And so it begins.... A chat about lying and time machines.

Yesterday I was in the playroom with Connor and Siobhan. Connor and I were doing a puzzle, and Siobhan was coloring on the floor in a coloring book with a blue marker. It was such a sweet, nice moment. Connor and I have never done a puzzle together. This one had 750 pieces. That's not frustrating at all to a perfectionist with ADHD. Him, not me.

Well, wait....

Actually, we had a good time. While we did that, my precious three year old was lying on the floor coloring in a big giant Dora coloring book. Such a sweet, sweet moment.

*sigh*

It lasted about five minutes.

I really should have known better. After ten years of parenting, I should really have expected something to change. That's the fun of parenting I guess; little surprises all day long.

I turned my attention away from the puzzle for a moment and turned to look at Siobhan. When I turned I saw this:



and this:

And there's plenty more, but it all involves demonstrating how unclean my rug is. Let's focus on the marker shall we?

I turned to my darling baby and I asked her if she had colored on the rug.

"NO"! She told me, as if it was the most obvious thing in the entire universe. "I don't color on floors!" She said.

Just in case you weren't paying attention, let's review the facts here.
1) Siobhan was coloring in a giant coloring book on the floor.
2) Siobhan was using a blue marker.
3) Siobhan was the only person with a marker.
4) No one else was in the room, except for me and Connor.
5) We were doing a puzzle.

So, as you can see, while I didn't see her color on the rug, it seems reasonable to assume she colored on the rug. (Don't go spouting off about what happens when you "assume". I do that on my own enough already). (I mean make an ass of myself, not spout off about assuming things....)

When I asked her again, she said no way, it was her friend Genevieve. When Genevieve was over at her house to play, she colored on the rug. (Way to throw your friends under the bus there kid; let's hope you don't need to cash in any favors....)

Unless Genevieve has some sort of special time machine, which brought her to my house, allowed her to color on the rug, and then zipped her back to her house in mere moments, well... we'd have different problems.

Actually, if that were the case, I think we'd have pure awesomeness. A three year old with a time machine? My gosh. The things she could be capable of.

I think the first place I'd visit is the afternoon of 2nd grade where I lost that epic spit fight with Eric. Yes, yes I would. I'd load my pockets up with water balloons and I'd take the time machine back to that awful day. I'd pound Eric with water balloons. So. Many. Water balloons. This time, I wouldn't go home with loogie's in my hair, no siree.

That must be it. My darling daughter is obviously not capable of coloring all over the floor and then lying about it. No no no no no. Obviously, we have a time machine and a genius three year old to go find.

Always an adventure

I had a brilliant idea for this weekend. My mom had sent money for the kids' Christmas presents. I figured that since they already own 8,045,072 toys that they probably don't need any more. Instead I thought that we could take the money and use it for a trip away for the weekend. (Brilliant, right? Wait.)

We decided to take them to Santa's Village, in Jefferson New Hampshire. Since it's about 2 1/2 hours away, we also decided we'd stay overnight in a hotel. This one, in fact.

We found that they had a room which had one room with two double beds with a door separating another room with a Queen bed. Awesome, we thought. (how naive) We assumed the kids would sleep on their own side, and we could have our own side.

We originally thought we could leave right after work. However, we never packed, and that takes about 7 hours with this crew. Then we needed to feed everyone dinner, and drop Wyatt off at Respite. We ended up leaving Vermont at about 7:30.

The kids occupied themselves in the car by yelling as loudly as they possibly could, and determining how hard they could hit one another before drawing blood. After about 1 1/2 hours of that, we pulled over and moved car seats around. Connor and Aisling could no longer touch one another. By the time we arrived, they were all asleep.

When we got to the hotel, Connor and Aisling went right to sleep. Siobhan, however, was totally wound up. She stayed in between Al and I bouncing around until about 1:00 in the morning. Al, obviously, was able to sleep right through that, being the dad and all. I, however, had to keep up conversations with her about all sorts of random things. Super.

After a breakfast where we spilled everything in sight, bumped into as many people as we possibly could, and left a trail of crumbs and milk from the dining room to our hotel room, we hit the road.

It was freezing. Freezing. Extremely freezing. We still ended up staying for the entire day. We got there at around 11:30, and left at around 7:00.

That. Was. Stupid.

Although, we surely saw everything, and had a great time for most of it, but the time we left the kids were BEYOND exhausted.

Our time in the park was mostly great. We went on every open ride, made some gifts, decorated cookies, saw some shows, and even picked out gifts from Santa. Aside from one extremely exhausted and cranky baby and some isolated complaints here and there about the cold and being tired, the day was pretty fun.

Until, The End.

As you leave Santa's Village you exit through the store. There are baskets full of presents from Santa. We always have allowed each kid to pick one out. Then you pay for them (oh, did you think they were free? silly you!) and you unwrap them outside. Or, if it's frigid, you unwrap them in your car.

Let me stress here; we've been to Santa's Village at least 4 other times. And also, there's not a ton of variety in the gifts here.

The girls opened theirs, and each of them got a stuffed animal. (Yeah! More things to collect dust....) Connor opened his and he got a deck of cards and a lanyard. Oh no. The Same Deck of Cards from Last Year! Oh No.

Connor exhibited a tantrum unlike any I have ever seen. (I've seen a few in my day). This one rivaled them all. There was yelling, screaming, crying, swearing, and threatening. Also, he was pretty loud too.

Now, obviously, being a trained behaviorist, I responded to his tantrum with calm words and appropriate interactions. I supported his needs and responded to him with respect. I never yelled at him and obviously did not threaten to take away all of his toys for being so ungrateful. In fact, I think all of the parents around were stopping to stare at my phenomenal parenting skills and abilities. Obviously, they could tell I am a behaviorist. Obviously.

Well, once that was done we hit the road and headed home.

I vowed never to take a road trip with them again.

Ever.

Although, I also said that last month after we went to Rhode Island.

Quiet children, never a good thing.

Today, after suffering through an afternoon of bickering and complaining, I banished my older children outside. (I know, terrible). They were playing with the sprinkler and seemed to be having a blast. After a while I looked outside to see that they had taken the hose out of the sprinkler and were chasing each other with it. They then started making a water slide on the swing set. I decided, against my better judgment, that it was probably fine. After all, they were happily playing and I was watching Oprah while folding laundry. (I KNOW, Oprah! When do I ever get to do that?!) Shortly after Al got home, Aisling came in and said Connor had gotten the hose stuck in a hole. I went out prepared to take the hose from a hole in the fence or something similar. Oh no. My lovely son had some how managed to get the hose stuck in at least three inches of mud. As they made a water slide it created a giant mud puddle. They then started digging in this, and the hose got stuck. Neither Al nor I could get it out. It remains stuck. I've never heard of such a thing!

The hole goes up to his elbow.
Hose stuck in the ground.
The carnage of our swingset.

The worst part of this whole thing, besides the fact that the hose is stuck, is that while hunched over and trying to pull it out, I got bitten by a few bugs (three!) I don't know what they were, but they were not nice! However, I did get to watch Oprah. It MAY have been worth it...

I guess it happens to everyone...

I have discussed hair cutting with my children, mainly Aisling, a number of times. Basically I've threatened them with bodily harm explained how bad their hair will look if the cut it themselves.I thought they understood, and I was safe from the horrible "emergency" hair cut. (You obviously know where this is going....)

Connor's hair has gotten quite long. And, while he often gets mistaken for a girl, we all loved it. I thought it was fitting for him and looked very unique. It was almost long enough for him to tuck behind his ears, but not quite. A few times I convinced him to have it tied back in the center of his head...

but he hated that. So, instead he had it hanging down in front of his eyes, like so:
Apparently he got sick of that because he gave himself a haircut. I guess I thought he was too old for that at age 7. Not to worry, we didn't escape that developmental milestone unscathed. He was extremely upset about it afterward, and I think embarrassed. He asked me not to show the pictures to anyone. So, I will honor that request secretly post them on this blog for you anyway; he'll never know.

Here's the self-haircut: (You can tell he'd been crying...) He didn't want his picture taken, but what's a blog-writing, scrapbook-making mama to do? Let him get away with this monumental event not photographed? *snort* I think not! A little personal trauma makes the best scrapbook pages! You can see where he chopped his bangs. While he was doing it, I remember wondering where he was, since he'd been gone (and quiet) for a while. I never learn...

Here's during the haircut:And here's the professional cut:I think it looks really great. I'll need to get some gel for him. He asked for another mowhawk, and that's not exactly what he got. I am glad though, I like this a lot better. I do have to say, I was impressed with how long he kept his hair long. That's not the "typical" style, and I love, love, love that he was confident enough to go with what he wanted, over what the typical expectation is. That takes courage!

Consider yourself warned.

This too could happen to you when you have more children than hands. You could realize that. although you need to drag your still sleeping children out of bed at 7:30 on school days, they pop out of bed at 5:45 on weekends. You could also realize that you are all too happy to sacrifice your values of 'not too much TV' to get 'just a little more sleep' as you allow that box in the corner to babysit your children in the morning. While you are sacrificing your values catching up on sleep, you may also realize that your children have decided to be helpful and make their own breakfast. In so doing, there is now milk and cereal all over the floor, counters, and couches. But still, it was worth the extra ten minutes of sleep. When you wake up, your four year old may ask to paint. Of course you want to encourage this artistic experimentation, so you set her up with paints and brushes. Now you also notice that the paint cabinet is full of (now blue) barbie doll clothing, so you go ahead and clean that up. While you are cleaning, the one year old decides that she too would like to paint. (Thankfully the seven year old is downstairs erasing brain cells in front of the ninja turtles watching educational programming on TV, and doesn't get involved in the painting). As you come back from cleaning up the barbies, you will notice that your one year old is now covered in every color paint there is. So, you take her and bring her to the shower, where your husband is showering. She gleefully joins him in the shower. So, you return back to cleaning up barbie, and overseeing the painting. You notice a few red and blue footprints into the bathroom, so you clean those up (along with the offending feet). After a few hours of painting, she's finally done, and she goes ahead to clean up. You, in the meantime, have gone downstairs to fix more breakfast (and clean the first breakfast up) and left the painting oversight to your husband.

As you go up to put the kids to bed, you notice that the bathroom looks like a art festival crime scene, with paint all over the vanity, doors, walls, and floor. You ask your husband about this and he says, "Yeah, I thought I noticed that earlier". You tell your four year old to clean it up, and notice she's enjoying it. You certainly don't want that, so you tell her to just go to bed. You also tell her she can't paint for two weeks. As she asks you what that means, you wish you had said two years. After you tuck everyone in you get the laundry, which looks like this:
Yes, that is a mountain of socks. In fact, that is a mountain of unmatched socks. This is how I spend evenings now, matching socks.

This, boys and girls, is what can happen when you have more children than hands.
'

That's how I roll....

I took the kids to Dunkin Donuts this morning. I needed coffee in a bad way, and figured I'd buy them a treat, it being the last day of summer vacation and all. When I got back from my walk they were in their pajamas, but I figured we'd just go through the drive through. When we got there they decided they wanted chocolate milk, which I think you can only get from inside. So, they went into the store looking like this:Oh yes, I am THAT mother. As we were in line, I waffled between the yummy route (chocolate munchkins) and the healthy route (an egg white flat bread sandwich). As I was weighing pros and cons, guess who I saw....My Weight Watchers leader. Oh yes, there I am, ordering sugar, carbs, and empty calories for my children, while toying with the idea of doing the same for myself, right in front of my proud skinny leader. Maybe that's how the program is so successful; they just have leaders follow you around to see what you are ordering. needless to say, I went with the flatbread sandwich.

You'll be thrilled to know that they are still in their pajamas, upstairs watching a movie. Hey, if you're gonna do it do it right.

strategies for remembering names.....

Sometimes when you are outnumbered by your children, you might find yourself mixing up their names. You might be trying to talk to Connor, for example, and you might say "AlWyattSmokeyMittens... CONNOR". Or even when you are trying to talk to Aisling, you might say "ConnorWyattMittens... AISLING". It happens all the time. Well, here's an idea. Get yourself a label maker. We got ours off of Amazon.com. It wasn't very expensive. (Well worth it, I think). Put the kids' names in the label maker, and have them wear their names. Really, it works. You can't go wrong.