sunday starts in most homes.  In my mind though, I comfortably nestle into the 50's era nuclear family bliss.  Children sleeping in until at least 8 am, tucked soundly in their twin beds in a neat and tidy room.  Mother and father waking just early enough to be dressed and sipping coffee at the table with a coffee cake baking in the oven when the cherubs awaken.  The mother, hair and makeup perfect, heels and pearls donned, smiling at her perfect family.  Father, peeking over his paper and smiling past the pipe in the corner of his mouth.  Aaaaahhhh. So nice and tidy. Now don't get me wrong.  I'm not really all that naive.  Because when I met the cop I myself was embarking in a career in what society has dubbed "community corrections." So yes, the liberal has her own kevlar and glock.  That's right, ha ha, go through all the chuckling of his and her gun belts. Go ahead, get it out of your system, I'll wait. I...