As a kid, one of the sayings that often rang in my ears was the voice of someone telling me to quit wishing my life away. Maybe that’s because I was the second born, always trying to keep up with a big sister and wanting to do whatever it was she was doing at the time. I can’t count the number of times I was met by the statement, “You’ll get your turn some day when you are older. Don’t wish your life away.”
I guess things like that stay with us because now, as a parent I still find myself trying to wish myself out of a stage of life or a moment in time, hoping a better one will come to fill its place.
I remember my sister joking one time that she couldn’t wait until her two kids got old enough to read a chore list. I thought, “Ooooh, that would be a really good stage of parenthood.”
Over Christmas I had a similar conversation with my sisters-in-law. It seemed every time we tried to sit down to visit, some little person would come pulling on our shirt tails needing something that just couldn’t seem to wait one more minute.
One of the moms said, “Oh, I can’t wait until they can just get a snack for themselves. It seems all I do all day long is dole out food and drinks!” Boy, could I empathize. And I chimed in with a wish of my own. “Yeah, and what about dressing themselves? I might actually be able to go somewhere on time if we could just get to the point where they could get dressed by themselves.”
Of course that led to thoughts of miracle children who could bathe themselves, wipe their own bottoms, and put themselves to bed at night. Then I realized that if we keep wishing for all these things to pass, before we know it, they’ll be grown. Then we’ll be saying, “Where did all the time go? Where are my babies?”
Change is usually a difficult thing for folks to handle, but it has occurred to me that there is really nothing too difficult about having a change of attitude, a change of mind, or a change of heart, especially if the outcome can change your life.
So I’ve decided to make that change concerning the sometimes difficult, always interesting predicaments my children throw my way. With an ever-changing attitude and a functionally-numb mind, my heart may be the only thing that saves me on days when things get hard to handle.
But instead of wishing yet another stage of life away, I think I’ll try enduring the stage I’m in. Find ways to relish the chaos. Indulge in the delicacies of the moment, like slobbery kisses and “I love you’s” spoken with a lisp. Learn to wish my life to stay, day to day, just as it is. Interesting. Madding. Blessed.
And that’s All in a day’s work!
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Saturday, January 26, 2008
What's in a name?
It is one of the first things we stress about as parents. Along with the safety and health of our new bundles of joy comes the question, “What will we name our child?”
Naming our first came relatively easy for us. After much consideration, we agreed that Cooperton, where my father-in-law’s family made their homestead, and Cooperstown, home of the baseball hall of fame, had a kind of coincidental connection that we both liked, and decided “Cooper” would be the perfect fit. Brisco was a little harder. We were two days in the hospital and receiving pressure from the records’ department before we finally came to a consensus.
No matter what a parent decides to name her offspring, with time, each child’s personality soon reveals a plethora of alternatives that might have been a better fit. So what is in a name, really? Often times, the true insight into an individual’s personality may be more accurately seen by what he earns as a nickname.
From birth, we were blessed with two little characters. It wasn’t until they started to grow into their looks that we realized how true that statement really was. At about four months, Cooper, with his chubby cheeks and his big, round eyes, took on the name Spanky, after the precocious Little Rascal. At about a year, Brisco could have been mistaken for Bamm Bamm Rubble, neighborhood kid of the famous Flintstones; all he needed was a leopard-skin loin cloth and an oversized billy club. If we had been a little more ingenious, we might have found a way to make a buck or two because these kids of ours were dead ringers for their television twins.
I’m not sure if it was a cartoon craze or puppy love, but for some reason, Spanky turned into Scooby Doo and finally shortened to Scooby. As Brisco got older, he grew right into his four-legged nickname: Snoopy. And he has earned it, as he is always right in the middle of somebody’s business. It’s amazing that he is growing up so fast, but it is true, and in only a few short months he’s gone from canine to feline, as he is now, certainly, Cooper’s little two-legged Copy Cat.
Of course we never know what kids are going to call each other when they are learning to talk. They do the best they can, and the rest of us are left to interpret. For a long time, Cooper called his new little brother “B”, then Little B and finally, Bisco. To this day, I’m not sure if he can pronounce his brother’s name correctly. Brisco started off calling Cooper “TuTu”. “TuTu” has now evolved into “CooCoo”, which is one of my all time favorites and is actually a perfect fit for Cooper Dean most of the time.
Like all parents, there’s no telling what we might conjure up by mistake if we’re angry or frustrated, or if we just happen to get tongue tied. Sometimes it’s “Crisco”, or “Brickso”. Other times we get a “Booper”. A friend of mine warned me against naming my kid Cooper. She said she has a nephew named Cooper and all the little kids at school call him “Pooper”. Well, my kid calls himself “Pooper”, so maybe that won’t be such a heartbreaker for him.
Kids are smart; they catch on fast. The other day I said to Cooper, “Hey, get over here you little Cook-a-munga!” He thought I said, “Cooper-munga” and his quick little wit allowed him the come-back, “No, you get over here, you little Cook-a-momma!” Guess I had that one coming.
Sometimes, the nicknames we give our kids have little to do with their individual personality, but are more influenced by our own irritation and exhaustion with the exasperation of repetition. Imagine an afternoon, day, or an entire week of this: “Cooper, get down from there. Cooper, don’t jump on the bed. Cooper, get off your brother. Cooper, don’t put that in your mouth. Cooper…” How could a name that we so lovingly chose for our bundle of joy become a sound so terribly heinous that I could actually consider puncturing my own ear drums! The solution?
Pick a name. Any name will do. And in times of frustration…use it: Beak, Beako, Boo Boo, Booty, Nabisco. Coop, Coopster, Scooper, or Granddaddy’s favorite, Cooperton. Sounds crazy for sure, but it’s worth it to be able to lay those boys down at night and call them by name without gritting my teeth and cringing like nails on a chalkboard.
Whatever parents choose to call their kids, over time, you can bet it will be tweaked and tuned according to their growing minds and developing personalities. I decided a long time ago that Brisco was a name that we will just have to keep repeating until somebody does a remake of The Andy Griffith Show and revives ole scruffy Mr. Briscoe Darling. And that’s ok. I’m not so much concerned with what people call my children as I am about what they think of them.
Our first job as parents may have been to give our children names, but our most important task is to help mold their character.
And that’s All in a day’s work!
Naming our first came relatively easy for us. After much consideration, we agreed that Cooperton, where my father-in-law’s family made their homestead, and Cooperstown, home of the baseball hall of fame, had a kind of coincidental connection that we both liked, and decided “Cooper” would be the perfect fit. Brisco was a little harder. We were two days in the hospital and receiving pressure from the records’ department before we finally came to a consensus.
No matter what a parent decides to name her offspring, with time, each child’s personality soon reveals a plethora of alternatives that might have been a better fit. So what is in a name, really? Often times, the true insight into an individual’s personality may be more accurately seen by what he earns as a nickname.
From birth, we were blessed with two little characters. It wasn’t until they started to grow into their looks that we realized how true that statement really was. At about four months, Cooper, with his chubby cheeks and his big, round eyes, took on the name Spanky, after the precocious Little Rascal. At about a year, Brisco could have been mistaken for Bamm Bamm Rubble, neighborhood kid of the famous Flintstones; all he needed was a leopard-skin loin cloth and an oversized billy club. If we had been a little more ingenious, we might have found a way to make a buck or two because these kids of ours were dead ringers for their television twins.
I’m not sure if it was a cartoon craze or puppy love, but for some reason, Spanky turned into Scooby Doo and finally shortened to Scooby. As Brisco got older, he grew right into his four-legged nickname: Snoopy. And he has earned it, as he is always right in the middle of somebody’s business. It’s amazing that he is growing up so fast, but it is true, and in only a few short months he’s gone from canine to feline, as he is now, certainly, Cooper’s little two-legged Copy Cat.
Of course we never know what kids are going to call each other when they are learning to talk. They do the best they can, and the rest of us are left to interpret. For a long time, Cooper called his new little brother “B”, then Little B and finally, Bisco. To this day, I’m not sure if he can pronounce his brother’s name correctly. Brisco started off calling Cooper “TuTu”. “TuTu” has now evolved into “CooCoo”, which is one of my all time favorites and is actually a perfect fit for Cooper Dean most of the time.
Like all parents, there’s no telling what we might conjure up by mistake if we’re angry or frustrated, or if we just happen to get tongue tied. Sometimes it’s “Crisco”, or “Brickso”. Other times we get a “Booper”. A friend of mine warned me against naming my kid Cooper. She said she has a nephew named Cooper and all the little kids at school call him “Pooper”. Well, my kid calls himself “Pooper”, so maybe that won’t be such a heartbreaker for him.
Kids are smart; they catch on fast. The other day I said to Cooper, “Hey, get over here you little Cook-a-munga!” He thought I said, “Cooper-munga” and his quick little wit allowed him the come-back, “No, you get over here, you little Cook-a-momma!” Guess I had that one coming.
Sometimes, the nicknames we give our kids have little to do with their individual personality, but are more influenced by our own irritation and exhaustion with the exasperation of repetition. Imagine an afternoon, day, or an entire week of this: “Cooper, get down from there. Cooper, don’t jump on the bed. Cooper, get off your brother. Cooper, don’t put that in your mouth. Cooper…” How could a name that we so lovingly chose for our bundle of joy become a sound so terribly heinous that I could actually consider puncturing my own ear drums! The solution?
Pick a name. Any name will do. And in times of frustration…use it: Beak, Beako, Boo Boo, Booty, Nabisco. Coop, Coopster, Scooper, or Granddaddy’s favorite, Cooperton. Sounds crazy for sure, but it’s worth it to be able to lay those boys down at night and call them by name without gritting my teeth and cringing like nails on a chalkboard.
Whatever parents choose to call their kids, over time, you can bet it will be tweaked and tuned according to their growing minds and developing personalities. I decided a long time ago that Brisco was a name that we will just have to keep repeating until somebody does a remake of The Andy Griffith Show and revives ole scruffy Mr. Briscoe Darling. And that’s ok. I’m not so much concerned with what people call my children as I am about what they think of them.
Our first job as parents may have been to give our children names, but our most important task is to help mold their character.
And that’s All in a day’s work!
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Paper or Plastic
Buying groceries is always a chore, but when I have to take the kids, it can be a major undertaking. Some days, all goes well. I’m prepared with a list and a bag of goodies to keep the boys busy, and we are in and out in record time. The biggest decision of the outing is paper or plastic. Other times, like today, I’m unprepared and the kids are wired, and Murphy’s Law automatically goes into effect.
It isn’t enough that children seldom fail to cause a scene on grocery day, but supermarkets have now chosen to provide parents with massive, hard to turn, barely-will-roll, “look at me” carts that scantily have enough room for the items we need to purchase, forget the fact that it doesn’t do us any favors in our efforts to blend in. Here’s a visual.
A large, blue, semi-truck/grocery cart is weaving down the aisle. You, the innocent shopper, laugh when you see the two kids inside, driving the pretend steering wheels and making racecar sounds as they go. Orange, Cheeto-cheese is smeared all over their hands, faces, and clothes. You see that the woman, hair frazzled, face set, is trying to read a poorly-written shopping list that she must have written in the car on the way over. You wonder for a moment why she is parked in the middle of the isle, until you see another shopper try to squeeze by. The mother moves her vehicle into the right-hand lane to let the shopper pass, and milliseconds later you hear a stack of cans crash to the ground. Cheesy fingers are fast. You watch as the woman quickly picks up the mess on the floor and scolds the boys for not keeping their hands inside the cart. A look of relief comes across her face as she sees the large, glass jars of pickles that were a near miss. She maneuvers back onto the center line. You hate to be caught staring, so you continue to do your own shopping, thinking to yourself, “Man, she’s really got her hands full.”
A few minutes later you hear little kid laughter, and there is really nothing like a belly laugh from a little boy, so you make your way to the next aisle to see what is so funny. There is that same mom and her two little boys who now both have Cheetos crammed up their noses. You feel your own belly laugh coming on, because let’s face it, that’s pretty funny when it’s happening to someone else, but you turn your head so the mother doesn’t see because of course she won’t be laughing one bit. The mother decides to ignore the whole scenario, which you decide is probably a good idea, seeing as how these boys look pretty ornery and they still have a half bag of Cheetos left.
The woman drives on, and you decide to tail her for a while, since you haven’t had this much fun shopping in years. You hear snippets of motherly chiding like, “Keep your hands to yourself.” “Stop touching your brother.” And your favorite, “Quit picking your nose.”
You notice that while the shopping cart is exhilarating for the boys, there really isn’t much room in there for groceries. The basket is getting full, and the woman is only half way through the store. The Cheetos are long gone and the little one keeps trying to escape, so the mother grabs a bag of pretzels out of the cart to try and appease him. The two boys send that truck a rockin’ with their excitement, and as they do, the entire family-size bag of pretzels spills to the floor. The frustrated mother lets out a sigh as she notices a crabby older woman staring at her and shaking her head at the mess that has been strewn about the aisle. The mom does her best to clean it up, but the pretzels are everywhere-including the bottom of her purse-and the lack of motion has again sent the boys into escape mode. You can tell from the mother’s face that she knows it is fight or flight, so she chooses to flee from her littered wreckage and attempts to finish the rest of her shopping. You follow her lead.
As fate would have it, you find yourself cruising for beef just as the big, blue semi is doing the same. You try to make eye contact with the mother to let her know that her life will get better, but you can see that she is beyond being comforted by a stranger in a meat market. A third vehicle strolls by with a very well-spoken little girl at the helm. She says to her driver, in a loud and obnoxious manner, “Hey, Daddy, that lady is wearing boy shoes.” The mother looks down at her feet, raises her eyebrows…and peels rubber.
Just as you think you have seen the last of that fast moving truck, you look across to see that it is being checked out at the register beside you. You see that the older child has somehow squeezed inside the tiny basket and is handing items, one-by-one, to the impatient checker. As you admire the helpfulness of the little tyke, you spot his younger brother escaping from the cab, settling into the driver’s position, and attempting to maneuver the entire grocery cart away from the checkout stand. Had that mother not looked up from her purse, those boys would have been half way to California. As luck would have it, though, they only made it about 50 feet before she was able to run them down.
As the bedraggled mother and her two lively, little ones made their way out the door, you realize what a pleasant time you’ve had shopping today. In an instant, you try to recall the difficulties of your own day and suddenly they don’t seem so grand. After all, you’ve left your work at the office, or at least you should have. You think for a moment about the possibility that your life was like hers when your children were small, or that it might be some day when you start a family of your own. Suddenly you realize how lucky you are, and just about the time start to tell yourself that you’re really glad you aren’t that lady…your big, brown-eyed, newly, potty-trained baby brings you back to reality as he looks up at you and says, “Mommy, I just pooped my pants.”
You barely hear her when the checker asks, “Ma’am, paper or plastic?”
And that’s All in a day’s work!
It isn’t enough that children seldom fail to cause a scene on grocery day, but supermarkets have now chosen to provide parents with massive, hard to turn, barely-will-roll, “look at me” carts that scantily have enough room for the items we need to purchase, forget the fact that it doesn’t do us any favors in our efforts to blend in. Here’s a visual.
A large, blue, semi-truck/grocery cart is weaving down the aisle. You, the innocent shopper, laugh when you see the two kids inside, driving the pretend steering wheels and making racecar sounds as they go. Orange, Cheeto-cheese is smeared all over their hands, faces, and clothes. You see that the woman, hair frazzled, face set, is trying to read a poorly-written shopping list that she must have written in the car on the way over. You wonder for a moment why she is parked in the middle of the isle, until you see another shopper try to squeeze by. The mother moves her vehicle into the right-hand lane to let the shopper pass, and milliseconds later you hear a stack of cans crash to the ground. Cheesy fingers are fast. You watch as the woman quickly picks up the mess on the floor and scolds the boys for not keeping their hands inside the cart. A look of relief comes across her face as she sees the large, glass jars of pickles that were a near miss. She maneuvers back onto the center line. You hate to be caught staring, so you continue to do your own shopping, thinking to yourself, “Man, she’s really got her hands full.”
A few minutes later you hear little kid laughter, and there is really nothing like a belly laugh from a little boy, so you make your way to the next aisle to see what is so funny. There is that same mom and her two little boys who now both have Cheetos crammed up their noses. You feel your own belly laugh coming on, because let’s face it, that’s pretty funny when it’s happening to someone else, but you turn your head so the mother doesn’t see because of course she won’t be laughing one bit. The mother decides to ignore the whole scenario, which you decide is probably a good idea, seeing as how these boys look pretty ornery and they still have a half bag of Cheetos left.
The woman drives on, and you decide to tail her for a while, since you haven’t had this much fun shopping in years. You hear snippets of motherly chiding like, “Keep your hands to yourself.” “Stop touching your brother.” And your favorite, “Quit picking your nose.”
You notice that while the shopping cart is exhilarating for the boys, there really isn’t much room in there for groceries. The basket is getting full, and the woman is only half way through the store. The Cheetos are long gone and the little one keeps trying to escape, so the mother grabs a bag of pretzels out of the cart to try and appease him. The two boys send that truck a rockin’ with their excitement, and as they do, the entire family-size bag of pretzels spills to the floor. The frustrated mother lets out a sigh as she notices a crabby older woman staring at her and shaking her head at the mess that has been strewn about the aisle. The mom does her best to clean it up, but the pretzels are everywhere-including the bottom of her purse-and the lack of motion has again sent the boys into escape mode. You can tell from the mother’s face that she knows it is fight or flight, so she chooses to flee from her littered wreckage and attempts to finish the rest of her shopping. You follow her lead.
As fate would have it, you find yourself cruising for beef just as the big, blue semi is doing the same. You try to make eye contact with the mother to let her know that her life will get better, but you can see that she is beyond being comforted by a stranger in a meat market. A third vehicle strolls by with a very well-spoken little girl at the helm. She says to her driver, in a loud and obnoxious manner, “Hey, Daddy, that lady is wearing boy shoes.” The mother looks down at her feet, raises her eyebrows…and peels rubber.
Just as you think you have seen the last of that fast moving truck, you look across to see that it is being checked out at the register beside you. You see that the older child has somehow squeezed inside the tiny basket and is handing items, one-by-one, to the impatient checker. As you admire the helpfulness of the little tyke, you spot his younger brother escaping from the cab, settling into the driver’s position, and attempting to maneuver the entire grocery cart away from the checkout stand. Had that mother not looked up from her purse, those boys would have been half way to California. As luck would have it, though, they only made it about 50 feet before she was able to run them down.
As the bedraggled mother and her two lively, little ones made their way out the door, you realize what a pleasant time you’ve had shopping today. In an instant, you try to recall the difficulties of your own day and suddenly they don’t seem so grand. After all, you’ve left your work at the office, or at least you should have. You think for a moment about the possibility that your life was like hers when your children were small, or that it might be some day when you start a family of your own. Suddenly you realize how lucky you are, and just about the time start to tell yourself that you’re really glad you aren’t that lady…your big, brown-eyed, newly, potty-trained baby brings you back to reality as he looks up at you and says, “Mommy, I just pooped my pants.”
You barely hear her when the checker asks, “Ma’am, paper or plastic?”
And that’s All in a day’s work!
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
I've lost my mind
While staying at home to take care of my family is only one aspect of my life, sometimes it can overwhelm the rest. It’s not as if my sole purpose in life is to stay at home seven days a week cooking, washing, playing, reading, refereeing, lecturing, and listening to kids whine, although it does seem to take more than a fair share of my effort. Sometimes the monotony of it all is often enough to make me lose my mind, or wish I could.
And trying to get kids settled back in, from the craziness of the holidays can really drive a parent mad. From hoarding toys and screaming, “Mine!” to the incessant whine of a tattling toddler-if I could find a way to do it with a smile, I’d try. While that’s not always possible, I have thought more than once that it would be nice during those crazy moments of motherhood to have a way to connect to others who have experienced the same nightmarish-day as I.
For many, finding an empathetic outlet is as simple as turning on the radio or plugging in a favorite CD. There’s always a song about falling in love-and falling back out. Of cheatin’, drinkin’, and fightin’, or of breaking up and making up. But where are the songs about whining, screaming kids and diaper-whipping mamas who are near their breaking point on a daily basis? I’ve yet to hear one. That got me thinking…why not write my own?
While I don’t expect to hear my versions of our timeless classics when I turn on my car radio, it sure was therapeutic to create. Taken from the late Johnny Cash, this is what I call the mommy-version of "I Walk the Line."
I keep a close watch on these kids of mine.
My priorities I’ve had to realign.
There are days from this employment I’d resign.
Because they whine, I’ve lost my mind.
I find it very, very easy to get blue.
My kids are eating tubes of clear epoxy glue.
I’ve got to find a mental home to check into.
Because they whine, I’ve lost my mind.
Just as sure as one is wrong and one is right.
That word “mine” will certainly a rage incite.
To every toy each thinks he has exclusive rights.
Because they whine, I’ve lost my mind.
I’ve got a Dr. Jekyll and a Mr. Hyde.
Brotherly love they have both kindly set aside.
Their sibling rivalry is strictly bona fide.
Because they whine, I’ve lost my mind.
Nevermore does my husband wine and dine.
My bedroom smells just like a sulfur mine.
My persona I have had to redefine.
Because they whine, I’ve lost my mind.
And that’s All in a day’s work!
And trying to get kids settled back in, from the craziness of the holidays can really drive a parent mad. From hoarding toys and screaming, “Mine!” to the incessant whine of a tattling toddler-if I could find a way to do it with a smile, I’d try. While that’s not always possible, I have thought more than once that it would be nice during those crazy moments of motherhood to have a way to connect to others who have experienced the same nightmarish-day as I.
For many, finding an empathetic outlet is as simple as turning on the radio or plugging in a favorite CD. There’s always a song about falling in love-and falling back out. Of cheatin’, drinkin’, and fightin’, or of breaking up and making up. But where are the songs about whining, screaming kids and diaper-whipping mamas who are near their breaking point on a daily basis? I’ve yet to hear one. That got me thinking…why not write my own?
While I don’t expect to hear my versions of our timeless classics when I turn on my car radio, it sure was therapeutic to create. Taken from the late Johnny Cash, this is what I call the mommy-version of "I Walk the Line."
I keep a close watch on these kids of mine.
My priorities I’ve had to realign.
There are days from this employment I’d resign.
Because they whine, I’ve lost my mind.
I find it very, very easy to get blue.
My kids are eating tubes of clear epoxy glue.
I’ve got to find a mental home to check into.
Because they whine, I’ve lost my mind.
Just as sure as one is wrong and one is right.
That word “mine” will certainly a rage incite.
To every toy each thinks he has exclusive rights.
Because they whine, I’ve lost my mind.
I’ve got a Dr. Jekyll and a Mr. Hyde.
Brotherly love they have both kindly set aside.
Their sibling rivalry is strictly bona fide.
Because they whine, I’ve lost my mind.
Nevermore does my husband wine and dine.
My bedroom smells just like a sulfur mine.
My persona I have had to redefine.
Because they whine, I’ve lost my mind.
And that’s All in a day’s work!
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Clorox Kids
“I eat food off the floor.” “I play with my boats in the toilet.” “I don’t wash my hands.” These are the charming phrases spoken by the adorable little kids in the most recent Clorox commercial to hit the airwaves, and boy does it hit home at our house. I keep watching to see if they have any follow up spots with quotes like, “I pick my nose.” “I drink my bath water.” “I lick public salt shakers.” If not, I’m calling Hollywood. Our boys seem destined to be cast as the next couple of Clorox kids who have really dirty habits and ornery little grins.
I don’t know what it is with kids and germs. We’ve been trying to teach Cooper (“I suck my toes.”) to cover his mouth when he coughs. Of course being right in the middle of the now terrible three’s, he finds it satisfying to cough in my face repeatedly, after being told to cover his mouth. He doesn’t understand about germs and colds and the spreading of infection. That’s a mother’s job.
Brisco is really past the age where he can understand about things being “yucky” and “dirty”, but it just doesn’t seem to bother him at all. (“I eat dog food.”) I began thinking about how it was that we approached Cooper on this topic when he was younger to see if we were handling things the same.
With Cooper (“I pick my brother’s nose.”), I was a fanatic about the cleanliness of the carpet and the floor and his eating surfaces especially. I remember for Christmas that first year we even received a rubber, take-along placemat to use at restaurants to keep him from dropping food onto the table and eating that which he had dropped. I guess things really change after the first kid.
I got caught a while back letting Brisco eat some popcorn that he had dropped on the ground at the ball park. One of the boy’s dad’s tapped me on the shoulder and said, “It’s ok, Mom. Nobody else is looking.” I just gave him a weak smile and shook my head in shame.
It’s not that I don’t want to be on constant germ patrol with Brisco (“I sit in the dog bowl.”), I simply don’t have the energy. Between lecturing about the dangers of smashing fingers in slammed doors to keeping them away from the hot stove while I’m cooking, I figure I’m doing good just to get them to bed at night without any visible marks of battle.
I can remember the days when Cooper was a baby. I would freak out when he would scavenge the area under his high chair for crumbs or drippings he’d lost during meal time. Now I consider it a helpful chore when Brisco does the same.
Randy and I took the boys and our parents out to lunch on Sunday. After Brisco finished his plate, he began to get squirmy, and a little silly. Before I knew it, he had his head down on the table, mouth open, tongue out, licking that surface clean right there with every man, woman, and child within a 20 foot radius looking on. With an inner cringe, a wave of nausea, and a bad case of the shakes coming on, I took my teenage sister-in-law’s advice and simply refused to look.
I know germs are invisible to children and are a concept far beyond their reach at this age. I also know that sometimes the more of an issue we make of something the more our kids seem determined to try it. So, for now I’ll just continue to do a lot of cringing and head turning. Maybe if I squeeze my eyes closed tight enough it will all disappear. Or, maybe Clorox will come knocking.
And that’s All in a day’s work!
I don’t know what it is with kids and germs. We’ve been trying to teach Cooper (“I suck my toes.”) to cover his mouth when he coughs. Of course being right in the middle of the now terrible three’s, he finds it satisfying to cough in my face repeatedly, after being told to cover his mouth. He doesn’t understand about germs and colds and the spreading of infection. That’s a mother’s job.
Brisco is really past the age where he can understand about things being “yucky” and “dirty”, but it just doesn’t seem to bother him at all. (“I eat dog food.”) I began thinking about how it was that we approached Cooper on this topic when he was younger to see if we were handling things the same.
With Cooper (“I pick my brother’s nose.”), I was a fanatic about the cleanliness of the carpet and the floor and his eating surfaces especially. I remember for Christmas that first year we even received a rubber, take-along placemat to use at restaurants to keep him from dropping food onto the table and eating that which he had dropped. I guess things really change after the first kid.
I got caught a while back letting Brisco eat some popcorn that he had dropped on the ground at the ball park. One of the boy’s dad’s tapped me on the shoulder and said, “It’s ok, Mom. Nobody else is looking.” I just gave him a weak smile and shook my head in shame.
It’s not that I don’t want to be on constant germ patrol with Brisco (“I sit in the dog bowl.”), I simply don’t have the energy. Between lecturing about the dangers of smashing fingers in slammed doors to keeping them away from the hot stove while I’m cooking, I figure I’m doing good just to get them to bed at night without any visible marks of battle.
I can remember the days when Cooper was a baby. I would freak out when he would scavenge the area under his high chair for crumbs or drippings he’d lost during meal time. Now I consider it a helpful chore when Brisco does the same.
Randy and I took the boys and our parents out to lunch on Sunday. After Brisco finished his plate, he began to get squirmy, and a little silly. Before I knew it, he had his head down on the table, mouth open, tongue out, licking that surface clean right there with every man, woman, and child within a 20 foot radius looking on. With an inner cringe, a wave of nausea, and a bad case of the shakes coming on, I took my teenage sister-in-law’s advice and simply refused to look.
I know germs are invisible to children and are a concept far beyond their reach at this age. I also know that sometimes the more of an issue we make of something the more our kids seem determined to try it. So, for now I’ll just continue to do a lot of cringing and head turning. Maybe if I squeeze my eyes closed tight enough it will all disappear. Or, maybe Clorox will come knocking.
And that’s All in a day’s work!
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