The True Meaning of Christmas….in art.

 

This year Moe has taken to drawing the nativity a lot. Other than one picture of Santa and his reindeer, all of his artwork has been the nativity. I love it! Sometimes his sheep have great curly cues for hair, Mary is always pink or purple but everyone else seems to change colors. And the angel reminds me of a fly with her little wings.  Its so cute!!!!

But this picture that he drew for his Christmas Card is, by far, the one that made me chuckle the most. He tells the story very well and he always has the 3 Wise Men bringing gifts. But this is the 1st picture that the Wise Men decided to use gift bags.  Gift bags!  Cracks me up. 

Breakfast is served, my lady.

So Curly was totally ready for breakfast. She set her place, fancy folded napkin and all. I guess we should learn how to make swan shaped napkins?  She’s too cute

Curly's Breakfast

I must be doing something right.

I must be doing something right. I found this in Moe’s folder from their talk with the Women’s Resource Center today about being nice and being safe. Guess all those time outs and forcing him to eat *gasp* meat and veggies instead of cookies for dinner didn’t scar him too much

My Boys ARE NOT LISTENING…

….. and I’m glad.

I put Moe, now 5, to bed around 8:20 ish.  I sang lullaby, hunted down the elusive Moosie to make sure he had him to sleep with and smothered him in hugs and kisses.

About 9:00 I sent Larry to bed.  He decided he’s big today and doesn’t need tucked in  Kisses, hugs and thanks for a great day and off he went.

I ran upstairs for something or other and I hear voices coming from their room.  DANGIT!  Now understand that I have plans for tomorrow.  I want to go to the People’s Choice Festival in Boalsburg, maybe hit the Arts Festival and see the legs I’ve not seen yet.  These activities are highly dependent upon their mood.  All stars must align and moods be joyous for me to take 3 kids solo to a place where people are selling highly expensive and highly breakable items.  The need to be absolute angels.  Now none of my plans will ever happen if they are cranky.  Crankiness which can be caused by just the slightest bit of sleep deprivation….even being shorted 5 measly seconds will cause a combination of massive thunder, lightening, earthquakes, tornados, hurricanes, tsunamis, just massive chaos to be unleashed upon me, the mom, the one in charge.  And if more than one of these lovely beings chime in, I’m doomed given that I’m outnumbered.  The rath of an overtired child is not one that I’d wish on most people. (Yes most.  And you know the ones who could use it, the ones I’m talking about who could use a little humbling when they rant saying things like “why can’t you control your kid or make them be quiet” cuz ya, its just so freakin’ easy).

Anyway, I open the door and see them by the light of their lantern.  They are snuggled up in the bottom bunk lit in a lovely blue LED light aura.  Moe is leaning against his big brother Larry with a big content smile glowing on his face while Larry is reading him a story.  I saw this sight, most touching.  I felt pure magic in that room when I was in there as kids who argue and fuss all. the. time. spontaneously actually do nice things together.  Now that is a sight I want a picture of but can’t risk ruining the moment to grab.  It was too pure to disturb.  But I will always see it, knowing that these are the memories between them that matter, and they are making them.

They broke the rules.

They outright blatantly ignored all of my instructions.

They will probably be cranky.

And I’m happy about it.

Moving on now.

Today I had a little something that has been bugging me.  Something on my mind and surely something I shouldn’t be wasting my time thinking about, but I did and it got me down.

So there I was cooking dinner and watching and waiting for the pot of water to boil (it wouldn’t, go figure lol).  Larry strolled on in and told me some news about his trumpet playing as he had just gotten done practicing.  Then he looked at me and said “why are you sad mommy?”.  I just looked at him and said I was thinking about a time a long time ago when I was in a situation where people weren’t very nice to me and it made me sad.  He looked at me with this “duh” look and said “Mom, why are you thinking about that.  That is way behind you, its in the past and you never have to see those people again. Life’s good!”

This is significant in so many ways.  1.  He’s right.  But that’s not what made me cry tears of joy.  2.  HE GETS IT.  Normally he’s a dweller (*looks around* dunno where he got that from) He focuses on something until he has inspected and evaluated it from every angle….that can take a significant amount of time.  3.  He must be finally learning to cope with the nasty kids at school who have made it their personal mission to make him sad.  THANK YOU!  He sounded just like one of those lessons.  4.  Usually, he’s Eeyore.  To break from Eeyore and start moving toward Pooh or even Tigger well, I’m just thrilled!

So if something ever bugs me too much I’m just going to look at Larry and remember if he can do it so can I because what he faces is so much harder than anything I do.  He’s a kid and shouldn’t be anything but happy, and he is that.  Damn, I have one smart kid.

Bedtime Rituals

I love it.  I have rituals with the kids where we do our separate things, just me an each one of them, although sometimes they do hone in on another’s time…sometimes its good, sometimes its the next world war but either way, its my time.  My special time where we have just one little thing that is just ours.  I tuck them in in a certain order.  In a perfect world I do Curly first, then head to the boys’ room.  But often its Curly, Moe and then Larry a little later (he is a procrastinator!)

Curly has a few antics.  Some days she hides and I have to pretend I’m mad b/c she’s not there, yawn and crawl on her bed and “fall” asleep.  Only the bed is lumpy!  And moves!  And giggles!  Or she’ll hide behind the door, turn the light off on me and be a ghost.  Then we’ll sing either Frosty or Little White Duck (a favorite of all 3)  That girl will sing Frosty year round

Moe insists on me humming Lullaby to him every night or he can’t sleep.  Many nights there is the addition of me nibbling on his peachy cheeks, potato chip ears, cantelope chin….well, almost every part has a name associated with a food lol.  He loves walking on his broccoli legs.  He giggles when I give him his crazy kisses and he plays with my hair when I hum Lullaby.  I’ll be sad the day he says he’s too old for Lullaby so I will enjoy every moment.

Larry and I used to sing together, but he’s 10 now.  So I try to read to him every night.  Right now we’re on The Silver Chair from the Chronicles of Narnia.   We always have a special few minutes in the hall where we chat, just us before he heads in to bed.  And then he usually has to release whatever is on his mind as soon as he gets in bed.

Someday I’m going to really miss all of this.  I’m so thankful to have my few minutes every night.

Fears.

So I need to keep track of the unreasonable fears that Larry has, so I’ll do it here.  He had a bad habit of focusing on things, internalizing them and well, never letting go.

To this note, I am hoping they are at least doing a space unit in science although I kinda sorta don’t think they are because, according to Mr. P. the lab was on condensation and something else that escapes me but definitely not space related.  But somewhere, recently, he’s heard about meteors and other spacey things.

What does this mean?  He’s focused on dying by meteor or some big thing taking out the Earth.  The other day he gave us a 2% chance of survival.  Tonight while tucking him in he asked “am I going to die tonight?”  My heart sank.  He then explained he thought we might get hit by a meteor.

Sometimes (a lot actually) I fear he’ll spend so much time worrying about death he’ll forget to live.  And then I think about how this evening when they were playing outside they set up a beach and played that our yard was the sand and ocean.  He was happy.

Won’t You Be Bored?

Won’t you be bored?  Bored?  Whatever are you talking about?

Last night I took my Stooges to the roller rink for their school district’s skate night.  What a wonderful night.  Larry and Curly took off.  So proud of how well Curly is doing with her skating, especially since she’s never had a lesson and doesn’t get taken (not a topic for today) with roller blades to the parking lot to practice.  Larry kicks butt and was showing off his moves.  He’s an excellent skater due to his massive amounts of time on the ice.

Curly spent a lot of time mingling with friends, going around and shoving her arm up inside the ski-ball machine to retrieve more balls *foreheadsmack*.

Larry spent a lot of time with a little blond girl *sigh*.

I spent my time with Moe.  Moe has never been to the rink before and he was THRILLED!  I did not skate although I wanted to desperately.  I walked backwards, in my flip flops (not well prepared, I know, but I was planning on skating) and held his hands as he skated towards me.  He laughed and smiled and giggled.  He was amazing.  By the end of the night I had him skating independently.  He was so excited and asked many times if we could come back.  Yes.  We can.

But as wonderful as the night was, I’m bothered by one thing.  Moms.  I have issues with moms.  There seems to be an over abundance of the judgmental type that I seem to be running into and its driving me nuts.  From one criticizing my choice of venue for my daughter’s birthday party (my house) to the constant snide comments because I don’t volunteer as much as I *should* or play in PTO or other things.  I don’t.  I wish I could.  I can’t.  Free time is at a premium in my life.

Last night though, I know I shouldn’t be bothered, but I am.  I should be used to this.  In this day in age I am curious as to why it is an issue, why it is a surprise, why it puzzles people that I work.  Full time.  And yesterday I put 11+ hours in and will again today seeing as I’m on some strict deadlines.  (I’m not complaining, I love my job).  So as I’m going at a snail’s pace with Moe past the table right on the other side of the wall of the rink part which was home to some moms, we’d chat.  On the one lap around I told them how I just picked up Kindergarten registration papers for Moe!  My baby is going to school next year!  OMG!  Its a fun thing to talk about….all moms usually go “awwwwww the baby is growing up” and you go on skating.  I like to stick to standard non-1-upping-hows-the-weather-equivalent conversations with other moms as they usually get into an escalating my-kid-is-smarter-than-your-kid conversation.  I choose to run screaming with my fingers in my ears from those.

Anyway I tell the moms my big news!  My baby is going to Kindergarten! And I get “Wow, won’t you be bored?”.  Really?  Why on Earth would I be bored?  Nightly homework for all 3, reading, writing, math, you name it now I gotta do it in triplicate!  And more activities and special events.  Bored?

Yup. Bored.

Because he will be out of the house.  I won’t have him home with me anymore.  I’ll be lonely.  Whatever will I do with my time?

Work.

I will Work.

Like I have every single day (mostly) since well before I started college.  Like I have every day (mostly) since I graduated college.  I have not ever been anything but full time except when I was sick and had to go on leave.  In today’s culture, this is not an abnormal phenomenon.  By the shock on their faces when I said “I work.” and then the further shock when they found out “full-time”.  I quickly realized why, in my daughter’s class at least, the parental climate is very clicky and why I’ve never been able to “fit in”.  (never got that from my son’s class’ parents)  I’ve felt very much on the outside and haven’t been able to bond with any of them.  My daughter doesn’t get invited over b/c they invite their friends over more than it being about their kids.  They have play dates and coffee and do girly things during the day and talk about whatever home moms talk about.  They suddenly had nothing to talk to me about. I kinda sorta felt like an alien.  They asked where, I said Penn State… didn’t elaborate on what I did.  Because as these conversations have gone in the past, I feel even more like an alien if I said…programmer, or software.  Its almost like in this world that I had to skate thru, being geek isn’t cool.  But luckily, once I left that giant metal tin that blocked out all hope of checking Twitter or Facebook or IM by blocking any hope of a cell signal I breathed a sigh of relief b/c I could again be connected with people like me, who got me, and didn’t act as if I was from Pluto…..the planet I relate to the most given it got stripped of its “good planet” standing as those mom’s have a way of stripping my “good mom” feelings away.

But….I take great joy in being the “cool mom” who skates (normally) with the kids….who the kids in the classes come up to and hug and I was the one helping them up when they fell.  Because at the end of the day, its about them.  And despite feeling a little out of the “cool kids” group, my kids were happy to have me on the “ice”, even in my flip flops.

Moe…..or maybe Clyde.

So……Moe.  Moe.  He’s that kid.  You know, acts up but has the cuteset smile and melts your heart.  Quite a loving kid if I do say so.  He’s my angel.  What a miracle he was.  But anyway.  He’s that kid who asks before he gets anything, takes anything or even throws things away.  Mommy can I……  Even when he suspects the answer is no, he asks on the .0005% chance I may say yes.  But there is this, um, dynamic between he and Curly.  Moe has been obsessed with hair since birth.  (that’s another story) Curly always had long hair until recently.  She would knock him over and torture him.  He would then lie in wait, like a lion (ironic lions are his favorite animal) He’d watch.  And wait.  And just as she settled in laying across the chair with her lovely blond locks gently falling down the side of the chair he would ever so quietly, ever so gently hunt her down and yank the hair and crawl away fast as he could.  Then he’d smile and tickle his nose with his fresh kill while she cried at the massive bald spot that was just created by her lion brother.

Well, time has passed and we were able to curb the hair obsession with, none other than toy lions.  But his lionlike behavior and special dynamic with his sister lives on.  Tuesday Dad took Moe to Walmart after school.  When they came home, I heard “Mommy can I have a Ho Ho?…….PWEEEAAAASSEEEE”  Well, seeing as they are Swiss Cake Rolls, each kid got a package with 2 in each.  He ate his and then a little while later asked ever so politely for more.  At the response I gave him, he was displeased.  I insisted dinner must be eaten before more junk food.

Now, Curly isn’t feeling 100%.  She is over taken by yet another sinus infection.  She opened her one allotment of swiss cake rolls and ate one.  Leaving the other on the floor with her blanky, pillow, drink and snacky bowl.

He watched.  He lied in wait.  And when it was clear she had succomb to the request for her attendence at the kitchen table for dinner he overly quietly slunk to the area that was clearly hers and ate the remaining snack cake.  His cheeks full like a chipmunk.  Quiet not to be heard by anyone.

I was lucky.  I got to see him in action and while it was wrong to allow it, I did as she shouldn’t leave her stuff lay around and I wanted to see how he did things.  This was one time he didn’t ask first.  He always asks.  He knew she’d never say yes.  Plus it was sweet revenge for the torture she still inflicts on her little brother.

Yes, now I know what to watch out for with that one.  His halo seems a bit crooked and he is quite skilled at his talent of theft.  These are good lessons for a mom to learn now.  That cute innocent smile fools me no more.  But it still melts my heart.

Oh these Halloween decorations.

I LOVE Halloween.  One of my most favorite holidays by far, if not the absolute favorite.  Come on now, a whole holiday centered around chocolate cannot possibly be bad.  I’ve decorated.  I love it.  I’d do more if I could afford it or had the time to make more things.  But for now, what I have will have to do.

My youngest, Moe, the 3 year old, LOVES all of the spooky things.  Almost to a scary level.  His best friend that he takes everywhere is named Spooky, of course.  It’s a 4′ skeleton that was one of those foam craft kits you get at Michael’s.  we put it together and man o man does he love it.  He looks at the scary skeleton on the kitchen window and says “He’s Smiling!!!!” and so is the Pumpkin Head  on the china cabinet.

We have one of those inflatable things in the front yard.  I got it on clearance for $10.  It is the one that is the Haunted House.  There are 3 ghosts sticking out of it.  Curly and Moe have named each one.  Each ghost represents one of them.  So there is a ghost for Larry, Curly and Moe.  Curly and Moe kiss each ghost goodbye every night.  It is hilarious.

Curly is so very excited to be a witch this year.  She loves wearing her costume around the house.  Moe wants to be a skeleton and since they didn’t have any in his size, I bought another foam skeleton kit and glued the bones to a black shirt and black sweat pants.  I even painted them with glow in the dark paint. Those two are totally in love and play with all of the Halloween decorations they can get their hands on, especially Moe.  It is so much fun!  I’m so glad they love this holiday and I can share it with them.

You may have noticed the lack of mention of Larry.  Larry is not thrilled with Halloween.  The decorations are ok.  He’d prefer the cute things.  Honestly, Larry is scared of death.  Halloween reminds him of this.  I know it is a symptom of his separation from self.  He needs so much.  Sometimes I’m not sure what the answers are.  The 4′ paper spider he is good with now, as long as it stays in the living room.  He’s not a fan of it, but accepted it and even told me where to put it.  He’s terrified of spiders and bugs, mostly if they come in the house.   But I struggle with what to tell him.  How to explain death.  How to make him not afraid.  I can’t hide the facts from him as 1. Some kid will tell him something and 2. It is inevitable that eventually someone we know will die and if I leave him at home and hide him from it, it will be that much harder to come to terms with it later, especially if it was a grandparent’s funeral he missed out on.

Larry and I went shopping yesterday.  We ended up at Michael’s for the glow in the dark paint I needed for Moe’s costume.  As we passed all of the Halloween stuff (on clearance!) Moe saw a little box that was hinged.  He wanted it….sure for 99 cents its all yours!  He was going to paint it.  I said we could get black paint and I have red felt and he can decorate it to put with the Halloween decorations.  Yes, it was a little hinged coffin.  “Mommy, what’s a coffin?”  Hmmmmm, dilemma.  Do I tell him?  I know what will happen if I do.  Do I not and someone else tell him later?  Well, I chose honesty.  But very matter of fact about it.  Gave him the definition and use of a coffin.  Told him they make them very nice inside with satin and pillows.  Well, he put it back and said he’d rather do a different craft and that the coffin was too scary.

He is now imagining himself in a coffin.  I know it.  But it will be a few days or a week and then the nightmares and more questions and fears.  I can’t hide all truths from him and I refuse to let him live in a big bubble.  I just hope for signs of improvement soon.  We’re doing all we can.  His phobias have such a powerful hold on him though.  I worry about Larry.

But….Larry is excited for trick or treating (except for scary houses).  He likes chocolate and he LOVES his Star Wars Clone Trooper costume