If you give a mouse a cookie...

I should never read other people's parenting stories. Yes, yes. I know. That's how we all learn to parent better. By listening to other parents' success stories and at least trying out the strategies that worked.

My kids. My kids are different from other kids. I love them. Deeply. Fiercely.

Monday I kept Kip home from school because he had a nose sniffle, and in an era of COVID it seems prudent to keep kids home when even mildly ill.

Tuesday, Paul pitched a fit about going to school, probably because Kip stayed home Monday. He did have a rough night of sleep (he woke up at 3 am having wet the bed and both he and Sylvia took showers before heading back to bed). Reasoning one 'mental health day' wouldn't be a big deal, I let him stay home, then made him read and write all day long. I didn't think it was a terribly fun day and assumed he'd be rested and ready to go back to school.

I have read so many stories about parents who, good-naturedly allow their children a day off now and then just because school is hard some days and sometimes you just need a break. Their cotton candy children go back to school the next day refreshed and ready to learn.

Those are so not my children. My children are the kind where if you give them an inch, they take a mile. If they sense any hint of compromise, they'll argue for the sun.

So we come to this morning. Paul again pitched a fit about going to school. He punched his little brother most of the way to school, until I (sternly. No, I'll be honest, yelling) told him I'd drop him off where we were if he didn't stop and he'd have to walk all the way to school. Then, when we got to school and the other two dutifully went to class (though not with out Kip also asking to stay home again), Paul sat in the car and refused to leave.

I parked the car and played a game on my phone. Then I realized Paul was too entertained by the game so I turned it off and just sat there. I got bored waiting (I'm honestly terrible at the wait them out thing) so I walked into the main office "looking for forms" (which they didn't have). Paul still refused to go to class, but at least the office was aware of where he was, and they offered to help if I needed it.

When we went back out, Paul locked me out of the car, so I went and stood in the sun where it was at least a little warm. Paul followed me out, begging for a fidgit. I emailed his teacher to ask what was appropriate, then tried to convince him he could go to class and I'd talk to her about it later (we have a parent-teacher conference with her this afternoon). That didn't convince him either. Nor did a phone call from his dad (the absent-minded professor, who set an alarm for this morning for a 5 am meeting that's happening Friday, and then forgot his computer charger). I finally bribed Paul with a cup of coffee. That worked. On the way into the office he offhandedly reminded me I hadn't signed a permission slip he needed that day.

So much drama.

Long, slow walk

I took Paul to a new park on Friday to meet up with friends from church. Turns out the park is pretty nice, with a little zip-line, some quasi-natural features, and really a pretty  good range of activities for kids from toddlers up to probably pre-teens. We had a good time, stayed for about two hours, at which point the gathering started breaking up.

Just as we were getting ready to go Paul decided he wanted a drink of water.

What is it with kids and water? Water comes out and suddenly kids flock together. It's amazing. Within minutes the kids had figured out how to turn the drinking fountain into a water gun and were happily soaking each other.

After a bit Paul, who hates being wet, took off his shirt. At that point I decided it was really truly time to go home (we are in Australia and it was the middle of the day. No need to push up Paul's skin cancer risk, right?). So, I asked one of the other moms to watch him while I took our bag of junk to the car so I'd only have to wrangle Paul instead of wrangling both a recalcitrant kid and a big bag 'o crap.

On my way back I saw this little blonde-headed kid running around in nothing but red underpants. A few seconds later the underpants followed and everyone in the park was left with no question about the circumcision status of my child.

I gathered up Paul's clothes and, trying hard to be stern, pointed him in the direction of the car and sent him off. He sauntered off, a hand on one hip, swinging his other arm like he belonged on a runway.

I probably would have just giggled a little under my breath, but this other group of parents in the park started cat-calling.

"Look at that slow, confident walk!"

"Where'd you get your looks from, your mommy or your daddy?"

Sigh.

Did I mention I had a full bladder?

Yeah, I had to stop. I had to sit down on my heel as if I were still 10 to keep from peeing myself because I was laughing so hard. I couldn't say anything to the other parents, couldn't even look at them because I was cracking up at this excruciatingly Paul moment.

When we finally made it to the car I just tossed his naked butt into his car seat and drove us home.

Take me to the river

Paul fell into the river today. Don't worry, he's okay, but he did fall into the river.

We were biking and, at Sylvia's request we crossed over a bridge to take the path on the other side of the river. We've crossed that bridge dozens of times, on foot and on bikes, so I wasn't terribly concerned about it. I'm faster than the kids (being bigger and all) so I went up and down a bit while waiting for them. I was up, away from the bridge and had just checked to see that Sylvia was across when I heard a big splash.

When I looked back, Paul was nowhere in sight.

I started screaming his name and ran down to the bridge, chucking away everything I was carrying. Shortly before I got to the bridge he started crying, which I have to say was a wonderful sound to hear. I had no idea where he'd fallen and the middle of the river is relatively deep. When I couldn't hear him crying I was sure he'd fallen in the deep part and was being carried downstream. I'm not sure how I could have handled that. As it happened he fell closer to the side, in amongst reeds and relatively shallow water. I'm pretty sure he went completely under (the dirt still stuck to his scalp is rather suggestive), but the water was shallow enough he was able to get his head out of the water reasonably quickly.

Paul and I were both pretty shaken up. Sylvia had a lovely chat with a nice woman who stopped to make sure we were alright, which I have to say was a fantastic distraction. Thank you random woman for talking to my older child while I comforted and cleaned up the younger child. But of course, when I asked Paul if he was going to fall into the river again he told me, "yeah." Apparently I'm going to have to watch this one.

I am so glad I still have two children at the end of the day. I think the three/six year birthday party is going to be a big celebration, but more for me than the kids!

Rainy days and libraries

Some days make you grateful to be alive. Some days make you glad your kids are alive. Some days I feel lucky all of us make it to the end of the day.

Yesterday we went to the library. It was supposed to rain (later it did) but I wanted to make sure the kids spent some time outside, doing something other than watching TV. We skuuted over, read books, and then, as I was putting away some of the huge stack Sylvia had accumulated, Paul ran around, playing with some of the toys in the library, or so I assumed.

While I wasn't watching Paul started opening the drawers of the newspaper cabinet. I'm not sure if the thing was particularly off balance that day, or if it's normally off balance and just  nobody's been unlucky with it yet, but after he pulled out a couple of the drawers the cabinet tipped over on top of Paul.

There's a heart-stopping moment after a crash when there's no noise, just a sucking in of breath as everyone imagines the worst, when, as a mom, you feel all eyes on you, wondering why you weren't there. Then, the crying starts, on one hand heart-wrenching; on the other comforting, for at least you know your child is alive.

Paul is perfectly okay. He was understandably scared and cried for about as long as I've ever heard him cry, but there seems to be no damage. We had to do a little paperwork and then we went home. All the tears and all the shaking I'd suppressed inside the library rolled out of me as I carried Paul home in the rain, holding him close the whole way.

We all took a long nap that afternoon, curled up together on the kid's bed.

And so it begins

In the week Derrick was gone, Paul's language skills increased noticeably. He's speaking more clearly and speaking in two to three word phrases, sometimes embarking on sentences (though those are typically not so understandable). My favorites so far: "right, mom;" "mommy coming;" and "I love you, mom." Yes, I am a sentimental sucker.

Yesterday we had friends over to play. At least once Paul said, "right, mom. Eva." to one of them, which I found hilarious.

Everyone asks if my kids will have Australian accents. The answer is most definitely yes, and Paul's already acquiring his. After our friends' visit the way Paul says 'no' and 'uh-oh' is noticeably changed. The Australian 'no' is more like 'noe' (so there's a bit of an 'e' sound at the end. Paul's picked that up.

I have to admit, as cute as it is, I'm a little sad he's not going to sound much like me when he grows up!

Glass

It's been a bad weekend around here for glass. And milk. And pillows. And pretty much everything else that isn't nailed down.

Friday morning started out pretty well. Oh, except that Thursday morning Paul dumped the last couple of cups of milk out into my cereal bowl (I filtered it out and saved it for bread--we'll come to that later) and I hadn't gone to get milk, so I didn't have breakfast. Anyway, after everyone else ate and I snagged a couple of uneaten bread crusts (doesn't my diet sound delish?) Derrick and I helped the kids clean up enough I actually vacuumed their rooms and I was well on my way to cleaning the bathrooms. While I was working on my bathroom Paul decided to brush his teeth using my toothbrush (Mom's stuff's ALWAYS better), so I pulled out a new one for me and let him have at it with my old one. He's a pretty messy brusher so when I finished I went out and got a clean rag, then came back to wipe up the mess and take care of the rest of the bathroom while I was at it. Paul ran off and I got to work.

I don't quite remember why I left just a couple of minutes later--probably going for windex, even though that was already under the sink from a previous attempt at cleaning--but I heard a tinkling sound in the kitchen and walked in to find Paul clutching the candy thermometer and chewing on something hard.

He swallowed.

Not yet ready to believe I'd watched my child eat glass I took the thermometer away from him, confirmed it was broken and then asked him if he'd eaten it.

He said yes.

Now, twenty two month old children aren't the best at answering questions, so I still didn't quite believe he'd eaten glass. I shooed him out of the kitchen and swept up the area, looking for the missing pieces of the thermometer bulb.

Yeah, they weren't there.

I wasn't even sure if glass was something I needed to worry about. I mean, my kids have eaten all kinds of crap they say to call poison control about (deodorant, toothpaste, soil) and  every time I do the poison control operator says as long as they haven't eaten more than a certain amount they'll be fine. But I always call 'cause hey, I don't know the safe amount of whatever toiletry is safe for my child's consumption. So I called the doctor's office.

"Hello, my son just ate some glass..."

"He ate some grass?"

"No, glass. G-L-A-S-S."

"Oh. The nurse says take him to the hospital."

Fun.

I got my kids ready relatively quickly, but while I was putting together the diaper bag and crap to keep Sylvia occupied in Derrick's office Sylvia decided to pull all the stuffing out of one the couch pillows. I didn't immediately scream at them, so they (I guess) assumed the activity met with my approval and they proceeded to empty all of the couch pillows onto their newly vacuumed bedroom floor, covering it in soft, downy whiteness. Again, I did not scream. I let them roll around in the pillow fluff until I was ready to go, assuming (for one correctly) that they would be occupied with this one act of destruction and would stay out of other trouble.

Sylvia was really quite a champ about going to her dad's office for the day. I think the prospect of spending all day watching movies made the deal for her. Paul was not so happy about having to leave with me, but I dragged him off and we made it to the hospital between an hour and an hour and a half after I first discovered Paul chewing on glass.

The rest of the day pretty much consisted of sitting in the hospital. We waited a while to see the doctor (which I was fine with, since that indicated to me he was a low priority) then went up for some X-rays. The only annoyance from the wait was I didn't feel comfortable giving Paul anything to eat or drink until I'd spoken to a doctor, so he was rather cranky by the time we went up for the X-rays.

Cranky kids are not cooperative kids, just in case you were wondering. Paul wouldn't take off his shirt, wouldn't sit, wouldn't do anything. I thought maybe if I fed him he'd be more cooperative so I took him out and nursed him, which also put him to sleep. Unfortunately, he was no more cooperative after nursing and sleeping a bit. Three of us adults were required to get him to sit still enough for the pictures. Fun times.

So you can imagine how thrilled I was when the doctor told me he wanted another X-ray.

This time we had to wait a little longer to get in, so I tried explaining to Paul what he needed to do. A different technician took us into a different room, where Paul still freaked out a bit, and then we ended up going into the first room anyway for some reason I didn't quite follow. It didn't matter, though--Paul was a different kid, very cooperative, very easy. The first technician (a guy) couldn't get over how much better behaved Paul was.

We got a snack and hung out in the waiting room until about 5, at which point Paul started seriously tantruming, throwing the stroller on the ground, throwing himself on the ground, hitting me. He needed to eat and needed to go home, so I told the triage nurse we were going to go. She said she'd get the doctor and I took Paul out to get another snack while we waited. Then we talked to the doctor, who told us there was probably glass in his digestive tract but not in his lungs and we just needed to watch him carefully for a few days, and then we went home.

Yesterday was much less eventful. I kept trying to leave so I could write and little things (rain especially) kept getting in the way. I turned the milk into sweetbread dough, which I let rise a couple of times and stuck in the fridge. I made Derrick make pizza dough for dinner and while he was working on that one of the kids dumped a cup of water into the sugar. I pulled out the wet sugar and stuck it in a pan and left it for the rest of the day. I never got out by myself, but we all went to Tea Tree Plaza on the bus, got a phone for Derrick and groceries for the week, and then came home and had pizza for dinner. Oh, and Derrick lost his bus card, which is annoying but not a big deal.

Sigh. I try so hard to be a good mom, a calm mom, and most of the time I do okay. Not so much last night. While Derrick was making pizza crusts I started a movie with Paul and Sylvia. Stupidly, I went in to check on Derrick, leaving our one functional laptop on the couch. When I went back in I found Paul with a stack of keys pulled off the laptop.

I was so mad I wanted to hurt someone. It's incredible how quickly you can go from the deepest concern about the health of your child to being so angry you want to hit them and don't care if it hurts.

I did not hit Paul. Instead, I yelled, then walked away from my sobbing children.

I walked for a long time.

Not as long as I kind of wanted to, but long enough. I went home, hugged my kids, took Sylvia's apology (which still makes me feel bad since she wasn't even the one who incurred my wrath) and helped with the rest of the evening.

I hope my kids are really as resilient as they seemed to be this morning. They came in and cuddled, just like normal, and then Derrick helped them put together shields for sword fights while I made cinnamon rolls. They've been as loving and spunky as they usually are. Last night seems further away than Friday, and for that I'm glad.

I'm guessing the cinnamon rolls didn't hurt. The cinnamon rolls (made from the milk Paul dumped out Thursday) were covered in caramel (made from the wet sugar from yesterday) and were a huge hit. I was especially glad we had them to share with the neighbors who kindly gave Derrick a ride to the airport today when he realized he'd miss-read his itinerary and needed to be at the airport in 30 minutes.

Someday I hope I have a day devoid of drama.

Adelaide zoo

I miss the San Diego Zoo.

There. That's out of the way.

Adelaide does have a zoo, and it isn't bad. It's not the San Diego Zoo by any stretch of the imagination, but it's nice. I admit, when we walked in past the first three cramped, empty exhibits that were obviously built with much concrete in the 1970's I was a little worried I'd just wasted a bunch of money on zoo passes for the year. Not much further into the park I found most of the displays were much more modern, really almost garden-like. For as small as it is, this is a pretty zoo.

Even our pigeons are cool

Paul thought the American Alligators were "tops" (triceratops) and wanted to pet them very badly.

The best part: they have wallabies in their petting zoo.

The downside: my kids now want a pet wallaby (or  wawbie according to Paul).

"Sleeping"

This morning, while Sylvia was in the potty, I asked Paul if he'd also like to go sit on the toilet. He looked at me and said, "no, sleeping," laid back down, and started to snore. With a big smile on his face.

Already a character.

Words, words, words

I've been meaning to make a list of all of Paul's words but I haven't yet and today I realized it's in a way too late--he's moved on to phrases.

We take Sylvia to school on the bus. Paul's been saying bus very distinctly for a while. He's also had a little phrase he says before bus a lot of the time. Today I finally understood he was asking me if that was our bus. When I told him no, he said some different phrase before bus that I'm pretty sure was him repeating the idea that the bus wasn't our bus.

Gads, I'm slow.

I don't know a lot about human development, but it's been clear for a while Paul has more than just words in his vocabulary, that there's a structure to what he's saying. Much of what he says sounds like gibberish to me, but it's consistent gibberish so it's obviously language. I don't know enough about language acquisition to know if he's making up the syntax or if he's trying to copy us more advanced speakers, but it's obvious he knows instinctively there's a structure to talking and he's imitating or creating it himself.

I know I loved watching Sylvia go through this language acquisition phase. It's just as much fun to watch the second time around.

Stung

Sylvia was stung by a bee today. The experience was certainly not one she'll want to experience again any time soon, but the thing that struck me most was that she was at least as distressed by the news that the bee would die after stinging her as she was distressed by the pain. She's my little softie.

It's been a pretty good week. Sylvia went to school quite happily on Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday (which is typically my most ornery day) was pleasant all the way around. After a delicious and nutritious dinner we even went to the park as a family, where Paul herded ducks and Sylvia wanted to swim with them.

Thursday was similarly low-key, and today (other than the bee sting) has been mellow. I let Sylvia watch pretty much as much My Little Pony as she wanted, which is closing in on four hours, I think. She's outside now playing in water with her brother, taking a break from TV since it was "making her dizzy."

Let this be a lesson, mom: don't let big sister walk around with big sticks

Yeah, any time TV makes you dizzy, it's probably time to take a break.

At dusk I saw

I finally downloaded pictures off my camera. Looking through them I realized it's been more than a month since I'd downloaded pictures, which means I haven't shared any of our pictures from our last days in the states or any of our pictures from our first month here in Australia. Somewhere in the back of my mind I was aware of this, of course, but it's really truly obvious when I go through the pictures exactly how much I've neglected to share with anyone else.

Oops.

So, I'll post some pictures here, probably some on Facebook as well. Let y'all see how much fun we had in our final days before leaving and what our life's like down under.

I know we've only been gone a month, and we're so busy here I don't really have the time or emotional space to get sad about leaving. Still, there were some definite twinges of nostalgia looking over the pictures we've taken. Anyway, here are a few for your enjoyment. I'll post more...eventually.

Checking out the dinosaurs at the LA Museum of natural history

That's the plane we rode to Australia

What's summer without watermelon?

Taking the bus to Sylvia's Kindy

They have fish!

My sweet girl! (pre-black eye)

Non-boring

Since my last post was rather dull, here are pictures of my kids:

I didn't put him there

He's pulling himself up to standing position now. Not only can he scoot around on the floor, I think it won't be long before he's cruising.

Paul update

Paul is again measuring long and skinny. He's 17 lb, 3 oz (7.769 kg), which is about 30th percentile, and 27 3/4 inches (70.5 cm), which is about 80th percentile for length. He's growing well, developing well, and is happy, friendly (as long as he's in my lap), and a joy to have around.

And he's ready for Easter!

loads of personality