Sensitivity Traininng Not Required.

He used to be so tough! He would fall flat on his face, get up, and keep running. Some punk toddler would shove him and he’d frown then walk away.

Now…he cries.

A lot.

He’s 6 and SOO sensitive I don’t know what to do.  Somebody looks at him funny and he gets his feelings hurt. I get upset when he asks for the 45th time if he can ride his bike…and he cries because I’m upset. He gets a paper cut and doesn’t cry about until I don’t notice that he has an infinitesimally tiny cut on his finger. He and his best friend become sworn enemies every other day, for about 3 hours. I swear they act like teenage girls!

At a loss on this  one…

When I was little I was not a crier – I was a screamer. Oh, I was SUCH a brat, lol…I harassed the shit out of my older brothers. But to be honest they were pretty mean in return.

I remember the biggest trouble I got in  at 6 years old: my brothers bikes had been stolen, so one day my brother Ryan took off on my bike, pink streamers flying from the handlebars. I was so upset I stood in the middle of the street and screamed after him the worst thing I could think of. “YOU…..ASSHOLE!” and then I ran into the woods and hid because I thought the neighbors might tell on me saying bad words.

Turns out, I screamed so loud that my dad heard me from inside the house. Oops!

I Need a Pic-a-nic Basket…

Alternative Activities

Number one sign your child is playing
too many online games at
Mickey Mouse Clubhouse:

While fighting outside with his invisible
pirate friends, he yells out to them:

“C’mon guys!  Use your mouse and
arrow keys to help out!”

The poet speaks…

Nicholas just informed me he wants to “go outside to feel the wind blowing in my soul.”

What he really means is that he wants to go play swords, tear his pants, roll in the mud, dig a tunnel to the middle of the earth, and ride his bike until his legs fall off. Whichever happens first.

“Don’t be so open-minded. Your brains may fall out, and the hamster will escape!”

I love when people tell me they’re open-minded, and prove themselves wrong without realizing it. Maybe they want to debate politics or religion, but as soon as I present another opinion than their own (which I love to do), they take the defensive and it can get ugly. 

Why do this? 

You just can’t expect to enlighten me by ramming your philosophy down my throat with a sharp stick!

…I prefer to be enlightened with silly pictures and snarky platitudes, anyway.

Ambitions.

6:30 AM, Saturday morning.

“Mom, we need to learn how to be a star!”

“Why? Do you want to be a star?”

“I AM a star, I’m fabulous! I mean famous. Or both…What happens when you’re both?”

“You get your own TV show.”

“Okay then, I wanna be Johnny Quest! His turn is over.”

Parental logic at its best…

“Mommy, how do people get on TV?”

“Well, they’re actors, and  they try out for parts on show or movies…”

“NO, I mean HOW do they show them IN the TV?? Like get it to play on our TV, when they’re far away?”

“Umm, well I’m pretty sure they shoot the shows with a laser gun and then blast it our TV.”

“….Like on Willy Wonka?”

“Yes, exactly.”

Coffee = love

This is how I felt this morning.

Actually, most mornings I feel this way. I’ve always been a night owl, but between having a small child and a regular workday, I rely more and more heavily on the strength of the  coffee bean to get me going.

I didn’t always like coffee very much, but I find myself making a pot almost every morning now.  I’m addicted more to the hazelnut creamer now than the actual coffee itself.  It doesn’t really seem to ‘get me going’ like I hope it will; some days, I wish it would kick my butt into gear, shoot steam out of my ears, and send me on my merry way.

Instead, I slump around for an hour after I wake up, trying to get breakfast and get dressed, etc etc…feel guilty for having to wake the slumbering bumber-boy who is even grumpier than I am in the mornings!

I’ve tried Red Bull, too. It sure as heck doesn’t give me wings, but it does taste like liquid Sweet Tarts, yum! Maybe I just drink too much soda for it to have an effect on me anymore. I suppose I’ve built up a tolerance to my favorite drug just like any good addict should.

My favorite solution for not being able to get up in the morning?

Go back to sleep.

Oh, how I dream about lazy sleeping-in days… If I could get more than six hours of sleep a night that would be…well, I don’t even know the word.

Gone are the days of staying up until 4am for no good reason, waking up around noon and having lunch.  Okay, more like one o’clock. Fine, two. No need for coffee!

If I tried that now I’d…well, actually I don’t know, because any sleep past 7:30 a.m. is interrupted by either:

a) a small person poking at my eyelids

b) a small person whispering, “It was an accident!”

c) a cat yowling outside the door demanding breakfast

d)  small person jumping on my belly

e) all of the above!

The only solution I can think of is to try going to bed before 1 a.m.

Yeah, I’ll do that…Right after I stop wasting time online (hello Facebook!).

The day he became a man…

My son just yelled from the bathroom, “Mommy I wish there was a potty in the living room!”

“Why is that?”

“So I can watch TV while I go!” he responded happily. “Wouldn’t that be AWESOME?”

Yeesh.

No Means No!

Fourth of July – officially another holiday to spend money on. Sigh…

I could do what most people were doing: load down my car with lots of towels, blankets, drinks, food, sparklers, chairs, sunscreen, bug spray, bottles of water, extra clothes, camera, batteries for the camera, change for tolls, cash for snacks, etc etc.

Instead, I opted to take advantage of my son’s 4-year old viewpoint of the world, wherein he doesn’t yet know what he’s missing out on. So goes the life of the single mom on a budget!

Anyway, this meant one short trip to the grocery store where we got some popcorn, drinks, and he got to help me pick out fireworks.  Of course, being 4, he already has expensive tastes.

“OOH! We need THIS ONE!” (pointing to the huge rockets that are 30 bucks)

“No.”

“HEY! Look at THIS!!!” (huge variety pack of huge rockets, conveniently priced at fifty bucks)

“No.”

“But we NEED it…!”

“No.”

At this point I’m just saying no out of habit. Sometimes I catch myself doing that without even thinking. The problem is, if after I say “no”, I waffle even a little, he jumps on it and becomes unbearably whiny, going for the chinks in my Mommy-armor.  That’s why sometimes I’ll say no to things not really paying attention, just reflex. This time, however, there’s a good reason; fifty dollars worth.

Anyway, to distract his attention from the the HUGE rockets, I showed him the GREAT, REALLY COOL multi-packs available. With a little bit of enthusiastic prodding, he was able to see that ten (tiny) glitter fountains are WAY cooler than the rockets.

Why? 

Because there are MORE of them. And MORE is BETTER!

I love kid logic, especially when it works to my wallet’s advantage. =)

So, once we got home he was desperate to shoot them all off now. Now! NOW!

I explained that we have to wait until it’s dark outside. He looked at me like I had just sprouted five heads and a purple tail.

Every five minutes: “Is it dark enough yet?”

“No.”

“Is it dark enough yet?”

“No.”

“NOW is it dark enough?”

“Yes.”

“REALLY?”

“No.”

I’m so mean, lol.

I finally gave in and we went out and played with sparklers for awhile. I’m disappointed by sparklers these days – I remember them lasting a lot longer. I absolutely loved sparklers as a kid, but the ones they make now are so cheap and spark for about a minute and a half (listen to me, old lady, wheezing, “…back in MY day…”).  But we made the best of it.

 

 

 

 

 

Once it FINALLY got dark, Nick started streaking through the house, shrieking, “It’s dark now! Firework time! Mommy, COME ON! It’s FIREWORK time!!”

So we set off all of out cool fireworks….which took all of ten minutes…but luckily my helpful neighbors had apparently re-mortgaged their house to enjoy their own great fireworks, so they more than made up for the low-end models I had picked out.

Nick and I were cheering the fireworks, and…swear to god…he started doing the Arsenio Hall ‘woot woot woot’. I laughed so hard, and finally was able to ask where he learned to do that.

He shrugged, “I don’t know. I guess I just picked it up somewhere.”