Tag Archives: Kids

February 13, 2012 · 9:26 am

The Lost Note

For three years a note hung on the mirror in my room, bringing a smile to my face every time I saw it. My son wrote the words “I lave you! Mommy,” cut it into the shape of a heart, folded it, and tucked it into my hand one day when I came into his kindergarten class. Now it’s lost. My kids have given me a lot of little notes, but only a few hold special places in my heart. This was the first one I remember getting from my son that choked me up a little. Simple words. But a mom notices the effort put forth to cut it out. At school no less. In kindergarten. When I missed him achingly every single day.

I volunteered in his classroom every week, and when I came in, looking forward to seeing my little boy, he gave me not so much as a nod, a glance, any sort of acknowledgement. It’s a far cry from the tactics I use to remove my daughter from my leg every week in her class and the twenty kisses I must give her before I shuffle out the door. So when he tucked that tiny folded note in my hand that day and I opened it, not only did the words mean a lot, the action spoke volumes.

A small act that meant a lot to this mom.

I came home and promptly displayed the note, where it has been until recently, when I decided to write a blog post about my kids’ writing. I took it down to take a picture. That picture is all I have left. I can’t find the note anywhere. I’ve searched in every stack of papers all over the house—and there are many. I’m afraid it’s gone for good.

I have other notes. My kids’ first writings and first thoughts mean a lot to me. I keep notes and schoolwork from my children tucked away because I love the primitive spelling and the crooked writing and the things they felt important enough to put to paper.

Nothing so perfectly captures the innocence or the way a child speaks than the way she first spells her own thoughts. When I read my daughter’s words, I can hear her talking in that same sweet way.

“My brudr likes pink.” I laugh because my daughter must have felt feisty to write that on her schoolwork, knowing how her brother despises the color. While cleaning my kids’ rooms one day, I came across this neatly spelled note that my son wrote to my daughter: “Would you like to watch Star Wars with me? Love, Han Solo.” I loved that he wouldn’t sign his own name.

A sign on my daughter’s door reads “Club Howse.” An old list of months on her walls says, “Januwiwy, Febuwiwy…” I can’t help but chuckle when I read it.

There will come a time when my children outgrow that cuteness, and as much as I appreciate it now, I look forward to reading what comes from the heart when they’re older. I won’t want it riddled with misspellings then.

But for now, I keep a drawer stuffed with scraps of paper that say “I love you” (a mom can never have enough) and schoolwork containing funny sentences, things they write that mark this moment and this time. And I’m going to keep looking for that heart, even though my son offered to make a new one for me.

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February 9, 2012 · 9:34 am

In the Race for First, Get Out of the Way!

“First is the worst. Second is the best. Third is the one with the hairy chest!” My son chants this as we near our neighborhood after school some days. When we pull in the driveway, the kids make a beeline from the back of the van to the doors. They not only want to be first out of the van, but they also want to be first into the house, immediately forgetting the rules of my son’s cheer. It’s every kid for himself.

As they shove each other out of the way, they and their backpacks become a tangled mess of limbs and torsos wedged between the seats. My daughter cries. My son’s backpack, so overstuffed with Star Wars books, plugs the aisle like a giant cork. The kids both scream at each other to MOVE! I am tempted to walk away and tell them that I will be first in the house and they can work it out, but my daughter’s tears guilt me into overseeing the torment. The neighbors, already on alert that we are home, would surely disagree with my abandonment.

The culprit of many after school backseat traffic jams.

These are good times. Luckily for me, this happens at least once a week.

The backpack finally gives, my son escapes, and the kids elbow each other along the sidewalk, tears still flowing. At this point, I yell to just STOP IT! I open the front door, the kids fall in, backpacks fly, kids bolt to the bathroom to wash hands, more tears from the one who didn’t make it there first. Then they fight and cry about who was first yesterday to get in the van, get out of the van, get in the house, wash their hands, get upstairs. It exhausts me and I am just a spectator in this vicious sport. To top it all off, it turns out I am often the one with the hairy chest around here.

I can tell you who’s first to get a headache. Mom. I can’t tell you whose temper is first to flare. They pretty much all set off at one time.

What happened to first being the worst? I guess no matter how they look at things, coming in first always looks best. Hey kids, I have a rhyme for you: “First is the worst, second is a pest, third is the one who yells GIVE IT A REST!”

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February 2, 2012 · 10:00 am

A Birthday, a Boy, and a Mom Who Looked Back

My son turns nine today. It’s not double digits. He doesn’t get keys to a car, don cap and gown, or pack his belongings into boxes. But as many other moms before me have figured out, it marks the halfway point in the 18 years of time I’ll hopefully have to raise my son. While he anticipates ripping open packages and shoveling some sugary treat into his mouth, I wrestle with the fact that the next nine years will be much different from the first.

While I first struggled with the challenges of a helpless life that needed constant food, sleep, changing, nurturing, teaching, and love—and every bit of it relied on me—at some point along the way, something happened to me. I came to rely on this child and need him just as much, if not more. So when this life that I have been readying starts to pull away and become a little more independent with each birthday, well, it’s pretty hard on a momma.

While I nurtured and cuddled my son as much as possible, the first nine years have been nothing to laugh at. My son is the kid I’ve had to learn every parenting skill on. I had to learn whether to let him cry it out and for how long even when I wanted to grab him and hold him forever. I’ve been inconsistent and indecisive and I’ve blubbered right along with him. I’ve spanked him in anger and felt hateful for doing it, only to conclude that spanking isn’t right for us. I don’t think I’ve ever spanked my daughter. I’ve had to decide the correct punishment for screaming at your mother and calling her an idiot and bite my tongue in the process. Sometimes I have yelled mean things, and I’ve had to look in his blue-green eyes, put my tail between my legs, and apologize when I really wanted to admit I often have no clue what I’m doing.

I’ve always felt a little sorry for my son being the firstborn, the guinea pig for all of my parenting experiments gone bad. With my daughter, I’ve been through it so I’m more relaxed, even, and firm. My son gets a whirlwind of emotion and a ball of stress. Part of me breaks each time it has to be hard for him. Sometimes he deserves for me to know the answers in advance.

In the next nine years, I know what he’ll face. I know the horrors of middle and high school: pimples, the embarrassment of your parents, wearing the right clothes, growing into suddenly disproportionate body parts. I’ll see more of his bedroom door than his messy room. I know I’ll lose him to a flock of smelly teens with patchy facial hair who grunt instead of speak and stare at my daughter in alarming ways, girlfriends who call and giggle and are suddenly the light in his life.

And between all of that, I still have a job to do. Somehow, I still have to turn this kid into a respectable man who cooks, cleans, smells nice, and has good manners. I’ve got my work cut out for me.

But despite our setbacks, I have learned a few things. My son has taught me to be calm, even when he can’t be. He has taught me to forgive and move on because love is more important than any argument over homework or bad language. He’s taught me patience on a level that I never thought existed in me. Times when I thought I would crawl out of my skin waiting for him to do something, I have learned instead to let him do it in his own time. And he does. He’s taught me that no matter how old he gets, he sometimes still needs his mom.

I’m pretty sure by the time I get a handle on this parenting thing, he’ll be grown. Then he’ll have children, and parenting and all the struggles that come along with it will be something he and his partner have to muddle through.

But today, he’s nine. And we’ll have cake, open presents, read our bedtime story, and if I’m lucky, I’ll get a hug out of him. And tonight, I still get to tuck him in, peek at his sleeping face, and love that I still have years of boyhood bliss.

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January 30, 2012 · 11:05 am

A Word About Trophies

Throughout my entire childhood, I earned four trophies. The first I received in kindergarten for being friendliest girl. (It was always my favorite.) The others included one for my seventh-grade class spelling bee, one for softball, and I have no idea what the fourth was for. I’ve long since thrown them out.

I can’t imagine why I got a trophy for softball: maybe for being worst player, maybe for most comedic plays, maybe because I had guts to come back after the debacle from each previous week. Whatever. I was no MVP.

A very busy boy lives here.

My son just earned his twelfth trophy. He will be nine soon. When kids play sports, they automatically get a trophy for participating. We don’t have room for all of these golden figures, let alone the big head our son now has because of them.

Before my son participates in anything, he first wants to know whether he’ll get a trophy. And it’s not his fault. Why do places like the Y give trophies to every kid? Why did parents demand it in the first place? Sure, it’s tough when your kid isn’t the star athlete, doesn’t make lots of baskets, doesn’t score the goals. But I don’t know, does my kid really deserve a trophy for learning a sport, deciding whether he even likes it?

My kid gets so excited to get those golden statues, but I don’t play them up. When he scores a goal, makes his first basket, makes a good play, or has a better game, that’s something to celebrate. I’d be OK with earning a trophy for sticking it out three seasons. It at least teaches patience. And it’s not just him. The other kids who only showed up half the season, they get trophies too.

My son has won awards on his own merit. I tell him those are the ones he should be proud of, not the ones you get for signing up. He placed first in his Scout den and second in his whole pack for the Raingutter Regatta, in which he had to build and design a boat, then on race day use a straw to blow it across a raingutter against competitors. His concentration and technique were solid, no nerves getting in the way. And unlike the other kids, he didn’t chew on his straw, causing slits for all that hot air to pass through.

Recently, the golden gem of all, he won his third-grade class spelling bee. When they announced the bee, I told him he could nail it. He didn’t even care about it. What? This is a kid who can look at a word once and know how to spell it forever. He knows football players’ names and states, just for fun. I pushed him to simply look at the list. He came home a winner…but no trophy.

During round two to determine the school winner, he was up against fourth and fifth graders. I’ve never seen my son work so hard at anything. He studied every night. He made an effort and he pushed himself. All things I feared he wasn’t capable of because he always takes the easiest approach to just getting by without failure. He doesn’t like a challenge.

He didn’t win that spelling bee. He bombed on one word out of a list of 400 words that he practiced all week and ranked in the middle. I told him I couldn’t have been prouder. I’ve watched him stand around on fields with his hands in his pockets and let someone else make the play, and earn a trophy for that. But now I’ve seen him put his best foot forward and not make the win.

Do I need to spell it out for him? This means more than any of those golden trophies.

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January 23, 2012 · 2:25 pm

Boys Will Be Beasts

Some days after school, I let the kids play on the playground with friends. It’s a welcome change from our usual routine of coming home, fighting over who gets in the door first, shoving food into mouths, and rushing outside where I am the coach, referee, shortstop, quarterback, or freezing cold icicle who monitors the kids in the street.

On the playground, I still shiver and freeze, but I learn something as I watch the boys. The playground is much like the wild, where male animals tangle and butt heads to decide a leader or the victor of some great territory. Like them, the boys need to assert their power, find their rank, or prove they can take the hits. Here they learn to tackle, wrestle, and fling each other around like beasts, but they do it with snaggle-toothed smiles, chocolate milk breath, and dimpled giggles.

We parents on the sidelines watch, flinch, and think, “Oh, was that jab all right?” only to see the boys dart away covered in mulch, panting and laughing, and chasing the next boy.

They are wild beasts, a species I don’t fully understand. What is the appeal of having someone throw you to the ground? What makes them beg each other to wrestle and kick the crap out of each other? I keep my eye on things, and I keep a safe distance from these wild creatures.

I do not have the wildest of sons. I trusted him alone with his newborn sister at the age of two and peeked around the corner as he simply read and talked to her. Now when the urge to wrestle strikes before his dad comes home, he begs her to take him on. But he takes whatever pummeling she gives him with giggles and smiles. He knows when to back off. He flinches when a herd of players stampedes his way during a game, but he does his best to keep up with the pack. He doesn’t deliver a wallop of a punch, but he likes the interaction.

Even as a mom whose urge is to protect, I understand boys need that craziness they call play. I’ve read a lot about boys needing to play rough. It’s good for them, even if it’s absurd to me. We parents on the playground sidelines scratch our heads, but we all come to the same conclusion: It’s what the boys seem to need.

Getting physical helps my son release his energy in a positive way. He can be physically close without being mushy. Boys just don’t hold hands or hug a lot the way girls do. He learns not to be too rough with others (though sometimes a punch in my husband’s groin goes too far). And this type of play helps him learn how to read other people: Is he making them mad or are they playing? Being around other beasts his age seems to help him learn the rules of the playground kingdom. Everyone gets to be It. They pick each other up and dust each other off. Then the chase and tackle resumes again.

I’d rather see my son do it with other consenting beasts than with his sister or me. And it sure saves me a lot of bruises.

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January 19, 2012 · 1:36 pm

George Lucas, We Need to Talk

When Star Wars grabbed my son’s attention, it didn’t take hold like other phases he’s skipped through. He didn’t just buy all of the books he could find and get all of the Star Wars Lego sets that holidays would allow, then move on to the next big adventure. No, he’s settled in long enough to know those books inside and out. He lectures me with details of characters whose electric-colored skin and snakelike hair only flash on the screen for half a second, long enough for a little boy to want to know who that character is and where he can get one.

His mania has lasted long enough for him to spend hours with bricks, instructions, and nimble fingers to create replicas of spaceships and scenes. Movies need to be watched, pages need to be read, and pictures need to be sketched of the insanely ingenious creatures.

I have a feeling a battle is about to begin....Ewoks, get ready.

Like many families around the world since the 1977 reveal, we have been knocked into space with no map and there’s no escape hatch. No Wookiee will rescue us from the dark side of clever marketing aimed at every eight-year-old boy and up. We are simply doomed. Star Wars has become part of our life.

At breakfast, we get to hear all about the new Lego sets coming out. After all, someone is turning nine soon. Bits of paper lay scattered around the house with odd beasts penciled onto them, dreamed by a boy with an imagination sparked by the likes of shape-shifting bounty hunters, giant aqua monsters, and funny-talking Gungans.

Did George Lucas know what he was doing when he created this other galaxy? Surely, he had no idea how big Star Wars would become. That boys, big and little, would spend hours on the toy aisle considering which character they should add to their collection. Thankfully, there are hundreds. Did he know moms would brandish light sabers, choose the Force or the Dark Side, and fight their children in battles of good and evil across pillows and couches, or do spot-on Chewie impersonations even though they were secretly terrified of him as a child? Does he hear about it every waking minute of the day from an obsessed eight-year-old? Does George Lucas ever play Star Wars? What is his favorite character? I’ll let him have my son for an afternoon to discuss it.

When your son takes your daughter’s barrette with long purple braids attached, snaps it into his hair, and announces he’s a Jedi, you know you have a problem. “Padawan, there is much to teach you. Controlled Jedi are. Use the force they do. Roll around like an animal they don’t.” Hmm, maybe I could use this to my advantage.

"Listen to your mother you will."

It’s said George Lucas drew from his childhood love of Flash Gordon, among other things, for Star Wars inspiration. I can only wonder what my son’s current Star Wars obsession will bring to his future. Will he create beloved characters for a new generation based on his love for Star Wars as he says he will? Or will he use his imagination for something else in brand-new ways? As a parent, I never know how all of the weird, nonsensical stuff my children do will one day play out in their future. But I know it’s my job to let them imagine, create, and have fun, to feed that curiosity. It’s also my mission to keep them away from the dark side.

 

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January 16, 2012 · 9:56 am

A 6-Year-Old’s Guide to the Opposite Sex

“Mom, I don’t get it. He’s getting on my nerves, but I still want to play with him.”

That’s what my daughter observed between hunks of banana while her brother entertained himself by snatching her ring and running off with it, calling her weird—“No, I said, ‘Weird Beard!’ ”—and engaging in a string of annoying eight-year-old boy mischief.

If that doesn’t define my whole life with the opposite sex, I don’t know what does. She’s pretty smart for a six-year-old.

I remember the first boy who ever liked me. I was in fourth grade and he was in fifth. He came over one day to ask me to go steady. The poor boy wrestled me, covered my head with a pillow and sat on it, and farted on me, all in some grand gesture to woo me. Despite his odd courting display, I did like him, but I just didn’t want a boyfriend. I was a bit young to settle down. I let him down gently and watched him walk home, kicking the gravel rock on our drive, perhaps thinking the farting was too much?

The realization that this lies near in my future is a bit hard to deal with actually. I can’t see my son calling a girl or asking one out, but I can see him being dumb enough to sit on her head. I’ve told him many times to please ask me for advice when dealing with girls to save himself from bra snapping, hairstyle mussing, and wet willies. These are not ways to win a girl’s heart.

But I can see that he’s practicing the fine art of boyhood courting already on his sister: grabbing her possessions and throwing them across the room, calling her pet names like Weirdo and Chubby Butt, and giving her noogies.

Still, as a mother I have a job to do. For the sake of future girl friends, girlfriends, and a possible wife, this little boy needs to turn into something resembling a catch by the time I’m done with him.

He does like snuggles and having a sister has made him somewhat sweet, so I’m hopeful it’s not too late. There is nothing more precious than seeing your son helping your daughter zip her jacket or snuggled up next to her when there is a whole couch to spread out on. Sometimes I think he’ll be OK. Then he runs off with her favorite doll, laughing like a kid with candy coursing through his veins, and I know we have a long way to go.

But then I remember that Mr. Muddled Mom was a little boy long ago. And he snuggles on the couch and plays with my hair. He can be very sweet. Then he throws a giant blanket over my head. And my daughter is so right. Sometimes he gets on my nerves, but I still want to play with him.

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January 12, 2012 · 12:22 pm

Bedtime Stories

Whether we’re tired, it’s late, or someone has stomped up the stairs and slammed the door in a very bad mood, every night I read to each of my kids. Even when my daughter melts down because she can’t get the toothpaste on or my son gets a second wind and bounces on his bed like a super ball on a linoleum floor, it’s just our ritual.

Often it is the part of our busy day I look forward to most, one on one. For ten to twenty minutes, it’s just the two of us, curled up and lost in a story. Sometimes I read longer, wanting to see what happens next just as much as my child does.

This has always been our bedtime routine, and I plan to do it as long as they will let me. Many years ago I read that it’s important to read to your children long after they know how to read themselves. High school I think. It sounds crazy, but even at that age, hearing someone read with passion benefits them.

If I read to them, they want me to go on and on. If they read to me, I fall right to sleep.

I’ve read to my kids since they were babies. My son read to his sister the day she came home from the hospital because I told him that was a big brother’s important role. Now he listens as she reads to him and helps her with words she can’t pronounce.

When my son was less than two years old, he made us read the same book to him like a CD stuck on repeat. I would beg him to pick another book. As soon as the last word was read, he’d say, “Again,” and I wanted to cry. But when he was able to speak well, he squeezed between the couch and end table and “read” those books to himself. He memorized every word of every book. I had no idea that’s what he was doing.

When my kids learned their letters and letter sounds, I taught them to read. Seeing my kids read their very first sentence was cooler than the first goal, the first pop fly, the first bike ride without training wheels. Reading is the foundation for their whole lifetime of learning, and there we sat, cheering at each word formed, shock that it had happened. No teacher could take that glory from us. It was our moment.

Many times the kids writhed in agony and yanked at their hair as words became harder, and I clenched my fists to keep myself from doing it. But we pulled through and they read to themselves often.

And now, every night, I am theirs and they are mine. We laughed till we cried when Greg’s dog licked itself, then slathered kisses on his dad’s face in Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days. We ponder the mystery of the intruder in Nathaniel Fludd. I itch to tell my son whether Snape is friend or foe in the Harry Potter books. And we learn about life through the decades thanks to the American Girl series. Afterward, my kids talk to me about their day, spill their problems, or give me an extra-long hug.

I have taken our reading away as punishment in times of desperation, knowing they still have their father’s turn to look forward to, but the kids are so fond of this time together and it breaks my heart too. I’ve learned to find other consequences.

I know there will come a day when my kids will end their nights with phone calls, studying, or more important things. But I hope it will still include me, even if our stories don’t come from a book.

I’ve been reading The Reading Promise: My Father and the Books We Shared by Alice Ozma about a daughter and father who promised to read every night for 100 nights, then 1,000, and then kept going until she left for college. They began in fourth grade. If I read to my son every night until he leaves for college, by my count, we’ll have read more than 3,000 nights. My daughter, more than 4,000. We do skip when someone is sick or if the grandparents are in town. To me, it’s not about the contest; it’s the bond that matters. No matter what kind of day we’ve had, I’m still there. That’s the moral I hope my kids take away from our story.

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January 5, 2012 · 9:25 am

The Best Plans

When my husband announced he’d be off for the kids’ winter break, I had mixed feelings. The four of us together for eleven days with no real plans sounded like the perfect recipe for a bubbling disaster. Don’t get me wrong, I love my family. But there are many weekends I don’t think I’ll survive, when I think we all can’t wait for Monday to come. The kids fight over who gets which vitamin at breakfast, who gets to brush their teeth first, and the grumpiness escalates from there.

I can handle them fine on my own for a week. They run off in their pajamas and play while I have a little “work” to do. But throw another adult in the mix and they suddenly need to be supervised. They need someone to play with them. This usually translates to my son begging my husband to be with him 24/7 and my husband not getting any peace.

I needed a plan. Eleven days together couldn’t possibly go well if we didn’t have a schedule of fantastic places to go. Our usual winter break of the kids and me lying around the house in our pj’s, playing games, crafting, watching movies, and playing the day by ear would drive my husband crazy, I thought. He would be bored in the house, the kids wouldn’t leave him alone, and I wouldn’t be able to stand the tension.

Or so I thought.

I never did make that plan. And we did lie around the house playing games, watching movies, reading books, and just doing whatever we wanted. The kids played with friends a couple of times. Save for one meltdown and a few minor fusses, our vacation went smoothly. We snow-tubed our way down a mountain one day, toasted in the new year together, and discussed every Star Wars character we could think of. We broke in my son’s new basketball goal, learned a new domino game, and broke household records and slept in every day. We drove dolls around in their new pink jeep, made the best chocolate-chocolate chip cookies ever, built the city of Atlantis, and made Lego starships take flight.

The night before my husband had to go back to work, I could tell something was wrong. He was sad. Since our son was a baby, that’s the longest time we’ve had at home together as a family to just be. To just enjoy each other, to have nowhere to be, and to go where the days took us.

We didn’t do anything fancy. We didn’t go far. But we defied all expectations and proved that sometimes the best times are those that are unplanned.

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December 29, 2011 · 2:25 pm

A New Year for Mom

My husband and I watched some home movies recently. My daughter was 2 and my son 4. Thirty seconds in, tears spilled from my eyes at the sound of my daughter’s voice. I hadn’t heard that baby voice in four years. I say I don’t miss all that, life when the kids were younger, but I realize now it’s just a coping mechanism.

What did I learn from watching those old movies? My kids haven’t changed much. Minus the baby fat, they look exactly the same. Between bursts of laughter, my husband and I agreed they still act the same too. They still do the same jerky roll-and-dance routine with ferocious concentration. The neighborhood dogs still howl when my daughter sings. My son still has a smart mouth.

“What did you do in kindergarten today?” I cooed into the video camera, waiting for a precious response I’m sure.

My son stared at me and sweetly grinned. “Sat on the pot all day.”

“Let’s be nice. What did you do?”

“Sat on the pot all day,” he said, erupting in giggles. This conversation could have happened yesterday. Even now I still haven’t learned when to quit.

As I sat watching through blurry eyes, I thought of how busy our life has become. Our days are governed by a schedule filled with school, homework, and shuttling to and from sports or Scouts or some Lego activity. And it’s up to me to make sure we fit everything in. Add in family time, meltdowns, confiding, and playing outside, and there isn’t much room to just be. The structured days make for a mom who needs to let loose more often and craves downtime with her kids.

I simply need to step back and enjoy my kids more. They may look the same, but life has gotten complicated. The kids’ problems go far beyond cookies and milk.

When my son revealed one day he’d been pushed around and punched in the gut at school, it was tough to be the adult, but I found myself having a very adult conversation with him about bullies, surprised at the parental mumbo jumbo spewing from my mouth. And then I had to sit back and let him take charge. Sometimes this parenting stuff is for the birds, all this letting go and letting them run their own lives.

When my daughter gets teased for sounding like a baby, I can’t promise her it will never happen again. I can only pretend I’m good at this mom thing and help her see that she’s a beautiful person and words hurt and she should never do the same.

Parenting is always about rules, guidance, and right and wrong. It wears a mom down. Some days now, there’s hardly ever room for the good stuff. I get enough of the aches. Why should I wait for grandchildren to have all my fun? I’m making room for it now.

I don’t usually set resolutions for the new year, but this year because the timing is right, I resolve to take a breath each afternoon and enjoy my kids more.

Some things never change, and some things should.

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