The Toddler's Playbook for Driving Mom Around the Bend

1. Always, ALWAYS wait until you've been in a fresh diaper for 5 minutes before pooping in it.
2. Step on mommy's bare foot and grind it with the high-heeled plastic princess shoes until she shrieks in pain.
3. Preferably, step 2 should be executed as she's trying to fix supper. After you get off her foot, stay UNDER her feet so that she nearly falls and drops hot food or sharp knives on you, all the while, continuing to whine that you're hungry or thirsty.
4. When you're finally sitting at the table for a meal that took mommy 3 hours to make (but would have only taken 45 minutes if you hadn't been practicing steps 2 and 3, above), spit out the food in disgust as if she has served you cigar butts in bile.
5. After rejecting your meal, wait until you've been in the car for about 15 minutes before telling mom that you're SOOOOO hungry. Repeat this mantra approximately 47 times in varying degrees of whining and drama and in increasing decibels until she exasperatedly tells you that if you don't be quiet you're going to make her wreck the car.
6. Other road trip strategies: Wait until you're on the interstate to screech that you have to use the potty and that you can't wait.
7. After your baby brother has screamed his head off for 30 minutes in the carseat and finally goes to sleep, watch to see when mommy's shoulders relax and the tenseness leave her face. Then, begin pinching your sibling until he wails. Then for good measure, if the baby isn't already awake from the wailing, poke him so that he begins screaming all over again.
8. When you're playing quietly with your sibling, make sure that if mommy slips away to make a phone call, you QUICKLY run to find her, then begin a fracas that makes the Great War sound like a fox hunt in Virginia so that she has to hang up.
9. Whine, whine, and whine some more. You should aim for at least 10 out of your 12 waking hours.
10. When you're not whining, if you talk, talk so much that mommy wishes for earplugs. If you don't talk, spend the remaining 2 hours emitting paint-peeling screeches.
11. Wait until she sits down to nurse the baby before bringing her a book to read or saying "up" pathetically so that she feels guilty, even though you refused her offers to sit on her lap and read just 10 minutes before.
12. When you get off mommy's lap, make sure you use your elbow in her chest as a catapult to launch off so that she has to restrain herself from throwing you across the room.
13. Despite the playroom full of fun, creative, and educational toys you have, opt to play with the door, either the swinging door or the bi-fold closet door, until you or your sibling pinches a finger or gets shut in (or out) of the room. Both result in bellowing with pain and frustration (from you AND mom).
14. After disdaining the above-mentioned toys and the art-supplies-of-many-pieces, become suddenly and unwaveringly interested in them when mom tries to put them away. Dump out baskets, unshelf books, and scatter puzzle pieces as quickly as she puts them away. This keeps the house in a constant state of disaster and mom in a constant state of agitation.
15. Reject the really cool cityscape playmat that mommy bought for you and choose instead to run your cars on the furniture, leaving black tire marks and scratches on everything.
16. After you beg for several hours to go outside and mommy gets you dressed and sends you out with daddy, wait 13 minutes, then beg to come back inside. This is especially effective in the winter when it takes her a half hour to get snowsuits and hats and gloves and boots on, but it also works in warmer weather. Running through the sprinkler for 10 minutes still means she has to peel off and deal with wet swimsuits, and it only takes 45 seconds to fill your hair, pockets, and shoes with sand.
17. Sunday mornings are the best time to puke down mommy's cleavage, poop up your back (preferably after you've been put in your carseat so it can't be discovered till you're already at church and so it gets all over mommy's church clothes when she unwittingly lifts you out of your carseat),  throw temper tantrums, stomp in muddy puddles (if you go this route, make sure there is at least one adult and/or a sibling standing nearby to make it most effective), and generally act like a savage.
18. Speaking of Sundays, save your most appalling behaviors for public places, particularly church. Shame, embarrassment, and outrage are huge demoralizers. Be creative in your efforts. One toddler, who shall remain nameless, leaned forward and blew a huge raspberry on his sister's arm in a quiet church. In spite of all their desperate wishing, floors do not open up and swallow mommies.
19. If you want to add a polishing touch to your performances, drop your die-cast cars or large wooden trucks on the oak floors so that it sounds like a garbage dumpster falling from the tenth storey. This is a sure way to completely unravel your mom's already frayed nerves.
20. If you need a vacation from your mom, make her repeat the same thing 89 times per day (i.e, "Don't grab toys from your brother." "Do NOT bite your sister."). Do this for weeks on end. Persistence pays, and she WILL eventually end up in a padded room.
21. If you cannot ruin your own clothes with foods like blackberries because mommy has cleverly made you eat naked, ruin HER clothes by swiping purple hands on her before she can catch your arms. If she's quick and gets your arms, lean in and smear your face on her. This will bring a mom to tears if she only has 2 outfits to wear since she hasn't lost her baby weight.
22. At night when mom tucks you in bed, throw your dimpled, chubby arms around her neck and squeeze her hard. Say "I love you mommy!" and "You're reewy my best fend!" so that she feels guilty for telling you how aggravating you're being and for THINKING that she'd like to pinch your head off and she'll vow to be a more patient mommy tomorrow.
23. Repeat steps 1-22 ad infinitum. If you play it just right, there will be no more future siblings to detract from the already divided attention you unfairly receive.

BUGS!

Commotions...

We've been reading a pre-school devotion book with the children at the breakfast table before praying  for a good day. Yesterday, Mercy walked into the room and said worriedly, "We forgot to have commotions!"

Foodie Friday

I'm sure I'm not the only one who got addicted to Starbucks' frappuccinos during their half-price "happy hour" promotional. I made every excuse I could dream up to make the 30-minute trip to indulge in my new obsession, which is a grande caramel with a shot of espresso, thankyouverymuch. Of course, my addiction didn't end when the promo did, which is, I'm sure, what Fivebucks, er, ahem, Starbucks was counting on. I mean, when two fraps for Benj and me cost as much as a chicken that would feed the family, things have gotten out of hand. And then, there's always the issue of the eleventy-seven grams of sugar in one of those cups of bliss.  I came to the conclusion, though it took me longer than it should have, that if I want to be able to fit through doorways without turning sideways (and buy chickens for the family) a frap had better be an occasional treat, not an every-time-I-get-the-chance treat.

So like a true addict, I've been trying to find other ways to satisfy my craving by mucking around with cold coffee, ice cubes, and a food processor. At first, I wasn't terribly successful. More than one attempt ended up splattered all over my wall, cupboards, and counter. If it had tasted good, I wouldn't have minded the mess so much. But it didn't come anywhere near the trademarked frappuccino. Mine was always watery, not slushy, coffee-y, and sweet. I finally came up with the idea of freezing milk in ice cube trays rather than using regular ice cubes. These drinks came out tasting good, but they still weren't quite the texture I was looking for (and I still made a mess.) Finally, my husband, bless his sweet heart, decided he was going to try making one with my immersion blender rather than the food processor. Success! The texture was fabulous, and it tasted heavenly.  To save  you, my three dear readers, from sticky floors, I am posting my wonderful recipe here.

Prep: Pour whole milk or cream into an ice cube tray (better do at least two trays...you'll be hooked) and freeze till solid. Brew strong coffee and cool in the refrigerator.

Directions: Pour 8 ounces of cooled, strong coffee in mixing cup or jar.
                  Add 2 tablespoons of coffee syrup (more or less to taste).
                  Add 6 or 7 milk cubes
                 Blend with a stick blender until the cubes disappear and the texture is frothy and slushy
                 Top with whipped cream and enjoy

Notes: For best results use a good quality coffee, such as Starbucks Gold Coast or French Roast or, what we use, Equal Exchange organic and fairly traded French Roast or Midnite Sun.

I use Flavorganics coffee syrup. It's organic and gluten free, and it only has 9 grams of sugar per tablespoon.

If you don't have an immersion or stick blender , a smoothie maker or heavy duty blender would probably work as well. I just know that a food processor wasn't a good choice.

Enjoy!

All in a day

I thought it was time to give an update on all of us, though I know most of you are primarily interested in the three little people.

My days are  filled with lots of laundry (mainly diapers), food planning...I declare, the only thing these people think about is food...reading to my little bibliophiles, and nursing. I have a couple of ongoing projects, such as organizing my recipes, that I'm working on in fits and starts. It takes me almost as long to find a recipe as it does to cook it, so I'm getting tired of all the scraps of paper stuffed into a recipe book. I'm working on typing out all the recipes I use, sliding them in protective sheets, and putting them in a three-ring binder. I'm also working up the gumption to start my kick-boxing workout DVD. Though I'm back to my pre-Zion weight, I'd like to get back to my pre-baby, baby, baby weight.

Benjy is still working hard at the hospital. He has been working a lot of overtime. In just about every spare minute (when the kids aren't climbing over him, which would be mainly at naptime), he's been cutting down and milling some trees off our property. Our plan is to move further west, have more acreage, and build a new house within the next few years. Benj plans to do most of the work on the new house himself, and he'll do the doors and finish work with this lumber.

We've been enjoying Benjy's mom and dad being out of school and able to come visit. Benjy's dad returned to his roots and helped Benj drag the logs up to the wood stack with the tractor that belonged to my great-grandfather. Below is the stack of lumber that Benj has milled himself with his Alaskan sawmill. I believe he's milled around 400 board feet so far this spring.

The children are all busy, busy, busy. Mercy and Judah love their baby brother. When Judah gets up in the morning, one of the first thing he does (besides grabbing an armful of cars and trucks out of the playroom) is say "Zion!" and point to our bedroom. Then, "Shhhh!" Mercy loves to hold Zion and asks nearly every day. Judah usually isn't interested in holding the baby, as that requires sitting still for more than a nanosecond, but on this day, he climbed up in the chair and held out his arms to take his turn:

Mercy-girl is full of life. She spends much of her day running through the house, asking to help mommy, and if daddy is home, wallowing all over him:

She continues to amuse us with her anecdotes. A few days ago, she was tickling Zion's toes, and said thoughtfully, "I don't like it when Daddy bites my toes. It's disgraceful."

Mercy loves to dress up in her gaudy princess clothes and shoes, to which she adds a purse, sunglasses, and a baby doll flung over one arm. She has taken an unfortunate (for me) interest in all things creepy crawly. We bought her a bug-catching set, and she likes to examine all manner of disgusting worms, bugs, and scared-silly toads in the magnified jar. Judah only mildly shares this interest. He's actually a little squeamish. Mercy  brought a nightcrawler inside and set the jar in the living room. Judah picked it up and held the jar upside down right in front of his eyes. The nightcrawler, succumbing to gravity, fell from the bottom of the jar to the magnified lid. I suppose the worm looked grotesquely huge right in front of his eyes like that, and Judah jumped, shuddered, and threw the jar down. I admit that I unkindly laughed.

Judah is still obsessed with anything with wheels and spends a good part of every day running his train, trucks, or cars along any flat surface. He is also developing an amazing vocabulary. He is probably closing in on 200 words. The other day, I was changing his diaper, and I said  "Oh, Judah. When are you going to do this in the potty!" He said "Phewy! Phewy! AWFUL! AWFUL!"

And yes, I know that he needs some direction with his sartorial skills. (Check out the shoes.)

Zion is doing his job: getting fatter by the day. He's approaching 17 pounds at just 10 weeks. Even though he suffers from reflux, just like the other two, he is a smiley, content baby. And he sleeps like...well, like a baby. he takes two 2-3 hour naps a day, and sleeps from 8 pm to around 4 am, eats, then goes back to sleep for several more hours. I just about started shoutin' hallelujah when I typed that. A baby who sleeps! I thought they were a myth!

He's been rolling over for several weeks, and I caught him in the act here:

My smiley boy:

Foodie Friday

I know, I know. It's not Friday. I'm not so lost in my own mommy world here on the mountain that I forget what day it is. I know very well that it's Sunday. What? Oh. Yeah. It's Saturday. Ahem. Anyway, I had these pictures that I took specifically for Foodie Friday, and I forgot to post them yesterday. I used the children's naptime for a cheerier occupation--paying bills.

I recently became interested in the art of  Bento. These Japanese, beautifully-arranged, single-serving meals are making an appearance in America. I had read about it in my Mothering Magazine. Since I pack food for our gluten-fearing selves everywhere we go, I decided to give it a try. I found these American-style Bento sets from Laptop Lunches, which are phthalate, BPA, and lead free, at a huge discount and bought one for each of the children. The boxes come with an insulated sleeve and a non-toxic cold pack.  Although mine aren't as elaborate as these, I thought they came out quite pleasant looking.

All the food is homemade, of course. Each box contains black walnut-cheese crackers (cut in their respective initials); a cup with raw cheese cut in animal shapes and carrots cut in scalloped shapes; fresh guacamole for the crackers;  a sandwich made out of buckwheat pancakes and filled with homemade pumpkin seed butter, strawberry conserve, and sliced bananas (cut in a flower for Mercy and a car for Judah); a fruit cup with strawberries, melon, and grapes; and finally, three almond thumbprint cookies. A sippy of strawberry kefir finished the meal.

I'm excited to make more elaborate designs as I add to my Bento tools. I'll post pictures of future attempts soon, I'm sure.

Let's Hear It for the Boys

photo credit: James Worley

I know that modern psychologists and students of gender studies tell us that there is no inherent difference between the sexes...that any variation is imposed by culture and parents. After having nearly two years to observe the differences between a daughter and son, I beg to differ. Of course, these same experts would say that I unconsciously treat Mercy and Judah differently according to social norms associated with their respective genders. This is probably true, but there are some things I'm quite sure I had nothing to do with.


1. "Anything you can do, I can do louder." Everything Judah does is loud. Mercy is a big mouth, and I am also not exactly a meek and quiet person. I'm not proud of that facet of my personality, but I'm loud. I just am. However, Judah can make more noise than Mercy, Benjy, and I combined. He lies down and kicks the toybox and walls of his bunkbed with his heels and chortles at the noise. He could peel paint with his screeches. He bangs his wooden and metal cars on everything. He sweeps blocks, dishes, silverware, coasters, toys, and books off of any surface just to hear the satisfying crash. He drives his trucks up and down the piano keyboard and grins at the cacophony. In church, he loves to play with his little metal trucks and cars, which should be a quiet activity. Not for Judah. He holds the truck up and announces, "TRUCK!" I say, "shhh! whisper!" He sweetly repeats "whisper." Then, "TRUCK!"


2. He could get dirty in a sterile room. I noticed today after church that Judah had dirt under his fingernails. I had just given him a bath. How does a little boy get a bath right before getting into a clean bed, then get up and get dressed, and ride in a clean car to church get dirt under his fingernails? I have found DIRT in his bed. We don't wear shoes in the house. His play clothes get taken off in the laundry room. Where does this dirt come from? I think he manufactures it. Judah can eat nothing, but NOTHING, without wearing it. He makes messes with "mess-free" snacks placed in "mess-free" snack cups. When he finishes a meal, we have to wipe off not only his face and hands, but his ears, hair, legs and feet. Seriously. He is the only child I have ever known that has to have the bottoms of his feet wiped off before he can be set down from the table. I'm not saying that Mercy has never been messy. She wasn't exactly neat when she was first navigating utensils and new foods. But she is generally a prim eater, and she has pretty little manners. Even though Judah has a much larger vocabulary than Mercy did at the same age, his manners are...well...rather Neanderthal. But I digress. He loves to get dirty. He will dip his head in the sandbox. His head! And when he ventures out to the woodpiles, he actually lies down in the sawdust and rolls around in it. Benj says he looks like a horse.


3. Selective hearing/memory is hardwired. Although I can't bust on Benj for selective hearing and memory, it's so stereotypically male and joked about so often among women that I suspect there is at least some truth in it. Judah already has selective memory, and I can guarantee that I had nothing to do with it. I can tell Judah a dozen times to leave the baby's swing alone, and each time I repeat it (even after he gets disciplined for mucking with it!) it's a revelation. However, when I bought him a new Hot Wheels car last night, I told him it was a Chevy. Today, he ran out of the playroom and down the hall toward me as if he was possessed of a sudden inspiration, shoved his new car under my nose and said proudly "CHEVY! CHEVY!" I can tell him fifty times not to stand on the furniture, and yet, shortly after being introduced to the fascinating world of construction vehicles, he was drowsing in the backseat when he suddenly came to life and shouted "DIGGER! DIGGER!" And there was.


4. Body functions are funny. 'Nuff said.


5. If it doesn't fit, push harder. I have never been around such a destructive child in my life. Judah breaks everything. And it's not because he's "bad" or disrespectful of property or unappreciative of his possessions. He's just rough. And curious. He likes to take things apart. And put them back together. Sort of. His tender ministrations usually require wood glue, clamps, and Benj spending time out at his work bench repairing Judah's handiwork. Puzzles and shape sorters aren't tools for learning in Judah's hands. They are evil agents of frustration. Instead of trying another shape or piece when the one he's trying doesn't fit, Judah just pushes all the harder, trying to force the star shape into the square opening. Of course, the adult onlookers know that this never works, but despite our efforts at re-directing, Judah has to try it for himself, which results in screeches of frustration and abandonment of the toy.

6. "Because it was there." That's why he climbs anything. When I was pregnant with Zion, there were times that I was so exhausted because of insomnia that I had to rest. I hate admitting that I've laid aside my supermom cape and resorted to the movie-as-babysitter trick, but I have. It isn't often, but "desperate times..." and all that. So  on those uncommon days, I would move Mercy and Judah's high chairs in front of the computer, buckle them in, and give them a snack and a drink, and put on Thomas the Tank Engine. I would rest on the couch or loveseat, both just a few steps away. I didn't sleep, just dozed, and I could hear what was going on. This worked a few times, until I opened my eyes to Mercy saying "Mommy, look at Dudah!" Even though he was buckled in, he had gotten out of the high chair, crawled across the tray, and was kneeling on the computer desk's slide-out computer tray. Thus, Houdini shot down in flames my one chance at a respite. Besides high chairs, Judah has also climbed out of the portable crib and climbed up bookshelves. I have found him kneeling on the piano and crawling across the dining room table. I'm really not sure how he has escaped an emergency room visit. He does, however, usually look like he was on the losing end of a prize fight with all his bruises and scrapes and scratches from rough landings.

Oh, but I do love him. Let's hear it for the boys!

photo credit: James Worley

Just thinkin'

Outside Fun

Mercy's new "monoculars," a "new baby" present from the Sommers grands.





Judah wearing his daddy's garden clogs.

The new wagon, another gift from Grandma and Grandpa

Having fun with the new sprkinler, yet another contribution from Grandma and Grandpa. Do you see a trend here? When my in-laws are here, they literally play outside all day with the children. I generally only see the children when they need to eat, sleep, or have diaper/potty issues. It's so nice, because I never have time (or energy) to take them out for as long as they'd like. I do take them outside, but it's more for an hour or so, not all day, and even Benj, who loves to be outside, often has chores or other responsibilities that keep him from staying out as long as he would like. Mercy and Judah love having their grandparents here for many reasons, but one of the biggest is the undivided attention they get in the great outdoors. And Grandma and Grandpa don't complain about the bugs, heat or humidity like mommy does!