Summer

It’s summer.  It began at 12:25 today.  Both boys are out of school.  I’ve had a week to prepare.

At first, I was like, OH my god, this is going to be the best summer ev-er!  We’ll go swimming and do crafts and do science experiments and read and go exploring and see free movies and do Science Sundays at the Children’s Museum and maybe camping and a weekend trip.  This is going to rock!

And then Monday as I was grocery shopping, I looked down at Aidan and realized that the next Monday I’ll be grocery shopping with three boys.  Trying to control three boys in the grocery store.  I remembered going to Target a few days before with the boys and thought I was going to have to abandon them.  And then I remembered last year when I spent all summer in parent-detention, stuck sitting at the table, waiting for the boys to finish their workbooks.  Some days it took 6 hours to do 2 pages in the workbook.  I was like shoot me; shoot me now.

Then I had a panic attack.  A small one.  That lasted 5 minutes.

For the last several days, I’ve been swinging between excitement and despair.

I have plans.  Like no video games if the workbooks aren’t done, but I’m might be missing the loop-hole.  Evan and Sean have to read every day, which Evan will enjoy.  Sean has to do fine motor skill activities every day, and I have a whole bunch of stickers to reward him with.  A friend suggested the boys and I make a plan for the summer so the boys know what to expect.  I’ve learned to find all kinds of free or cheap things to do.  I feel like I need to make a lesson plan for the summer.  Maybe I should.  Then I would have more practice on writing them.  Then again that is possibly insane.  Extremely rigid.  Probably not good for my codependency.

Somehow I will figure this out.

But tomorrow.  Tomorrow.  We’ll celebrate the first day of summer in style.  Out for breakfast.  Walking at the mall to try it out.  Sign up for the summer reading program at the library.  Ice cream lunch.  Making tie-dye shirts.  Swimming.  Fish tacos.  It’s going to be awesome.

Maybe.

Hopefully.

My Passenger

The other day I had to drive across town to drop off some paperwork at the school district.  Our city is sprawling without a freeway system.  (Don’t get me started on that cluster-.)  It can be a drive.  Aidan was sitting in the back, playing with toys and chatting with me.

Aidan: Snack, Mommy?

Me: You had a snack.

Aidan: Bread, Mommy?

Me: No, we don’t need to go to the bakery.

Aidan: Prezzle, Mommy?

We just passed a bakery that was known for pretzels.

Me: Not today, Aidan.

Aidan: Sushi, Mommy?

As we passed a sushi joint.

Me: Nope.  Not today.

Aidan: Lunch, Mommy?

Me: It’s still early morning, sweetheart.  Lunch is a while away.

We were approached a traffic light.

Aidan: Stay green!  Stay green!  Stay green!  Stay green!

Oh God, what am I teaching my son?  I better check my road rage.  And hard.

We sailed through the green light.

Aidan: YEA!!!

In case you’re wondering, he repeated this with every light.  That’s a lot of traffic lights.

Then we arrived at the district.

Aidan: Mommy!  We go up the snake?!

He pointed to the spiral staircase.

As it happens, we did have to go up the spiral staircase.  When we left the office, he was excited to leave.

Aidan: Mommy!  We go down the snake?!

Me: Yes!  Hold on to the rail.

When we got down to the bottom floor, Aidan looked at me.

Aidan: Mommy!  We go up the snake?!

Me: No, it’s time to go.

Aidan: NO!!!

He tried to run up the stairs, but I scooped him up and threw him over my shoulder.

Aidan: Not a sack of potatas!  Mommy!  I not!  A sack of potatas!

So I put him on my hip and kissed him.

Me: No, you’re not.  You’re my Aidan.  And I love you.

Aidan hugged me tight.

Aidan: I love you!

Oh, you can see me.

I’m not anonymous anymore.

Well, not really.

(Ok, so I was out two years ago by some crazy ex-employee of the ex.  But no one goes looking at that thread on some crazy “report” site.  That’s not really what I’m talking about.)

It’s the boys and their names.  You type in their names, and the blog comes up on the first page.  You type in their names and Arizona or blog, and the blog comes up first page.  So if you know me and that I wrote a blog and you know my boys’ names, it is stumbling easy to find the blog.

I’m not sure how I feel about this.

When I first started the blog, I did some research on other blogs and what they did for their children’s names.  Then I did a search on Evan and Sean.  It was a popular combination of boys names.  But when you add Aidan, well, you get a more unique combination.  No one has three children any more or are graced with three boys.

This only comes up because I’m a pretty private person online.  (Except I used my real name and photo on Pinterest)  My Facebook is pretty locked-down tight.  I didn’t use my real name to set this up or the Twitter account.  I’m annoyed how easily it is to get my address online.  The only things I want to come up online is any writing with my name on it.  Ok, it’s also cool that I’m still up for a panel discussion I did years ago at my alma mater.  (And Pinterest.  Not sure how I feel about that.)

I only think about my privacy because I had a stalker in my past (and we all pray he stays in my past) and that one day I’ll be teaching high schoolers.  Tech-savvy high schoolers.  My only hope is that they are so self-absorbed in their own worlds that they never think to research into my life.

Also I plan never to say anything negative about them in a public forum, so if I’m recorded, I’m not in trouble.  I mean that’s just common sense.

But the question is how far do I go to reveal my life.  How much can I be an open book when I know just possibly someone I know might fine the blog and look threw it, learning things that I didn’t want said person to know.  But then I did make a public blog.

That question came to mind when I realized I’m holding a lot of secrets, and the ones that hurt the most are not even mine.  I realized those secrets aren’t my burden.  I’m not the one who has to be ashamed.  So I decided I’m not going to keep them.  It’s not like I plan on running around screaming them, but I’m not going to protect them any more.  If the conversation ever turns to those secrets, I’ll tell the truth.  Every time I do that I will be true to myself and take another step towards healing.

So there.  I’m easily to find under this name with the right information, and I, like every other person on the planet, has secrets.  Somehow I have to figure out how much of my mask and armor do I take off to be in this space.

My Second Tornado is Six. Or where is the time going?

My middle child, my second boy, my cream of my Oreo cookie turned six Saturday.  What can I tell you about my boy?

1. He’s created his own world.  The Nine-Nine world.  It’s an amazing place with Nine-Nine Dragons and Nine-Nine Sharks.  And the biggest, meanest, most evil in the Nine-Nine Emperor Dragon.  Of course, it’s a world of bad guys.  But I think of it like bad guys with souls.  Or rather I’m hoping they are misunderstood creatures framed in the villain role.

2. Yes, he’s still obsessed with villains.  Hoping to start loosening that obsession, we showed him Pirates of the Caribbean.  Jack Sparrow is a like a villain and like a good guy.  Nope, Sean liked Captain Barbossa.  As a skeleton.

3. His favorite colors are red and black.  Because those are bad guy colors.

4. His favorite movies are still Star Wars movies and cartoons.  His favorite books are anything Star Wars.  His favorite toys are anything Star Wars.  As well as the Imaginatrix castles and knights and ninjas and dragons.  We could build a town with a small army.

5. Don’t let the bad-guy obsession fool you.  Sean is a sweetheart.  He wears his heart on his sleeve.  He’s sweet and caring.  He’s gentle and kind.  His teachers have all fallen in love with him.  Sean could never be a villain.

6. He’s also top in his class for math.  He is one of the most knowledgeable kids.  He reads.  Not that he has shown me, but he does it in class.

7. But his fine motor skills are woefully behind because he’s ambidextrous.  He’s going to have a hard time next year if I don’t get him help this summer.  He’s too bright to be held back, but his fine motor skills are very weak.

8. Sean is bright enough to learn that the fun activities we’ve been doing for the last two months are work in disguise.  Work for his fine motor skills.  Great.  Just great.  Now I have to find more crafts and activities for him to do for 20 minutes every day.

9. He’s growing out of needing a blankie for bedtime.  He loves it dearly but half the time forgets to bring it to bed.  My heart is breaking.

10. He does try to bring his big Angry Bird pig to bed.  Because he loves the pigs because they’re bad guys.  And he has a smaller one, but he gave it to Aidan because he loved it and wants to be like Sean.  So Sean sleeps in his bed with a big piggy and Evan.

Happy birthday, my little dude.  Please stop growing so fast.

And if you want to read his birth story, it’s here.

Recap 5/17

1. Last Saturday my dad came over and helped me get my backyard in shape.  It looks awesome.  Now I’ve got to get a plastic pool.  Now if only my house matched my backyard.

2. My house should be declared a natural disaster.  With the end of school and all the running around and the three tornadoes.

3. Mom, I know technically it’s true, but please refrain from calling the ex my husband.  Unless it comes after ex- or late-.

4. As for the ex, you’re only requirement for Mother’s Day is to buy a gift for the boys to give me because you’re teaching them to honor the day for their mother and future mothers of their children.  Barring that, the least you could’ve done was stay away so I could’ve called a friend and bitched about you.

5. Aidan has had a few insomnia attacks this week.  I owe my sanity to that playlist.  Though it reminds me of Semisonic’s “Singing in my Sleep.”

6. I’m scrambling to do all I can to help Sean with his fine motor skills.  Next stop the dollar store for supplies.  But first, he did twenty minutes of mazes, nearly finished the book.  The book that was going to last all summer.  Supposedly.  Oh well.

7. Evan was so excited by watermelon season.  He kissed the watermelon.

8. We played Speed Golf this weekend.  It’s like golf but in miniature!  And fast.  Hit twice and put it in the hole.  Unless you have Aidan’s help like I did.  I played the best golf game of my life.  When I take up golf, I am making Aidan my caddy.

9. I ordered a few things online.  I got them already.  YEA!  Except one of the shirts is all wrong.  And two of the prints were mis-ordered.  BOO!

10. Class is over!  For the summer!  I should have time to write!  And read other blogs!  (I miss them.)  Except it’s summer for the boys, which is great, except for all the forcing them to do workbooks and read and clean up.  And I have my teaching test in just over a month.  And mediation in a few weeks.  And my history teaching test in the beginning of September.  I’m no longer excited.

The 5:

I can tell how much happier I am when I do them all.  And how there’s an empty hole when I don’t do most of them.  I hope the summer will give me more time to do it all.

(Excuse me, while I go keep my children from killing each other.)

Fond Memories

As we waited for a table for breakfast on Sunday, which happened to be Mother’s Day, the boys grew bored, even with their uncles standing right there to amuse.  But what’s more fun than messing with your brother?  Not much.  So my boys were touching each other, pushing each other, making jokes about each other, getting into each other’s faces to make weird noises, hugging/strangling each other, just messing with each other.  Nothing turned into a fight, it just hovered there.

My Mom: Your boys like messing with each other.  A lot.

Me: (shrugged) Most siblings do.

My Mom: You kids didn’t.

A montage of childhood antics flashed before my eyes.  The Face crying when the swing knocked him in the back of the head.  The Friendly Giant dropping and breaking my piggy bank as I wrestled The Face.  Turning and seeing The Friendly Giant with a clump of my hair in his hands.  Wrestling for hours over the damn remote.  Arguing over the green glass.  Fighting over the green glass.  Holding a finger just an inch away from the other person. Swearing I would break that finger if it wasn’t removed.  Walking into my room to find the Great Beheading Barbie Massacre of ’89.  Swearing unholy revenge on behalf of those Barbies and Skippers.  Trying to make the others talk during the Quiet Game.  Trying to mime that my brothers were cheating on the Quiet Game.  Complaining about being near each other in the car.  “His leg is touching mine!”  “Her hair is touching me!”  “He’s over the line on my side!”   The lecture we all received about how wrong it was to punch or kick someone in the groin; and our mother telling us she wanted grandchildren one day.  Breaking into a clean-underwear fight during our chore of folding the underwear.  (Much like a snowball fight but with underwear)  The Face asking if I wanted to see time fly as he threw my glow-in-the-dark watch across the room.  Learning that heads bounce off dry wall.  Telling the Friendly Giant if he didn’t get in the pool and play with us the vulture would get him.  Ferocious fights during Shark games or Water Polo.  Screaming s/he is cheating!  Never finishing a game of Monopoly because someone always stole from the bank and we end up throwing pieces and money at each other.  Fighting over video games.  Tons of cut-downs.  Tons of name calling.  Tons of pulling faces.  Tons of tattling.  Tons of pushing, hitting, kicking, shoving, scratching, and pulling hair.

Me: Yeah, we did.

My Mom:  You’re obviously misremembering.

Me: One of us is.

Spelling and Eating

There is only one casserole I will eat.  Sour Cream and Chicken Enchilada Casserole.  I adore the stuff.  Apparently so does my baby brother because he asked for it for his birthday dinner.  (I guess when you always eat out, a home-cooked meal is a treat, and I’m just the opposite.) 

Saturday we all gathered to have dinner in honor of my brother’s 29th birthday.  I looked over mid-meal to Aidan who sat next to me.  My little vegetarian (weird for a meat-eating family, right?) was digging into the casserole.  It was almost gone.  I made eye contact with my mom and, in a discreet manner, pointed to Aidan.

My mom: I know.  I’ve been watching him eat.  I can’t believe me.

Me: I know, right?  (giggle)  No one tell him there’s M-E-A-T in it.

Aidan: I eat the chicken!

Oh God. 

Please Lord, in Your infinite mercy, let that be a fluke.

Me: (sound normal; don’t panic; it was a fluke; it was a fluke.)  Is it good?

Aidan: WAY!  I like chicken!  I eat chicken now!

We’ll see next time I give your chicken strips.