I have a Clark Griswold complex. I go into the holidays with the same wide-eyed naivety every year and end up disappointed. At least this year the boys reminded me to lower the bar early.
To kick off the holiday I thought I'd take the boys to the mall for, what was destined to be, "the best picture with Santa...EVER!"
They'd watched the Rankin/Bass "Santa Clause is Coming to Town" at least 80 times and were Santa-crazy. Every decoration that appeared at all Santa-esque was dubbed "SAN KWAZ!" by Finley. I figured actually meeting the real Santa this year was going yield the most adorable moment ever captured on film. Here's what we got:
This was the BEST of EIGHT, just by virtue of the fact that all three of their heads are in frame. The first four shots looked like the boys were exploding out of Santa. After some blue lollipops that I'm sure were laced with sedatives (I have no problem with that) and the patented white-gloved death grip seen above (also, absolutely no problem with that) Santa managed to get this moment captured on pricey, high-glossed film. The cheapest package was $29.99.
Finn would be getting a lump of coal in his stocking this year but I know he'll just draw on the living room wall with it, flush it down the toilet, and then pee on the bathroom rug.
I haven't blogged about the boys in a long time because every time I sit down and think to myself "what are they up to these days that's worth mentioning?" I get an instant stabbing sensation behind my left eye.
Of course we have our fun, and I love my boys more than ever, but if I had to sum up this chapter of our lives I'd say that Finn is continuing to aggressively "test boundaries" and Liam is making progress, but is still struggling with language. I just felt a hair turn grey.
My Angel
I don't have a single gripe about Liam. He's as sweet and funny as ever, and he's made more progress in the last month or two with his language issues than I've seen him make in the past two years. It brings me to happy tears. Jodee wrote beautifully about it on her blog HERE. The hard part is we're not sure now what path his education should take. Erin and I have been observing classes and meeting with teachers to try and figure out what's the next best move. They think he's in the right program, but Erin and I think he's ready to advance. As anyone who has tried to fight for their child's educational needs can tell you, it's an epic battle.
Finn, on the other hand, is mega-gripeworthy. His potty-training went out the window for about a month. As soon as he discovered how pleased we were to see him use the toilet, he added that skill to the list of things he will absolutely never do again. He now holds it until he's in agony, or until he's in the bath and we're not watching so that he can hop out, take a piss on the bathroom rug, and hop back in the tub. We've tricked him a number of times into using the potty, but he's peed on the rug as many times as not. Pooping he saves for the moment we're forced to put him in a diaper. Typically it'll be his nighttime diaper or any occasion when we have to leave the house for an extended period of time. Once he's in it, he runs off to hide so he can unleash in privacy.
Finn taking a dump
His other major power move is the "limp noodle". It's brilliant. You know the move: it's the one where the slightest disinclination to do something results in instantaneous full-body immobility.
"Finn, can you put your shoes on?"
I used to be able to call his bluff by simply walking away, but Liam has ruined that. Liam gets very upset when I appear to be leaving his only brother and best friend behind. Consequently, on the days Finn doesn't feel like going to school, he gets carried the whole way.
As my kids get older, I am often reminded of my pre-child days when I
a) thought I'd never have kids, and
b) said that if I ever did, I wanted them to pop out and immediately inflate to around 7 years old. I guess I've been so caught up in the whole 'raising babies/toddlers/preschoolers/etc' thing for the last 12 years that I forgot that dream. Now that my lastborn is hovering toward the last quarter of age 8 however, I totally remembered those silly fantasies, and I still absolutely agree with my pre-kid self.
Don't get me wrong - those early years are magical and sweet and glorious and all of that bullshit, but man is it ever nice to have a conversation with a kid.
Laying with Evie at bedtime and discussing the day, her dreams, other kids at school, geography, all sorts of other things... it's my favorite time of the day with her because that time is about she and I only - no brothers for her to nag, no pets for her to dress up. It's where I get the scoop on which girls in her class are casting the friendship net, how something she said was misinterpreted and how she resolved it, who didn't want to play but later did...can I just pause here for a moment and wonder at the amount of D R A M A in girls' lives? I mean, this kid is 8 and already her social life gives me a headache. I'd like to say things have changed from the time I was a kid, but there's a certain sparkly pencil incident I've never quite gotten over, so, I guess it's just an unavoidable childhood negotiation process.
Anyway, Evie is brilliant at articulating her thoughts and feelings...at bedtime. During the day she gets a bit more, erm, easily frustrated. So it's really lovely to have that time to just lay down, sing songs, snuggle, and dish.
Meanwhile Jonah has begun Middle School and seems to be grasping the most important basics. For example, the other day I quietly observed while he asked a girl out on behalf of his friend who was watching from behind a tree. It was magical. He also joined a Music Club where he can play his ukulele, and is considering joining the Salsa Club. As in, they eat salsa. If you know me at all you know that this is one of my all-time favorite foods, which Jonah is finally starting to get into. So yeah, we've got plenty of salsa-eating and discussing ahead of us, which has been a long time coming. You can't exactly give a baby a jalapeno and a knife and expect the proper results. Trust me on that one. Please.
There's more! For the first time in his whole life Jonah and I have a TV show we're both interested in at the same time! (Sorry Little Einstein. And My Little Pony. And that YouTube Minecraft guy).
We recently started watching Once Upon a Time together and, jeez! Who knew trying to solve fairy-tale related mysteries with your tweenaged son would be so damn fun! I watch very little TV so I generally miss out on the "I'm so obsessed with this show" crazes out there. I kind of get it now. Although if Jonah weren't my watching companion, I don't know if I'd take the time to sit down and watch it on my own, but that's what makes it so sweet. Me, my boy, our show. I'm totally digging it.*
It turns out pre-child Amanda was pretty smart.
Here is a somewhat random video of Jonah trying to sell some stuff. Sorry, that stuff is no longer available, but I think this video perfectly captures the...awkwardness awesomeness of having a Middle Schooler.
In short: big kids are the best!
*We're only on Season One so please, as much as I want to know who the stranger on the motorcycle is, NO SPOILERS!!
Last year I had the BEST idea. I wanted to re-purpose my old-timey sailor costume into a group costume with Liam and Finn. I was going to be "Jack" from the Cracker Jack box, Liam was going to be his dog "Bingo", Finn was going to be an adorable toy prize, and the three of us were going to win hearts and contests the world over. I took Liam to the costume store to get a doggy outfit but he spotted a "Woody" costume and that was the end of my dream.
2014
So this year we just went to the costume store and I let the boys pick whatever costume they wanted. I guess it is kind of supposed to be about them.
We went down to Railroad Square to check out 'Disguise the Limit' and upon entering Liam immediately covered his eyes and leaped into my arms. Costumes are fucking scary this year. I blame The Walking Dead.
I held him tight and looked for the least gory, kid-friendliest isle. Liam glanced at a few things between his fingers but was ready to get the hell out of there in under three minutes. Meanwhile, I'd lost Finn as soon as we crossed the store's threshold, but figured he'd be fine (second kid syndrome). I found him in a decidedly adult section where he had found a Jessica Rabbit dress-wearing-mannequin and was getting to third base with it. I'm worried about him.
We gave up on costumes and got a cookie instead. While we were headed back to the car Liam said "bee please". Apparently he HAD chosen a costume, so we went back to the store, grabbed one of the three honey-bee costume packs that looked like it had been opened the fewest number of times and was therefore likely to still have all of it's parts (it didn't), let Finn cop a quick feel, and made our purchase.
It needed a few accessories but the end result was pretty damn cute:
As for Finn, he was indifferent so we let him rummage through some hand-me-down costumes we keep on hand. He chose 'Thomas the Tank Engine': cute, timeless, and consisting of only a hat and a poncho thingy so it was easy to put on and take off. I have no pictures of him wearing it because about an hour before our big Halloween party, Finn took a header into a laundry basket. This left him with a bloodied fat lip and NO TOLERANCE for any sort of dress-up shenanigans. He immediately tore off his Thomas poncho which left him in his ill-fitting, but comfy underclothes. I considered telling people he was dressed up as an 'abused orphan' but thought better of it.
As you probably know from reading Mike's posts, Harvest is in full swing. Or, it was when I started writing this. I've since lost track of when that was, so just bear with me here and pretend this is still a current event.
For us, harvest doesn't mean too much. By 'us' I of course mean Repo Red, the wine Paulie makes in the driveway so we have 'free' table wine all year long. By 'doesn't mean much' I am of course referring to the constant scrambling to try to find grapes, then traveling all over god's green earth to get them. Then crush them. But first bottle last year's wine because the wine basement only has so much space, which is basically...very little. So yeah, we've been doing a lot of tasting, blending, bottling, harvesting, crushing and barreling lately. Luckily we have lots of enthusiastic friends willing to help.
Eventually those friends get tired or have to move on into the work of dealing with their own projects, so this is when Paulie and I find ourselves hauling ass. I am not much for 'ass-hauling' and so I tend to get a bit grumpy during these times. It doesn't help that I have little to no free time lately, and so on those rare unicorn occasions that I do, Paulie always somehow wrangles me into giving up my precious time off from work in order to...work. For him. Doing physical labor. This is most often presented in a last-minute scenario, too, so that by this time in the season I am fearful of even sitting down at the computer to do any curating of Mortified pieces, or writing for myself, or working from the kitchen table of any sort because every time I do Paulie's spidey sense tells him I've just begun to relax and he immediately texts me to ask if I can drive to Dry Creek Valley to help him pick Syrah right now. As a matter of fact, now that I think about it, these desperate pleas for help never come when I'm doing the dishes, or the laundry, or sweeping the stairs or cleaning the toilets. Only when I've juuuuust settled down to focus my mind on something other than chores and work.
Dammit!
Anyway. We did the afore-mentioned picking in Dry Creek Valley on a Friday, then after I got out of work on Sunday we hopped in the truck and drove to Amador County, where we got what appeared to be the last half ton of Syrah in the whole county. Seriously. Then we crushed it, pressed it, yadda yadda. I guess what I'm trying to say here is my back is really sore. That's pretty much what this rant is about.
I mean, there's so much leaning involved!
P.S. As I mentioned at the top, this post is a bit outdated. I'm happy to report that our Harvest is over, has been for a while, and now I've got plenty of time to finish the dishes. Balance in the universe has been restored.
Someone call Merriam-Webster. I've got their picture for the word "smug".
I kind of wanted to tell Finn, "Don't think your shit doesn't stink pal! The evidence of that hasn't left the room yet," but instead I did the big-boy happy dance and lavished him with praise. He didn't exactly make this breakthrough on his own. The grown-up meeting all the adults had on his fourth birthday, to nail down our toilet training plan, was like something out of Ocean's Eleven.
Erin and I agreed on the child seat toilet insert with foot stool, box o' distractions, and matching frog potty back-ups at both locations.
We both bookmarked Finn's favorite music video on our iPhones (Fall Out Boy - Immortals).
And after some debate settled on "The Treat".
Haribo® Brand Gummi-Bears
The "Potty-Only Toy Box o' Distractions" was more of a mixed bag, but both Erin's and mine featured objects designed to occupy his attention and, more importantly, his hands. Finn is a bit of a "fiddler".
One real bit of magic that Teacher Emily equipped us all with was state-of-the-art identical laminated Velcro visual schedule strips.
It doesn't look like much but it is the goddamn Jedi-mind-trick! Finn's problem isn't that he doesn't know when he needs to go to the bathroom or doesn't know how to go, it's that he digs his heels in and just flat out refuses. The fact that he, like his brother, is way behind in language skills means negotiating doesn't really work. For some reason this little trick does. All we do is pull the little card with his name off of the Velcro strip and hand it to him. He takes it and places it above the pictogram, takes the pictogram off the strip, and does whatever it describes. In addition to "toilet" there's "dinner", "bed", "brush teeth", "tidy up", and a bunch of others. Every one of them works! He just goes about doing what we've been desperate for him to do, without protest. I may make one for Jodee.
Finally, I can't forget to mention the efforts of a certain somebody who understood best what Finn was going through and gave him the moral support none of us grown-ups could.
This is why the decision to close my store, Sprout, has been such a hard one. Because I don't exactly have the answer to that question, which, of course, everyone and their mother and grandmother and favorite auntie is asking me. Each time I am reminded that I'm not exactly in a financial position to not have an answer to that question. *Gulp*
Okay, so there are other - many other - reasons the decision was hard. Being a business owner, especially the Owner of Sprout, has been part of my life and identity for the past 8 years. That's mind-boggling to wrap my head around and when I think about the ups and downs and fun and struggles and absolute pride and joy that role has brought me, I get a little verklempt.
Good times were had by all. Like...ALL.
With that, Sprout has also been a part of my kids' lives for the past 8 years. My daughter is 8 years old, so you do the math. For her the store is like her third arm, which I will soon be chopping off...wish me luck with that one. For my son, the store is like his second little sister- a fun new thing that came into his life shortly after his actual, real-life sister was born. He got to play there and Sprout gave him presents and clothes and playmates. He has spent hours entertaining the small children of my customers with peek-a-boo, Lincoln Log engineering and general affectionate cooing over their adorableness. He has spent many an afternoon cuddling on the couch with our fat old lazy lovable store cat, Macy.
Oh, shit. Macy.
"please keep the little humans away, merrrrr"
Before I'd made the decision to close, I'd noticed Macy becoming less tolerant of being chased by enthusiastic toddlers around the shop, and I mentioned to the kids that maybe it was time to let someone adopt her so she could have a more peaceful retirement. This, to say the least, did NOT go over well. Evie protested strongly that this was a bad idea, whereas Jonah just...burst into tears. So she remained at the shop and now, well, now - dammit now I have a double-whammy of devastation for them: Sorry kids, no more extra arm/sibling AND no more snuggles with Macy.
Okay, so I don't yet know exactly what I'm going to do in terms of 'When There is No More Sprout.' Yet. But I do know what I'm going to do to help ease the disgruntlement of breaking the news to my kids...
