Toddler reality.

I've noticed a widespread derision of the childrens show Caillou among most of the parents I know. I've just gotta say, I don't really understand it.

It's realistic guys. It's a toddlers very own reality show. It's so true to life that when it's playing in my house I can't even distinguish between my own kids and fake cartoon ones.

The only thing that's not realistic about Caillou are the parents. Because I sure as shit am not that patient when my kids turn on the whine. No, no no no. No.

My kids spend a lot of time in time out. I spend a lot of time saying the following phrases:

"Mommy doesn't listen to whining. You need to use your real voice."

"Nicky, use your real voice or you can go to time out."

"Josh, use your real voice (or stop hitting your brother/don't say 'stupid'/don't bite your dad) or you can go to time out."

"THAT'S ENOUGH, TIME OUT NOW."

Lately the only thing that works is the threat of Chippy telling Santa that they're being bad. And that only works on Nicky, not Josh.

-->Tangent. My kids are uber unoriginal. When we got our Elf On The Shelf, Nicky promptly named him Elf. After some coaxing to come up with something more...well, interesting, he came up with Chippy. Because that's the name of the elf from the cartoon so DUH of course that's his name. Liam was the same way. Years ago when we got a cat he was named-wait for it...Cat. We eventually settled on Jojo-Cat. Yawn.

Anyway, point is I yell a lot. And Caillou's parents don't. So that part doesn't ring true to me. But the whiny, annoying, snot-nosed kid part? I can relate.

Livin the dream, I tell ya.

The reason I'll always be chubby.

My love affair with chips has spanned decades. They are my weakness. It's pathetic, really.

You know how when you're eating a bag of chips and somebody asks for one right? And how you grab a chip and give it to that person. Right? Everyone doles out their chips don't they? No? Well I guess I can admit I'm a bit territorial about them. It always made me cringe when people would plunge their hands into my chip bag and come up with a big handful.

This behavior got me teased mercilessly by my friends in high school. I took it like a champ though.

Nowadays, my kids have all inherited my love of savory snacks. And I still have to battle the urge to smack their hands away when they're trying to 'share'. In reality, they don't get to eat chips very often. And that's only because I wait till they're out of the room, quickly fill a bowl with some chips, and then put the bowl in the sink so they can't see it and stand at the counter like I'm really busy cleaning and inhale them. Fools them every time.

Except I can't breathe near them till after I've brushed my teeth. They can smell them on my breath. In fact, Josh can detect the smell from about 4 feet away. And then it's all 'cheeps, cheeps, cheeeeeps mummy'.

Liam is old enough to buy his own chips now. And like I was in junior high, he doesn't like to share either. Keeps an eagle eye on me when I grab some from his bag. Gives me the stink eye when he thinks I've taken too many. Hell, half the time he refuses to share.

And as much as I understand, I still want to punch him in the face for being so greedy.

I know.

Don't even get me started on flavors and dips. Because this post could go on forever. Suffice it to say, I will eat any, and I mean ANY, flavor of chips. And I would kiss the feet of anybody who could find me some Helluva Good Buttermilk Ranch dip.

Other people get this obsessive about snacks right? I cannot be alone.

Tubthumping

It happened as I was stripping the bed after an unfortunate naptime accident. And it was so appropriate that I was unsure of whether to laugh or sit down and cry. I settled for rolling my eyes, humming along, and getting down to business.

Yep, that 90's tune that meant SO MUCH MORE 15ish years ago has now become my life's theme song.

Between the rare-but-still-happening-occasionally accidents with Nicky and Josh's insistence on 'unnerware' (though to date he has peed in the potty 4 times) I have been a non-stop pee cleaning machine. Our spot cleaner has never been used on such a continuous basis before and I don't even bother emptying the cleaning solution anymore. I'll just be refilling it within 12-24 hours.

My kids smell like pee, my house smells like pee, I'm pretty sure I smell like pee. This is so much fun!

Pissing the night away...

It's potty time.

Over the past few months I've gotten all pissy a couple times about the wild one's propensity for diaper ripping. And then publicly declared that it was potty training time. Only to give it up after 3 hours as a lost cause.

Well it's happening again. I'm publicly declaring that it's 'that time again folks'. But this time I plan on being a tad bit smarter than previous attempts. After sitting him down on the potty, him doing nothing, and then making water in his drawers 5 minutes after I put them on him, I had a brilliant flash of inspiration.

Instead of setting the timer in order to sit him down every 15 minutes, I'm setting it to see how long he can go between peeing and then trying to determine if there's any sort of pattern. Then tomorrow when we start for real, I should hopefully have some sort of game plan instead of making him sit down and hang out on the potty against his will.

The whole being bored sitting on the potty was a major source of frustration when I was training Nicky. I'm trying to avoid that this time around. And I figure if I give it a good effort for a week and it's not getting through to him then he's not ready.

But he ripped his diaper off and ran into his bedroom and took a shit on his dresser this morning. I wouldn't say I wasn't paying attention but I'm so used to Nicky tattling that I didn't catch it in time. It was "scusting". And I'm very much over it.

Only thing I'm worried about, besides the mountains of laundry this will result in? That Jeff will get impatient with this new method and just slap a diaper on him since it's easier. And that concern is not unfounded since he did the same thing with Nicky. But I'm sure that won't happen since I'm calling him out on it here right?

How does that song go? You may say I'm a dreamer....

School is cool.

A month in to this pre-school thing and I'm prepared to eat my previous opinions on the whole 'pushing kids so fast' thing. I've been the mom helper twice now and it's nothing like how I thought it would be.

They do nothing but play and make crafts and run around and have snack. There's no formal teaching. And I like that. I'm not a mompetitor *snicker*. I figure if he's not doing advanced calculus by kindergarten then I might have to step in. Right now we're cool with numbers and colors and shapes.

One thing though, and this was completely out of the blue. Pre-school has turned my formerly independant and full-of-energy kid into a major lazybones.

Months upon months ago, we got rid of the double stroller. Nicky hated being confined and was mature enough to handle walking next to the stroller without running off and getting killed by a moving vehicle. So now we have a regular 'ol Graco for Josh and it's been so nice to not push around a monstrosity.

Except now Mr. Lazybones has claimed the basket for his own. Which, okay he fits down there. And he's not a heifer so he's not breaking it. But damn. Now I look like some kind of welfare mom who couldn't afford to spring for a double stroller for her two closely-spaced kids with different baby-daddies.

Don't believe me? One of the moms at school stopped me one day and offered me her used double stroller that she has no need of anymore. I sputtered some nonsense about having one and getting rid of it-I probably didn't make any sense. I was a little mortified. I'm pretty sure I flashed my wedding ring so that she would know I was a respectable woman.

So all in all, this pre-school has been a positive experience. My own insecurities aside of course. And the 3 hour break twice a week? Priceless. It's given me a taste of what life will be like in 2 years when he starts kindergarten and Josh is in pre-school too. I find myself very much looking forward to it.

Brothers

It's interesting to watch my children interact with each other. I swear, I could sit and watch them for hours and marvel over how their personalities are emerging.

Except for when Liam is pinning Nicky down and that god-awful screech starts. When that happens I do not marvel. I get pissy.

When Nicky was born, Liam was over the moon excited to have a brother. It was awesome for the first few months when Liam could love on him and Nicky didn't really have much choice in the matter. Babies, after all, are pretty helpless.

After a while Liam figured out that it's also fun to bug brothers. So that started. And so it went like this: Liam would bug Nicky. Five minutes later Liam would want to cuddle him. Nicky, remembering the torture that went on just prior, would protest. Loudly.

As it stands right now, they bug each other, and yell at each other, and every six months you'll find them cuddled up and watching a t.v. show.

Liam tried the same games with Josh but he quickly figured out that the torture doesn't bother Josh as much as it did Nicky. As a result, things are much more friendly between those two. That's NOT to say he doesn't pick on Josh too, it's just that he doesn't get the same reaction so he doesn't do it as often.

And how are things between the two youngest, you might ask?

Nicky would throw Josh under the bus in a New York minute. It's actually the cutest thing to watch, but it's also totally selective. Typical scenario:

They're both in bed and we hear somebody running around the room, turning on lights, pulling out dresser drawers and emptying them, turning up the radio volume. In goes Daddy to give 'em shit and Josh has a huge smile on his face and is nodding his head as Jeff scolds him.

Here's Nicky. "I'm being a good boy daddy. I didn't get out of my bed. Josh is being a bad boy daddy, give him trouble. He needs a spank".

Repeat as necessary for any number of situations. It happens 15 times a day. And I'm pretty sure Josh is not the only one doing naughty things. He just doesn't talk as well as Nicky does yet.

Like I said, it's very interesting to watch their personalities in regards to each other develop. Liam's the bully, Nicky's the brown-noser, and Josh is the scapegoat.

Hm, maybe next time I should write a post highlighting their more endearing qualities? They do have them, I swear.

Holy stinky feet, batman.

Liam has this friend. They hang out every day, so you could probably say they're best friends. Mention that to either one of them though and you'll get a 'look' and they'd say they're just friends.

God, 12 year olds are so weird.

But about this friend. Over this summer puberty has hit him (and Liam) with a vengeance. And along with all those lovely puberty 'things' has come overactive sweat glands. He's got the personal hygiene thing down, but he forgot one little thing.

He can't wear his runners without socks anymore.

I've noticed the stink a couple times in the past month. And I've ribbed him about it once or twice and he takes it with a grin. He knows. And he's taken to wearing socks now.

But DAMN. I think his runners are ruined because he slept over last night and it's all I could smell.

Without hesitation, I filled a bowl up with warm water and grabbed some soap and took it downstairs to him. And he was sheepish about it and I TRIED not to embarass him. But I did explain to him that it was probably his shoes that were making his feet smell like Doritos.

I was pretty close to throwing his shoes outside too, but I restrained myself.

I'll betcha he'll be getting new shoes sometime in the near future. Y'know, with junior high starting tomorrow he's got to make a good first impression with the ladies. And stinky feet is NOT how any boy or man wants to be remembered.