"Ee i ee i oh!"

Bryan and I have spent the last two months in the full time company of our 3 children. I am beginning to understand why parents sign-up early for summer camps. Bryan is convinced daily that our kids are out-of-control, undisciplined hooligans that make other harried parents look more lovingly at their own children. When you spend your days intervening in fights over food, arguments about who touched who first, who took what from whom and how it happened, saying “no” until you can’t remember there’s an alternative, answering a five year old’s incessant and often unfortunately timed questions and explaining to a two and half year old that public nudity is sadly frowned upon, you start to steal small moments of the day for yourself. What some might consider a quick jaunt to the bathroom to “take care of business” is for me a gleeful excuse to grab a book, lock the door and enforce a ten minute “Mom timeout”. Though we rarely ever find the peace and quiet to actually finish a bottle, Bryan and I find the five seconds we do get to toast each other with a glass of wine, “to surviving the insanity”, to be the most romantic interaction of our day. Noah often begins his day finding reasons to excuse himself from naptime, which we still require him to take. Bryan and I begin our day finding reasons to put him in naptime. We spend our morning planning how best to coerce all 3 kids into napping at the same time so that we can catch our breath, reclaim our limited sense of control and accuse one another for the rapid, unplanned happenstance of 3 children in our lives.

At a restaurant the other day, while our children fell quiet for the 20 seconds after food was served, Bryan turned to me, pointed to several reserved, agreeable Italian children seated behind us and asked why our kids were never that well behaved. Now, I have to be careful how I respond to Bryan in these moments of tried patience. A sarcastic response of “we don’t beat them nearly enough” often garners a reflective look that makes me worry for the kids that he’s considering the possibility and a dismissive response like “sure, but do their kids feel comfortable enough in their surroundings to drop trou and go pee whenever the urge strikes?” often garners a reflective look that makes me worry for my well-being. So, weighing my response carefully, I said “We have 3 kids under the age of five who still believe the world revolves around them, one of whom believes that when we raise our voice and tell her “no” hides behind her hands in a game of peek-a-boo because she thinks we’re playing a game of who-can-shout-the-loudest. The truth is I don’t know why other children seem better behaved than ours. I can only speak to our efforts and my children. For all that our three kids test our ability to think clearly and act rationally all day long, they offer small morsels of such heart-melting happiness, it’s a wonder we ever feel like trading them in. On the way home from a rather trying Coral Beach Seafood buffet dinner the other night, an over-tired MacKenzie started to kick and fret in frustration. As though on cue, Noah and Addison started to sing Old MacDonald, a song they knew she loved and one of the only songs they know she can join in on. So, while Bry and I are still simmering over the nights frustrating events, Noah and Addison pause after the first line “Old MacDonald had a farm” so that MacKenzie, in her small. mumbled voice can sing her favorite part, “Ee i ee i oh!” Aside from the fact that it’s unheard of for Addie to relinquish the song-singing floor to anyone, it was as though they were all working on the same wavelength to make one of their own feel better. In those moments, I wonder how it is I ever saw the world as anything less than brilliantly fulfilling and capable of great joy. Listening to our 16-month old sing “Ee i ee i oh!”, Bryan and I found our one stolen moment of peace for the day and prayed we’d see the light of it again tomorrow.

Birthday Season

What kind of obnoxious writer leaves all 4 of her followers hanging by a thread for almost 5 months in anticipatory excitement of the next Mom without Manual blog? I don't know, but someone should fire that slacker. I will say my material's better when Bryan's out of town and unable to save me from embarrassing myself or correctly assuming the need to locate the one child I have managed to misplace. Besides, I prefer delivering the days events, especially the ones he wouldn't approve of, by blog before re-capping it on skype with him later in the day when he's tired. This gives him time to breath deeply and restore his sense of hysteria at my parenting blunders.

It is a miracle our children are making it through childhood. Have I mentioned that before? This shouldn't be a job you plan "on a wing and a prayer", but if the title of this blog was misleading, it should be clear by now that there is no manual for raising children. Let me demonstrate:

Today is Saturday and it is the season of birthdays. If there was a time when your weekends meant late nights drinking and even later morning recoveries, it will end with a preschooler whose social world revolves around play-dates, the making and breaking of best friends and the themed-birthday party. This morning went well by Thomas family standards. The birthday wasn't until 12:30pm, giving us ample time to get ready and therefore arrive no later than 20 minutes late. That's good for me. Just ask Bryan. Now, I have learned there are a few critical things that must be addressed before the day can function properly. Like her Daddy, Addison must be fed before any happiness will be considered for display. Noah will be lost to the crowd and the social whirlwind of the moment until he has need of money for games at which time his sense of smell brings him back to my purse. MacKenzie will push and wiggle to get down so that she can pick up any residual food off the ground and put it in her mouth. All of this has to happen within 3-5 minutes of our arrival anywhere before all hell breaks loose.

As we enter the bowling alley, today's birthday party location, the clock starts ticking and the countdown begins. I immediately scan the nearest tables for food in anticipation of Addie's larger-than-life appetite. So far tables look empty, but before I can panic, Noah has already made his rounds and found his way back to my wallet in search of quarters. As I wrestle to find him change, which is not forthcoming, MacKenzie has spotted a delectable treasure trove of discarded pretzels under the nearest booth and is kicking to be released. Distracted by thoughts of changing $1 bills into quarters for Noah's game addiction, I thoughtlessly put the squirming child down to dig further into my purse. Addie is pulling on my leg and repeating the words "eat, mommy, eat." I can hear the second hand on the clock closing in on 4 minutes and I know my time is coming to an end. Just as I find the one dollar bill I'd tucked into the side pocket of my purse, I hear someone say "Oh, sweetie, you don't want to eat that. It's filthy. Where's your Mommy?" and I catch a sweeping glance of Addie reaching up to the tiered cupcake platter in hopes of scoring something bigger than the chips and salsa I'd have gotten her instead. It is at this moment I realize my window of opportunity has past, my five minutes is up and chaos is at hand. Any thoughts of preventative measures have been replaced by thoughts of damage control. I spring into action grabbing Addie's hand from the cupcake she's touched but hasn't yet mauled, pick Kenz up of the floor with a muddled apology for stealing pretzels that don't belong to her and slap the dollar bill into Noah's hand while steering him in the direction of the change machine.

I would like to say that those birthday performances are limited to one per party, but I did later see the bowling lane attendant carry my two girls off one of the bowling lanes after Addie followed a slow moving ball down one of the lanes towards the pins and Kenz toddled after her clapping her approval the whole way. Where was I, you might ask? I was eating my children's left-over pizza, counting to five and hoping the bowling attendant found some other parent to chastise for letting their children loose in a place with heavy balls and slippery floors.

How long is Birthday season?