Archive for the Category » I’m the Mommy «

Four Under Four

12
May 2009

kidscamp2A little over a year ago I achieved something that makes many people gasp and some shiver with fear. I had “four under four.” Translated, it means I gave birth to my fourth child, Justin, making my husband and I the proud parents of four children ages four and under. A dubious distinction and not one that many people would want to reach.

I, however, wasn’t phased in the least. I do have to admit that my children’s personalities are part of the reason. They are extremely pleasant, usually have huge smiles and most of the time remember to say please and thank you.

We often elicit stares of shock and comments of sympathy (for me) when out grocery shopping. I admit, I too would stare if I saw someone pushing one cart loaded with four kids while pulling a second cart loaded with the week’s groceries behind them. It isn’t an easy task, but it can be done. Be prepared to open packages of cookies before you make it to the checkout in order to advert a store scene.

Over the past year, I’ve never minded having four kids, although changing diapers is a task I am really looking forward to being rid of. Even when all of the kids were sick a month or so ago, I didn’t feel overwhelmed. However, that may have something to do with the fact that I too was sick and it was Steve, my husband, who cared for all of us.

Last weekend, however, I began to question my sanity. Of course, its too late to do anything about it now. I’m tired. Just plain old tired and my house is still recovering.

You would think that when you went away from home for a weekend your house would remain just as neat as when you left. Well, it was until we unloaded the kids and the presents and the suitcases and the toys and the, well, you get the picture.

Last weekend, my family piled into our minivan and traveled four hours to Sherwood Michigan to celebrate a delayed Christmas with my parents and siblings and nieces and nephews and cousins. Needless to say my sister’s house was filled to the brim and my four kids and all of our miscellaneous items didn’t help it.

So being smart parents (or so we thought) Steve and I decided to stay at a hotel. We’d be able to spend time with everyone, but we wouldn’t have to bother anyone with middle of the night tears or 6 a.m. wake up calls by demanding two-year-olds.

We left Friday night in good spirits. The van packed to the brim with everything including our four kids. I thought for sure Maxine, 2, and one-year-old Justin would quickly fall asleep, but it didn’t happen.

Locking yourself into a minivan for four hours with four kids does not sound like a fun plan, but it actually went really well. The kids were happy and we arrived at the hotel around 6 to check in. The kids, all four of them, had fallen asleep minutes before we arrived. Figures.

Our hopes of transporting them from the van to the hotel room without waking them up were dashed. Not only were all four wide awake, but they were excited to be in a hotel room. They immediately had to test both sinks and the bathtub, bounce on all of the beds and sit in every chair.

After a four hour trip, unloading the kids and everything else, Steve and I were exhausted. We thought the kids would be too, but the newness of the hotel energized them until they were like little atoms bouncing off the walls of the room in every direction at once.

At home I don’t mind the occasional squealing and glee they were displaying, but in a hotel room with thin walls and other guests I was getting a little stressed. I tried to calm them down. I tried to put them to bed at their normal time, but all efforts were in vain. They were in the bed, on the floor, in the bed, crying, yelling, squealing, running, in the bed, jumping….

I gave up. They were no longer my children. I expected to receive a phone call or a knock on the door any moment asking us to quiet down. Luckily it was a slow night and the hotel wasn’t full. They had wisely put us far far away from any other hotel guests. I’m not sure when the kids fell asleep. I feel asleep long before they did. I woke to see a hurricane had hit our room in the middle of the night.

Some how we managed to gather our belongings and load the kids back in the car and head to my sister’s house. Our plans to stay a second night in the hotel were scrapped. There was no way we wanted a repeat. We spent a wonderful Saturday with my family. Enough people were around to keep my children entertained and out of trouble. The presents piling in the corner helped keep them on their best behavior too.

As the day drew to an end, Steve and I packed up our van once more. Kids, toys, presents, clothes, bottles, diapers, food; everything went in the van until there wasn’t any room left. We said our goodbyes and headed for home. We arrived at 1:30 a.m. on Sunday and put the kids right to bed. We left the car loaded and fell into bed ourselves, exhausted. Everyone slept. It’s so nice to be home!

Category: I'm the Mommy  Tags:  Comments off

Dumb Mother Move #2,543

12
May 2009

As the mother of four children I rarely find myself agreeing to be anywhere earlier than 10 a.m. That’s partly because it isn’t an easy task to get four little ones dressed, fed, strapped into car seats and off while under any kind of time pressure. The other part is because I’m not a morning person and I hit the snooze button too many times.

I have a tendency to be five or ten minutes late for anything and everything. I like to blame it on the kids, but my husband has known me too long. He knows the truth. My biggest problem? I never do just one thing. As we get ready to go somewhere in the morning, I have a sudden urge to clean the living room or clean the bathroom mirror. I just can’t stand the thought of returning home to a messy house. Or worse, what if something happened to me and my mother-in-law had to deal with my messy house?

The easy solution would be to clean the night before, but besides being late to everything, I’m also a procrastinator.

So I was especially proud of myself last week. I was up at 6 a.m. without hitting snooze once. I had the two oldest dressed, fed and off to school. I had the diaper bag packed including favorite toys and blankets. I had all of my stuff and the kids’ stuff in the van. The van was all warm and ready to go.

I dressed the two little ones without getting anything on me. I loaded them into the van and made it to the new childcare 10 minutes early. Yes, early! I felt like I had finally figured everything out.

I was on a roll. At work I was getting all kinds of things done. I was thrilled. With lunchtime approaching, I splurged on some Chinese. I walked into the office thinking of the sesame seed chicken I was about to devour when the look of my co-workers faces made my heart skip a beat.

“I’m so glad your back. We were going to go get them, but,” they said handing me a note. I immediately thought there was a problem with my two little ones.

“We were going to go get them off the bus.” I was dazed and confused trying to make sense out of the senseless. It wasn’t even noon yet. Why were they talking about buses? “The bus driver said Grandma wasn’t home and wanted to know where she should drop off the girls.”

I had it all figured out. My first day back in the working world was supposed to work like a well-oiled machine. Two oldest on the bus at 7 a.m. The little ones at child care by 7:30. I’d be at work at 8 a.m. The two oldest would be dropped off at Grandmas at 3 p.m. I even planned to get out of work early in order to go to the parent-teacher conference at 4 p.m. And that was where I made my mistake.

Parent-teacher conferences meant school was only a half day. Now my two oldest kids were riding around on the bus with nowhere to take them to. Realization was dawning as I dialed the number to the bus driver. I apologized profusely and she was nice about it. She assured me I wasn’t the only parent who’d forgotten about the half day. I quickly gave her directions to childcare.

Hanging up, I dialed my brand new childcare provider feeling like a complete idiot. I told her about the change and she was great.

“Not a problem,” she assured me.

Hanging up the phone I breathed a sigh of relief. My co-workers had brainstormed thinking of ways they could help before I’d gotten there and were frustrated when they realized there wasn’t anything they could do. They couldn’t even tell me because I was out of the office when the call came in. The kids were safe now. I didn’t have to leave work and they would be taken care of, but I wasn’t feeling any better.

In fact, as all of the possibilities of what could have happened started occurring to me, I was feeling even worse. As it was, my two oldest kids were being dropped off at a place they had never been before. Would they be upset? I wondered. I waited a half hour and then called to make sure they had arrived safely and were adjusting well. Again, my new childcare provider was great. They’d arrived and were fitting right in.

Relieved, I was able to go back to work. But as I continued working, stray thoughts would enter my mind. I continued to beat myself up.

Later that day, when I picked up the kids they were all smiles and didn’t want to leave. Looking at them, I didn’t notice any scars from the experience.

I was relieved, but I knew I had added “Dumb Mommy Move #2,547″ to the list I keep in my head. Worse, it wasn’t just a dumb mommy move. It was a Major Dumb Mommy Move.

I started my dumb move list on the day my first daughter was born. Her fingernails were soft and long and bent over the tip of her finger. I found the clippers I’d packed in my hospital bag and started to lovingly clip her overgrown nails. Her hands were so tiny. Just as I went to nip a tiny fingernail, she jerked her little body. Blood gushed out of her finger where I’d nipped it instead of the nail and her cries filled my ears. (OK, my hubby claims “gushed” is way overstating it, but that’s how I felt at the time.)

I make at least one “dumb mommy move” a day. As I become more experienced with this mommy thing, I hope to reduce that number. Or at least cut down on the number of Major Dumb Mommy Moves.

Copyright © 2000 Linda Sherwood

Category: I'm the Mommy  Tags: ,  Comments off

The Haircut

12
May 2009

Amanda and Autumn after a "real" haircut.“Mommy can I wear my costume?”

“Not yet. You’re going to wear it next week in your recital.”

“But I want to look pretty.”

“You do look pretty,” I replied, but apparently she didn’t believe me.

It wasn’t too long after that conversation that it happened. I was fixing dinner and I realized the house had fallen silent. The silence hit me louder than any scream. When you have four kids, you rarely have silence and when you do you can be sure to find trouble.

I shut the stove off and went in search of my “too quiet” children. As I approached the bathroom, I heard a few noises. I opened the door slowly.

Amanda’s big eyes met mine. She had an alert wide-awake look, which was enhanced by the lack of bangs above her long black eyelashes.

I surveyed the room, taking in the damage. Autumn was perched on the sink with a pair of scissors at her feet. Bits and pieces of blonde and brunette locks were scattered across the sink, countertop and floor. I grabbed the scissors and left the room without saying a word. I found the other two children still napping in their room. I sighed with relief as I saw at least their locks were still intact.

In my bedroom, I found my sewing box open. I hadn’t even realized there was a pair of scissors in there. (Which sort of gives you a clue about how often I use my sewing box.) But the two resourceful little girls in the bathroom in search of beauty had found them.

Under control, I went back into the bathroom to assess the damage. Autumn’s hair had reached the middle of her back in beautiful ringlets. Amanda’s hair had just grown long enough to brush her shoulders.

Upon closer inspection, it seemed Amanda had received the bad end of the deal. Her bangs had been cut as close to the scalp as you could get without the aid of a razor. I couldn’t even grab the little bits of hair left where her bangs should be.

Autumn’s curls were untouched, or so I thought when I first looked at her. Her bangs had been cut, but they were fixable I decided. Until this point, the only scissors that had come near Autumn’s head had just trimmed her bangs.

Her hair is thick and curly while Amanda’s is thin and straight. I reached out and gathered her hair in my hand and knew immediately something more than just her bangs was amiss.

Normally too thick to gather in anything but a very large hair tie, Autumn’s hair felt thin in my hand. Although the outside of Autumn’s hair remained intact, the layer underneath on one side of her head had been cut. The entire left side of her hair was gone. The longest point just reached the bottom of her left ear.

Amanda’s haircut was laughable. The extremely short bangs made her look so alert and her eyes so big. It was so obvious that it was the result of a toddler with a pair of scissors. Autumn’s haircut, however, made me blink back tears. Her long beautiful baby ringlets were gone and I knew I’d never see them again.

I bit my lip and grabbed the scissors. I trimmed up Autumn’s back and other side to match the self cut job. I then loaded the girls into the car and took them to the beauty salon. The lady was great. As she cut the girls hair she talked to them about how they needed a license to cut hair and all of the training you should have. She told them about the special scissors made just for cutting hair.

I walked out of there convinced they were cured. One week later, Autumn and Amanda performed on stage in their ballet recital. Amanda’s hair made it into a little bun, but it took a lot of tugging and pulling to even get Autumn’s newly shorn locks into something that resembled a ponytail.

It’s a year later and Autumn’s hair is once again nearing the middle of her back. But as I suspected the ringlets are gone. In their place is thicker hair with lots of body waves. Amanda’s hair is still thin, but it has finally reached the middle of her back. More importantly she has bangs!

I’d like to say I no longer have any beauticians in training, but it would take just one look at my youngest daughter’s hair for you to realize otherwise. Oh, don’t get me wrong. She looks cute now in her little bob that just reaches the bottom of the ears. I just want it known that I was not responsible for the haircut she sported for months before her hair grew back even this long!

Last week, at a parent teacher conference I was presented with my children’s cuttings. It seems they need practice with their scissor skills.

Any one willing to volunteer?

Copyright © 2000 Linda Sherwood

Category: I'm the Mommy  Tags: , ,  Comments off

The Neverending Story of Motherhood

12
May 2009

familyThe house was quiet. The kids were still sleeping and my husband had left for work. I was alone without any distractions and I was getting things done in record time. As I moved about the quiet house in the early morning, my laundry pile dwindled rapidly, my floor began to shine, even my toilet bowl and bathtub started to sparkle.

The Army often claims to do more before 9 a.m. than most people do all day, but I think the Army didn’t take mothers into account.

By the time my children woke up, my hampers were empty, clothes were neatly folded and put away, dishes were done, floors were swept and mopped. The house smelled and looked clean. I was thrilled.

Then the kids got up. I watched silently as they dragged their blankets and pillows into the living room disposing them on the floor before continuing into the kitchen to dirty dishes and spill cereal and milk. I was determined to maintain the cleanliness. I quickly picked up the blankets and made the beds while throwing some of the dirtier blankets into the hamper.

Back in the kitchen I cringed at the site of cereal on the once clean floor. I watched my little mess makers slowly wake up as the sound of chatter increased. My house was no longer the quiet place it was just a short time before. Now it was noisy and demanding with my children chirping like hungry birds in a nest.

Breakfast over, I sent my children to get dressed. I cleaned up the mess in the kitchen, sweeping the floor for the third time that morning. The Army doesn’t do the most. It is definitely mothers. We just don’t have a lot to show for it. We just do the same thing over and over while trying to maintain control.

My little ones come wandering back to the living room. They are dragging their blankets and pillows, which they have pulled off their freshly made beds. I sigh as I make my way back to their rooms to survey the damage done in five minutes. Just as I thought. Dresser drawers are hanging open. The neatly folded clothes I had placed in their depths not long ago had become unfolded and hung over the edges and spilled out onto the floor.

Pajamas and slippers lay haphazardly over the floor rather than in the now empty hamper sitting in a corner of the room. I put the clothes back in the drawers. I close them – again. I pick up the dirty clothes and put them into the empty hamper. It fills up to the top. Already?

Sighing, I resign myself to doing yet another load of laundry. I start the load and have empty hampers once more. I return to the living room and pick up the abandoned pillows and blankets and once more make the beds. I sit down, ready to relax for a moment or two.

My oldest daughter comes in from outside, her clothes completely wet and covered in dirt. Her siblings are similarly attired. I quickly herd them into the bathtub, peeling off the wet dirty clothes and filling the hampers again. As the washing machine finishes its cycle, I throw the clothes into the dryer and load the wet dirty clothes into the washer along with the towels and wash clothes used for the baths.

The dryer thumps reassuringly as it dries my last two loads of laundry of the day. I see the end in sight. I go into the kitchen to make lunch. Time passes and I remember to check on my laundry. The dryer has stopped, the door hanging open with wet clothes falling out of it. In the bedroom, the dresser drawers hang open with the once neatly folded clothes falling out of it.

It’s times like these when I realize the humorous quote by Barbara Dale that I have hanging in my office is more truthful than I ever realized. “Behind every working woman is an enormous pile of laundry.” Underneath the quote, in my husband’s handwriting, are the words, “and dishes”.

Lunch! I’d forgotten all about it! I thought my dishes were done….

And the piles grow.

Copyright 1999-2001

Category: I'm the Mommy  Tags:  Comments off

Waiting for the Potty Train

12
May 2009

It’s been eight days since I changed a diaper.

I was starting to wonder if I should add a new line to my business card touting my specialty – Professional Diaper Changer since 1994.

My youngest child is well on his way to blowing out four candles on his next birthday cake. He can dress himself and insists on fixing his own breakfast, but he steadfastly refused to use a potty chair. When asked, he assured me he would be potty-trained when he was “growed up.”

I wasn’t too concerned about his potty habits when he turned two. I was willing to wait until he was ready. As his third birthday approached, and passed, I admit, I was getting a little worried. My dad was quick to predict my youngest would still be wearing a diaper under his graduation gown. I think he meant high school graduation, not preschool graduation. I wasn’t that worried yet.

For most Americans, the baby boom began after World War II. In my little neck of the woods, the baby boom began several decades later, lasted a year, and produced enough cousins that we’re already saving for the graduation boom 15 years from now. My son was born in the middle of this boom.

On my husband’s side of the family, if you were female, of child-bearing age and your name started with “L,” you were pregnant. Lisa, Loralee, Lesley and Linda all gave birth during our personal baby boom.

On my side of the family, we weren’t as picky about what your name started with. Irene, Jessica, Heidi, Linda, and Irene again, all gave birth to children during the one-year boom. No less than eight cousins were born during the year and by the new millennium, most were well on their way to being potty trained. All of them, that is, except mine.

I was beginning to feel the squeeze, but peer pressure wasn’t putting any pressure on my little one’s bladder habits.

During conversations with my mother, mother-in-law, grandmother and other assorted relatives, I would discover the potty-training progress of the cousins. Irene happily reported she now had one completely trained child. Further investigation proved her “one completely trained child” actually consisted of a 3-year-old who went “number two” in the potty and a 2-year-old who would do “number one” in the potty.

My mother offered lots of helpful advice on potty training.

“Put him on the pot every day,” she’d say. “Remind him.”

She wasn’t the only one. Advice flowed on how to successfully potty-train a toddler. I urged my husband to allow our son to join him in the bathroom. I promoted these bathroom excursions like an elementary teacher promoting a field trip to Water World.

I tried everything – bribery, begging, cajoling, crying, reasoning and pleading. My son had a counter point for every argument I presented. He hadn’t even entered preschool yet, but his life was already on a well-planned schedule. Potty training, he insisted, would arrive when he was as tall as I, after he learned to drive, and before he went to school.

Trips to the store for underwear didn’t perk his interest, not even when we bought NASCAR underwear. Those training pants we bought were great at staying pulled up. It was the pull-down-and-go part that didn’t work. Attempts to let him be “uncomfortable” made everyone in the family uncomfortable except for him. I began to wonder if his legs were plastic and his nose malfunctioned.

In the end, it was my mom’s advice that worked. Well, it was her advice, a trip to the local home improvement store, and a short-lived career change to “weekend warrior.”

It seems our potty-training flunky was extremely interested in the purchase of new tiles for our bathroom floor. He quickly discovered his sisters had a ticket to the best seat in the house to observe the new floor installation.

“Daddy, I have to go to the bathroom,” his sisters would say. It didn’t take him long to put those words to use for himself.

So here I sit. It’s been eight days since I changed a diaper. My son is wearing a pair of NASCAR underwear and my bathroom has a new tile floor. Life is good.

Copyright © 2003 Linda Sherwood

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...
Category: I'm the Mommy  Tags: ,  Comments off
« Previous Entries
Next Entries »