Affirmations

Every so often, Pacey and I come to blows over homework. This time it ended with this:

He has been blessed with the gift of stubborness, something that will certainly come in handy as he grows, but for a mom, it can definitely be a challenge. He is a brilliant kid (and I'm not just saying that because I'm his mom), but that sometimes leads to total meltdowns when he has the opportunity to be wrong. I say opportunity because he definitely needs to learn that it is okay to be wrong because that is how we learn.

As a teacher, I am accustomed to helping kids. When they don't understand something, I patiently work with them. It frustrates me to no end when he immediately shuts down, refuses to listen, or starts to cry or bang his feet on the floor.

I try my best to maintain my composure because really a 10 year old having a meltdown and a 33 year old having a meltdown are not a good combination! This doesn't always work, though, and yesterday, I did have a hard time maintaining my presence and finding ways to respond to him with compassion and grace.

Until today. I am always humbled and in awe by how what we need will often show up for us right when we need it. I have recently started following a group on Facebook called Peaceful Parenting. Throughout the day, they post positive statements or thoughts about motherhood, and this morning, a link to a YouTube video that has many different positive affirmations you can use with your children. They even group them by age range. The thumbnail on their post showed this statement:

I had to stop and allow it resonate.  After the drama of the afternoon's homework time, I decided that I would find a way to help him become more responsive to my guidance during homework time. I planned on setting aside time tonight to read some more in my Momfulness book, sure that I would find some guidance. 

I've read about and used affirmations before. I used to carry around meaningful statements on index cards that I would read each morning or when I needed to find focus, but I have not thought about using them with my boy-os. And now that I think about, I'm not sure why I haven't. Instead of telling them to focus, to listen, to stop getting frustrated all in the heat of the moment, laying a foundation of of these things in a positive way seems like a much more effective starting point. This isn't to say that some moments will not call for me to redirect their behavior, but slowly, we can reshape their reactions, beliefs, and behaviors in a positive way. My next step is to figure out how to begin sharing these with them consistently, intentionally, and effectively.

Strawberries, Old Times, and New Challenges

A good friend and I took the boyos strawberry picking today while brown baby hung out with her daddy. (I use the term 'hung out' loosely because the report is she cried a lot while we were gone.) Baby Diva strikes again!

It did me good to get out with just my boys. I haven't been able to do something with just them since before she was born, and lately I've felt like I can't really given enough of myself to anyone. Maybe that's not accurate. I have to give so much of myself to brown baby that I feel like there is nothing left to give to others. And after having nine years with the boys to myself, it feels off to have spent so little time with them other than doing homework, which is more akin to torture in my book. And probably theirs too.

It was nice to enjoy the boys through the lens of fun. Rather than constantly shushing them (because let's face it, they don't know how to be quiet), we spoke freely and laughed loudly. We pointed out mutant strawberries and oohed and aahed over the perfectly shaped ones. I had time to focus on just them instead of dealing with the noise they make or listening to their endless retellings of the latest cartoon they watched.

I realized that I have to make time like this with them even though it is hard right now. Because I know they are growing fast, and for a moment, they seemed a little smaller in the vast expanse of red berries. They forgot to fight with each other and forgot how to exercise their obnoxious elementary school senses of humor. I miss moments like these.

The challenges that come with a new baby are something you can anticipate, but never fully understand until immersed in dirty diapers and sleep deprivation. And despite having done this twice before, I still wasn't ready for how it would change this time. Being stretched very thin with brown baby is a normal thing. Feeling overwhelmed with the lack of structure is definitely taking its toll, but spending time and checking in with my boys and enjoying them, just them, is crucial to my happiness.

Falling Down

Pacey crashed on his bike for the first time today--

A rite of passage we all experience.

I helped him hobble home, doctored his scrapes, and gave him love.

Gage, the ever-thoughtful observer (and hesitant bike-rider), looked at me and said,

"Mommy, I knew two wheels were a bad idea."

Inside the Third Grade Lunch Table

I’ve been lamenting (whining?) for the past year or so over the changes I’ve noticed in Pacey. He’s suddenly gone from this cute little preschool/kindergarten boy to an elementary school boy. I’m not so sure what I think of elementary school boys yet. And lately, he has been driving me insane every time we are in the car, flexing his sense of humor and trying to get his brother to be the butt of all of his jokes. Where on earth is all of this coming from, I’ve wondered? I have suspected that school is the answer, and yesterday, my suspicions were confirmed. The downfall of our cute preschool/kindergarten students is directly related to the lunch table. Oh yes, it’s a very serious situation, and I was lucky (or unlucky) enough to witness it firsthand.

I was given a very secret invitation by Pacey to be a part of his lunch time yesterday, and while I was there, here is a slightly abridged transcript of the brief 25 minutes…

1. Pacey tapped me and said, “You’ve got the cheese touch.” Luckily a nice little girl told me to pass it to her (such a martyr), and she passed the dreaded cheese touch down the table.

2. But then this nice little girl reached over and tapped Pacey and said, “You’ve got the girl touch. Now you’re a girl permanently because you didn’t pass it on in ten seconds.”

3. Pacey holds up Spock’s live long and prosper hand sign and says, “Uh-uh, I have the ultimate protection.”

4. Pacey then says, “Spell the word ‘ip,’ Mommy.”

5. I sighed and told him I wasn’t going to fall for that one. To which he replied, “Okay, spell Mississippi.”

6. Then his friend says, “You are smart. Spell it.” Pacey had obviously heard this one before because he quickly spelled the word ‘it’ (I would have failed because in my head I was already spelling out y-o-u…) and moved on to attempting to get people to stare at a spot for more than 5 seconds. Any spot. And if you stare at it for more than 5 seconds, you lose.

I lost.

I couldn’t hang with the third grade lunch table.

Scrabble Gone Wild

This is what happens when you are playing Scrabble-to-Go with a 9 year old boy and you (being six months pregnant) take a bathroom break and return to find a snickering boy at the table.
Me, being (or pretending to be) the cool, and collected mom that I am, reminded him that a “dam” is something a beaver builds, but before I ventured to the more unsettling word he crafted, I asked him what it meant.

His reply was a little unnerving, a little eye-opening, a little gut-wrenching because it means he’s really growing up, and I’m just not ready for it yet: “It’s when you’re married, and you’re naked in bed.”

Gulp.

Let me preface this by saying that the boys have never witnessed this in my house, so I’m guessing this new knowledge has come by way of the playground or the cafeteria table, and though I guess he could know more details, the fact that he could relay this much was too much.

No matter how much you prepare yourself for “the talk” and other hard conversations like this, you never quite know how to deal with them in the moment.

Luckily, I squelched the internal screaming and tried to validate his assumption without giving away too much information:
“Well, that’s probably more than you need to worry about or know about right now, but it also means whether you are a boy or a girl, so if someone asks you what sex you are, you would say boy, and I would say girl.”
That seemed to satisfy him for the moment.
I’m still recovering and have decided that I’d really be okay if this was the extent of his knowledge on the topic indefinitely.

It would mean that:

1. He would think only married people participate.

2. If he happens to decide otherwise, at least simple nakedness doesn’t lead to teen pregnancy.

We have to hold on to something, right?

Baby Shoes

I was cleaning out the boys' closets the other day, and I found their stash of baby shoes.

Scuffed toes, shredded shoe laces, and worn out heels-- shoes that helped them learn to walk, to run, to play.

I carefully held each pair and was flooded with memories of chubby little baby boy legs and feet, and I looked over at the boys and wondered where all of that has gone. 

So quickly, they have grown into elementary school boys, with knobby knees and ankles and thin faces.

So quickly, they don't quite need me like they used to.  I think that is the hardest change to acknowledge.

I am glad to see them growing, thriving, but I feel the loss of their babyhood, their chubby cheeks, the garbled chatter, the need for just mommy.  I miss the wonder I had at them, a new parent, taking in all of their first moments.

For a while, I felt as if that wonder was gone, but each day I am learning to see the joy and wonder that comes with this age.

The way they learn to have friends or to not have friends, to get their feelings hurt, to see who really cares.

The way they learn to be a part of fads (silly bands, anyone?).  

The way they experiment with their sense of humor and sarcasm.

The way they pretend to be grown up but still fret over missing blankets until we find them.

The way they curl up at night with their stuffed animals.

The way they blow me kisses and hugs when I tell them goodbye.

The way they cuddle with me on the couch when we watch movies.

I sighed and packed their baby shoes away again, wistful for the past, thinking that sometimes these ages seem like a new way of life for us all.  

Then I saw Pacey's blanket that he left beside me when he was looking at his baby shoes.  

Maybe it really isn't that different after all.

How Kids Survive

I'm playing along with Supah Mommy today with my first Post It Note Tuesday post!



Somehow I'm curious how kids survive to adulthood when parents are involved.  And I'm simply talking about the regular, loving, but sometimes very stupid parents, like myself. One day, I will look back at all of this, get past the guilt, and laugh.  Wait.  I think I already am...  Anyways, to the boy-os--  Hopefully, when you talk about all this in therapy one day, you will remember these heartfelt apologies.

And yet Pacey seems to have a great appetite and enjoys food.  Except for carrots... I'm sure there's no connection.

Even so, Gage's hearing appears to be fine.  Except when he doesn't want to listen.

Oops. I think this is probably the most embarrassing mommy moment; however, Gage's manual dexterity doesn't seem to have suffered.  His DS playing is still up to par.

I blame the nurse who distracted me.  And it only required one band-aid, which made our location synchronistically fortunate.

Totally a result of too little sleep.  And most of the time they had a hat on anyways.  So it's all good.

I'm not sure why the empathy didn't kick in automatically here.  It was pretty funny.  And he has a hard head. (All of the carrier head-banging training apparently has paid off ...)

Break-Ups and Bottoms

Boys are an enigma.  And let's face it: a bit weird.  The whole parenting things is hard enough, but when you add to the mix that I had three sisters and was never around boys all that much growing up, things get a little bizarre.

An always present issue?  Volume.  Why is their normal voice decibel what most of us would use at a concert?  Directly in front of the stage by that absurdly large speaker.  The husband and I thought we were being so non-traditional when we decided we wanted an open floor plan-- it was a deal breaker, we'd agreed.  I think that now I would pay money to have Holmes on Homes come and throw up some walls just for some sound barrier.

But beyond the volume (I swear I told Gage 25 times today that we were inside, so we need to use our inside voices. Choose to read those italics as a stressed word or a screamed word-- up to you.), I'm continually finding that raising two boys is an adventure, especially when one is an 8 year old in second grade.

What exactly happens between sending the sweet, round-faced little boy off to kindergarten and being shrugged off by a somewhat sarcastic, thin second grader? Yes, I've gotten the shoulder-nudge hug, and most recently, the fake ha-ha-ha laugh when I made an outstandingly funny joke about the wind blowing us away because it was so strong. Of course, it was a funny joke, and I knew he was flexing his new found sarcasm, which I'm sure he didn't pick up from me-- must have been some kid at school.

Pacey has never been what you might call even-tempered. Start with the 6-hour screaming fits as an infant, the mega temper tantrums as a toddler, and you really can't expect much different from a second grader, I'm coming to find.

One day, he was upset because he and his friend broke up. I tried to nonchalantly engage the conversation and get down to what we all really wanted to know-- who is this little harlot and when exactly did this relationship get started, let alone progress enough to end?! I was fighting this internal battle when he finally told us that Connor told him he didn't want to be friends anymore. Connor. A boy. His lunch table friend. I was enamored with his innocence and attempt to use "grown-up" words to talk about something as commonplace as severed second-grade friendships. I gave him a hug and offered some mom-perfect words of consolation as he ran off, leaving me wistfully wanting to bottle that innocence and sprinkle it around when he hits the dreaded teens.

I was thoroughly enjoying that mom-fantasy when I was rudely ripped from my dreamland as Gage ran by shrieking (loudly, of course), followed by Pacey yelling (again, loudly), "Smell my bottom, smell my bottom!"

Which came from the boy who just moments earlier was crying about a break-up. I think I will need that bottled innocence just a bit sooner.

It happened... Twice.

Several years ago a really good friend of mine gave me a book called Let Me Hold You Longer by Karen Kingsbury. This was back when the boy-os were smallish-- say 3 and 1, and it made me cry each time I read it. Trust me, if you haven't had a good cry lately, check it out. No kidding, this one will invoke some quality emotional connecting. The gist of the book is about all of the lasts that we inevitably face as mothers-- the last time they slip their sticky hands into ours, the last time the run and give us a big kiss, the last time... well, you see where this is going, don't you?

Yes, I think it happened to me. I experienced a last time, but the thing with these last times is you don't realize it when it's happening. We remember all of the firsts, dutifully enter them into the baby book, but the lasts are a bit more poignant, a bit more monumental, and they usually pass us by, until one day we look up and our baby who used to call applesauce p-sa, p-sa is driving off to college. Okay, so it's not that bad. Yet. But so far, I think second grade is equally heartwrenching.

Today was the first day of school and a little more important than usual because both boy-os were in new schools. So I was slightly overprotective and hovering with Pacey when I dropped him off at morning care in the elementary school gym today. I knew he wouldn't know anyone, and I had the classic mom nightmares of teasing, loneliness, and tears. I started nagging (which are really just loving reminders) full force: "Do you remember your room number? 14, right? And where are you meeting me after school? At the crosswalk, right? You're not going to start walking home today. Remember?" I noticed I got a little sideways glance and a mumbled, "I know!" but I brushed it off because I was actually starting to annoy myself with that line of questioning. Hesitantly, I started to walk to the door and tried to give him a hug, and it happened. He gave me that half-squeeze, shoulder nudge hug. But I blew it off and chalked it up to his nervousness. Because surely, this sweet thing who would give me hugs when I would come and have lunch with him just last year would never give me a shoulder nudge hug today.

Except it gets worse. When I picked him up around the crosswalk today (okay, I admit-- I couldn't just wait at the crosswalk I had walk down the sidewalk towards the school), I put my arm around him as we walked and he pushed it off (gently, but still). Still! It was then, when we walked in the rain to the car, that it really hit me. It happened. Twice. Sometime last year, at lunch, I got the last elementary school PDA from my oldest boy-o. Somewhere I swear I hear a sad version of Taps sounding at such a loss.

I used to cry at the idea of all of those last times back when I first received my copy of Let Me Hold You Longer. Now as the reality of those last times is beginning to take shape, I cry for what has begun to fade away. I know there are still many lasts still to come, but I think this first last time was one for the baby books.

Pacey Perfect

I awoke this morning, listening to the rain, and trying not to think about the very limited time I have left with the boy-os this summer, but finding that rather difficult. I am lucky to have an entire month off, but it just seems too short, and with a surgery coming next week, I really only have a few days left to spend the whole day with them. After that, it is back to work and all too soon, back to school for them. Back to the grind and craziness that stalls and quietly lingers on the side of the road during the summer months.

As I was thinking about this, I heard the soft padding of little boy feet sleepily track down the hardwood hallway, and peeked a Pacey face at the doorway. I pulled back the covers and invited him in for some morning snuggles, something he and I have always done. The sleepy little Linus always looks the same, save for some variations in pajama and height. The only constant variable: balled up in his skinny arms is his blue blanket, which he long ago dubbed "Kee-kee." He and Kee-kee tumble into bed and neither of us say anything for quite some time. He curls in, and for a brief moment, I believe it is several years ago, when he was much smaller, and would tote his beloved, much younger blanket, and reach to be lifted into bed, smelling faintly of a morning diaper, his round head of curly baby hair, slightly sweaty. Even then, we would always spend a few quiet moments before either of us would break the silence and the magic of the early morning.

I revel in this vivid and strong memory, almost smelling the diaper and feeling the curly, sweaty hair brush my face when Pacey shifts, and I am transported back to the present and see the boy he has become. His arms and legs lanky, his face narrowed, and his head no longer filled with soft, baby boy curls. I pull him into a tight bear hug, knowing that one day, perhaps soon, he will be too big for this quiet time in the morning with his mommy. The snuggles will be fewer and farther between, and while I will have these memories, I will always miss the Pacey Perfect mornings.

How I Made a Garbage Truck

It was fun building a garbage truck! We had to screw a lot of stuff together. Here is the movie I made! by Pacey

Pacey's Bike Riding Adventure

Since the weekend was so nice, I decided it was finally time to get the training wheels off of Pacey's bike and get him up on two wheels.  With the promise of a new bike, he was ready to go. I took the training wheels off, and with two quick times across the front yard with me holding the seat he was off and on his own.  By the end of the day Sunday, he was doing "tricks" and taking his feet off of the pedals.  Sigh.  :)  So shortly into the future, we will be bike shopping! Enjoy the video!