Don't Stop Believing (They're trying to drive you crazy!)

Anyone who hates Journey, as I do, should be given the opportunity to listen to your kids belt out "Don't Stop Believing" in the back seat of the car on a sunny day in Seattle.  It won't make you love Steve Perry, but the little voices singing about the "small town girl, living in a lonely world" is overwhelmingly sweet and the sunshine is making you giddy as you drive near the water watching the boats.  It might even make you comply with their demands to turn it up.  And if it is a summer day in Seattle, you'll probably have the windows down.  You might turn it up a bit to appease your tiny singers, but soon they'll demand again, "Turn it up, mama!" and maybe, if you're like me, you'll say something like, "Hey, the windows are down and I don't want people to get the wrong idea.  I'm way too cool for Journey.  This is your thing."  But they'll persist and maybe you'll be sucked into turning it up a bit more.  And then that last demand will come, in my case, from Little Dog, "Turn it up, really crank it up, mama!"  And you'll ask, "Why?  Do you really love Journey so much?"  to which he'll reply, "No!  I want to humiliate you!  They'll all think you love it!"  followed by a wicked cackle.  Or maybe that's just my kids.  Hard to know.

Three for one

The other morning I arrived in my office exhausted.  Who am I kidding, most every morning I arrive exhausted, flop down into my desk chair with a cup of coffee and let out a big sigh of relief.  Relief that I have survived the first of my three-in-one days.  See, I, like most working mothers, manage to fit the work of three days into a single 24 hour period.  It's like magic except that it isn't a trick and it just takes every bit of energy I can muster.  And then, instead of applause at the end of the amazing feat, my grand accomplishment is celebrated with me flopping into bed and breathing a sigh of relief for having survived the third of my three-in-one day.  Let me explain.

Until the other morning, I didn't have a concept of a three-in-one day.  I just thought of it as, well, being really really tired.  So that morning, having flopped into my office chair with my cup of coffee and my second conference call already in progress, let out my sigh of relief,  I logged into Facebook and posted this. "by the time I get to work, I usually feel like I have already done a full day of chores."  And pretty much immediately my mom friends responded.  The one that resonated was from geekymummy, she wrote "Because you have. I feel the same. I have three days every day."  Thus was born the idea of a three-in-one.

Here's how mine works.  I start my morning with my good wife/mother day.  I wake up.  I start the coffee and unload the dishwasher.  I then pack lunches for the boys and, if I'm being particularly efficient, I'll pack lunches for Mr. Dog and myself too.  Once the coffee is made, I fix a cup for me and bring a cup into the bedroom to wake Mr. Dog.  I take the veggie and fruit trimmings from making the lunches out to the chickens, and if the dogs aren't too settled in front of the heaters, I take the dogs out with me for them to do what dogs do first thing in the morning (and yes, we all know what it is).  If I'm making good time, I'll throw a load of laundry into the washer, cold wash only so I don't use up the hot water for my shower.  Once lunches are safely stowed in the boys' backpacks, I swing by the bed to remind Mr. Dog that he does actually have to get out of bed in order for it to qualify as getting up and then I jump in the shower.  If I'm lucky, and I usually am, Mr. Dog gets up and wakes the boys.  One of us makes breakfast for the kids, we get their clothes out and nag them until they are dressed, fed and ready to head to school.  Frequently, I have will call into my first conference call of the day before we leave the house. Getting them to the car takes a fair amount of cajoling, but if I see the kids at the corner waiting for the school bus, I know we are not running too late.  My boys don't go to our neighborhood school, so the bus is not an option for us.  I drive the boys to school, picking up late passes in the office if our morning routine was running behind, deliver Little Dog to his classroom then make the drive to the office.  Once I'm in my office, probably still in a conference call on my mobile, I flop into my office chair and day one ends.


Day two is my day of being a successful manager at a large software company.  I make sure my projects are on schedule, my staff is happy and well directed, I put out many urgent but purely metaphorical fires and help our business run smoothly.  I'm good at this.  It is not always paradise, but it is fulfilling and I enjoy the work that I do, which is good because it is usually pretty hectic and I spend a lot of time running from meeting to meeting dealing with a seemingly non-stop parade of things that need to be done right now despite the fact that other things were scheduled to be done in the time I am now using to solve this new crop of problems.  Depending on the day of the week, I leave the office in time to either pick the boys up from their after school programs or get to my Pilates class on time.  Once I slide into the driver's seat of my station wagon, I breath a second sigh of relief for surviving my second day of my three-in-one (though frequently I bring work home with me in the evening because working in an international company means co-workers working round the clock in other time zones).  I flip on the radio and listen to the news on NPR as I begin my third.


My third day begins with either with the escape of Pilates or the bustling of children from after school program into the car and then home.  This day is the one dedicated to family togetherness. Once safely home, the kitchen is re-tidied from the breakfast making to clear space for evening meal preparation.  With the boys in the living room, I make dinner.  We eat, make sure homework is complete then there is a short time for relaxation with the family.  Bedtime for the boys is preceded by tooth brushing, bathing if it happens to be bath night, glasses of water and reminders to use the toilet before they get into bed because they like to stall the actual process of going to sleep with demands for beverages and trips to the bathroom.  On alternating nights, Mr. Dog or I am responsible for actually getting the kids to bed and to sleep.  This starts with reading time (where they read to us) then story time (where we read to them) and then finally sleep.  While one parent tends to the children, the other is allowed some quiet time though frequently this becomes time used to clean the kitchen and then take the dogs out for the last time in the evening.  By the time this is done, there is usually about enough time for me to stick the last few dishes into the dishwasher and set it to run as I head off to sleep.  I flop into bed after my own nightly face washing and tooth brushing routine, giving my third sigh of the evening.  And then there is just barely enough sleep to get me set up to do it again tomorrow.

Six Years

I'm posting this a few days after your birthday this year, not for any lack of love or admiration, but really because this seems to be the kind of year it has been.  Nothing coming right on time, an extra helping of chaos and not enough time to do the things we want or need to do, no matter how important they are.


Well, Little Dog, another year has passed and once again I'm wishing you yet another happy birthday.  As I type this I realized pretty soon I'm going to need to quit calling you "Little Dog" except maybe in the ironic way the biggest guy at school gets nicknamed "Tiny."  You are growing by leaps and bounds, long and lanky already, I see visions of the future where your frame dwarfs papa and me. Most people react with surprised when they hear you are just now six.  Not only are you tall for your age, you are very verbal, your vocabulary and ability to turn a phrase is not like other kindergartners I've met.  Paired with your cynical humor, it can be hard to believe you are as young as you are.  It's pretty amazing.  And yet, this is not without a downside.  You often get mistaken for being older and the expectations of that more advanced age are imposed upon you even as you work through the milestones appropriate for your own age.  It must be so frustrating for you.

And I've seen this frustration in action.  Not just with the unfair expectations, but with your inability to control the world around you.  You seem to have a little steam in your system at all time that just waits for the right circumstance to boil over.  Stress or disappointment can turn your cheerful self into a tornado of chaos that can be hard to manage.  You've worked hard on coping skills, and at times you manage it so gracefully, even to the point of helping others cope with their own frustrations, but if too much is up in the air those skills seem to elude you.  It is hard to watch at times, but I've been assured it is completely normal and as you learn more about yourself you'll gain more control.  I know, I remember being there myself as a kid, and perhaps that is why it pains me to watch you navigate that same course.

But let's not let the bumpy parts eclipse the amazing.  And button, you are certainly that.  Amazing.  Your are naturally athletic, managing to jump and leap and twist with such fluidity that even just taking a walk can seem like a display of gymnastic skill. While you may not love team sports, or at least not the losing part of competitions, you seem to pick up the basic skills quickly and with such grace.  As an ungainly and clumsy person, I often just watch and smile.

You are not always excited about traditional learning, practice repetitions of basic skills are perhaps a bit too slow, but any kind of experiment turns your mind on.  Science, art, even cooking lights you up as you make combinations and test your theories.  You've decided against a career as a spy and now want to be a scientist.  Though when I explained that becoming a scientist takes many years of schools on a day you told me you had more or less already had enough of the daily school routine, you balked.  In fact, your response was, "I don't want to be a regular scientist!  I want to be a mad scientist!" as though there were different qualifications for that chosen profession.

You have a strong sense of justice. Playing fair is important to you, well, unless you are the one taking the unfair advantage.  You want rules applied evenly and will probably struggle with this for a long time to come as the world is an unfair place. As much as people should do the right thing, they often don't and you can't take the responsibility for bringing them all in line.  It is too big a job for one kid.

No matter how big you get, you have not yet lost your love of cuddling.   You melt right into my arms, head against my shoulder in a way that just fills my heart with warmth.  It defies words. As you grow it gets harder to hold you on my lap, but that doesn't deter us from trying. You are my baby no matter how your physical size may try to contradict it.

Six years ago I took my first look into your dreamy blue eyes and fell so deeply in love with you.  I've been crazy for you ever since.  Happy birthday, big guy. I love you always.

Life on a treadmill

Lately the boys have both been mildly obsessed with fitness.  While sitting in a waiting room, Little Dog picked up a copy of Men's Health and told me he wanted to look like one of the guys photographed shirtless to show off his bulging muscles.  "I want to be a muscle man.  I'm going to need some weights," he told me.  And this has been mentioned several times since.  Big Dog has been similarly interested in hitting the gym and getting in his exercise as part of a new fitness points system his gym teacher introduced.  It is all kind of amusing, and I hope that if they express this interest now they'll be better at establishing more lasting fitness practices than I have as grew up.  Setting new healthier lifestyle practices gets a lot harder as you get older.  Or so I have discovered.

See, recently I've been trying to get myself on a better track.  While I was on sabbatical this fall, I doing Pilates at a local studio.  It has become an obsession.  At the same time, I reintroduced running to my routine.  I've made several attempts to get back into running over the past year, but have never been 100% successful.  The thing is that I don't like to run outside.  I prefer a treadmill.  And if I restrict myself to a treadmill, I have to find time to hit the gym.  That isn't quite as easy as it should be.  If I try to use the gym at work, I have to shower and get dressed before returning to work, and that paired with my busy meeting schedule and the fact that some of my co-workers don't have any issues with scheduling meetings right over the traditional lunch hour makes it pretty easy to put off.  If I try to use the treadmills at the YMCA, I have to go when the kids can go the the childcare area and depending on the mood of my more tempestuous younger son, that doesn't always work out.  It also means that we are limited to weekends since trying to get to and from the gym after work makes for a crazy day.  And let's not forget that I don't actually love running.  It is just an efficient method to get some exercise.  I don't get the runner's high and I don't run for the pure joy of running, so if it isn't convenient, I don't find myself properly motivated to make it happen. 

The solution was easy.  Get a treadmill at home.  If it is right here more or less staring at me, I'll be more likely to use it.  And it has been true more or less.  What I didn't bank on was the boys catching treadmill fever.  Last weekend as the boys watched TV, I slipped downstairs for a run.  I had almost finished when Little Dog came into the bedroom.  
"Can I have a turn?" he asked.
"Sure, just let me finish," I said, expecting that he'd give it a minute, get bored and that would be that.

I was wrong.  He got on and ran. And ran and ran.  He'd occasionally switch from running into a glee-filled skipping and hopping pattern.  He worked up a little sweat and when he finally decided to stop, I told him he could Big Dog and let him have a turn if he wanted.  And boy did he ever. 
Big Dog chose a more traditional running gait, but he kept demanding that I push up the speed.  Then it became competitive.  They wanted to be the faster runner of the two.  They wanted to run longer than the other.  They were loving it.

Last night after listening to the boys beat each other senseless as brothers often do, Mr. Dog suggested they go for a run on the treadmill.  They were giddy.  Again, the joyful running and brotherly competition kept they busy and tired them right out.  They may have the goal of getting "super fit" and having "lots and lots of muscles" but my goal is simply to tire them out.  If they happen to get all muscled up in the process, I'll count that as a happy byproduct.  And maybe a tiny bit of their excited running enthusiasm can rub off on their old mom.

Big Brother

And by Big Brother, I don't mean the kind that watches over you, just the kind that tortures you if you happen to be the younger child.  In our house, that's Big Dog.  But in this house, Big Dog is at a bit of a disadvantage.  Both Mr. Dog and I have older siblings so we have repeatedly warned Big Dog that we are familiar with the special kind of abuse younger siblings receive  from older siblings.  It may not be physical, but usually it ends up with someone getting thumped.  Thinking back on my childhood, I remember vividly long series of irritations that pushed me to my limit and ended up with me punching my sister then getting punished for hitting while she, as the victim of my brutality, sat smugly by watching her plan come cleanly together.  I have promised as a mother that, while I will not support the thumping of an annoying older sibling, when it comes time for punishment, the annoyer will be treated with the same level of seriousness as the annoyee.  Last night I realized that the era of torment is in full swing in our house.

See, last night we had dinner with friends at their house.  While they have moved since last time we'd visited, their household is known for having cats.  Cute, furry, lovable cats.  It made it easy to motivate the boys to get their shoes on and get out the door for an on time arrival.
"Little Dog, come put on your shoes."
"No!"
"Don't you want to see the kitties?"
And suddenly there he was slipping on his boots.

"Let's go to the car."
"Wait, I just want to do one more thing..."
"Don't you wand to see the kitties?"
And there both boys were, ready to rush out the door.

We had dinner, and later the boys played with their new DS games while the adults sat at the table talking.  It was so civilized (well, apart from the technology related meltdowns and a few sibling issues, but let's ignore those and pretend it was all perfect loveliness since our hosts didn't seem at all upset by the outbursts.)  At one point, Little Dog's DS ran out of batteries, so I let him play games on my iPhone to keep him happy.

As they started to get cranky, we decided it was time to take the beasts boys home and said  our thanks for the dinner and conversation.  In our somewhat disorganized effort to get out of the house, Little Dog left his DS on the floor.

We were no more than 5 minutes away when Big Dog called it out.  "Where is Little Dog's DS?"
I looked in my pockets, Mr. Dog did the same and we realized that it was left behind. 
"I'll call them tomorrow and pick it up for you.  Don't worry." I assured him, but clearly that was not enough.  Little Dog, who was already tired and overly emotional, started to wail.  Tomorrow was too long.  Why couldn't I just get it now?  He couldn't possibly spend the rest of the evening, which mostly consisted of going to sleep, without it.  And he started to spin up into a bit of a tantrum.  Back in the world of reality, by the time I got home, I'd already received an email from our friends saying they had the DS and we could come pick it up in the morning, no problem.

Once we were home and my efforts to soothe Little Dog were showing some positive effect, Big Dog stepped in. 

"I sure hope the cats don't eat your DS, Little Dog."  Little Dog wails.
"The cats won't eat a DS. Stop it," I warned.
A pause, then another jab.

"I hope the cats won't scratch your DS up, Little Dog."  Another wail from Little Dog.
"The cats have no interest in the DS.  Mike has the DS.  I'm sure it's safe.  I'll get it in the morning."
A pause, then a new approach.

"I sure hope they didn't knock out the game cartridge.  It sure would be a bummer if you lost your game, Little Dog."
"Stop it.  Be quiet.  One more word about the possible demise of the DS and I'll give him yours."
"But he still wouldn't have his game.  Would you Little Dog?"
Now I can't be certain, but I'm pretty sure he wasn't just messing with Little Dog this time.  And I'm not even his younger sibling.

Family, our way

This time of year my Facebook feed is filled with photos of families doing holiday appropriate activities.  Children dressed up for the annual trip to the ballet, in mud boots for the great Christmas tree hunt, in aprons baking up holiday cookies and bundled up in the snow or on ice skates savoring the winter sports.  A lot of family portraits are being posted with everyone spiffed up and smiling.  Some are professionally taken, other are snapshots of everyone gathered around the tree wishing us all a Merry Christmas.  Seeing this constant stream of holiday perfection can make me feel like maybe I don't take this whole family thing seriously enough.  Maybe we aren't really making an effort to have all of those picture perfect family moments or maybe it's just that frequently our moments are more frenzied and less photo ready.

Sometimes I look at these photos and start to worry that we aren't doing enough, then I stop and remember that I actually know the people in these photos and for every Christmas card quality photo they post, there was probably at least one child meltdown or sibling battle that wasn't documented for mass consumption.  I can pretty safely assume the trip to the ballet was preceded by a long period of maternal nagging to brush hair or put on shoes and there is a good chance there was a fair amount of cussing as the family, immortalized as perfect in the photo, cruised the parking lot looking for a place to stow the car in time to rush to the performance before the curtain went up.  This smiling child on skis was probably up at the crack of dawn disturbing the parents' slumber long before any sane person is ready to rise and possibly refused to eat any of the breakfast that they requested but then rejected because the edges of the pancakes were too brown or the egg yolks were too runny.

As deceptive as the photos can be, there are no perfect families. Trust me.  That revelation is liberating. As soon as I let that go, I can more easily appreciate the oddness and chaos of my own kith and kin. We may have some photo perfect moments, but those are frequently surrounded by Little Dog decorating his body with bold designs drawn in marker probably predicting some future disposition to tattoos.  The best smiles in our snapshots were often achieved not by saying "cheese" but "underpants," the word that seems to constantly amuse these little men.  There is no trip to the ballet for our boys, yet, but the exuberant dancing to grandpa's choice of Christmas music is really more our speed, even if we are told "Don't look at us!"as soon as we start watching the performance, (but we do, just more covertly).

Some of our best family bonding may be centered around the new batch of apps grandpa downloaded for the boys, including the one that makes giant fart noises that were followed by the squealing laughter of my small monsters.  We may not have made holiday cookies, but the boys did have some sort of competitive crafting event going in the kitchen at grandma's house. Each time a family member was given a finished item from one boy, the other would rush back to the work table to furiously create another item for the same person. By the end of the first evening, I was the proud owner of about a half dozen book marks and a small zoo of pom pom animals with a varying number of eyes.

We have Santa photos, but how many other families have the special holiday memory of their 5 year-old poking Santa's belly to "see how jolly he was".  Well we do.  And trust me, I'll cherish that memory for years to come, even is Santa was somewhat less enthusiastic about the event.  We'll also remember Big Dog's impassioned lobbying that perhaps this year, instead of opening presents on Christmas Eve and Christmas morning, we could open all of the presents on Christmas Eve morning.  Though he was unsuccessful in attaining his goal, we may well have a future lawyer on our hands. Let's just hope he uses his powers for good, not evil.

We'll weather the sibling battles, the potty talk, the occasional yelling and in the end the memories that float to the top, the ones that persist, will be nearly as picture perfect as those in my Facebook feed.

What passes for romance these days

Tonight I had my Pilates class and made it home a few minutes before Mr. Dog walked in with the boys.  As we all took off our shoes and coats we kind of gathered up in the entryway.  Big Dog, free of his shoes, bolted upstairs to play and Little Dog was still working on his freeing his feet from his sneakers.  As Mr. Dog brushed past me in the narrow space, I said, "What's up, yo?" because, yes, I'm street like that.  And he replied, "What up with you, you?"
His voice thick with distaste, Little Dog piped in, "Why do you guys have to always be so lovey-dovey?" and took off up the stairs, leaving us laughing in his wake.
"Really?  That's lovey-dovey now?" I asked Mr. Dog.
And as soon as it was out of my mouth, our small critic's voice drifted down from the stairwell, "Ug. You disgust me." And he stomped away.
I didn't realize that my faux urban posturing could be mistaken as the language of love.  I guess you really do learn something new every day.