Another originally posted posts – this time from May 19, 2020. (See Day 81 for more detail). I swear I’m almost caught up.
Raising boys is not necessarily what I expected. Although now that we have kids, I don’t know how anyone expects any of this. You’re raising these tiny, wonderful, screaming, sweet human beings that eventually like to slap you, turn their listening ears off and make you fall more in love with being a parent (almost) every single day.
Skip to 3 years into this raising boys process and boy (literally) was I in for a shock. The two have vastly different personalities. Out oldest turned 3 in February and has hit the golden age of three-nager. And when he’s not losing his mind over the color of the cup I foisted upon him that morning, he is a loving, sweet little kid who has always done things on his own terms. He walked and talked later than we expected…or when others expected him to, but the second he was mobile, he was running the show. And although his language skills improved to the point of non-stop talking. There are some days I’m pretty sure the only word he know is “MOM, MOM, MOM, MOM…”. He is a wonderful big brother unless he’s not and then he’s roaring at his brother like a T-Rex and stealing toys that he truly has no desire to play with. Again, welcome to the three-nager years.
Our youngest is almost a year and a half old and has had a strong personality from the start. Walking and talking far before we were prepared for, this kid is now a mountain goat scaling our couches, traversing end tables and climbing on top of the trunk that houses our blankets all in hopes of making it behind the couch where the “off-limit” toys are captured and being held hostage. I think his goal is to free them from the torturous binds of life behind the couch with the expectation of standing tall on top of the giraffe bike seat with triumphant hands raised. That wild behavior is what landed the giraffe behind the couch in the first place and up to this point, his adventures have (thankfully) not been successful. Although I don’t expect it to take him much longer to land himself behind the couch seeing as his current path only take him 2.3 seconds.
I certainly never expected to have to say “put your penis back in your pants” as often as I currently do. Luckily we are always in our home and at an age where indecent exposure really isn’t on the radar. The other day, while breaking our inmates out of the house for some rec time during this lovely quarantine period, our oldest broke from playing driveway bowling and insisted he pee outside in the front yard. He compromised with my husband and peed in the backyard instead.
A fun new trick is being reprimanded by the children. During dinner we work on manners such as not talking with your mouth full or keeping a napkin on your lap. Last week, I mentioned something to our oldest to which he quickly retorted “chew your food first mama.” Ah yes, thank you sweet boy. Or the other night when he got out of his bed just to remind me that TV time was over for the night. I politely declined his request to turn the TV off as I tucked his cute little butt back into his Cars bed. Finally, I coughed this afternoon and did not cover my mouth much to Logan’s dismay. He put his water bottle down, his hand over my mouth and politely requested I cover my mouth when I cough. The life lessons I’ve taught them to this point are already starting to bite me in the ass. And these are the small ones. Not sure what happens when we hit the major milestones.
One of the most recent fun mom moments came as a result of our bedtime routine.
We each take one kid for bedtime preparations. This man-to-man coverage is working pretty well so far. It’s also a big part of why my “I want 4” quickly dwindled to “2 is perfect”. Zone defense is clearly not for us and would only lead to being overrun by the inmates. Mike gets Jackson ready for bed and I do the same for Logan….pajamas, diapers/Pull-ups, lotions…etc. Then we switch and I put Jax down for the night (or, let’s be real…down for the next 2 hours until the mountain goat stirs from his slumber for a quick chat) and Mike tucks Logan into bed after a few storytelling adventures.
Continuing on in the bedtime process…Our house is basically one giant app to control. We have Nest to control the temperature of the house from our phones. Use the hue lights so Alexa and our phones can respond to demands of even the most impatient toddlers to change the brightness/color of their bedroom lights. Alexa serenades the boys to sleep every night with the lulling sounds of thunderstorms. And on the occasion confuses mom as to why there is so much thunder and so little rain. It only happened once and I blame sleep deprivation. All of this adds up to one things: the government knows all our moves. You think for that kind of info, they’d send wine. Anyways, every night Mike lets Logan choose the color of his bedroom lights. Most night it’s blue or green. However, on only the most fabulous of occasions, for whatever reason our sweet munchkin butt chooses red. RED.
This is all well and good until our three-nager wakes in the middle of the night and demands attention. When I cross the threshold into his room, the unexpected color slaps me in the face and I pause to reflect on the choices my wonderful husband and son made that night. While I traverse his REDRUM room and my husband sleeps uninterrupted, I am struck by the nightmare-esque color splashed into every corner of the room.
In an attempt to bribe my child to stay in his bed rather than climbing into ours, I comply with his request to snuggle in bed with him. As I squeeze my way into his Car toddler bed, I am reminded of the warm, red river of blood cascading from the elevators in The Shining and wonder if the blue dress clad twins are going to reach up from the depths to snatch my foot that hangs precariously over the edge of the bed and drag me back down with them.
But the red seems a little less murder-y when tiny arms are wrapped around my neck and snuggled close. Or maybe he’s trying to smother me. I’m too tired to tell the difference. All in all, most nights it’s a quick snuggle and he is able to find his comfort zone and wander back into sleep.
All of these moments have taught me to truly expect the unexpected. That for some of these moments, I am on the receiving end of a quick high-five to the face and giving an oft repeated lesson that we are gentle with our hands and kind to everyone. Others remind me that I may have to at some point in the very near future apologize to our neighbors for our bare-butt toddler freely peeing into the breeze. But it’s the moments when I realize that I am their comfort zone (not just me, Mike too) that makes every difficult, trying, sleep-deprived moment more than worth it. That a simple snuggle can quash their fears, calm their nerves and lull them back to sleep. I live for all of these moments. They are funny, difficult and new to my life, but each of them brings me back to why we chose to have kids. I am eternally grateful that I get to be their mom and look forward to each surprising, expected and in between memory we will all make together.
Too Much Laundry, Not Enough Wine 