Driven to the edge....by underaged drivers.

I am currently sitting in time-out in my bedroom.  I had to do a self-imposed timeout before I blew my top with the kids.  Sometimes I get to the point where I just want to hyperventilate and cry all at the same time and scream dramatically like in the movies, "What have I done?  I can't live 18-20 more years like this!"  There are just things that happen that make me feel like I'm either a). going to ruin their lives because I yelled at them too much. or b) I feel like I'm wasting my life taking care of them when the writing is on the wall: they will end up in prison.  Okay, so I exaggerate a tad. 

 But when I look into their eyes sometimes, I just see so much defiance that it rattles me to the core.  At this point in his life, Preston has decided it is his life goal to question every single decision I make.  I am just constantly talking in circles and I HATE that.  I want him to just take what I say, accept it and obey.  Is it really that hard?  I didn't used to think so but now I'm not so sure.  I feel like everywhere I go, I see this epidemic playing itself out.  We went to the Children's museum yesterday and surprisingly, it wasn't the 2 year olds that were throwing the most fits.  It was the kids Preston's age, 5-6 year olds.  What are we doing wrong as a society that kids who should know better don't?  What am I doing wrong?  I guess it's a question that I will just have to chew on for a while.


Lest I let the little guys off the hook for driving me to the edge........please tell me why when we are at a store, that is the time to show off how rotten you can be?  Today Owen threw a glass jar of baby food out of the cart at Meijer and it shattered all over the floor.  If you are a proud person, a 2 year old has a way of humbling you to your knees as you have to tell the less-than-pleased worker at Meijer that you're sorry your kid thought that the baby food was a basketball.  Now I'm going to go ahead and chalk this one up to experimentation but when you have a 5 year old begging you for every thing in the store that he sees, it gets a little bit hard to differentiate.

Lastly, I am driven to the edge by my kid's doctors.  Taking the kids to the doctors is right above getting teeth pulled for me.  I feel like every time I go in there, I have to parade my child in front of them to make sure that they fit in the "perfect" child mold.  And for a people-pleaser like me, when they don't fit the mold, I take it as a personal failure.  Like getting a bad job review.  I now have developed a syndrome around the kid's doctors called "cant control the lies coming from my mouth-itis."  I seriously can't stop myself from telling them exactly what they want to hear.  I just can't handle the grief they give when I...er the kids don't measure up.  I have cried too many times in doctor's appts. that I'm done.  I don't know how to cure myself of this disease but I have a feeling it could be cured by finding a doctor who I can relate to.  To be fair, my doctors are all very nice, they just aren't the right fit for me I guess.

One thing I do propose is a different line of questioning being asked by pediatricians depending on the number of kids you have.  A doctor's questions to a first time mom would go like this, "Did you snuggle with your baby for at least 6 hours today?  Great.  Try and go for 7 hours this coming month.  Do you read at least 7 books per hour to your little munchkin?  Excellent.  Do you feed your baby every time he whimpers?  Great.  Way to go first time mom!!  And now I envision my checkup going a little bit different.  Doctor: "Do you remember your babies name?  Great.  Did you remember to feed him yesterday?  No? Oh that's okay, you'll do better today.  Has the baby played patty-cake with you in the last 6 months?  Great.  Does he say ma-ma or da-da?  Oh you can't hear him speaking over the chaos in your home?....that is to be expected.  You are a doing just fine for a mother with 3 boys."  Ahhhhh.....if only!


So there you have it, the trifecta that has driven me to the edge.  Funny thing is, I feel better just getting my thoughts out there.  Doesn't really cure me, but does make me feel a little better.  Thanks for listening.

Out with a Bang

Our precious Owen is going to be celebrating his 3rd birthday this Sunday.  I can't believe it has only been 3 years since he's been alive!  It's seemed like a lifetime.  Part of the reason it has seemed like a lifetime is because he is my naughtiest child to date!  He just has such a mischievous spirit!  If there is trouble brewing, he is usually in the center of it.  You would think we would be having a hard time dealing with him, but he has actually stolen our hearts.  When he's not being naughty, he is usually hugging or loving on one of us.  He has found a way to be a naughty kid who is very hard to punish because he is so cute about it!  He has this toothy grin that he gives when he's just done something he knows he will get busted for.  It is sooooo hard for me to not laugh when he does this.

 That brings us to yesterday.  The weather was pretty nice out so we decided to go swing on the swingset.  After we were done, we all came in and Preston and I took our shoes off at the door.  Well, Owen took off without taking his shoes off and this is what he left in his trail:

Now, at any other time in my life, I would be okay with cleaning this up, but when you're trying to sell your house and people look at your house with a magnifying glass, this is enough to give you a heart attack!  I couldn't use my trusty water trick or I'd end up having a nice carpet full of mud.  I just sat there thinking how I was going to clean it up. I just couldn't think of a way that wouldn't make it worse.  The thing that I do when things seem overwhelming is I just leave the scene for awhile so I can think clearly.

So, I went into the kitchen and started doing the dishwasher.  All of the sudden, I felt a drop of water on my head.  Then another and another.  I looked up above me at our kitchen light which is shaped kind of like a bowl.  The light was on and I saw that the "bowl light" was full of water!  WHAT!?  Where is this water coming from?  So, I call Wes and said "Mayday, mayday, the ceiling is leaking!"  So, being the level-headed fellow he is, he told me I needed to find the source of the water leak.  "I hope I can" I said.  Well, let's just say it wasn't that difficult to locate.  I went upstairs to my master bath and found that SOMEONE had unrolled a whole roll of toilet paper into the toilet and then continuously flushed the toilet and had flooded the bathroom.

What you can't tell from the picture was that there was about a half an inch of standing water in the whole bathroom.  All the bathroom rugs were soaked.  I called Owen up and I said "DID YOU DO THIS??"  Yes, I probably was yelling at this point.  "Yes."  He said meekly.  Well, needless to say he got a spanking for this one.  Cuteness can only get you so far in life.

 So, after being faced with a flooded bathroom leaking through into the first floor, the muddy footprints didn't seem so bad.  I'm not sure if that was Owen's plan, but it worked.  I was able to vacuum up most of the dirt since by the time I got back there, it was dry.  After the day was over, I had to chalk up all this naughtiness to Owen making a big exit out of the "terrible twos" and into the threes.  I'm not sure what they have nicknamed the threes yet, and at this point I don't think I want to know.  Sometimes ignorance is bliss.

Happy Birthday to my beautiful, lovable Owen!

 (And no, those are not bruises on his face, they are marker.  Why would any smart parent leave their three year old alone with a marker?  Wes keeps asking me the same question... I guess the answer is I'm not that smart!)