Tippy Toes and Tantrums

How Rocket Greets a Sunday Morning

Yesterday, Rocket crept into my bed and whispered, "Daddy likes fruit bits covered in chocolate. He's going to buy them for when he gets married." Kevin's taste for chocolate covered fruit bits was news to me, as were any plans to renew our vows.

"That's great, but daddy's already married...to me."

"HA!" he scoffed, and in a tone implying I should know this myself, Rocket said, "He's getting married again!"

He immediately left the room and quickly got into a scuffle with his sister over some unknown toy. Determine to rain on her day too, he said "Don't you steal that from me!" Then in a lower voice, "If you steal it, I'll call the police and they'll come take you to jail and they'll knock both your eyes out!"

Sometimes, the mind of a three year old boy is a mysterious place.

Saving Face

The other day while sitting at a restaurant, I saw Rocket drawing a face for the first time. Well,it was the first time I saw him do it, but the "calm down, crazy lady" look he gave to my jubilation showed that he probably does this at school all the time.

Ever the private artist, when I said I wanted to keep his picture, he said sure, but first he wanted to finish it. He took the brown crayon and pressing down as hard as he could, he covered the face in fast scribbles, handed the paper with the large brown blotch to me and said, "There you go, mom!" Thanks, kid.

Clean Cut Tree

Due to tight schedules, we had to cut down our Christmas tree yesterday in the rain. Normally we would have cut it down today, but when we had to move our plans up a day, I thought, "What difference does a day make, really?" Today was bright and sunny, the opposite of yesterday. It turns out, a day makes quite a difference.

We liked one of the trees closest to our car, but I insisted we walk around awhile to make sure we weren't settling because of the rain. After we were all soaked through, we went back to the first tree. Of course.

For the Little People on Your List

This was meant to be the subject of my Wednesday post, but I couldn't quite pull it off. In brief, here are a few great holiday gifts:

*K'NEX toys, specifically their Sesame Street Neighborhood Collection building set, which is fun, inexpensive and perfect for most toddlers (and above - Clover is always drawn to any toy that appears best suited for her brother. She's not stopped by the fact that she hasn't watched Sesame Street in a couple of years. She will engage in hand-to-hand combat to control the little Elmo figure).

Send off a video showing off your (or your child's or your older sister's) K'NEX building skills for a chance to win $1,000 worth of K'NEX toys, which would really make the holidays extra special.

*Livie & Luca shoes, really more a gift for moms because I cannot get enough of Rocket in his adorable new shoes. He wore them for Thanksgiving, even though they didn't match his outfit at all, because they are amazing and need to be shown off. I forgot to pass along a coupon code - BLOG25 - for 25% off through the end of December.

*Leapfrog is offering great deals of Tag books, Leapster and Didj games this weekend. I bought three games for $5 a piece at the sale this weekend, then splurged on an "expensive" game that was $7.49. Those price makes them great stocking stuffers.

*Little Passports is a great thing to add to the wish list handed off to grandparents. I never wrote up the second package Clover received, featuring info and trinkets from Brazil, but it was perfect. Really perfect. She loved it and still has it on display in her room.

Merry shopping!

The Dreaded, Post-Sickness 24-Hour Wait

For anyone who has actively tried to get pregnant that two week wait before opening the testing stick can be torturous. Now that I have kids, I'm experiencing another wait that brings on a similarly anxious feeling: the 24 hour period between the end of a sickness and the child's return to school. It's a day when a child is perfectly fine and full of energy, but has to stay home to make sure the sickness has passed. It's a mix of Cabin Fever and a hostage situation: an end is near, but getting there will be arduous.

Between H1N1, the usual colds and everything else that's been going around, there's been a lot of anxiety about germs and staying healthy. I've been respectful of that, making sure to keep the kids home until they were clearly 100% healthy, but that last day of an illness, the 24-hours between the end of a fever and a return to school has just about done me in. Dealing with a sick kid is energy zapping and usually includes disrupted sleep, which means that by the time my child is feeling better, I've morphed into Miss Hannigan.

Sometimes having a child home sick is a little bit of a break. Sure, there's a lot of chicken soup and cracker deliveries, but sickness brings a lethargic calm that often allows laundry to get done, bathrooms cleaned, pantries organized. This is deceiving because it starts to make me think that having a child home with a little bug isn't bad, it's actually a rest from our routine. Check back on day three when I've nearly lost my mind and can understand why some people send their kids back to school before they're well.

Then there's the struggle over television that's only made worse by an illness. I always feel guilty about letting my kids watch TV when they're unable to get off the couch, so when the illness starts to lift, I turn it off. This only means that I'm now the full source of entertainment, but by this time, I'm burnt out.

When my son stayed home recently as we waited to see if his fever would return, desperate for fresh entertainment, I remembered a play tool in the garage. It was supposed to be returned to the store after his birthday, but never was and now the receipt is either lost or expired. I didn't care to think about why I wanted to return it in the first place. Here was a brand new toy that could be my salvation and bring me the five minutes of peace I needed to restore my sanity. My son grabbed the toy and I was quickly reminded that there was a reason we wanted to return this perfectly good toy buzz saw. It buzzes. Loudly.

At some point in the day, usually in the late afternoon, I will hide out in my bedroom, drinking the Gatorade bought for the sick child. Taking care of little sickies is more taxing than a marathon - or so I will assume until proven otherwise - and I like to save the champagne for the back to school day.

Thankful for my Counterbalance

Feast day for the preschoolers

When I started dating Kevin, my nonnie asked me if he was good and when I wasn't answering the question to her satisfaction, she lowered her voice and said, "Does he hit you?" For anyone who knows Kevin, this question is hilarious and it made me laugh. I didn't grow up around any form of domestic violence and Kevin is calm, patient and one of the least prone-to-violence people I've met. I think her worry was more because Kevin was an unknown - a recent transplant from the East Coast, giving my nonnie little information for which to judge if he and his family were okay. She justified her question with her concern that Kevin was of English-decent. The English have bad tempers, my Sicilian nonnie told me. This made me laugh more. Of course my laugh made my grandmother worry that I was hiding something, but as soon as she got to know Kevin, she knew her question was funny too.

That was 11 years ago and Kevin has stayed steady the whole way through, even when difficulties are thrown our way, including a whole lotta little girl attitude tossed into the mix. As anyone who knows us can attest, I'm the hot head in our house (actually Clover may have taken the lead on that). Kevin is pretty easy going and always optimistic, even in situations when it makes me mad because he's clearly wrong. He always thinks it is going to get better and he's never failed to put me and the kids first.

The next few weeks are going to be difficult for him as he sorts out the end of his mom's life. He's got a lot to deal with and I hope we can give him the support he always shows us.

I'm thankful for Kevin.

Blind Sided

This wasn't a day we expected. I mean, certain things in life are guaranteed and this is one of them, but it's still shocking when someone close dies, especially unexpectedly. I feel like I can write about almost anything in my life or the kids' and Kevin is naturally apart of our lives, but when something happens in his life - to his mom - I don't feel I can. It's not my place.

When I signed off an email to a friend earlier, I almost wrote, "Well, this is not the relaxing holiday weekend we'd planned," but I quickly deleted it because it sounded narcissistic and trite, even though that's not how I meant it.

The worst part is going to be telling Clover.

Picking a Winner

The school chorus sang for the crowd today at Grandparents Day. Before Clover and her friends walked on stage, I quietly told them not to pick their noses, which doesn't exactly make me the Lou Holtz of pre-performance pep talks, but it's a necessary reminder for that age, as anyone who has gone to a children's performance of any kind can attest. There is always one kid who does a little digging on stage, but not today! Victory!

THE BUSYBODYBOOK GIVEAWAY!

Research Randomizer Results

1 Set of 1 Unique Numbers Per Set
Range: From 1 to 10 -- Unsorted

Set #1

3

Marty/canape is the winner of the BusyBodyBook giveaway! She recently wrote about how she uses it for meal planning, which is probably what I should be using mine for too. Instead I'm sitting here debating what to do for dinner at 5 p.m. Yeah, maybe.

The Happy Hobbit

As we walked into Gilroy Gardens, we passed the Middle Earth displays set up by various community groups as part of the November theme. Apparently Middle Earth is Hell because many of the displays were really spooky, making me wonder if they were recycled haunted house decorations and less about wizards and elves. That was until I saw one smiling guy, the most pleasant of the bunch. I walked closer to see the name of his sponsor. Girl Scouts? A church group?

Mental Health Services. Go figure.

Stanford, Kalifornia

Full of optimism and spirit, ready to scream "Go Stanford!" about three million times before the night was over:

 

A few hours later, watching her heart get stomped on:

After the interception with little time left sealed Stanford's fate, we went to the elevator to get down from the Sky Deck. When the doors opened up, revealing all of Cal's coaching staff who watch the game from the box, I moaned, "oh goooddd." As pleasant as one would be after an important win, they all so cheerfully said, "Come on in! There's room for you guys!" Kevin said I missed my chance to tell them, "You ruined a seven year old girl's birthday. I HOPE YOU'RE HAPPY!" They were all perfectly nice people, but we weren't ready to be literally surrounded by blue.

On the plus side, Clover got to see Tiger Woods, even though she's confused why a golfer was honored during a football game.

As we crawled through traffic on our way out, I told her the story about how seven years ago that night, she was born at the hospital right there (the traffic moved so slowly that I had time to tell her the story while creeping past the hospital). She cried both nights. First as a newborn, later because Stanford's passing game sucked. Let's hope this isn't a tradition.