Welp, that was fast

As I mentioned recently, both James and I have both recently started new jobs. One of us has already quit.

Fortunately, the quitter was the one who was only going to make about $30 a week, so you don't have to worry too much about our financial outlook. I'm actually seriously considering starting to do mystery shops again. Not the ones that say "no children," which I did when D was little because D was zero distraction. Just the other ones.

Anyway, why? Why couldn't I do childcare for two-three freaking hours a week?

This wasn't a matter of my not liking other people's kids, because although that's often true, these kids were great. There were two other things. The first thing was on me, and I was prepared to suck it up if Mal loved it and kept wanting to go. But he spent the last half of the time last week begging to come home (they didn't meet today, which is the 5th Wednesday of the month), and then when I've asked him if he's looking forward to going back to the "new" church and playing with kids, he's said either, "No thanks" or "I don't want to go back."

I think the reason is that there were just TONS of kids, and Mal isn't used to the cacophony.
So that did it. I told them today I couldn't commit to it. D was (and REALLY is, but even when little) the same way. The main problem D had with the Disney cruise was how busy and loud and high-energy all of the kids' stuff was. On Royal Caribbean, they were so laid back that D wanted to spend time every day in there. Apparently Mal is the same way. It's just a lot of kids. Lots and lots of noise.

And then here is the part where it intersects with what bothered me.

They are just starting up for the semester, and are trying to get more organized, by repeating the Sunday school lesson from the previous week. I think they expect the kids to wait way too long for them to get their stuff together.

Last week, they had all of the 4+-year-olds line up at the wall to get ready to go across the campus to a portable. But they didn't really know exactly what they were doing yet, so they kept the kids standing there for a good 5 minutes before I finally just said, "Okay, let's go!" and took them over before they started wandering off, as they were clearly wanting to do.

Then they have a Bible story program that is, frankly, very boring (it's not Moppets, with which I have no experience; I just know it's whatever they're doing on the weekends). And long. And a few of the kids had no problem sitting for it, but a couple wanted to wander. The lady telling the story kept calling them out, but they weren't distracting anyone (else). They were just getting up. And they're 4 or 5. I would have let them quietly do their own thing.

Later, the lady who was "training" us told us that "any discipline needs to be handled positively; we want the kids to have a good time and want to come back." I appreciate that attitude, but what she considered as needing discipline directed at kids, I considered adults needing to get it together and be more organized and concise.

So, with all of that, we out.

Oh, plus I would start having anxiety about getting Mal up in time about 7 PM the night before. When I did BSF with D, we could go to breakfast before class started at 9. That child was always up and at 'em by 7. Mal is just starting to get moving around 9 AM, so trying to get somewhere by 8:30 was a challenge I don't mind passing up.

I had this same issue when D was little, too: After you don't have anyone to answer to for your time, it's difficult to submit to that again.

If you need us, this is where Mal and I will be.

And, in case you're wondering, James's first three days have gone well. They've fed him two of the days, and that's the most important thing.

Things People Say: "Don't Pick Your Nose"

Warning: This post might prove too much to the squeamish. Feel free to move on if that's you.

For the first time that I know of, today when I wasn't around, someone told Mal not to pick his nose.

I do not understand why adults tell kids not to pick their noses.

No, really. Hear me out...

Why *do* adults tell children not to pick their noses? My guess is because it's kind of gross. You know what else is gross? Poop. In fact, I'll go out on a limb to say that feces is even more offensive than the non-Newtonian gel that people have in their nasal passages.

However, we seem to have more patience with developmental stages when it comes to poop than when it comes to boogers.

When a kid is small, they poop indiscriminately wherever they are. No one tells a kid, or any human, really, "Don't poop! It's disgusting!" So we understand that this is a natural, biological activity, and rather than try foolishly to stop it, we help our kids learn the appropriate manner of dealing with their bowel movements.

Why can't we be bothered to do this with nose-picking?

My child, at 3, does not understand the physics of nose-blowing. Until recently, if you gave him a tissue and asked him to blow, he'd hold the tissue up to his nose and make a protracted "ffff" sound with his mouth. Now, he gets that it's pushing air out his nose, but he doesn't have the force or even understand the intention, no matter how I might explain it to him. He'll get there. It's a process.

So if someone sees a kid picking their nose, and it offends the adult's sensibilities: First, if it's not your kid or a kid for whom you are responsible, I'd say just look away and think about something else. If it's a child in your charge, you can do a couple of useful things: 1) Offer a tissue for wiping rather than risk the extricated object ending up in some random place to be discovered later. 2) Provide a wet wipe or take the kid to wash his hands when he's done.

It makes no sense to insist someone stop something that is natural and that relieves discomfort; instead, let's help teach them a more discreet and hygienic way of handling the situation. Also, regardless of how old we are, there are times when stuff is just jammed up there and has to be managed digitally rather than with the force of expelled air. So telling a kid not to pick their nose is incredibly hypocritical.

I don't want people to be ashamed of any of their bodily functions. We've been so for many years, and it's ridiculous. People fart. Women bleed. And sometimes, we need to get some crud out of our noses so we can breathe better.

Be helpful, not unreasonably demanding, 'kay?

Ch-ch-ch-changes

This is going to come as a shock to you, but I recently made a big switch-up in my life: I learned that eMeals now has a Paula Deen menu and switched from 30-Minute meals to that for a while. I know, I know: How are we going to make that work with James's gout? I'm not sure we can! So maybe I'll just save a few weeks' worth of menus while using these vegetarian meal plans I found and that we are using this week. Note that if you choose to do it, you can start at the bottom, like I did, so it will be seasonally appropriate. Also that there is a shopping list at the end of the menu; I realized that after I'd hand-written my shopping list like a Neanderthal.

Okay, so that's not the only thing. Though I'm a little offended by your lack of enthusiasm.

Also, the Lakeline Disney Store closed Monday, so I'm not sure what we're going to do when Mal wants to spend hours browsing toys now (and, yes, I realize that's probably why they closed). I wish this area had a cool local toy store, but I haven't found any closer than a 30-minute drive.

Waiting for the store to open the last day; watching the animated window for the last time.

A serendipitous thing happened this weekend, too: a woman in a local homeschool group posted that their church needed childcare help for MOPS. They're too far away, but I thought that'd be perfect for Mal and me: a place to go with new toys, friends to play with, and I would actually pull in a couple of bucks in the meantime. I found the closest church with a MOPS program and it turns out that they actually have something at the same time every week (instead of every other week) and they were pretty desperate for people, so we started this week!

Where James used to work, the employees could purchase company stock at a slightly-discounted price. They'd withhold from each check, saving it up for 6 months, then buy the stock. Even if we sold it immediately (we didn't), we'd have been ahead because of the discount. Two things: That has saved our family butt, as it were, during this season of unemployment. But also... James didn't receive the money that had been collected from the couple of months before he stopped working for this company, so we were waiting for the stocks to show up at the end of the year. They didn't. James ended up having to contact them, and they're cutting him a check. This seems shady to me. They're legally obligated to return all monies owed to employees in 48 hours, and no one should have to follow up to make sure they got ALL of it. Oh well. It'll be nice to have a little cash infusion in a couple of weeks.

James has received a job offer, and should start work toward the end of the month. So yay! Mal will be terribly disappointed that his dad isn't here during the day, though. Maybe the weather will warm up so they can have a special day together. I say this because I think it'd be cool for them to spend a lot of time bonding, not because I want a day to myself. No. That's not it at all.

Speaking of that, though... The night before last, I'm pretty sure Mal slept through until 6 AM before asking for "deedees." And last night, he sat straight up in bed, crying and whining, and let me lie him back down and cover him up without nursing. Baby steps, I guess.

Mal has been watching portions of Star Wars for months now. He usually only watches certain parts of certain movies, so I have those parts memorized, then really don't remember much about the rest. For instance, his favorite scene in "A New Hope" is where the Sand Person (Tusken Raider) attacks Luke. He'll literally back that up and watch it 15 times in a row. But he'll watch that movie until just after the scene at the Cantina, then he's about done. I think he's only seen the Death Star blow up once, because we made it a point to fast forward it to that little chunk for him to watch.

With "Empire Strikes Back," he'll watch more of it, but his favorite is Hoth. He's watched the Hoth segments of the movie repeatedly, mostly when Luke escapes the Wampa and when they take down the AT-ATs. When we play these scenes out, he gets frustrated that we don't know the exact words. He also thinks "Seagulls" is canon, because, you know, he's 3.

For "Return of the Jedi," he watches until the gang escapes Jabba the Hutt, then he's sort of done. He likes where Wicket meets Leia, and because he has an Endor Micro Machines set, really wants to see the logs take down the AT-STs. That's about it.

And he's watched the opening scene of "Phantom Menace" several times, losing interest after the arrival at Thede. Then he has kind of played around with the other two prequels, but he doesn't know anyone but Amadala and Jar Jar, so he doesn't really care.

Actually, Mal wants to play AT-AT take-down right now, so I must go rope him until he falls. Isn't being a mother fun?

Sleep Records

Hey! It's our first blog of the new year. Happy 2018, internets!

Today, we're going to take a brief look at Mal's sleeping habits, which I chronicled this week just for (morbid) curiosity's sake.

Carol, spending a rare moment with Mal, whom she typically avoids with a passion.

TUESDAY, 1/2/18: Sleep time 9:30 PM. 11 wakings; 2 he fell back to sleep on his own and 9 required my intervention.
WEDNESDAY, 1/3/18: 10:00 PM. 9 wakings, all of which required my input. 4 and 6 took a LONG time, both sides, etc.
THURSDAY, 1/4/18: 8:30 PM. 6ish; 3 and 6 involved mid-nursing dozing and were pretty drawn out.
FRIDAY, 1/5/18: 7:15 PM, in the car. 10 wake-ups, plus one as we were coming in from the car. 1st wake-up of the night in bed, he fell back to sleep on his own.
SATURDAY, 1/6/18: 9:45 PM. 6 wakings; 1 he fell asleep on his own.
SUNDAY, 1/7/18: 9:00 PM. 6ish times.
MONDAY, 1/8/18: 8:40 PM. 7ish times.

The reason I say "ish" is because of two things: 1) Sometimes he'll wake up, nurse, doze off, and within a few moments awake again asking for more "deedees" before I've fallen back to sleep. I don't know whether to count that as 2 wake-ups or 1. 2) If it's starting to get light out, and it's late enough that if he didn't go back to sleep, we could get up, anyway, I usually just stop counting. I consider it more of his "wake-up" routine than his over night routine.

So, basically, I was awakened about 55 times during the past week. Make you feel better about your life?

On the up side, Mal is sometimes extremely funny when he wakes up (or sleep talks, or whatever he's doing). Here are some things he's said in the middle of the night:

"Mommy, oh good. We're safe now."
"Mommy, where are you?" "Right here." "No, Daddy, I want Mommy."
"I saw Chewbacca, but he said, 'I am Mal,' not 'I am Chewbacca.'"
"Were you swimming at Walmart just now?"
"Mommy, deedees." "No, we are going to wait a while." "Mommmy, deedees!" "Mal, we're going to wait just a few minutes." "Mommy! Soda! NOW!" (We had some and I let him have it! He drank like he was hiking in the desert, too.)

Also, he's started basically yelling when he wakes up and needs my attention. I have to remind him that I'm right there and there's no need to speak as though we're across a busy basketball arena from one another.

James asked if I felt better worse now that I've done this, because if I hadn't, I would have said he averages 4-6 wake-ups a night, and it's obviously higher than that. I told him neither, but I'm glad to have a baseline and will journal it again in six months to see if there's any improvement.

The other day, I was on the phone with my friend, Adrienne, and trying to say the word "reciprocity." I could not land on it, but she knew what I meant and pronounced it for me... and it still took me three tries to say it correctly! It is times like these when I feel like I'm having a mini-stroke and just have to remind myself of the reality of this sleep chronicle. I'm sure I'll regain my vocabulary and sense at some point in the future. Right?

Why You Crying? (Apologies to George Lopez)

Ever since the day he was born, Mal has just cried a lot. It was particularly disconcerting when he was an infant, and I couldn't tell whether he was hungry or uncomfortable or sick or who knows what.

Now that he's verbal (hyper verbal?) it's easier to navigate, but he still cries an awful lot. I remember D  being a phlegmatic (if opinionated) little one; Mal is not. He has to feel everything deeply, especially sadness. When he's crying, if I attempt to wipe a runny nose, he'll yell at me, "Don't wipe it! I want to cry!" In the past, he thought that *was* his crying, and when I wiped it, it meant I'd wiped his cry away.

I try to help him navigate these things, alternately sympathizing and asking him if he can cry in a less house-shaking wail-y manner, but it's something we encounter multiple times daily.

Here is a random example of some things that have brought Mal to extraordinarily loud tears recently:

1) That he ate his entire quarter of our Christmas cheesecake and had to save the rest for the rest of the family. He literally sobbed, "I don't want to save any for D and Daddy! I want to eat theirs and they'll be sad!"

2) In the middle of the night, when he awoke asking if we had a Maz Kanata doll and I reminded him that we don't.

3) That I wouldn't take him to Toys R Us the day after Christmas.

4) When we told him that the "stabilizers" (training wheels) on his bike won't lie flat on the ground, he countered with "Ryder's do!" and we bandied back the fact that Ryder is a cartoon and we're not and you can do a lot in a cartoon. "I want to be a cartoon, too!"

5) Because "Empire Strikes Back" isn't playing in a theater.

6) We're out of Lucky Charms. (But any time we're out of anything, really. He'll ask if we have it, I'll say we don't, he'll insist, "But we DO!" then the rending of clothes and the pulling of hair when he finds that I am correct.)

7) I'm not pulling a play set with tiny parts out at 10:45 PM.

8) The knowledge that I intend to take the exterior lights down from the house, even though I have made no move to do it yet.

9) After he calms down about any of the above items, or anything else, and then remembers it again 15 minutes later. He might have episodes about the same issues half a dozen times in one or two days.

Mal is such a sweetie, but as in so many other aspects of his life, he really only has two speeds: Bouncy happy or overwhelming grief. I guess it's good for all of us that I discovered and bought into gentle parenting before I had him. I've certainly lost my temper and yelled at him (for instance, when he needed help getting to the toilet because he was about to pee himself and wouldn't let James, who was right there, help, but kept hollering for me) to stop throwing a fit a few times. But for the most part, James and I try our best and generally do what I feel is an admirable job keeping a level head and trying to empathize with his big feelings, even when we can't make heads or tails of them.

But Mal makes us laugh literally every day, and is such a blessing to have around. An exhausting blessing. On a related note, we found this picture from two years ago yesterday when we were looking at Google Photos last night:

Parenting this kid is treating James like the Presidency treats others: He has greyed SO MUCH since then! As for me, I think my gift is the dark circles under my eyes. But I can't imagine what we'd be doing if we didn't have Mal. He's teaching us so much about ourselves, plus any time you get to see the world "newly" through a maturing kid's eyes, it's complete magic and wonder. Parenting is quite the paradox, isn't it?

Decoding and Interstellar Visitors

When we were sitting in the car waiting for D to emerge from Dr. Who: Twice Upon a Time, Mal seemed to be zoning out, talking to himself. Then I realized what he was doing: "C... I... N... E... M... A... R... K."

He has been obsessed lately with "starts with." He'll get it wrong as often as he gets it right, but this morning when he was talking to James, he did something he's never done before: He spelled his name. They were talking about words that start with "m" and James said, "Your name starts with 'm.'" "M-A-L."

Along with this interest in spelling, he's just recognizing tons of corporate logos. Gosh, we're so... proud? Anyway, we can't sneak anywhere because he knows more than "French fry," which is how he used to refer to McDonald's AND Sonic. Also, we might eat fast food too much.

Guess what else? Mal has a new friend, and that guy is a bad influence.

It started the other day, when Mal wanted more Oreos but had eaten a whole row of them already. I told him that we needed to save some for the rest of the family. Mal went into our bedroom, came back, and said, "He told me I could have more Oreos." I asked, "Who? Your dad?" James had been with me in the kitchen the whole time. Mal said, "No. Him. Audie-ah-Poddy." "Well, tell him he's wrong. You cannot have any more."

Then yesterday, after I explained for the bazillionth time that he can't have more than two vitamins, Mal said, "He said yes." "I said no. Sorry. It can be dangerous to take too many vitamins." "Audie-ah-Poddy said yes. He's an alien." Oookay.

Finally, tonight the alien told him he could take his new Tonka micro fire station into Chick-fil-A after I'd said it was a bad idea because there were so many small parts. What a jerk that guy is.

Last night, in the bathtub, Mal was asking about aliens. He asked whether they were human, and I told him it depended. We talked about extraterrestrials and about anyone in a foreign place. He mused over it for a moment and said thoughtfully, "I love human aliens. They're so interesting to me." But I think he meant ETs, because then he said he wanted to go to Roswell (which he only knows from a 30-second video my parents took of some space creatures getting ready to beam off the planet). I had to promise him we'd go some time, but it probably won't be until he's 10 or so. Fortunately, he's still a bit gun-shy, so he's fine with waiting.

At the end of his bath, which is turning into a semi-eternal affair every dang day, Mal let the water out while he was still in the tub. He wanted to see the "tornado," then still just sat there after the water was gone. I asked him if he wanted to get out, because it was pretty chilly, but he said no. A couple of minutes later, he hollered out, "Oh no! I don't have balls anymore!" James assured him they'd reappear when he warmed up.

I think of a million things I want to write down during the day, but it's 12:20 AM and I think I'm done for now. I need to start jotting stuff down so I can remember it once I finally get to sit down for a hot minute, which feels less and less likely lately. Good night, friends!

General Weirdness and Vice Admiral Serendipity

Today, Mal asked to go to Little Land, and I love it when we're in a position to be able to drop everything (in this case mostly because we weren't doing anything) and I can just say, "Yes! Let's go now!"

James had taken Mal last time, so I had to make sure we had Mal's socks and the 5-visit play ticket. Found the latter easily, but had to dump the contents of my massive purse out before I could locate the former. I handed Mal his socks, I did a quick sweep for my phone, realized I had no idea where it was and didn't feel like spending more time looking for it, and we braved the drizzle out to the car... only for me to realize that I hadn't grabbed my keys. A dart back in, and we were off.

Once we got to the gym, it was properly pouring. Cars in the far lanes were shooting up huge walls of water as it accumulated in deep puddles along the side of the street, and I was concerned that if it kept raining, we'd have to stay in that shopping center all day because the water was about as high as I'm comfortable driving over at the entrance.

When we got out at the building, there was water standing in the "greenbelt" between the parking lot and the building. It's a weird set-up because they have maybe 2 stone blocks you can walk across, so our choice was to find where those were or to try to slip quickly in near where we'd parked. I realized Mal wouldn't be able to make it across so picked him up... then stepped right into about ankle-deep water. Fortunately, I was wearing Crocs. Also fortunately, I had a back-up pair of socks (no, I wasn't wearing clogs; they're dressier shoes).

We stepped in out of the rain and got checked in. I looked all around and couldn't find Mal's socks. Then I remembered that I'd handed them to him in the house, so they were probably somewhere he'd set them. So we paid $2 for a pair of socks there, and they're just plain socks, as opposed to the ones we usually use from Altitude Jump Park, which have the grabby little nubs on the bottom. I turned our shoes over to dry and picked up everything to step into the play area. As I did so, my can of Diet Coke fell, hitting the ground and rolling about 10 feet. Memo not to open that for a while.

Mal played for about an hour, and I wasn't feeling 100%, so when he wanted to swing, a move which I know includes his kicking me for amusement, I was less than enthusiastic. At about the same time, the lady who teaches the sensory art class came over and said, "We're about to shoot a video for my art class; would your little boy want to do it?"

We've never gone to the class because it costs extra, beyond the free play (which is significantly more expensive than My Gym was), and Mal just isn't in a place to get the full benefit of anything that structured. But for free? We're in!

Oh, also... Mal was wearing pajamas. He was actually giddy about doing that, because they were the red and white striped Hanna Andersson PJs, and he knew the white would pop in the black-light room. Also, I felt like death warmed over, but had managed to put on lipstick and eye liner on the way over, so in case I ended up in the video, at least there was that.

I was happily surprised that Mal sat on the colored circle as Ms. Chelsea asked. She explained what they were going to do, then set them loose after they'd put on smocks. Everything was winter-themed, so there was a paper mitten where the kids could glue on tissue paper squares. Mal wasn't interested in that at all.

There was one station where she had wreaths cut out of paper plates, and the kids could glue on green bow-tie pasta pieces and red popcorn kernels. Mal completed two of those holly leaf and berry combos before he decided he'd had enough of it.

He is with crafts as I am with home improvement stuff. I start enthusiastic, then say, "Mehh. Boring. Good enough." when I'm about half way through.

This next one surprised me, though.

It was a set up to paint a picture of an igloo with ice cube paints. Mal was freaked out. He didn't like that it was so cold (per his usual desire to have everything exactly room temperature), but also was horrified by the fact that the paint was getting on his fingers. In the picture above, I'd tried to get him to use a strip of paper towel as a wrapper, but he still wasn't ever on board for this one. He wanted to be, but couldn't get past the cold and messiness.

Mal did enjoy drawing on the chalkboard with Ms. Chelsea. 

Her: What are you drawing?

Mal: Lightning.

Her: Oh, good! It was raining pretty hard out there, wasn't it? I'll draw some clouds. Can you draw a cloud? Here's my rain.

Mal: No. Lightning McQueen.

Her: Oh! The race car! Okay. Can you draw a road for him? Where is his road? I see. Is that the road?

Mal: No. That's a lightsaber.

Her: From Star Wars?

Mal: Yeah!

This went on for a few minutes, then Mal announced proudly, "Now I drew Finn."

Her: From Star Wars?

Mal: No. From Cars 2!

Her: I'm just getting my movies messed up today.

Me: In your defense, there are Finns in both movies.

Mal: There are 2 Finns!

By far, though, Mal's favorite thing was the "cloud dough." He kept going back to that after he'd try each new, different thing.

She had made it with some red glitter and peppermint oil, so it was super sparkly and smelled good. In the end, the filming had clearly wrapped up and I had to move Mal on or he would have stayed in there all afternoon.

We left soon after that, and not only had it stopped raining, but the water had gone elsewhere from the streets and mostly from the grass area. When we got into the car, I realized that Mal had actually brought his socks. They were just up under the dash board in the very front, so I hadn't seen them. Oh well.

As we waited in the drive-through at P. Terry's, I realized that I had several remnants from my lemon poppy seed protein cookie breakfast in my teeth, and hoped I didn't actually end up in any of the promotional video, after all.

Then when we got home, I found my phone in the closet in my skivvies cubby, naturally. 

Mal had a bit of a rough afternoon. I don't know how many times I mentally said "Jesus, take the wheel." But as I was preparing dinner, James went outside with him for almost an hour, and while they did that, I decided to make Mal some cloud dough for use at home.

We were almost out of flour, so I used half whole wheat, and we didn't have any peppermint but I used some lemon extract and some almond extract (Interestingly, the final result smelled like my Aunts Polly and Clyda's house). Oh, and of course glitter.

Mal loved it! And James and I got to eat dinner while he sat at the table, happily playing, for quite some time. It's a lot easier to clean up than the Hawaii sand I've been letting him mess with.

Glitter goes with construction vehicles, right? Also, can you tell from this picture that his cuff is practically brown? I stripped him fairly soon after I took this picture.

Now, wish us luck. I've tried to prepare Mal for the fact that tomorrow is his dad's birthday, and there will be presents to open. But he cried about it today and will likely do so tomorrow, as well, so... Jesus, take the wheel. :)