I Missed My Train This Morning... and Missed More Than That

I missed my train this morning.  I'm handling it pretty well -- it's not ideal, but with trains every 20 minutes during the morning rush hour, I know I'll still get to work with enough time to settle in before my first meeting of the day at 9am.

I made a good effort to catch my target train, selecting the best lanes to progress up the main drag and taking a back road or two without hesitation when the lights didn't help my cause.  But I was down seven minutes from the start, and this ended up being too much time to overcome.  In the end, I managed to get myself parked and about halfway to the train when I saw it start to move forward.  I figure I missed it by two minutes, and that two minutes would have included a mad sprint (been done before) and paying my daily parking fee at a machine that... well, that doesn't understand the concept of sprinting to catch a train.

I can't really pinpoint exactly what it was that kept me from getting out the door seven minutes earlier than I did.  It was certainly a full morning, but I had a few mental time checks that I thought were keeping me on track.

The primary chunks of my pre-train mornings these days are:

1. Run.  I'm still working on getting in 600 miles for the year and realized at the start of November that I had about 120 miles to go.  Oops.  So I need to run and like getting my run in first thing in the morning.  I try to get this started no later than 5:30am; today it was 5:38am.
2. Fix lunches.  While I cool down from my run, I turn on Mike and Mike and make lunches.  I'm usually the only one up, so this is nice, quiet Mommy-only time.  I shoot to have this done before 6:30am; today it was 6:41am.
3. Shower and get dressed.  Dan would probably say otherwise, but I think I only need 20 minutes to do this.  If it takes me longer, it's because I'm lollygagging somewhere along the way... or maybe I decided to make the bed (if Dan didn't)... or maybe I just can't decide what to wear... or decide that what I thought I'd wear looks ridiculous... anyway, I shoot to have this done by 7am (earlier if I need to catch an even earlier train); today it was 7:14am.

Each one of those steps has wriggle room to catch up should I find myself behind.  If I don't finish my run until shortly after 6am, I still have plenty of time to fix lunches before 6:30.  If I don't get upstairs by 6:30am to get shower and get ready for work, I still have enough time to do the basics and be ready, as long as I'm up there by 6:40 or so.  Today, given that my day started a little later than my target start, I still should have caught eh 7:32.  So what went wrong?

The collection of little "things" is what went wrong:

1. I chose to make coffee for myself today.  I rarely do this any day and generally leave it to Dan; but today I made it.  It was cold outside and would keep me warm at the train station.  Dunkin'  Donuts hazelnut coffee.  Yummy.  This needed a couple of minutes of my time.
2. Cal's shoe was in a ridiculous quadruple knot, one that he couldn't get undone if he tried... which he sort of did.  It was a challenge for even me, an experienced knot undoer.  I needed to tackle this before heading upstairs for my shower else suffer the consequences of Cal's whining and worrying that Daddy might not give him his get-dressed star; and it took me a couple of minutes to undo it.
3. Ella needed help getting her dress down from the closet.  Yes, today she wanted to wear a dress, which is not really unusual but did it have to be her choice today?  It's the one piece of clothing that hangs in her closet is unreachable by her.  Dan was still sleeping, and I wanted to respect that; so I helped her get her dress.  What followed was a carefully executed exit from being her getting-dressed assistant -- leave too abruptly and suffer the consequences all-out whining and crying about having left without helping her; stay too long and find myself on a train departing after 9am.  I did exit gracefully and without consequence (I can't explain how), but it did take a couple of minutes to do so.
4. Ella insisted she needed help putting on her socks.  I resisted while I showered, suggesting that she do so herself and that I would not help her.  The day before, she had put her socks on herself, and I used this as my argument.  She didn't see the connection (or refused to admit she did, throwing out the fact that THESE socks had "strings")  Eventually (out of the shower and dressed) I found myself in a compromise -- I put one sock on her right foot, and she put the other one on her left.  It doesn't take me much time to put a sock on her, but it was certainly a distraction.
5. Ella talks a lot.  I mean, a lot.  This alone is a distraction.
6. Ella wanted a braid.  Normally, I volunteer it.  Today, I didn't.  She requested it as I stood at the vanity after my shower.  In my head it takes 10 seconds to do her braid; in reality, it takes a couple of minutes.  Despite my initial response of "if I have time," I couldn't say no.  So I took a couple of minutes to braid her hair.
7. When I made my way to the bottom of the stairs, Cal showed me what he had drawn

   

   Cal's "Mommy" Crayon Drawing

   on our crayon dry-erase board (which I still don't really understand how it's different than using traditional crayons on a traditionally markered dry-erase board).  It read "to Mommy from Cal" and had pictures of colored crayons on it.  Anything drawn specially for me, particularly labeled "Mommy," pulls at my heart strings, so naturally I had to take a picture of this.  The login and snapping of the picture probably took a good minute or two, again, unplanned.
8. And then there's the good-bye.  This actually went better than expected but required some quick pecks on the cheeks of my loved ones followed by a swift exit which involved putting on my coat and then grabbing my hat, gloves, lunch bag, backpack and purse, a collection of work whose effort to complete should not be understated.  I can't put a time on this other than to say it's more than what it takes to get out the door in the summer.

Clearly, it was the collection of little unplanned things that made me late which really means that it was my getting up 15 minutes later than planned that made me late.

Anyway, when I got into the car, the clock read 7:24am (it's a couple of minutes fast)... for a 7:32am train.  There really was no chance I'd make it.  I knew this, but I still tried.  Early in my attempt I re-thought it and considered going back.  This is because as I backed out of the driveway, the door to the garage opened; and my two fully dressed, coated and backpacked kids stood in the doorway watching me back out and drive away.  Cal on the right, Ella on the left.  The image of them would stick.  I don't know if they were saying anything, but I honked the car horn, waved goodbye and signed "I love you" to them.  No reaction.  They just stood there and watched me leave.  Had I admitted defeat early on, I could have taken the time to give them each a big hug.  I really like big hugs, especially with my kids.  What a great start that could have been to a morning.  I missed that this morning, even more than I missed my train.

Our Tooth Fairy is a Tightwad

When Cal lost his first tooth a couple of weeks ago, we found ourselves once again on unchartered territory.  Not only did we need to manage irregular but predictable visits from the Tooth Fairy, but also unexpected questions and scenarios involving the Tooth Fairy.

I know the drill: lose your tooth, put it under your pillow at night and find that money had replaced that tooth the following morning.  Easy enough, right?

Cal's smile minus his first lost tooth
(that's spaghetti sauce around his mouth)

Cal swallowed his first lost tooth.  That’s the leading theory, anyway.  He lost it at dinner time – he started his dinner with his tooth hanging on by a thread, visited the bathroom during dinner and then returned unknowingly without his tooth.  He didn’t pull it out; it fell out.  It wasn’t in the bathroom.  It wasn’t on the floor on the path to or from the bathroom.  It wasn’t on or underneath the dinner table, though Cal did try to convince us that a tooth-sized fleck of Styrofoam he had found on the floor was, in fact, his lost tooth.  It had to be in his belly or, at least, on its way.

I figure swallowing a tooth is nothing to be concerned about and assume it made its departure in a poop a few days later (which I made the mistake of saying aloud… to Cal… who laughed about it).  The only problem that I had with the swallowed tooth was that it wasn’t part of the drill.  Without a tooth, how does the Tooth Fairy know to visit?  Clearly I knew how the Tooth Fairy knew; but, without the tooth, how would Cal know that the Tooth Fairy knew?

This was an easy one to solve – we had Cal write a note to her to explain what happened, and he placed that note under his pillow that same night.

The Tooth Fairy visited him that night and replaced the note he had written her with a shiny Sacajawea one-dollar coin.

This didn’t measure up monetarily to the reports of other kids’ Tooth Fairies leaving them $5 or $10 a tooth; but it was at least different and, in the eyes of our Tooth Fairy, special and save-worthy.  Cal loved it, though I’m certain that Sacajawea coin is now either lost or sitting amongst the more traditional coins in his piggy (fish) bank.

Cal lost his second tooth before dinner last night.  Like the first, it had hung on by a thread for awhile.  This time, though, upon seeing a small pool of blood at the base of it, I mustered the mental (or stomach) strength to yank it out for him.  To call it a “yank” is misleading – I grabbed a paper towel, told him I just wanted to look at it and soak up some of the blood and then gently pulled it out for him.  It was so easy, he didn’t even know it.  And the fact that I didn’t even feel its release from his gums made it not so much the queasy event that I had made it out to be.

Despite having visions of his tooth falling into our garbage disposal, I rinsed his tooth with water in our kitchen sink and then plopped it into a shot glass.  No note would be needed for this lost tooth – Cal could place the actual tooth under his pillow for the Tooth Fairy to grab sometime while he slept.  To make sure that the Tooth Fairy could actually find and grab this tooth under his pillow (that tooth was smaller than it looks in his mouth), I eventually put it into a Ziploc bag; and Cal put the tooth-in-bag combo under his pillow right before he went to bed.

I woke up to my alarm at 5:07am today (I never set my alarm on a zero, an even number or a multiple of five) and lay in bed a couple of minutes before it hit me – I wasn’t sure the Tooth Fairy had visited Cal!  In a panic, I jumped out of bed and, instead of verifying by checking under Cal’s pillow myself, I woke Dan and asked him if he knew that the Tooth Fairy had visited Cal.  He nodded that he had; so, satisfied, I got into my running clothes and headed downstairs to get a run in on the treadmill.

A little over two miles into my run, a half-dressed Cal emerged on the stairs to the basement muttering something, which I eventually interpreted as the Tooth Fairy hadn’t visited him.  My first reaction was pissed off.  What question did Dan think I was asking him at 5:10am?  I could have addressed it then!  I then got my bearings and figured I should ask Cal a few questions before concluding that Dan had dropped the ball.  I stepped off the treadmill for a few seconds so I could focus and actually speak.

“You checked under your pillow?” I wanted to confirm he had.

“Yes,” Cal responded.

“And there’s nothing there?” more confirmation.

“No.”

“Is your tooth still there?” good question!

“No.”

“Okay, I’m sure the Tooth Fairy visited.  Go up and look again.” And then I told him where he could find a clean pair of pants.

Not even five minutes later, Cal re-emerged, fully dressed and holding a shiny coin for me to see.

“Is that from the Tooth Fairy?” I asked.

“Yes,” he responded without much excitement.

I focused on the coin in his hand.  It appeared to be silver.  The Tooth Fairy didn’t bring a Sacajawea coin this time.  It actually looked like a nickel, which both shocked and didn’t shock me all at the same time.  What a cheapskate!  Personally, I think a lost tooth is worth more than a nickel, so I was shocked that the Tooth Fairy would only leave a nickel.  I probably got more than a nickel when I was a kid!  And that’s forty years ago!  I also know that Dan wouldn’t necessarily think that a lost tooth is worth more than a nickel; and since he managed the Tooth Fairy visit this time, I wasn’t surprised last night's Tooth Fairy left only a nickel.

I continued to stare at this shiny coin in Cal’s hand as I finished my run.  Eventually he got close enough to me for me to see that it was actually a quarter he was holding.  A shiny quarter.  25 cents.  The same cheapskate thoughts I had about the Tooth Fairy leaving a nickel applied to him leaving a quarter.  Assuming this is precedent-setting, at a quarter a tooth, Cal will have a little over five dollars after he’s collected on his last lost tooth – “a little over” only because of that Sacajawea one-dollar coin he got for his first lost tooth… if he even still has it.  Five dollars for a full set of lost teeth.  That won’t even buy the smallest of Lego sets!

Yes, our Tooth Fairy is a tightwad.  Lucky for Cal, he can supplement the quarters our Tooth Fairy gives him with those which he earns for good behavior week over week.  And lucky for us, Cal still sees it that way and hasn't yet realized how cheap his Tooth Fairy is.

Are My Kids Weirdos?

Ever since I learned (the hard way) all of Cal’s requirements for wearable pants (no strings, no pockets, no jeans, no swishiness, no gathering at the bottom of the legs, no hitting the tops of his feet, and some indeterminate requirements), I periodically revisit the question, “is he weird or is this just typical of kids his age?”  While having to deal with such illogical quirks usually elicits an eye roll (or ten) out of me, I generally conclude that it’s typical.

With each oddball nit that Cal and now Ella have thrown at us, I ask myself that same question and come to that same conclusion – it’s all just typical toddler behavior.

Last weekend, I talked with my dad for a bit on the phone.  He’s a regular reader of my blog, and he mentioned having read one of my recent posts (see http://theleatherkidchronicles.blogspot.com/2014/10/decompressing-on-train.html).  Coming off the week of daily “A Good Thing That Happened” posts, I think he found it hard to read such a downer of a post.  This led to my describing what had happened that morning and then my describing a recent bedtime struggle with Ella, both complete disasters triggered by my kids’ quirks pulled out of thin air.

I described to him the too-light-backpack disaster with Cal and the not-enough-books-to-sleep-with bedtime struggle with Ella, and he was amazed.  He couldn’t relate – from where did these issues that my kids have thrown at us recently come?  He didn’t have to deal with that with Erin (my sister) and me.

This got me thinking… or re-thinking.  Maybe we’re not experiencing typical toddler behavior with some of this stuff.  Maybe my kids are weird.  Let me share some of their noteworthy quirks.

Cal’s shoelaces need to be double-knotted, lay flat and have bows and strands of equal lengths, else he has a meltdown complete with repeated pleas for velcro shoes which I tell him they don’t make in his size.  Is this weird?

Ella won’t wear a shirt, a dress, a jacket – you name it – if it has buttons on it.  Even a single decorative button unnoticeable by the naked eye is enough to qualify it as unwearable by her standards.  Is this weird?

Cal only likes his black-with-gray-heeled mid-calf-length socks and stretches them up and over his calves so much that one can see the skin of his legs through his socks.  What’s worse, he actually wears them this way with Crocs.  I’ve told him he looks like Grandpa Reiter, which he doesn’t understand, of course, and which I leave unexplained.  Unfortunately, I only bought a six-pack of these socks before realizing how perfect he thought they were; and I don’t remember where I got them.  I found what I thought was the same style but all black, which he’ll wear, but not until he’s made me miserable whining about it.  Is it weird that he wears his socks the same way as my dad does?  Is it weird that they have to be black and gray for him to like them?

Ella sleeps with a pile of books – not less than four, but sometimes as many as seven.  If we don’t lay them next to her (or if she doesn’t realize that we did) as she lay in her bed, she anxiously exclaims, “where are my books?!”  She doesn't have the same level of concern with a potentially missing, cuddly stuffed animal.  Is this weird?

If there’s a hood on a jacket and that jacket is on Cal, that hood is up and covering Cal’s head and that jacket is zipped up as far as it can go.  He looks like a Teletubby from the waist up.  This is Cal’s preference.  Is this weird?

Ella is finally cooperating with our requirements for dressing for the Fall weather and wearing leggings (the comfy, stretch-pants kind) underneath her skirts and dresses.  Sometimes she gets them on herself and sometimes she’ll ask for help.  Either way, I’m often dealing with her whining about “fixing” them.  I’ll look for wrinkles or twists in the pants on her legs, not see any and pretend to “fix” them with the hopes that she’s just looking for attention and not actual “fixing.” She proceeds to claim they’re not right and has a near meltdown about it.  Is this weird?

Cal likes to “read” the Lego manuals that come with his Lego sets.  You know, the ones that step you through piecing the Legos together until you’ve pieced together the final vehicle or, in the case of the Chima sets, weird creature contraption?  These are the "books" he chooses to "read" on his own at night just before bedtime without the goal of piecing a set together.  Is this weird?

Ella regularly claims that her socks “hurt.”  Not that they’re crooked… not that they’re twisted… not that they’re bunched up… all things that any reasonable sock perfectionist would describe as the problem.  No, Ella’s socks actually hurt her.  Is this weird?

Neither of my kids will wear a pair of jeans.  Jeans!  I think I can count on one hand the number of times Cal has worn jeans; and Ella never has.  Is this weird?  It's certainly un-American!

And then there was Ella’s shouting, “I love you, Mommy!” from her room at bedtime… repeatedly and increasing in volume and frustration… until I’d respond.  This went on for months and just recently stopped with our completely re-vamped approach to bedtime.  But is it weird that she ever did that?

Or how about the couple of months where Cal would fall asleep on the mid-point landing of our stairs?  Was that weird?

Ella likes to draw “flags” (they look like kites to the experienced eye).  We might have 50 “flag” drawings at home by now, some of which have an impressive mix of colors.  Could she just occasionally draw a flower… or a tree… or a stick figure?  Nope.  Just flags.  Is this weird?

Cal’s still carrying all of those unnecessary books in his backpack, and now Ella is doing it, along with two seemingly randomly selected stuffed animals each day – is this weird?

Ella listens to the Frozen soundtrack at bedtime and has to be the one to turn it on, else she's throwing a fit.  It's played on an iPod, and she's not the most skilled iPod user; so this oftentimes ends in a fight that could be avoided if she would just let us - skilled iPod users - turn it on for her.  She insists on starting her music, a very insignificant step in the bedtime routine.  Is this weird?

Are Cal’s issues with most styles of pants (see the opening of this post) weird?

I think the fact that I ask the question actually answers the question - the Leatherkids are weirdos.  There are days when I really wish that they weren't, which are probably the days when I'm unexpectedly introduced to a new quirk and need to respond in an instant with no preparation or experience with it.  For the most part, though, their weirdness doesn't bother me as I've learned to manage most of it.  Don't like strings on your shorts?  I'll cut them off for you.  Want to carry a backpack full of books?  Okay, but I'm not carrying it.  Want to draw nothing but colorful flags?  Great - I'll frame my favorite and proudly hang it on a wall.

I love my weirdos.

Leggings and Hugs

It was the typical rush to get ready for school or work, depending upon the person, and out the door this morning.  Really, Dan and Cal had things under control and were ready to leave by the loosely targeted departure time calculated as this: T minus 7 minutes (to drop the kids off) minus 11 minutes (to drive to the train) minus 3 minutes (contingency).  But Ella and me?  Not so much.

One might think that, with two strong-willed, picky-dressing, temperamental (lunatic) kids under the age of six, I would have learned to give myself some time for the unexpected (or, even the expected but unpredictable).  But I continue to operate under this foolish estimation that I can be ready to leave in 20 minutes (I have… by myself… sometimes).  I set my alarm to factor in contingency for the unexpected (or expected but unpredictable), but I get up per the 20-minute plan.

So this morning, I had the pleasure of getting ready with Ella.  She needed help getting her clothes, so I had to take a break from my routine to help her.  She wanted to wear a dress?  I pulled out a dress for her.  It was a tank, so I threw in the rule that she needed leggings (what? I make up rules as I go), which she actually cooperated in selecting.  I announced I was heading back to my room to finish getting ready; and she followed me, her dress and leggings in her hands.

Once back in my bathroom and brushing my hair, I noticed Ella in the background with her hand “holding herself” and a painful look on her face.  This is the universal tell that a kid – certainly my kid -- has to go potty.

“Ella, do you have to go potty?” I asked her, really not asking her but being her trigger to actually head to the toilet.

She immediately ran to our toilet, turned so her buns were facing the toilet, started pulling down her undies, stopped and announced, “I have to go give Daddy a hug.”

She then pulled up her undies and scurried out of the room and downstairs to, I assume, give Dan a hug.

What?  I continued to get ready.

She returned maybe a minute or two later (I’m not really sure), used the potty and proceeded to get herself dressed.

I would love to be a thought bouncing around in Ella's head and seeing how other thoughts might affect me.  Clearly she had to go potty; but giving Dan, who was all the way downstairs, a hug before doing so?  I have no idea where that came from.  She didn't, either.  Maybe it's like my rule that she wear leggings if she's wearing a tank dress.  I like to think it's rooted in common sense, but...

Ella's Napkins

We ate dinner in the dining room again tonight.  It's nothing fancy, really.  Our dining room table is a long folding table that we typically pull out for family parties.  Our chairs are the folding chairs that complete the folding table set. Some of the blinds on the windows behind the table are bent, a result of being hit by something thrown by the kids, I'm sure.  There is a bar, our Pottery Barn purchase with some of our wedding money, that's actually a nice piece of furniture but is unfortunately covered with dust.  Priorities.

No, our dining room is not fancy.  But the kids like it; and Dan and I have found that we seem to get better table manners and fewer potty words throughout dinner when we eat in the dining room instead of in our kitchen.  That's been true the past week or so, and we're going to ride this until it's not effective, like pretty much everything else we do.

Maybe halfway into our chicken taco dinner tonight, Ella got up from the table and disappeared around the corner into the kitchen.  Dan, Cal and I kept eating.  Ella getting up from the table isn't uncommon, and we typically let her slide a couple of times before insisting she stay seated.

Anyway, she returned with cloth napkins in her hand.  Ella is already green, not that she knows it.  I keep the cloth napkins in a basket on the counter, and she's really only familiar with that stash of napkins, not that I even really know where the paper ones might be.  She handed a cloth napkin to Dan... then one to me... then sat down with the last napkin she had for herself.  Cal didn't get a napkin.

So I asked her, "Why didn't you bring a napkin for Cal Daniel?"

She paused for a few seconds and responded, "Because he doesn't use napkins."

She was right.  Then I asked her, "What does Cal Daniel use instead of a napkin?"

She thought for a bit and answered, "His shirt."

Exactly.  I wish that weren't the right answer, but it is.  And that Ella knows it is pretty funny.

Decompressing on the Train

I'm sitting on the upper level of this train car, heading in to work and feeling nothing but negative emotions.  Angry.  Frustrated.  Disappointed.  Sad.  Regretful.  To add to that, I'm sweating, crampy and not feeling very attractive or smart.

Our morning started out okay.  I managed to roll out of bed just before 5:30am so I could get downstairs to get a run in.  It was a decent run, too.  At 2.4 miles, it was short; but I was strong.

Once done with my run, I made Cal's lunch in silence while I cooled down.  I didn't have Ella begging me to "help" or actually "helping" me and doubling the time it took to make the lunch as a result.

I even had time to catch some of Mike & Mike, and actually heard what they had to say.

I was in a pretty good mood.

Ella was the first Leatherkid to get out of bed.  It was probably 6:25am when I saw her as I started to make my way up the stairs to shower in what I thought would be silence.  I sensed that her mood was fragile, so I handled her delicately, suppressing the reality that we would be rushed through the rest of our morning so I could get them to school and myself to the train in time to catch my target train.

She followed me up the stairs and lay on my bed as I showered.  Her choice.  This was okay with me -- at least we weren't fighting.  It was peaceful.  I carefully informed her she could stay there until I was out of the shower, after which she needed to get dressed.

Cal was up and getting dressed by now.  His new pants didn't fit right, so he changed them himself.  I would need to return them, so I headed to his room to grab the pants and find the tag that he had ripped off.  I gave his bed the sniff test and realized his bedding needed to be washed again.  This has become part of the drill and didn't upset my morning.

After I had finished showering, I reminded Ella it was time for her to get dressed.  She got up from the bed and came into the bathroom where she wanted to dry her hair.  I let her while I got dressed, brushed my own hair and put some face cream and mascara on.  At least she was content.

Despite my suggesting that she wear a skirt and leggings (both in her dresser drawers), she insisted on a dress, which I needed to help her with.  A multi-tasker, I started brushing my teeth; and we headed to her room to get her dressed.  This went pretty smoothly, but did eat away at some of the time I needed to finish getting myself ready.  She insisted I stay while she picked out her socks, and I complied because I didn't want to fight -- had I left before she had picked out her socks, I would have surely had to deal with significant whining.  I just didn't want to.

I finished getting myself ready and informed the kids as I started making my way downstairs it was time to get their shoes on.  This rarely goes smoothly and usually takes a fair amount of time.  Neither kid had shoes on.  They both asked for a "Danimals" shake, which I told them they could have after they had their shoes on.  They accepted this condition.

Their shoes went on quickly and without a hiccup.  They drank their Danimals shakes.  We were a little late, but not too bad.  And we were happy.

And then Cal picked up his backpack, and things went downhill fast because his bag wasn't heavy enough, and he let me know it, having a complete meltdown complete with screaming and many tears.  Not five minutes earlier, he was happy... ecstatic because he had finally finished building the "ring of fire" and "ramp," the remaining two components of the Lego set he bought on Monday (see http://www.theleatherkidchronicles.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-kids-cashed-in-today.html).  He had been working on building this set all week, so this was something to be excited about.

But his darn backpack wasn't heavy enough because the night before I had taken all of the books he's been carting around in it but not using.  Too many times I heard him say that he couldn't carry all of his stuff, blaming most of it on his heavy backpack.  I thought I was being thoughtful.

Frustrated, I told him he could put two books in it.  I don't know why two -- staring at the stack of maybe seven I had removed the night before, two seemed like a decent compromise.  It's always two, though.  Ella can bring two stuffed animals to school, not the five she wants to bring.  Cal can have two cookies.  Two.  Two.  Two.

As Cal put two books into his backpack, I started shuffling Ella toward the door to start our departure.  Lucky for me, she had her backpack on.  No coat because I didn't want to have THAT fight.  No, her coat was in her backpack.  But she was happy.  As she and I made our way out the door, Cal was screaming at us to wait.  I didn't.  He made it out the door as I had started getting Ella into her carseat.  He was still crying and yelling at me.  His backpack was still too light.

I yelled at him to get in the car and ran inside to get the rest of the stack of his books that he's been carting around in his backpack.  Sweat was now pouring off of my forehead.

I made it back to the car, yanked his backpack from his hands as he sat in his booster and shoved the books into his backpack, yelling the whole time.  Oh, I laid into him, explaining that he doesn't need to carry all of those books, there was a reason I took them out and that I didn't want to hear him tell me that he can't carry all of his stuff.  Oh, no, I would not be carrying his lunch bag or coat going forward -- he was responsible for it, heavy backpack or not.

I laid into him.  I'm pretty sure I dropped the f-bomb.  I backed out of the driveway at about 60mph and continued my rant as we headed down the neighborhood streets faster than we should have but not dangerously fast (I did have some control over myself).  I know I yelled "dammit" a few times, mostly directing at myself for losing it.  I also informed him that if I missed my train I wouldn't be able to catch an early train home and he would not be able to play with his Legos.

Ella was quiet the whole time.  Before we got to school, Cal's tears had stopped and my words were just bouncing off of him.  My yelling was completely ineffective.  I was releasing a lot of frustration that I think had been building up inside me without my knowing it.  Handling the delicate mood of Ella.  Clearing the bedding off of Cal's bed.  Getting Ella dressed.  Avoiding fights outright by telling the kids they didn't need coats.  And the backpack.  That darn, apparently not heavy enough backpack.

This train was my target train.  I had to sprint the quarter mile from my car to catch it, but I did.  As negatively emoted as I am right now (I'm not even sure if that's a word), I do intend to catch the earlier train home so that Cal has time to play with his new Legos that he finished assembling.  I do look forward to that, assuming he's happy when I actually do get him early, which isn't always the case.  Until then, I'm not sure what kind of day I'm going to have.  I'm not feeling too good about myself, my actions, my appearance, my parenting skills (or lack thereof).

But I'll come around... with a new approach... I always do.

The Kids Cashed In Today

The Leatherkids each have an "I Can Do It!" reward chart hanging on the fridge.  Each chart has six goals, and each goal has seven spots for a star, one for each day of the week.  Depending on the goal, stars are awarded either first thing in the morning or just before heading up to bed - if the goal was achieved that day, a star is velcroed to its spot on the chart; if the goal was not achieved, the spot is left star-less.

At the end of the week, each kid counts his stars and gets a coin (quarter, dime, nickel or penny) for each star he earned and puts the coins in his piggy bank.  After an undefined amount of time, each kid takes her coins to the bank to deposit half and takes the other half to a store of her choice to spend it on something she wants.

Some goals, like Cal's "Get Dressed" and Ella's "Go to Bed and Stay in Bed" are easy to assess as there's really no room for interpretation.  Others, like Ella's "Say Please and Thank You" and Cal's "No Harming Others" require some leeway, are not quantifiable and are subject to the moods of Dan and me, the ultimate judges of good behavior in this household.  We do accept the kids' input, which, over time, has actually become pretty consistent with our own opinions, as in:

Me: "Ella, did you use mean words today?"

Ella: "Yes."

Me: "Yeah, you used a lot of 'potty' words.  Should you get a star?"

Ella (smiling): "Nooooo."

We've been doing this latest round of reward chart activity for a good couple of months now.  Neither Leatherkid has had a 42-star week, the maximum possible.  I'd say typically Ella's in the upper teens and Cal's in the lower twenties, an unimpressive feat, if these numbers even qualify as a "feat."

With half the possible stars being the norm, Dan and I were feeling like our reward chart system is ineffective.  Minimally, it was time for the kids to cash in on whatever was in their banks, which happened to coincide with Cal's bank being too full to fit any more coins in it (it's small, really).  Today, Columbus Day, was a perfect day to do that... well, kind of.

I took the day off to stay home with Cal who did not have school today because of the holiday.  We sent Ella to school (preschool) because... well... it was just better that we do that.  Before we did so, though, we committed to picking her up early (post-nap early) to cash in on the coins in their banks and hit the store.

My day with Cal went fantastically -- it was easy, had no hiccups and was actually pretty fun for both of us.  When I realized just before we were leaving to pick Ella up from school that it was Columbus Day and banks would be closed, I figured our perfect day could not be disrupted -- there was an alternative in Jewel.

Cal and I picked Ella up from school, and then the three of us made our way with the kids' piggy banks to the Jewel in the neighborhood where I knew there was a Coinstar, not that I've ever used it or really knew how it worked.

By the way, it was raining.

When we got to the Coinstar inside our Jewel, I had to read the instructions.  With Ella screaming at me to pick her up or, really, I'm not even sure what she was so upset about, I could only concentrate so much and managed to figure out that I either could get a voucher for our coins but at a fee OR put our coins toward a gift (e-) certificate at no fee.  The latter wouldn't work because we needed to deposit half of each kid's money into their savings accounts; and I didn't like the former because, well, a fee?

So we walked to the other side of Jewel where we found that the TCF was open but that they didn't have a coin counter.

"Are banks open today?" I asked.

"Well, we are," the girl responded and then told us the closest TCF with a coin counter.

So off the kids and I were to first see if "our" bank was open (it wasn't), to see if another bank on the block was open (it wasn't) and then to head to the closest TCF with a coin counter, which was about 15-20 minutes away.

I'm sure there was another option -- I just didn't know it.

When we arrived at the Jewel with the TCF with a coin counter, it was pouring rain.  Of course.  The image of me carrying two full, ceramic piggy banks in the rain as I repeated the phrase, "stay close to Mommy" to my likely-to-stray-in-a-parking-lot kids and then dropping one of the banks triggered my thinking I should come up with an alternative to getting us inside.  I threw (gently) the piggy banks into Ella's backpack with her fleece separating the two and unloaded the kids.  I carried Ella and her backpack, and Cal walked alongside me (he's good about that); and we made our way in the rain into the Jewel.

Once inside, we moved swiftly thanks to me.  I didn't want Ella to have any time to realize how wet she was.

"Do you have a coin counter?" I asked the TCF banker who, without flashing a smile and quite possibly without saying a word, pointed us to the coin counter just past her counter.

"Thanks." I said, setting Ella down on the ground and continuing past the counter, believing the coin counter was actually nearby.  It was.

There were two buttons - a Start/Stop and a Print -- and maybe a 4-bullet list of instructions, which I followed to a tee, this time with Ella just clamoring to participate in the counting of her coins, which was more realistic than the Coinstar machine given this TCF coin counter was Ella's height.

Emptying a piggy bank full of coins is a skill that, really, only an adult can do... it's certainly not something that a toddler can do in a reasonable amount of time.  I declared I'd empty Ella's coins into the tray and she could push them into the counter, and this was surprisingly met without a fight.

As the machine counted her coins, I saw the sign -- TCF would charge a 8+% fee for non-TCF customers cashing in on coins.  Whatever, I conceded, remembering that surcharge that Coinstar would have charged us maybe a half hour earlier.

With all of her coins counted, we printed Ella's voucher and then went through the same process with the coins in Cal's piggy bank.

We took our vouchers back to the TCF banker to cash them in with the same, non-smiling banker we had encountered when we first arrived.  Next to her was another banker, an older man, focused on some paperwork at the counter.

The non-smiling TCF banker asked me if I bank at TCF, and I responded grudgingly that I didn't; and she told me that there'd be a fee.  "Okay," I said and then turned my attention to my kids who had wandered down a nearby aisle.  As I coaxed them back to the counter, the man walked over to the non-smiling banker and said something to her, I wasn't exactly sure what at the time.  The next thing I knew, the TCF banker was giving each of my kids the full value of their coins -- no fee and delivered thoughtfully in increments that would make them feel like they had a lot of money.

I thanked her enough that she knew that I appreciated what she had done.  It was the right thing for her to do.  That was my kids' hard-earned money and they deserved to get every bit of it before they're aware of how the world works.

Ella had already picked a small stuffed animal to buy from Jewel.  We stood in line so she could buy it (she handed the cashier her money), and then headed back to the car so we could hit our end destination... the store of choice for this round of reward-chart-money purchases... my personal favorite (though it's becoming more manageable)... Toys 'R Us, where Ella found the thing she wanted to buy with the remainder of her spendable money after only ten steps into the store and where Cal did a lot of analysis and negotiating in the Legos section of the store before deciding what he wanted to buy.

And then we took our "toys" to the checkout where the kids checked out separately.  Ella bought her unicorn pillow and Cal bought his Chima Legos sets.

As I write this, I'm sitting across from the fridge where the kids' reward charts hang.  I see six stars on Cal's Monday column and five stars on Ella's.  I hold out hope that cashing in and seeing some tangible benefits (toys) to their good behavior will have a positive effect on their behavior and that we'll see star counts into the thirties and forties.