Mommy, the Log

I could morph myself into a 300-pound do-nothing-but-lay-still log, and Ella would still think I’m fun to play with.  This happened this past Sunday morning (no, I didn’t literally turn into a log, but I was about as close as one might come).  Dan had gotten up with the kids and, well, I just hadn’t yet.  It felt too good to be in bed, in the warmth, in the quiet, alone… alone… alone… ahhh… I still remember it.  And I was just… too… tired… to get up anyway.  I mean, I was exhausted.

So as soon as Dan was out of bed and down the stairs with the kids, I was asleep again in our bed, ALONE, hearing only the faint sounds of familiar Leatherman morning activities.  I don’t know if Dan had managed the kids to sane levels of noise and play or if I was THAT tired that I was actually back asleep the moment Dan and the kids exited our room at wake-up time.

And then I heard the footsteps.  Oh, no.  Whatever it was that had been keeping Ella occupied and content was over, and she was coming looking for me.  I was not ready to play, so I figured I’d just lay still, keep my eyes closed and be incredibly boring, completely unengaged from playtime.  Surely she'd leave me for something better, like "helping" Daddy with his puzzle, battling Cal for the Pooh plane or hugging Zoe so much she'd get scratched (lightly, of course).

She didn't.  My laying still, being incredibly boring and completely unengaged from playtime didn’t matter to Ella.  I don’t even think she asked me what I was doing or if I could get up.  She just started playing with me.

“Mommy, you need some lotion,” she told me from the floor on my side of my bed.  “I go get it.”  And then I heard her feet shuffle out of my room and eventually back.  I still had my eyes closed, but I figured she had her collection of plastic beauty items (compact, lipstick, brush, etc) with her.

“Here’s some lotion, Mommy,” and I felt her fingers sloppily but gently apply fake lotion (from her compact) to my cheek, talking about anything and everything and nothing, really, as she did.  “There you go,” she was finished.

“Mommy, do you need some chapstick, Mommy?” Ella asked next.  “Mommy, you need chapstick?” she repeated when I didn’t reply.  “You need chapstick, Mommy?” again.  I may have mustered an unintelligible grunt, and she just decided I did need chapstick and started applying her fake lipstick to my lips… or, rather, near my lips.

Meanwhile, Cal came bounding up the stairs, through our doorway and up onto the bed where I lay.  “Mommy, wake up! Come downstairs!” he exclaimed.  At least he acknowledged that I was still sort of sleeping.

“Mommy just wanted some quiet, alone time,” I replied.  And he left.

Ella, having heard my response to Cal stuck around, unaffected by it.  "Mommy, I brush your hair," she told me.  I quickly and vividly imagined a brush getting tangled in my hair and having to be cut out and decided to "un-log" and become Mommy again... cranky Mommy, but certainly "better" than a log, not that that mattered much to Ella.

The Jammy Stand-off

Ella and I had a stand-off tonight, and I'm really not sure who won.  We were in the early part of our bedtime routine (the shower-night version), which I had kicked off by announcing that the timer was started and it was time to pick jammies, get undressed and head to the shower.  The kids were rambunctious and "hiding" under Cal's bed when I announced it, so I reinforced it with an, "I'm only going to say this once -- PICK OUT YOUR JAMMIES."  And then I turned and left.

Cal must've actually obliged my request immediately because Ella was on my heels as I left Cal's room.

With Ella, I find myself constantly assessing our moods and our tolerances for being taken off plan and then balancing the value of the teaching moment with the pain and suffering that awaits me should she not be in the mood to cooperate and learn.

So when she insisted I go with her to her room to pick out her jammies, something I insisted both kids do on their own, I quickly assessed my options: Don't follow her and have to deal with her whining about being either too scared to go to her room or incapable of getting her jammies on her own (or both), which would ultimately cascade into a struggle getting her undressed and borderline torture getting her into the shower and clean.  Follow her and renege on my insistence that she pick out her jammies on her own, teach her that I can be played and take a hit on building up her independence.

So, like my usual spineless self, I followed her to her room.

Once I got there, I felt like I needed to re-establish my role as the parent, aka the boss.  As she was rolling around on her bed, I grabbed a Pull-Up for her and then told her that I'd get the Pull-Up but she needed to pick out her jammies.  And so began the back-and-forth -- aka the standoff:

Me: "Ella, pick your jammies."

Ella <smiling, cocky>: "I can't."

Me: "Yes, you can."

Ella <stern>: "No, I can't.

Me <now holding the bin where we keep her jammies>: "Yes you can, Ella.  Look, just pick the jammies off the top."

Ella <still stern>: "I can't."

Me <recognizing I'm still being played>: "You can't?  You can't just pick your jammies off the top?"

Ella <to the point>: "No."

Me <digging my heels in>: "Yes, you can."

Ella <snottily>: "No, I can't."

Me <setting the bin back on the shelf>: "Okay, well, I'm leaving.  You need to pick your jammies on your own."

And I turned and left.

Ella then picked up the jammy bin and followed me to her bedroom door whining the whole time that she couldn't pick out her jammies and that I needed to do it.  "No, I'm not going to pick your jammies.  Just pick a pair off the top," I insisted.  And then I turned and walked away again, this time making my way to my room.

Ella, still holding the jammy bin, followed me, still whining that same tune -- she couldn't pick out her jammies and I needed to do it.

I didn't.  I wasn't going to.  I found it amazing that Ella didn't see the nonsense of it all.  As if there was any sensible, legitimate reasoning to her not picking out her jammies, I actually wondered how she could carry that full bin of jammies from her room to our room but she couldn't pluck one pair of jammies off the top as I requested.  This bounced around in my head as if it even mattered.

I'm not sure how it would have ended had we stayed on this path.  I imagine I would have gotten her undressed and showered and into the Pull-Up I had grabbed for her and then put her into her bed without reading books and without jammies.  Funny.

Fortunately for everyone, Ella made her way downstairs to get some help from Dan.  This was a new approach for Ella as normally I am her chosen one to satisfy her requests. I don't know how much he had heard of our stand-off, but I later learned from Ella that Daddy did get her jammies for her.  I suppose I'm okay with that.  Afterall, I held my ground, established my role as parent and didn't get them for her.

In the end, maybe we both won and both lost the jammy stand-off.

Spiderman Sticks to Things

More often that not, if there's a shower being taken by a Leatherkid or both, I am the chosen parent to get into the shower to assist when needed and to otherwise supervise to ward off any fights or to make sure no kid lands on his back unexpectedly.

Tonight's shower involved three of us -- Ella, Cal and me -- and was dominated by Cal, both in presence and in words.  As usual, he stood in the middle of the hot shower most of the time, forcing Ella to stand on the frog bathmat in the front corner and me to stand kiddy-corner from her in the back corner.  More notable, however, was what he had to say.  It went something like this:

"It's hot.  I like hot showers.  Thank you for opening my body wash, Ella.  I can't open it, but you can.  But I'm still stronger than you are.  Yeah, I'm stronger.  Spiderman sticks to things.  He goes like this, and he sticks to things.  To walls.  To buildings.  Ella wants you to scratch her eye, Mommy.  Not the inside.  The top part.  The top of it.  That red thing on my foot isn't body wash.  It's a floor burn.  Tom and I were playing soccer.  We scored 30 goals.  I fell and dragged my foot on the floor and got a floor burn.  But it doesn't hurt.  If it hurts, it's healing.  How much time is left?  I'm going to wash my hair now.  Buhuhuhuh.  Mommy, I took a shower all by myself!  You didn't even need to help me.  Isn't that good?  Oh, I have to wash my face.  I'm going to get out now because I'm done.  Look, Mommy, I'm a pirate.  I'm drying myself off.  You won't have to dry me off anymore.  When I'm 5-1/2, I can dry myself off.  I'm 5 now.  You don't have to.  Look, Mommy, I'm dry.  Imperial Stormtroopers can see.  Even though they have helmets on, they can still see."

All the while, Ella occasionally yammered on about something, not paying an ounce of attention to Cal but just going about her own business.  That is, except for telling Cal that she can open his body wash but he can't.  Now that she knows this, she opens it for him all on her own initiative and hands it to him before opening hers.  And Cal takes it from her but insists he's still stronger.

Bundles of Unjoy

Normally during the winter, we dress the kids in the least amount of winter gear as possible when we don’t expect them to be exposed to the elements for very long at all.  These would include times like when we take them to school (no waiting for a bus) or to the grocery store (they oftentimes sucker me into going… “we’ll be good,” they insist) or to Grandma’s.  Putting them in anything more than a coat and a hat or hood is too much work on both ends (putting on and taking off) for the benefit, not the mention the angst that would surely ensue in the car if a mitten would fall off mid-drive or the knot of a scarf would feel bumpy behind a head in the car seat.

On Monday (actually, Sunday night), we were hit with a freeze not seen in Chicago for 20 years.  A “polar vortex,” they’re calling it, whatever that means.  Temperatures plummeted to the negative teens, and wind chills got as low as 40-50 degrees below zero.  People were told to basically just stay inside.  Businesses were either closed or had encouraged their employees stay home to either work there or even take the day off.  Trains were delayed.  Many schools were closed.  The Leatherkids’ school, however, remained open.

Unless otherwise planned or hit with a sickness, if their school is open, the Leatherkids will be there.

So Dan and I sent our kids to school and worked from home on Monday and again on Tuesday.  Given the sub-zero temperatures, our normal winter gearing wouldn’t be sufficient; so we insisted on boots (and put shoes to change into in their backpacks), a hat and the hood, mittens and a scarf (well, Ella managed to talk me out of her scarf Monday afternoon and Tuesday).  And we carried snow pants to school just in case.  We wanted every part of their bodies covered.  That’s a lot of stuff.

The Leatherkids were either genuinely not bothered by all of the gear (yeah, right) or they were incredibly distracted by the excitement of the cold weather.  The only complaint we got about all of the gear both days was Ella’s – the scarf, tied so loosely around her neck that it was virtually ineffective, was supposedly making her choke.  She actually made little choking sounds when she had the scarf on.  “Eh, eh… I’m choking,” she said.  “Eh, eh.”

Today, with temperatures supposed to be above zero, Dan and I both planned on actually going in to work.  It would be the first time doing so since before the holidays, which meant we’d be a little rusty with the whole coordination and execution of the morning routine, pressed for time because trains run on a schedule and, well, you can’t be a minute late for a train or you don’t catch it.

We winter geared the kids up the same way we had yesterday and Monday (except for Ella’s scarf, of course).  No one complained.  We winter geared ourselves up, too – it would be a cold walk from our car to the train, and waiting for the train to arrive was entirely likely.

Winter gearing up is exhausting, really.  So much work just to be undone once inside again… and to be repeated at the end of the day.

The undoing is a lot of work, too, particularly with kids who aren’t fully independent, who can’t tie shoes just yet and especially with a kid who has to have his shoelaces tied and tucked in a very specific way.  Throw in a Mommy and Daddy having a train to catch and the work becomes incredibly stressful as well.

Today, I was chosen to take Cal to his room and de-winter gear him; Dan would do so for Ella.  Once in his room, we de-geared.  The hat came off first, followed by the coat.  We tried to take the mittens off before the coat; but they were so tucked into the sleeves of the coat that they wouldn’t budge.  With the coat off, the mittens came off easily.  We shoved all of this and his backpack into a cubby he shares with a classmate, a cubby too small to hold all of Cal’s gear much less Cal’s and his classmate’s.

“Do you have a carpet where you put your boots?” I asked Cal.  Ella does.  It’s a great idea, a way to contain the wet, dirtiness boots bring with them.

“No,” Cal wasn’t sure what I was talking about, so clearly his class doesn’t have a boot carpet.

I grabbed a chair for Cal to sit on while I shoed him and told him to sit on it and take his boots off while I unknotted the mess of shoelaces from yesterday’s wearing.  Turns out, this wasn’t as difficult as it appeared it would be – the knots were loose.  Once untied, I loosened up the shoes for easy slipping on, bent down in front of Cal and started the shoeing process.  This process must be strictly followed and carefully executed so as to avoid a reaction, a really bad “the-sky-is-falling” type of meltdown, if a shoe doesn’t look or feel right.

Slip on shoes.

Straighten out shoe’s tongue and pull it taught.

Take a breath.

Tighten laces, but not too tight.

Feel Cal staring at my hands as they worked on his laces.

Take a breath.

Gently tie laces in a double knot.

Respond to Cal’s “tuck them in, Mommy” with a patient, “I know, I will, Cal."  It's funny that he feels like he needs to tell me how he wants his shoes every time I tie them.  I learned quickly with the first meltdown over a year ago.

Grab all four sets of strings (two loops, two ends) and tuck them all under a tightly-pulled section near the end of laces, closest to the toe.

Take a breath and ask, “how’s that?”

Handle delayed response patiently despite thoughts like, "this is nuts" or “hurry, I have a train to catch” bouncing around in my head.

Hear Cal’s “good” response and repeat the whole process with the second shoe.

With Cal de-winter geared and shoed, we headed to a different room, the room where we drop him off on the “early” days, or days that we beat most people to school.  As we did so, Cal stepped oddly with one of his feet.  Oh, oh, I thought to myself.  Please be okay… please be okay… He started to say something about his shoe but stopped himself for some reason.  Whew.  We made it to his drop-off room and said our goodbyes for the day; and I quickly scurried down the hallway and out the front door to find Dan waiting for me in the running car.

I love so much about winter, but gearing the kids up so they can be exposed to and not be damaged by the winter elements is so much work.  Gear alone, it's probably tolerable; but throw in their quirks and sensitivities, and it becomes a stressful scenario with a high risk of meltdown to avoid if at all possible.  And with a train to catch?  Frankly, that we actually caught the train we were targeting this morning is nothing short of a miracle.

An Entirely Too Pleasant Morning

This morning, Dan and I got a taste of the Leatherkids that our parents see regularly... pleasant, nice, cooperative, whine-less.  There were no fights about selecting clothes to wear and actually getting dressed, no insisting that pants that actually fit are too long or have strings, no whining about socks being "squishy" or just not liked.  No one insisted I carry her down the stairs only to cry when I said, "no."  No one begged for a "bar" (Zone nutrition bar) when a graham cracker was offered.  And winter gear went on when asked and without a struggle.

Coming off of yesterday (and the day before... and the day before that... and the day before that... and so on), this was shocking.  And suspicious.  If I didn't think that Dan and I were owed a morning like this morning, I might have purposely started a fight just to feel normal and trusting.  What was up with my kids?

Cal was probably the worst.  The same dinosaur t-shirt he had fought me tooth and nail about wearing on Sunday was his shirt of choice this morning.  I won the battle Sunday and figured it might be weeks before I'd see him in it again.  He was disappointed when he didn't see this shirt in the stack of newly folder t-shirts I had put in his dresser; but lucky for both of us, it landed in the pile of things to wash last night and simply required a trip to the dryer to retrieve so he could wear it.  I couldn't get downstairs to the laundry room fast enough fearing his enthusiasm for this shirt would surely wear off soon.

Then there was the pair of socks.  With a drawer full of clean socks, he chose the style of socks that just yesterday had caused him great discomfort, of which he made the rest of us fully aware through shouts and many tears.  This morning, he saw me watch him put them on.  He must've seen the shock and confusion plastered all over my face and reassured me that wearing a similar pair yesterday, he had learned that he actually likes these socks.  My shock and confusion stuck around but I managed a pleased, proud "that's great, Cal" in response.

He then pulled a pair of pants from his four-pair supply of pants that he wears regularly and proceeded to thank me profusely for having washed them for him.  I wondered what he would have done had the four-pair supply not been in his drawer.  Part of me wishes they hadn't -- could Cal have actually overcome this and selected a pair from his don't-like-for-reasons-not-understood-by-Mom-and-Dad supply?  Without complaint?  Methinks not, but we'll never know for sure.

The next thing I knew, Ella was running to me fully clothed and yelled, "Surprise!"  She, too, had gotten dressed pleasantly.  No buttons or jeans (two items of clothing she never wears for reasons not understood by Mom and Dad), but she was dressed without my having heard any fighting from her bedroom and without a frustrated Daddy following her out of it.

The three of us (Ella, Cal and I) walked downstairs hand in hand, Ella talking about something discernible but not memorable and Cal talking about how Ella learns things from him, so she's learning good things from him this morning.  Wow, that didn't take long, I thought to myself.  Just recently, we had started taking this angle to correct some of Cal's poor choices in behavior or words.

"You know, Cal, Ella learns things from you.  You're her big brother, and she looks up to you," we'll say.  "When you say mean things, she hears you and does the same thing.  When you don't listen, she follows you.  If you say nice things, and if you listen to Mommy and Daddy, she will, too, and we'll ALL be happy."  It's true.

So this morning's "see, Mommy, I got dressed and Ella got dressed" was encouraging that our words -- our teachings -- were heard, understood and maybe even acted upon by Cal.

Once downstairs, the morning went as I said at the beginning.  The kids got a graham cracker as their morning, heading-out-the-door snack and were happy with it.  I don't remember whose boots were on first, but I do remember there being no repeated requests to put them on.  Cal was bundled such that only his eyes and nose were visible; and Ella was less bundled with her coat zipper pulled most of the way up and without a scarf, a compromise we had made leaving school yesterday.

"I don't want to wear a scarf," she told me then.

"Okay, if you don't wear a scarf, you do need to zip your coat up further when we go outside," I told her.  Scarves and zippers pulled all the way up make her choke one of those dramatic fake chokes, like she's got a fur ball in her throat.

She agreed with my proposal and let me zip her coat all the way up only when we were heading out the door.  So she offered it up the same way to me this morning, and I couldn't disagree.

And as easily as we had gotten downstairs and bundled up, we were heading out the door to our cold garage (day two of sub-zero temps) to hop into our cold car and head to school, Cal talking about how cold it is and Ella talking, again, about something random.  As we turned off of our street, Dan announced that we'd have some quiet time until we got to school, a solid three minutes of potential peace and quiet.  Cal was into it, calling it the quiet game; Ella just accidentally obliged Dan's request but was the first to break the silence with, yes, something random.

Was our morning too pleasant?  On the one hand, it really wasn't.  We have had too many mornings with too many battles and too many tears and too many shouts and were due a morning of gross niceness where everything went just right, where everyone said and did exactly the right thing, where we were all just happy.  I credit all of us for making this happen, too -- Dan for proactively getting the kids going and using the perfect motivational words on Ella to get dressed quickly and quietly, Ella for responding well to Dan's motivations, Cal for being open to trying new things for a second time, and me for providing Cal with the clothes that he wanted to wear be they a newly-liked t-shirt or old stand-by pants.  We don't always all make those types of choices.

On the other hand, it really was too pleasant.  My Leatherkids are head strong and stubborn.  They know what they like and don't back down when asked to just be accepting of a situation.  Not that I believe everything needs to be a battle or that we shouldn't be open to trying new things -- goodness, I've lived my life avoiding battles and trying new things -- but a battle here and there is healthy.  Our battles over insignificant things today are practice for their meaningful battles in the future.

On our way out the door this morning, after my having gone on and on about how wonderful the morning was, Cal said, "and that makes you happy, right, Mommy?"  I told him it did, but his asking that made me a little uncomfortable.  I don't want him or Ella to make choices and behave a certain way to make me happy.  (Okay, some days I do, but only selfishly to give myself and Dan a break from their misbehaving craziness.)  I want it to make him happy.  In the end, I think our fantastic morning probably did make him happy.  I'm sure we all feed off of each other.  I know we're miserable when they are; conversely, they must be happy when we are.

Will this be repeated?  Perhaps it will tomorrow since it's still fresh in their heads after I told them again just before I kissed them goodnight how good our morning (and incidentally the whole day) was.  Will it be sustained?  I doubt it and, frankly, hope not.