Thumbs Down

Cal first went to see the dentist about six months ago.  He handled the prodding, sticking and cleaning really well, certainly better than I ever have.  He also took this news pretty well: his thumbsucking was starting to cause problems with his teeth, and he needed to start working on not sucking his thumb. The dentist gave him a Lightning McQueen battery-operated toothbrush as an incentive to stop.

Now Cal’s been a pretty good thumbsucker since he was probably 5 or 6 months old.  His style has always been put left thumb in mouth, begin sucking and then gently pinch top of right ear with right hand’s fingers.  In his bed, in his carseat, on our laps… basically anytime he’s not talking or eating, he’s instinctively sucking his thumb and pinching his ear.

When we first received the orders from the dentist to stop the thumbsucking, he did a respectable job. We’d catch him in the act and remind him to stop; and he would stop. Of late, however, he no longer responds to the reminders to stop. So we’ve implemented some basic rules – no thumbsucking when we read to him, no thumbsucking in our bed, no thumbsucking while watching a movie. He has to comply, otherwise we end the fun. Not great, but they’re steps in the right direction.

Earlier this evening, I had this conversation with Cal, naked buns and all, after his long visit with the toilet:

Cal: “Mommy, I want to go to the dentist.”

Me: “Well, that’s good timing because you have an appointment this Friday.”

Cal: “After my nap?”

Me: “No, first thing in the morning.”

Cal: “Will I go to school?”

Me: “Yep, after your appointment. And you know, the dentist is going to ask you how your no-thumb-sucking is going, and I’m going to have to tell her, ‘not so well.’ So maybe you should practice not sucking your thumb this week.”

Cal: “You know what I’m going to tell her?”

Me: “What?”

Cal: “I had a GREAT, BIG, GIANT POOPY!”

I sure hope not.

Bye!

Ella is 17 months old now. Typical of most 17-month olds, her vocabulary is pretty limited – she’s been signing the words MORE, EAT, MILK, PLEASE, THANK YOU and ALL DONE for several months and is now saying variations of those words as she signs them. I probably wrote it down somewhere, but I’m fairly certain “Mama” was her first clearly vocalized word, probably first uttered shortly after her first birthday; and since then she’s added “Ca” (Cal), “Da-dee” (Daddy), “Cacker” (Cracker), “Kee” (Kitty),  “Soo” (Shoe) and “Bye” (she says it to people, the cat, the toilet, air) as well as several animal sounds, “Baaaaaa!” being her favorite judging only by her enthusiasm and volume in saying it.

Her first word being “Mama” would probably be a surprise to no one.  Ella is and has always been a Mommy’s girl.  If she wants to be held, she wants me to do the holding. If she needs to be consoled, she wants me to do the consoling. If Dan and I are standing outside her room at school to pick her up at the end of the day, she runs to me.

At the end of the kids’ bath tonight, Dan came into the bathroom, ducky towel in hand, to get Ella out of the tub first. As has been typical of late, she put up a bit of a fight – she wanted Mama to dry her off.  Dan battled through it and quickly dried her off and got her into her jammies. He then brought her back into the bathroom, still crying, to give me kisses good night.

Instead of just giving her a kiss, I took Ella from Dan’s arms and starting going through my good-night routine with her. Kisses.  Hugs.  Little message.  At one point, she laid her head on my shoulder and nestled it tightly under my neck. I am a sucker for this. I could’ve stood there holding her like that all night. Fortunately for all of us, she lifted her head up, looked straight at Dan, and with her pouty pucker lips said, “Bye!” as she waved to him in what I will forever recall as being a shoo-ing sort of wave.

We laughed, which probably took the edge off a bit as he took her from my arms and carted her off to her room for books and bedtime.

Water, Sir?

We do workweek, pre-bedtime evenings pretty well in the Leatherman household. We have to -- there's just not enough time to dilly dally.  It typically involves fixing dinner, eating dinner, cleaning up after dinner, hanging out for a few seconds, and heading upstairs to get ready for bed with some orneriness and moodiness throughout.  Tonight was no different than the typical, except for one thing: Cal set the table… without my even asking and without seeking any praise for having done so.

It was fun to watch as I fixed dinner.  He started with the stack of little plastic plates.  Then he brought out the fish plate for himself, bee plate for Ella, white plates for Dan and me… doh, scratch that, white plate for me, big green plate for Dan.  Bib for Ella.  Little big-people forks for everyone placed on each plate.  Ella, wanting to be a part of this, added the heart plate, which Cal promptly put back into the cabinet.  Then, perhaps most impressively to me, he grabbed a couple of glasses off of the counter, filled them with water from the fridge and placed them at Dan’s and my spots at the table.  And eventually he added the play fishbowl as a centerpiece for our enjoyment.

I don't know.  Maybe I should expect this out of my 3-1/2 year old. Stuff like this makes me proud.  I mean, just check out this table:

Cowboy Cal

A couple of months ago, Cal started his Cowboy phase.  I can’t really explain what triggered it, but it does seem that Cowboy Keith’s visit to “school” a few weeks ago has kept it alive.  Apparently, Cowboy Keith was really tall, and he dressed in a big cowboy hat, a vest, a pair of jeans and big boots.  And he put on a good show for the kids, juggling and roping things.

When Cal shows an interest in something creative, fun or just good for him, I do whatever I can within my means to help encourage and further it.  One of the cool things about Cal is that he really doesn’t need anything fancy.  When he said he wanted to be a cowboy, we went with what we had: for his hat, we pulled out one of my grandpa’s fedoras that I’ve had since the late 90’s; for his vest, I found an orange, plaid button-down in the bin of boys’ clothes my sister had given me for Cal to use, and he immediately asked me, “is that my vest?” to which I responded, “it is!”; and for his boots, Cal chose to make his Lightning McQueen “Francescos” shoes (complete with lights in the soles) his official boots. Together, this has become Cal’s cowboy outfit.

We really did it up on Day 1.  He spent a little time riding his rocking horse “Roscoe,” and then hopped off to eat some beans for lunch because “that’s what cowboys eat” (up until that point, Cal didn’t eat beans). And for his nap that day, Cal insisted he sleep with his hat on and his boots on because “cowboys sleep with their boots on to protect them from snake bites.”

Cal has spent many days since that day in his cowboy outfit, at school, at home and even at parties.  We did add another “vest” (a pastel, plaid button-down shirt we found at Old Navy) to his wardrobe to take some pressure off of me and our washing machine to keep his orange “vest” clean. Given a choice, he’ll pick the orange “vest” every time.

Just last week, Cal drew a portrait of Cowboy Cal.  Here it is, with a real picture of him beneath it to show how spot-on he was:

Bath Night Buns

Last night was “Bath Night” in the Leatherman house.  Unless we have a couple of ridiculously dirty kids or a couple of ridiculously tired parents, Bath Night is on the docket for the evening every other day.  Bath Night is highly anticipated – it’s often a question posed by Cal in the car ride home from “school” on weekdays, “Mommy, is it Bath Night?”  It is also one of the rare things for which we can almost count on full cooperation from the kids, excluding the week a couple of months ago where Ella screamed and stood through her entire bath... oh, and excluding Cal drinking the bath water despite our pleas that he not do so… oh, and Ella standing despite our attempts to keep her sitting… oh, and the time that Cal had to go straight to bed after his bath because he wouldn’t go “potty” before getting into the tub.  Perhaps “cooperation” was the wrong word; excitement and celebration are probably more appropriate.

At any rate, Ella’s usually out of the tub first, followed by a two-minute warning for Cal.  He likes to “be the diver,” which involves him sprawling out belly down in the 6 inches of water in our Jacuzzi tub (Grandma broke the stopper on the tub in the kids’ bathroom), one of those swirly straws in his mouth (his snorkel) and I’m not even sure if his face ever actually in the water.  I never really count the two minutes – sometimes it’s 30 seconds, other times it might even be 5 minutes.  Regardless, after the “two minutes” are up, Cal likes to be the one to let the water out.  Last night, that went like this:

Me: “Okay, Cal, time to let the water out!"

Cal: No response, but wriggling a bit in the water

Me: “Cal, please let the water out.”

Cal: No response, still wriggling.

Me: “Okay, I will.” And I leaned toward the tub to do so.

Cal: “NO!  I want to let it out with my BUNS.”  And he wriggled his “buns” (butt) until they were on top of the stopper and bounced them up and down until the stopper let up to let the water out.

My Mini Makeover

Feeling uninspired and a little lazy at the end of April, 2012, I decided I’d make May, 2012 my “Mini Makeover Month” and declared this on Facebook. Each day, I was to make an improvement to my life.  This was a way to motivate me to address those tiny to-dos that had been lingering in my head as needing to be done but just not getting done for one reason or another.  It was also a way to motivate me to do something different in an attempt to just feel better about myself.  Really, the only requirement I had for something to qualify as a mini makeover was that it couldn’t be something I would ordinarily do that day anyway.  For example, I had been getting some 3-mile runs in periodically the months leading up to Mini Makeover Month – such a run would not qualify as a mini makeover (even though I think it’s a good thing).

My declaration having gotten a little attention from my Facebook friends, I posted my mini makeovers on Facebook every day in May, typically in the later hours; and someday soon I’ll compile them in a consolidated list.  For now, I will mention one which bears mentioning because it was the trigger for me to start the blog I’ve been meaning to start for some time now but just haven’t, well, because it’s just easier not to.  The mini makeover?  Simply, for Day 11: “Celebrate bowling championship at banquet; commit to starting blog by end of month and tell people you're going to do it. Complete.”

Looking back, the bowling part of that was a little cheesey.  I think I wanted a way to tell people that my bowling team won the league without announcing it directly. It’s my passive aggressive nature.  The real meat of that makeover was the starting-the-blog part.

So I failed to do so by the end of May, not for lack of trying.  My hang-up was what its name should be.  I knew I wanted the general theme to be about being a mom to Cal and Ella. There's some really good material in that.  But none of the names I came up with had a good ring to it (from my perspective)… at least, none did until my good friend from high school and my cousin-in-law made some suggestions on Facebook that led triggered the name that I think is perfect:  “The Leatherkid Chronicles.”

So here it is, a couple of months later than announced as my mini makeover goal, my blog about being Cal’s and Ella’s mom and many of the stories, conversations and perspectives that come with that.  For me, being their mom is a genuine joy that is not without its challenges.  And I like to share the everyday bits, sometimes to make people laugh, other times to show how cool my kids are and even other times to confirm with others that I (or my kids) am not crazy.

So my first bit will be the one I shared on Facebook this AM:  Those who know the Notre Dame Fight Song may appreciate this exchange I had with Cal this AM as we listened to the torrential downpour that was happening outside.  It went something like this:

Cal: "Mother Nature rains on Notre Dame football players."

Me: "Oh yeah? Why is that?"

Cal: "They shake down the thunder."