Indulge me

Greetings from Stress Central. We are attempting to stay afloat here. Something is amiss with Little Man. I am worried that his ears are clogged or he has learned to completely block out the voice of his father and I at the tender age of four. We are having catastrophic meltdowns the past couple evenings at bedtime. Sometime around 14 minutes after he gets up for the day he stops listening. And by the time it gets dark out, I am at the end of my rope. There is a warning and then the behavior is repeated and then there is the reprimand and then it is all over. His dada is at the end of his rope about 14 minutes after he gets home from work.

Yes, I am joking to some degree. But something has to change or I am going to go medieval on his butt.

Hudson is the most wonderfully curious, frequently sweet, genuinely cuddly, articulate, gregarious little person I have yet to meet. But he is at this age where days with him are just... hard. It almost bothers me to say that. Just to type it, makes me want to hit the delete key. But that won't change what is going on. He asks SO MANY QUESTIONS. Sometimes it is really funny. Like at the gas station the other day, he was like, "How do they get the gas in the pump?" and I said, "They put it in underground tanks."

"Where does the gas come from?"
"It comes oil."
"How do they make it into gas?"
"It is a process that they do at a refinery, Hudson."
"No, HOW do they do it?"

For real?!? this is what he is wondering about?! But sometimes, it is just straight exhausting. I bet that he asks me, "How do you know?" about 75 times a day.

"Hudson, if you feed the fish too much they will die."
"How do you know?"
"Hudson, if you put that Hot Wheel in our washer it will get banged up."
"How do you know?"
"Hudson, if you do not eat lunch you will be hungry by dinner?"
"How do you know?"

If you come over and I am crying in the corner, please answer my son's questions.

This past Saturday a friend lost her 38 year old husband when he had a heart attack at the gym. Yeah, I am not doing well with that at all. They have two little girls. They were both so respected in our community. I don't know how to help. And you know Heather, she is always one with a plan. I feel so lost; I don't really know what to do. Prayer does not seem like enough. I know that I should trust in God's plan; I know my faith wants me to believe He is in control of the Big Picture. But really I just find myself asking, "How do you know?"

Family Cabin Weekend

For the fifth year we have not exchanged Christmas presents and instead locked ourselves (well, not really) in a cabin in the woods for a weekend with my mom's family. For the fifth year, it provided us with a really wonderful set of memories. Here are some photo highlights.

Hudson looking far too old with his cup of hot chocolate. 

Tucker "chillaxin" on a special bed Uncle Jessica made for the boys. She is awesome!

Cuddling with Papa Eddie is Tucker's favorite thing to do.

Meanwhile Hudson wants to hot tub it constantly!

The jokes on us. My brother David's evil "My Buddy" doll was actually quickly made into Tucker's BFF.

Once again, the boys loved the slopes!

Forget about it

I was looking through the book of old blogs the other day trying to figure out when Hudson went to a big boy bed. (We bought Tucker's last week; pictures coming) And I saw so many things that I completely forgot about!!! Wowza, my mommy mush brain is worse than I thought!!! And so, for the sake of Things I Want to Forget, here is a picture of the worst and most necessary aspect of Toddlerhood: the sippy cup.

Oh sippy cup, how I hate you and your million parts. How I hate the companies that make you and think they understand the words they put on their packaging like "leakproof" and "easy to clean". How I hate your company's attempts to redesign these every two years so that I can never find the freaking parts I need to make the perfectly fine ones I had two years ago work again. How I hate myself when I find one of these bad boys with just a smidge of three day old milk in it in the car. How I hate the fact that you are so uncool that my one year old wants to drink out of "real" cups like his four year old brother.

Hmmm... that is all. For now.

Five senses

Tucker does not really talk. And on any day when I am not discussing this with a pediatrician, it is fine by me. After all, his big brother talks enough for two ten kids. So my ears are working overtime as it is. I am grateful for the ability to hear though. Listening to the kids laugh has to be the best thing ever. Mister T has a great laugh too. He loves to push his "stinky" feet right into your face when you are changing him on his diapering table. Those little tootsies do not stink at all, but if you act like they do-- he will give you the most heartwarming giggle ever.

I wonder what it would be like to be a mom who could not smell. My girlfriend Amy has no sense of smell. Her kids would get diaper changes as regular as most people take medication. "Every two hours" she would say. There was something regal about having a diaper changing schedule as opposed to the rest of us Neanderthal mothers who run around playdates sniffing random butts of the children present looking for The One.

We talked the other day at a playdate about which of our five senses was the most "expendable". The group ruled out sight for me as I am the photographer of most of them there. I eliminated touch as I would not be able to pick the camera up. Speaking of pictures, I probably should explain the tears of this one. I took this the other day when Sweet T was awfully disappointed with my decision to take away his sucker, but I found it to be a very sweet moment. He gets overly bummed at us these days for not understanding exactly what he has on his mind. He holds his hands just so when he is having his meltdowns making it all the more difficult for my heart. Plus, I am over pictures where kids are always smiling at me. If I have another mother yelling "smile. smile! smile! smile" over my shoulder at another photo session, I am going to have some jailtime ahead of me.
I am 44 days into a new eating "life program" that only proves to me that taking away my sense of taste would probably be the best thing for me. I absolutely love food. I love cooking it and reading about it, and of course, the eating of it. In my little "accountability group" everyone is constantly asking for my dinner recipes. I don't think talking about food was meant to be the focus of our little email chats, but I will just have to keep my group happy! Unlike poor little Tucker...

Self-portrait: February

A whole lotta love

If you know me at all you know that I used to completely ignore this "holiday". But Valentine's Day is growing on me. Literally, it is growing on me as Hudson and I ate the lion's share of his candy stash yesterday after preschool! I did not have to sweet talk him out of those Skittles or anything! I think I grew a couple of pounds from all those suckers and chocolate.

Yes, you must admit Hudson's Valentines were the cutest things in the whole entire world. I will give 50% credit to Pinterest for the idea and 50% credit to my adorable son who works well in front of the camera. 

I have been decorating Little Man's bedroom door each night with another reason why I love him. He is so cute being in awe of "how ever do I put those hearts on there so quietly?!?" Poor guy does not know he sleeps just like his dada: a freight train could drive right through our hallway and he'd never hear it! Each morning he looks to see what his new love is. I don't know if LOVE is a sight word, but he knows it now without even attempting to sound it out!

But last night we had just one of those moments that made me laugh and cry at the same time. Josh and I were both hanging out on Tucker's bedroom floor with kids playing and crawling all over us. (Tucker is obsessed with getting pony rides from Dada.) Hudson was just telling us how much he likes to cuddle and he pauses and looks at Josh, then myself, then Josh again. He just sighs and says, "Come here you two!!!" as he gives us both a hug around the neck.

We've been living quite a rollercoaster around here lately, but all this reminds me of a line from one of my favorite poems from teaching American Lit. I haven't posted anything like this in awhile so here it is...


Lucinda Matlock (by Edgar Lee Masters)
I went to the dances at Chandlerville,
And played snap-out at Winchester.
One time we changed partners,
Driving home in the moonlight of middle June,
And then I found Davis.
We were married and lived together for seventy years,
Enjoying, working, raising the twelve children,
Eight of whom we lost
Ere I had reached the age of sixty.
I spun,
I wove,
I kept the house,
I nursed the sick,
I made the garden, and for holiday
Rambled over the fields where sang the larks,
And by Spoon River gathering many a shell,
And many a flower and medicinal weed--
Shouting to the wooded hills, singing to the green valleys.
At ninety--six I had lived enough, that is all,
And passed to a sweet repose.
What is this I hear of sorrow and weariness,
Anger, discontent and drooping hopes?
Degenerate sons and daughters,
Life is too strong for you--
It takes life to love Life.

Monday Memories

Hudson: How about I share all the money I have with you and you share all the money you have with me?

Lady to Hudson: Is that your new fish?

Hudson: Yes

Lady: Do you have an aquarium?

Hudson: No. We just have a fish tank

Hudson (as we get off the interstate): I don't like te small roads 

Me: Why? 

Hudson: Because you can't pass other cars.

Hudson: How old are you?

Me: 38

Hudson: Why is your number more than daddy's?

Me: How much did he pay you to ask me that?

Hudson (to Daddy as he leaves for work):There'll be more smooches when you get back.

Kissing

I suppose in reality I would rather forget this whole incident happened. I am confident I will not be able to describe the full on-slaught of crying and dramatics that happened, and for the sake of the grandparent's soft hearts, that is probably for the best. Honestly, I am not even going to try. Yet, in effort to be forthright about what life is like with a four year old, here we go:

We had the most horrible night last night with Hudson. He got in trouble at school for kissing a girl. And when I found out it was not his "most talked about" lady-friend Nora, but another little girl, I asked him why he was trying to kiss on her. He said he had "twwwwwo girlfriends." I told him that kissing was not appropriate in school. Then I told him that he could not kiss anybody but Mama. "That sounds boring," he said.

When Josh came home I told Hudson he needed to tell his daddy what happened at school. He threw an absolute hysterical fit. Hudson kept saying, "Dada will be so mad. He will be so mad." (Actually I was pretty sure that Josh would want to secretly high five his ladies man son, but I did not mention that.) It lasted multiple hours and drained every tear duct he had. I guess I am not as scary as I thought; Josh must be much for threatening! Anyway, it was a horrible night. 

I share all of this because I have figured out that so much of the strain of parenthood is perspective. The night when we tried to let Hudson cry it out was the "worst night" of my life until he fell down and got his first bruise. That "worst night" was superseded by the first time he told me that he was scared. And that "worst night" was trumped by the first time I did something that hurt his feelings. I just get the feeling that one day when he has done something I DO NOT EVEN WANT TO IMAGINE I will look back and say, "Hmmmm...being scared to tell Josh that he kissed a four year old at preschool?!?! Yeah, that was nothin."

Because I can

A couple of weeks ago I took the kids to Columbus, Ohio, by myself, for a three day get-away. Notice I did not use the word "vacation" like my almost-brother-in-law erroneously suggested. If you have ever taken two kids ANYWHERE you know it is not a vacation...least of all a hotel for multiple nights and a friend's home another! Tucker has evidence of bumps and bruises to prove that he was on no vacation.

I don't want to be crippled through these little guys early years thinking about all I can not do. Rather, I know that I can raise adaptable, well-behaved new people by taking them into a variety of situations. Even if it means that I taken them myself.

This week I realized I have never taken them to lunch anywhere but a fast food restaurant, so on our way to T's doctor appointment and Hudson's fish store visit, we visited Johnny Carino's for lunch. We spent $3 more than we would have at McDaddy's, ate better, and received more than adequate attention for our good behavior! It was fun.

I could never be a single mother; I am not saying that. I need Josh's support pretty much the instant he crosses the threshold of the back door, but I do like proving to myself that I can handle this!

Mom, this one is for you.

I bought a self-timer. So there should be more of this in the future.

Baby Blues

Tucker is really growing up. Every day it seems he sheds some aspect of his "baby" personality and acts more like his brother. He tries so very hard to keep up with Hudson. He emulates very specific Hudson behaviors like playing one person football games and creating elaborate car crashes.

And the humming. How I hope I never forget how Sweet T hums when concentrating just like his big brother. Yesterday morning I was doing dishes and they were both at the kitchen table. Tucker was playing with Hot Wheels and Little Man was painting. In stereo, they were both "uhhhhh huhhhhhhh uhhhhhhhh"ing.  How strong my DNA must be!